Positive freedom in a COVID-world
‘Positive’ freedom is the approach which places emphasis on the individual as a sovereign agent. Proponents of the positive tradition deem someone free so- long as their acts are products of a reasoned response, that is, one predicated on a rational decision. One who performs an act as a result of instinct, basal impulse, internalised norms or due to being commanded to do so, without first subjecting the prospect of that act to rational analysis, is thereby neglecting to utilise their faculties of reason and thus abdicating their freedom. How can one ensure the maintenance of their positive freedom In this post-COVID world, where governments have imposed unprecedented levels of restrictions on liberties hitherto thought to be infallible, and citizens have been ordered to trust and obey the legislature’s decision making on such matters that so hinder them?
One owes their allegiance to themselves, their families and their communities, not to the powers which lord it over them. Your allegiance to yourself and the safeguarding you in-turn allot to your freedoms is-by extension-the allegiance you hold to the community and it’s freedoms, as the protection of the rights of the community is the only way to ensure the propagation of the rights of the individual. If the government confronts you with an order, which after a reasoned analysis you deem to be unjust and against your will, and opposed to the general will of the community (i.e. something against the principles of utility) then you are under no obligation to follow it. If you follow arbitrary orders, without rational scrutiny into their causes or effects, nor how those factors may or may not coincide with the general good of the community, then , according to positive theorists, you have abdicated your freedom. In order to maintain positive freedom in this world of commands and regulations, one must rigorously assess each order placed on them (and their subsequent justifications) before acting them out, so to ensure they are in alignment with the principles of the positive approach.
“You must wear masks in indoor spaces” is an example of one such potential order, but does this demand stand up to scrutiny? There is no scientific consensus on whether mask wearing is an efficient mechanism for contamination prevention so the gains to that end are unclear, far more unclear than the potentially negative impacts on civil liberties and political dynamics that the arbitrary imposition of them may produce- all such factors would have to be considered when deciding whether to adhere to the demand. One who blindly follows such orders without consideration is unfree. One who follows such orders after finding them to be baseless and unsubstantiated is willingly alienating themselves from their freedom and thus unfree. It is only those who search diligently for reason behind the orders that confront them, following them only because they are in alignment with their own will and that of the community, who can be regarded truly free.
