Talk:Liberty

Undue weight to Libertarian pov

This is again completely hijacked by some libertarians (the American type). It's hard to take Wikipedia seriously and even harder to use it for university/college purposes. American Libertarianism has almost no relevance in the real world; therefore, it shouldn't get as much weight here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.117.249.20 (talk) 13:30, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree, can you be more specific? Dougweller (talk) 14:40, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

It should be clearly pointed out that the section about Libertarianism concerns Right-libertarianism. --31.223.138.103 (talk) 00:40, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

• Hey now, no attacks on Wikipedia! bd2412 T 17:20, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"

RightCowLeftCoast wrote, explaining a recent edit, "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness", yah, equality is not in that quote.

Look at the complete sentence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Rick Norwood (talk) 13:08, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Equivalence or divergence of "liberty" and "freedom"

"Freedom" and "liberty" are essentially equivalent in how they are used. In the article split between this article and freedom, a false dichotomy was set up, and then the language below was added:

Generally, liberty is distinctly differentiated from freedom in that freedom is primarily, if not exclusively, the ability to do as one wills and what one has the power to do; whereas liberty concerns the absence of arbitrary restraints and takes into account the rights of all involved. As such, the exercise of liberty is subject to capability and limited by the rights of others. Referece: Mill, J.S. (1869)., "Chapter I: Introductory", On Liberty. http://www.bartleby.com/130/1.html

And a single reference to John Stuart Mill is given, except that if you read the Mill document and just search for the word "freedom" inside the document, you'll find the cited author doesn't use the term until halfway through, doesn't set up any kind of distinction with the term "liberty," and in fact the way he uses the term "freedom" is simply substitutional for "liberty" and its meaning is equivalent. The premise that "freedom" and "liberty" are meaningfully different was false, the idea that they should have different articles was false, and the citation delivered claiming to support this difference was false. -Inowen (talk) 00:52, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Definition of liberty

I’m not sure that the first sentence correctly captures the definition of liberty:

Liberty, in politics, consists of the social, political, and economic freedoms to which all community members are entitled.[1]

I suspect that this is a definition of civil liberties, not liberty, as implied by the reference given. I think someone with more precise knowledge than I have should take a look. Please. DouglasBell (talk) 18:59, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree. For example, freedom of speech is not exactly social, political, or economic. It is the freedom to say what you choose. I'll look into what the standard sources say. Rick Norwood (talk) 11:36, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Liberty's Political Definition

The beginning of the article bases "liberty"'s political definition ("In modern politics, liberty consists of the social, political, and economic freedoms to which all community members are entitled.") around the Oxford English Dictionary and changes the wording of the definition to suit the writer's interpretation of that definition. Furthermore, Oxford University Press states that Oxford Dictionaries is more relevant for this topic ("MODERN politics" as stated above by the writer) than the Oxford English Dictionary, as seen below-

"The dictionary content in Oxford Dictionaries focuses on current English and includes modern meanings and uses of words. Where words have more than one meaning, the most important and common meanings in modern English are given first, and less common and more specialist or technical uses are listed below. The OED, on the other hand, is a historical dictionary and it forms a record of all the core words and meanings in English over more than 1,000 years, from Old English to the present day, and including many obsolete and historical terms. Meanings are ordered chronologically in the OED, according to when they were first recorded in English ..." The link is the source for this quote. https://web.archive.org/web/20180228084422/http://public.oed.com/about/the-oed-and-oxford-dictionaries/

So I'm going to be replacing the political definition of liberty in this article based around the Oxford English Dictionary definition with the UNALTERED Oxford Dictionaries definition, without altering its wording to suit my interpretation. I will also not delete the Oxford English Dictionary source, but I WILL add the Oxford Dictionaries source. This is all a response to Johnbod claiming in the revision history that my earlier edit was unjustified without a "proper reference", which I DID provide. The website I provide for the source is powered by OXFORD.--Ντόναλντ (talk) 23:54, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

This should be changed back. The meaning has not changed at all since the more concise OED definition was written. Anyway, where does "Oxford University Press states that Oxford Dictionaries is more relevant for this topic"? If you mention another editor, it is polite to link the name. Johnbod (talk) 00:14, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Oxford clearly shows that the meaning has changed by changing the meaning provided in Oxford Dictionaries from the one provided in Oxford English dictionaries. "Anyway, where does 'Oxford University Press states that Oxford Dictionaries is more relevant for this topic'?" Thank you for CONVENIENTLY leaving out the thing in this parentheses. The "topic" is "modern politics", as stated by the original editor whose sentence I replaced. As for my claim that Oxford University Press states it, I was mistaken. The Oxford English Dictionary website ITSELF states that Oxford Dictionaries is more relevant for MODERN topics, and you'd see this if you had actually READ the giant quote in the middle of my entry in the talk page.--Ντόναλντ (talk) 00:44, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Separate Mill from Berlin in Philosophy

Change from--John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), in his work, On Liberty, was the first to recognize the difference between liberty as the freedom to act and liberty as the absence of coercion.[12] In his book Two Concepts of Liberty, Isaiah Berlin formally framed the differences between these two perspectives as the distinction between two opposite concepts of liberty: positive liberty and negative liberty. The latter designates a negative condition in which an individual is protected from tyranny and the arbitrary exercise of authority, while the former refers to the liberty that comes from self-mastery, the freedom from inner compulsions such as weakness and fear.[13]

Change to--John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), in his work, On Liberty, was the first to recognize the difference between liberty as the freedom to act and liberty as the absence of coercion.[12]

In his book Two Concepts of Liberty, Isaiah Berlin formally framed the differences between these two perspectives as the distinction between two opposite concepts of liberty: positive liberty and negative liberty. The latter designates a negative condition in which an individual is protected from tyranny and the arbitrary exercise of authority, while the former refers to the liberty that comes from self-mastery, the freedom from inner compulsions such as weakness and fear.[13]