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Essay / Maximizing the Welfare of a State's Citizens: Negative and Positive Liberties on Liberal Theory
In this essay, I will argue that, in order to maximize the well-being of a state's citizens, emphasis is placed on liberal theory. , liberals and their systems should value both negative and positive freedoms. This is due to the negative liberty approach aiming to limit the externalities of individuals and the positive liberty approach aiming to reinforce the lack of capabilities an individual may have. Once acted upon together, an individual can be considered truly free to fully pursue their well-being. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Libertarians should value the negative liberty conception of the “freedom of” approach, in order to avoid limiting an individual's pursuit of well-being, by external factors. In this sense, the value of negative liberty aims to prevent external factors - for example the violence of an individual such as a thief - from depriving us of our pursuit of well-being, such as the accumulation of monetary wealth in stealing his car to get to work. In this sense, since liberals believe in limited state intervention in the private sphere, our social life and economic endeavors are essentially protected by the police who attempt to exterminate externalities, like the thief, that prevent us from 'achieve our well-being, and so if a person is free from externalities, liberals supporting negative liberty would describe the individual as being truly free. However, valuing negative freedom in itself would be reductive. An individual who faces internal constraints, such as being extremely poor, which prevent them from being free to fully pursue their well-being, but who is not in fact prevented by any externality from doing so. achieve, would still be considered free, even if it is not. This shows why negative freedom should not be valued in itself. To resolve this problem, liberals should value the aspect of welfare and state intervention that positive liberty can address by attempting to focus on the lack of capabilities of individuals. Positive freedom focuses on responding to what or who is the source of interference that has the capacity to determine one's ability to do or be a certain thing over another. In this sense, the fact of being born with a disability or being poor, which prevents us from accessing employment and sets us back economically, would be attempted to be resolved by a social protection system that would be financed by taxes. In this sense, a positive value of freedom within a state would take active steps to ensure that the individual is able to pursue their desires and has the resources necessary to do so. This has significant force because it produces a fairer and more egalitarian society in which opportunities are not left to those with the greatest economic capital and who can achieve things because, as negative liberty says, only those who suffer from externalities are really not free, which is reductionist. . However, positive liberty liberals would argue that a limit to this argument arises in that a government that imposes high levels of positive liberty, as in Australia and Sweden, through large pension and welfare schemes social protection financed by taxes, is in itself considered illiberal. because it is the State that steals money from its citizens through coercion of violence if they do not pay it. In this sense, the State acts as an externality that does not allow individuals to fully control their optionsfinancial. The state therefore appears to play a more authoritarian role due to its use of coercive power to get what it wants. However, in response, liberal theory posits minimum state taxes to secure police jobs, thereby guarding against externalities. Simply protecting them, but not supporting those born into poor or disadvantaged conditions which are clearly not their choice, is simply an unfair freedom since only those in privileged positions will get it. This characteristic goes against the liberal paradigm according to which everyone can fully pursue their well-being. In conclusion, the use of positive and negative freedoms becomes imperative to guarantee freedom to all members of society, not only by protecting individuals against externalities such as violence, but also by allowing those born into unfortunate situations. What is “justice” and is it “the first virtue of social institutions?” In response to this question, I will argue that the concept of justice connotes and implements fairness within a given society. It involves providing equal access to resources and opportunities to all members of a population to the extent that it creates a sense of unity between them and the power structures that govern them. Justice as fairness is a concept aimed at specifying fair conditions of social cooperation within societies. This concept highlights two principles that justice imposes within social institutions: first, that each person has the same undeniable right to fully adequate fundamental freedoms which are applied to all men within that society - e.g. poorest man and richest man according to this concept. justice, enjoy the same fundamental freedoms. Second, justice, even in socially and economically unequal societies, can exist if equality of opportunity is established in positions to which everyone can access equally. However, it can be argued that a major problem arises from this. Critics might say that equality of opportunity does not guarantee, for example, that a poor, uneducated person will have the opportunity to apply for a professional job and beat out a rich, educated person, simply because no externality prevents him from applying. However, having equal opportunities to acquire an education like that of a rich man and then be able to apply would resolve this paradox. Justice is the primary virtue of social institutions because it seeks to guarantee equal opportunities for all members of a given society. The basic structure of society is the way in which major social and political institutions, such as the state and the university, bring society together under a single system of social cooperation, while assigning fundamental rights and roles in order to regulate the resulting benefits. occur over time. An example of this is that certain groups of people are richer or poorer than others due to the jobs they respectively hold, all of which are part of the basic structure. Justice as fairness takes the basic structure as the main subject of political justice because of the effects it can have on the goals, character and abilities of citizens, as well as the advantage that individuals can use to support them and disadvantage others. In a democratic society, citizens are considered free and equal to each other, and the principle of justice is what sets out the underlying rules for cooperation between individuals in that society in a way that does not does not limit the advantage ofaccess. for some and for others. Justice as fairness involves establishing appropriate unity between individuals in that society and the power structures within it, in order to produce the most effective social cooperation that allows individuals to maximize their pursuit of well-being, without state coercion. In conclusion, I defined justice as aiming, conceptually and practically, to implement fairness and social cooperation within a given society. Furthermore, I emphasized that justice is indeed the first virtue of social institutions insofar as it aims to ensure equal opportunities to all members of a population through the social and political institutions of society and thus also achieve social cooperation within this population. , I argue that the goal of equality is to provide opportunities for individuals of "different abilities", instead of recognizing them as untalented due to their raw luck and thus being recognized for receiving welfare or benefits. care subsidized by wealthier individuals. Additionally, I also highlight the criticisms of my answer. According to Elizabeth Anderson, the purpose of equality is to provide all individuals with access to freedom, equal distribution of resources and respect, which, in turn, allows for the full ability to continue the quest. of his own well-being. She suggests that, rather than eradicating the impact of luck or ensuring that individuals get what they deserve based on morality, the goal of egalitarian justice is to eliminate oppression and " create a community in which people have equal relationships with others.” » In my response, the goal of equality is for the state to provide opportunities to individuals with different abilities by recognizing them as worthy of receiving social assistance and rejecting stereotypes that they are incapable and untalented . Drawing on the work of Amartya Sen, Anderson discusses the concept of well-being and its impact on what one can achieve in life. When certain individuals fall behind when it comes to essential functionalities, such as literacy, mobility, etc., they are immediately placed lower in the oppressive hierarchy of humanity. For this reason, most egalitarians believe that victims of brutal bad luck, those born with a severe congenital or genetic disability or who become so due to factors beyond their control, such as child neglect or accidents, cannot be held accountable and deserve due social assistance. to their lack of recognition and their supposed “value” on the job market. Here, the egalitarian system “guarantees not real levels of function, but effective access to these levels”. Therefore, the goal of equality in this case would be to ensure the functioning of all as equal citizens. However, it also creates social oppression in that it leads to a lack of respect for the social group on whom state interference is focused when they are seen to be in need of assistance. On the other hand, some researchers argue that aiming to achieve equality is unnecessary. Indeed, “no two people are truly equal: the diversity of individuals in their talents, their objectives, their social identity and their situation guarantees that by achieving equality in certain areas, we will inevitably create inequalities in others.” Furthermore, some critics argue that inequality serves no purpose because it essentially involves getting rid of goods that cannot be distributed equally rather than allowing some individuals to have more than..405-406.