SOURCE: “Reason, Development, and the Conflicts of Human Ends: Sir Isaiah Berlin's Vision of Politics,” in The American Political Science Review, Vol. 74, No. 1, March, 1980, pp. 38-52.

In the following essay, Kocis examines Berlin's concept of negative and positive liberty, and explores and evaluates several critiques of it.

What makes life worth living? To this, the central question of political and all practical philosophy, Sir Isaiah Berlin returns a singularly striking answer: there is no system to the cosmos, no plan to human development, nor any pattern to human values which can provide a reason for living. Only each individual's artistic and creative capacities can provide such a reason. Nothing outside of us, be it God, Reason, History, Spirit, or the Good, provides a purpose for existence which we can discover; we are not only the discoveres, but actually the creators, of meaning and purpose in the universe. Captivated...