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7.7.3. The inner citadel
In his
Two Concepts of Liberty
, Berlin wrote about the retreat to the inner citadel
that happens when a person realises he cannot attain his desires:
‘I am the possessor of reason and will; I conceive ends and I desire to
pursue them; but I am prevented from attaining them I no longer feel
master of the situation. … I determine myself not to desire what is
unattainable. … It is as if I had performed a strategic retreat into an
inner citadel - my reason, my soul, my 'noumenal' self - which, do
what they may, neither external blind force, nor human malice, can
touch. I have withdrawn into myself; there, and there alone, I am
secure. (1958, pp. 181-182)
Berlin uses the above passage to argue that the definition of liberty as the ability to
do what one wishes to do is not sufficient; it would imply that when one cannot
attain what one desires due to an oppressive and unjust social order, teaching
oneself not to desire it would be a solution consistent with liberty – and yet, this is
the antithesis of political freedom. Perhaps retreating to the inner citadel is not the
kind of freedom that we wish to pursue and create via our social institutions, but I
wish to make another point here. The terrifying fate that Berlin describes is
42
There is much more to be said here about Mill’s view of paternalism (See Mill 1859,
chapter V) and alternative views, but it is sufficient to say here that Savulescu and
Persson’s (2012a) appeal to the harm principle is insufficient.
180
surpassed by the God Machine world where there is not even a citadel to retreat to.
The God Machine, in contrast to even highly coercive measures such as
imprisonment, undermines the very basic independence – the safety of the citadel
itself.
The inner citadel, the ability to engage with the world and interpret it in our own
way, engage with and take a stance towards the societal values and conditions we
found ourselves in, lies at the root of the value of liberty. This ability is not
everything, but it remains important and foundational – whether or not there are
obstacles to living according to our endorsed choices and values. On the one hand,
such conceived ‘inwardly focused’ autonomy is only one of the many facets of
freedom. The idea of a ‘chain of freedom’ (Harris, 2014a), a chain from thought to
action is, I think, compelling. The chain leading to free and effective action in the
thickest sense may be severed in many places and by various influences. Our
beliefs may be erroneous; our choices marked by the values of the society we
would not reflectively endorse; the incentives, nudges and prods of policy makers,
the law and circumstance may change the architecture of rationally endorsable
options, and the exercise of our wills may be subject to obstacles, whether rooted in
nature, social arrangements or intentional actions of other people. On the other
hand, the God Machine does something more than break the chain: it attacks the
chain at the very source of it, at the spot on which the meaningfulness of the whole
chain depends.
What would justify the crucial importance of freedom of thought that I am
advocating? Mill gives two reasons that could provide grounding for this idea in his
defence of expressive liberties and arguments against censorship. The first is the
utility of public discussion to promote the generation of knowledge. In the second
argument, and the one that is more appealing in the context of the God Machine,
Mill argues that freedoms of thought and discussion are necessary for fulfilling our
natures as ‘progressive beings’ (ON, II 20). It is the exercise of our higher or
deliberative capacities, Mill argues, that make a human life good (ON, I 11, 20;
ON, III 1–10); the capacities to form, revise, assess, select, and implement our own
ideas and plan of a good life. The God Machine, and heteronomy in general,
undermines the exercise of those capacities in fundamental ways.
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Another reason why Mill found liberty as independence from external influence
important is because
it is important that a person leads his life on his own terms and
develops his capacities and faculties according to ‘his own mode of laying out his
existence’ (Mill, 1859, p. 64), and to deny him that opportunity via interference is
profoundly insulting – treating another not as an equal being capable of developing
her own ideas of the good (see also: Quong, 2011, pp. 101–106). Raz puts forward
a similar point:
It is commonplace to say that by coercing or manipulating a person
one treats him as an object rather than as an autonomous person.
But how can that be so even if the consequences of one's coercion
are negligible? The natural fact that coercion and manipulation
reduce options or distort normal processes of decision and the
formation of preferences
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