[3][4] Charles Taylor works to resolve one of the issues that separate 'positive' and 'negative' theories of freedom, as these have been distinguished in Isaiah Berlin's seminal essay, "Two concepts of liberty".
Faced with this two-step process, it seems safer and easier to stop it at the first step, to insist firmly that freedom is just a matter of the absence of external obstacles, that it, therefore, involves no discrimination of motivation and permits in principle no second-guessing of the subject by anyone else.
This is the essence of the Maginot Line strategy, and it is very tempting; (here, Taylor is referring to ways in which one can "fortify" an argument).
[5] Therefore, Taylor argues for a distinction between negative and positive liberty that highlights the importance of social justice.
[6]In "Recovering the Social Contract", Ron Replogle made a metaphor that is helpful in understanding positive liberty.
There is nothing paradoxical about making an agreement beforehand providing for paternalistic supervision in circumstances when our competence is open to doubt.
[citation needed] Isaiah Berlin opposed any suggestion that paternalism and positive liberty could be equivalent.
Thus, by removing the keys, the other person facilitates this decision and ensures that it will be upheld in the face of paradoxical behaviour (i.e., drinking) by the driver.
[11] Erich Fromm sees the distinction between the two types of freedom emerging alongside humanity's evolution away from the instinctual activity that characterizes lower animal forms.