Liberalism and the defense of the private sphere as autonomous space

Abstract

The article exposes the foundation of private life as an autonomous space in the development of liberal ideology, from its defense of the individual against State authority. The hypothesis is that there has been an evolution from the negative freedom, in which privacy represents a residual space (with representatives like Hobbes and Locke), as a space of non-interference of public authority, to become a protected right in Constant up to the prospect of positive freedom of the individual and of his free will, to develop their capacities in the private space (with representatives like Tocqueville, Arendt and Mill). Precisely, it will be Isaiah Berlin in the 20th century, presenting the contrast of these two types of freedom: the negative representing a private life free from public interference and the positive that refers to a private life for the individual decision, with a free will. Liberalism advocates a division of spaces: the public that represents the institutional (political power) and the private, associated to the domestic sphere, to the “non-social”. Its development will allow to expand the concept with the completion of the individual capacities in the private space, but also with the conciliation with other social members, through the respect of their own space and, therefore, of his private life. Autonomous liberal citizenship is defined basically as a model that advocates the achievement of a community of free individuals, in which the well-being of the individual is above society.