SOURCE: “Response to Berlin and McBride,” in Social Theory and Practice, Vol. 16, No. 3, Fall, 1990, pp. 323-35.

In the following essay, Renick extends McBride's critique of Berlin's concept of negative liberty—see previous essay—to include McBride in the criticism, and introduces the concept of political obligation.

An “individual” may be an individual or indivisible because he has so little in him that you cannot imagine it possible to break him into lesser parts, or because, however full and great his nature, it is so thoroughly one, so vital and true to itself, that like a work of art, the whole of his being cannot be separated into parts without ceasing to be what it essentially is. In the former case, the individual is an “atom;” in the latter, he is a “great individuality.”¹

These words mark an appropriate starting place for a discussion of William McBride's “‘Two Concepts...