Maria Dimova-Cookson, "Rethinking Positive and Negative Liberty" (Routledge, 2019)
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Who is Maria Dimova‑Cookson and what is the central thesis of *Rethinking Positive and Negative Liberty*?
Welcome to the new books network.
Welcome to the new books in history podcast. I'm your host, Jorgus Yanakopoulos. Our guest today is Maria Dibova Kukson. Maria works in Durham University. She teaches political theory in Durham University. And her new book is called Rethinking Positive and Negative Liberty. Maria, I would like to begin this by asking you to introduce yourself, uh and your work.
Good morning, uh Georgios. Uh thank you very much for uh inviting me to give this interview on the occasion of my book so to introduce myself I'm a political theorist and uh my background is uh I've uh done research, I'm known for uh my work on the political philosophy of the British idealist uh At TH Green. However, ever since I've been in Durham, which is for the last thirteen, fourteen years, uh my research has uh focused on uh uh theories of uh liberty. So I very much uh my work has led to um to this uh book. Uh If I were to uh explain the the the substance of my research more generally What I would say is that I'm interested in uh moral agency. I'm interested in the common good and the uh moral psychology behind the common good.
So uh kind of questions that animate uh my uh research. Uh You know, what what what is it that motivates us uh to uh engage in common but what is what is the mechanics of uh moral action because I believe that if we understand these mechanics we can explain issues in political theory uh like uh liberty uh for example. So I I can give one example of uh the research I've done, one of the arguments uh I've made uh so I have argued that depending on which side of the moral interaction you are, you experience either positive or negative freedom. So I'll give the an example here uh of a of a carer and uh an ill person. So that's a moral interaction. The carer is being the moral agent, the helping uh the ill person restore to uh full health
So the ill person who turned into a healthy person, uh uh she is the recipient of moral action. She can now uh invest in her common good, she can do what she likes, she has received Negative. Uh freedom. the carer, they haven't received negative freedom, they couldn't advance their well being because they were looking after somebody else. But they have the horizon, the possibility of experiencing positive freedom, if they couldn't take satisfaction from the good they could experience a positive rate. And so it kind of this is how I link the mechanics of moral action with uh distinguishing so to say the experience of positive and negative uh
Great. We uh thank you for this. Before we move uh and speak about, you know, uh uh the the substance of the book per se, something that struck me in the introduction as I was reading it is that you hint there about um your experience living under socialism uh in Bulgaria. So I I I wondered if uh to what extent that experience uh uh has influenced your uh you know uh uh ha has motivated you to study freedom uh uh uh uh in and and speak about freedom in the way you do.
Okay, uh yes, uh writing this book has made me kind of r rethink uh uh My experience is Most of uh kind of my uh my early years, indeed up to uh becoming halfway through my uh degree in philosophy, I was uh in Bulgaria. So uh thirty years ago when uh Berlin Wall fell, uh I was uh halfway through my philosophy degree. So for my formative years, my school years, uh early student years, uh they were during uh the socialist regime. I would uh single out uh three features of this regime which I think had a very uh big impact. So the first feature is that it was very ideologically charged, or I would call it ethically charged. So there was a lot of uh communist propaganda, very successful I would say. Uh so at school we were taught how good our regime is, how humane it is, how just it is.
And we we we believed in it, it gave us a sense of person. it kind of put us in the framework of of lots of uh things to do. The the pioneer organization was very good and uh uh keeping us active, making us uh to do things. But there was this sense of enthusiasm, of passion, of of
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
Who is Maria Dimova‑Cookson and what is the central thesis of *Rethinking Positive and Negative Liberty*?
0:01–5:23
2
How did Maria’s upbringing under socialism in Bulgaria shape her interest in liberty?
5:23–9:29
3
What moral‑agency example does she use to illustrate the difference between positive and negative freedom?
9:29–17:42
4
Why does Maria critique Berlin’s and Constant’s traditional distinction between positive and negative liberty?
17:42–23:00
5
How does she redefine positive and negative freedom in contemporary political theory?
23:00–28:24
6
In what ways can the revised freedom distinction help address climate change and populism?
28:24–33:21
7
What insights does she offer on the Brexit debate and the politics of liberty in the UK?
33:21–39:16
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from New Books in Philosophy
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Daniel Cohnitz and Jussi Haukioja, "Foundations for Metasemantics" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Philippe Huneman, "When Metaphysics Meets Biology: Kantian Approaches to the Concept of An Organism" (Routledge, 2026)
Rivka Weinberg, "The Meaning of It All: Ultimate Meaning, Everyday Meaning, Cosmic Meaning, Death, and Time" (Oxford UP, 2026)
PJ DiPietro, "Sideways Selves Travesti and Jotería, "Struggles Across the Américas" (U Texas Press, 2025)