ABSTRACT
Contrary to the social Darwinists and other neoclassical liberals, the English philosopher Thomas Hill Green (1836–1882) insisted that liberalism requires an active government to protect and promote individual liberty. In this excerpt from his speech, “Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract” (1880), Green draws a distinction between two kinds of freedom, negative and positive. He then uses this distinction as the basis for his claim that government has a duty to promote the welfare of the people so that they can become free. In this and his other essays and books, Green thus helped to lay the philosophical foundations for modern reform or “welfare liberalism”.
