Freedom

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Four Freedoms, a series of 1943 paintings by Norman Rockwell honoring Franklin D. Roosevelt's Four Freedoms, meant to describe the freedoms for which allied nations fought in World War II. Four-Freedoms-OWI-composite-poster-1943.jpg
Four Freedoms , a series of 1943 paintings by Norman Rockwell honoring Franklin D. Roosevelt's Four Freedoms, meant to describe the freedoms for which allied nations fought in World War II.

Freedom is the power or right to speak, act and change as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving oneself one's own laws". [1]

Contents

In one definition, something is "free" if it can change and is not constrained in its present state. Physicists and chemists use the word in this sense. [2] In its origin, the English word "freedom" relates etymologically to the word "friend". [2] Philosophy and religion sometimes associate it with free will, as an alternative to determinism or predestination. [3]

In modern liberal nations, freedom is considered a right, especially freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press.

Types

In political discourse, political freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy, and a distinction is made between countries that are free and dictatorships. In the area of civil rights, a strong distinction is made between freedom and slavery and there is conflict between people who think all races, religions, genders, and social classes should be equally free and people who think freedom is the exclusive right of certain groups. Frequently discussed are freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom of choice, and freedom of speech.

Liberty

Sometimes the terms "freedom" and "liberty" tend to be used interchangeably. [4] [5] Sometimes subtle distinctions are made between "freedom" and "liberty" [6] John Stuart Mill, for example, differentiated liberty from freedom in that freedom is primarily, if not exclusively, the ability to do as one wills and what one has the power to do, whereas liberty concerns the absence of arbitrary restraints and takes into account the rights of all involved. As such, the exercise of liberty is subject to capability and limited by the rights of others. [7]

Isaiah Berlin made a distinction between "positive" freedom and "negative" freedom in his seminal 1958 lecture "Two concepts of liberty". Charles Taylor elaborates that negative liberty means an ability to do what one wants, without external obstacles and positive liberty is the ability to fulfill one's purposes. [8] [9] Another way to describe negative liberty is freedom from limiting forces (such as freedom from fear, freedom from want, and freedom from discrimination), but descriptions of freedom and liberty generally do not invoke having liberty from anything. [5]

Wendy Hui Kyong Chun explains these differences in terms of their relation to institutions:

"Liberty is linked to human subjectivity; freedom is not. The Declaration of Independence, for example, describes men as having liberty and the nation as being free. Free will—the quality of being free from the control of fate or necessity—may first have been attributed to human will, but Newtonian physics attributes freedom—degrees of freedom, free bodies—to objects." [10]

"Freedom differs from liberty as control differs from discipline. Liberty, like discipline, is linked to institutions and political parties, whether liberal or libertarian; freedom is not. Although freedom can work for or against institutions, it is not bound to them—it travels through unofficial networks. To have liberty is to be liberated from something; to be free is to be self-determining, autonomous. Freedom can or cannot exist within a state of liberty: one can be liberated yet unfree, or free yet enslaved (Orlando Patterson has argued in Freedom: Freedom in the Making of Western Culture that freedom arose from the yearnings of slaves)." [10]

From domination

Freedom from domination was considered by Phillip Pettit, Quentin Skinner and John P. McCormick as a defining aspect of freedom. [11] While operative control is the ability to direct ones actions on a day-to-day basis, that freedom can depend on the whim of another, also known as reserve control. Phillip Petit and Jamie Susskind argues that both operative and reserve control are needed for democracy and freedom. [12] [13]

See also

Works[ relevant? ]

Related Research Articles

Political freedom is a central concept in history and political thought and one of the most important features of democratic societies. Political freedom has been described as freedom from oppression or coercion, the absence of disabling conditions for an individual and the fulfillment of enabling conditions, or the absence of life conditions of compulsion, e.g. economic compulsion, in a society. Although political freedom is often interpreted negatively as the freedom from unreasonable external constraints on action, it can also refer to the positive exercise of rights, capacities and possibilities for action and the exercise of social or group rights. The concept can also include freedom from internal constraints on political action or speech. The concept of political freedom is closely connected with the concepts of civil liberties and human rights, which in democratic societies are usually afforded legal protection from the state.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Justice</span> Concept of moral fairness and administration of the law

Justice, in its broadest sense, is the concept that individuals are to be treated in a manner that is equitable and fair.

Political philosophy, or political theory, is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, justice, liberty, property, rights, law, and authority: what they are, if they are needed, what makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect, what form it should take, what the law is, and what duties citizens owe to a legitimate government, if any, and when it may be legitimately overthrown, if ever.

Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory. Rights are an important concept in law and ethics, especially theories of justice and deontology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Libertas</span> Roman goddess of liberty

Libertas is the Roman goddess and personification of liberty. She became a politicised figure in the late republic. She sometimes also appeared on coins from the imperial period, such as Galba's "Freedom of the People" coins during his short reign after the death of Nero. She is usually portrayed with two accoutrements: the spear and a phrygian cap, which she holds out on the spear, rather than wears on her head.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isaiah Berlin</span> British philosopher (1909–1997)

Sir Isaiah Berlin was a Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas. Although he became increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talks were sometimes recorded and transcribed, and many of his spoken words were converted into published essays and books, both by himself and by others, especially by his principal editor from 1974, Henry Hardy.

Voluntaryism is used to describe the philosophy of Auberon Herbert, and later that of the authors and supporters of The Voluntaryist magazine, which supports a voluntary-funded state, meaning a lack of coercion and force in matters such as taxation.

Positive liberty is the possession of the power and resources to act in the context of the structural limitations of the broader society which impacts a person's ability to act, as opposed to negative liberty, which is freedom from external restraint on one's actions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liberty (personification)</span> Personifications of the concept of Liberty

The concept of liberty has frequently been represented by personifications, often loosely shown as a female classical goddess. Examples include Marianne, the national personification of the French Republic and its values of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, and the female Liberty portrayed in artworks, on United States coins beginning in 1793, and many other depictions. These descend from images on ancient Roman coins of the Roman goddess Libertas and from various developments from the Renaissance onwards. The Dutch Maiden was among the first, re-introducing the cap of liberty on a liberty pole featured in many types of image, though not using the Phrygian cap style that became conventional. The 1886 Statue of Liberty by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi is a well-known example in art, a gift from France to the United States.

Economic freedom, or economic liberty, refers to the agency of people to make economic decisions. This is a term used in economic and policy debates as well as in the philosophy of economics. One approach to economic freedom comes from the liberal tradition emphasizing free markets, free trade, and private property. Another approach to economic freedom extends the welfare economics study of individual choice, with greater economic freedom coming from a larger set of possible choices. Other conceptions of economic freedom include freedom from want and the freedom to engage in collective bargaining.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Negative liberty</span> Freedom from interference by other people

Negative liberty is freedom from interference by other people. Negative liberty is primarily concerned with freedom from external restraint and contrasts with positive liberty. The distinction originated with Bentham, was popularized by T. H. Green and Guido De Ruggiero, and is now best known through Isaiah Berlin's 1958 lecture "Two Concepts of Liberty".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liberty</span> Creation and experience of societal freedom

Liberty is the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views. The concept of liberty can vary depending on perspective and context. In the Constitutional law of the United States, ordered liberty means creating a balanced society where individuals have the freedom to act without unnecessary interference and access to opportunities and resources to pursue their goals, all within a fair legal system.

"Two Concepts of Liberty" was the inaugural lecture delivered by the liberal philosopher Isaiah Berlin before the University of Oxford on 31 October 1958. It was subsequently published as a 57-page pamphlet by Oxford at the Clarendon Press. It also appears in the collection of Berlin's papers entitled Four Essays on Liberty (1969) and was reissued in a collection entitled Liberty: Incorporating Four Essays on Liberty (2002).

Classical republicanism, also known as civic republicanism or civic humanism, is a form of republicanism developed in the Renaissance inspired by the governmental forms and writings of classical antiquity, especially such classical writers as Aristotle, Polybius, and Cicero. Classical republicanism is built around concepts such as liberty as non-domination, self-government, rule of law, property-based personality, anti-corruption, abolition of monarchy, civics, civil society, common good, civic virtue, popular sovereignty, patriotism and mixed government.

<i>Gratis</i> versus <i>libre</i> Two meanings of "free" in English

The adjective free in English is commonly used in one of two meanings: "at no monetary cost" (gratis) or "with little or no restriction" (libre). This ambiguity can cause issues where the distinction is important, as it often is in dealing with laws concerning the use of information, such as copyright and patents.

Libertarianism is a political philosophy that holds freedom as its primary value. Many libertarians conceive of freedom in accord with the Non-Aggression Principle, according to which each individual has the right to live as they choose, so long as it does not involve violating the rights of others by initiating force or fraud against them.

Negative and positive rights are rights that oblige either inaction or action. These obligations may be of either a legal or moral character. The notion of positive and negative rights may also be applied to liberty rights.

Real freedom is a term coined by the political philosopher and economist Philippe Van Parijs. It expands upon notions of negative freedom by incorporating not simply institutional or other constraints on a person's choices, but also the requirements of physical reality, resources and personal capacity. To have real freedom, according to Van Parijs, an individual must:

Criticism of technology is an analysis of adverse impacts of industrial and digital technologies. It is argued that, in all advanced industrial societies, technology becomes a means of domination, control, and exploitation, or more generally something which threatens the survival of humanity. Some of the technology opposed by the most radical critics may include everyday household products, such as refrigerators, computers, and medication. However, criticism of technology comes in many shades.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wendy Hui Kyong Chun</span> Canadian media professor

Wendy Hui Kyong Chun is the Canada 150 Research Chair in New Media in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. She is the founding Director of the Digital Democracies Institute at Simon Fraser University, established in 2020. Previously, she was Professor and Chair of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. Her theoretical and critical approach to digital media draws from her training in both Systems Design Engineering and English Literature.

References

  1. ↑ Stevenson, Angus; Lindberg, Christine A., eds. (2010-01-01). "New Oxford American Dictionary". Oxford Reference. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195392883.001.0001. ISBN   978-0-19-539288-3. Archived from the original on 2020-03-12. Retrieved 2023-06-02.[ clarification needed ]
  2. 1 2 "free" . Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press.(Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  3. ↑ Baumeister, Roy F.; Monroe, Andrew E. (2014). "Recent Research on Free Will". Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. Vol. 50. pp. 1–52. doi : 10.1016/B978-0-12-800284-1.00001-1. ISBN   978-0128002841.
  4. ↑ See Bertrand Badie, Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Leonardo Morlino, International Encyclopedia of Political Science (2011), p. 1447: "Throughout this entry, incidentally, the terms freedom and liberty are used interchangeably".
  5. 1 2 Anna Wierzbicka, Understanding Cultures Through Their Key Words (1997), pp. 130–131: "Unfortunately... the English words freedom and liberty are used interchangeably. This is confusing because these two do not mean the same, and in fact what [Isaiah] Berlin calls "the notion of 'negative' freedom" has become largely incorporated in the word freedom, whereas the word liberty in its earlier meaning was much closer to the Latin libertas and in its current meaning reflects a different concept, which is a product of the Anglo-Saxon culture".
  6. ↑ Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Control and Freedom: Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiber Optics (2008), p. 9: "Although used interchangeably, freedom and liberty have significantly different etymologies and histories. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the Old English frei (derived from Sanskrit) meant dear and described all those close or related to the head of the family (hence friends). Conversely in Latin, libertas denoted the legal state of freedom versus enslavement and was later extended to children (liberi), meaning literally the free members of the household. Those who are one's friends are free; those who are not are slaves".
  7. ↑ Mill, John Stuart. [1859] 1869. On Liberty (4th ed.). London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer. pp. 21–22 Archived 17 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine.
  8. ↑ Taylor, Charles (1985). "What's Wrong With Negative Liberty". Philosophical Papers: Volume 2, Philosophy and the Human Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 211–229. ISBN   978-0521317498. Archived from the original on 28 February 2023. Retrieved 28 February 2023.
  9. ↑ Berlin, Isaiah. Four Essays on Liberty. 1969.
  10. 1 2 Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Control and Freedom: Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiber Optics (2008), p. 9.
  11. ↑ Springborg, Patricia (December 2001). "Republicanism, Freedom from Domination, and the Cambridge Contextual Historians". Political Studies. 49 (5): 851–876. doi:10.1111/1467-9248.00344. ISSN   0032-3217.
  12. ↑ Pettit, Philip (2014). Just freedom: a moral compass for a complex world. The Norton global ethics series (First ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Company. pp. 2–3, 221. ISBN   978-0-393-06397-4.
  13. ↑ Susskind, Jamie (2022). "Ch. 2". The digital republic: on freedom and democracy in the 21st century (1st ed.). New York London: Pegasus Books. ISBN   978-1-64313-901-2.
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