Freedom

Colleges & Universities University of Chicago
1

<p>Let’s due some philosophophisizationizing!</p>

<p>What do you think about the concept of "freedom? </p>

<p>“Freedom” was a big part of the ideology of the founders of this country, and it is today thrown around quite often in political rhetoric. But what exactly does it mean, in the most abstract sense? Please try to define it in the most universally applicable way possible, and not confine your opinion to specific situations. You may also wish to address the value of “freedom” to human beings. </p>

<p>Is it the government’s greatest duty to protect freedom? Should we try to give freedom to those who don’t have it? Is freedom for everybody? Does the term even mean anything at all? </p>

<p>As F.W. Nietzsche asked us: "Freedom from what? Nay, freedom FOR what?</p>

2

<p>Freedom is both positive and negative.</p>

<p>A negative liberty is a liberty of opportunity and non-interference. A negative liberty means that no one is blocking your exercise of your entitled action. If I am negatively free, no police officer is blocking me from going to Safeway and getting a soda; then again, no one is ensuring that I get a soda, by giving me change, say—this would be a positive right. A positive liberty is a liberty of resources. It means that someone is actually ensuring that you exercise your entitled action. If I am positively free, someone is not only refraining from preventing me from getting a soda, but is actually providing me with change to go buy soda.</p>

3

<p>I don’t think positive liberties are of much concern to us here. But I’m not really satisfied with your definition, I want some more qualification. I’m not free to murder anyone, or shoot heroin, or act in a pornography movie (I’m not 18 yet). Why not? Why do we make freedom such a big Ideal if we seem to be picking and choosing like this?</p>

4

<p>…because you don’t want me to murder you. Therefore, my freedom is not my right when it limits your freedom. Freedom is just another resource: you can never have absolute freedom or eliminate the scarcity. The idea is to maximize freedom and it could only be done through compromising everybody’s freedom. Child pornography isn’t right because people under 18 can’t rationally decide for themselves (I think the age is lower in Germany) and can therefore be exploited by adults.</p>

5

<p>comparanza1212: Libertarian?</p>

6

<p>Well, couldn’t you say that from the perspective of whatever government decides to limit a freedom, then pretty much any type of “freedom” potentially harm another person. Any logical society that is not ruled by a psychopath or ruling in one specific groups interest, whether a democracy or a dictatorship, would never go out of its way to infringe on one’s “freedom” to do something unless they at least believed it was harming others or society as a whole. For example, Islamists believe that if women are allowed to go outside without a burka, it will lead to the dissolution of the shariah, the Islamic law as revealed by Allah through His prophet and the wisest and greatest law that could ever possibly be conceived of. Freedom is completely subjective, a matter degree, and present in one form or another in any nation. I don’t think its something that makes Americans or any other place special.</p>

7

<p>For freedom, I don’t think that it can be given or bestowed upon a people in one shot. It must be developed, and worked on before it’s actually revealed to the said people. If we expect freedom and liberty to just happen when, for example, we remove a hazardous dictator, then we are sadly mistaken. It takes time. The people must realize that they are part of a greater good in society, and work to develop individual and societal liberties.</p>

<p>I think I steal this quote from somewhere else, but freedom comes from self-determination within a nation, in the same way America came from our forefathers.</p>

<p>But you say, without elaboration, that slaves were given freedom with the 13th-15th amendments to the Constitution; this freedom, however, was just a change in societal role. Their status remained unchanged, and their freedom was still restricted. It wasn’t changed until a hundred years later in 1964 with the Civil Rights Act, where they finally pushed and fought through common ideals on their freedom for their freedom. Self-determination. The people must bring freedom about, not others.</p>