In my opinion freedom is the ability to act without outside coercion. In the proverbial "state of nature" humans are free. They can act in prosocial ways or antisocial ways. I guess I'd see freedom as being akin to anarchy. But there's another term that I'd say is confused with freedom: liberty. I believe a commenter linked justice to freedom but I'd link it to liberty. Liberty is freedom abridged so that we may all act towards our own self-defined purpose. An analogy that I've heard and enjoyed is that freedom is like a lake and liberty is like a river. A lake is without direction. It's just there. On the other hand a river has direction and is moving towards something (ocean, lake, etc.). But a river only has direction because it's constrained by the river banks. Without the banks the water would pour out into multiple directions. And this is where I'd insert the idea of justice which acts as the banks. I have the liberty to attain property and use it for some goal like making a profit because I know that someone can't take my property from me by force. In a society that is wholly free someone could take my property by force because justice would be absent.I probably should provide a definition for justice, and for that I'll defer to Kant: justice is “nothing other than the realization under compulsory laws of the right of each man to choose his own ends by securing him against the arbitrary encroachments and assaults of others". I'm aware this conversation of freedom began in part due to another conversation on libertarianism, so I'd note that Kant's formulation of the state's role in facilitating justice and thus liberty is anathema to the libertarian creed. Non-interference is essential to libertarian justice. But for Kant and conservatives like myself, non-domination is essential to justice. Thus we conservatives give the state a bigger role. So regulations for the libertarian are an example of an overreaching state interfering with markets whereas for conservatives we accept regulations insofar as they prevent a private person or enterprise from imposing itself on others. However, we also are cognizant that the state being able to impose on others should be limited. I'll end on that note.
I'd say that the concept of freedom is linked to the concept of morality, not justice. We say that someone is free if he's able to fulfill his needs and desires. We say that someone is moral if he's choosing to fulfill only those needs and desires that can be fulfilled within the framework of the rules of the society he lives in. Justice is just the way those concepts are understood by a society and imposed on its members.
Freedom is a concept in the mind, not a physical reality. There's no such thing as freedom in the physical world.
And I'm asking you kindly to help me resolve it, please. Well, it would be nice if you could call it as you see it so I can consider it, instead of criticising my word choice. Please, walk me through it. And I will bring up the example of comparing the freedom of someone who literally starves to death, so please make it clear where that would fit into what you explain.
As a non-native english speaker, I would ask, is this interpretation of liberty and freedom a general one or just one you use to explain the situation? The understanding I've got from dictionaries, as well as education and culture, is of freedom as basically synonymous to liberty.
Do you think that a person who starves to death is free in the mind sense? If a person thinks he is free but is actually indoctrinated, is he free?
No, I don't think that a starving person is free in any sense. Furthermore, I don't think that any person is free. We all are indoctrinated, conditioned by our own genes and by our environment. A person can't be free as long as many (most, probably) of the mental processes occur in the subconscious part of the brain over which we have no control whatsoever. There are ways to free ourselves from ideological, social, political and financial restraints - as much as possible when living in a society whose members depend on each other for survival - but we can't free ourselves from our own nature.
Ok, where does that leave us in terms of politics? In a sense, I agree that we don't have free will, but my mind has to (albeit deterministically) decide what actions to take in terms of, for example politics, and for those purposes, I kind of have to assume that I have free will, not because it's true but because otherwise, nothing gets done. We should pretend we have free will, even though we think in the end, it wasn't really a choice. So if we pretend that, is freedom good, and what version thereof would that be?
Some people feel free to be unjust. "By seizing power, Henry VIII was free to persecute his enemies relentlessly." What part of that indicates that Henry VIII was moral or just? Freedom is about the ability to act without restriction. One could argue that an immoral person restricts their own freedom through folly but more often the opposite is true. Immoral people tend to find the shortcut in which they free themselves of obligation and benefit at the expense of others. Some may argue that eventually this freedom obtained by immorality will catch up to them because there is a universal force like God making sure that the just are rewarded and the unjust are punished but there really is no indicator of that. There is also that mental condition of paranoia where a person's unjust actions haunt them and they constantly live with paranoia but again not much to indicate that it is a universal thing. Consider motivation theories like Maslow's Hierarchy of needs ; becoming a self-actuating individual does not require morality or being just. It may help to maintain a person's family to fulfil love and belongingness needs but that doesn't mean a person can't repay their enemy with unjust strife and hardship.
If you don't think morality is linked to justice, then pilgrim, you don't think too good. What you mean, "we", Kemosabe? No, justice, like freedom, is a transcendent principle which is mostly held in contempt by societies, which is why despotism has been overwhelmingly the rule in human history. No, you're asking me to become entangled in it. Dunno who the hell you think you're kidding, as I've been doing absolutely nothing else. Your point being...?
For all intents and purposes liberty and freedom are essentially of the same meaning. The difference being that 'Liberty' has its roots in Latin while 'Freedom' is of Germanic descent. The distinction I put forth is one I got from people like Thomas Jefferson, Dworkin, and Butler Shaffer. To me it provides a helpful framework for political philosophy, but if someone uses them interchangeably I'm not going to be pedantic about it.
Well, certainly, I suspect your position is already entangled. Since I don't completely understand your point, and don't know for sure you're not hiding a perfectly reasonable argument somewhere there, I wouldn't want to accuse you of holding unreasonable views before I've learned more about your position. That being said, even if you have an entangled position, my request is still that I am given information until I understand it. If your position is flawed, the best way of finding out is to sort it out first. Actually, sorting it out is also the best course of action if is not flawed. The fact that am open to the possibility that your view is already entangled opens the possibility that you will get lost in your arguments (and possibly that that is where the view comes from in the first place). My request is still primarily that you clarify it. Oh, I'm not saying you have been lying or anything, I'm just saying I've been asking for clarification for a number of posts now, and I still don't know the position you hold. It's not that you have been saying things that aren't what you think, it's that you've been avoiding saying anything at all. Just so we don't lose sight of the goal, I'll try to bring us back on topic. You allude to a concept of freedom which you say that I don't understand. I would like to know more about it, and whether this is a useful concept when one talks about freedom in a political sense. In particular, I wonder if this interpretation of freedom ever can say that a dead person is more free than an alive one (or rather, if maximisation of such a freedom could ever allow an innocent person to starve when there was an option for a modest tax).
We don't need to pretend anything. I think freedom is about possibilities (individual freedoms) more than about choices. One can choose to walk in the middle of a bustling highway , but does that make him free? I don't think so. It's the possibility to choose - the degrees of freedom afforded by the society - that matters. Freedom of speech is a good example. Some people choose to exercise this right, some don't. Those who don't are as free to express themselves as those who do. The possibility to speak freely is an individual freedom, not the actual choice. Safeguarding individual freedoms must be the primary goal of politics in democratic societies. I don't understand the question about what version of freedom should be chosen.
By "justice" I mean the mechanism that upholds the laws of the society. Those laws may be written in a constitution, or may be just traditions or customs. The mechanism may be a court of law, a tribe elder, a religious leader, a dictator. Justice isn't necessarily linked to morality, or freedom. Justice is linked to laws and order. Persecution of the king's enemies was one way to bring stability to the kingdom, to maintain the rule of law unhindered. It was an imperative, and of course it was moral because it was the norm back then. We shouldn't judge all societies according to our own values and standards. Of course. But the goal of those actions is to fulfill needs and desires. That's why people who are able to fulfill most, if not all, needs and desires enjoy more freedom than those who do not. You seem to think that "immoral" equals "bad". We need to define "moral" if we want to understand each other.
Yeah, it's hidden in plain sight, which is why your objections are limited to groundless suspicions. Alas, I've not been presented with any indications that you're desirous of such understanding. What you mean, of course, is that you want to break it up into pieces that make no sense by themselves, so you can find fault with the mess you've made it into, which for you will constitute finding fault with my position. Again, that's entirely your problem. Please, you don't understand what the topic is. I do no such thing. It strikes me that this is a good time to congratulate you on your choice of username.
Well, if you point it out and you have sound arguments, I could clear you of my suspicion. Why is it so important for you that you don't let me know what you think? I literally posted a thread asking about it. And it in turn sprung from a discussion which you can find in Ibshambat's thread about libertarianism which grounds itself in the definition of freedom. I believe any discussion should be had using the best possible information. I could make up a straw man of what you believe, but I don't think that'd be either interesting or useful. Breaking it up into little pieces is how we understand things. Any other process leaves us open to generalisations with unchecked consequences. It's true that I don't intend to throw myself at the feet of just any explanation you give me, and given that I can see how the idea can be derived from a well-meaning but misguided overvaluation of one's own problems, I certainly see the possibility that I would reject an understanding that you might present. My primary intention is to give it the same consideration as any position, come what may afterwards. I will repeat what I understand you to say, if you think my understanding deviates from what you would consider your position, then you are able and encouraged to correct me. Well, that is the topic which I created in the beginning of the thread and which you responded to. Then what are you doing here?
It's always good to share a definition. I suppose I do consider immorality to be bad but it is subjective to the context. Not all morality is just or "good". So in some situations being immoral is not bad I suppose.this tends to happen when two moral codes clash. we disagree with child sacrifice but some ancient tribes made it such an honour that children couldn't wait to carry a message to the gods on behalf of their family. In the context with which I am speaking it doesn't really matter so much if immorality is good or bad. If one is not restricted by a code of behaviour that limits behaviour within a certain scope then they are free of the restraints of morality. We can shape our conscience around any set of rules and call it morality but when we act in contradiction against that set of rules it can cause great mental strife. Immoral is not always equal to bad but can part of a subset of things that are typically considered bad. If you think of Plato's just man as being one who gives to society in equal quantity what he takes from society then an unjust man is one who takes disproportionately. This may enable him to "fulfil his needs and desires". Justice however is not a prerequisite for being free. If you think of "good" as that condition when something fulfils it's intended purpose and bad as that condition when something does not fulfil its intended purpose then certainly morality is "good" and immorality is "bad" but the lines become blurred when we look at it from the larger context across many moral codes rather than just the subset of one's own moral code.
A "person" by definition is in bondage to emotions, desires, educational indoctrination, perceptions, needs, hopes, and many forms of suffering. Hence a "person" can never be free.
That may be so, but that's not really a useful frame of mind when trying to decide politics or policy. Politically, we like freedom, but what kind of freedom is actually useful in a political sense?
Ok, where does that leave us in terms of politics? We can say all we want about the meaninglessness of concepts or words (not sure what your point is, but I'm guessing it doesn't matter a lot) but at the end of the day, we still need to decide how to govern ourselves.
