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".
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.[
]
In its origin, the English language word "freedom" relates etymologically to the word "friend".[Baumeister, Roy F.; Monroe, Andrew E. (2014). "Recent Research on Free Will". Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. Vol. 50. pp. 1–52. . .]
In modern Liberalism 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 of
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 denoting to "freedom" and "liberty" are used interchangeably.
[ 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".][Anna Wierzbicka, Understanding Cultures Through Their Key Words (1997), pp. 130–131: "Unfortunately... the English words freedom and liberty are used interchangeably. This is quite wrong 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".] Sometimes subtle distinctions are made between "freedom" and "liberty"
[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".] 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.
[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.]
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.[Berlin, Isaiah. Four Essays on Liberty. 1969.] 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.
Wendy Hui Kyong Chun explains these differences in terms of their relation to institutions:
From domination
Freedom from domination was considered by
Philip Pettit,
Quentin Skinner and John P. McCormick as a defining aspect of freedom.
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 argue that both operative and reserve control are needed for democracy and freedom.
In a world where power and control seem to be the ultimate goals, it is easy to believe that certain individuals, such as dictators, kings, and presidents, possess extraordinary authority over others. However, Fritzson Michel challenges this notion by asserting that no one is truly free, not even the most powerful leaders.[No one is free: Not even dictators. ISBN 979-8282287585] By examining vital bodily functions and life events, Fritzson Michel shows in his book that everyone, from the wealthiest individuals to the most authoritarian leaders, is subject to the same fundamental constraints of existence.
See also
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Freedom, 1985 statue by Alfred Tibor in Columbus, Ohio
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Freedom & Civilization, 1944 book by Bronislaw Malinowski about freedom from anthropological perspective
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Freedom of thought
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Freedom Riders – civil-rights activists
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Freedom songs
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Harm principle
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Internet freedom
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List of freedom indices
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Miss Freedom, 1889 statue on the dome of the Georgia State Capitol (US)
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Real freedom, a term coined by political philosopher and economist Phillippe Van Parijs
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Statue of Freedom, an 1863 sculpture by Thomas Crawford atop the dome of the US Capitol
External links
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"Freedom", BBC Radio 4 discussion with John Keane, Bernard Williams & Annabel Brett ( In Our Time, 4 July 2002)
