essay on real freedom

Freedom Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on freedom.

Freedom is something that everybody has heard of but if you ask for its meaning then everyone will give you different meaning. This is so because everyone has a different opinion about freedom. For some freedom means the freedom of going anywhere they like, for some it means to speak up form themselves, and for some, it is liberty of doing anything they like.

Meaning of Freedom

The real meaning of freedom according to books is. Freedom refers to a state of independence where you can do what you like without any restriction by anyone. Moreover, freedom can be called a state of mind where you have the right and freedom of doing what you can think off. Also, you can feel freedom from within.

The Indian Freedom

Indian is a country which was earlier ruled by Britisher and to get rid of these rulers India fight back and earn their freedom. But during this long fight, many people lost their lives and because of the sacrifice of those people and every citizen of the country, India is a free country and the world largest democracy in the world.

Moreover, after independence India become one of those countries who give his citizen some freedom right without and restrictions.

The Indian Freedom Right

India drafted a constitution during the days of struggle with the Britishers and after independence it became applicable. In this constitution, the Indian citizen was given several fundaments right which is applicable to all citizen equally. More importantly, these right are the freedom that the constitution has given to every citizen.

These right are right to equality, right to freedom, right against exploitation, right to freedom of religion¸ culture and educational right, right to constitutional remedies, right to education. All these right give every freedom that they can’t get in any other country.

Value of Freedom

The real value of anything can only be understood by those who have earned it or who have sacrificed their lives for it. Freedom also means liberalization from oppression. It also means the freedom from racism, from harm, from the opposition, from discrimination and many more things.

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Freedom does not mean that you violate others right, it does not mean that you disregard other rights. Moreover, freedom means enchanting the beauty of nature and the environment around us.

The Freedom of Speech

Freedom of speech is the most common and prominent right that every citizen enjoy. Also, it is important because it is essential for the all-over development of the country.

Moreover, it gives way to open debates that helps in the discussion of thought and ideas that are essential for the growth of society.

Besides, this is the only right that links with all the other rights closely. More importantly, it is essential to express one’s view of his/her view about society and other things.

To conclude, we can say that Freedom is not what we think it is. It is a psychological concept everyone has different views on. Similarly, it has a different value for different people. But freedom links with happiness in a broadway.

FAQs on Freedom

Q.1 What is the true meaning of freedom? A.1 Freedom truly means giving equal opportunity to everyone for liberty and pursuit of happiness.

Q.2 What is freedom of expression means? A.2 Freedom of expression means the freedom to express one’s own ideas and opinions through the medium of writing, speech, and other forms of communication without causing any harm to someone’s reputation.

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‘Freedom’ Means Something Different to Liberals and Conservatives. Here’s How the Definition Split—And Why That Still Matters

W e tend to think of freedom as an emancipatory ideal—and with good reason. Throughout history, the desire to be free inspired countless marginalized groups to challenge the rule of political and economic elites. Liberty was the watchword of the Atlantic revolutionaries who, at the end of the 18th century, toppled autocratic kings, arrogant elites and ( in Haiti ) slaveholders, thus putting an end to the Old Regime. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Black civil rights activists and feminists fought for the expansion of democracy in the name of freedom, while populists and progressives struggled to put an end to the economic domination of workers.

While these groups had different objectives and ambitions, sometimes putting them at odds with one another, they all agreed that their main goal—freedom—required enhancing the people’s voice in government. When the late Rep. John Lewis called on Americans to “let freedom ring” , he was drawing on this tradition.

But there is another side to the story of freedom as well. Over the past 250 years, the cry for liberty has also been used by conservatives to defend elite interests. In their view, true freedom is not about collective control over government; it consists in the private enjoyment of one’s life and goods. From this perspective, preserving freedom has little to do with making government accountable to the people. Democratically elected majorities, conservatives point out, pose just as much, or even more of a threat to personal security and individual right—especially the right to property—as rapacious kings or greedy elites. This means that freedom can best be preserved by institutions that curb the power of those majorities, or simply by shrinking the sphere of government as much as possible.

This particular way of thinking about freedom was pioneered in the late 18th century by the defenders of the Old Regime. From the 1770s onward, as revolutionaries on both sides of the Atlantic rebelled in the name of liberty, a flood of pamphlets, treatises and newspaper articles appeared with titles such as Some Observations On Liberty , Civil Liberty Asserted or On the Liberty of the Citizen . Their authors vehemently denied that the Atlantic Revolutions would bring greater freedom. As, for instance, the Scottish philosopher Adam Ferguson—a staunch opponent of the American Revolution—explained, liberty consisted in the “security of our rights.” And from that perspective, the American colonists already were free, even though they lacked control over the way in which they were governed. As British subjects, they enjoyed “more security than was ever before enjoyed by any people.” This meant that the colonists’ liberty was best preserved by maintaining the status quo; their attempts to govern themselves could only end in anarchy and mob rule.

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In the course of the 19th century this view became widespread among European elites, who continued to vehemently oppose the advent of democracy. Benjamin Constant, one of Europe’s most celebrated political thinkers, rejected the example of the French revolutionaries, arguing that they had confused liberty with “participation in collective power.” Instead, freedom-lovers should look to the British constitution, where hierarchies were firmly entrenched. Here, Constant claimed, freedom, understood as “peaceful enjoyment and private independence,” was perfectly secure—even though less than five percent of British adults could vote. The Hungarian politician Józseph Eötvös, among many others, agreed. Writing in the wake of the brutally suppressed revolutions that rose against several European monarchies in 1848, he complained that the insurgents, battling for manhood suffrage, had confused liberty with “the principle of the people’s supremacy.” But such confusion could only lead to democratic despotism. True liberty—defined by Eötvös as respect for “well-earned rights”—could best be achieved by limiting state power as much as possible, not by democratization.

In the U.S., conservatives were likewise eager to claim that they, and they alone, were the true defenders of freedom. In the 1790s, some of the more extreme Federalists tried to counter the democratic gains of the preceding decade in the name of liberty. In the view of the staunch Federalist Noah Webster, for instance, it was a mistake to think that “to obtain liberty, and establish a free government, nothing was necessary but to get rid of kings, nobles, and priests.” To preserve true freedom—which Webster defined as the peaceful enjoyment of one’s life and property—popular power instead needed to be curbed, preferably by reserving the Senate for the wealthy. Yet such views were slower to gain traction in the United States than in Europe. To Webster’s dismay, overall, his contemporaries believed that freedom could best be preserved by extending democracy rather than by restricting popular control over government.

But by the end of the 19th century, conservative attempts to reclaim the concept of freedom did catch on. The abolition of slavery, rapid industrialization and mass migration from Europe expanded the agricultural and industrial working classes exponentially, as well as giving them greater political agency. This fueled increasing anxiety about popular government among American elites, who now began to claim that “mass democracy” posed a major threat to liberty, notably the right to property. Francis Parkman, scion of a powerful Boston family, was just one of a growing number of statesmen who raised doubts about the wisdom of universal suffrage, as “the masses of the nation … want equality more than they want liberty.”

William Graham Sumner, an influential Yale professor, likewise spoke for many when he warned of the advent of a new, democratic kind of despotism—a danger that could best be avoided by restricting the sphere of government as much as possible. “ Laissez faire ,” or, in blunt English, “mind your own business,” Sumner concluded, was “the doctrine of liberty.”

Being alert to this history can help us to understand why, today, people can use the same word—“freedom”—to mean two very different things. When conservative politicians like Rand Paul and advocacy groups FreedomWorks or the Federalist Society talk about their love of liberty, they usually mean something very different from civil rights activists like John Lewis—and from the revolutionaries, abolitionists and feminists in whose footsteps Lewis walked. Instead, they are channeling 19th century conservatives like Francis Parkman and William Graham Sumner, who believed that freedom is about protecting property rights—if need be, by obstructing democracy. Hundreds of years later, those two competing views of freedom remain largely unreconcilable.

Annelien de Dijn is the author of Freedom: An Unruly History , available now from Harvard University Press.

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Essays About Freedom: 5 Helpful Examples and 7 Prompts

Freedom seems simple at first; however, it is quite a nuanced topic at a closer glance. If you are writing essays about freedom, read our guide of essay examples and writing prompts.

In a world where we constantly hear about violence, oppression, and war, few things are more important than freedom. It is the ability to act, speak, or think what we want without being controlled or subjected. It can be considered the gateway to achieving our goals, as we can take the necessary steps.

However, freedom is not always “doing whatever we want.” True freedom means to do what is righteous and reasonable, even if there is the option to do otherwise. Moreover, freedom must come with responsibility; this is why laws are in place to keep society orderly but not too micro-managed, to an extent.

5 Examples of Essays About Freedom

1. essay on “freedom” by pragati ghosh, 2. acceptance is freedom by edmund perry, 3. reflecting on the meaning of freedom by marquita herald.

4. Authentic Freedom by Wilfred Carlson

5. What are freedom and liberty? by Yasmin Youssef

1. what is freedom, 2. freedom in the contemporary world, 3. is freedom “not free”, 4. moral and ethical issues concerning freedom, 5. freedom vs. security, 6. free speech and hate speech, 7. an experience of freedom.

“Freedom is non denial of our basic rights as humans. Some freedom is specific to the age group that we fall into. A child is free to be loved and cared by parents and other members of family and play around. So this nurturing may be the idea of freedom to a child. Living in a crime free society in safe surroundings may mean freedom to a bit grown up child.”

In her essay, Ghosh briefly describes what freedom means to her. It is the ability to live your life doing what you want. However, she writes that we must keep in mind the dignity and freedom of others. One cannot simply kill and steal from people in the name of freedom; it is not absolute. She also notes that different cultures and age groups have different notions of freedom. Freedom is a beautiful thing, but it must be exercised in moderation.

“They demonstrate that true freedom is about being accepted, through the scenarios that Ambrose Flack has written for them to endure. In The Strangers That Came to Town, the Duvitches become truly free at the finale of the story. In our own lives, we must ask: what can we do to help others become truly free?”

Perry’s essay discusses freedom in the context of Ambrose Flack’s short story The Strangers That Came to Town : acceptance is the key to being free. When the immigrant Duvitch family moved into a new town, they were not accepted by the community and were deprived of the freedom to live without shame and ridicule. However, when some townspeople reach out, the Duvitches feel empowered and relieved and are no longer afraid to go out and be themselves.

“Freedom is many things, but those issues that are often in the forefront of conversations these days include the freedom to choose, to be who you truly are, to express yourself and to live your life as you desire so long as you do not hurt or restrict the personal freedom of others. I’ve compiled a collection of powerful quotations on the meaning of freedom to share with you, and if there is a single unifying theme it is that we must remember at all times that, regardless of where you live, freedom is not carved in stone, nor does it come without a price.”

In her short essay, Herald contemplates on freedom and what it truly means. She embraces her freedom and uses it to live her life to the fullest and to teach those around her. She values freedom and closes her essay with a list of quotations on the meaning of freedom, all with something in common: freedom has a price. With our freedom, we must be responsible. You might also be interested in these essays about consumerism .

4. Authentic Freedom by Wilfred Carlson

“Freedom demands of one, or rather obligates one to concern ourselves with the affairs of the world around us. If you look at the world around a human being, countries where freedom is lacking, the overall population is less concerned with their fellow man, then in a freer society. The same can be said of individuals, the more freedom a human being has, and the more responsible one acts to other, on the whole.”

Carlson writes about freedom from a more religious perspective, saying that it is a right given to us by God. However, authentic freedom is doing what is right and what will help others rather than simply doing what one wants. If freedom were exercised with “doing what we want” in mind, the world would be disorderly. True freedom requires us to care for others and work together to better society.

“In my opinion, the concepts of freedom and liberty are what makes us moral human beings. They include individual capacities to think, reason, choose and value different situations. It also means taking individual responsibility for ourselves, our decisions and actions. It includes self-governance and self-determination in combination with critical thinking, respect, transparency and tolerance. We should let no stone unturned in the attempt to reach a state of full freedom and liberty, even if it seems unrealistic and utopic.”

Youssef’s essay describes the concepts of freedom and liberty and how they allow us to do what we want without harming others. She notes that respect for others does not always mean agreeing with them. We can disagree, but we should not use our freedom to infringe on that of the people around us. To her, freedom allows us to choose what is good, think critically, and innovate.

7 Prompts for Essays About Freedom

Freedom is quite a broad topic and can mean different things to different people. For your essay, define freedom and explain what it means to you. For example, freedom could mean having the right to vote, the right to work, or the right to choose your path in life. Then, discuss how you exercise your freedom based on these definitions and views.

The world as we know it is constantly changing, and so is the entire concept of freedom. Research the state of freedom in the world today and center your essay on the topic of modern freedom. For example, discuss freedom while still needing to work to pay bills and ask, “Can we truly be free when we cannot choose with the constraints of social norms?” You may compare your situation to the state of freedom in other countries and in the past if you wish.

A common saying goes like this: “Freedom is not free.” Reflect on this quote and write your essay about what it means to you: how do you understand it? In addition, explain whether you believe it to be true or not, depending on your interpretation.

Many contemporary issues exemplify both the pros and cons of freedom; for example, slavery shows the worst when freedom is taken away, while gun violence exposes the disadvantages of too much freedom. First, discuss one issue regarding freedom and briefly touch on its causes and effects. Then, be sure to explain how it relates to freedom.

Some believe that more laws curtail the right to freedom and liberty. In contrast, others believe that freedom and regulation can coexist, saying that freedom must come with the responsibility to ensure a safe and orderly society. Take a stand on this issue and argue for your position, supporting your response with adequate details and credible sources.

Many people, especially online, have used their freedom of speech to attack others based on race and gender, among other things. Many argue that hate speech is still free and should be protected, while others want it regulated. Is it infringing on freedom? You decide and be sure to support your answer adequately. Include a rebuttal of the opposing viewpoint for a more credible argumentative essay.

For your essay, you can also reflect on a time you felt free. It could be your first time going out alone, moving into a new house, or even going to another country. How did it make you feel? Reflect on your feelings, particularly your sense of freedom, and explain them in detail.

Check out our guide packed full of transition words for essays .If you are interested in learning more, check out our essay writing tips !

Martin is an avid writer specializing in editing and proofreading. He also enjoys literary analysis and writing about food and travel.

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The True Meaning of Freedom

We may not have free will, but we can still act freely—sort of..

Posted January 22, 2012 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

America is a symbol of freedom all over the world, enjoying as it does freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press. Our ancestors prized these political freedoms so much that many of them were willing to die defending them. And though many of us are often accused today of taking them for granted, we continue to see people rising up to fight for them when they're threatened (when someone else's freedoms are threatened, too).

These freedoms, of course, aren't absolute. I can't yell "fire!" in a crowded movie theater when I know no fire exists, to cite a famous example of the limitations imposed on free speech. Nor can I threaten to detonate an imaginary bomb on a plane (even writing that phrase in a post is likely to attract the attention of the Office of Homeland Security). Nor, to paraphrase another famous line, can I swing my fist into the space your nose happens to occupy. In other words, to state the obvious, we're all free within limits .

So it has always been and so in a civil society must it always be. Mostly we don't notice these limitations because we've been programmed to not even think about being released from them (for the most part). And even when someone does want to punch someone else's nose, the threat of punishment isn't the only thing that stops them (at least we hope). It's also the sense that we shouldn't impinge upon someone else's right not to have their nose punched.

Political freedom, however, isn't the only realm in which freedom appears to be greater than it is. It turns out that our freedom to make even the simplest of choices (e.g., whether to put on brown or blue pants) may not just be more limited than we think—it may not exist at all.

As research in neuroscience progresses, it's steadily reinterpreting past ideas from other disciplines—notably, both psychology and philosophy —and quickly subsuming them. Freud 's conception of the unconscious mind has turned out to have an entirely neurological basis, for example, and though he got many of the details wrong, we now know that the greatest proportion of our thinking does indeed go on beneath our conscious awareness. Which, it turns out, is lucky for us.

As Daniel Kahneman points out in his fascinating new book Thinking, Fast and Slow we need what he calls System 1—the fast, unconscious thinker—to survive at all. If we had to consciously attend to all the things we need to do simply to make it out of bed in the morning, we'd not only never get anything done, we'd be continually exhausted. Conscious reasoning—the so-called " executive function " of the brain—is extremely tiring.

But as Kahneman also argues, System 2—the part of our minds we identify as "us"—is powerfully influenced by the workings of System 1. If we take the time, we can free ourselves from some of them, but not all, and certainly not all the time. The difficult truth is that "we" aren't free even from our unconscious selves. Of course, we've long known this—long before the concepts of System 1 and System 2 were even imagined. The intellect has ever been pitted against the emotions, our notion of what we should do, to offer just one example, often warring with and losing to what we want to do.

But for the age-old question of free will , it's even worse than that: it looks as if the answer is that we don't actually have it. Studies now show that the impulse to take the most basic of actions—the movement of a finger, for example—originate in the brain at least a full second before we're consciously aware of our desire to move it! It appears that the unconscious mind, functioning with an understanding bereft of language, may control far more of our conscious decision making than we ever imagined—if not all of it.

Philosophers and scientists are speaking out against these results, not so much to deny them but to try instead to salvage the notion of free will by redefining it. And though I think these efforts will ultimately fail, there exists good reason to want them to succeed: studies also show that when we lose our belief in free will, our motivation to act diminishes, as well.

However, the question the free will data should spark isn't merely whether we have free will. We should also be asking: what exactly do we mean by "we"? We self-identify with System 2, our conscious minds, our sense of self—whatever you want to call it—but in doing so, are we sure we're placing the seat of ourselves in the right location? We behave as if System 1 is a hobgoblin in our minds, separate from "us," doing as it pleases, serving its own interests, which are often different from "ours." But is this conception accurate?

Most of what System 1 does is actually done for our benefit. It helps us avoid traffic accidents and other environmental hazards, and recognize what others are feeling from the subtlest of facial expressions. On the other hand, it's often things we don't wish to be, like selfish, angry, and perverse.

I would argue, however, that a view of the unconscious mind as an entity distinct from that which we conceive of as "us" is flawed. It's certainly understandable that we'd think of it that way given that studies have demonstrated our conscious minds aren't able to control our unconscious ones. For example, we can't simply decide to stop feeling sad or depressed or—anything. Yet other avenues of influence over our unconscious minds do exist. We may not be able, in the heat of the moment, to stop ourselves from feeling angry (different, of course, from stopping ourselves from acting on our anger ), but we can over time ferret out the things that trigger our anger and defuse their ability to anger us. Thus we may, in fact, be able to forge a kind of indirect freedom, the freedom of our conscious minds to govern the basic direction of our lives by forging our unconscious selves into the people our conscious selves want them to be. That way, though we may not consciously initiate our fists to strike, our fists will lash out only when we agree they should.

It's quite a leap to imagine this is possible to the degree I'm suggesting. But it's tantalizing to imagine that the elephant of our unconscious mind that we're all riding and that may be in charge—to borrow Jonathan Haidt's metaphor from his book The Happiness Hypothesis —needn't only be made to do "our" bidding against its will, but that we can also train it to want what we want. Perhaps then the greatest potential for freedom lies in creating as much unity between our conscious and unconscious selves as possible.

Lickerman's book, The Undefeated Mind , was published in late 2012.

Alex Lickerman, M.D. , is a general internist and former Director of Primary Care at the University of Chicago and has been a practicing Buddhist since 1989.

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7.1: Freedom? Is it Real? A Myth? Maybe Not!

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What is Free Will?

What is at stake with this issue of Free Will are notions of responsibility and in particular moral responsibility. The more advances in science that present the picture of the universe as being deterministic, the more there arises the question of whether or not human actions are in any way exempt from that idea that all physical events are determined by prior events. How are humans to be considered possessed of free will when their actions might be described as being determined by their prior states of being?

Free Will or Not? Determinism or Free Will?

Free will is the ability of agents to make choices unconstrained by certain factors. Factors of historical concern have included metaphysical constraints (for example, logical, nomological, or theological determinism), physical constraints (ex., chains or imprisonment), social constraints (ex., threat of punishment, censure, or structural constraints), and mental constraints (ex, compulsions, phobias, neurological disorders, or genetic predispositions). The principle of free will has religious, legal, ethical, and scientific implications. [1] For example, in the religious realm, free will implies that individual will and choices can coexist with an omnipotent divinity. In the law, it affects considerations of punishment and rehabilitation. In ethics, it may hold implications for whether individuals can be held morally accountable for their actions. In science, neuroscientific findings regarding free will may suggest different ways of predicting human behavior…. The need to reconcile freedom of will with a deterministic universe is known as the Problem of Free Will or sometimes referred to as the Dilemma of Determinism . This dilemma leads to a moral dilemma as well: How are we to assign responsibility for our actions if they are caused entirely by past events?

Are you free? What makes you think so?

Humans are either free or they are not. They either possess free will and can use it or they do not have it at all. They either have it and can use it as often as they want to do so or they have only the appearance of free will and really never make decisions or choices devoid of prior influences that determine the outcome of the decision or choice making procedure.

That there may be social or physical constraints is not the issue here. Humans are not able to fly using only their own bodies to propel them through the air. You could say that humans are not "free" to do so but that would be to misuse the word "free" and change its meaning from "being able to choose" to "being physically able to do".

There may be repercussions or consequences for our actions so that a person might want to say something like "I am not free to rob a bank and by that mean that if they did they would be pursued and captured and imprisoned. If persons have free will, then that might mean simply that they can make the choice to rob a bank and flee capture. So "freedom" does not mean the ability to make decisions and to act without undesirable consequences.

Freedom in this context of the freedom versus determinism issue has a meaning that identifies it with possessing free will or being able to make choices for ones self.

Freedom's Not Just Another Word By DAVID HACKETT FISCHER, February 7 th , 2005 New York Times

.......There is no one true definition of liberty and freedom in the world, though many people to the left and right believe that they have found it. And, yet, there is one great historical process in which liberty and freedom have developed, often in unexpected ways.

The words themselves have a surprising history. The oldest known word with such a meaning comes to us from ancient Iraq. The Sumerian " ama-ar-gi ," found on tablets in the ruins of the city-state of Lagash, which flourished four millenniums ago, derived from the verb " ama-gi ," which literally meant "going home to mother." It described the condition of emancipated servants who returned to their own free families - an interesting link to the monument in Baghdad. (In contemporary America, the ancient characters for " ama-ar-gi " have become the logos of some libertarian organizations, as well as tattoos among members of politically conservative motorcycle gangs, who may not know that the inscriptions on their biceps mean heading home to mom.)

Equally surprising are the origins of our English words liberty and, especially, freedom. They have very different roots. The Latin libertas and Greek eleutheria both indicated a condition of independence, unlike a slave. (In science, eleutherodactylic means separate fingers or toes.) Freedom, however, comes from the same root as friend, an Indo-European word that meant "dear" or "beloved." It meant a connection to other free people by bonds of kinship or affection, also unlike a slave. Liberty and freedom both meant "unlike a slave." But liberty meant privileges of independence; freedom referred to rights of belonging. ...

Freedom? Is it real?

Most people born in the 20 th Century were raised with a conflicting set of beliefs concerning the issue of freedom. On the one hand people have been taught or encouraged to believe that they are responsible for their actions and that they are capable of choosing from among the options that are presented to them. Yet there is in the language that is used and in the ideas people claim to hold as true another view entirely, namely that there are forces, or a force, over which humans have no control and that determines what occurs. There are those who claim that they are free and believe that here is such a thing as fate or destiny at the same time.

Questions to Consider

How can it be that people are free to chose their own paths through life and yet all has been set out by the forces (deities) that have determined each person's ultimate end or destiny?
Are humans free to make decisions concerning their behavior or not?
If humans are not free then what becomes of the notion of responsibility and accountability?
What is to be done with those humans who commit crimes if they did so due to factors over which they had no control?
Are you one of those people who claim to believe in fate?
Do you think that all things occur as they were meant to occur?
Do you believe that "what will be will be?" ( que sera sera )

If you do and you think that you are free to make decisions and that the future is undetermined you are a believer in contradictory ideas. The idea of a fate or destiny rests on the belief (in the absence of proof that is clearly convincing) that there is some power or agency that does determine the sets of experiences to be encountered by humans as well as their ultimate demise in both time and manner. You are believing in things that cannot all be true at the same time.

Does infallible foreknowledge of a human act by a deity or the "fates" take away free will? People that can consistently maintain both free will and infallible foreknowledge are called compatibilists. They have a very difficult time providing evidence and reasoning to support their position. People that prove that only one of them can be true are called Incompatibilists. They hold that free will and infallible foreknowledge by any entity contradict with each other. Here are attempts to explain and argue for each of these views.

C has determined that at time (T) you will be in location (F) and event (E) that you are hit by a meteorite and die. Opps! Sorry! Now, you can do whatever you like but if there is such a fate then at T you will be at F and then E you die. Sorry again. But you can make a decision to remain where you are now at location (l) when time T comes and avoid E. But you do not know the future and so when T comes around you have made decisions that place you at F and you get hit and die.

Were you free to decide to remain at l or to go to some other location (O) when T came? People are brought up to believe that they are, but if there is a C that has determined that you are to be at F at T and get hit then you do not have such freedom to make the decision to be at O, act on it and to be at O, or I, and not die.

If it is your C to be at F at T and have E occur then you have been determined by C to make the decisions that put you at F at T. You have no choice to decide to do anything but to be at F at T.

Okay let's try to get freedom back into this. Let's say now you are at l and it is getting close to T and you decide of your own free will (if you have a free will) to go to a location (O) other than (F). If there is fate then when you decide to go to O something will happen that will force you, against your apparent free will, to go from O instead be at F at T where you get E. But are we still free? Well not quite, because when we make decisions to go from O we do not feel as if we are being forced to go to F. We make decisions throughout our daily life and it appears as if they are free and not forced and that our bodies are not being forced into physical places by physicals agents. So if there is fate and fate determines what happens to us it is not through a series of physical agents acting like thugs and forcing us to do things. No we realize our predetermined fate by actions that appear to be our own choosing. If there is fate it would be fate that acts through us and gives us desires and aims and values and goals and they cause our decisions and they lead to our experiences and to our choices that bring us to F at T to have E. This would be such as to make the decision to go to O and as you are making your way to go to O you are on spot F at time T when you are hit by the meteorite E.

Conclusion: If there is fate, there is no free will.

OK, let's suppose that there is a cause of events (C), a fate or fates or deity or deities that determine each person's destiny but has no foreknowledge of what will happen and no control over the decision making of humans. The C knows you are at L and wants to arrange that at time T you are at F and have E. So now if there is this sort of fate then some things, some events, will occur where you would react and move from L to F at T and have E. In this case C made you move to F at T. Were you free? Did you have free will? Could you have decided to go to O and not to F at time T? Perhaps, but if there is a C then when you make a decision in your daily life to go to O you would be forced to be at F by some agencies or agents that put you at F at T and boom E. Is this what daily life feels like? Are we regularly deciding to do one thing or go to one place only to be forced to another? If there is fate then it determines everything that happens and the events that lead up to the "Big Events" that are so memorable and the benchmarks of our lives. If there is fate then it determines everything that happens whether large or small events because they all contribute to the production of the memorable and the benchmarks of our lives. If there is such a fate operative we would experience a near constant subversion of our free will choices and the events we do experience will seem forced against our wills. This is not our experience on a minute by minute or hour by hour basis!

Consider this:

The idea of a Fate or Destiny rests on the belief (in the absence of proof that is clearly convincing) that there is some power or agency that determines the sets of experiences to be encountered by humans as well as their ultimate demise in both time and manner. As there is no convincing proof such an agency exists we will examine another sense in which freedom or free will is challenged.

Are humans free to determine each and every one of their own actions or is there some force, agency, or process that determines it as a result of prior experiences?

Consider some simple definitions for the basic positions:

Causal determinism - every event has a cause
Hard determinism - causal determinism is true, and therefore, free action and moral responsibility are impossible
Soft determinism (or compatibilism) - causal determinism is true, but we still act as free, morally responsible agents when, in the absence of external constraints, our actions are caused by our desires
Indeterminism - causal determinism is false, since free, uncaused actions that we are morally responsible for are possible

Examine this chart to learn of the positions of the traditions on five claims.

Problems and Arguments

So here we have one form of the problem with the idea of human freedom. Are humans possessed of the capacity to make a decision, a choice, that is not fully determined by antecedent conditions or not? Are humans free, so free that they can do things that are totally unbound by the laws of the physical universe, totally undetermined by previous acts and events and physical circumstances? Or, alternatively, are humans potentially predictable as a physical object, say a dropped book. Pick up a book, hold it about four feet above the ground and let it go. The book will drop to the ground. The book has no choice. The book's actions are determined by the laws of the physical universe. The law of gravity operates on the book.

Well, there are those who believe that there is perhaps nothing more obvious than that they are free. They believe that they make decisions all the time. They believe that they have free will.

There are others who believe that humans are physical beings that are bound by the laws of the physical universes and that as the human brain are also part of that universe there are laws governing the operations of the brain as well. There are those who believe that the day will come when humans know enough about the laws of the human brain and behavior that humans will be able to predict with great accuracy exactly what a human being will do in a given situation. They believe that human behavior will be as predictable as a book when dropped. They believe that people will need to abandon the idea of human freedom.

Now you might not agree with them. You may think that you know that you are free. How do you know that you weren't just encouraged to believe that, taught to believe that, conditioned to believe that, trained to believe that, reinforced into believing that?

Freedom or Myth

You lift up a large book, say a textbook, and raise it four feet above the ground. You let it go and it hits the ground. No problem there! No surprises, just what you expected. Now suppose you lift up the book again and raise it four feet above the ground. In your other hand you hold a single sheet of paper, say printer paper, 8 1/2 x 11 inches. You hold the piece of paper at the same height you are holding the book. You let them go at the same time and they both fall to the ground. The book hits first then the paper. Do it again. Raise them both and then let them go and again. Well each time the same thing happens. The book hits the ground first and the piece of paper arrives on the ground a second or so later. Why does the book hit the ground first?

Did you answer that the book falls faster and hits the ground first because it is heavier? Lots of people think this. If you do you are in some pretty popular company.

But consider this:

You lift up a large book, say a textbook, and raise it four feet above the ground. You let it go and it hits the ground. No surprises, just what you expected. Now suppose in your other hand you hold a single sheet of paper. You crumple up the paper pretty well. You squeeze it into a small ball. You hold the paper ball four feet above the ground at the same time you are holding the book. You let them go at the same time and they both fall to the ground. Do it again. Raise them both and then let them go. What happens?

Well the book and the crumpled piece of paper hit the ground at just about the same time. Do it again if you doubt that. Well if you thought that the book was hitting the ground first because it was heavier than the single piece of paper, you have a couple of choices as to what to believe now:

Somehow the single piece of paper gained a lot of weight and now falls almost as fast as the textbook.
The textbook somehow lost weight and is now about as light as the single piece of paper.
You were wrong when you thought that the book falls faster because it is heavier.

If you thought that heavier things fall faster than light things, you were wrong! Oh my, now what to believe! Galileo disproved that idea about heavy things falling faster than lighter things because of the weight. He disproved it over 400 years ago. OK, what's my point here. That the idea about heavy things falling faster than lighter things because of the weight is still popular and it appears to a lot of people to be very obvious but, it is wrong.

On how things fall and why they fall as they do. See the following video for common misconceptions.

Misconceptions About Falling Objects

So if your belief about why things fall was not correct or not true at all, then consider this: maybe, just maybe, the belief most people have about human freedom is wrong as well. Not everything is as it appears to be.

Let's look at ideas of human freedom, even radical ideas. Let's start with exploring what most people already believe and then let's consider the ideas of the critics of freedom, the determinists.

There are 3 main positions in the free will debate:

Hard Determinism
Libertarianism
Compatibilism

Hard Determinists and libertarians are both Incompatibilists. They both subscribe to the Incompatibilist thesis that determinism is incompatible with acting freely.

Do We Have Free Will or is Everything Determined?

Philosophy Applications

Do Humans have free will, if so, how free is it? In other words, are all human actions determined, if so how so, to what degree?
Suppose that you are a bank teller and are held up at gun point. You decide that heroics are out of the question and hand over the money. Are you acting freely? Why or why not?
Psychologists have found that a belief in Determinism caused an increase in immoral behavior. If science succeeds in showing that there is no free will, should we nevertheless pretend that we have free will? Could we do such a thing?
Foreknowledge and Freedom
Elephant and Feather-Free Fall
Acceleration and Gravity
Determinism and Free Will

Vocabulary Quizlet 7.1

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Essay on Freedom in 100, 200 and 300 Words

Updated on
Nov 15, 2023

Before starting to write an essay on freedom, you must understand what this multifaceted term means. Freedom is not just a term, but a concept holding several meanings. Freedom generally refers to being able to act, speak or think as one wants without any restrictions or hindrances. Freedom encompasses the ability to make independent decisions and express your thoughts without any fear so that one can achieve their goals and aspirations. Let’s check out some essays on freedom for more brief information.

This Blog Includes:

Essay on freedom in 100 words, essay on freedom in 200 words, essay on freedom in 300 words.

Shiva Tyagi

With an experience of over a year, I've developed a passion for writing blogs on wide range of topics. I am mostly inspired from topics related to social and environmental fields, where you come up with a positive outcome.

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Freedom Essay

What is Freedom?

If we ever wonder what freedom is, we can look around and see the birds flying high up in the sky. While we in the land work in order to get something, we are actually captivated by that invisible power of want. The former indicates what freedom is while the latter indicates slavery. Well, this is a philosophical justification of what we mean about the term ‘freedom’. The real meaning of freedom is the state of independence where one can do whatever one likes without any restriction by anyone. Moreover, freedom is defined as the state of mind where we have the right and are free to do what we can think of. The main emphasis of freedom is we need to feel freedom from within.

Freedom is a very common term everybody has heard of but if you ask for its exact definition or meaning then it will differ from person to person. For some Freedom may mean the Freedom of going anywhere in the world they would like, for some it means to speak up for themselves and stay independent and positive, and for some, it is the liberty of doing anything whatever they like.

Thus Freedom cannot be contained and given a specific meaning. It differs from every culture, city, and individual. But Freedom in any language or any form totally depends on how any particular person handles the situation and it largely shows the true character of someone.

Different Types of Freedom

Freedom differs from person to person and from every different situation one faces. Hence Freedom can be classified as

Freedom of association.

Freedom of belief.

Freedom of speech.

Freedom to express oneself.

Freedom of the press.

Freedom to choose one's state in life.

Freedom of religion.

Freedom from bondage and slavery.

The list can even continue because every individual's wish and perspective differ.

FAQs on Freedom Essay

1. What is democracy?

Democracy can be defined as - "a government by the people in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system". Also, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, democracy is a government that is "of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Democracy is such a form of government where the rulers are being elected by the people. The single chief factor that is common to all democracies is that the government is chosen by the people. The non-democratic government can be the example of Myanmar, where the rulers are not elected by the people.

2. Why is freedom important in our life?

Freedom is very important as this gives us the right to be ourselves, and this helps to work together after maintaining autonomy. Freedom is quite important as the opposite is detrimental to our own well-being and which is inconsistent with our nature.

Freedom is a necessary ingredient for the pursuit of happiness for an individual. Freedom also may be negative or positive – freedom from the constraints on our choices and actions, and the freedom to grow, in order to determine who and what we are.

3. What do you mean by ‘Right to Freedom of Religion’?

We all have the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and also religion. This right includes the freedom to change our religion or belief. We can change our religion either alone or in community with others in public or in private, to manifest this religion or the belief, in worship, in teaching also in practice and observance.

4. Why is Freedom essential in everyone's life?

Freedom is a space or condition in which people will have the sole opportunity to speak, act and pursue their own happiness without unnecessary or any external restrictions which may even involve their own parents, friends, or siblings. Literally no one has the right to get involved in someone else’s life and try to fit in their opinion. Freedom is really important in everyone's life because it leads to enhanced expressions of creativity and original thought, increased productivity in their own view, and overall high quality of life.

5. What does real Freedom actually look like?

Real Freedom is being able to do what you want and whenever you want without someone actually getting involved in your life, being duty and responsibility-free but that doesn't mean being unemployed and this means Freedom to choose your own career and working in your own space with full acknowledgment not really bothered by what other people think, being careless but not being irresponsible about whatever happens in your life by taking full control of your life in your hands, being Spiritually Free is definitely another form of Freedom from certain beliefs and superstitions and finally having enough money to enjoy your life in your taste is the most important form of Freedom.

6. Is Freedom a better option always in every situation?

It is definitely a no because we Indians are brought up in that way that we always tend to be dependent or rely on someone for at least one particular thing in our life. Because we tend to make mistakes and make wrong decisions when we are in an emotional state, hence it is good to have one soul you might go back to often when you are confused. Our parents have brought us up in a way where we are expected to meet certain family standards and social standards so we are bound to get tied under some family emotions most of the time. But it is necessary to decide what is good for you in the end.

7. What does the feeling of finally enjoying Freedom look like?

You will have an ample amount of energy for desiring and taking the required action, and you will finally move whole-heartedly towards your own decision. You feel happy with the Freedom of just existing on this earth itself. You think your individuality has value now among both family and society. It's important that you do not just have the right to do what you want but can also choose happiness over adjustments and don't do what you actually do not want.

8. Why is Freedom of Expression more important than anything else?

Freedom of Expression is the most important human right which is essential for a society to be democratic and equal in serving both men and women or anyone. It enables the free exchange of ideas, opinions, and information and thus allows members of society to form their own opinions on issues of public importance but not only public opinion but also regarding families or any relationship for that matter. Expressing what one feels or what they actually go through is absolutely their own right which no one can ever deny.

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Positive and Negative Liberty

Negative liberty is the absence of obstacles, barriers or constraints. One has negative liberty to the extent that actions are available to one in this negative sense. Positive liberty is the possibility of acting — or the fact of acting — in such a way as to take control of one’s life and realize one’s fundamental purposes. While negative liberty is usually attributed to individual agents, positive liberty is sometimes attributed to collectivities, or to individuals considered primarily as members of given collectivities.

The idea of distinguishing between a negative and a positive sense of the term ‘liberty’ goes back at least to Kant, and was examined and defended in depth by Isaiah Berlin in the 1950s and ’60s. Discussions about positive and negative liberty normally take place within the context of political and social philosophy. They are distinct from, though sometimes related to, philosophical discussions about free will . Work on the nature of positive liberty often overlaps, however, with work on the nature of autonomy .

As Berlin showed, negative and positive liberty are not merely two distinct kinds of liberty; they can be seen as rival, incompatible interpretations of a single political ideal. Since few people claim to be against liberty, the way this term is interpreted and defined can have important political implications. Political liberalism tends to presuppose a negative definition of liberty: liberals generally claim that if one favors individual liberty one should place strong limitations on the activities of the state. Critics of liberalism often contest this implication by contesting the negative definition of liberty: they argue that the pursuit of liberty understood as self-realization or as self-determination (whether of the individual or of the collectivity) can require state intervention of a kind not normally allowed by liberals.

Many authors prefer to talk of positive and negative freedom . This is only a difference of style, and the terms ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom’ are normally used interchangeably by political and social philosophers. Although some attempts have been made to distinguish between liberty and freedom (Pitkin 1988; Williams 2001; Dworkin 2011), generally speaking these have not caught on. Neither can they be translated into other European languages, which contain only the one term, of either Latin or Germanic origin (e.g. liberté, Freiheit), where English contains both.

1. Two Concepts of Liberty

2. the paradox of positive liberty, 3.1 positive liberty as content-neutral, 3.2 republican liberty, 4. one concept of liberty: freedom as a triadic relation, 5. the analysis of constraints: their types and their sources, 6. the concept of overall freedom, 7. is the distinction still useful, introductory works, other works, other internet resources, related entries.

Imagine you are driving a car through town, and you come to a fork in the road. You turn left, but no one was forcing you to go one way or the other. Next you come to a crossroads. You turn right, but no one was preventing you from going left or straight on. There is no traffic to speak of and there are no diversions or police roadblocks. So you seem, as a driver, to be completely free. But this picture of your situation might change quite dramatically if we consider that the reason you went left and then right is that you’re addicted to cigarettes and you’re desperate to get to the tobacconists before it closes. Rather than driving , you feel you are being driven , as your urge to smoke leads you uncontrollably to turn the wheel first to the left and then to the right. Moreover, you’re perfectly aware that your turning right at the crossroads means you’ll probably miss a train that was to take you to an appointment you care about very much. You long to be free of this irrational desire that is not only threatening your longevity but is also stopping you right now from doing what you think you ought to be doing.

This story gives us two contrasting ways of thinking of liberty. On the one hand, one can think of liberty as the absence of obstacles external to the agent. You are free if no one is stopping you from doing whatever you might want to do. In the above story you appear, in this sense, to be free. On the other hand, one can think of liberty as the presence of control on the part of the agent. To be free, you must be self-determined, which is to say that you must be able to control your own destiny in your own interests. In the above story you appear, in this sense, to be unfree: you are not in control of your own destiny, as you are failing to control a passion that you yourself would rather be rid of and which is preventing you from realizing what you recognize to be your true interests. One might say that while on the first view liberty is simply about how many doors are open to the agent, on the second view it is more about going through the right doors for the right reasons.

In a famous essay first published in 1958, Isaiah Berlin called these two concepts of liberty negative and positive respectively (Berlin 1969). [ 1 ] The reason for using these labels is that in the first case liberty seems to be a mere absence of something (i.e. of obstacles, barriers, constraints or interference from others), whereas in the second case it seems to require the presence of something (i.e. of control, self-mastery, self-determination or self-realization). In Berlin’s words, we use the negative concept of liberty in attempting to answer the question “What is the area within which the subject — a person or group of persons — is or should be left to do or be what he is able to do or be, without interference by other persons?”, whereas we use the positive concept in attempting to answer the question “What, or who, is the source of control or interference that can determine someone to do, or be, this rather than that?” (1969, pp. 121–22).

It is useful to think of the difference between the two concepts in terms of the difference between factors that are external and factors that are internal to the agent. While theorists of negative freedom are primarily interested in the degree to which individuals or groups suffer interference from external bodies, theorists of positive freedom are more attentive to the internal factors affecting the degree to which individuals or groups act autonomously. Given this difference, one might be tempted to think that a political philosopher should concentrate exclusively on negative freedom, a concern with positive freedom being more relevant to psychology or individual morality than to political and social institutions. This, however, would be premature, for among the most hotly debated issues in political philosophy are the following: Is the positive concept of freedom a political concept? Can individuals or groups achieve positive freedom through political action? Is it possible for the state to promote the positive freedom of citizens on their behalf? And if so, is it desirable for the state to do so? The classic texts in the history of western political thought are divided over how these questions should be answered: theorists in the classical liberal tradition, like Benjamin Constant, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Herbert Spencer, and J.S. Mill, are typically classed as answering ‘no’ and therefore as defending a negative concept of political freedom; theorists that are critical of this tradition, like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Marx and T.H. Green, are typically classed as answering ‘yes’ and as defending a positive concept of political freedom.

In its political form, positive freedom has often been thought of as necessarily achieved through a collectivity. Perhaps the clearest case is that of Rousseau’s theory of freedom, according to which individual freedom is achieved through participation in the process whereby one’s community exercises collective control over its own affairs in accordance with the ‘general will’. Put in the simplest terms, one might say that a democratic society is a free society because it is a self-determined society, and that a member of that society is free to the extent that he or she participates in its democratic process. But there are also individualist applications of the concept of positive freedom. For example, it is sometimes said that a government should aim actively to create the conditions necessary for individuals to be self-sufficient or to achieve self-realization. The welfare state has sometimes been defended on this basis, as has the idea of a universal basic income. The negative concept of freedom, on the other hand, is most commonly assumed in liberal defences of the constitutional liberties typical of liberal-democratic societies, such as freedom of movement, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech, and in arguments against paternalist or moralist state intervention. It is also often invoked in defences of the right to private property. This said, some philosophers have contested the claim that private property necessarily enhances negative liberty (Cohen 1995, 2006), and still others have tried to show that negative liberty can ground a form of egalitarianism (Steiner 1994).

After Berlin, the most widely cited and best developed analyses of the negative concept of liberty include Hayek (1960), Day (1971), Oppenheim (1981), Miller (1983) and Steiner (1994). Among the most prominent contemporary analyses of the positive concept of liberty are Milne (1968), Gibbs (1976), C. Taylor (1979) and Christman (1991, 2005).

Many liberals, including Berlin, have suggested that the positive concept of liberty carries with it a danger of authoritarianism. Consider the fate of a permanent and oppressed minority. Because the members of this minority participate in a democratic process characterized by majority rule, they might be said to be free on the grounds that they are members of a society exercising self-control over its own affairs. But they are oppressed, and so are surely unfree. Moreover, it is not necessary to see a society as democratic in order to see it as self-controlled; one might instead adopt an organic conception of society, according to which the collectivity is to be thought of as a living organism, and one might believe that this organism will only act rationally, will only be in control of itself, when its various parts are brought into line with some rational plan devised by its wise governors (who, to extend the metaphor, might be thought of as the organism’s brain). In this case, even the majority might be oppressed in the name of liberty.

Such justifications of oppression in the name of liberty are no mere products of the liberal imagination, for there are notorious historical examples of their endorsement by authoritarian political leaders. Berlin, himself a liberal and writing during the cold war, was clearly moved by the way in which the apparently noble ideal of freedom as self-mastery or self-realization had been twisted and distorted by the totalitarian dictators of the twentieth century — most notably those of the Soviet Union — so as to claim that they, rather than the liberal West, were the true champions of freedom. The slippery slope towards this paradoxical conclusion begins, according to Berlin, with the idea of a divided self. To illustrate: the smoker in our story provides a clear example of a divided self, for she is both a self that desires to get to an appointment and a self that desires to get to the tobacconists, and these two desires are in conflict. We can now enrich this story in a plausible way by adding that one of these selves — the keeper of appointments — is superior to the other: the self that is a keeper of appointments is thus a ‘higher’ self, and the self that is a smoker is a ‘lower’ self. The higher self is the rational, reflecting self, the self that is capable of moral action and of taking responsibility for what she does. This is the true self, for rational reflection and moral responsibility are the features of humans that mark them off from other animals. The lower self, on the other hand, is the self of the passions, of unreflecting desires and irrational impulses. One is free, then, when one’s higher, rational self is in control and one is not a slave to one’s passions or to one’s merely empirical self. The next step down the slippery slope consists in pointing out that some individuals are more rational than others, and can therefore know best what is in their and others’ rational interests. This allows them to say that by forcing people less rational than themselves to do the rational thing and thus to realize their true selves, they are in fact liberating them from their merely empirical desires. Occasionally, Berlin says, the defender of positive freedom will take an additional step that consists in conceiving of the self as wider than the individual and as represented by an organic social whole — “a tribe, a race, a church, a state, the great society of the living and the dead and the yet unborn”. The true interests of the individual are to be identified with the interests of this whole, and individuals can and should be coerced into fulfilling these interests, for they would not resist coercion if they were as rational and wise as their coercers. “Once I take this view”, Berlin says, “I am in a position to ignore the actual wishes of men or societies, to bully, oppress, torture in the name, and on behalf, of their ‘real’ selves, in the secure knowledge that whatever is the true goal of man ... must be identical with his freedom” (Berlin 1969, pp. 132–33).

Those in the negative camp try to cut off this line of reasoning at the first step, by denying that there is any necessary relation between one’s freedom and one’s desires. Since one is free to the extent that one is externally unprevented from doing things, they say, one can be free to do what one does not desire to do. If being free meant being unprevented from realizing one’s desires, then one could, again paradoxically, reduce one’s unfreedom by coming to desire fewer of the things one is unfree to do. One could become free simply by contenting oneself with one’s situation. A perfectly contented slave is perfectly free to realize all of her desires. Nevertheless, we tend to think of slavery as the opposite of freedom. More generally, freedom is not to be confused with happiness, for in logical terms there is nothing to stop a free person from being unhappy or an unfree person from being happy. The happy person might feel free, but whether they are free is another matter (Day, 1970). Negative theorists of freedom therefore tend to say not that having freedom means being unprevented from doing as one desires, but that it means being unprevented from doing whatever one might desire to do (Steiner 1994. Cf. Van Parijs 1995; Sugden 2006).

Some theorists of positive freedom bite the bullet and say that the contented slave is indeed free — that in order to be free the individual must learn, not so much to dominate certain merely empirical desires, but to rid herself of them. She must, in other words, remove as many of her desires as possible. As Berlin puts it, if I have a wounded leg ‘there are two methods of freeing myself from pain. One is to heal the wound. But if the cure is too difficult or uncertain, there is another method. I can get rid of the wound by cutting off my leg’ (1969, pp. 135–36). This is the strategy of liberation adopted by ascetics, stoics and Buddhist sages. It involves a ‘retreat into an inner citadel’ — a soul or a purely noumenal self — in which the individual is immune to any outside forces. But this state, even if it can be achieved, is not one that liberals would want to call one of freedom, for it again risks masking important forms of oppression. It is, after all, often in coming to terms with excessive external limitations in society that individuals retreat into themselves, pretending to themselves that they do not really desire the worldly goods or pleasures they have been denied. Moreover, the removal of desires may also be an effect of outside forces, such as brainwashing, which we should hardly want to call a realization of freedom.

Because the concept of negative freedom concentrates on the external sphere in which individuals interact, it seems to provide a better guarantee against the dangers of paternalism and authoritarianism perceived by Berlin. To promote negative freedom is to promote the existence of a sphere of action within which the individual is sovereign, and within which she can pursue her own projects subject only to the constraint that she respect the spheres of others. Humboldt and Mill, both advocates of negative freedom, compared the development of an individual to that of a plant: individuals, like plants, must be allowed to grow, in the sense of developing their own faculties to the full and according to their own inner logic. Personal growth is something that cannot be imposed from without, but must come from within the individual.

3. Two Attempts to Create a Third Way

Critics, however, have objected that the ideal described by Humboldt and Mill looks much more like a positive concept of liberty than a negative one. Positive liberty consists, they say, in exactly this growth of the individual: the free individual is one that develops, determines and changes her own desires and interests autonomously and from within. This is not liberty as the mere absence of obstacles, but liberty as autonomy or self-realization. Why should the mere absence of state interference be thought to guarantee such growth? Is there not some third way between the extremes of totalitarianism and the minimal state of the classical liberals — some non-paternalist, non-authoritarian means by which positive liberty in the above sense can be actively promoted?

Much of the more recent work on positive liberty has been motivated by a dissatisfaction with the ideal of negative liberty combined with an awareness of the possible abuses of the positive concept so forcefully exposed by Berlin. John Christman (1991, 2005, 2009, 2013), for example, has argued that positive liberty concerns the ways in which desires are formed — whether as a result of rational reflection on all the options available, or as a result of pressure, manipulation or ignorance. What it does not regard, he says, is the content of an individual’s desires. The promotion of positive freedom need not therefore involve the claim that there is only one right answer to the question of how a person should live, nor need it allow, or even be compatible with, a society forcing its members into given patterns of behavior. Take the example of a Muslim woman who claims to espouse the fundamentalist doctrines generally followed by her family and the community in which she lives. On Christman’s account, this person is positively unfree if her desire to conform was somehow oppressively imposed upon her through indoctrination, manipulation or deceit. She is positively free, on the other hand, if she arrived at her desire to conform while aware of other reasonable options and she weighed and assessed these other options rationally. Even if this woman seems to have a preference for subservient behavior, there is nothing necessarily freedom-enhancing or freedom-restricting about her having the desires she has, since freedom regards not the content of these desires but their mode of formation. On this view, forcing her to do certain things rather than others can never make her more free, and Berlin’s paradox of positive freedom would seem to have been avoided.

This more ‘procedural’ account of positive liberty allows us to point to kinds of internal constraint that seem too fall off the radar if we adopt only negative concept. For example, some radical political theorists believe it can help us to make sense of forms of oppression and structural injustice that cannot be traced to overt acts of prevention or coercion. On the one hand, in agreement with Berlin, we should recognize the dangers of that come with promoting the values or interests of a person’s ‘true self’ in opposition to what they manifestly desire. Thus, the procedural account avoids all reference to a ‘true self’. On the other, we should recognize that people’s actual selves are inevitably formed in a social context and that their values and senses of identity (for example, in terms of gender or race or nationality) are shaped by cultural influences. In this sense, the self is ‘socially constructed’, and this social construction can itself occur in oppressive ways. The challenge, then, is to show how a person’s values can be thus shaped but without the kind of oppressive imposition or manipulation that comes not only from political coercion but also, more subtly, from practices or institutions that stigmatize or marginalize certain identities or that attach costs to the endorsement of values deviating from acceptable norms, for these kinds of imposition or manipulation can be just another way of promoting a substantive ideal of the self. And this was exactly the danger against which Berlin was warning, except that the danger is less visible and can be created unintentionally (Christman 2013, 2015, 2021; Hirschmann 2003, 2013; Coole 2013).

While this theory of positive freedom undoubtedly provides a tool for criticizing the limiting effects of certain practices and institutions in contemporary liberal societies, it remains to be seen what kinds of political action can be pursued in order to promote content-neutral positive liberty without encroaching on any individual’s rightful sphere of negative liberty. Thus, the potential conflict between the two ideals of negative and positive freedom might survive Christman’s alternative analysis, albeit in a milder form. Even if we rule out coercing individuals into specific patterns of behavior, a state interested in promoting content-neutral positive liberty might still have considerable space for intervention aimed at ‘public enlightenment’, perhaps subsidizing some kinds of activities (in order to encourage a plurality of genuine options) and financing such intervention through taxation. Liberals might criticize this kind of intervention on anti-paternalist grounds, objecting that such measures will require the state to use resources in ways that the supposedly heteronomous individuals, if left to themselves, might have chosen to spend in other ways. In other words, even in its content-neutral form, the ideal of positive freedom might still conflict with the liberal idea of respect for persons, one interpretation of which involves viewing individuals from the outside and taking their choices at face value. From a liberal point of view, the blindness to internal constraints can be intentional (Carter 2011a). Some liberals will make an exception to this restriction on state intervention in the case of the education of children, in such a way as to provide for the active cultivation of open minds and rational reflection. Even here, however, other liberals will object that the right to negative liberty includes the right to decide how one’s children should be educated.

Is it necessary to refer to internal constraints in order to make sense of the phenomena of oppression and structural injustice? Some might contest this view, or say that it is true only up to a point, for there are at least two reasons for thinking that the oppressed are lacking in negative liberty. First, while Berlin himself equated economic and social disadvantages with natural disabilities, claiming that neither represented constraints on negative liberty but only on personal abilities, many theorists of negative liberty disagree: if I lack the money to buy a jacket from a clothes shop, then any attempt on my part to carry away the jacket is likely to meet with preventive actions or punishment on the part of the shop keeper or the agents of the state. This is a case of interpersonal interference, not merely of personal inability. In the normal circumstances of a market economy, purchasing power is indeed a very reliable indicator of how far other people will stop you from doing certain things if you try. It is therefore strongly correlated with degrees of negative freedom (Cohen 1995, 2011; Waldron 1993; Carter 2007; Grant 2013). Thus, while the promotion of content-neutral positive liberty might imply the transfer of certain kinds of resources to members of disadvantaged groups, the same might be true of the promotion of negative liberty. Second, the negative concept of freedom can be applied directly to disadvantaged groups as well as to their individual members. Some social structures may be such as to tolerate the liberation of only a limited number of members of a given group. G.A. Cohen famously focused on the case proletarians who can escape their condition by successfully setting up a business of their own though a mixture of hard work and luck. In such cases, while each individual member of the disadvantaged group might be negatively free in the sense of being unprevented from choosing the path of liberation, the freedom of the individual is conditional on the unfreedom of the majority of the rest of the group, since not all can escape in this way. Each individual member of the class therefore partakes in a form of collective negative unfreedom (Cohen 1988, 2006; for discussion see Mason 1996; Hindricks 2008; Grant 2013; Schmidt 2020).

Another increasingly influential group of philosophers has rejected both the negative and the positive conception, claiming that liberty is not merely the enjoyment of a sphere of non-interference but the enjoyment of certain conditions in which such non-interference is guaranteed (Pettit 1997, 2001, 2014; Skinner 1998, 2002; Weinstock and Nadeau 2004; Laborde and Maynor 2008; Lovett 2010, forthcoming; Breen and McBride 2015, List and Valentini 2016). These conditions may include the presence of a democratic constitution and a series of safeguards against a government wielding power arbitrarily, including popular control and the separation of powers. As Berlin admits, on the negative view, I am free even if I live in a dictatorship just as long as the dictator happens, on a whim, not to interfere with me (see also Hayek 1960). There is no necessary connection between negative liberty and any particular form of government. Is it not counterintuitive to say that I can in theory be free even if I live in a dictatorship, or that a slave can enjoy considerable liberty as long as the slave-owner is compassionate and generous? Would my subjection to the arbitrary power of a dictator or slave-owner not itself be sufficient to qualify me as unfree? If it would be, then we should say that I am free only if I live in a society with the kinds of political institutions that guarantee the independence of each citizen from such arbitrary power. Quentin Skinner has called this view of freedom ‘neo-Roman’, invoking ideas about freedom both of the ancient Romans and of a number of Renaissance and early modern writers. Philip Pettit has called the same view ‘republican’, and this label has generally prevailed in the recent literature.

Republican freedom can be thought of as a kind of status : to be a free person is to enjoy the rights and privileges attached to the status of republican citizenship, whereas the paradigm of the unfree person is the slave. Freedom is not simply a matter of non-interference, for a slave may enjoy a great deal of non-interference at the whim of her master. What makes her unfree is her status, such that she is permanently exposed to interference of any kind. Even if the slave enjoys non-interference, she is, as Pettit puts it, ‘dominated’, because she is permanently subject to the arbitrary power of her owner.

According to Pettit, then, republicans conceive of freedom not as non-interference, as on the standard negative view, but as ‘non-domination’. Non-domination is distinct from negative freedom, he says, for two reasons. First, as we have seen, one can enjoy non-interference without enjoying non-domination. Second, one can enjoy non-domination while nevertheless being interfered with, just as long as the interference in question is constrained to track one’s avowed interests thanks to republican power structures: only arbitrary power is inimical to freedom, not power as such.

On the other hand, republican freedom is also distinct from positive freedom as expounded and criticized by Berlin. First, republican freedom does not consist in the activity of virtuous political participation; rather, that participation is seen as instrumentally related to freedom as non-domination. Secondly, the republican concept of freedom cannot lead to anything like the oppressive consequences feared by Berlin, because it has a commitment to non-domination and to liberal-democratic institutions already built into it.

Pettit’s idea of freedom as non domination has caught the imagination of a great many political theorists over the last two decades. One source of its popularity lies in the fact that it seems to make sense of the phenomena of oppression and structural injustice referred to above, but without necessarily relying on references to internal constraints. It has been applied not only to relations of domination between governments and citizens, but also to relations of domination between employers and workers (Breen and McBride 2015), between husbands and wives (Lovett forthcoming), and between able-bodied and disabled people (De Wispelaere and Casassas 2014).

It remains to be seen, however, whether the republican concept of freedom is ultimately distinguishable from the negative concept, or whether republican writers on freedom have not simply provided good arguments to the effect that negative freedom is best promoted, on balance and over time , through certain kinds of political institutions rather than others. While there is no necessary connection between negative liberty and democratic government, there may nevertheless be a strong empirical correlation between the two. Ian Carter (1999, 2008), Matthew H. Kramer (2003, 2008), and Robert Goodin and Frank Jackson (2007) have argued, along these lines, that republican policies are best defended empirically on the basis of the standard negative ideal of freedom, rather than on the basis of a conceptual challenge to that ideal. An important premise in such an argument is that the extent of a person’s negative freedom is a function not simply of how many single actions are prevented, but of how many different act-combinations are prevented. On this basis, people who can achieve their goals only by bowing and scraping to their masters must be seen as less free, negatively, than people who can achieve those goals unconditionally. Another important premise is that the extent to which people are negatively free depends, in part, on the probability with which they will be constrained from performing future acts or act-combinations. People who are subject to arbitrary power can be seen as less free in the negative sense even if they do not actually suffer interference, because the probability of their suffering constraints is always greater ( ceteris paribus , as a matter of empirical fact) than it would be if they were not subject to that arbitrary power. Only this greater probability, they say, can adequately explain republican references to the ‘fear’, the ‘sense of exposure’, and the ‘precariousness’ of the dominated (for further discussion see Bruin 2009, Lang 2012, Shnayderman 2012, Kirby 2016, Carter and Shnayderman 2019).

In reply to the above point about the relevance of probabilities, republicans have insisted that freedom as non-domination is nevertheless distinct from negative liberty because what matters for an agent’s freedom is the impossibility of others interfering, not the mere improbability of their doing so. Consider the example of gender relations with the context of marriage. A husband might be kind and generous, or indeed have a strong sense of egalitarian justice, and therefore be extremely unlikely ever to deny his wife the same opportunities as he himself enjoys; but the wife is still dominated if the structure of norms in her society is such as to permit husbands to frustrate the choices of their wives in numerous ways. If she lives in such a society, she is still subject to the husband’s power whether he likes it or not. And whether the husband likes it or not, the wife’s subjection to his power will tend to influence how third parties treat her – for example, in terms of offering employment opportunities.

Taken at face value, however, the requirement of impossibility of interference seems over demanding, as it is never completely impossible for others to constrain me. It is not impossible that I be stabbed by someone as I walk down the street this afternoon. Indeed, the possible world in which this event occurs is very close to the actual world, even if the event is improbable in the actual world. If the mere possibility of the stabbing makes me unfree to walk down the street, then unfreedom is everywhere and the achievement of freedom is itself virtually impossible. To avoid this worry, republicans have qualified their impossibility requirement: for me to be free to walk down the street, it must be impossible for others to stab me with impunity (Pettit 2008a, 2008b; Skinner 2008). This qualification makes the impossibility requirement more realistic. Nevertheless, the qualification is open to objections. Is ‘impunity’ a purely formal requirement, or should we say that no one can carry out a street stabbing with impunity if, say, at least 70% of such stabbings lead to prosecution? Even if 100% of such stabbings lead to prosecution, there will still be some stabbings. Will they not be sources of unfreedom for the victims?

More recently some republicans have sidelined the notion of impunity of interference in favour of that of ‘ignorability’ of interference (Ingham and Lovett 2019). I am free to make certain choices if the structure of effective societal norms, whether legal or customary, is such as to constrain the ability of anyone else to frustrate those choices, to the point where the possibility of such frustration, despite existing, is remote enough to be something I can ignore. Once I can ignore that possibility, then the structure of effective norms makes me safe by removing any sense of exposure to interference. Defenders of the negative concept of liberty might respond to this move by saying that the criterion of ignorability looks very much like a criterion of trivially low probability: we consider ourselves free to do x to the extent that the system of enforced norms deters others’ prevention of x in such a way as to make that prevention improbable.

The jury is still out on whether republicans have successfully carved out a third concept of freedom that is really distinct from those of negative and positive liberty. This conceptual uncertainty need not itself cast doubt on the distinctness and attractiveness of republicanism as a set of political prescriptions. Rather, what it leaves open is the question of the ultimate normative bases of those prescriptions: is ‘non-domination’ something that supervenes on certain configurations of negative freedom and unfreedom, and therefore explainable in terms of such configurations, or is it something truly distinct from those configurations?

The two sides identified by Berlin disagree over which of two different concepts best captures the political ideal of ‘liberty’. Does this fact not denote the presence of some more basic agreement between the two sides? How, after all, could they see their disagreement as one about the nature of liberty if they did not think of themselves as in some sense talking about the same thing ? In an influential article, the American legal philosopher Gerald MacCallum (1967) put forward the following answer: there is in fact only one basic concept of freedom, on which both sides in the debate converge . What the so-called negative and positive theorists disagree about is how this single concept of freedom should be interpreted. Indeed, in MacCallum’s view, there are a great many different possible interpretations of freedom, and it is only Berlin’s artificial dichotomy that has led us to think in terms of there being two.

MacCallum defines the basic concept of freedom — the concept on which everyone agrees — as follows: a subject, or agent, is free from certain constraints, or preventing conditions, to do or become certain things. Freedom is therefore a triadic relation — that is, a relation between three things : an agent, certain preventing conditions, and certain doings or becomings of the agent. Any statement about freedom or unfreedom can be translated into a statement of the above form by specifying what is free or unfree, from what it is free or unfree, and what it is free or unfree to do or become . Any claim about the presence or absence of freedom in a given situation will therefore make certain assumptions about what counts as an agent, what counts as a constraint or limitation on freedom, and what counts as a purpose that the agent can be described as either free or unfree to carry out.

The definition of freedom as a triadic relation was first put forward in the seminal work of Felix Oppenheim in the 1950s and 60s. Oppenheim saw that an important meaning of ‘freedom’ in the context of political and social philosophy was as a relation between two agents and a particular (impeded or unimpeded) action. However, Oppenheim’s interpretation of freedom was an example of what Berlin would call a negative concept. What MacCallum did was to generalize this triadic structure so that it would cover all possible claims about freedom, whether of the negative or the positive variety. In MacCallum’s framework, unlike in Oppenheim’s, the interpretation of each of the three variables is left open. In other words, MacCallum’s position is a meta-theoretical one: his is a theory about the differences between theorists of freedom.

To illustrate MacCallum’s point, let us return to the example of the smoker driving to the tobacconists. In describing this person as either free or unfree, we shall be making assumptions about each of MacCallum’s three variables. If we say that the driver is free , what we shall probably mean is that an agent, consisting in the driver’s empirical self, is free from external (physical or legal) obstacles to do whatever he or she might want to do. If, on the other hand, we say that the driver is unfree , what we shall probably mean is that an agent, consisting in a higher or rational self, is made unfree by internal, psychological constraints to carry out some rational, authentic or virtuous plan. Notice that in both claims there is a negative element and a positive element: each claim about freedom assumes both that freedom is freedom from something (i.e., preventing conditions) and that it is freedom to do or become something. The dichotomy between ‘freedom from’ and ‘freedom to’ is therefore a false one, and it is misleading to say that those who see the driver as free employ a negative concept and those who see the driver as unfree employ a positive one. What these two camps differ over is the way in which one should interpret each of the three variables in the triadic freedom-relation. More precisely, we can see that what they differ over is the extension to be assigned to each of the variables.

Thus, those whom Berlin places in the negative camp typically conceive of the agent as having the same extension as that which it is generally given in ordinary discourse: they tend to think of the agent as an individual human being and as including all of the empirical beliefs and desires of that individual. Those in the so-called positive camp, on the other hand, often depart from the ordinary notion, in one sense imagining the agent as more extensive than in the ordinary notion, and in another sense imagining it as less extensive: they think of the agent as having a greater extension than in ordinary discourse in cases where they identify the agent’s true desires and aims with those of some collectivity of which she is a member; and they think of the agent as having a lesser extension than in ordinary discourse in cases where they identify the true agent with only a subset of her empirical beliefs and desires — i.e., with those that are rational, authentic or virtuous. Secondly, those in Berlin’s positive camp tend to take a wider view of what counts as a constraint on freedom than those in his negative camp: the set of relevant obstacles is more extensive for the former than for the latter, since negative theorists tend to count only external obstacles as constraints on freedom, whereas positive theorists also allow that one may be constrained by internal factors, such as irrational desires, fears or ignorance. And thirdly, those in Berlin’s positive camp tend to take a narrower view of what counts as a purpose one can be free to fulfill. The set of relevant purposes is less extensive for them than for the negative theorists, for we have seen that they tend to restrict the relevant set of actions or states to those that are rational, authentic or virtuous, whereas those in the negative camp tend to extend this variable so as to cover any action or state the agent might desire.

On MacCallum’s analysis, then, there is no simple dichotomy between positive and negative liberty; rather, we should recognize that there is a whole range of possible interpretations or ‘conceptions’ of the single concept of liberty. Indeed, as MacCallum says and as Berlin seems implicitly to admit, a number of classic authors cannot be placed unequivocally in one or the other of the two camps. Locke, for example, is normally thought of as one of the fathers or classical liberalism and therefore as a staunch defender of the negative concept of freedom. He indeed states explicitly that ‘[to be at] liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others’. But he also says that liberty is not to be confused with ‘license’, and that “that ill deserves the name of confinement which hedges us in only from bogs and precipices” ( Second Treatise , parags. 6 and 57). While Locke gives an account of constraints on freedom that Berlin would call negative, he seems to endorse an account of MacCallum’s third freedom-variable that Berlin would call positive, restricting this variable to actions that are not immoral (liberty is not license) and to those that are in the agent’s own interests (I am not unfree if prevented from falling into a bog). A number of contemporary liberals or libertarians have provided or assumed definitions of freedom that are similarly morally loaded (e.g. Nozick 1974; Rothbard 1982; Bader 2018). This would seem to confirm MacCallum’s claim that it is conceptually and historically misleading to divide theorists into two camps — a negative liberal one and a positive non-liberal one.

To illustrate the range of interpretations of the concept of freedom made available by MacCallum’s analysis, let us now take a closer look at his second variable — that of constraints on freedom.

Advocates of negative conceptions of freedom typically restrict the range of obstacles that count as constraints on freedom to those that are brought about by other agents. For theorists who conceive of constraints on freedom in this way, I am unfree only to the extent that other people prevent me from doing certain things. If I am incapacitated by natural causes — by a genetic handicap, say, or by a virus or by certain climatic conditions — I may be rendered unable to do certain things, but I am not, for that reason, rendered unfree to do them. Thus, if you lock me in my house, I shall be both unable and unfree to leave. But if I am unable to leave because I suffer from a debilitating illness or because a snow drift has blocked my exit, I am nevertheless not unfree, to leave. The reason such theorists give, for restricting the set of relevant preventing conditions in this way, is that they see unfreedom as a social relation — a relation between persons (see Oppenheim 1961; Miller 1983; Steiner 1983; Kristjánsson 1996; Kramer 2003; Morriss 2012; Shnayderman 2013; Schmidt 2016). Unfreedom as mere inability is thought by such authors to be more the concern of engineers and medics than of political and social philosophers. (If I suffer from a natural or self-inflicted inability to do something, should we to say that I remain free to do it, or should we say that the inability removes my freedom to do it while nevertheless not implying that I am un free to do it? In the latter case, we shall be endorsing a ‘trivalent’ conception, according to which there are some things that a person is neither free nor unfree to do. Kramer 2003 endorses a trivalent conception according to which freedom is identified with ability and unfreedom is the prevention (by others) of outcomes that the agent would otherwise be able to bring about.)

In attempting to distinguish between natural and social obstacles we shall inevitably come across gray areas. An important example is that of obstacles created by impersonal economic forces. Do economic constraints like recession, poverty and unemployment merely incapacitate people, or do they also render them unfree? Libertarians and egalitarians have provided contrasting answers to this question by appealing to different conceptions of constraints. Thus, one way of answering the question is by taking an even more restrictive view of what counts as a constraint on freedom, so that only a subset of the set of obstacles brought about by other persons counts as a restriction of freedom: those brought about intentionally . In this case, impersonal economic forces, being brought about unintentionally, do not restrict people’s freedom , even though they undoubtedly make many people unable to do many things. This last view has been taken by a number of market-oriented libertarians, including, most famously, Friedrich von Hayek (1960, 1982), according to whom freedom is the absence of coercion, where to be coerced is to be subject to the arbitrary will of another. (Notice the somewhat surprising similarity between this conception of freedom and the republican conception discussed earlier, in section 3.2) Critics of libertarianism, on the other hand, typically endorse a broader conception of constraints on freedom that includes not only intentionally imposed obstacles but also unintended obstacles for which someone may nevertheless be held responsible (for Miller and Kristjánsson and Shnayderman this means morally responsible; for Oppenheim and Kramer it means causally responsible), or indeed obstacles created in any way whatsoever, so that unfreedom comes to be identical to inability (see Crocker 1980; Cohen 2011, pp. 193–97; Sen 1992; Van Parijs 1995; Garnett forthcoming).

This analysis of constraints helps to explain why socialists and egalitarians have tended to claim that the poor in a capitalist society are as such unfree, or that they are less free than the rich, whereas libertarians have tended to claim that the poor in a capitalist society are no less free than the rich. Egalitarians typically (though do not always) assume a broader notion than libertarians of what counts as a constraint on freedom. Although this view does not necessarily imply what Berlin would call a positive notion of freedom, egalitarians often call their own definition a positive one, in order to convey the sense that freedom requires not merely the absence of certain social relations of prevention but the presence of abilities, or what Amartya Sen has influentially called ‘capabilities’ (Sen 1985, 1988, 1992; Nussbaum 2006, 2011). (Important exceptions to this egalitarian tendency to broaden the relevant set of constraints include those who consider poverty to indicate a lack of social freedom (see sec. 3.1, above). Steiner (1994), grounds a left-libertarian theory of justice in the idea of an equal distribution of social freedom, which he takes to imply an equal distribution of resources.)

We have seen that advocates of a negative conception of freedom tend to count only obstacles that are external to the agent. Notice, however, that the term ‘external’ is ambiguous in this context, for it might be taken to refer either to the location of the causal source of an obstacle or to the location of the obstacle itself. Obstacles that count as ‘internal’ in terms of their own location include psychological phenomena such as ignorance, irrational desires, illusions and phobias. Such constraints can be caused in various ways: for example, they might have a genetic origin, or they might be brought about intentionally by others, as in the case of brainwashing or manipulation. In the first case we have an internal constraint brought about by natural causes, and in this sense ‘internally’; in the second, an internal constraint intentionally imposed by another human agent, and in this sense ‘externally’.

More generally, we can now see that there are in fact two different dimensions along which one’s notion of a constraint might be broader or narrower. A first dimension is that of the source of a constraint — in other words, what it is that brings about a constraint on freedom. We have seen, for example, that some theorists include as constraints on freedom only obstacles brought about by human action, whereas others also include obstacles with a natural origin. A second dimension is that of the type of constraint involved, where constraint-types include the types of internal constraint just mentioned, but also various types of constraint located outside the agent, such as physical barriers that render an action impossible, obstacles that render the performance of an action more or less difficult, and costs attached to the performance of a (more or less difficult) action. The two dimensions of type and source are logically independent of one another. Given this independence, it is theoretically possible to combine a narrow view of what counts as a source of a constraint with a broad view of what types of obstacle count as unfreedom-generating constraints, or vice versa . As a result, it is not clear that theorists who are normally placed in the ‘negative’ camp need deny the existence of internal constraints on freedom (see Kramer 2003; Garnett 2007).

To illustrate the independence of the two dimensions of type and source, consider the case of the unorthodox libertarian Hillel Steiner (1974–5, 1994). On the one hand, Steiner has a much broader view than Hayek of the possible sources of constraints on freedom: he does not limit the set of such sources to intentional human actions, but extends it to cover all kinds of human cause, whether or not any humans intend such causes and whether or not they can be held morally accountable for them, believing that any restriction of such non-natural sources can only be an arbitrary stipulation, usually arising from some more or less conscious ideological bias. On the other hand, Steiner has an even narrower view than Hayek about what type of obstacle counts as a constraint on freedom: for Steiner, an agent only counts as unfree to do something if it is physically impossible for her to do that thing. Any extension of the constraint variable to include other types of obstacle, such as the costs anticipated in coercive threats, would, in his view, necessarily involve a reference to the agent’s desires, and we have seen (in sec. 2) that for those liberals in the negative camp there is no necessary relation between an agent’s freedom and her desires. Consider the coercive threat ‘Your money or your life!’. This does not make it impossible for you to refuse to hand over your money, only much less desirable for you to do so. If you decide not to hand over the money, you will suffer the cost of being killed. That will count as a restriction of your freedom, because it will render physically impossible a great number of actions on your part. But it is not the issuing of the threat that creates this unfreedom, and you are not unfree until the sanction (described in the threat) is carried out. For this reason, Steiner excludes threats — and with them all other kinds of imposed costs — from the set of obstacles that count as freedom-restricting. This conception of freedom derives from Hobbes ( Leviathan , chs. 14 and 21), and its defenders often call it the ‘pure’ negative conception (M. Taylor 1982; Steiner 1994; Carter and Kramer 2008) to distinguish it from those ‘impure’ negative conceptions that make at least minimal references to the agent’s beliefs, desires or values.

Steiner’s account of the relation between freedom and coercive threats might be thought to have counterintuitive implications, even from the liberal point of view. Many laws that are normally thought to restrict negative freedom do not physically prevent people from doing what is prohibited, but deter them from doing so by threatening punishment. Are we to say, then, that these laws do not restrict the negative freedom of those who obey them? A solution to this problem may consist in saying that although a law against doing some action, x , does not remove the freedom to do x , it nevertheless renders physically impossible certain combinations of actions that include doing x and doing what would be precluded by the punishment. There is a restriction of the person’s overall negative freedom — i.e. a reduction in the overall number of act-combinations available to her — even though she does not lose the freedom to do any specific thing taken in isolation (Carter 1999).

The concept of overall freedom appears to play an important role both in everyday discourse and in contemporary political philosophy. It is only recently, however, that philosophers have stopped concentrating exclusively on the meaning of a particular freedom — the freedom to do or become this or that particular thing — and have started asking whether we can also make sense of descriptive claims to the effect that one person or society is freer than another, or of liberal normative claims to the effect that freedom should be maximized or that people should enjoy equal freedom or that they each have a right to a certain minimum level of freedom. The literal meaningfulness of such claims depends on the possibility of gauging degrees of overall freedom, sometimes comparatively, sometimes absolutely.

Theorists disagree, however, about the importance of the notion of overall freedom. For some libertarian and liberal egalitarian theorists, freedom is valuable as such. This suggests that more freedom is better than less (at least ceteris paribus ), and that freedom is one of those goods that a liberal society ought to distribute in a certain way among individuals. For other liberal theorists, like Ronald Dworkin (1977, 2011) and the later Rawls (1991), freedom is not valuable as such, and all claims about maximal or equal freedom ought to be interpreted not as literal references to a scalar good called ‘liberty’ but as elliptical references to the adequacy of lists of certain particular liberties, or types of liberties, selected on the basis of values other than liberty itself. Generally speaking, only the first group of theorists finds the notion of overall freedom interesting.

The theoretical problems involved in measuring overall freedom include that of how an agent’s available actions are to be individuated, counted and weighted, and that of comparing and weighting different types (but not necessarily different sources) of constraints on freedom (such as physical prevention, punishability, threats and manipulation). How are we to make sense of the claim that the number of options available to a person has increased? Should all options count for the same in terms of degrees of freedom, or should they be weighted according to their importance in terms of other values? If the latter, does the notion of overall freedom really add anything of substance to the idea that people should be granted those specific freedoms that are valuable? Should the degree of variety among options also count? And how are we to compare the unfreedom created by the physical impossibility of an action with, say, the unfreedom created by the difficulty or costliness or punishability of an action? It is only by comparing these different kinds of actions and constraints that we shall be in a position to compare individuals’ overall degrees of freedom. These problems have been addressed, with differing degrees of optimism, not only by political philosophers (Steiner 1983; Carter 1999; Kramer 2003; Garnett 2016; Côté 2020; Carter and Steiner 2021) but also by social choice theorists interested in finding a freedom-based alternative to the standard utilitarian or ‘welfarist’ framework that has tended to dominate their discipline (e.g. Pattanaik and Xu 1991, 1998; Hees 2000; Sen 2002; Sugden 1998, 2003, 2006; Bavetta 2004; Bavetta and Navarra 2012, 2014).

MacCallum’s framework is particularly well suited to the clarification of such issues. For this reason, theorists working on the measurement of freedom tend not to refer a great deal to the distinction between positive and negative freedom. This said, most of them are concerned with freedom understood as the availability of options. And the notion of freedom as the availability of options is unequivocally negative in Berlin’s sense at least where two conditions are met: first, the source of unfreedom is limited to the actions of other agents, so that natural or self-inflicted obstacles are not seen as decreasing an agent’s freedom; second, the actions one is free or unfree to perform are weighted in some value-neutral way, so that one is not seen as freer simply because the options available to one are more valuable or conducive to one’s self-realization. Of the above-mentioned authors, only Steiner embraces both conditions explicitly. Sen rejects both of them, despite not endorsing anything like positive freedom in Berlin’s sense.

We began with a simple distinction between two concepts of liberty, and have progressed from this to the recognition that liberty might be defined in any number of ways, depending on how one interprets the three variables of agent, constraints, and purposes. Despite the utility of MacCallum’s triadic formula and its strong influence on analytic philosophers, however, Berlin’s distinction remains an important point of reference for discussions about the meaning and value of political and social freedom. Are these continued references to positive and negative freedom philosophically well-founded?

It might be claimed that MacCallum’s framework is less than wholly inclusive of the various possible conceptions of freedom. In particular, it might be said, the concept of self-mastery or self-direction implies a presence of control that is not captured by MacCallum’s explication of freedom as a triadic relation. MacCallum’s triadic relation indicates mere possibilities . If one thinks of freedom as involving self-direction, on the other hand, one has in mind an exercise-concept of freedom as opposed to an opportunity-concept (this distinction comes from C. Taylor 1979). If interpreted as an exercise concept, freedom consists not merely in the possibility of doing certain things (i.e. in the lack of constraints on doing them), but in actually doing certain things in certain ways — for example, in realizing one’s true self or in acting on the basis of rational and well-informed decisions. The idea of freedom as the absence of constraints on the realization of given ends might be criticised as failing to capture this exercise concept of freedom, for the latter concept makes no reference to the absence of constraints.

However, this defence of the positive-negative distinction as coinciding with the distinction between exercise- and opportunity-concepts of freedom has been challenged by Eric Nelson (2005). As Nelson points out, most of the theorists that are traditionally located in the positive camp, such as Green or Bosanquet, do not distinguish between freedom as the absence of constraints and freedom as the doing or becoming of certain things. For these theorists, freedom is the absence of any kind of constraint whatsoever on the realization of one’s true self (they adopt a maximally extensive conception of constraints on freedom). The absence of all factors that could prevent the action x is, quite simply, equivalent to the realization of x . In other words, if there really is nothing stopping me from doing x — if I possess all the means to do x , and I have a desire to do x , and no desire, irrational or otherwise, not to do x — then I do x . An equivalent way to characterize the difference between such positive theorists and the so-called negative theorists of freedom lies in the degree of specificity with which they describe x . For those who adopt a narrow conception of constraints, x is described with a low degree of specificity ( x could be exemplified by the realization of any of a large array of options); for those who adopt a broad conception of constraints, x is described with a high degree of specificity ( x can only be exemplified by the realization of a specific option, or of one of a small group of options).

What perhaps remains of the distinction is a rough categorization of the various interpretations of freedom that serves to indicate their degree of fit with the classical liberal tradition. There is indeed a certain family resemblance between the conceptions that are normally seen as falling on one or the other side of Berlin’s divide, despite there being some uncertainty about which side to locate certain particular conceptions. One of the decisive factors in determining this family resemblance is the theorist’s degree of concern with the notion of the self. Those on the ‘positive’ side see questions about the nature and sources of a person’s beliefs, desires and values as relevant in determining that person’s freedom, whereas those on the ‘negative’ side, being more faithful to the classical liberal tradition, tend to consider the raising of such questions as in some way indicating a propensity to violate the agent’s dignity or integrity. One side takes a positive interest in the agent’s beliefs, desires and values, while the other recommends that we avoid doing so.

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What is True Freedom?

We read about freedom, dream about freedom, rejoice in the notion of freedom , teach, advocate, and hope for freedom, but what do we mean by freedom?

Freedom means many things to many people. We can view freedom politically, as having the opportunity to vote for particular ideas, people, or parties which best represent our views. Closely tied to this is the notion of freedom of speech, where one has the liberty to voice their personal opinion or perspective. Others understand freedom in a financial context, where people seek to free themselves of financial debt, outstanding credit, and burdensome loans.

What does true freedom look like? Does it look like a voter’s ballot or someone walking out of prison? Is it seen in being able to buy anything I want or in the fact that I don’t owe a thing to anyone? Of course, it’s crucial to define what we mean by freedom so that we know what we’re looking for, what we’re hoping to attain.

We think that once our particular freedom is achieved, all our problems will be solved. Why?

Say a child runs outside and climbs a tree because he wants to get away and be free. In his exuberant effort to be free, the boy wanders out onto a tree limb, turns around, and begins severing the last connection he has with the world — the limb. Having sawed through the limb, the boy quickly realizes that he not only failed in achieving his goal of complete freedom, but discovers that what he was seeking wasn’t true freedom at all. In his effort to achieve freedom, the boy finds himself in a worse situation than before — broken limbs and all!

Two sides of the freedom coin

Not surprisingly, the Bible says quite a bit about freedom, despite any impressions we might have about it being merely a book of restrictive rules. In reality, if we are willing to consider it, the Bible can help us distinguish between what it means for us to be free from something and to be free to do or be something. Freedom from and freedom to are two sides of the freedom coin.

It is interesting that many of the freedoms we seek today are seen as ends in themselves , as a final goal to be attained. It’s as though we think that once our particular freedom is achieved, all our problems will be solved. Why? Because we’ll have freedom! But freedom from what? And freedom to do or be what?

For example, let’s say that we’re in deep financial debt. We realize our desperate state and begin to strategically work our way out of financial bondage. It may take months, years, or even decades, but eventually we hope to balance our budget and move from being in the red to in the black. But, even if we accomplish our goal and attain financial freedom, particularly freedom from debt, have we really attained true freedom? In other words, does having no financial debt necessarily mean that we have attained financial freedom?

Not really. See, our hearts, which drove us into debt in the first place, remain unchanged. It may be the case, and unfortunately it often is, that as soon as we get out of debt, we plunge right back into it. Why? Because our hearts see and desire something it cannot live without. So we buy it, and voila! We’re in debt again. So, if our hearts are not changed, neither will our behavior change. That’s why the Bible says that true freedom begins in the heart. We act on our thoughts and behave according to our desires.

Interestingly, the Bible likens the human heart to a tree: “every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit… For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him” (Matthew 7:17-18; 12:33-35). The source of our actions is the heart. If it’s diseased, the fruit (our actions) is rotten too.

Of course, it’s always good to be out of debt, but to simply balance the books is only a peripheral remedy. It is merely treating the symptoms rather than dealing with the disease. True freedom is only achieved when our hearts are changed, not when the books are balanced.

The same can be said for political and verbal freedom. Both are significantly good and should be advocated and protected, but they are peripheral freedoms in comparison to true freedom. True freedom occurs only in the heart when it is changed and made new.

What then is this “true” freedom?

There is a debt that every human has, a disease that we all suffer from, which no human strategy can ever conquer or cure. It is not a bondage to external things primarily, though it does work its way out in external expressions. No, our problem is much deeper. It is bondage of the will, a captivity of the soul, a deadness of heart.

The Bible tells us that we were made by God to honor him and delight in him forever. Yet, we chose to sin and rebel against God by abandoning our created purpose of worshiping him in order to do our own thing and pridefully make a name for ourselves. This rebellion against God, known as the Fall, caused mankind to fall from the innocence in which they were created and become corrupted by sin.

Due to our sin, we have all received the consequential penalty of sin, namely spiritual and physical death. Death reigns in all of us so every one of us is spiritually dead (separated from God) and will also die physically one day. Not only this, but throughout our life, the effects of sin infect everything we do. The marring stains of sin are pervasive within each one of us, distorting the way we think, desire, and behave. All of our thoughts, feelings, and actions are tainted by our sin.

Yet, in all of this, the human heart remains free in one regard: free to choose whatever it desires. But here’s the catch — the human heart is corrupted and enslaved by evil. So, it does not naturally desire to do what honors God. All our thoughts, words, and actions are tainted in various degrees with prideful sin and rebellion against God. So even though we are free to choose, we freely choose sin continually as a habit of nature.

Ultimately, the final consequence of our sin against God is hell, a state of total and unending disconnection and separation from God and all that is good, a place of unhindered and perpetual bondage to unrestrained evil, horror, and suffering resulting from everyone doing all their selfish and sinful hearts’ desires, no matter what harm it may cause to others.

Yet, God in his love sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to come to earth and willingly die in the place of sinful humans like us to absorb all our sin, rebellion, and wrongdoing. Therefore, all who entrust their complete life to Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins will be saved from their bondage to sin and given eternal life in him and enjoy an intimate and personal connection and relationship with God himself.

This is true freedom. And true freedom only exists in Jesus Christ. How does it happen? God changes our heart by his Holy Spirit. God makes us spiritually alive by giving us a new heart. This heart desires to love God. It sees Jesus Christ as beautiful and desires to love him as the Lord and Savior of our life. By faith, we give our life to Jesus and receive his forgiveness and freedom from sin. Not only this, but we are now free to do the very thing we were created to do — to honor and enjoy God forever. And this joy in God is from our heart — our new heart given to us by God.

**This is true freedom. This is grace.** We read about freedom, dream about freedom, rejoice in the notion of freedom , teach, advocate, and hope for freedom, but what do we mean by freedom?

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Opinionator | freedom and reality: a response.

Freedom and Reality: A Response

The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless.

It has been a privilege to read the comments posted in response to my July 25 th post, “ The Limits of the Coded World ” and I am exceedingly grateful for the time, energy and passion so many readers put into them. While my first temptation was to answer each and every one, reality began to set in as the numbers increased, and I soon realized I would have to settle for a more general response treating as many of the objections and remarks as I could. This is what I would like to do now.

Free will does not need to be “saved” from determinism, because there was never any real threat there to begin with, from either science or religion.

If I had to distill my entire response into one sentence, it would be this: it’s not about the monkeys! It was unfortunate that the details of the monkey experiment — in which researchers were able to use computers wired to the monkey’s brains to predict the outcome of certain decisions — dominated so much attention, since it could have been replaced by mention of any number of similar experiments, or indeed by a fictional scenario. My intention in bringing it up at all was twofold: first, to take an example of the sort of research that has repeatedly sparked sensationalist commentary in the popular press about the end of free will; and second, to show how plausible and in some sense automatic the link between predictability and the problem of free will can be (which was born out by the number of readers who used the experiment to start their own inquiry into free will).

As readers know, my next step was to argue that predictability no more indicates lack of free will than does unpredictability indicate its presence. Several readers noted an apparent contradiction between this claim, that “we have no reason to assume that either predictability or lack of predictability has anything to say about free will,” and one of the article’s concluding statements, that “I am free because neither science nor religion can ever tell me, with certainty, what my future will be and what I should do about it.”

Indeed, when juxtaposed without the intervening text, the statements seem clearly opposed. However, not only is there no contradiction between them, the entire weight of my arguments depends on understanding why there is none. In the first sentence I am talking about using models to more or less accurately guess at future outcomes; in the second I am talking about a model of the ultimate nature of reality as a kind of knowledge waiting to be decoded — what I called in the article “the code of codes,” a phrase I lifted from one of my mentors, the late Richard Rorty — and how the impossibility of that model is what guarantees freedom.

The reason why predictability in the first sense has no bearing on free will is, in fact, precisely because predictability in the second sense is impossible. The theoretical predictability of everything that occurs in a universe whose ultimate reality is conceived of as a kind of knowledge or code is what goes by the shorthand of determinism. In the old debate between free will and determinism, determinism has always played the default position, the backdrop from which free will must be wrested if we are to have any defensible concept of responsibility. From what I could tell, a great number of commentators on my article shared at least this idea with Galen Strawson : that we live in a deterministic universe, and if the concept of free will has any importance at all it is merely as a kind of necessary illusion. My position is precisely the opposite: free will does not need to be “saved” from determinism, because there was never any real threat there to begin with, either of a scientific nature or a religious one.

Knowledge can never be complete. Completed knowledge is oxymoronic, self-defeating.

The reason for this is that when we assume a deterministic universe of any kind we are implicitly importing into our thinking the code of codes, a model of reality that is not only false, but also logically impossible. Let’s see why.

To make a choice that in any sense could be considered “free,” we would have to claim that it was at some point unconstrained. But, the hard determinist would argue, there can never be any point at which a choice is unconstrained, because even if we exclude any and all obvious constraints, such as hunger or coercion, the chooser is constrained by (and this is Strawson’s “basic argument”) how he or she is at the time of the choosing, a sum total of effects over which he or she could never exercise causality.

This constraint of “how he or she is,” however, is pure fiction, a treatment of tangible reality as if it were decodable knowledge, requiring a kind of God’s eye perspective capable of knowing every instance and every possible interpretation of every aspect of a person’s history, culture, genes and general chemistry, to mention only a few variables. It refers to a reality that self-proclaimed rationalists and science advocates pay lip service to in their insistence on basing all claims on hard, tangible facts, but is in fact as elusive, as metaphysical and ultimately as incompatible with anything we could call human knowledge as would be a monotheistic religion’s understanding of God.

When some readers sardonically (I assume) reduced by argument to “ignorance=freedom,” then, they were right in a way; but the rub lies in how we understand ignorance. The commonplace understanding would miss the point entirely: it is not ignorance against the backdrop of ultimate knowledge that equates to freedom; rather, it is constitutive, essential ignorance. This, again, needs expansion.

Knowledge can never be complete. This is the case not merely because there will always be something more to know; rather, it is so because completed knowledge is oxymoronic, self-defeating. AI theorists have long dreamed of what Daniel Dennett once called heterophenomenology, the idea that, with an accurate-enough understanding of the human brain my description of another person’s experience could become indiscernible from that experience itself. My point it not merely that heterophenomenology is impossible from a technological perspective or undesirable from an ethical perspective; rather, it is impossible from a logical perspective, since the very phenomenon we are seeking to describe, in this case the conscious experience of another person, would cease to exist without the minimal opacity separating his or her consciousness from mine. Analogously, all knowledge requires this kind of minimal opacity, because knowing something involves, at a minimum, a synthesis of discrete perceptions across space or time.

Richard Dawkins has called those espousing open dialogue between faith and science “the Neville Chamberlain school of evolution.”

The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges demonstrated this point with implacable rigor in a story about a man who loses the ability to forget, and with that also ceases to think, perceive, and eventually to live, because, as Borges points out, thinking necessarily involves abstraction, the forgetting of differences. Because of what we can thus call our constitutive ignorance, then, we are free — only and precisely because as beings who cannot possibly occupy all times and spatial perspectives without thereby ceasing to be what we are, we are constantly faced with choices. All these choices — to the extent that they are choices and not simply responses to stimuli or reactions to forces exerted on us — have at least some element that cannot be traced to a direct determination, but could only be blamed, for the sake of defending a deterministic thesis, on the ideal and completely fanciful determinism of “how we are” at the time of the decision to be made.

Far from a mere philosophical wish fulfillment or fuzzy, humanistic thinking, then, this kind of freedom is real, hard-nosed and practical. Indeed, courts of law and ethics panels may take specific determinations into account when casting judgment on responsibility, but most of us would agree that it would be absurd for them to waste time considering philosophical, scientific or religious theories of general determinism. The purpose of both my original piece and this response has been to show that, philosophically speaking as well, this real and practical freedom has nothing to fear from philosophical, scientific or religious pipedreams.

This last remark leads me to the one more issue that many readers brought up, and which I can only touch on now in passing: religion. In a recent blog post Jerry Coyne, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Chicago, labels me an “accommodationist” who tries to “denigrate science” and vindicate “other ways of knowing.” Professor Coyne goes on to contrast my (alleged) position to “the scientific ‘model of the world,'” which, he adds, has “been extraordinarily successful at solving problems, while other ‘models’ haven’t done squat.” Passing over the fact that, far from denigrating them, I am fervent and open admirer of the natural sciences (my first academic interests were physics and mathematics), I’m content to let Professor Coyne’s dismissal of every cultural, literary, philosophical or artistic achievement in history speak for itself.

What I find of interest here is the label accommodationism, because the intent behind the current deployment of the term by the new atheist block is to associate explicitly those so labeled with the tragic failure of the Chamberlain government to stand up to Hitler. Indeed, Richard Dawkins has called those espousing open dialogue between faith and science “the Neville Chamberlain school of evolution.” One can only be astonished by the audacity of the rhetorical game they are playing: somehow with a twist of the tongue those arguing for greater intellectual tolerance have been allied with the worst example of intolerance in history.

One of the aims of my recent work has indeed been to provide a philosophical defense of moderate religious belief. Certain ways of believing, I have argued, are extremely effective at undermining the implicit model of reality supporting the philosophical mistake I described above, a model of reality that religious fundamentalists also depend on. While fundamentalisms of all kinds are unified in their belief that the ultimate nature of reality is a code that can be read and understood, religious moderates, along with those secularists we would call agnostics, are profoundly suspicious of any claims that one can come to know reality as it is in itself. I believe that such believers and skeptics are neither less scientific nor less religious for their suspicion. They are, however, more tolerant of discord; more prone to dialog, to patient inquiry, to trial and error, and to acknowledging the potential insights of other ways of thinking and other disciplines than their own. They are less righteously assured of the certainty of their own positions and have, historically, been less inclined to be prodded to violence than those who are beholden to the code of codes. If being an accommodationist means promoting these values, then I welcome the label.

William Egginton is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at the Johns Hopkins University. His next book, “In Defense of Religious Moderation,” will be published by Columbia University Press in 2011.

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Essay On Freedom

Freedom Essay

500+ words essay on freedom.

We are all familiar with the word ‘freedom’, but you will hear different versions from different people if you ask about it. The definition of freedom varies from person to person. According to some people, freedom means doing something as per their wish; for some people, it means taking a stand for themselves. Ultimately, the fact is that every individual wants to be free and lead their life as per their choice.

Freedom Meaning

Freedom is all about a state of independence where individuals can do what they want without any restrictions. We inherit freedom from the day we are born. It is a quality that each individual possesses. Freedom is a feeling that is felt from within. It can also be defined as a state of mind where you have the right to do what you can think of. The concept of freedom is applied to different aspects of life, and it’s not an absolute term.

All societies describe freedom in their aspect. People of different cultures see freedom in different ways, and accordingly, they enjoy their freedom. We should remember that our freedom should not disregard the rights of others. As good human beings, we should respect others’ freedom and not just live freely. We have to consider the rights and the feelings of people around us when living our freedom.

Creative minds flourish in societies that encourage freedom of opinion, thoughts, beliefs, expression, choice, etc.

Indian Freedom Struggle

The Indian freedom struggle is one of the most significant progress in the history of India. In 1600, the Britishers entered India in the name of trade-specific items like tea, cotton and silk and started ruling our country. Later on, they started ruling our country and made our Indian people their slaves. So, our country has to face the most challenging times to gain independence from British rule. In 1857, the first movement against the British was initiated by Mangal Pandey, an Indian soldier.

India also started various movements against the Britishers to get independence from their rule. One of them includes the Civil Disobedience Movement that started against the British salt monopoly. India could not manufacture salt and had to buy it from the British people by paying huge sums.

After we gained independence, India became one country that gave its citizens some freedom with limited restrictions. Now, India is a free country and the world’s largest democracy.

Freedom of India

During the days of struggle with the Britishers, India drafted a Constitution, which became applicable after independence. Our Constitution provides several freedom rights relevant to all Indian citizens equally. More importantly, these rights are constitutionally equal to every citizen.

Our constitutional rights are the right to equality, freedom, right against exploitation, freedom of religion, culture and educational rights, and right to constitutional remedies.

Importance of Freedom

We can understand the actual value of something when we achieve or earn it by sacrificing our lives. Freedom also means liberalisation from oppression, freedom from racism, opposition, discrimination, and other relatable things. Freedom doesn’t allow us to violate and disregard others’ rights.

The Freedom of Speech

Freedom of Speech is one of the fundamental human rights of an Indian citizen. An individual can convey his emotions, needs, and wants through speech. For a healthy democracy, the right to freedom of speech is essential for the citizens. The framers of the Constitution knew the importance of this right and declared this a Fundamental Right of every Indian citizen. The Constitution of India guarantees the Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression under Article 19(1)(a). It entitles every citizen to express an opinion without fearing repression by the Government.

Conclusion of the Freedom Essay

At last, we can sum it up by saying that freedom is not what we think. It is a concept, and everybody has their opinions about it. If we see the idea of freedom more broadly, it is connected with happiness. Similarly, it has added value for other people.

Students of the CBSE Board can get essays based on different topics, such as Republic Day Essay , from BYJU’S website. They can visit our CBSE Essay page and learn more about essays.

Frequently Asked Questions on Freedom Essay

What were the slogans used during the indian struggle for freedom.

Slogans used during the Indian independence movement include ‘Karo ya Maro’ (Do or die), ‘Inqlaab Zindabad’ (Long live the Revolution) and ‘Vande Mataram’ (Praise to Motherland)

What is the meaning of freedom?

In simple words, freedom means the ability to act or change without constraint and also possess the power to fulfil one’s resources.

What are examples of freedom?

Even the act of letting a bird out of the cage is an example of freedom. A woman regaining her independence after ending a controlling or abusive marriage is another instance of freedom achieved.

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Don’t Forget About Boring Rules Which Steal Your Freedom

Helpful tips on writing a successful freedom essay, freedom of speech essay sample.

First of all, it’s necessary to find out what the word “freedom” means. According to the thesaurus, freedom is the power or right to act, think, and speak the way one wants. Its synonym is the word “liberty” that deals with “independence” and “sovereignty”. Freedom of speech is the ability to express ideas, beliefs, complaints, and grudges freely. The government mustn’t punish people who said something wrong or present information without supporting it with facts. Do we really have such freedom? The problem is that freedom of speech doesn’t exist alone and cannot be limitless. If you lie, you deprive a person of the right to live normally. If you publish the harsh truth, you can harm someone innocent and spoil somebody’s freedom. Do you really think that you read and hear 100% verified news on TV, radio, social networks, and printed sources? There is always someone behind it. The team of editors corrects everything they don’t like; they can even refuse to publish the announcement at all. There are only a few bloggers who share the truth and don’t decorate it with beautiful words and nice pictures. Still, some countries try to make everything possible to let people speak without limitations and strict censorship. The first country that provided people with the freedom of speech was Ancient Greece. Everybody could express themselves and say both positive and negative issues about policy, country, and other people. The United States of America introduced the First Amendment that declared the right of Americans to discuss things openly. Though, not all types of speech freedom are protected by the law. It’s forbidden to humiliate somebody, post defamation, threat somebody, publish works that are absolutely not unique and spread the material that contains child pornography or other similar issues. Provocative publications or those which aim us to make somebody violate a law belong to the category of unprotected speeches. Freedom of speech is a part of democracy. Unfortunately, not all democratic countries let their citizens express their thoughts the way they want and need. As long as there are such countries we cannot speak about the notion of absolute freedom of speech.

Essay on Freedom

Students are often asked to write an essay on Freedom in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Freedom

Understanding freedom.

Freedom is a fundamental human right. It is the power to act, speak, or think without restraint. Freedom allows us to make choices and express ourselves.

The Importance of Freedom

Freedom is vital for personal development. It helps us discover who we are and encourages creativity and innovation. Without freedom, our world would lack diversity and progress.

Freedom with Responsibility

However, freedom comes with responsibility. We must respect others’ rights and freedoms. Misuse of freedom can lead to chaos and conflict. Therefore, it’s crucial to use freedom wisely.

Also check:

10 Lines on Freedom
Paragraph on Freedom
Speech on Freedom

250 Words Essay on Freedom

Freedom, a concept often taken for granted, is a cornerstone of modern civilization. It’s synonymous with autonomy, self-determination, and the capacity to make choices without coercion. Freedom, however, is not absolute; it’s a relative term, defined by societal norms, legal frameworks, and cultural contexts.

The Dialectics of Freedom

Freedom can be broadly categorized into two types: positive and negative. Negative freedom refers to the absence of external constraints, allowing individuals to act according to their will. In contrast, positive freedom is the ability to act in one’s best interest, which often requires societal support and resources. The dialectics of these two types of freedom form the crux of many political and philosophical debates.

Freedom and Responsibility

Freedom is inextricably linked with responsibility. Every choice made in freedom has consequences, and individuals must bear the responsibility for their actions. This interplay between freedom and responsibility is a key aspect of ethical and moral judgments.

Freedom in the Modern World

In the modern world, freedom is often associated with democratic rights and civil liberties. However, the rise of digital technology poses new challenges. Questions about data privacy, surveillance, and censorship have sparked debates about the boundaries of freedom in the digital age.

In conclusion, freedom is a complex and multifaceted concept. It’s a fundamental human right, yet its interpretation and application vary widely across different societies and contexts. Understanding the nuances of freedom helps us navigate the ethical and moral dilemmas of our time.

500 Words Essay on Freedom

Freedom, a concept deeply ingrained in human consciousness, is often perceived as the absence of restrictions and the ability to exercise one’s rights and powers at will. It is a fundamental right and the cornerstone of modern democratic societies. However, the concept of freedom is multifaceted, and its interpretation varies across different socio-cultural and political contexts.

The Philosophical Perspective

Philosophically, freedom is more than just the absence of constraints; it is about the ability to act according to one’s true nature and fulfill one’s potential. This perspective, known as positive freedom, contrasts with negative freedom, which focuses on the absence of external interference. The tension between these two interpretations of freedom has been a central theme in political philosophy.

Freedom and Democracy

In the realm of politics, freedom is the bedrock of democracy. It ensures the right to express one’s opinions, to choose one’s leaders, and to live without fear of oppression. However, freedom in a democratic society is not absolute. It is balanced with the responsibility to respect the freedom and rights of others. This balance is often a source of conflict and debate, as societies grapple with the question of where to draw the line between individual freedom and collective responsibility.

Freedom and Human Rights

Freedom is also closely linked to human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations, recognizes freedom as a basic human right. It encompasses not only political and civil liberties but also economic, social, and cultural rights. However, the realization of these rights remains a challenge in many parts of the world, where freedom is curtailed by oppressive regimes, social inequalities, and cultural norms.

The Paradox of Freedom

While freedom is universally desired, it also presents a paradox. Absolute freedom can lead to anarchy, while too much restriction can result in oppression. Finding the right balance is crucial. Hence, freedom should not be seen as a license to do as one pleases, but rather as a responsibility to respect the freedom and rights of others.

Conclusion: The Future of Freedom

In conclusion, freedom is a complex and multifaceted concept. It is a fundamental human right, a cornerstone of democracy, and a philosophical concept that has been debated for centuries. As we move forward into the future, the quest for freedom continues. It is our responsibility to ensure that freedom, in all its forms, is respected and protected. The challenge lies not only in ensuring our own freedom but also in upholding the freedom of others, thereby contributing to a just and equitable world.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Essay on Free Trade
Essay on Free Speech
Essay on Free Healthcare

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

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What Freedom Means to Me

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Best topics on Freedom

1. Why Is Freedom of Religion Important

2. What Is the Meaning of Freedom: the Price We Pay

3. What Does Freedom Mean to Me: a Privilege and a Responsibility

4. How Has Freedom Changed Over Time: A Dynamic Journey

5. Balance Between Freedom And Equality

6. Considering Religious Beliefs And Freedom Of Expression

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15. How Hope Leads to Freedom and Success

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Voices for Liberties Papers on Freedom of Speech, Civil Rights, and Social Progress

David Bernstein | 4.1.2024 8:20 AM

I am the Executive Director of the Scalia Law School's Law & Liberty Center. Our most significant current project at the Center is "Voices for Liberty," which our website describes as follows: "While some view freedom of speech as detrimental to minority groups, others champion it as a necessary condition for protecting underrepresented voices. The Liberty & Law Center's Voices for Liberty Initiative examines this intersection, considering the role free speech has played and continues to play in advancing civil rights in America, particularly for historically disadvantaged and/or socially marginalized groups. Our program includes significant research and scholarship, a nationwide speakers bureau, and numerous public events."

I thought I would share the research papers we have sponsored so far:

PAPER: " First Amendment Rights on Trial: A Critique of the Time, Place, and Manner Doctrine " PUBLISHED: SSRN (October 2023) AUTHOR: Alec Greven , J.D. Candidate at the University of Chicago Law School ABSTRACT: This article argues that the current First Amendment time, place, and manner doctrine needs to be reformed because it grants excessive deference to government authorities to regulate speech they disfavor by modifying the channels in which speech can be presented, burdening speech in places disproportionately used by certain social groups, and selectively enforcing these regulations. Several solutions are proposed to ensure a robust right to assemble and enable groups to speak freely and drive social progress.

PAPER: " Free Speech for All or None: Mobs, Abolitionists, and Democrats and the Public Constitutional Fights over the First Amendment During the American Civil War " PUBLISHED: SSRN (October 2023) AUTHOR: Nicholas Mosvick , Buckley Legacy Project Manager at the National Review Institute ABSTRACT: This paper discusses the issues of free speech in the Civil War North by examination of partisan newspapers and other popular accounts in order to understand the popular constitutional discourse around the First Amendment during the war. The paper considers many episodes which resulted in public constitutional discourse, including riots, private and military attacks upon newspaper presses, and the arrest and military trial of one of President Abraham Lincoln's greatest critics, Ohio Congressman Clement Vallandigham.

PAPER: " Free Speech Culture as an Anticipatory 'Reasonable Accommodation' for People with Psycho-social Disabilities and Neurodiverse People " PUBLISHED: SSRN (October 2023) AUTHOR: Reuben Kirkham , Lecturer, Monash University & Free Speech Union of Australia ABSTRACT: This paper begins a conversation about the relationship between disability rights and free speech. Drawing upon the circumstances of a people with a range of psychosocial disabilities and neurodiverse conditions, it explores how a lack of a free speech culture amounts to a failure to make reasonable accommodations for a broad range of disabled people.

PAPER: " Section 230 as Civil Rights Statute " PUBLISHED: SSRN (September 2023); Cincinnati Law Review (forthcoming) AUTHOR: Enrique Armijo , Professor of Law at the Elon University School of Law ABSTRACT: Many of our most pressing discussions about justice, progress, and civil rights have moved online. But the convergence of mobility, connectivity, and technology is not the only reason why. Thanks to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act's immunity for online platforms, websites, and their hosts, speakers can engage in speech about protest, equality, and dissent without fear of collateral censorship from governments, authorities, and others in power who hope to silence them.

We held a symposium last year featuring discussions of each of these papers. You can find the videos here .

And here are the papers we currently have under development:

PAPER: "Religious Minorities and Secular Rights" AUTHOR: Josh McDaniel , Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

PAPER: "Myra Bradwell and the Chicago Legal News: speech as a prerequisite to equal rights" AUTHOR: Anastasia P. Boden , Director, Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, Cato Institute

PAPER: "The Black-Controlled Town of Mound Bayou As A Bridgehead for Free Speech in Jim Crow Mississippi" AUTHOR: David T. Beito , Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and Professor Emeritus at the University of Alabama

PAPER: "Free Speech, Fighting Faiths, and 'Nones': How Robust Free Speech Protections Helped Atheists, Humanists, and Freethinkers to Become Visible Participants in American Culture" AUTHOR: Katie McKerall , Senior Staff Attorney, American Humanist Association

PAPER: "The Jewish Dilemma in Supporting Free Speech and Countering Antisemitism on American College Campuses" AUTHOR: David L. Bernstein , Founder, Jewish Institute for Liberal Values

PAPER: "Does Free Speech Promote Racial Tolerance Across Countries?" AUTHOR: Claudia Williamson Kramer , Probasco Chair of Free Enterprise, UTC Gary W. Rollins College of Business

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‘Leaving home used to be a rite of passage’: Andrew O’Hagan on family, freedom and a generational divide

The Scottish novelist moved out as early as he could. His son says he might never leave. Do young people still want to flee the nest, he asks, and what happens when a population comes to maturity feeling ‘made’ by their parents?

I f you were a working-class teenager in the 1980s, the thing most expected of you in the family home was that you would soon be leaving it. There were imminent romances to be imagined, but few of them burned brighter in the two-bar fire of the soul than the notion that you might soon have keys to your own front door. I think I dreamed about it, the Hoovering whose frequency I could personally control, the music at full volume, the sleep-overs that would never turn into psychodramas involving Bell’s whisky and the police – my own flat , where all the grief could be left behind and tins would be banned from the fridge.

Back in the late 1950s, my parents hadn’t done “single life”. They were “married out of the house”, as they used to say in Glasgow, my mother at 19. “You’ve made your bed, so you can lie in it,” was one of my grandmother’s favourite phrases, as if looking after yourself wasn’t a fledgling activity but a moral imperative carrying a high price for failure. The ability to “stand on your own two feet” (another favourite) went along with the expectation that you wouldn’t let the grass grow under them, a directive to pastures new, one street over perhaps, with a spouse, children and a washing machine of one’s own. “In 1961,” writes the British historian David Kynaston, “only 98,466 houses were built in the public sector, compared to 170,366 for owner-occupiers.” My parents were suddenly in a world where progress meant leaving home and getting a mortgage. As it turned out, they were bred-in-the-bone tenants who shared a heartstopping fear of debt; their kids, on the other hand, each had a flat before they were 30.

The dream of leaving went deep, a kind of poetry for my generation, which spelled out its political demands on T-shirts, always with a melancholy touch. We went on marches. We rocked against racism. But there was something domestic and more quietly political in the songs I loved, from the Beatles’ She’s Leaving Home to the Smiths’ Back to the Old House. It was the bid for a different life and a kind of regretful acceptance that you might have to live that life on your own. Feminism, rock music and the pill appeared to have completely passed my parents by, with their preference for Shirley Bassey, Perry Como, and frequently getting pregnant by accident. (I shouldn’t complain: I was the last.)

There’s no evidence that my mum and dad spent any time in their youth imagining they could live alone. But for me, getting away was an early, passionate theme, and I fantasised about British cities where I might land and discover life. One of my favourite TV programmes was The Liver Birds, about two girls sharing a flat in Liverpool. To me, it was a promise of what the world out there might possibly be at its best: a feast of independence. I watched it with my mother and could see from her reactions that this was something she’d never had – those hairdos, that backchat, those boyfriends, that coat – and I’m sure there was a certain amazement in her voice when she talked about it, as if a person like her never got to leave home. Sons can be brutal in their sense of “can do”, and I was already departing. At school, we spent half an hour every morning writing in our “news books”. It was supposed to be handwriting practice, but I took it as an opportunity to try out some wish-fulfilling autofiction, composing stories from the frontline of our war-torn living room, and reporting on how I would soon be living in a penthouse in Paris.

We were all expected to leave home, but it was a fault in your stars, perhaps, if you travelled too far or forgot the innate superiority of your origins. I went to London, and as the decades passed my mother said it made her sad – “I always thought you’d come back” – yet she also advertised it as one of her achievements, that each of her children had gone off and built their own nest. Pride and proximity have a complicated dance to perform in lives like ours: my father didn’t care about proximity (he only did pride), and once we were in flats of our own he scarcely ever came to visit. For my mother, it was harder. She wanted us to do well, have work, gain a partner, build a home, but she also clearly bracketed it with what felt to her like personal loss. It was a breakup. Unmistakably. I’ll never really know what to say about it, but I find it emerges in my stories – the small dramas of distance that can play out between people who love each other. When I left, aged 21, the bus from Glasgow had scarcely passed Carlisle before my mother emptied my old room and replaced my desk with a doily-festooned dressing table. In her heart (and she lived in her heart) I had betrayed her by wanting to go, and life, for her, was just like that, a series of gains enjoyed by other people at her expense. She could remark that we’d “settled”, and would enjoy saying that to her friends, but I could hear it in her voice that she felt we’d abandoned her in a house of old school photographs.

Leaving home used to be a rite of passage. It’s there in the classics, from Jane Eyre to The Color Purple , with especially vivid depictions of it in postwar British literature – Arthur Seaton battling his way towards a council house in Alan Sillitoe’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning , Jo in Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey , manufacturing by necessity the family she never had, while characters in David Storey’s and Beryl Bainbridge’s novels are always fleeing the coop or flying into Camden or challenging the old domestic habits as they struggle to establish a life of their own. “It had become necessary for me to look for safety elsewhere,” wrote Anita Brookner in Leaving Home . Later in that novel she describes the leave-taking from one’s original family as “the great drama of our lives”. That was true in Brookner’s youth and also in mine, but is it still?

The suggestion now is that young people often can’t afford it, and that very many – weaned on Brexit and versed in the negative isolationism of the pandemic – have trouble imagining themselves as self-elected foreigners or people who would choose to eat alone. The suggestion also is that with house prices as they are, and space limited, the young might be trapped, many of them seeming to find the outside world on their phones while still living with their parents. I’m not sure about that – each generation, especially in Britain, tends to see other generations by its own lights, but I feel there may be something different now in the way we think about space: perhaps it’s less to do with buildings and more to do with rooms. It might be possible to leave home not by actually leaving but by retreating into your own space. According to some artists, TikTok heroes, influencers and hackers, the box bedroom is a stage, an icon of the age – a place where strong feelings are often had at some distance from experience, where bills are paid by other people, where friendships are intense but carried out in a confusion of physical absence, where sex is mostly a rumour or a miasma of breathless scenes online, and where your private choices are commodified by social media. Apart from the financial impossibility, leaving home, for a lot of young people, might feel like leaving the self behind – swapping one’s centre, free wifi, a stocked fridge, the entire production studio of the self, for the anxieties of “freedom” in a totally unaffordable world. Between the British censuses of 2011 and 2021 , the number of adult children living with their parents in England and Wales rose by almost 15%.

Andrew O'Hagan outside his home in London.

Here’s a possible irony. People who are young now may not have had the initial luck their parents had, but commentators say they are going to be much better off in the end, because they will inherit everything. A recent report says they will become the “richest generation in history”. Liam Bailey, who does research for the estate agency Knight Frank, argues that the ramifications of this transfer of wealth will be enormous. I think he means the effect on rental and property markets, but it could also signal a terrifying increase, in the future, of the gulf between those who inherit and those who don’t. (I would vote for a social housing tax on property windfalls beyond a certain value, even after inheritance tax and capital gains, just to close the gap a little and reduce inequality.) Bailey’s report also made me think of other sorts of ramifications, mainly psychic ones, or Freudian ones. What happens when a population that had a less fruitful youth comes to maturity still feeling “made” by their parents? (Hello, Ibsen. Thank you, Philip Larkin .)

Leave-taking is big with writers. We give airtime to the transit of regret, the power of the unsaid. Look at Andrew Haigh’s wonderful new film All of Us Strangers . A writer living on his own in an empty-seeming tower block tries to remember his late parents. He takes a train and goes back to the house where he grew up, and he knocks on the door, which is then opened by his dead mum. And then the writer, played by Andrew Scott, goes into the living room and sits down with his dad and tries to explain the years. That’s what every writer does, every day, as we sit down at the desk and knock again at the door of the old house, hoping to be known this time, recognised for who we actually are. The same music is playing that was playing back then, the same curtains are covering the windows. It doesn’t matter what year it is because we are always borrowing from lost time.

There are lines by Philip Larkin that are truer to me than the ones about your mum and dad fucking you up. Home Is So Sad:

It stays as it was left Shaped to the comfort of the last to go As if to win them back. Instead, bereft Of anyone to please, it withers so, Having no heart to put aside the theft And turn again to what it started as, A joyous shot at how things ought to be, Long fallen wide.

I think I wanted to make a home more than I wanted any other thing in life. I notice only now that my work is full of falling buildings and broken homes, missing children and last hurrahs and carefully furnished rooms. Making a beautiful home, making it yours and making it welcoming and peaceful at last, is one of the hostages to fortune that the child of difficult parents may hold against the future. We left home to reinvent it: that was the plan, but of course life will always bring new disorders and fresh schisms. The task is perhaps to forge both your own home and your own sense of culpability, too.

But the old house is always there, waiting for you. I’ve spent a lot of the last 10 years working on a novel called Caledonian Road, about the fall from grace of an art historian and bon vivant called Campbell Flynn, who thought of himself as a good man. The book is about class, politics and money – but to me it also tells the story of a person who might have left part of himself back in the Glasgow high-rise where he grew up. Perhaps that’s a story of society that we are always seeking to tell in new ways: how we stay progressive as the years pass, and how we might join the hopes of our past to the realities of the turbulent present. Campbell will find out who he really is in the London he fell for, and that fell for him, but perhaps the bid for success and your own story is always to risk estrangement. I’m the father of a 20-year-old, and I suppose I’m both relieved and perplexed when he says he might never leave home. I nod in assent, trying to comprehend, while remembering the person I was in my early 20s, holding in a closed palm the key to my first rented flat.

Philip Larkin

Freedom of Expression Essay

Searching for freedom of expression essay? Look no further! This argumentative essay about freedom of expression, thought, & speech, will inspire you to write your own piece.

Introduction

The Key Concepts

Freedom of expression refers to the right to express one’s opinions or thoughts freely by utilizing any of the different modes of communication available. The ideas aired should, however, not cause any intentional harm to other personality or status through false or ambiguous statements. Communication of ideas can be achieved through speech, writing or art. Freedom of expression, unlike freedom of thought, may be regulated by the appropriate authorities in any society in order to avoid controversies between different individuals.

The extent to which this limitation or censorship is done varies from nation to nation and is dependent on the government of the day. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, every individual has the right to search for information, access and impart variety of ideas irrespective of the frontiers.

Freedom of Expression: The Key Concepts

The subject of freedom of expression has always been controversial, especially when considering political aspects. A state is perceived to have the mandate to impede people from convening groups in which they air their opinions if those views can result in direct harm to other people.

However, the interference would only be an exception if doing so results in more beneficial outcomes than standing aside. For one to be in a position to gauge the eventuality of a gain or a loss, then there should be absolute freedom of expression on all matters irrespective of the nature of the sentiments made.

Arguments for absolute freedom of expression can be a made by evaluating the purpose for which the ideas are expressed and the manner in which we evaluate what is true or false. According to Mill (Eisenach, 2004), the right to express one’s opinions offers humanity a rare chance to switch over an error for the truth if the idea expressed happens to be true.

In case the opinion happens to be wrong, mankind stands a chance of getting a clearer picture of the known truth through collusion with a mistake. Therefore, freedom of expression acts in the best interests of mankind as it endeavors to progress and its limitation deprives people of the prospects of growth.

Whether we let expression of an opinion to be limited or censored, whereas it could be true, then we present ourselves as beyond reproach. We consider all that we know to be the truth and therefore dispel all opinions that question this truth. It is possible for people or authorities to be in fault. For instance, what we consider to be morally right or wrong may not be so.

The lines that define moral rights and wrongs were set by people who could possibly have mistaken. In order to draw the limit, one must differentiate between sureness and the truth. Our certainty that a particular idea is false does not in any way excuse its expression. Suppressing such an idea would not only justify our confidence of the opinion being wrong, but also proves that we are flawless.

If limitation of people’s freedom of expression in matters such as racism is based on certainty that mankind does not stand to lose any benefit, then this sureness should be founded in the freedom itself. We can only consider ourselves to be certain when there have been no opinions raised to question the truths we hold. Therefore, in order to boost our certainty, we have to leave room for the opposing beliefs.

There are governments that censor the expression of certain ideas not because they are false, but because they are considered to be hazardous to the society. Mill argues that in such a situation, the hazard in the expressed opinions is questionable. The only way to ascertain that the opinion is in fact dangerous is not to suppress its expression but to allow its free discussion.

Secondly, if the opinion that is being limited is true, then the alternative view held by the government must be false. Experience has shown that all beliefs that are false are never constructive in the long run. Therefore, the government that prefers to hold a false conviction in place of a hazardous truth does not act in the best interests of its people.

In many instances, the silenced view may be a mistake. However, most of these mistakes do carry with them a scrap of truth. On the other hand, the existing view on each of the different topics often does not contain the entire truth. By listening to the opinions of others on the matter, an opportunity to learn the rest of the uncovered truths presents itself.

For instance in politics, we could have two political parties with different agendas. One wants to institute reforms while another desires to ensure stability. People may not be in a position to discern what should be retained or altered, but ensuring the parties at opposing ends ensures each party checks on the performance of the other. In the long run, we strike for a beneficial balance between their supposed agendas (Bhargava, 2008).

Moreover, if the opinion being expressed is entirely true, it may not be considered so with certainty. For confidence to feature, these views must be contested against other rational opinions of others in order to single out the supporting arguments. It is expected that those who believe in their opinions will place strong arguments in their favor (Matravers, 2001).

If an authority believes in the rationality of its ideas, then it should leave room for the expression of opposing ideas. For instance, if any reigning political party has faith in the views it has concerning the development of the country’s economy, it should not be wary of an opposition party with contradicting views. After all what they stand for has factual backing (O’Rourke, 2001).

Lastly, the battle for supremacy between different opinions opens up a more comprehensive understanding of our beliefs. We begin to comprehend what is required of us and are, thus, in a position to act on them. Human beliefs do not exhibit any motivation and the debates that arise are what add fuel to the fire.

Holding beliefs with a conservative mindset only serves to hinder our acceptance of the possible alternatives (Jones, 2001). Therefore, opposition exhibited in the freedom of speech opens up a lee way for open-mindedness besides posing a challenge to hypocrisy and logical sluggishness.

The absence of restrictions on people’s freedom of oppression allows for the exchange of error for truth or the clarification of the existing truth. It also reinforces our certainty in the opinions we consider true besides increasing our open-mindedness and thoughtfulness. For governments, it ensures those entrusted with the leadership of the country have reasonable opinions that work for the common good of the country’s citizens.

Free discussion and analysis of different ideas will, thus, result in the prosperity of mankind rather than the detrimental effects it is assumed to bring.

Freedom of Expression FAQ

What Is Freedom of Expression? Freedom of expression is the ability of individual people and groups to express their thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and ideas without any restrictions or censorship from the government. This freedom is protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
How Does Freedom of Expression Protect Individual Liberty? The First Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees freedom of expression to all citizens. This means that the US Congress does not have the right to restrict the media or people from speaking freely. People also have the right to peaceful assemblies and petitions to the government.
Why Is Freedom of Expression Important for Democracy? Freedom of expression is an essential human right. It guarantees the free exchange of information, opinions, and ideas in the public space, allowing people to independently form their own views on all the essential issues.

Bhargava, H. (2008). Political Theory: An Introduction . Delhi: Pearson Education.

Eisenach, E. (2004). Mill and Moral Character . New York: Penn State Press.

Jones, T. (2001). Modern Political Thinkers and Ideas: An Historical Introduction . New York: Routledge.

Matravers, D. (2001) Reading Political Philosophy: Machiavelli to Mill . New York: Routledge.

O’Rourke, K. (2001). John Stuart Mill and Freedom of Expression: The Genesis of a Theory . Connecticut: Taylor & Francis.

Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, October 29). Freedom of Expression Essay. https://ivypanda.com/essays/freedom-of-expression/

"Freedom of Expression Essay." IvyPanda , 29 Oct. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/freedom-of-expression/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Freedom of Expression Essay'. 29 October.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Freedom of Expression Essay." October 29, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/freedom-of-expression/.

1. IvyPanda . "Freedom of Expression Essay." October 29, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/freedom-of-expression/.

Bibliography

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Untangling Disinformation

How anti-vaccine activists and the far right are trying to build a parallel economy.

Attendees visit booths at the RePlatform conference in Las Vegas in March. The conference crowd was a hybrid of anti-vaccine activists, supporters of former President Donald Trump and Christian conservatives. Krystal Ramirez for NPR hide caption

Entrepreneurs and influencers from across a spectrum of conspiracist and religious communities gathered in Las Vegas in March to discuss building an "uncancellable" future together.

But the conference almost didn't happen. A few weeks before the RePlatform conference was scheduled to begin, the event organizers lost access to their money from ticket sales. Their payment processor, Stripe, had frozen their account.

"Stripe just said, well, we're going to hold 70%. And what they do is they say, we'll give it back to you after the show," speaker Dan Eddy told the audience from the Vegas stage.

Social Media Site Gab Is Surging, Even As Critics Blame It For Capitol Violence

Conveniently for everyone involved, Eddy is the chief operating officer of an alternative payment processor, GabPay . It's a third-party company that works with the social media platform Gab .

"We'll process for you. No problems, no questions asked. We'll do it," Eddy described telling the event organizers.

Dan Eddy (left), the chief operating officer of alternative payment processor GabPay, and Lonnie Passoff, who runs a payment processing company that works with the social media platform Gab, speak at the RePlatform conference in Las Vegas last month. Krystal Ramirez for NPR hide caption

For people in the business of opposing vaccination or unwelcome election results , mistrust of big financial institutions and tech companies is common. Increasingly, they can find alternatives being built by a community with a head start in developing the tools of the so-called freedom economy: the far right.

"Leave all these woke corporations behind"

At RePlatform in Las Vegas, GabPay got to be the hero. But it's also possible that the company was part of why Stripe froze the conference's money in the first place. A few weeks earlier, a news story by Mother Jones about the event highlighted a promotional appearance that GabPay's executives had made on far-right conspiracy theorist Stew Peters' streaming show.

GabPay founder Lonnie Passoff's interview with Peters included an exchange where the two sarcastically dismissed the idea that antisemitic conspiracy theories are hate speech.

The company also recently began processing payments for the prominent white nationalist website VDARE . But the audience at the RePlatform event in Vegas didn't hear any of this from the GabPay speakers. The crowd was a hybrid of anti-vaccine activists, supporters of former President Donald Trump and Christian conservatives. Most were entrepreneurs in these movements, looking for ways to build what they call the "freedom economy."

Chris Widener, founder of the Red Referral Network, speaks at the RePlatform conference. Krystal Ramirez for NPR hide caption

Chris Widener, founder of the Red Referral Network, speaks at the RePlatform conference.

"We are here together because we are people who have either been canceled or we really understand what is going on in America today as it relates to cancelization," conference emcee Chris Widener told the crowd.

While many of the event's panels delivered familiar complaints about "woke" culture and media, speakers from businesses sponsoring the event leaned into pitches aimed at drawing the audience away from the conveniences offered by large banks, financial institutions and tech providers.

"Leave Amazon, leave GoDaddy, leave all these woke corporations behind and start spending money with organizations that have your best interests in mind," said Megan Greene of Patmos, a web-hosting company named after the Greek island that the Christian apostle John is said to have been exiled to.

'Lex Luthor Of The Internet': Meet The Man Keeping Far-Right Websites Alive

It's hard to say just how large the market of conservative-focused businesses is. One recent report from a conservative shopping app estimated that there are at least 80,000 American small businesses in what it calls the "freedom economy," from coffee sellers and razor companies to dating apps and plumbers. Some of these businesses aren't small: At one point, pillow salesman turned pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell's MyPillow company had almost $300 million in revenue.

A matter of survival

In some religious communities, building a parallel society is an old idea, according to Amarnath Amarasingam, a professor of religion at Queen's University in Ontario. One example is fundamentalist Christians after the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925.

"They got destroyed in kind of the media sphere. They were depicted as this kind of backwater, Bible-thumping dummies," he said. "They retreated from the public, and they created a kind of network, a kind of parallel society, their own publishing houses, their own media, their own magazines, newsletters and so on."

A woman sits at the Christian Chamber of Commerce booth at the RePlatform conference. Krystal Ramirez for NPR hide caption

A woman sits at the Christian Chamber of Commerce booth at the RePlatform conference.

But the entrepreneurs gathered in Vegas represent a broader fusion of communities reacting to years of COVID-19, stolen election narratives and transgender visibility, he said. A shared, embattled subculture.

"They feel like they're on the outs," said Amarasingam. "They believe that the governments are against them, intellectuals are against them, that science is moving in the opposite direction, that science education is moving in the opposite direction. So they just see a lot of trends that they feel are against traditional Christian values, family values."

And adding in a spoonful of current-day conspiracism helps to frame the building of a separate, untainted economy as a matter of survival.

"Tragedy in the real world"

The situation that the conference itself faced with Stripe was a fitting, if muddy, illustration of a concern often referred to as "debanking." The power that financial organizations have to freeze or shut down accounts is real. And while figures on the right have often framed debanking as political persecution, it's nearly impossible to know how often it happens. That's because banks and payment processors rarely spell out their reasons, according to Jessica Davis, who runs Insight Threat Intelligence .

Stripe, for instance, did not comment on what happened with the conference, citing customer privacy.

In many cases, Davis said, people are cut off over mundane , technical violations, such as someone using their account the wrong way.

"But there is social capital to be gained by a lot of these people who are claiming that they have their accounts closed," she added.

On the other hand, there is another category of very high-profile examples, in which extremists have lost access to payment services or social media accounts after violent events.

"The bulk of it happens as a response to some tragedy in the real world," said Megan Squire, a computer and data scientist tracking extremism with the Southern Poverty Law Center.

White nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the alt-right clashed with counterprotesters during the Unite the Right rally in 2017. One aftermath of that event was that some far-right groups lost access to financial and technology platforms. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption

She said waves of debanking and deplatforming have followed violent episodes like the deadly Unite the Right white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 and a number of mass shootings explicitly motivated by hate. Another big wave came after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Squire said that for years, she has watched some far-right extremists experiment with building infrastructure to get around these bans.

"They'll talk about how we need this payment [platform]. ... We need to make our own web-hosting companies. We need to make our own social media. We need to make our own domain registrars. We need to make our own computers," she said.

Building those tools is a huge challenge, requiring planning, technical skill, money and, crucially, finding a sustainable customer base. Squire says GabPay is one of many such experiments, born out of necessity. It's part of a dream that the founder of Gab has been promoting for years.

Dan Eddy (center) speaks to attendees at the GabPay booth. Krystal Ramirez for NPR hide caption

Dan Eddy (center) speaks to attendees at the GabPay booth.

"The broadest audience possible"

Gab is a glitch-prone alternative to X, formerly Twitter, that launched in 2016 in response to perceived anti-conservative censorship at major social media companies. It bans pornography but otherwise brands itself as a free-speech absolutist space by explicitly allowing hate speech that other mainstream platforms prohibit.

One of Gab's most notable active users was the man who shot and killed 11 people and wounded six at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 . The platform's founder, Andrew Torba, has said he doesn't hate Jews but has also said they have no place in what he calls his conservative Christian movement.

National Security

Pittsburgh shooting and other cases point to rise in domestic extremism.

"And it's really thanks to the folks on Gab that I became aware of these issues: issues like [the] Jewish Question, issues like Zionist power and Zionist Occupied Government ," Torba said on an episode of his podcast in November 2023.

"'The Jewish Question' is literally a Nazi term," said religion professor Amarasingam, "about what to do with the Jewish population in areas controlled by the Third Reich."

Asked for comment, Torba responded, "Christ is King" to NPR in a post on X. The phrase is a common, uncontroversial expression of faith for many Christians, but in recent years it has also become popular among the far right and conspiracists . Torba says he uses it as a regular signoff on his emails after learning that his doing so offended Jonathan Greenblatt at the Anti-Defamation League.

Onstage at the RePlatform event in Las Vegas, GabPay's Eddy described Gab and Torba as "all about being First Amendment. And, yes, they have a Christian slant because the guy that built it is a Christian. So he goes out and says, 'I'm a Christian. I think you should have Christian values.'" He added, "Whether you agree with that or not is inconsequential to the fact that he can say it and so can you."

NPR spoke with several banks and other organizations at the conference about Gab and GabPay's background. But as brands there to promote free speech absolutism, none wanted to be seen as unwilling to engage or do business with them.

Eric Ohlhausen, chief strategy officer at Old Glory Bank, stands in front of his company's sign at the RePlatform conference. Krystal Ramirez for NPR hide caption

Eric Ohlhausen, chief strategy officer at Old Glory Bank, stands in front of his company's sign at the RePlatform conference.

Eric Ohlhausen, with the conservative Old Glory Bank, said his company will do business with anyone operating legally.

"Our whole premise is one to not censor, and there might be organizations who promote policies that maybe, personally, I don't adhere to, but we really welcome all as customers," said Ohlhausen.

Ashton Cohen is the creative manager of the conservative media nonprofit PragerU. Krystal Ramirez for NPR hide caption

Ashton Cohen is the creative manager of the conservative media nonprofit PragerU.

Ashton Cohen of the conservative media nonprofit PragerU told NPR that charges of antisemitism on the right are overblown.

"My mother was pushed out of her country because she was Jewish, because she was persecuted for being a Jew in Iran. And the very people who support that regime today and that mindset today are on the left," said Cohen.

Anti-vaccine activist Steve Kirsch helped organize the RePlatform conference. Krystal Ramirez for NPR hide caption

Anti-vaccine activist Steve Kirsch helped organize the RePlatform conference.

Wealthy anti-vaccine activist Steve Kirsch , who helped organize the RePlatform conference, said in a written statement: "I don't support racism and never have. People are dying, and lives are on the line. We want to reach the broadest audience possible."

Within each of these movements, the benefits of supporting each other appear to outweigh any reputational risks. There was a clear message at RePlatform: So long as you're not breaking laws, let's do business.

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Guest Essay

Hong Kongers Are Purging the Evidence of Their Lost Freedom

An illustration of a giant red snake wrapped around the feet of four people on a dark and empty street.

By Maya Wang

Ms. Wang is the acting China director for Human Rights Watch.

“What should I do with those copies of Apple Daily ?”

Someone in Hong Kong I was chatting with on the phone recently had suddenly dropped her voice to ask that question, referring to the pro-democracy newspaper that the government forced to shut down in 2021.

“Should I toss them or send them to you?”

My conversations with Hong Kong friends are peppered with such whispers these days. Last week, the city enacted a draconian security law — its second serious legislative assault on Hong Kong’s freedoms since 2020. Known as Article 23 , the new law expands the National Security Law and criminalizes such vague behavior as the possession of information that is “directly or indirectly useful to an external force.”

Hong Kong was once a place where people did not live in fear. It had rule of law, a rowdy press and a semi-democratic legislature that kept the powerful in check. The result was a city with a freewheeling energy unmatched in China. Anyone who grew up in China in the 1980s and 1990s could sing the Cantopop songs of Hong Kong stars like Anita Mui, and that was a problem for Beijing: Freedom was glamorous, desirable.

When Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997, the city’s people accepted, in good faith, Beijing’s promises that its capitalist system and way of life would remain unchanged for 50 years and that the city would move toward universal suffrage in the election of its leader.

Not anymore. Now Hong Kong people are quietly taking precautions, getting rid of books, T-shirts, film footage, computer files and other documents from the heady days when this international financial center was also known for its residents’ passionate desire for freedom.

I used to joke that I never needed to watch dystopian series like “The Handmaid’s Tale” or “The Hunger Games.” As someone who has lived and worked for years in Hong Kong and China, I know what it feels like to descend into deepening repression, remembering our free lives.

As Beijing kept breaking its promises over the years, Hong Kongers took to the streets to defend their freedoms nearly every sweltering summer. In 2003, demonstrations by half a million people forced Hong Kong’s government to shelve an earlier attempt to introduce Article 23. In 2014, hundreds of thousands peacefully occupied parts of the city for 79 days to protest moves by Beijing to ensure that only candidates acceptable to the Communist Party could run for election as Hong Kong’s top leader.

But Hong Kongers were unprepared for the coming of President Xi Jinping of China, the architect of another frightening crackdown far away on the mainland.

In 2017, I started to receive reports that Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities were disappearing into “ political education” camps in the northwestern region of Xinjiang . People who had managed to get out told me how Xinjiang’s borders were suddenly closed, escape was becoming impossible and speech or behavior that was once acceptable — like simply praying at a neighbor’s house — could get you jailed. Officials would enter homes to inspect books and decorations. Uyghurs were discarding copies of the Quran or books written in Arabic, fearing they would be disappeared or jailed for insufficient loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party. One man told me he had burned a T-shirt with a map of Kazakhstan on it — many of Xinjiang’s inhabitants are ethnic Kazakhs with family members across the border — because any foreign connection had become risky.

As these stories of repression and fear emerged from Xinjiang, they were instantly recognizable in Hong Kong. In 2019, the city’s government proposed a bill that would have allowed extradition to China. Fear and anger — and the feeling that Hong Kong people needed to make one last stand while they could — exploded in months of protest .

One of the 2019 protest slogans — “Today’s Xinjiang is tomorrow’s Hong Kong”— sounded to me like hyperbole at the time. Now, five years later, it feels prescient. Today, it’s Hong Kongers who are disposing of dangerous books and T-shirts. Some people I know have quietly left an online chat group that includes foreign organizations and individuals; such contact could put the group’s Hong Kong members at risk. Others are quitting social media; tens of thousands have already left Hong Kong.

After Beijing imposed the National Security Law in Hong Kong in 2020, it used the law to decimate the city’s pro-democracy movement by jailing its leaders. More than 1,000 people remain in jail. Fearful of arrest, independent labor unions and media outlets disbanded. Libraries pulled hundreds of books off shelves. Films and plays were censored. Civil servants can no longer stay neutral and are forced to pledge allegiance to the government.

Both the National Security Law and Article 23, passed last week, are broad, vague and blunt instruments intended to critically wound civil liberties and transform institutions that protected people’s freedoms into tools of repression. Under Article 23, anyone found guilty of participating in a meeting of a “prohibited organization” or who discloses “unlawful” and vaguely defined “state secrets” could face a decade behind bars.

Beijing has couched this repression in terms like “the rule of law,” and visitors to Hong Kong often fail to recognize the transformations taking place beneath the enduring glitz of the city. That leaves the rest of the world detached from the reality on the ground — unable to sympathize with Beijing’s victims or to feel their breathlessness under this growing weight.

One acquaintance in Hong Kong told me that people he knew had become blasé about their sudden loss of freedom and were just coldly watching the destruction of the city and what it stood for. But others, toughened over the years, still express hope and defiance. The solidarity forged through nearly two decades of widespread activism won’t die easily. A Pew Research Center survey this month found that more than 80 percent of Hong Kongers still want democracy, however remote that possibility looks today.

The Chinese government wants the world to forget about Hong Kong, to forget what the city once was, to forget Beijing’s broken promises. But Hong Kong’s people will never forget. Don’t look away.

Maya Wang (@wang_maya) is acting China director for Human Rights Watch.

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Opinion What we have learned about the Supreme Court’s right-wingers

Supreme Court observers frequently refer to its right-wing majority of six as a single bloc. However, differences among those six have become more apparent over time. Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s and Clarence Thomas’s extreme judicial activism, partisan screeds and ethics controversies put them in a category unto themselves. Meanwhile, Justice Amy Coney Barrett has demonstrated surprising independence.

Watch Justice Barrett.

Not all Republican-appointed judges are the same. In Trump v. Anderson (concerning disqualification under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of four-times-indicted former president Donald Trump), for example, Barrett, along with Justices Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor, criticized the maximalist majority opinion, which held that not only could state courts not determine disqualification but that Congress had to act before any candidate could be disqualified from federal office.

Like the so-called liberal justices, Barrett was disinclined to address “the complicated question whether federal legislation is the exclusive vehicle through which Section 3 can be enforced.” The court decided too much, she agreed. Her complaint with the so-called liberal justices was primarily tonal. (“This is not the time to amplify disagreement with stridency.”)

Likewise, in United States v. Texas (considering the stay on enforcement of Texas’s S.B. 4 immigration law ), Barrett, along with Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, offered the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit an opening to take up the case promptly, which it did, rather than wade into a procedural fight over a stay in a case concerning Texas’s constitutionally suspect law.

As Supreme Court expert Steve Vladeck put it , “The Barrett/Kavanaugh concurrence went out of its way to nudge the Fifth Circuit — noting not only that the Fifth Circuit should be able to rule on the stay pending appeal ‘promptly,’ but that, ‘If a decision does not issue soon, the applicants may return to this Court.’” In essence, Barrett said the Supreme Court would not meddle in a circuit’s administrative business. But if the 5th Circuit actually allowed this constitutional monstrosity to proceed, she would have a different view.

And in Moore v. Harper (the independent state legislature doctrine), Barrett joined in the chief justice’s majority opinion, along with the three Democratic-appointed justices, to bat down the radical notion that state courts have no role in determining alleged violations of state election laws (provided they did “not transgress the ordinary bounds of judicial review”).

Beyond her opinions in high-profile cases, Barrett also sought to repair the court’s reputation damaged by right-wing partisanship. She has started appearing alongside Sotomayor publicly to insist that the court’s ideological combatants are more collegial than they might appear. Perhaps she is.

Barrett is no Sandra Day O’Connor (a true swing justice). Barrett was just as extreme on Roe v. Wade as the other right-wingers. Nevertheless, her efforts to carve an independent niche on the court should not be ignored.

On the other hand, there is no limit to what Justices Alito and Thomas will do.

In contrast to Barrett, no right-wing theory or activist invitation is too wacky for Alito and Thomas to entertain.

During oral argument on Danco Laboratories v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (considering the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone), Alito and Thomas took up the right-wing infatuation with the Comstock Act , passed in 1873. Alito, alone among the justices, seemed anxious to speed past the very real “standing” issue to ruminate about a means of banning abortion nationwide.

The Comstock law, which has not been enforced in about a century, bans sending “every article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing which is advertised or described in a manner calculated to lead another to use or apply it for producing abortion .” (Also, certainly unconstitutionally, it bans a large category of vaguely defined pornography.) Thomas and Alito seem ready and willing to deploy the law in a way it has never been applied: namely, to states where abortion is otherwise legal, thereby threatening the availability of medical abortions nationwide.

The Post reported , “Some experts and Biden officials fear Alito and Thomas are planning to write a separate opinion focused solely on the Comstock Act, arguing that the law remains viable and providing legal cover to a future administration that seeks to invoke it.” Even if Alito and Thomas do not carry the day, the Hill reported , “access to abortion pills could still very much be at risk if Alito and Thomas succeed in soliciting a Comstock-focused challenge in the future,” abortion rights defenders fear. A future Republican administration might well start trying to employ the law to throw abortion providers in jail.

Fishing for a hook to extrapolate the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling into a nationwide ban on medical abortions epitomizes these justices’ radical disregard for precedent and brazen judicial activism. Indeed, Alito and Thomas increasingly seem like stalking horses for the far-right agenda, be it on guns, abortion or voting.

The Supreme Court’s credibility

Numerous polls show the court’s approval has cratered , likely a function of its ethics scandals, partisan rhetoric and aggressive reversal of precedent. In other words, judicial imperialism and disdain for ethical rules that apply even to members of Congress are unpopular with voters.

Increasingly partisan Thomas and Alito no longer bother to conceal their contempt for ethical restrictions , congressional oversight or judicial temperament . They have repeatedly failed to disclose luxurious gifts (with no sign of remorse) and remain adamant that they will accept no outside oversight.

After a firestorm of protest over financial disclosure lapses, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. released ethical guidelines so weak that they lack an enforcement mechanism. Worse, the guidelines are so porous that they posed no barrier to Thomas sitting on cases involving attempts to overturn the 2020 election that his wife supported.

Unless the rest of the court decides to restrain Thomas and Alito, concerns about ethical lapses and misalignment with contemporary American values will deepen, heightening demands for congressional responses (e.g., mandatory ethics, term limits, court expansion). If that happens, Alito and Thomas will be largely responsible.

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What is the 'God Bless the USA Bible'? The $60 Bible Trump and Lee Greenwood are selling

Donald Trump is now in the business of selling Bibles, according to an announcement made Tuesday.

Trump announced the partnership with country music singer Lee Greenwood, best known for his song "God Bless the USA". The pair is selling a custom version of the Bible for $59.99, called the " God Bless the USA Bible," which was previously announced in 2021 by Greenwood but then fell to the wayside after hitting snafus with publishing.

"All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many. It's my favorite book," Trump said in a video posted on social media "It's a lot of peoples' favorite book."

"We have to bring Christianity back into our lives and into what will be again a great nation," Trump said. "Our Founding Fathers did a tremendous thing when they built America on Judeo-Christian values. Now that foundation is under attack, perhaps as never before."

The announcement comes as Trump is embroiled in several legal battles, leaving him reportedly strapped for cash. He recently posted a $91 million bond as he appeals a jury award in a defamation case and, on Monday a New York state appeals court ruling imposed an additional $175 million bond while he appeals a civil fraud verdict against him. He will owe another $354 million plus interest if he loses the appeal.

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

Trump has denied that he is facing financial issues and a disclaimer on the controversial Bible's website claims it "has nothing to do with any political campaign" and is "not owned, managed or controlled by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization, CIC Ventures LLC or any of their respective principals or affiliates."

What exactly is this self-proclaimed patriotic version of the Bible and what does it have to do with a country song from the 1980s? Here's what we know.

Trump bibles: Donald Trump is selling $60 Bibles as he seeks funds for for campaign, legal bills

What is the 'God Bless the USA Bible'?

The "God Bless the USA Bible" is a version of the Christian Bible "inspired by Lee Greenwood's patriotic anthem 'God Bless the USA,'" according to the official God Bless The USA Bible website.

Touting itself as the "only Bible endorsed by President Trump" and Greenwood himself, it incorporates copies of American political documents and Greenwood's song lyrics into the copy.

A "spotlight" section on the website shows other conservative personalities posing with a copy of the bible, including Tomi Lahren, Donal Trump Jr., Rita Cosby, Travis Tritt and Gov. Mike Huckabee.

According to the website, "high order volume" means customers will have to wait four to six weeks for delivery.

What is in the 'God Bless the USA Bible'?

The "God Bless the USA Bible" is the King James Version translation interspersed with copies of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance and handwritten lyrics to the chorus of “God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood.

According to the Bible's website, it comes in a large print, two-column format.

Christian nationalism on the rise: As Trump support merges with Christian nationalism, experts warn of extremist risks

Who is Lee Greenwood?

Melvin Lee Greenwood is an American country music singer-songwriter. He has released more than 20 major-label albums but is best known for his 1984 patriotic song "God Bless the USA."

Greenwood identifies as a conservative Republican and Christian and his song has often been used at Republican political rallies and conventions. It has been used in the campaigns of Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and more recently, Donald Trump.

President Bush nominated Greenwood to serve on the National Council of Arts, which he did from 2008 to 2022. In 2018, Greenwood was awarded the MMP Music Award and was inducted into the MMP Hall of Fame by Commander Joseph W. Clark.

'God Bless the USA Bible' controversies, response

Constitutional and legal scholars, as well as people in the Christian church, have rebuffed the existence of a Bible that mixes religion and legal doctrine. When the concept was first announced, it received notable backlash.

In 2021, HarperCollins Christian Publishing refused to manufacture the book after a preliminary agreement, leading Greenwood and Hugh Kirkpatrick, who led the company Elite Service Pro behind the custom Bible, to look elsewhere for publishing.

HarperCollins Christian Publishing, which includes Zondervan and Thomas Nelson publishing groups, is the North American licensor for the New International Version translation of the Bible, which ultimately was not used in the "God Bless the USA" version. Instead, it uses the King James Version translation.

It is now unclear who the publisher and licensor of the new version is. Greenwood's publicist previously told the Nashville Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY network, that Elite Source Pro is no longer a partner on the project. He was unable to name the new licensee who is manufacturing the Bible.

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Freedom Essay for Students and Children
Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas. Freedom does not mean that you violate others right, it does not mean that you disregard other rights. Moreover, freedom means enchanting the beauty of nature and the environment around us. The Freedom of Speech. Freedom of speech is the most common and prominent right that every ...
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The Idea of 'Freedom' Has Two Different Meanings. Here's Why
Here, Constant claimed, freedom, understood as "peaceful enjoyment and private independence," was perfectly secure—even though less than five percent of British adults could vote. The ...
Essays About Freedom: 5 Helpful Examples and 7 Prompts
5 Examples of Essays About Freedom. 1. Essay on "Freedom" by Pragati Ghosh. "Freedom is non denial of our basic rights as humans. Some freedom is specific to the age group that we fall into. A child is free to be loved and cared by parents and other members of family and play around. So this nurturing may be the idea of freedom to a child.
The True Meaning of Freedom
It turns out that our freedom to make even the simplest of choices (e.g., whether to put on brown or blue pants) may not just be more limited than we think—it may not exist at all. As research ...
7.1: Freedom? Is it Real? A Myth? Maybe Not!
Freedom, however, comes from the same root as friend, an Indo-European word that meant "dear" or "beloved." It meant a connection to other free people by bonds of kinship or affection, also unlike a slave. Liberty and freedom both meant "unlike a slave." But liberty meant privileges of independence; freedom referred to rights of belonging. ...
Essay on Freedom in 100, 200 and 300 Words
Essay on Freedom in 300 Words. Freedom is considered the inherent right that lies at the core of human existence. It encompasses the ability to think, act and speak without any restrictions or coercion, allowing individuals to pursue their aspirations and live their lives according to their own values and beliefs.
The meaning of freedom today
Sartre's existentialist definition of freedom. According to Jean Paul Sartre, man is condemned to be free. This is without regard to whether he acts from external constraints to repress it or just follows his pragmatic decisions. A person is free when s/he refuses to act in bad faith and instead follow what he is.
Freedom Essay for Students in English
Freedom is a necessary ingredient for the pursuit of happiness for an individual. Freedom also may be negative or positive - freedom from the constraints on our choices and actions, and the freedom to grow, in order to determine who and what we are. We all have the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and also religion.
Freedom Philosophy Essay Examples & Topics
It can also refer to independence from the influence of others. There are several types of human freedom: physical, political, natural, social, and many more. Free will is defined as the ability to make an independent choice. We will write a custom essay specifically for you. for only 11.00 9.35/page.
267 Freedom Essay Topics & Examples
Freedom Essay Topics. American (Indian, Taiwanese, Scottish) independence. Freedom and homelessness essay. The true value of freedom in modern society. How slavery affects personal freedom. The problem of human rights and freedoms. American citizens' rights and freedoms.
Locke On Freedom
Locke On Freedom. First published Mon Nov 16, 2015; substantive revision Tue Jan 21, 2020. John Locke's views on the nature of freedom of action and freedom of will have played an influential role in the philosophy of action and in moral psychology. Locke offers distinctive accounts of action and forbearance, of will and willing, of voluntary ...
Positive and Negative Liberty
Many authors prefer to talk of positive and negative freedom. This is only a difference of style, and the terms 'liberty' and 'freedom' are normally used interchangeably by political and social philosophers. ... In a famous essay first published in 1958, ... Van Parijs, P., 1995, Real Freedom for All, Oxford: Oxford University Press ...
Freedom Essay: 500+ words Essay on Freedom for Students in English
Freedom of Speech. Freedom of speech is the freedom to express our beliefs without hurting others. It is a right that we all must utilise and talk against injustice. Freedom of speech is the right that can be infused even to the commoners. Everyone has the right to express their feelings, beliefs and thoughts.
What is True Freedom?
Freedom means many things to many people. We can view freedom politically, as having the opportunity to vote for particular ideas, people, or parties which best represent our views. Closely tied to this is the notion of freedom of speech, where one has the liberty to voice their personal opinion or perspective.
Freedom's values: The good and the right
Steiner's main substantive conclusion in An Essay on Rights - that justice assigns to each individual equal freedom (Steiner, 1994: 208-230) - does not appeal to the personal value of freedom: the right to equal freedom (Steiner, 1974) - and, hence the original rights through which equal freedom is instantiated (Steiner, 1994: Chap. 7 ...
Freedom and Reality: A Response
Far from a mere philosophical wish fulfillment or fuzzy, humanistic thinking, then, this kind of freedom is real, hard-nosed and practical. Indeed, courts of law and ethics panels may take specific determinations into account when casting judgment on responsibility, but most of us would agree that it would be absurd for them to waste time ...
Freedom Essay for Students in English
500+ Words Essay on Freedom. We are all familiar with the word 'freedom', but you will hear different versions from different people if you ask about it. The definition of freedom varies from person to person. According to some people, freedom means doing something as per their wish; for some people, it means taking a stand for themselves.
Freedom Essay: Writing Guide, Topics & Examples
Freedom is a complicated notion that provokes conflicts and leads to difficulties. So you may feel embarrassed about trying to write a freedom essay. An experienced student gives useful information presenting this work as a free sample to help you write a freedom essay easily and quickly with no stress or difficulties.
Essay on Freedom
500 Words Essay on Freedom Understanding Freedom. Freedom, a concept deeply ingrained in human consciousness, is often perceived as the absence of restrictions and the ability to exercise one's rights and powers at will. It is a fundamental right and the cornerstone of modern democratic societies. However, the concept of freedom is ...
What Freedom Means To Me: [Essay Example], 634 words
Freedom is a concept that has been debated and defined in various ways throughout history. For some, it means the ability to make choices without interference or constraint. For others, it is about liberation from oppression and the pursuit of self-determination. In my essay, I will explore what freedom means to me personally and how it ...
Freedom Essays: Samples & Topics
Why Is Freedom of Religion Important. Freedom of religion stands as one of the fundamental pillars of a democratic and pluralistic society. It safeguards an individual's right to practice their chosen faith without fear of discrimination or persecution. This essay delves into the resons why freedom of religion is important, exploring...
Voices for Liberties Papers on Freedom of Speech, Civil Rights, and
PAPER: "Myra Bradwell and the Chicago Legal News: speech as a prerequisite to equal rights" AUTHOR: Anastasia P. Boden, Director, Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, Cato Institute
'Leaving home used to be a rite of passage': Andrew O'Hagan on family
Apart from the financial impossibility, leaving home, for a lot of young people, might feel like leaving the self behind - swapping one's centre, free wifi, a stocked fridge, the entire ...
Freedom of Expression Essay Example
Introduction. Freedom of expression refers to the right to express one's opinions or thoughts freely by utilizing any of the different modes of communication available. The ideas aired should, however, not cause any intentional harm to other personality or status through false or ambiguous statements.
How anti-vaccine activists and the far right are trying to build a
Anti-vaccine activists and the far right team up on parallel economy Due to fears of "cancellation," alternative technology and financial platforms are being built for the so-called freedom ...
Hong Kongers Are Purging the Evidence of Their Lost Freedom
One acquaintance in Hong Kong told me that people he knew had become blasé about their sudden loss of freedom and were just coldly watching the destruction of the city and what it stood for.
Opinion
As Supreme Court expert Steve Vladeck put it, "The Barrett/Kavanaugh concurrence went out of its way to nudge the Fifth Circuit — noting not only that the Fifth Circuit should be able to rule ...
World Health Day 2024
World Health Day 2024 is 'My health, my right'. This year's theme was chosen to champion the right of everyone, everywhere to have access to quality health services, education, and information, as well as safe drinking water, clean air, good nutrition, quality housing, decent working and environmental conditions, and freedom from discrimination.
'God Bless the USA Bible': Trump, Lee Greenwood are partnering to sell
Melvin Lee Greenwood is an American country music singer-songwriter. He has released more than 20 major-label albums but is best known for his 1984 patriotic song "God Bless the USA."

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