The Importance of Freedom - Essay Example

The Importance of Freedom We have always lived our lives free of encumbrances and blocks as human beings. We are afforded freedoms that are not bestowed upon other beings on this planet because we have the uncanny ability to judge right from wrong, the good from the bad. Society has lived this way for eons and, although there have been efforts from certain sectors to try to curb these logical and natural freedoms, we have always lived our lives free of any constraints. Unfortunately, we oftentimes fail to acknowledge this fact which is why we end up taking the freedoms that we have in our lives for granted. While other countries struggle for a semblance of democracy and their people are crying out for freedom, we simply go about our free lives without a worry or care in the world. That is why there is a need for us, as a collective society, to come to an understanding as to what the true meaning of freedom is and why it is important to all of us. It is perhaps best to begin the discussion of the importance of freedom on the basis of the Harm Principle. According to Oliviera (Oliviera, 2006) under this principle, the actions of individuals should only be limited once it is proven that the person will cause great harm to those around him. This is the basis of the laws that govern our land. I cannot stress the importance of the Harm Principle in our daily lives for this is the principle upon which all our other freedoms are based upon. I do not doubt that this is also the principle upon which arrest and imprisonment of people doing harm to others comes from. After all, if you cause harm to another human being, you end up in jail. That is what the Harm Principle is all about and that is why it is the most important basis of our most basic freedoms in our society today. The Harm Principle presents us with a maxim that has allowed people to develop their sense of freedom in a responsible manner. This is known as the Liberty Principle which, allows people to develop their individuality through freedom of choice. By allowing people to have options in life, a person is forced to view the pros and cons of his possible decisions and then go with the decision that he feels will best serve his individual identity. He has the freedom to choose from any number of outcomes, hence the Liberty Decision. He makes his decision free of guilt and responsibility to others. His sole responsibility in this respect, it only to himself thus making his decision absolute. Without the Harm Principle to consider, we would not have encountered the need for positive and negative liberty among our people. Carter (2011) thoroughly explains that the Harm principle is possibly what gave way to the emergence of the positive and negative liberties of man. Simply put, the negative liberty is one that offers no obstacles to living a life secure in the freedom that he is experiencing. It was Isaiah Berlin ( Carter, 2011) who explained that negative freedom is simply the absence of obstacles in life that prevent one from living life. Negative freedom is a sense of liberty that we all experience if there are no external interferences from groups that could hamper our freedom of movement and choice. Whereas positive freedom is one that exists due to need to control a certain situation or event due to the internal factors being the basis for individuals and groups to act independently of each other. Having said that, it seems only logical, after having developed an understanding of the importance behind positive and negative liberty, we come to a discussion Rousseaus Theory of freedom. As per Simpsons (2006) understanding of Rousseaus Theory of Freedom, there are actually 4 kinds of freedom that should be deemed relevant to politics. These freedoms are: 1. Natural freedom 2. civil freedom, democratic freedom, 3. moral freedom. This is supposed to be the social contract that supposedly binds us all to humanly treating each other regardless of personal sentiment. It is believed that the aforementioned freedoms are the basis that we as a people use to construct what we deem to be a genuinely free political society (Simpson, 2006). People are born into a state of natural freedom. That is why there is no encumbrance blocking our way when we are born. This is the god given freedom bestowed upon every man who has proven to never have caused harm or inflicted pain upon another man. These four freedoms as explained by Rousseau places all of us under the power of a social pact that is meant to support a common benefit. It is because of these 4 political basis of freedom that the thoughts of those analyzing minds turns to the theory by Immanuel Kant pertaining to what we believe to be our freedoms in society both personally and politically. The most common freedom that we experience in life has got to be the natural freedom to think and have free will. These are freedoms that exist from the day we are born and progresses in life with us barring the influence of other forces in our lives. Does this freedom equate to independence from peer pressure and social coercion? It was Kant who first said that; “Certainly one may say, ‘Freedom to speak or write can be taken from us by a superior power, but never the freedom to think!’ But how much, and how correctly, would we think if we did not think, as it were, in common with others, with whom we mutually communicate! “ (cited in Cline, 2012) Although a bit confusing to fathom at first, Kant effectively asks us to consider exactly what our freedom to think is based upon and if it is truly freedom that can be considered to be negative in nature.To what extent do we truly practice free will as a mode of freedom with those around us? As a society we choose to believe that we are born with the absolute freedom to think for oneself. We have the ability and capability to develop opposing opinions for the sake of public discussion or the safety of the whole lot of our society. This is why we have the ability to think of certain situations one way and then change our mind about it in the next minute. That is the best way to think of our freedom to think independently for oneself. There is no cube mentality here. Our freedom to think cannot be influenced by exterior forces, thus creating the perfect negative freedom for our society. However, it is important to note that external forces still have the ability to limit what we think about (Cline, 2012). Our freedom in life is quite simply, based upon our inborn ability to animatedly participate in one anothers lives. As such, we also have the ability to turn what is immediately deemed as a negative freedom into a positive one as one stops to think about the boundaries that were created by our thoughts which then presented us with a positive basis for our freedom. These sorts of things happen to us because of the ability of social forces to act upon our views in an indirect manner, thus affecting our ability to think freely about certain issues and situations. Although we believe ourselves to be free thinkers and opinionated about issues, external forces apply a certain amount of unforseen force that drives us to think critically and analytically about information that is presented to us. Thus making us choose a side pertaining to certain issues, situations, and topics. We have the democratic freedom to determine how we live our lives. Democratic freedom allows us to develop our own rules governing our security and protection from one another. These are normally unspoken rules that become formal with the passage of a law. That is because democratic freedom has an effect on the life of everyone concerned in a given society. That is why it is of the utmost importance that democratic freedom to fully understood by everyone. Democratic freedom is the basis of the other 4 freedoms that are vital to our daily lives. Moral freedom on the other hand takes on a totally different stand from democratic freedom in its sense of relevance in the lives of those concerned. It is defined by Rousseau as (Simpson, 2006) “autonomy, or obedience to the law that one has prescribed to oneself”. Taking this definition into consideration, it becomes clearer to people that moral freedom is what allows us to develop our own set of values and beliefs in life that we use to guide us down a specific path. It is the moral ascendancy of people to do what is perceived to be the right thing in a situation where there are decisions to be made based upon moral beliefs and/or the laws of the land. Regardless of the conflicting theories pertaining to the importance of freedom, there is one true constant in all of these arguments. That is that freedom is a universal right that occurs normally in all societies but can be stifled by the right kind of obstacles. It is because of these social and political obstacles that freedom has become a very important and valuable part of peoples lives. Not everyone will experience the power of freedom on the same level due to these obstacles. Freedom has the ability to determine the present and future behaviour of a person (Zheng, 2007). This is because the freedom of our society serves as the moral compass by which we live our lives as a community or nation. The combination of all four freedoms brings us the ability to carve out various types of individual freedom in our lives. But always with a moral responsibility towards our society unless otherwise specified. It is truly difficult to explain the importance of the various types of freedom and its accompanying principles on just a few pages of essay. However, I tried to it in order to further illustrate and give importance to the fact that we should never take our freedom, either negative or positive, for granted. There are many people in the world who lived with all of their avenues of freedom stifled. We are some of the lucky ones who get to experience the true meaning of freedom every day of our lives. References Cline, A. (2012). Immanuel Kant on Freedom and Thought. about.com. (Available On-Line) Oliviera, J. (n.d.). Harm and Offence In Mills Conception of Liberty. University of Oxford. (Available On-Line). Simpson, M. (2006). Rousseaus Theory of Freedom. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. (Available On-Line) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2012). Positive and Negative Liberty. (Available On-Line) Zheng, T. (2007). Why Freedom is so Important. socyberty. (Available On-Line) Read More