Introduction
“Freedom contains the mystery
Of the world. God wanted
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Freedom, and from this came the
The tragedy of the world”.
-Nikolai Berdyaev.
The word freedom seems to be the simplest word, but it contains a lot of mysteries and struggles inside it. Even though freedom meaning is simple to define but the concept in actuality is hard to exercise. From my perspective, freedom is a state of being free in terms of control, choice, and constraint. Freedom for me is the ability to possess positive strength. This allows me to make decisions and gives me the freedom of choice while being independent.
In my view, freedom is that wide sky, where we must be the birds without limit.
However, we can say that everyone's definition of freedom is different because, for some people freedom is age-specific, the amount of freedom they get depends upon how old they are. While many people argue freedom that is an illusional concept or an actual possession.
Generalizing freedom, is my independence and defining myself from the inside, and the freedom is my creative force, not the choice between good and evil that I am faced with, but my creation of good and evil.
When there is a situation of choice, it comes along with the feeling of oppression, indecisiveness, or even the feeling of absence of freedom.
Here are the different views on freedom by various philosophers. As per Berdyaev, many people become “Prisoners of Freedom” which makes freedom a critical concept too. As per his view, most of the time when people get liberty up to a high extent, they get used to it, so when they are kept in situations where they must follow others, or must take into consideration the values of others they feel like trapped. So, every time freedom isn’t just a concept but it’s a possession of some sentiment to mankind.
As per Mill, “the only freedom which deserves the name is that of perusing our own good in our way so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs or impede their efforts to obtain it”. (Mill)
From the above perception of Mill, we firmly agree and believe that freedom is also being honest and loyal to oneself also. When you control and forces power on someone and snatch freedom to make comfort for you, freedom becomes worthless, and put the person is guilty. So far as you are concerned your own good and possession of your life in a meaningful way is considered an ideal. We know some leaders of the past, who dominated society by snatching their freedom of speech, and expression and choice-making people more vulnerable. So, for them, freedom was just an illusional concept and not a possession.
From the above discussion, we can conclude that freedom does not go without saying, it isn’t outlandish to obtain. To get an opportunity man must decide for himself act and think. To do this, he must apply his reason, and decide what is nice and valuable. When his reason decides his activity, at that point submission to the interest is diminished. If the opportunity isn’t self-evident, the fact remains that determines isn’t an organic casualty form that we are not able to elude. Whether freedom is physical or metaphysical, it appears to be more of an ideal than a definite idea. It remains an indeterminate concept, but it is necessary to presuppose to maintain the idea of responsibility
John Locke On Freedom
John Locke is one of the most compelling political philosophers of the modern era. He contended that individuals have rights, for example, the privilege of life, freedom, and property, that have been established independent of the laws of a specific culture. He says that men are naturally free, and they don’t need any government laws or political government to rule them. Instead, they need the freedom to enjoy their life, to line properly in their comfort zone. Apart from this, he adds if a government rules them and they fail to protect the people and give them their rights. Then that government is replaced by another. Just like we replace a broken sofa that is of no use with a new one. According to him, a situation like this should not exist until the government that decides the freedom of people is there. He considered two statements Natural law and natural rights AND State of nature which are almost the same.
Natural Law and Natural Rights
“The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom.” (Dunja, 2015)
This quote explains everything on Locke’s view that how he believes in personal freedom that is without any interruption from the government. He had different views from others on freedom. According to him, there was a huge difference between natural law and law created by people. The natural law idea existed some time before Locke as a method for communicating that there were sure good realities that applied to all individuals, paying little respect to the specific spot where they lived or the understandings they had made. By natural law, Locke believed that all humans are equal, and they all are born with “inalienable” rights. These rights are God-given and can never be taken or given away. These fundamental rights include “life, freedom, and property.” However, there is a debate on natural law and this debate is explained by the “voluntarism-intellectualism,” or “voluntarist-rationalist” debate (Scholous, 1992). In this instance, voluntarist says that right or wrong is predicted by God and we are told to always obey God’s will simply because it's God’s will. Except if these positions are kept up, the voluntarist contends, God gets unnecessary to profound quality since both the substance and the coupling power of morality arbitrary can be disclosed without reference to God. The intellectualist answers that this understanding makes morality arbitrary and neglects to clarify why we have a commitment to obey God. With consideration of the ground of natural law, Locke is not completely clear. Locke repeatedly insists in the Essays on the Law of Nature that created beings have an obligation to obey their creator. However, there is a voluntarist example that somehow conflicts with this.
State of Nature
By the state of nature, Locke means before political institutions. According to Locke, in a state of nature humans enjoy perfect freedom and use their property according to their wishes. By which he means that the Right to Freedom is equal for all. And there should be no fear of losing their freedom or property. Locke’s theory of the state of nature will thus be tied closely to his theory of natural law. State of nature also arises the same conflict of obeying God’s will.
John Stuart Mill's Views on Freedom
In our philosophy class on love and sex, we looked at a man named Mill and his view on liberty. Who is Mill? His full name is John Stuart Mill and he was an author. John Stuart Mill wrote a book called “On Liberty” in 1859. The book, explains his views on liberty and his principle, also known as the harm principle. The harm principle was overall the idea that every person has the right to say, do and act as they want as long as these actions do not affect anyone in a bad way or harm anyone. In the first chapter of the book Mill defined civil liberty as the limit that must be set on society's power over each individual. Mill tried to establish standards for the connection between authority and liberty. He explains what he believed liberty to be about was 'the importance, to man and society, of a large variety in types of character, and of giving full freedom to human nature to expand itself in innumerable and conflicting directions.' Mill did not believe in coercing people's opinions beliefs and behavior, but the only time he believed that coercion is acceptable is when someone’s behavior is harming other people. Other than that he argued that society should respect diversity. On the whole, John Stuart Mill feels that freedom or liberty is the right to be yourself and should be respected unless there is harm in the picture.
As I was looking on the internet for another view on freedom, I came across an article called freedom of expression by the Canadian civil liberties Association (CCLA). This is an article based in Canada. In the passage, they explained the right to express yourself is a detrimental feature of a democracy. The author reminds people of the charter of rights and freedoms protections by entering section 2(b) which states “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication”. The reason why they believed that this view is important and matters are because, “when government actors are allowed to decide which opinions can be expressed and which cannot, an open, vibrant and diverse society quickly breaks down. Similarly, when our court system is used to silence those with unpopular views or those who oppose powerful actors, we all lose the opportunity to hear all sides of an issue and come to our own conclusions. Freedom of expression is the right to speak, but also the right to hear.” Being heard is a right and we all have freedom of speech. The CCLA is an organization that tries to get involved and they also try to speak to the parliament and legislative committees for the main reason of people feeling that their rights have been unreasonably restricted. While learning about this freedom of expression view, I learned that the Canadian civil liberties association feels that freedom is the right to speak your mind because we need to hear all sides to a story and make our own conclusion.
Conclusion:
In the end, we can say all these philosophers’ points toward personal freedom whether it's freedom from government or from God’s will. Although all have different views or different ways of expressing freedom. But they all point towards one thing i.e. LIBERTY.
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