What does 'Freedom' mean?

Question:To people, freedom means to be mentally and physically unrestrained. But if this is true freedom, is there anyone who can actually be free?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: To people, freedom means to be mentally and physically unrestrained. But if this is true freedom, is there anyone who can actually be free?

What is the basic, the essential, the crucial principle that differentiates freedom from slavery? It is the principle of voluntary action versus physical coercion or compulsion.

Freedom, in a political context, has only one meaning: the absence of physical coercion.

A rational mind does not work under compulsion; it does not subordinate its grasp of reality to anyone's orders, directives, or controls; it does not sacrifice its knowledge, its view of the truth, to anyone's opinions, threats, wishes, plans, or "welfare." Such a mind may be hampered by others, it may be silenced, proscribed, imprisoned, or destroyed; it cannot be forced; a gun is not an argument. (An example and symbol of this attitude is Galileo.)

...that which you call "free will" is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character.

Freedom of speech means freedom from interference, suppression or punitive action by the government—and nothing else.

The question should be "is there anyone who is not free"

Read Literature about Existentialism.

Dear Friend, nobody in this world has yet experienced true freedom. The great philosopher Jean Jacques rousseau has rightly quoted, "man is born free but everywhere he's in chains". I believe that that real freedom comes after death when a person attains moksha.

Yes you can be free. Even if you are the most powerful, you will not be able to control everything you want. True freedom is when you realize that you have no control and dont try to control anything. You are free from thought and external conditions(happiness and sorrow) have no influence on you. We maybe tempted to think that doing everything we want( party, drugs..) is freedom when in actuality it is bondage. You get addicted to them and need them for happiness. When you are free you dont need to do anything to be happy. You just are, and you are in the present moment doing your best without being haunted by past regrets or anxious about the future.

The only thing that "IS" free is Being!!!!!

Yes, "being" really is your only freedom in today's world. I hate being such a pessimist on the subject, but I can't really think of any other way to be free, even with my supposed rights of speech, press, religion, assembly, or petition. I mean, those things *are* all of our rights, but that doesn't mean soceity is giving them to us.

mental and physical liberty

That’s an awful question. I suppose that it’s best to distinguish between positive liberty (opportunity and ability to act to fulfil one's own potential) and negative liberty (freedom from restraint).

Rousseau, Hegel and Kant posited theories of positive liberty

For Rousseau 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’. Rousseau clearly believed that liberty was the power of individual citizens to act in the government to bring about changes; this is essentially the power for self-governance and democracy. Rousseau himself said, "the mere impulse to appetite is slavery, while obedience to law we prescribe ourselves is liberty."

Hegel once said, "Freedom is the fundamental character of the will, as weight is of matter... That which is free is the will. Will without freedom is an empty word."

For Kant freedom is based on reason.

Classical British liberals (Mill, Constant, Humbolt) preferred a conception of negative liberty, a negative phenomenon, liberty as an absence of restraint. Particularly they were suspicious of Kant’s theory as they believed that a freedom based on reason could justify totalitarian systems. Rather, theirs was a political programme typified by an opposition to absolutism and paternalism, individualism, contractarianism, toleration and fear of unlimited concentrated or arbitrary power; the limitation of power was always the goal of their politics.

Yes freedom comes from within oneself and goes beyond materialistic and supernatural explanations.
It's not necessarily the ability to do what ever we want... freedom is possible in a jail, under dictatorship, under democracy.

I get to this conclusion from what Milton said, "The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven."

There are at least two kinds of freedom, though people often get them confused. Even philosophers.

What you are referring to was called by Isiah Berlin 'negative freedom'. Nobody is stopping you from doing something. This doesn't have to be as overt as actually being slapped in chains - there are many social pressures and punishments all geared toward preventing you from doing things. There may be no physical barrier stopping you from shooting someone, but society has made the repurcussions of such an act pretty drastic.

The other side of the coin is positive freedom. This is being able to do something in the first place. None of us have the positive freedom to shoot lasers out of our eyes. It's just something we can't do. Likewise, there are many people who have much more positive freedom of thought and action because of genetics, training, resources, and so on.

So even if you had perfect negative freedom - nobody is stopping you from doing something - you couldn't do ANYTHING because you might not have perfect positive freedom. Indeed, you couldn't have perfect positive freedom unless the laws of the universe simply didn't apply to you for some reason... and perhaps not even then (can anyone be free to make a triangle with four corners?).

Conversely is it really difficult to take away ALL your freedom short of killing you. Even a person restrained physically from moving in any way will retain most of his mental freedoms... and even if you sedated someone they might still dream.

So no. Nobody is likely to ever be perfectly free, but neither is anyone likely to ever be perfectly un-free. And in some metaphysical systems, even death does not result in a total lack of freedoms. So it goes.

Freedom is a state of mind. Because there are always things that can control the body and are material life. The only true thing that we can have is the freedom of thought. As long as we are willing to keep it and not let somebody dictate to us the answers they want us to perceive as truth.

To insure this freedom of one mind. You just need to keep asking "Why?" Because what somebody believes to be true somebody else believes to be false. You have to find the truth that works for you. Exercise your freedom by exercising your mind.

You are your own person .

only when you do NOT have an ego... can you be free.

I am free and the word "free" is one of the best I know. I was married off and on for 38 years. I am now single and make all my own decisions--whether to cook or not, when to go to bed, what I want to do on the weekends, etc. Whatever it is as long as it's legal I can do it. I have that choice because I am FREE to do so.