There are some who would simply amend the definition of freedom to mean that one is free to do anything that is not logically impossible. But what do we mean by the phrase "logically impossible"? Isn't this just another way of saying "You are free to do anything that you are free to do"? This sort of circular definition is clearly both meaningless and insufficient.
Then there must be another limitation. Perhaps freedom is the freedom to do anything that you want to do. It is in this sense that we talk about the freedom to realize your desires and the freedom to be whatever you want to be. While this may be a very motivating notion for some people, it does not really mean much. What about all of the times that people do what they don't want to do? Without delving into a lengthy analysis of motivation and desire, let us be content saying simply that people are free to do both what they want to do and what they don't want to do. In this case, we have another tautological definition that means precisely nothing.
What about so-called political freedom, the freedom that is most commonly talked about in America? What does it mean for Americans to be free? With our egalitarian principles, an equality of rights and liberties is valued above all else. But total freedom is not egalitarian - it includes the freedom to oppress. In its most basic form, American freedom is restricted insofar as one is not free to violate the freedoms of another. Freedom is not the freedom to violate another's freedom... and so freedom is not freedom at all. Although many Americans live and die for this notion of freedom, it is even worse than meaningless: it is plain nonsense. American freedom is itself defined as restrictive. In an eerie parallel of Orwell's 1984, Americans equate freedom with slavery - which is frankly insane.
Looking at all the possibilities, it seems evident that there is no truly meaningful definition of freedom, and so we must conclude that freedom itself is meaningless.
However, slavery is very real. Understanding slavery as restriction, there are manifold ways in which human beings are constantly restricted as to what they can or cannot do, and what they can or cannot think. Slavery is very real, while freedom is an illusion. Once we fully understand that total freedom is logically impossible to realize, we may readjust our aims and methods accordingly. There is no such thing as absolute freedom, but there are various degrees of enslavement. Therefore, our goal should not be to become totally free, but rather, to minimize the degree to which we are enslaved.
8 comments:
I admire your application of the concept of "freedom" and forming the proper metrics of measuring how truly "free" we really are
Actually, the metrics have yet to be applied. If one wished to somehow "measure" one's freedom, one would have to establish some standards for measurement. I think here, again, it would be best to think of freedom secondarily and enslavement primarily. So the first thing to do would be to identify and categorize the various ways in which human beings are enslaved. Ideally, a perfect "metrics of freedom" would have to identify all such modes of enslavement. Only after those modes have been sufficiently identified and defined may one proceed to suggest methods for evaluating the freedom or nonfreedom of a given person in a given area, with a value of, say 1 to 10, where 1 is most free and 10 is least free. In this way, you could assign every human a "freedom quotient".
Because we really need more reasons to judge each other, don't we.
I talked about that in my previous post. No enumeration is necessary, slavery is best defined as complete immobility, an inanimate object is a complete slave it has no say over it's fate whatsoever. In essence the degree of separation from slavery is the rough average of the amount of energy required to do all things doable in the universe. That is given the constraint that we are all slaves of the laws of the universe we reside in. Taking that assumption away we would expand the idea out unchanged to the concept of multi-verse, etc.
That sounds like it could be expanded into another article altogether. Personally I think that you think of philosophy too scientifically... trying to objectivize concepts that are inherently intangible. Nevertheless, it is an interesting idea.
Scientific reasoning is the basis of philosophy.
On the contrary, philosophy is the basis of scientific reasoning.
"Freedom, such as it is, is in the mind"
"The perpetually recurring misapprehension of Freedom consists in regarding that term only in its formal, subjective sense, abstracted from its essential objects and aims; thus a constraint put upon impulse, desire, passion - pertaining to the particular individual as such - a limitation of caprice and self-will is regarded as a fettering of Freedom. We should, on the contrary, look upon such limitation as the indispensable proviso of emancipation. Society and the State are the conditions in which Freedom is realized."
-Hegel, "Introduction to the Philosophy of History", Section 3a
"War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength."
-George Orwell, "1984"
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