Topics Freedom

Question Does freedom exist? Let's say this is anarchy: there are no rules, and no control -- is that freedom? You have the freedom to go kill someone, but in return you'd be taking away their freedom to live. Does freedom only apply in certain cases where it doesn't affect anybody? Such as freedom to think what you want. But then again wouldn't education be taking away that freedom, by telling you what's right to think? My question is simply can freedom exist?

Accepted:
May 30, 2006

Comments

In Book II, Chapter 21, Section 8 of the New Essays on Human Understanding, Leibniz draws some distinctions that are relevant to your question. Responding to Locke's discussion of freedom, Leibniz writes:

The term 'freedom' is highly ambiguous. There is freedom in law, and freedom in fact. In law, a slave is not free, and a subject is not entirely free; but a poor man is as free as a rich one. Freedom in fact, on the other hand, consists either in a power to do what one wills or in the power to will as one should. Your topic...is freedom to do, and there are different degrees and varieties of this. Speaking generally, a man is free to do what he wills in proportion as he has the means to do so....The freedom to will is also understood in two different senses: one of them stands in contrast with the imperfection or bondage of the mind, which is an imposition or constraint...; and the other sense is employed when freedom is contrasted with necessity....It is in that way that God alone is perfectly free, and that created minds are free in proportion as they are above passion; and this is a kind of freedom which pertains strictly to our understanding. But the freedom of mind which is contrasted with necessity...is what is known as 'free will': it consists in the view that the strongest reasons or impressions...do not prevent the act of the will from being contingent, and do not confer upon it an absolute...necessity.

The distinctions relevant to your question are those of freedom to do and freedom to will. Freedom to do is generally called 'freedom of action'. Freedom to will, Leibniz says, has to do both with the freedom of the understanding, and freedom from necessity. Let's call freedom of the understanding, 'freedom of mind', and freedom from necessity, 'freedom of will'.

Roughly following Leibniz, let's distinguish freedom of will, freedom of mind, and freedom of action. Freedom of will--which has received considerable attention on this site--has to do with the question of whether an agent's choices are up to her, or whether they are necessitated and out of her control. (This leaves open the question of whether, say, causal determinism undermines freedom of will). Freedom of mind has to do with the question of whether an agent's thoughts reflect her reasons. Freedom of action has to do with the question of the extent to which an agent's actions are up to her, and hence reflect her choices. I begin with these distinctions because freedom of will, freedom of mind, and freedom of action all seem to be at issue in your question.

In the state of anarchy that you describe, which seems to me to be like a Hobbesian state of nature--there would be complete freedom of action. (It's not clear to me, however, that anarchy need be like the Hobbesian state of nature: for more on this, you might take a look at Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia.) In Chapter 13 of Leviathan, Hobbes says, famously, that "during the time that men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war, and such a war as is of every man against every man....In such a condition, there is...which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." The reason that the life of man in the state of nature is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" is because in the state of nature, there is no law and so no check on what actions agents may perform. In such a state, one would, as you write, "have the freedom to kill someone, but in return you'd be taking away their freedom to live." This is why Hobbes recognizes that the state of nature is incommodious. So maybe complete freedom of action isn't a good thing (Hobbes certainly thinks so), and one might even go so far as to say that the concept of freedom of action doesn't make sense if there are no limitations on what agents may do. Nevertheless, it still does make sense to speak of freedom of action, even when there are no limitations on what agents may do, so it doesn't seem to me that freedom (of action) doesn't only apply in cases where it doesn't affect anybody.

Freedom of mind enters into your question when you bring up the possibility of the freedom to think what you want. Here, however, we need to draw a further distinction. Does freedom of thought consist in the freedom to think of whatever one wants, free of external influence, or does it consist in the fact that one's thoughts reflect one's own beliefs? Only if freedom of thought consisted in complete freedom of external influences, would one's freedom of thought be removed by education. (Indeed, to my mind, if education really did undermine one's freedom of thought, then it seems to me that it would be more akin to brainwashing than to education. It does not seem to me that education consists in telling people what to think, but rather in trying to teach people how to think, or how to think better, and perhaps in giving them information that enables them to form more reasoned thoughts.)

If it were the case that in order to have freedom of thought, one could not be subject to any outside influence whatsoever, then it would seem to me to be impossible for agents in society to have freedom of thought, since in a society, people are always subject to outside influences. But being subject to outside influences--including education--is not the same as being deprived of the capacity to make up one's own mind, to determine what one thinks in light of the evidence that one has. If that is what it means to have freedom of thought, then any agent who believes things for reasons has freedom of thought. Perhaps, then, freedom of thought would then be a matter of degree--the more one's beliefs reflect reasons, the freer one would be. (If so, this would seem to mark a distinction between freedom of thought and freedom of action: freedom of thought would be, whereas freedom of action would not be, a matter of degree. In the passage with which I began, Leibniz seems to imply such a distinction.)

So far, I haven't said anything about freedom of will. This is what you seem to be asking about in your final sentence, when you say that your "question is simply can freedom exist." Considerable philosophical attention has been given to this question, and numerous responses to this question may be found on this website, so I won't take up the issue here. But I will note that this question sometimes swamps the other issues upon which your remarks bore, and for this reason, it's quite useful to bear in mind, as Leibniz urges us to do, the fact that "the term 'freedom' is highly ambiguous."