Freedom is understood as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one's purposes unhindered. Freedom is often associated with

liberty Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom. In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...

and autonomy in the sense of "giving oneself their own laws", and with having

rights Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory ...

and the civil liberties with which to exercise them without undue interference by the state. Frequently discussed kinds of political freedom include

freedom of assembly Freedom of peaceful assembly, sometimes used interchangeably with the freedom of association, is the individual right or ability of people to come together and collectively express, promote, pursue, and defend their collective or shared ide ...

freedom of association Freedom of association encompasses both an individual's right to join or leave groups voluntarily, the right of the group to take collective action to pursue the interests of its members, and the right of an association to accept or decline mem ...

freedom of choice Freedom of choice describes an individual's wikt:opportunity, opportunity and autonomy to perform an action selected from at least two available options, unconstrained by external parties. In politics In the abortion debate, for example, the te ...

, and freedom of speech. In one definition, something is "free" if it can change easily and is not constrained in its present state. In philosophy and

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

, freedom is sometimes associated with

free will Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to ac ...

, without undue or unjust constraints on that will, such as enslavement. It is an idea closely tied with the concept of

negative liberty Negative liberty is freedom from interference by other people. Negative liberty is primarily concerned with freedom from external restraint and contrasts with positive liberty (the possession of the power and resources to fulfill one's own pote ...

. Charles Taylor resolves one of the issues that separate "positive" and "negative" theories of freedom, as these were initially distinguished in Isaiah Berlin's seminal essay, "Two concepts of liberty". Taylor sees it as undeniable that there are two such families of conceptions of political freedom. Negative liberty is a concept that is often used in political philosophy. It is the idea that freedom means an ability to do what one wants, without external obstacles. This concept has been called too simplistic for discounting the importance of individual self-realization. Positive liberty is the ability to fulfill one's purposes.

Types

In political discourse, political freedom is often associated with

and autonomy in the sense of "giving oneself their own laws", and with having

and the civil liberties with which to exercise them without undue interference by the state. Frequently discussed kinds of political freedom include

, and freedom of speech. In some occasions, particularly when discussion is limited to political freedoms, the terms "freedom" and "liberty" tend to be used interchangeably.Anna Wierzbicka, ''Understanding Cultures Through Their Key Words'' (1997), p. 130-31: "Unfortunately... the English words freedom and

are used interchangeably. This is confusing because these two do not mean the same, and in fact what saiahBerlin calls "the notion of 'negative' freedom" has become largely incorporated in the word ''freedom'', whereas the word ''liberty'' in its earlier meaning was much closer to the Latin libertas and in its current meaning reflects a different concept, which is a product of the Anglo-Saxon culture". Elsewhere, subtle distinctions between freedom and liberty are noted.Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, ''Control and Freedom: Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiber Optics'' (2008), p. 9: "Although used interchangeably, freedom and liberty have significantly different etymologies and histories. According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', the Old English ''frei'' (derived from Sanskrit) meant dear and described all those close or related to the head of the family (hence friends). Conversely in Latin, ''libertas'' denoted the legal state of freedom versus enslavement and was later extended to children (''liberi''), meaning literally the free members of the household. Those who are one's friends are free; those who are not are slaves". John Stuart Mill differentiated liberty from freedom in that freedom is primarily, if not exclusively, the ability to do as one wills and what one has the power to do, whereas liberty concerns the absence of arbitrary restraints and takes into account the rights of all involved. As such, the exercise of liberty is subject to capability and limited by the rights of others. Wendy Hui Kyong Chun explains the differences in terms of their relation to institutions: Another distinction that some political theorists have deemed important is that people may aspire to have freedom ''from'' limiting forces (such as

freedom from fear Freedom from fear is listed as a fundamental human right according to The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On January 6, 1941, United States President of the United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called it one of the "Four Freedoms ...

, freedom from want, and

freedom from discrimination The right to freedom from discrimination is internationally recognised as a human right and enshrines the principle of egalitarianism. The right to freedom from discrimination is recognised in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and enshrined ...

), but descriptions of freedom and liberty generally do not invoke having liberty ''from'' anything. To the contrary, the concept of

refers to the liberty one person may have to restrict the rights of others. Other important fields in which freedom is an issue include

economic freedom Economic freedom, or economic liberty, is the ability of people of a society to take economic actions. This is a term used in economic and policy debates as well as in the philosophy of economics. One approach to economic freedom comes from the l ...

academic freedom Academic freedom is a moral and legal concept expressing the conviction that the freedom of inquiry by faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy as well as the principles of academia, and that scholars should have freedom to teac ...

intellectual freedom Intellectual freedom encompasses the freedom to hold, receive and disseminate ideas without restriction. Viewed as an integral component of a democratic society, intellectual freedom protects an individual's right to access, explore, consider, and ...

, scientific freedom and political freedom.

References

External links

"Freedom"
BBC Radio 4 discussion with John Keane, Bernard Williams & Annabel Brett (''In Our Time'', 4 July 2002) {{Wikiquote, Freedom Social concepts Rights

Types

See also

References

External links