Freedom

The Concept of freedom in Philosophy

A key concept of the Metaphysical

The question of freedom can be regarded as a question Métaphysique par excellence insofar as it relates to the statute of the Homme within the Nature. Freedom indeed qualifies the relation of the man as an agent and the world Physique, relation in particular considered in his report/ratio with a supposed or real determinism. This question thus relates to particularly the immanence and the transcendence of the human will compared to the world.

Freedom is opposed in general (it is thus not always the case) to the Déterminisme, the Fatalisme and any doctrines which support the thesis of the need for becoming. The concept of freedom very schematically divides the philosophers into two camps: those which make of it the base of the action and morals human (Épicure, Descartes, Kant), and those which deny any transcendence of the will compared to determinisms such as the sensitivity (Démocrite, Spinoza, Nietzsche):

One would tell today that there is an opposition between physicalism and mentalism, to i.e between the physical Causalité (physicalism) to which all the beings can be reduced and the mental causality (mentalism), which can be a theory materialist, while recognizing a clean action of the mental one. In the first case, it is a question of explaining how one can naturalize the Volonté, without renewing a Dualisme traditional Métaphysique, and how it is still possible to speak about action and responsibility, whereas one removed the condition of it; in the second case, it is rather a question of explaining how a mental causality is possible which avoids also this dualism often difficult to make understandable. One of the most interesting points that thus this opposition clarifies, it is the character often difficult to determine concept of freedom.

Origin and analyzes problem

The problem of freedom emerges naturally when the human Raison seeks to unify the various elements of its representation of the world. Indeed, if the philosophical explanation includes/understands the Réalité in its entirety, at least ideally (and contrary to the Science S which has a part only of the world for Objet), then an effort of unification of our knowledge by a single causality is exigible, and that in order to avoid contradictions which rise from the assumption of the existence of several causalities (psychic and physical): it seems indeed impossible to think the interaction of two heterogeneous causalities. This problem particularly requested the reflection of the philosophers of antiquity. Hellenistic physics is thus clearly deterministic. But this causal unit raised and raises still nowadays problems: if one links the three parts of knowledge (physical, ethical, logical), and today the social sciences and sciences of nature, how to solve antagonism between destiny and freedom? The problem which installation is primarily of a moral nature . Epicure was constrained to invent the Clinamen , and the stoical invented very subtle reasoning to try to escape what resembles what is called an inevitable consequence of today physicalism.

The unit of our representations would be then a unit Logique. But the question arises: if all depends on the destiny, how certain things can they still depend on us? Or the Nature is only main things, or the man is Master him also within nature. This contradiction in our Connaissance is the third Kantian discrepancy : is I free, or I am led by the destiny? Nature is heard here like a pure causal sequence; it is then a question of reconciling the two assertions: Moral Responsibility and given Act S.

If natural causality is denied, one reveals a Concept of freedom which implies the absolute innovation in the order of nature: human freedom must be able to open the possible ones by producing not-given actions, independent in particular of the inclinations of our sensitivity. Our will does not have any previous cause then. But in this case, freedom is not a understandable Réalité: freedom leaves the Néant, it constitutes a kind of Miracle, from where the almost inexpressible character of this concept, since freedom seems to be in this case beyond the range of human intellect.

Thus, while seeking to unify our Knowledge S, either one makes of the man a determined being, which the will is immanente with nature (thus one seeks to naturalize the human one), or one makes of the man a transcendent, irreducible being in particular with his animal Nature.

Definition and criticisms

A Définition of the common direction would be: freedom is to do what one wishes without meeting of obstacle. It is the absence of constraint and independence, like, for example, the nonsubjugated vagrant with an social order (Arthur Rimbaud, Jack Kerouac, etc). Carmen, said, in the Opera of Georges Bizet: “What I want, it is to be free and make what I like”, “to have for country the universe and law his will”.

It is the intoxication of freedom:

a certain feeling of freedom can accompany the voluntary act, and even when the action is prevented, there remains to us the feeling that it is we who decide direction of our will;
the feeling of freedom can be born from the lightening of the social constraints, for example in the festive Temps (excessive consumption, disproportionate), in opposition to wrought time (work and production). The social Hiérarchie is reversed, as in the Saturnales or the Carnaval.

But this freedom is not freedom with the philosophical direction.

Indeed, against freedom independence, there exist at least two types of criticisms:

a critic moralist: this freedom concerns the license, i.e of the abandonment to the Désir. However, there is no freedom without law (Rousseau, Emmanuel Kant), because the freedom of all would be in this contradictory direction: the universalized desires would be cancelled. The law is thus necessary and it is necessary to limit the extension of freedom to guarantee its exercise. These limits are in the interest even of freedom, to avoid the Tyrannie, the conflicts and slavery.

“One could, on what precedes, add to the asset of the civil statue the moral freedom which only makes the man really main of him; because the impulse of the only appetite is slavery, and obedience with the law which one was prescribed is freedom. ” (Rousseau, the social contract ).

It is noticed that in this philosophical design of freedom, the limits are not limits forcing the freedom of the human will; these limits define actually a field of action where freedom can exist, which is anything else.

a deterministic criticism : to give up itself with its isn't Desire S, to obey to them, and consequently such an abandonment does not concern it a disguised form of determinism? We would be then victims of an illusion of free will: we would have false a Conscience of the freedom of our Volonté because we are unaware of the true ones cause who make us act. Thus, Spinoza writes in Ethics:

“Such is this human freedom that all are praised to have and who only consists of that the men are aware of their appetites and are unaware of the causes which determine them. A child freely believes appéter milk, a young boy irritated to want to be avenged and, if he is coward, to want to flee. A drunkard believes to say by a free decree of his heart with sobriety, he would have liked to conceal what in continuation, income. In the same way delirious, a chatterer, and well of others of the same flour , believe to act by a free decree of the heart and not to let himself force”.

Nietzsche will take again this criticism: '“As a long time as we do not feel to depend on anything, we estimate ourselves independent: sophism which shows how much the man is proud and despotic. Because he admits here that in all circumstances he would notice and recognizes his dependence as soon as he would undergo it, his postulate being which he usually saw in independence and which he would test at once a contradiction in his feelings if he exceptionally had suddenly lost it. ”

These two criticisms clarify several important points. Initially, freedom cannot be reduced to independence compared to the external world; one also needs a real interior autonomy by which we voluntarily give each other rules of actions. Thus, whereas independence concerns causes external (defining what I can ), autonomy relates to the causes which are the source of the Volonté (defining what I want ). The philosophical reflection interiorizes the problem and seeks to find of them the conditions internal, by denying that freedom is dependant in anything on the outside world.

In the second place, it is not certain that any bond is contrary with independence. To be connected is not always negative, because the intersubjectivity is perhaps more fundamental than the independence of ego, insofar as me is to it relation with the different one. Thus, for Friedrich Nietzsche (and the same for Hegel), the is former for you to the me . It thus does not seem possible to conceive a freedom independence like a monadic state, where the Individu would be a closed totality, atom which would have only relations which would be external or foreign for him. The human relations would be thus at the same time sources of conflicts and alienation, and conditions of social freedom and Politique.

Fundamental philosophical directions of the word freedom

To facilitate the exposure and the comprehension of the philosophical problem of freedom, it is convenient to start from some fundamental models, models which are either of the major designs, or of the important moments of the history of the Western thought (this list is thus not closed):

freedom like free will of the will;
the freedom of indifference;
freedom transcendantale;
moral freedom;
freedom gushing;
existential freedom.

1. free will : property of the will ( actus proprius ), faculty of choice which associates reason and will. It is the union of spontaneousness and the intelligence.

Spontaneousness: it is the fact of finding inside oneself the principle of its movements. All the animals (as driven by internal desires) are in this direction of the animated beings in a spontaneous way.
Intelligence: by the intelligence, faculty of choice, we act by ourself with full knowledge of the facts; we have an understanding of our acts.

Freedom, it is thus the spontaneousness lit by the Raison; this design of freedom is not incompatible with certain forms of naturalism.

2. Freedom of indifference (see free will)

According to Descartes, it is “the low degree of the freedom”.

3. Freedom transcendantale : it is the faculty by which the individual can have itself and determine his will in the absence of very forced physical, i.e. independently of natural causality (at Kant for example). The man is known as free who controls himself according to his Raison. That implies that the individual must be able to show of understanding and a great critical direction: the free man gives himself to itself cognitive standards.

This freedom has two conditions: independence and spontaneousness.

Independence: our referee is independent with regard to the constraints of the inclinations of the sensitivity. If the man is affected by inclinations which incline its referee, it can put them side, suspend them, to act according to other reasons resulting from the reason. In this case, the referee and the reason transcend the world by exceeding the sensitivity. It is a fundamental condition of freedom: the activity of the will blames the passivity of our report/ratio sensitive to the world.
Spontaneousness of the reason: it is faculty to create the new one, to open the possible ones: the reason makes it possible to pose an act nongiven by last causes. There are then invention and sudden appearance of innovation. In this case, the reason gives itself to itself its law, it legislates without anything to borrow from nature.

If this freedom exists, then there is a radical difference between the man and nature.

4. moral Freedom

5. Freedom gushing

6. existential Freedom

Origin and development of the concept of freedom

See also: Amorce=Voir the detailed article, History of the concept of freedom

Freedom such as we hear it (like metaphysical property or as condition transcendantale of the Volonté) was ignored Anciens. That is due initially to the fact that the will is not for them a Faculté with share of psychism, and that psychism is not itself a separate entity of the organization (cf, for example, Aristote, Traité heart ). The heart, at the Greek S, is thus a principle of animation of alive (the horse thus has a heart), whereas the comparison for us of the heart and a concrete living being is quite difficult: the modern heart, it is rather the spirit, the thought or the conscience, or something of interior which can be distinguished from the animal life; but it is not in general something which one could easily exemplifier by a horse (but this point should undoubtedly be discussed according to recent theses on the animal intelligence and the sensitivity).

An important consequence of this old design of the heart, it is that the action, or at least a certain type of actions, has, for the Greeks, a less dignity; what watch for example slavery and the craft industry. By nature, a being which work is not free for it (Aristote, Politiques ) because its activity deforms its body and consequently deteriorates qualities of its heart. What has value, the finality par excellence of the human activity, it is the Pensée, the activity of intellect, conceived like the finality and the true good of the heart: the freedom of the man would be thus in the contemplation which requires besides living conditions of free men. This freedom is not contrary with nature and its need, since it is the perfect realization of the gasoline of the man (employment thus should not be confused which is made here word freedom with other employment which is made elsewhere in the article).

The Christianisme then comes to modify this design, with the idea of a God which is will and which creates, the idea of a god craftsman (cf Paul de Tarse). This idea of the craftsman meets already at Plato, but in a form which is not creationnist: the ancient Théologie rather makes of God an intellect not implied in the creation of the matter, even if it can be committed there, for example to put order at it. The action thus will take value, or will change value, insofar as the free will métaphysiquement is now métaphysiquement developed: this valorization has an origin Morale, in particular for the explanation of the Péché. The price to pay Théodicée (to just preserve the Will of God), it is the curse of the human freedom, which makes of the man a culprit by Nature.

The liberum Christian arbitrium appears clearly at Augustin d' Hippone ( De Libero arbitrio ). Its finality was to found one théodicée; this concept indeed makes it possible to clear God of the responsibility for the evil (it is there the invention of the interiorization of the sin denounced by Friedrich Nietzsche). The motivation is thus theological and nonanthropological. Thereafter, the free-referee will become a fundamental feature of the anthropology of Thomas d' Aquin.

It is seen, by this short history, that the problem of freedom in Occident is not separable Histoire Concept of God. This is still valid even at the 20th century, at Sartre for example (see low), when it reverses the report/ratio of the gasoline and the Existence.

Knowledge and experiment of freedom, stakes

The various designs seen above make known to us several designs of freedom. But the problem to know if there is something of such as freedom remains whole. There is an epistemic problem of the freedom, which can be under consideration from a theoretical point of view and a practical point of view.

The theoretical knowledge of freedom

If there is something like freedom, which kind of thing is this? Is this a Substance, a gasoline, a Faculté, a Acte, etc? The authors examined higher already provided us some possible answers.

How is there Connaissance of it? To be informed of something like freedom, that doesn't it suppose at the same time to have the proof of its existence? Freedom would be thus in this observable case and should belong to the Phénomène S. Pourtant if freedom appears as an empirical phenomenon, it is necessary well that it conforms to the Loi S of the Nature. However, that seems well to be a contradiction. It seems that nothing of such as freedom can be given in the world; but it would undoubtedly be more exact to conclude than freedom, like object of knowledge, escapes to us, and than it is never a Objet of our Expérience.

This difficulty can be circumvented several manners:

one can deny the problem, by saying that freedom does not exist. The problem thus does not arise, since from this point of view, it is only about one not metaphysical direction. This first solution implies that one reduces the Volonté to a natural causality, or that it is denied; for example, for Friedrich Nietzsche, there is neither will nor not will, but our action is only one resultant of physiological processes.
but one can seek to save it by making a being transcending the experiment and a condition of this experiment. This second solution appears contradictory: by making freedom a be transcendent, doesn't one withdraw makes with the man any freedom of it by locating it beyond his experiment, although she is thought like a condition? It seems inintelligible and one is likely to know more if one is free or not. Freedom, in this case, can be the subject of a rational faith, insofar as we judge that it is a need Morale, and that one could not do some without refusing any dignity with the man at the same time. Freedom could thus be included/understood like an illusion transcendantale, I. E. as a concept of the Reason that the latter cannot not think, although no object and no action come (and cannot) to confirm its existence.

The transcendantalism and the determinism thus seem to be intended to withdraw the freedom of the human experiment.

The experiment of freedom

Do the theoretical problems raised by the Concept of freedom bring to wonder whether the Conscience of freedom, or the experiment that we have some, relates in an unquestionable way to a reality?

If so, with which kind of reality is there business? The experiment seems to lack consistency to determine it. Indeed, if the conscience that we have freedom is not a knowledge, freedom is either a metaphysical reality or an empty concept.

If Conscience and knowledge is two different things, to be aware of something its existence does not guarantee. It is thus necessary more than the conscience to know so indeed we are free. Thus, it can seem that not, our experiment of freedom does not relate on a freedom, but to a type of be whose Nature is out of our range.

This is why, for certain philosophers, to want to prove freedom by facts or reasoning is a nonsense: “ a man who does not have the spoiled spirit, does not require that his free will is proven to him; because it feels it. ” (Jacques Benign Bossuet). The “proof” of freedom would thus be brought back to “the test” “of a sharp internal feeling” (Leibniz), which would be enough to make of it an immediate data of the conscience (Bergson).

Freedom would be thus initially an object of a immediate Intuition and intern. But one falls down then in the difficulties evoked at the beginning of this article: the feeling of freedom, or its intuition, is neither clear nor convincing. The lunatic or the drunk Homme can think acting of their own boss; much more, even a man held for healthy of Esprit is likely to have serious illusions on his own account.

This is why the problem Métaphysique of freedom draws in fact its importance from the moral stakes which result from this.

Stakes metaphysics and moral of freedom

The whole of these problems and the various designs of the Philosophe S of the past make it possible to see more precisely in what freedom is a concept fundamental Métaphysique: its consequences Morale S are indeed considerable.

To establish the possibility of freedom, it is to save the Responsabilité and the value for the man, at least from the humanistic point of view .
freedom, like condition of the concepts morals, gives a direction well to the moral choices in as in Mal: or, in other words, the gasoline of freedom, it is the duty.
freedom, like obligation, tender with a law which one gives oneself, rises from the Owe.
freedom gives a direction to the human existence: to give up freedom, it is to give up the quality of Homme.

One sees well here in what a determination Métaphysique, seemingly very speculative and difficult, can be decisive for the Vie, for the concrete Existence. Indeed, one poses or one denies that freedom is a essential Attribut: freedom is or not constitutive of the human Nature. To deny freedom, it would be thus to remove the gasoline of the man. Practically, the question would be to know if in other words, to deny freedom is a prospect in which one does not see constraints Morale S which prevent whoever from also denying the humanity of another man. “All” known as Nietzsche is allowed, assuming this anti-humanistic negation of the gasoline of the man. But the Doctrine S of this kind they have necessarily these consequences? To deny does freedom, that imply that it is not interdict to deny, oppress, torture or destroy the other? If, indeed, freedom implies the existence of the Owe like its condition, perhaps its suppression would involve the suppression of a distinction between the good and the evil:

To give up its freedom, it is to give up its quality of man, with the rights of humanity, even with its duties. There is not no possible compensation for whoever gives up all. Such a renunciation is incompatible with the nature of the man; and it is to remove any morality with its actions which to remove any freedom with its will. (Rousseau, the social Contract ).

See also: Amorce=Voir the article detailed for brief replies, Fatalism

Sociology of freedom

Do we Somme freer without the others? How to think freedom compared to freedoms? Is freedom for all a true freedom? The realization of freedom, its practical policy, creates many tensions.

Political autonomy is incarnated by figure of Citizen, which gives up his natural independence to be voluntarily subjected to laws which are, at least ideally, the same ones for all (Hobbes, Rousseau). It is in this condition that, according to this theory, the men can be free unit. But the laws can be felt like an alienation of their freedom by the individuals.

The paradigm of the “good savage”

There exists however a point of view opposed to this vision of education like means of freedom. Thus at the 18th century, Jean-Jacques Rousseau defended a Paradigme good savage , regarding the education as a domestication of the man, and the company like a Carcan. This point of view, which will be developed by Sigmund Freud in its test Malaise in civilization (1929), was discussed as of the French revolution. A work as Its Majesty of the flies of William Golding suggests on the contrary that the private man of the social constraints does not become necessarily better about it.

Individual freedoms

One distinguishes on the level from the individual several “types” from freedoms:

the natural freedom : the man has the right natural to employ his faculties as he hears it;
the civil liberty : it lies within the scope of a man citizen being free of his acts, as long as those do not harm others and are not contrary with any Law. This freedom is very delicate of application, in particular with regard to the right of the Concurrence, since any creation of trade harms by principle the existing former trade in the vicinity. One often associates the following maxim with it: “the freedom of the ones stops where that of the others” begins;
the individual freedom : in same optics that the preceding one, it recognizes with the man the right to go and come freely on the national territory, which includes the possibility of entering there or of leaving there. This freedom was extended in Europe thanks to the Accords of Schengen, allowing freedom of movement of the people in the space of the European Community;
the freedom of worship as well as the freedom of conscience: freedom of worship makes it possible each individual to practice the religion of its choice, the freedom of conscience makes it possible not to have religious belief. The declaration of the human rights and the citizen into fixed for limit: the absence of disorder to the law and order.
the freedom of thought consists of the freedom of thought associated with the Freedom of expression : it makes it possible each one to think and express its opinions without preliminary censure , but not without sanctions: if this freedom carries damage to somebody. It goes hand in hand with the freedom of the press, which is that of an owner of newspaper to say what he wants in his newspaper.
the economic freedom : it makes it possible each one to perceive incomes of sound Travail and to be able to affect the latter freely: freedom to work and consume. No one cannot be seen refusing by principle an employment for considerations other than of professional qualification (for example sex, ethnic origin, age or religion).

Collective freedoms

Freedom is not that individual, it also exists on a total level, more collective, with for example the freedom of the press, which allows a free publication, without undergoing of censure.

The Labor movement at the 19th century affirms the distinction between formal Liberté and real freedom, generating distinction of collective freedom.

Various collective freedoms:

the Freedom of the press : it makes it possible each one to freely publish its thoughts or its opinions, without being prone to the Censure or to any other arbitrary or authoritative measurement;
the right to meet : it makes it possible to the individuals to freely meet to discuss their opinions;
the trade-union freedom : it makes it possible to the employees to form and adhere or not to trade-union organizations to represent them and take advantage of their rights and claims.

Sometimes paradoxically, the concept of freedom can on this level, to harm the freedom of the individual. As in the case of the Freedom of the press, for example. Thus average the techniques and financial important necessary today to the bodies of information, in particular radio phonic or Audio-visual S, tighten with the formation of Cartel S practitioner the Autocensure, consequently reducing the power to control and of criticism of the individual on these vectors of information… The abolition of the Censure is not thus any more one pledge of freedom, because if the publications are not subjected any more to arbitrary decisions, the vectors of information become on the other hand less and less accessible to the great mass from the individuals, reducing of this fact their capacity to express their opinions, as well as the variety from the exposed points of view. For this reason the press is regarded as the fourth capacity (following the example executive powers, legislature and legal).

Freedom and Technologies information and the communication

According to their detractors, the software patents would involve the formation of trust S surpuissants juridically which would be not very compatible with the Individual freedoms.

Movements such as the Open Source or Free software tend to support the access to the Connaissance and the techniques in a universal way, which, per hour of the Mondialisation, represents an element for the defense of the Individual freedoms in the emergent countries, making them technically independent of the “already developed” countries.

The access to Internet raises many ethical questions concerning, inter alia, individual freedoms, but so collective. It is not desirable, in particular for a company which wishes to protect its Intellectual capital, to reveal information on world Internet network. It is necessary to lay down rules, and various levels of access and confidentiality for the Partenaire S and the Recipients.

See also: Amorce=Voir the detailed article, Freedoms on Internet

Appendices

Quotations

“I aspire as well to freedom, as if me were defended the access of some corner of the Indies, I would live about it very badly with my ease” (Montaigne), 1580
“One calls freedom the report/ratio of ego concrete with the act which it achieves” (Henri Bergson)
“obedience with the law that one was prescribed is freedom” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
“free people obeys, but it is not useful… it obeys the laws, but it obeys only the laws, and it is by the force of the Laws that he does not obey the Men”, (Jean-Jacques Rousseau), 1764
“I do not agree with what you known as but I will defend until death your right to say it” (allotted to Voltaire)
“No individual or groups particular cannot be free in a nonfree company” (Herbert Marcuse)
“the man must all wish. Its principal freedom being the desire to reach things; it is free to conceive its desire, with the precaution of its consequences. ” (Marlène Dietrich)
“I badly know what is freedom, but I know well what is the release” (André Malraux)
Paul Valéry qualifies it concept having “ more value than direction ”.
“Between the fort and the weak one, the rich person and the poor one, between the Master and the servant, it is the freedom which oppresses and the law which releases” (Henri Lacordaire)
“the most invaluable good is freedom” ( has tired barricaded , revolutionary song Spanish)
“Kant declares: " To have! Name sublimates and venerated which admits any pleasure nor no flattery, but requires the tender…, you who established a law… in front of which all the inclinations disappear, even if they fight it secretly… " ; The man conscious of the free spirit retorts to him: " Freedom! Very expensive name, human name. You contain in you all my moral predilection, all that ennoblit at the most point my human value; you controlled me to anybody and do not impose any law to me. You know that my moral love would feel slave in front of any imposed law; this is why you wait until it indicates the law that it will accept " with complete freedom;. ” (Rudolf Steiner)
“the freedom of the ones stops where starts that of the other” alternative of article IV of the Déclaration of the human rights and the citizen of 1789: “Freedom consists in doing all that does not harm others”
" Freedom, it is freedom to say that two and two make quatre." (De Winston, the main character of 1984 (novel) of George Orwell

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