What does it mean to be Free
So, I guess for me the biggest question is "What is Freedom?" I have struggled for years to define the term, and never with any great success. Currently, my favorite definition is the power to determine action without constraint. The ability to choose my own of action without external factors prohibiting me. Obviously natural law puts us in a bit of bind as far as a constraint goes, i.e. I may want to throw a baseball across the United States, but physics conspires against me to insure that this will never happen.
But, within the realms of reason, I have certain powers that I can exercise as far as choice is concerned. Each choice I make has with it direct consequences. Sometimes these consequences are immediate and totally gratifying, i.e. ordering a pizza online to satiate a hunger the benefits of which are immediately felt when I answer the doorbell rung by the delivery man. Other times the good benefits are waiting to be revealed in some future time, i.e. my own personal decision to study Greek and Latin in college over another subject has yet materialize in the fully gratifying future that I had imagined just a few years ago. However, on the reverse side, sometimes these consequences have effects that we perceive to be as bad. Bad decisions lead to bad results. Results that we did not intend or desire.
I think it is fair to say that everyone intends good things with every action ( a principle set fourth by Aristotle many centuries ago). The brilliance of freedom is that we can see the consequences of our actions whether they be good or bad in our eyes. When we are not free, there are no consequences to our actions. In fact, when we are not free, there are often consequences for actions we do not take. All things in a society opposed to freedom are arbitrary. We are punished for actions that we should not be punished for.
Instead, in a free society, we are rewarded and punished for our own actions. Instead of arbitrariness in which consequences do not rightly follow, there is reason driven consequence directly tied to and resulting from the very actions we take.
In free societies Merit would be the name we would give to the reward and punishment of these actions. Everything that happens would be merited from the actions of the individuals that partake in the actions.
Now we live as if looking through a veil, seeing dimly the society of freedom that could be before us. A world in which we could reap the full benefit of our actions, good and bad alike.
But, within the realms of reason, I have certain powers that I can exercise as far as choice is concerned. Each choice I make has with it direct consequences. Sometimes these consequences are immediate and totally gratifying, i.e. ordering a pizza online to satiate a hunger the benefits of which are immediately felt when I answer the doorbell rung by the delivery man. Other times the good benefits are waiting to be revealed in some future time, i.e. my own personal decision to study Greek and Latin in college over another subject has yet materialize in the fully gratifying future that I had imagined just a few years ago. However, on the reverse side, sometimes these consequences have effects that we perceive to be as bad. Bad decisions lead to bad results. Results that we did not intend or desire.
I think it is fair to say that everyone intends good things with every action ( a principle set fourth by Aristotle many centuries ago). The brilliance of freedom is that we can see the consequences of our actions whether they be good or bad in our eyes. When we are not free, there are no consequences to our actions. In fact, when we are not free, there are often consequences for actions we do not take. All things in a society opposed to freedom are arbitrary. We are punished for actions that we should not be punished for.
Instead, in a free society, we are rewarded and punished for our own actions. Instead of arbitrariness in which consequences do not rightly follow, there is reason driven consequence directly tied to and resulting from the very actions we take.
In free societies Merit would be the name we would give to the reward and punishment of these actions. Everything that happens would be merited from the actions of the individuals that partake in the actions.
Now we live as if looking through a veil, seeing dimly the society of freedom that could be before us. A world in which we could reap the full benefit of our actions, good and bad alike.
posted by Justin at
5:40 PM
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