“Unfreedoms”

Does law create freedom, or is freedom the absence of law?

Humans naturally congregate into groups, and these groups organize into societies, with a set hierarchy and rules. The United States, for example, creates freedoms and “unfreedoms” via regulations. We have the freedom to perform certain actions and freedoms to move from place to place, yet, freedoms are dependent on the forbiddance to do things.

The Harm Principle, created by English thinker John Stuart Mill in his book “On Liberty” (1859), states that the actions of individuals should only be limited to prevent harm to other individuals. Simply put, freedoms cannot infringe on the same freedoms of another.

So, really, our “unfreedoms” are just as important as our freedoms.

You don’t have the freedom to purchase a gun and shoot a stranger in the face. That would be against the law. While you do have the freedom to break the law, freedom does not equate to being immune to consequences.

Ask an Anarchist

Does law create freedom, or is freedom the absence of law?

The popular belief amongst anarchists is that people can organize themselves effectively to accomplish their needs without government rewards and punishments, hierarchies, or coercion. So, then, would anarchy be the best way to give everyone greater autonomy in their lives? Not necessarily.

What does it mean to be free?

We’re free to choose our actions but we are not free from their outcome. All societies will naturally form hierarchies, and these are not inherently bad. Society guarantees the same basic freedoms for everyone, so as to prevent those freedoms from infringing on the rights of others. So then, perhaps, societies don’t take away freedom, but rather, it imposes consequences on us. The majority of us are not anarchists, and the popular belief is that by imposing rules and regulations (sometimes categorized as “unfreedoms”) we are made more free as a whole.

Georg Wilhem Friedrich Hegel, a German (as I’m sure you guessed) philosopher and idealist, published “Elements of the Philosophy of Right” in 1820. In his work, he discusses free will and how it is only accessed in the social context of property rights and relations, contracts, moral commitments, a family environment, stable economics, and a legal system–basically, all the ingredients to a functioning society.

Freedom cannot simply be the absence of restraint, but rather, the ability to pursue one’s own good in one’s own way, and through that, freedom is created for and by each individual. Sure, maybe the idea of total freedom sounds good to you, but have you ever watched The Purge? If everyone had equal right to pursue any freedom they could choose, we would not have a society, we would have anarchy. If it still isn’t making sense to you, picture thousands of 5-year old children with no rules or regulations. Things would go downhill pretty fast.

“Morality consists in the set of rules governing behavior, that rational people would accept, on the condition that others accept them as well.”-Thomas Hobbes