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Definition Of Human Freedom

Decent Essays

What is human freedom? What is required to be free? What freedoms are limited, either fairly or unfairly? Which is more freeing, the socialist freedom from worry that comes with work for the whole? Or the Libertarian freedom from governance that comes with the responsibility to provide basic needs without help? Freedom is a complicated topic because of the mix of personal responsibility and needs that may impede freedom without outside help. For example, can a person who has lost the use of their legs be truly free without a wheelchair or prosthetic to restore the freedom of mobility? Is freedom simply living without outside interference or is it something more? The answers are more complex than they may seem. Freedom requires lack of control, can not work with government, and works on different levels for all people. What does freedom mean? Merriam-Webster takes nine sentences to define it. However, in a nutshell, freedom is “the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action [or] liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another”(“Freedom”). So according to this definition, true freedom would be life without hierarchy, law, or coercion. This ‘every man for himself’ definition forms the base of our concept of freedom. This may be an anarchist idea, but this absence of control is the basis of freedom.
Almost everyone agrees that in a civilized society, certain freedoms should be limited. For example, most people believe no one should be

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