Immanuel Kant And Mary Wollstonecraft

Have you ever thought about what it would be like not to be free? What would it be like not to be able to make choices? What would it be like not to be able to do what you want? It's scary to think about not being free, but even in the world today some people don't even have basic human freedoms. Lois Lowry shows us in her books The Giver and Gathering Blue what it would be like not to have freedom and how important it is that we have it.

One of the greatest and more fundamental gifts of life is the autonomy that comes with being a sentiment human being. This hasn’t always been considered a human right, however, and many eastern hemispheres are struggling to catch on to the concept that people should be allowed to make the decisions they choose without the external pressure to do otherwise. Thus, the question that should be asked is whether or not every human being on this planet is free, whether they should be free and what does free really mean. For many, freedom is all about that ability to to choose what they want, make their own decision and be able to move around as they please. Freedom is about equity, free speech and the guarantee of life, no matter how good or bad.

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion,” is a quote written by Albert Camus, which displays the complexity of defining the term freedom. Jean-Paul Sartre’s play “The Flies,” defines the concept of freedom as the accountability of one’s own guilt, which allows individuals to recognize their own freedom. Furthermore, an individual that accepts accountability for one’s own guilt and responsibility for the city, or complete isolation, is living in freedom. Likewise, Zora Neal Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God explores the notion of being or becoming absolutely free, finding her voice,

“I am self-propelled; fueled from within. I appreciate people’s opinions, but I am not attached to them. I learned a long time ago that if I give them the power to feed me, I also give them the power to starve me.” -Dr. Steve Maraboli. When I read this quote I thought he was describing that no one can hold him back and he is going to be free. My question is what does it mean to be free? Does it mean not caring what others think about you? Or is it being free to accomplish your dreams with no regrets and nothing holding you back? Being free means different things to different people. In the poem “Caged Bird,” by Maya Angelou, she talks about two types of people one being caged and one being free. In his poem “Mother to Son,” Langston Hughes talks about there will bumps in the road of life, but you have to forge your path to be free. In the poem, “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost discusses the two roads a person can take, either you can be free and not care about other's opinions, or you can be trapped by everyone’s thoughts about you. You can be free by not caring about others opinion’s on you, but by making your own path. So will you choose to be free or will you choose to be dragged down by other’s opinions about you?

What is really ethical? What is right? What is wrong? What are the factors involved in making the distinction between killing and letting die? What is the difference between killing one to save five and leaving one to die while rescuing five? Philippa Foot created a thought experiment that presents two cases known as Rescue I and Rescue II. In these cases, one must create a dissimilarity between doing and allowing. They must ask themselves what would be the moral thing to do. Philosophers have tried to explain the concept of morals and ethics and create systems to relate the two. John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant are both two of these kind of philosophers. They express conditions on morality which are then applied to an ethical position. These conditions both explained what they believed is right and wrong and who benefits from what, but they are very different. Mill and Kant’s ethical positions foil one another and are very necessary when being applied to Foot’s thought experiment. This begs the question if you will do things to save the greatest number, or if you would do things strictly because it feels right. In Rescue I and Rescue II, Mill would provide happiness for the 5 individuals, while Kant would give life to whomever needed it simply because of his “good will.”

There is humanly no possible way to merely or easily define what “freedom” truthfully is, as every distinct person and each social order has opposing restrictions for what this belief is. Bureaucrats and social researchers, for example, have vastly diverse philosophies of what institutes freedom. This primeval belief has been ingrained into mankind since the beginning of time. Century after century mankind has fought in numerous wars for this concept of “Freedom”.

Being free is a sense of when nothing in the world can define you except for yourself. Your choices and beliefs are shaped by your own interpretations of what you perceive or think. Referring to the book, it states, “To be free, a man must be free of his brothers” (Rand 101). When Equality 7-2521 lived in the city, he wasn’t allowed to speculate his own thoughts and keep information to himself. However, in the Uncharted Forest, he realized he was allowed to do anything he wanted. Therefore, what you want to be or do should be based on your own feelings, nobody else’s. People don’t have a right to make you feel ashamed of your dissimilarities

The staple of societal thought, freedom, is the power to act, speak, or think as one wants without the concern of being oppressed (Webster). Freedom, is a unique element to the mixture of liberty across the United States. Martin Luther King Jr’s a “letter of Birmingham Jail,” and Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence both advocate the claim for freedom. Both of these historical figures make this apparent by arguing for the protest against tradition, a change across unjust laws, although they differ between the kinds of change to be enforced.

Immanuel Kant is widely-regarded as one of the greatest thinkers and philosophers of all time, with his teachings having more influence on other contemporary thinkers than any other philosopher of the 18th century. Fighting against the governmental and monarchical constraints of the time, Kant began his work by maintaining that all humans are free beings, who out to think autonomously, free from the dictates of external authority (SEP, 2011, pp.1). Kant

Lying the one form of communication that is the untruth expressed to be the truth. Immanuel Kant states that lying is morally wrong in all possible ways. His hatred for lying has made him “just assumed that anyone who lied would be operating with a maxim like this: tell a lie so as to gain some benefit.”(Landau,pp.171) This is true for a vast number of people, they will lie in order to gain a certain benefit from the lie rather than the truth.It is similar to if you play a game of truth or dare, some rather pick a dare because it would release them from having to tell the truth. However, those who do pick truth still have a chance to lie to cover up the absolute truth.People lie in order to cover who they truly are. Even if you lie to benefit someone or something else, it would not matter to Kant because he does not care for the consequences. If you lie but have a good intention it is not the same for Kant, he would argue that you still lied no matter the consequence that a lie is a lie. “ While lying, we accuse others for not being transparent. While being hypocrites ourselves, we expect others to be sincere.” (Dehghani,Ethics) We know how it feels to be lied to by a person, so in order to not have the feeling returned, we hope the person will be truthful. We rather be surrounded by truthful people constantly despite all the lies that some people tell. No

Today we accept that freedom is a basic right human right but what exactly is freedom. 1On one hand, there is physical freedom. People who are not imprisoned or enslaved are free. On the other hand, there is freedom as a the right to act, speak or think what you want. People cannot reach their full potential if they are not free in both senses of the word.

Boundless limitations existed in society, which in turn caused inequality, a lack of freedom and inferiority to occur. Immanuel Kant (2016) explores and deconstructs the notion of enlightenment in ‘An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” by claiming that people with power cause fear in others, which has created a society that has restrictions and rules to control and ‘guide’ the general public. On the other hand, Mary Wollstonecraft (2016) highlights the inferior status that has been imposed upon women by those with power, which she further emphasizes in ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’. Although, both authors have clearly demonstrated their perspectives on freedom, there is a dissimilar concept they both debate upon throughout their respective texts.

The concept of freedom has long been a popular tenet for philosophers to explore. From ancient Greek origins to the present day, many individuals have discussed the importance of freedom and the role it plays within society in an effort to define its relationship to the human condition. Two philosophers that have studied freedom in depth are John Locke and Immanuel Kant. Both philosophers viewed freedom as playing a major role in society; however, they conceptualized it in different ways, particularly in relation to its role with the nation. Perhaps the most notable aspect of these stances is Kant’s definition of the relationship between freedom, reason, and morality.

Just as every plants and animal as evolved and changed throughout the course of its existence so has the definition of freedom while its’ meaning has stayed constant. Freedom has a perpetual meaning, however, humans have tried to change the definition based upon moral, ethical, social, and legal ideals that have through history been debated upon and never satisfied all. Freedoms’ perpetual meaning is that everyone, no matter race or gender, has the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. As time progresses and new ideas flourish the definition of freedom either flourishes along with society or takes a drastic spiral downward usually with the opinions of humanity. In this essay we will be

“Absolute liberty is the absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself” - Henry Brooks Adams. There has been great debate, past and present with regards to what constitutes as an individuals liberty. It has been subject to constant ridicule and examination due to violations of civil rights. Freedom, liberty, and independence are all important human rights represented within John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty.