Freedom is the ability to act according to his will according to the means available without being hindered by the power of others. It is the ability to identify oneself to contingent choices. It is defined, and is perceived differently depending on the psychology of the subject :

• negative: no bid , of servitude , of coercion.
• positively: autonomy and spontaneity of the subject rational , human behavior volunteers are based on freedom and are called free.

This concept is designed as both a value and normative abstract of the action and as a human reality and lived concrete ^{History of the concept of freedom}

The Statue of Liberty , designed by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi , in New York

Antiquity

Freedom as we understand it (as property or as a condition transcendental metaphysics of desire ) was unknown to the Ancients. This is due primarily to the fact that the will is not for them an option besides the psyche and the psyche is not itself a separate entity to exemplify a horse (but this should not doubt be discussed according to recent theories on intelligence and sensitivity animal ).

An important consequence of this old conception of the soul, that action, or at least some type of action has, for the Greeks, of lesser dignity, that shows such as slavery and crafts. By nature, a being that works is not free ( Aristotle , Politics) because its activity distorts her body and therefore affects the qualities of his soul. What has value, the ultimate purpose of human activity, it is thought , the activity of the intellect, conceived as the purpose and the true good of the soul: the freedom of man would be in contemplation, which requires also the lives of free men. This freedom is not contrary to nature and its necessity, since it is the perfect realization of the essence of man (so do not confuse the job is done here with the word freedom of Other jobs that are made elsewhere in the article).

Christianity

The Christianity then just alter the design, with the idea of a god who will and who creates the idea of a god craftsman (see Paul of Tarsus ). This idea of the craftsman is found already in Plato , but in a form that is not a creationist : the theology is rather ancient intellect of God is not involved in the creation of matter, although there may be committed for example to bring order. The action will therefore be of value, or change in value, since free will is metaphysically now valued: this recovery has an origin morality , especially for the explanation of sin. The price of theodicy (to keep the will of God right), is the curse of human freedom, which makes a man guilty in nature.

The liberum arbitrium Christian clearly appears from Augustine (De Libero arbitrio). Its purpose was to create a theodicy, this concept makes it possible to exonerate God from responsibility for the harm (that is the invention of the internalization of sin denounced by Friedrich Nietzsche ). The motivation is theological rather than anthropological. Subsequently, free-will become a fundamental feature of the anthropology of Thomas Aquinas.

We see from this brief history, the problem of freedom in the West is inseparable from the history of the concept of God. This is still valid even in the ^twentieth century , in Sartre's example (see below), when it reversed the ratio of the essence and the existence.

Philosophy

A key concept concerning the metaphysics , the ethics and anthropology

The concept of freedom has substantially three meanings:

1. metaphysics, as on a being that is causa sui (cause of itself);
2. ethics concerning human actions relating to individual freedom or free will;
3. anthropological, because look at the homo sapiens in his ability to reason and social ambientales, to achieve with own volition.

Freedom cons determinism and fatalism

The issue of freedom, therefore, can be regarded as a matter metaphysics of choice if we consider the human being in its ability to cause complete its actions, ie causa sui, which in antiquity was the point of view of Aristotle , of Epicurus , of Cicero , so it is a status of the human being in the nature.

But as man exists in a given context, physical and social, an unrestricted freedom is not possible. Freedom indeed describes the relationship of human beings and as an agent of world physics , especially considered in relation to his report determinism assumed or real. This issue is therefore particularly immanence and transcendence of the human will over the world.

Freedom is opposed in general (this is not always the case) determinism , the fatalism and to any doctrine that supports the thesis of the necessity of becoming. The concept of freedom very schematically divided philosophers into two camps:

• those who are the foundation of the action and of human morality ( Epicurus , Descartes , Kant )
• and those who deny any transcendence of the will with respect to determinations such as sensitivity ( Democritus , Spinoza , Nietzsche ):

"There were two opinions on which shared the ancient philosophers, some believing that everything happens by fate, so that fate brought the strength of the need (Democritus, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Aristotle held this view), the others for whom voluntary movements of the soul existed without the intervention of fate; Chrysippus in the position of unofficial arbitrator, seems to have chosen the intermediate position, but it belongs rather to those who want to see the movements of the soul freedom from necessity. "

- ( Cicero , On Fate, 39)

It seems today that there is a conflict between physicalism and mentalism , that is to say between the causal physical (physical) to which all beings can be reduced and mental causation (mental), which may be a materialist theory, while recognizing a specific action of the mind.

• In the first case, this is how we can naturalize will , without a renewed dualism metaphysical classic, and how it is still possible to speak of action and responsibility, while we removed the condition;
• In the second case, but rather explain how mental causation is possible which avoids this dualism also often difficult to render intelligible. One of the most interesting points that sheds light on this opposition is the often difficult to determine the concept of freedom.

Origin and problem analysis

The problem of freedom arises naturally when the reason human seeks to unify the various elements of its representation of the world. Indeed, if the explanation involves the philosophical reality in its entirety, at least ideally (and in contrast to science which have only part of the world to be ), then an effort to unify our knowledge by a single causality is due and in order to avoid the contradictions arising from the hypothesis of the existence of multiple causalities (mental and physical): it seems indeed impossible to think of the interaction of two heterogeneous causalities. This problem was particularly busy thinking of the philosophers of antiquity.

Hellenistic physics is thus clearly deterministic. But this unit causal raised and still raises problems of today: if we unite three parts of knowledge (physics, ethics, logic), and today the humanities and natural sciences, how to solve the antagonism between freedom and destiny? The problem is essentially a moral. Epicurus was forced to invent clinamen , and the Stoics invented reasoning very subtle attempt to escape what looks like an inevitable consequence of what we call today ' Today physicalism.

The unity of our representations would be a unit logic. But the question arises: if everything depends on fate, how some things can they still depend on us? Or the nature of things is only mistress, or the man is master also in nature. This contradiction in our knowledge is the third antinomy Kant : I am free, or am I led by fate? Nature is here understood as a mere causal chain, then it is to reconcile the two claims: liability corporation and acts committed.

If one denies the natural causation, it showed a concept of freedom which implies absolute novelty in the order of nature: human freedom must be able to open up possibilities in producing non-specific actions, including independent inclinations of our sensitivity. We will then have no antecedent cause. But in this case, freedom is not a reality intelligible freedom out of nothingness , it is a sort of miracle , hence the almost ineffable character of this concept, because freedom in this case seems to be beyond the scope of human intellect.

Thus, in seeking to unify our knowledge , there is a man-made be determined, whose will is immanent in nature (and therefore sought to naturalize human), or we make a man a transcendent being, irreducible in particular its nature animal.

Definitions of philosophical freedom

A definition of common sense would be: freedom is to do what one wants without hindrance. It is the absence of constraint and independence, as, for example, the rover is not subject to a social order ( Arthur Rimbaud , Jack Kerouac , etc.). Carmen , says in the opera of Georges Bizet : "This I want it to be free and do what pleases me, "countries have to the universe and its willingness to act." We must discard the current definition of freedom: "The power to do what we want." Doing a simple lack of limits is to condemn oneself to see only an illusion. As Montesquieu said: Freedom is the power to do whatever the laws permit.

It's the exhilaration of freedom:

• A certain sense of freedom may accompany the voluntary act, and even when the action is prevented, we still feel that it is we who decide the direction of our will;
• The feeling of freedom can arise from the easing of social restrictions, such as in the time festive (excessive consumption, excessive) vs. time worked (labor and production). The hierarchy seems to social reversed, as in the Saturnalia and the carnival.

But this freedom is not freedom in the philosophical sense.

Indeed, against freedom independence, there are at least two types of criticism:

• Moralistic criticism: that freedom is the license, ie the abandonment to desire. However, there is no freedom without law ( Rousseau , Immanuel Kant ), since the freedom of all, is thus contradictory desires universalized nullified. The law is necessary and must limit the spread of freedom to ensure the exercise thereof. These limits are in the interest of freedom, to prevent tyranny , conflict and slavery.

"We could, on the above, add to the acquired vital moral liberty, which alone makes man truly master of himself, for the impulse of appetite alone is slavery, and obedience to the law that was prescribed is freedom "

- Rousseau , The Social Contract

Note that in this philosophical conception of freedom, the limits are not binding limits the freedom of human will, and these limits actually define a policy domain where freedom can exist, which is quite different.

• A critical deterministic : succumb to his desires , does not obey them, and therefore such an abandonment is not there not a disguised form of determinism? We would then be victims of an illusion of free will : we would have a false consciousness of the freedom of our will because we ignore the real causes that make us act. Thus, Spinoza writes in Ethics :

"Such is the human freedom that all boast of possessing and consists of only that men are conscious of their appetites and ignore the causes that determine them. A child believes appetite free milk, a young boy angry and want revenge, he is a coward, wanting to flee. A drunkard believes that a free decision of his soul that this result, returned to sobriety, he wanted quiet. Similarly, a delusional, a talkative, and many others of the same flour, believed to act by a free decision of the soul and not let themselves be compelling. "

Nietzsche took up this criticism: "As long as we feel we do not depend on anything, we believe independent: fallacy that shows how man is arrogant and despotic. Because it is assumed here that in all circumstances he would notice and recognize its dependence as soon as he is suffering, its premise being that normally lives in the independence and soon he would feel a contradiction in his feelings if he had exceptionally to lose. "

Both reviews highlight several points:

• First, freedom can not be reduced to independence from the world outside. There is also a real inner self by which we voluntarily give rules of action. Thus, while independence for external causes (defining what I can), autonomy relates to the causes that are the source of desire (defining what I want). Philosophical internalizes the problem and seeks to find the internal conditions by denying that liberty is dependent on anything outside world.
• Secondly, it is not clear that any link is against independence. Being connected is not always negative, because intersubjectivity is perhaps more fundamental than the independence of the self, insofar as the self is relationship with others. Thus, for Friedrich Nietzsche (and even for Hegel ), the thee is before me. It does not seem possible to design a free monadic independence as a state where the individual would be a closed totality, that atom which would relations which may be external or foreign. Human relationships are therefore both sources of conflict and alienation , and social conditions of freedom and politics.

Paul Valery believes, however, that "freedom is one of these hateful words are worth more than sense, who sing more than they talk, asking more than they answer, these words are all trades, and which memory is smeared Theology, Metaphysics of Morals and Politics; very good words for controversy, dialectic, eloquence, so specific analysis illusory and infinite subtleties that for purposes of phrases that unleash the thunder " that freedom is not a 'word' but the source of his dignity, which distinguishes it in full of the animal or the green plant, as his itinerary is the one that is not designed a priori. Pico della Mirandola compared to the chameleon man: "Man is the being of a thousand destinies." Luc Ferry presents Pico della Mirandola up to date in his introduction to the special issue of Reference Point on Liberty (September- October 2010).

The various philosophical sense

To facilitate exposure and understanding of the philosophical problem of freedom, it is convenient from a few basic models, models of designs that are either major or important moments in the history of Western thought (this list does is not closed):

1. Freedom as free will of the will;
2. Freedom of indifference;
3. Transcendental freedom;
4. Moral freedom;
5. Freedom burst;
6. Existential freedom.

1. Free Will : A property of the will right to choose which combines reason and desire. It is the union of spontaneity and intelligence.

• Spontaneity: the fact finding within itself the principle of movement. All animals (as driven by internal desires) are in the sense of living things spontaneously.
• Intelligence: the intelligence, power of choice, we act for ourselves knowing that we have a discernment of our actions.

Freedom is thus the spontaneity enlightened by reason , and this conception of freedom is not incompatible with some forms of naturalism.

2. Freedom of indifference (see Free Will )

• According to Descartes , is "the lowest degree of freedom."

3. Freedom transcendental: it is the faculty by which the individual can dispose of himself and determine his will in the absence of physical restraint, that is to say independent of natural causality (in Kant by example). Free says the man who governs according to his reason. This implies that the individual must be able to exercise discretion and a critical sense: the free man gives himself cognitive norms.

This freedom has two conditions: independence and spontaneity.

• Independence: our will is independent from the constraints of the propensities of feeling. If man is affected by inclinations that incline his will, he can set aside, suspend, to act according to other patterns from the right. In this case, the referee and the result transcends the world beyond the sensitivity. It is a fundamental condition of liberty: the activity of the will involves the passivity of our report sensitive to the world.
• Spontaneity of reason is the ability to create new, open possible: reason can not do an act committed by past cases. Then there is emergence of novelty and invention. In this case, reason gives itself its own law, it legislates without borrowing anything from nature.

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

4. Freedom moral

5. Outpouring Freedom

6. Freedom existential

Knowledge and experience of freedom, challenges

Different designs above views we do know several conceptions of freedom. But the issue of whether there is such a thing as freedom remains. There is an epistemic problem of freedom, which can be considered a point of view theoretical and a practical point of view.

The theoretical understanding of freedom

If there is something like freedom, what sort of thing is it? Is it a substance , an essence , a faculty , a deed , etc.. ? The authors discussed above have already provided some possible answers.

How do we know ? Have knowledge of something like freedom, it does not imply he not also have proof of its existence? Freedom would be observable in this case and should be part of the phenomena. Yet if freedom is manifested as an empirical phenomenon, although it must comply with the laws of nature. However, it seems to be a contradiction. It seems that nothing like that freedom can be given in the world, but it would probably be more accurate to conclude that freedom, as an object of knowledge, escapes us, and it is never an object of our experience.

This difficulty can be circumvented in several ways:

• one can deny the problem, saying that freedom does not exist. The problem does not arise, since in this context, it is just nonsensical metaphysics. The first solution implies that we reduce the desire for a natural causality, or that denies, for example, Friedrich Nietzsche , there is neither will nor desire, but our action is only result of physiological processes.
• but we can try to save her by a transcendent experience and a condition of this experiment. This second solution seems contradictory: by making a freedom to be transcendent, withdraws Is there not in fact human freedom in placing it beyond his experience, although it is thought as a condition? It seems incomprehensible and it may no longer whether one is free or not. Freedom, in this case, may be a rational faith, since we believe it is necessary moral , and we can not do without at the same time, without refusing to dignity man. Freedom might well be understood as a transcendental illusion, ie as a concept of reason that the latter can not but think, though no object and no action will come from (and can not) confirm its existence.

Transcendentalism and determinism seem to agree to remove the freedom of the human experience.

The experience of freedom

The theoretical problems raised by the concept of freedom leads to wonder if the consciousness of freedom, or the experience we have, bears a certain way on a reality?

If yes, what kind of reality are we dealing? Experience seems to lack consistency to be determined. Indeed, if our awareness of freedom is not knowledge, freedom is either a metaphysical reality is an empty concept.

If consciousness and knowledge are two different things, be aware of something does not guarantee its existence. It takes more than awareness to know if indeed we are free. Thus, it may appear that not, our experience of freedom is not about freedom but about a type of being whose nature is beyond our reach.

Therefore, for some philosophers try to prove freedom from facts or reasoning is nonsense, "a man who has not spoiled the spirit, does not require that he prove his free will; because he feels it. "( Jacques Benignus Bossuet ). The "evidence" of freedom boils down to "test" a strong feeling inside "( Leibniz ), which is sufficient to make an immediate datum of consciousness ( Bergson ).

Freedom is therefore a first object of intuition and immediate internal. But it boils down to the difficulties mentioned earlier in this article: the feeling of freedom, or intuition, is neither clear nor convincing. The alienated or man can imagine acting drunk on their own, yea, even a man held a healthy, mind is likely to be serious illusions about himself.

Therefore the problem metaphysical freedom derives its significance in moral issues arising.

Stakes metaphysical and moral freedom

All of these problems and different conceptions of the philosophers of the past can see exactly what freedom is a concept metaphysics fundamental consequences corporations are indeed considerable.

• Establish the possibility of freedom is to save the responsibility and the value of man, at least from the perspective humanist.
• Freedom as a condition of moral ideas, gives meaning to moral choice well as evil : or, in other words, the essence of freedom, is duty.
• Freedom, as required, submitting to a law that we give ourselves, derives from the duty.
• Freedom gives meaning to human existence: to renounce freedom is to renounce the quality of man.

We can clearly see how a determination metaphysics , apparently highly speculative and difficult, may prove decisive for life , for the existence concrete. Indeed, we are asking or deny that freedom is an attribute essential: freedom is or is not constitutive of the nature human. Denying freedom, it would therefore remove the essence of man. Practically, the question is whether this means that deny freedom is a perspective in which we saw no constraints corporations that forbid anyone to deny the humanity as a man. "Everything is permissible" said Nietzsche, assuming such anti-humanist denial of the essence of man. But the doctrines of this kind do they necessarily those consequences? Denying freedom, this implies that he is not forbidden to deny, oppress, torture, or destroy the other? If, indeed, freedom implies the existence of duty as its condition, its removal may cause the removal of a distinction between good and evil:

"To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, the rights of humanity, even its duties. There is no indemnity is possible for him who renounces everything. Such a renunciation is incompatible with the nature of man is to remove all morality from his acts to remove all liberty from his will. "

- Rousseau , The Social Contract

...

Practice: Policy

The attainment of freedom, its political practice, creates many tensions, are we freer without the other? How to think freedom from civil liberties? Freedom for all is it true freedom?

Freedom: natural or cultural?

Political autonomy is embodied by the figure of the citizen / A>, who abandons his natural independence to voluntarily submit to laws that are, at least ideally, the same for all ( Hobbes , Rousseau ^{Civil liberties}

There are at the individual level several "types" of freedom:

• Natural liberty: the man has a natural right to use his powers as he wishes;
• Civil liberty: it is part of a man being free citizen of his actions, as these do not harm others and do not violate any law. This freedom is very difficult to apply, notably as regards the law of competition , since any trade creation night in principle to prior existing businesses in the neighborhood. It often involves the following maxim: "The freedom of one ends where the other";
• Freedom of movement: In the same vein as the previous one, it recognizes the right man to come and go freely within the territory, which includes the ability to enter or leave. This freedom was extended in Europe thanks to the Schengen agreement , allowing free movement of persons within the European Community ;
• The freedom of worship and freedom of conscience, freedom of religion allows individuals to practice the religion of choice, freedom of conscience can have no religious belief. The declaration of human rights and citizen in fixed limit: the absence of disturbing public order.
• Freedom of opinion consists in the freedom of thought associated with the freedom of expression : it allows people to think and express his thoughts without but not without penalties, if this freedom is detrimental to someone. It goes along with freedom of the press, which is that of a newspaper owner to say what he wants in his journal.
• Economic freedom: it allows everyone to raise revenues from its work and to assign them freely: freedom to work and consume. No person shall be denied employment principle for reasons other than professional qualification (eg gender, ethnicity, age or religion).

Freedom Collective

Freedom is not an individual one, it also exists at a global level, more collective, with for example the freedom of the press, which allows a free publication, without any censorship.

The labor movement in the ^nineteenth century distinguished formal freedom and real freedom. The concept of collective freedom is partly based on this distinction. ^{Freedom conventional collective}

The various collective freedoms:

• the freedom of the press : it allows everyone to freely publish their thoughts or opinions, without being subject to censorship or any other arbitrary or authoritarian;
• the freedom of assembly : it allows people to meet freely to discuss their opinions;
• Freedom of association: it allows workers to form and to join or not to trade unions to represent them and assert their rights and claims.

Paradoxically, the notion of liberty may sometimes at this level, affect the freedom of the individual. As in the case of freedom of the press , for example. Thus the technical and financial resources needed today to the media, especially radio or visual , tend to form cartels practicing the self-censorship because of economic ties with advertisers who do not wish to associate certain political messages with their image, thereby reducing the power of control and criticism of the individual over the bearers of information ... The abolition of censorship is no longer a guarantee of freedom because if the publications are no longer subject to arbitrary decisions, the vectors of information, however, become less and less accessible to the great mass of individuals, thereby reducing their ability to express their opinions, as well as the variety of views expressed. It is for this reason that the press is regarded as the fourth power (like the executive, legislative and judicial).

Freedom and Information Technology and Communication

According to their detractors, software patents would result in the formation of trusts that would be overpowered legally incompatible with individual liberty.

Movements such as the Open Source or Free Software tend to promote access to knowledge and techniques universally, which at the time of globalization , represents an element in the defense of individual liberties in the country emerging, making them technically independent countries "already developed".

Access to the Internet raises many ethical issues, among others, individual freedoms, but also collective. It is not desirable, especially for a company that wants to protect its intellectual capital , to disclose information on the World Wide Web. It is necessary to establish rules and different levels of access and privacy for partners and stakeholders .

Free Culture

Free culture is a way of thinking and acting for defending equal rights for men facing the knowledge and creative works that result.

Free licenses are a form of realization of free culture. A freely licensed work has four basic characteristics:

• freedom to use the work for any purpose;
• freedom to copy and distribute copies;
• freedom of study;
• freedom to modify and distribute copies of the resulting work.

At the base linked to free software , free culture extends to any media, any culture, any information: encyclopedias (eg ), books (eg wikisource ), education ( , Open Educational Resources ), videos, movies, games. But also in science, research, patents, and the economy.

References

See also

Bibliography

• Voltaire , Philosophical Letters
• Voltaire , Philosophical Dictionary , Articles Freedom (From) and Freedom to think
• Plato , Republic Filmography
  • Maine Ocean , French fiction of Jacques Rozier , conducted in 1986.

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