Freedom (philosophy)

“ This is the point which consciousness has attained, and these are the principal phases of that form in which the principle of freedom has realised itself, for the history of the world is nothing but the development of the idea of freedom. But objective freedom—the laws of "real" freedom—demands the subjugation of the mere contingent will, for this is in its nature formal. If the objective is in itself rational, human insight and conviction must correspond with the reason which it embodies, and then we have the other essential element—subjective freedom—also realised. ”

“ Freedom is a condition of mind, and the best way to secure it is to breed it. ”

“ No view of the subject should indeed debar us from acknowledging 'changes in heart and life,' but a misunderstanding of the doctrine of freedom may tend to paralyse moral initiative. The attempt to sunder the will and the understanding and discover the source of freedom in the realm of the emotions, as the voluntarists seek to do, cannot be regarded as satisfactory or sound philosophy. ”

“ The rational being is impelled towards absolute independence, and strives after freedom for the sake of freedom. This fundamental impulse may be called the pure impulse, and it furnishes the formal principle of ethics, the principle of absolute autonomy, of absolute indeterminableness through anything external to the Ego. ”

“ WILL.
We lay it down as a first principle—from which we can no more depart than from the consciousness of existence—that man is free; and therefore stand ready to embrace whatever is fairly included in the definition of freedom. ”

“ Where there is conscious freedom, not only to act as he wills, but to will obedience to the dictates of conscience, character is possible. The freedom spoken of, and without which there can be no obligation or responsibility, is, of course, human freedom. ”

“ We have not yet seen how a free people exercises its freedom. We have not seen in real life the practical application of the principles which we preach. Here all is spread before our gaze in a vast tableau. ”

“ Rather, it is the other way: we can love, be merciful, tender, compassionate, therefore we ought. Liberty itself is a law to the free, the source of moral obligation, the gift of Him "whose service is perfect freedom." ”

“ He sees instincts are better and stronger than so-called ‘principles.’ He sees in the hour of need what are called ‘rights’ laughed at, ‘freedom,’ the liberty to do what one pleases, trampled on, the claims of the individual trodden under foot, and theories burst like cobwebs. ”

“ And what does the spirit need in the face of modern life? The sense of freedom. That naïve, rough sense of freedom, which supposes man's will to be limited, if at all, only by a will stronger than his, he can never have again. ”

“ In this welcome which you give to me, the humble and all too unworthy representative of a magnificent cause, the great principle of human freedom is at length recognised, that freedom inherited at birth, and only wrung from individuals by oppression and wrong. ”

“ Why does truth make such tardy appearance in the world, and why of so partial rather than of universal distribution? How can freedom co-exist, that is, the freedom of man as a free moral agent, co-exist with the Sovereign will of the All-Powerful and Immanent God? ”

“ The variation in the meaning of 'freedom' having been thus recognised and accounted for, we come back to the more essential question as to the truth of the view which underlies all theories implying that freedom is in some sense the goal of moral endeavour; the view, namely, that there is some will in a man with which many or most of his voluntary actions do not accord, a higher self that is not satisfied by the objects which yet he deliberately pursues. ”

“ We may find then that in true freedom the ‘can’ is not only reconcileable with, but inseparable from, the ‘ought;’ and both not only reconcileable with, but inseparable from, the ‘must.’ Is not freedom something positive? And can we give a positive meaning to freedom except by introducing a will which not only ‘can,’ but also ‘ought to’ and ‘must,’ fulfil a law of its nature, which is not the nature of the physical world. ”

“ Considered instead, from the particular point of view, ceasing to be an abstraction, and becoming a way, a means, liberty is understood. It is thus that we call for the freedom of thought, which is to say the power, without external hindrance, to express thoughts in speech or in writing, in the manner in which they present themselves in the mind. It is thus the integral expression of the thought which is the goal pursued, and not liberty. ”

“ For 'her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace'; and, on the other hand, licentiousness and liberty are not the same thing, and true freedom is not to do as you like, but to like to do as you ought. ”

“ The love of freedom is in every human heart. Again recall the words of the Declaration of Independence—“all men are created equal ... they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”, among which is liberty. ”

“ So, to reduce our moral judgments, confusion and all, to small compass, we are free, others are not; they are free, we are not; and our freedom is bound by duty, by duty to the moral law, while their freedom, unless a hopeless lawlessness, is bound by the environment and its law. Again, good and evil are each unmixed, and moral acts serve two masters—that is to say, spring from two sources. ”

“ Freedom in state, freedom in church, freedom in religion, literature, commerce, government—freedom as boundless as the sunshine that fructifies the teeming earth! Freedom of thought necessitates freedom in government. ”

“ But can it be maintained that the same truth holds good of our consciousness of freedom? Is it possible to hold that determinist arguments are of so convincing a character as to enable us to perceive at the moment of action the untrustworthy nature of our consciousness that we are free to choose between alternatives and to grasp beneath the appearance the underlying necessity which rules our wills? Our actual consciousness of freedom is not seriously disputed. ”

“ All the struggles of humanity in the centuries which have come and gone have been for freedom—for freedom to think and for freedom to act, as against authority and despotic law, without regard to what should come of that thought and action. ”

“ The conception of freedom which the first brings to life is set in opposition to the thought of the virtues and services of the possessor of absolute power, and thrust by them into the background; but these same feelings are the deepest and most active in all ages and among all nations. ”

“ To the base ideal of perpetual tyranny—both here and hereafter—I oppose the pure ideal of absolute freedom—freedom to each separate soul to work out for itself its own innate convictions—freedom to form its independent destiny. ”

“ It was not because freedom was given to them that men now created: the freedom was claimed because they now possessed more power, could do more, and had, therefore, the right to a larger sphere of freedom. ”

“ Force of character, freedom from the prejudices of conventional custom, conventional religion or conventional government—these are what distinguish the true freeman, the man free in soul, from the slave. ”

“ Considering the inner fitness of things, one would rather think that the very first act of a will endowed with freedom should be to sustain the belief in the freedom itself. I accordingly believe freely in my freedom ”

“ To the older idealism as to the new the essence of mind or spirit is freedom. But the guarantee of freedom is to be sought for not in the denial of law, but in the whole nature of mind and its relation to the structure of experience. ”

“ Our freedom is not complete, it is in the making.... The process by which freedom is won is the process of enlightenment. It is the truth that sets men free, the clear perception of moral relations and moral laws, the understanding of human nature and its true needs. ”

“ But on the other hand, every one of us has to admit that the experience of life has confirmed the belief in our freedom which for a moment had been shaken by doubt and perplexity; and that faith, instinctive and incoercible, outlives every time the onslaughts of negation.
By liberty we mean that power peculiar to man by which he moulds himself into his actual being and originates the series of facts in which every one of his actions becomes manifest. ”

“ I looked forward, through the present age of loud disputes but generally weak convictions, to a future which shall unite the best qualities of the critical with the best qualities of the organic periods; unchecked liberty of thought, unbounded freedom of individual action in all modes not hurtful to others ”

“ Why might not our world of facts be of this sort, — an individual whole of mutually contingent parts, conforming to law in whole and in part, embodying universals, fulfilling ideas, yet with freedom not only for the whole but also for the parts? Why might not the Absolute Will be a complex of many wills in one unity of consciousness, and so its object be an Individual consisting of individuals, all expressive of law, but all still mutually free with a freedom that is a part of the freedom of the Whole? ”

“ Since in all willing a man is his own object, the will is always free. Or, more properly, a man in willing is necessarily free, since willing constitutes freedom, [1] and 'free will' is the pleonasm 'free freedom.' But while it is important to insist upon this, it is also to be remembered that the nature of the freedom really differs—the freedom means quite different things—according to the nature of the object which the man makes his own, or with which he identifies himself. ”

“ That which tends to the misery of man.
What you call liberty, choice, morality, responsibility, have nothing whatever to do with this. There is no difference between necessity and liberty. He who is free, acts from choice. What is the foundation of his choice? What we really mean by liberty is freedom from personal dictation—we do not wish to be controlled by the will of others. To us the nature of things does not seem to be a master—Nature has no will. ”

“ Let the person come by his choice any how, yet, if he is able, and there is nothing in the way to hinder his pursuing and executing his will, the man is perfectly free according to the primary and common notion of freedom. ”

“ In his own nature, therefore, there is a law, the law of freedom, which calls upon him to restrain his lower impulses, his greed and his injustice, when these threaten to be-come inordinate; and this law of freedom is no other than the law of moral obligation, and it has its ground in the true nature of man. ”

“ Whether this is a great or small degree of freedom in comparison with the fantastic liberty we should like to have, it, is the only freedom that really exists, and in it consists the only happiness attainable by man. ”

“ Moral freedom operates no less on our opinions than on our actions; and despite all grounds of decision in the understanding, and all grounds of motive in the will, still man chooses as well his system as his conduct. ”

“ Such freedom demands only, that in the individuation of the universe, as it is, the interests which are expressed in the other individual lives and facts of the world shall not, by virtue of the constitution of the world of ideas, absolutely predetermine how the interest I, as such, shall either formulate or express itself, and that the same relative independence shall hold of any other interest I’, such as gets expressed in the life of a free individual. ”

“ Let us first see precisely what is meant by this freedom which we attribute to man. Each one of us firmly even though obscurely possesses some conception of it. Every one of us, even though unfamiliar with the controversies that have raged for centuries on the question of free will, must have sometimes been compelled by the conditions of human life to face the difficulties that beset the concept of man’s freedom, and must have been led to question, if not to deny outright, the proposition that man is free. ”

“ Remember that while others have given us freedom, we must work and struggle and wait for liberty—that liberty which gives as well as receives, self-supporting, self-protecting, holding the present and looking to the future with confidence. ”

“ Formal freedom is freedom of choice, in the sense of volition with the express consciousness of other possibilities.” Real freedom is freedom to choose the good only, with no remaining possibility that evil will exert a counter attraction. ”

“ This accountability, recognized in conscience and exacted by the constitution of the108 world, is an omnipresent and inerasable reality. So must free-will also be. Freedom is part of the moral idea, and the idea falls apart and lapses into contradiction and confusion without it. The same necessity that obliges us to accept the truth of morality itself, obliges us to assert free-will as an attribute of a moral nature and a condition of moral agency. ”

“ With this we may claim an increase in individual freedom, and a perceptible tendency to a logical and ever broadening conception, not only of the rights, but of the duties of citizenship; to a more honest recognition of the place assigned by expediency to evil in the social and business intercourse of a practical life; to a growing scorn of casuistry, and to a stronger faith in the reality of right and of abstract truth as they are revealed in every thinking man’s heart, and the uniformity of which is reflected in the public conscience. ”

“ But, after all, this extension does but represent various stages of reflection upon the self-distinguishing, self-seeking, self-asserting principle, of which the establishment of freedom, as a relation between man and man, is the expression. The reflecting man is not content with the first announcement which analysis makes as to the inward condition of the free man, viz. that he can do what he likes, that he has the power of acting according to his will or preference. ”