John Stuart Mill's View On Freedom: A Definition Of Freedom

True freedom is commonly defined as absolute choice; whether it is in thought, actions or speech, freedom is an individual’s ability to take control of their lives and enables the human experience. Civilization views freedom as an ideal, yet the means of achieving it and whether or not freedom is truly achieved remains ambiguous. There are often individuals in civilized society who struggle and believe themselves to be free after a hard earned victory against oppression. Yet, the implications of maintaining a civilized social structure upon freedom is often overlooked. Many individuals view themselves as free from a subjective standpoint, although true freedom has an absolute meaning.

Freedom is the power that allows people to self-determine his or her ideas, it allows people to have the right to act, speak or think without being restraint. The reality of freedom is how individuals see their freedom; for instance, Dr. King got locked in jail for describing his freedom, but others define his freedom differently. Individuals choices, how they want to establish their freedom. One’s person freedom could be someone’s prison. Although people defined that freedom is having unrestricted rights, but limitation create true freedom since it spreads equality to everyone.

Everybody has a right to freedom; people all have the right also to show how they express it. John F Kennedy believed freedom should not be limited to a victory. He said “we deserve today not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom”(Kennedy 1). People should not express a victory over a loss more valuable than how they express freedom. On the other hand, Patrick Henry expressed freedom in a non-similar way.

Walter Lippmann asserts how because people have the right to speak, they also have the right to freedom. Lippmann discusses and compares how even though you have the right to speak it does not mean that it is wanted and the way a person has rights and freedom may not always be wanted. Lippmann establishes his point of the right to freedom through repetition, strong diction, and historical examples of people and time periods. Lippmann employs repetition to emphasize his view on the rights of freedom. Lippmann repeats, “we” establish common ground between himself and his audience to prevent the audience from becoming defensive.

We all know the famous statement from the Declaration of Independence, “we hold these truth to be self-evident than all men are created equal.” This statement and a lot of the other statement are heavily based on the Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke. A lot of what Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence come directly from John Locke’s ideas about the government. Let’s look at three examples of this. One of the major ideas of the Enlightenment was the people have certain types of right just because they are people in the state. These rights are not given by government and they can’t take any of it away from the people either.

In "Human Freedom and the Self", Roderick Chisholm has taken a libertarian approach on the issue of free will and determinism. Libertarians believe that humans have free will and make a distinction that free will and determinism are incompatible. Chisholm has the same opinion. On the problem of human freedom, Chisholm thinks that “Human beings are responsible agents; but this fact appears to conflict with a deterministic view of human action (the view that every event that is involved in an act is caused by some other event); and it also appears to conflict with an indeterministic view of human action (the view that the act, or some event that is essential to the act, is not caused at all).”(Page 3). He does not agree that determinism or indeterminism

Freedom means the power to act, speak or think as one warns without hindrance or restraint. In today’s society we don’t not have freedom because of laws.

Kant is not envisage the establishment of a world government or even unite sovereignty, but more into a ‘loose’ federation that consist of free state which governed by the rule of law. His thought is known as utopia . But however,he believes that peace can be reached under certain circumtances such as the establishing repulic as opposed to the monarchy. Substancially, his theory is to set the world free and create peaceful anarchy system, eventhough some of his statement is debated by the other philosopher. There are several assumpsion

2. The definition of civil rights as stated in the textbook is “set of rights centered around the concept of equal treatment that the government is obliged to protect” (Geer, Schiller, Herrera, Segal 138). Civil liberties are “unalienable rights that the government has no authority to regulate” (Geer, Schiller, Herrera, Segal 102). The difference is civil rights is without discrimination to any group to civil rights while civil liberties block the government from interfering with natural rights. An example of civil right is freedom of speech where the government is obligated to protect through the first amendment in the bill of rights.

In this essay, I will argue from a compatibilist perspective arguing that free will does exist, and it is consistent with determinism. Compatibilism means that free will can exist with determinism [177]. Incompatibilism means that it is not possible for free will to exist with determinism [172]. Free will occurs when people’s actions come from their second order volition [184]. Second order desires requires you to first desire something, and to then have a desire about your first desire [184].