Political freedom: what is it?(Pictured: William Wallace (Mel Gibson) rallies Scottishtroops during

Political freedom: what is it?(Pictured: William Wallace (Mel Gibson) rallies Scottishtroops during the First War of Scottish Independence with a famous rousingspeech in Braveheart (1995): ‘I am William Wallace, and I see a whole army of my countrymen, here,in defiance of Tyranny. You’ve come to fight as free men, and free men you are.What will you do without freedom? Will you fight? … [W]ould you be willingto trade all the days, from this day to that, for one chance—just onechance—to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take ourlives but they’ll never take our freedom!’)It’stime for some political philosophy—specifically, to discuss political freedom.Inour personal lives freedom is associated with opportunity and control: a meansto meet our own ends. Because of this we fight for it on a political scale. But what actually are peoplefighting for?Whilepolitical freedom is broadly seen as something we should be promoting, the ideathat we sing from the same hymn sheet on it is an illusion: we sing completelydifferent tunes! There are multiple ways of defining freedom that aredialectally diverse. For example, to name but a few examples of freedom’s rolein ideology: liberalism is a doctrine which seeks to promote and enhancepersonal freedoms; anarchism represents a fight towards the abolition ofoverarching governmental powers; and capitalism, particularly laissez-faireeconomics, describes the distribution of goods and services throughfree-for-all private ownership.Thereare freedoms, we can agree, worth protecting and fighting for. For instance, weusually concur that freedom of thought should be enshrined as a human right foras many people as possible to exercise. However, these are pragmatic agreements,not analytic convergences on what freedom actually is.Traditionally,there are three opposed camps for this:(i) Negative freedom: The absence and removal of obstacles which inhibit liberty.(Famous supporter: Thomas Hobbes. Example laws: A lack of border controls,physical barriers, or ‘unjust’ laws.)(ii) Positive freedom: Self-governance and autonomy of choice. (Famous supporter:Immanuel Kant. Example laws: Self-determination of gender or sovereignty.)(iii) Republicanism: Not being subjected to the arbitrary rule of somebody orsomething else. (Famous supporter: Machiavelli. Example laws: Rules forpreventing powerful and wealthy individuals from putting out influential mediawhich favours their private agenda.)Philosopherscontinue to disagree (naturally). Our own notions tend to be fuzzy andincoherent and based on individual ideology. We sum up the parts we each favour,stirring up endless debate about which freedoms take precedent. [eye-roll] -- source link

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