Wednesday, February 10, 2010
"Freedom from" or "freedom for"
Yesterday in my Catholic Jurisprudence class, we discussed Cardinal Dulles' essay "Truth as the Ground of Freedom" (in Catholic Perspectives on American Law). During the discussion, I suggested that the concept of "freedom from" authority is illusory because all freedom is exercised "for" some good as directed by a criteria external to freedom itself. I might, for example, choose to act according to my understanding of the moral law and to act in such a way that I develop habits that make it easier for me to so act. Or, I might act according to the dictates of my passions (or the strongest passion at the moment). In both cases, I am placing myself under some authority - either the authority of the moral law or the authority of my strongest passion - and exercising my freedom "for" some good, whether it be the good dictated by the moral law or the good achieved in satisfying that passion.
What do you think? Am I missing something in my analysis? Comments are open.
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2010/02/freedom-from-or-freedom-for.html
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I'm not sure I'd say "freedom from" is illusory, just that it's not complete. "Freedom from" a state requirement to worship in a certain way is not illusory, as it is a prerequisite to "freedom for" pursuit of authentic religious devotion. "Freedom from" hunger is not illusory, though no one would define a good life as consisting solely of the state of not being hungry. When the law focuses on "freedom from," it's not always purporting to be a complete sense of freedom -- often it's agnostic about the "freedom for" that follows from, and is made possible by, the "freedom from." That agnosticism is not always a bad thing.