Philosophy Question - Freedom

[SpentGrains]

Personally, I feel 'freedom' is a subset of 'free will'...the better question is- what is Free Will, once you consider social conditioning?

...and then the cow turned and walked away. That is free will.

The men with bolt guns (just outside the picture) kindly redirect Mr. Cow back to his two choices and remind him they won't be so kind next time... That is "Freedom."

 

[Jacob_Marley]

Interesting that much of the discussion here centers around what other things in our lives are connected to freedom (references to the Armed Forces, God, what we are compelled to do “in its affect” etc) ... rather than the nature of the word itself.
I think the philosophical implication of the word is that Freedom separates you from something. From tyranny, from pain, and so forth.
Freedom only exists due to its counterpoint.
Even in ideas like “Freedom of Speech”, freedom is separating you from something that, though maybe not stated is “understood” , that being the possibility of being oppressed or prevented from speaking your mind.
Look at it this way ... if you lived alone on a desert island, would the concept or value of Free Speech apply? I don’t think so, it would be nonsensical ... it would be moot. You would not have the reference or thing that freedom is separating you from.

It’s a bit of the “if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it make any sound?” question. That is; How can you know something without “it”? ... “it” being the counterpoint.
The counterpoint to “no one around to hear it” is being there. That is how you know.
The counterpoint to Freedom is not having it ... that is how you know what freedom is.

The OP asked

... why do you think you have freedom? Can you point to something that provides you with this freedom? ...

If I have Freedom it is because of the possibility of not having it. And while that sounds self-referential, kind of a Strange Loop, it is not a definition that markm2151's question asks for, but how it comes to me ... and it comes to me by way of separating me from the alternative.

Can I point to something that provides me with it? ... to understand the possibility of the counterpoint to something, I must have human intellect. And so, Freedom is provided by the mind.

 

[captwalt]

That is interesting, the part about freedom being nothing without the threat if someone rKing it from you. The revolutionaries certainly werent free to govern themselves, so they could and did fight for freedom, not from governing or rules, they did not fight fit freedom for everyone to do whatever they wAnt. They fought for the freedom to govern themselves. To establish their own rules an regulations. To determine what restrictions and liberties an individual may have. 200 and some odd years later people talk a lot about freedom but it doesnf mean anything unless you are talking about something ghat someone, specifically government requires or forbids you to do.
I am rambling a bit because I haven't gathered my thoughts about this. But the example of thd emancipation keeps coming mind. Thd slaves were freed but definitely not free to do as they want or even to do within the rules for white people. We are free as a people buy existing in society will always put some restrictions on our freedoms as individuals.

 

[mbobhat]

From The Social Contract by Robert Ardrey:

"The just society, as I see it, is one in which sufficient order protects members, whatever their diverse endowments, and sufficient disorder provides every individual with full opportunity to develop his genetic endowment, whatever that may be. It is this balance of order and disorder, varying in rigor according to environmental hazard, that I think of as the social contract. And that it is a biological command will become evident, I believe, as we inquire among the species."

We want some control, as in we don't want people to have the "freedom" to harm us, but I think most of us think of it as a path to something better. We don't always use it if it's there, but take it away and we realize it quickly.