In
our discussion of Marx, Nozick, and Rawls, the idea of freedom as a right has
caught my attention. Marx does not
acknowledge freedom, Rawls believes that, under a “veil of ignorance”, we would
elect to be free people, and Nozick thinks that freedom is the most important
right. Most of the philosophers have
touched so far on the idea of “freedom”, such as when Kant assumes that we are
all free, rational, and autonomous beings.
Autonomous
beings are ones that are not controlled by others or outside forces, meaning
they are independent beings. Rational
beings have the ability to exercise reason, or are logical, sane beings. When assuming humans will behave in a manner
productive to both themselves and society, these two characteristics make
sense. However, adding the “free”
characteristic into philosophy’s ideal human greatly complicates thing.
Being
“free” is defined as not being controlled by obligation, and having the ability
to be at liberty. Going back to Rawl’s veil
of ignorance, if we are assuming people are free in addition to being
autonomous and rational, aren’t they also “free” to make the irrational
decision? By definition, there seems to
be great problems with assuming people are free because that assumes they are
free to make unproductive, stupid, or just generally bad decisions. To go back to the cake example, although we
would think that under of veil of ignorance people would cut the cake equally,
if the person cutting the cake is a free agent they still have the ability to go
against rationality and cut the cake unequally.
To me, assuming that all humans are free directly undermines many of the
philosophical theories that build upon that idea.
How
would it be possible to have a functioning society when everyone is free to
make horrible decisions? I would argue
that a society cannot be completely free, and also be an ideally utile
society. Utility in a society is not
possible when everyone is completely free; limitations of individual freewill
are necessary to have a productive society.
Nozick’s
entitlement theory seems to make the most logical sense to me. This is because he acknowledges that,
considering people are free, we cannot assume people will always behave in a
just or morally good manner. He values
personal liberties and freedom above government control and utility of the
society. He argues that it is not just
to infringe on people’s freedom by redistributing their property. Is it more just to protect freedom or have a
utile society? If this question is
answered by stating the protection of freedom is more just, then is freedom ultimately
not productive or utile?
-Maddy Clements
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