11/28/2023 0 Comments I don t want to take your freedom![]() They made that final choice in their lives. In the Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War (1939-1945), some prisoners committed suicide - a last act of rebellion perhaps so their captors couldn’t kill them. The suffragettes, campaigning for votes for women in Britain in the first 14 years of the 20th century, used hunger strikes when imprisoned after demonstrations. This is why some prisoners go on hunger strike - it’s one of the few, if only, ways they have to express their free will. So even when we seem to have all our freedoms removed, we can still exercise some control over how we behave. Millican, there is still some free will: “A prisoner in chains has some freedom - he can rattle his chains!” So here he compares total freedom with a complete lack of it (i.e. He said everywhere we were free unless we were prisoners and in chains. Hobbes died in 1679 and the philosopher David Hume was born a few years later in 1711. It’s an unfree act if, say, someone has a gun to your head and is forcing you to do something! Our freedoms under a government are somewhere between the two. In other words, as Philosopher Peter Millican (University of Oxford) puts it, to be free means there is nothing to stop you doing what you want. So we swap our complete freedom for safety and security. For Hobbes, the only way humans can get themselves out of the natural state of fear and violence is to give up freedom and make a social contract with others to accept a central authority, a government. Hobbes' philosophy dominated the 17th century and continues to have an influence today. The country was very unstable for a while which may be why Hobbes came up with the phrase he’s most remembered for: human lives are, “Nasty, brutish and short” - unless you have a central government in place. He lived during the times of the English Civil War (1642-1651), which divided the nation as people took opposing sides for and against the monarchy. Thomas Hobbes is an English philosopher who many people think of as the founder of modern political philosophy. This is a puzzle philosophers have been struggling with for a long time. So can it be possible to be both free and safe? But the overweight boy with him, who has asthma, really poor eyesight and is cruelly nicknamed 'Piggy', is extremely worried at the idea of no one (responsible) being in charge.Īnd so where one person sees freedom, another feels fear. “No grown ups!” says the main character Ralph, dancing in the sand with joy. Many of them were excited to be free at last. in the novel ‘Lord Of The Flies’ (by William Golding), a group of young schoolboys were abandoned on a desert island without any adults. Taking this a stage further and into the land of fantasy. Would that be a good experience for most of the students there? Let’s imagine a school where students were free to do as they please all day long - even perhaps not attend if they didn’t feel up to it. How about teachers, doctors and train/bus drivers… can you imagine if they took a day off whenever they felt like it? Their free choice could actually harm other people.Īnd what about the freedom, say, to play our music whenever we like, wherever we like and at whatever volume we like? Our freedom may directly spoil someone else’s freedom to enjoy peace and quiet. Already we’re seeing that freedom comes with strings! But how free are we if we can’t skip this because it’s a nice day outside and we just don’t feel like it?Ĭan we ever really be free if we can’t do as we wish, whenever we wish?. Most of us have to go to school, college or work each day. Thinking about freedom, let’s take our everyday lives as a starting point. ![]()
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