Understanding Of Freedom Research Articles

Freedom Beyond Practical Reason: Duns Scotus on Will-Dependent Relations

Most acts of the will have a complex structure, i.e. wanting A in relation to B (e.g. as a means for an end or as a good for another person or for oneself). Duns Scotus makes the innovative claim that the will itself is responsible for the order of this complex structure. It does this by causing its own will-dependent relations, which he construes as a kind of mind-dependent relations (relationes rationis). By means of these relations, the will can arrange the terms of its will-acts independently of any arrangement proposed by the intellect. This not only allows the structure of one's will-act to diverge from the structure proposed by the intellect's final practical judgement; the structure of the will-act need not even have been considered by the intellect at all. One could, therefore, even will an inconceivable state of affairs. I argue that this theory, which scholars have virtually ignored, is fundamental to Scotus's account of divine, angelic, and human freedom, and that it follows necessarily from his voluntarist understanding of freedom. For Scotus, if the will could not structure its acts independently of the intellect, it would not be free.11Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte (Leuven), the Cornell Summer Colloquium in Medieval Philosophy, and at UCLA. I am grateful for the discussion with those present on these occasions. Special thanks are due to Joshua Benson, Francis Feingold, Gloria Frost, Michael Gorman, Bonnie Kent, Calvin Normore, and Nick Kahm for helpful comments.

Metaphysical Freedom

With emphasis on John Donne, George Herbert, and Henry Vaughan, this essay explores metaphysical poetry’s strange meditations on the theme of freedom. This poetry displays—vividly, idiosyncratically, and with important differences—what Alain Badiou suggests and what Hannah Arendt famously claims about freedom: that it is best understood not as sovereignty but as natality, being freed from life’s automatic routines and partaking, in a sense, of a second birth. Rather than conjure free movement—whether through self-control, capable pursuit of self-interest, or unimpeded intellectual inquiry—metaphysical freedom involves being drawn, overwhelmed, and transformed from without, all so as to enter a strange state of rest. While Arendt is ultimately humanistic in her understanding of freedom and natality, ascribing an important role to agency, freedom in metaphysical poetry plunges subjects into states to which they contribute virtually nothing, states of such intensity as to be hardly recognizable as human. Donne, Herbert, and Vaughan engage with concepts of liberty predictably, given their contexts and ours, but also in ways that are unpredictable and occasionally even startling.

Freedom in the 1990s

AbstractIn the second half of the twentieth century there was a renaissance of liberalism and a new interest in freedom in modern Western industrialised nations. Theologians responded to the intellectual discourse in various ways while treating the concept of freedom in theology. Here three different engagements with the understanding of freedom and liberalism at the end of the century are introduced. The first is a critique of liberalism and rejection of modern accounts of freedom as autonomy. This account draws upon historical and theological resources in the presentation of modern liberalism as a negative development in theology and in understandings of society. In the article here, this first approach is presented in the context of its social and political orientation and contemporary context in the later twentieth century. While some of the contours of this first approach are viewed critically, one aspect of its intentions is praised. The second example is an adoption of the discourse of modern liberalism and a justification of it with an account of the Reformation as its progenitor. This account draws upon a narrative of progressive liberation in modern human history. The second approach is addressed here in its particular context after the Second World War and in the specific cultural and theological framework of the latter part of the twentieth century. While the revival of modern liberal theology in the latter part of the twentieth century is presented here as a necessary development in the wake of radical early twentieth century anti-liberalism, some of the sweeping claims of this approach are viewed critically. Finally, a third mediatory approach is presented. This general group sought to advance a form of the liberal theological tradition while also theologically challenging Enlightenment conceptions of autonomy. Three brief examples are drawn upon to illustrate this approach. One is concerned with providing orientation for the basic doctrinal question of human freedom and sin. The second example deals with the systematic theological specification of human freedom in the postmodern context and its relation to an understanding of divine freedom. The third example deals with the ethical implications of a theologically grounded understanding of freedom.

Constitutional Abortion and Culture

The U.S. Supreme Court’s abortion decisions over the past forty years have helped to shape cultural beliefs and practices concerning heterosexual relationships, marriage, and parenting. This is true both in the practical and in the legal senses. Practically speaking, definitively separating sex from childbearing, as only abortion can do (given how often contraception fails), inevitably changes the meaning of sex, and therefore of heterosexual relationships. Legally speaking, the Court’s influence was mediated significantly by its decision to locate the right of abortion in an area of constitutional law — substantive due process — which claims to contain only those rights that are indispensable to our national understanding of freedom, both at the level of the individual and respecting our overarching democratic order. In particular, over the course of forty years of abortion opinions, the Court’s reflections on a claimed link between abortion and freedom have led it to conclusions broadly reflected in modern American beliefs and practices insofar as sex, marriage, and parenting are concerned. These include, inter alia, a suspicion of motherhood on the grounds of its risks and harms, the dispensable roles and violent characters of men, the great importance of adults’ wishes, and the importance of sexual expression for individual identity, divorced from consequences for partners or children.

Política e (é) Liberdade: reflexões sobre alguns argumentos

In this article, we start from Hannah Arendt’s assertion that the meaning of politics is freedom. Therefo­re, our goal is to analyze the implications of such a claim, seeking for some arguments that might justify it. For this, we relate the question of politics with a conception of the human being, with the question of democracy and an understanding of freedom. Related to freedom, we discuss the question of discourse, considered as the “raw material” of the polis .

Romantic Liberalism: An Alternative Perspective on Liberal Disrespect in the Muhammad Cartoons Controversy

There is an increasing scholarly concern that liberalism comes into conflict with religious diversity. William Galston blames this tendency on ‘Enlightenment liberalism’, which places autonomous self-reflection at the heart of the liberal project. This article, however, proposes a culprit that is more prone to both disrespect and dogmatism: romantic liberalism, which idealises authentic self-expression. I develop this concept by revisiting the Danish cartoon controversy, allegedly a case of Enlightenment liberalism. This exercise reveals that Flemming Rose, the editor who commissioned the cartoons, invokes romantic rather than enlightened values in defence of the publication. In contrast to previous research, I show that Rose does not portray the disrespectfulness of the cartoons as a side-effect of trying to promote autonomy among Muslims. Rather, he argues in favour of artistic provocation as such, invoking a distinctly romantic understanding of freedom of speech, which in many ways runs counter to the ideal of autonomy.

Herbert Vere Evatt and British Justice: The Communist Party Referendum of 1951

Through his role in the early United Nations, Herbert Vere Evatt is often credited with having advanced the cause of international human rights. But in 1951, Evatt articulated an alternative understanding of the roots of liberty, one centred on the role of British justice in checking ‘tyranny’ and ‘totalitarianism’. This neo-Roman conception of freedom had long competed in Evatt's thought with a belief in the need for an unfettered executive to achieve desirable social and economic goals. Although inconsistent in defence of liberty across his career, Evatt succeeded in this campaign because his case harmonised with contemporary understandings of freedom and its enemies in a post-war British-Australian community.

ТРЕНИРОВКА ТОРМОЖЕНИЯ КАК ОДИН ИЗ ОСНОВНЫХ ФАКТОРОВ ВОСПИТАНИЯ ЛИЧНОСТИ ЧЕЛОВЕКА

On the basis of systematization of a number of ideas of philosophers, physiologists, ethologists and the actual material about violation at people of instincts, by origin the general at us with animals, owing to incorrect understanding of freedom as permissivenesses, excessive development of consumption, a hypertrophy of feeling of a property, and also about weakening of will to overcoming of adversity of life, the conclusion about need of training of inhibition in the course of formation of the identity of the person is made. Briefly, referring to the detailed scientific publications, the actual material about neurophysiological ensuring inhibition of behavior during training by means of increase of reactivity of inhibitory systems, local and all-brain, and about positive influence on this process of an agonist of receptors of an inhibitory neuromediator (gamma aminobutiric acids - GABA) – phenibut is stated. It is supposed that these data can be useful to the correct organization of education and for prophylaxis and correction of deviant behavior. Key words: deviant behavior, inhibition training, personality.

Sovereignty and Liberty in the Internet Era

The global revolution in communications technologies and services is breaking apart the historic relationship between the media and the state. That relationship, born in the early print era, was first framed by the territorial authority of sovereigns and later found new legitimacy in the rise of popular sovereignty, thus becoming a definitive feature of the modern liberal democratic state. For centuries, states have been adapting to new communications technologies and seeking to re-impose their territorial boundaries on the flow of information and ideas, but this has required ever increasing technological inventiveness and financial investment. In the internet era, the state’s capacities to control its public information environment are being tested to exhaustion. Supranational constitutionalism, inspired by European achievements, is widely seen as the answer to the waning of state capacity and authority. In the sphere of public expression, constitutionalised treaty-based rights and obligations are now thought to provide a bedrock of common principles for governing speech concerning public affairs, public figures and public institutions. In this transition to supranational authority, the sovereignty of the state over its national public information environment is necessarily shared, pooled or even dispersed. This paper argues however that constitutionalised supranational law, even when leavened with legal and political pluralism, is incapable of addressing the key problems of public expression for democratic as well as non-democratic states. Supranational judicial processes, in particular, have produced legal doctrines and principles for public expression that are both too thin and too thick to replace the beleaguered but better suited political and judicial forums of the state. The failure of supranational constitutionalism to provide a workable common understanding of freedom of speech underscores the deep uncertainties of present times. State and supranational regimes are muddling along together in the recognition that traditional notions of sovereignty in the state are fading but without convincing conceptual or practical alternatives. Both national and supranational forms of authority are also being cross-cut and undermined by the rise of global networks, which are not just flooding the world with digitised information and ideas, but are also fostering new forms of community and association. The latter however are created out of participant choice and are largely formed within and by globalised commercial services. Their capacity for inclusive collective agency is limited and their bias towards instrumental, market based understandings of free speech is structural. This paper does not advocate a particular liberal democratic model for the media state relationship generally or specific solutions to the key problems of harm and offence in public speech. Instead, it shows the primary importance of community, locality and collective agency in finding solutions to the challenges of public expression. While we are collectively and inevitably assaulting the weakened territorial bounds of the media state relationship, we have no replacement for its capacity to resolve problems of harm and offence: hence the continuing vitality of bonded territorial and popular sovereignty in delivering freedom of speech in the internet era.

Plural Freedom

Some of the most interesting and important work on freedom in recent years has been produced by feminist theorists (e.g., Friedman 2003; Hirschmann 2003; Nedelsky 2011; Zerilli 2005; and see Anker, forthcoming). Feminist theory has also generated important insights about the character and conditions of human agency, the intersectional nature of human identities, and the dynamics of political action that richly enhance our understanding of freedom (Ackerly and Attanasi 2009; Alcoff 2006; Anzaldua 2007; Bartky 1990; Beltrán 2010; Benhabib 1992; Brown 1995; Butler 2004, 2006; Crenshaw 1989; Hill-Collins 2005; Love 2007; Mohanty 2003; Young 2005). Yet feminist perspectives on freedom—like others in political theory today (e.g., Berlin 1990; Pettit 2000; Villa 2008)—are limited by their tendency to conceive freedom in a monistic way. Whether freedom means the exercise of personal choice (Hirschmann 2003), or inaugural acts of world making (Arendt 1958; Zerilli 2005), or noninterference (Berlin 1990), or nondomination (Pettit 2000), or something else, theorists generally describe freedom as being just one thing. Yet the experiences that we have of freedom come in different forms, and sometimes the different kinds of freedom that we have, or that we seek, conflict with one another. Nor is it obvious that these conflicts could ever be fully reconciled, even under ideal conditions. Our freedom today is complex: We are at once free and unfree, in ways that are multiple and often conflicting.

Conversion as Statelessness: A Study of Contemporary Algerian Conversions to Evangelical Christianity

This article analyzes current practices of conversion to Evangelical Christianity from the perspective of a contentious relation between state and society in Algeria. Based on a pragmatist approach to religion as a contextual and practical accomplishment, this study shows how Evangelical Christianity has provided converts with a new understanding of freedom that is based on the cultivation of a pure faith. It examines how this renewed piety contributes to the formation of an alternative ideal of the Algerian nation, one that contradicts the Arabo-Islamist FLN imposed narrative. Drawing upon observations gathered during several research trips in Kabylia, Algiers and Oran, this paper does not seek to develop a general theory of Muslim conversions in the Muslim world. Rather, it presents the ways in which conversion is practiced and explained by Algerian converts within the specific political and cultural context in which they live. It shows how converts’ discourse and practice connect global Evangelical themes to claims and contentions that emerge specifically from Algerian political and religious history. In doing so, it seeks to contribute to the ongoing scholarly discussions of the complex ways in which global Pentecostalism blends into local cultures.

Automobility and Freedom

Cars are central to modern life the world over. When ownership and use of cars becomes widespread in a society – decades ago in most of the western world; more recently in China, India, and many other countries – we can readily identify substantial changes: its centrality to economic activity and growth, dramatic influence on community development patterns, alterations to the rhythms of daily life, novel threats to individual safety, and of course its devastating impact on climate and environmental quality. Influences of such remarkable breadth and depth seem likely to have a great impact upon our political conceptions, yet have rarely been the explicit subject of political theory. I confront the car not merely as a private consumer choice, nor simply as a subject of technological improvement, but as an embedded component of a material system and practice that has been termed 'automobility.' I argue that contemporary conceptions of freedom are far more deeply enmeshed with automobility than we typically recognize or examine. On the one hand, automobility generates a tremendously flexible – and widely appealing -- source of mobility, privacy, and independence. On the other hand, it can be understood as a potentially coercive practice that consumes massive amounts of space, requires lengthy commutes, increases dependence among youth, elderly, and others unable to drive, harms or eliminates environmental options for future generations, and structures patterns of living, working, and playing that often preclude many from more than nominal use of alternatives even where these are available. Consistent with the APSA theme of 'the politics of rights,' I sketch some of the contours of a conception of freedom that emerges from our status as what might be termed automobility’s subjects. Rights talk begins with conceptions of freedom. Yet familiar liberal or republican conceptions remain abstracted from practice in ways that make it difficult to garner insight into automobility. As a result, rather than beginning with such theories and then seeking to apply them to discourses of automobility, the aim of this paper is to examine automobility and freedom together. In what ways does automobility shape our understandings of freedom and how does this understanding create both constraints and opportunities for critical evaluation of automobility?

EDUCACIÓN Y DESARROLLO HUMANO. UNA PROPUESTA DE EDUCACIÓN HUMANISTA PARA LATINOAMÉRICA.

El objetivode este trabajo consiste en analizar el vínculoentre educación ydesarrollo partiendo de una visión crítica del enfoque antropológico bajo el cual se ha venido orientando la educación en Latinoamérica. Como alternativa al actual modo de enfocar dicha relación, se propone una visión humanista de la educación que reconoce como premisa fundamental la índole espiritual del ser humano, la comprensión de la libertad como liberación de sí mismo y la capacidad de la persona para abordar su propia vida y ayudar a orientar la de los demás según un modo de pensar y de vivir profundamente humano gracias al cultivo de las virtudes intelectuales yéticas. El humanismocívico sirve como trasfondo filosófico-político de esta propuesta humanista de educación.

Whose freedom? South Africa's press, middle-class bias and the threat of control

Threats to the autonomy of South Africa's press have prompted protest – understandably so. But, while media control or censorship are inimical to the free flow of information, which is essential to democracy, the mainstream press's response to real and perceived threats has done more to reveal the depth of its middle-class bias than to rally citizens behind the defence of freedom. The article seeks to demonstrate that the mainstream media's understanding of freedom is restricted to the liberties of the suburban middle classes. It supports this argument by analysing both the journalistic preoccupations it seeks to defend and the phrasing of its attempts to oppose state control. And it argues that the framing of press freedom as a purely middle-class concern will make it increasingly unlikely that free expression can be effectively defended.

Sex as Slavery? Understanding Private Wrongs

The era of globalization has been accompanied by an increased awareness of private wrongs as well as acceleration of many forms of cross-border labor exploitation. The essay explores how refined distinctions between forced and free sex work could improve anti-trafficking policies. It addresses the understudied linkages between other forms of migration and sexual exploitation and suggests a triage approach to all forms of labor exploitation—based on harms rather than type of labor or victim. A better understanding of freedom, sex, and development will allow us to expand a human rights approach to these private wrongs. The best anti-trafficking policy is one of universal, indivisible human rights. Victims of sexual exploitation need the same things as all migrants and all workers—recognition, monitoring, resources, access to justice, and organization.

John Paul II on Modernity, Freedom, and the Metaphysics of the Person

Beginning by praising Carson Holloway’s The Way of Life: John Paul II and the Challenge of Liberal Modernity for both contributing to our understanding of John Paul’s posture toward modernity and bringing his thought into conversation with the thought of some of the intellectual architects of liberal modernity, my essay proceeds to identify several subjects I wish Holloway had explored further, including the positive aspects of John Paul’s appraisal of liberal modernity and the engagement with modern thought that looms so large in his pre-papal philosophical writings. It then explores John Paul’s account of the achievements issuing from the modern quest for freedom, and the connection between the crisis that has engulfed this quest and the understanding of human freedom that informs contemporary culture. Against this backdrop, it examines John Paul’s efforts to address this crisis by articulating an anthropology that will assimilate the legitimate insights of modern philosophies of freedom and consciousness into the broader framework provided by the philosophy of being as that philosophy has been understood within the Christian metaphysical tradition; and how the understanding of freedom that emerges from this anthropology differs from that which dominates contemporary culture. Far from being an adversary of the modern quest for freedom, John Paul believes that this quest is ultimately rooted in the revolution in human self-understanding wrought by Christianity, and seeks to articulate the intellectual foundation necessary to bring it to a successful conclusion.

Enriching or Impoverishing Discourse on Rights? Talk about Freedom of Expression on Arab Television

AbstractThere is more to the denial of freedom of expression than outright censorship. The right to freedom of expression is interdependent with, and indivisible from, other rights guaranteed under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To discuss freedom of expression narrowly as if it were self-contained, and to conceal the issues, processes, and conflicts implicit in its achievement, can be seen as a hegemonic strategy that serves relations of domination. Three sets of public exchanges analyzed here, conducted on and about Arab television against a background of growing international intolerance for free speech, arguably contributed to a narrow, reified understanding of freedom of expression. The first centered on a television drama serial, the second on cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, and the third on the ambitions of a privately owned television station in Egypt. Since freedom of expression was repeatedly referred to in all three cases, it might be said that Arab television increased awareness on this topic. Evidence shows, however, that instead of illuminating ways in which the rights and duties inherent in freedom of expression could benefit the viewing public, each set of exchanges helped to sustain power relations by obscuring them.

Discrimination, Freedom, and the Limits of Contract

This article offers a challenge to the widely held view that legislative prohibitions against discrimination in employment represent a restriction on freedom of contract. Rather than engage in the political debate concerning the justifiability of such a restriction on an employer's contracting freedom, I instead argue how the apparent conflict between the individual's claim to equality and the employer's claim to freedom of contract might prove to be illusory. I argue that the freedom in freedom of contract is best understood, as it is defined in the republican tradition, in terms of immunity from interference on an arbitrary basis (freedom as “nondomination”). On this understanding of freedom, anti-discrimination law poses no threat to contracting freedom since discriminatory hiring and workplace practices fall outside the scope of the employer's freedom of contract. The article focuses mainly on Canadian law but the analysis and conclusions are generalizable to other common law jurisdictions where the employment relationship is subject to a prohibition against discrimination.

Conscience, Freedom, Rights: Idols of the Enlightenment Religion

The Thomist 73 (2009): 169-239 CONSCIENCE, FREEDOM, RIGHTS: IDOLS OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT RELIGION JOHN R. T. LAMONT Catholic Institute of Sydney Strathfield, NSW, Australia THE UNDERLYING THEME of this article is the teaching of the Catholic Church on religious liberty. In order to address this much-contested subject one must first consider other subjects that are at least as important: the concepts of conscience, freedom, and rights. In this article, I will contrast St. Thomas's understanding of these concepts with the understandings of the Counter-Reformation and the Enlightenment, and will argue that St. Thomas's understanding is the one that should be adopted. In addition to providing a necessary preliminary to an examination of Catholic teaching on religious liberty, this discussion will put us in a position to understand the state of the Church as a whole, and the crisis she has been undergoing not simply since the Second Vatican Council, but since the Enlightenment. Examination of these concepts will have to be carried out at some length. This is because I will be arguing for theses in the line of the nouvelle theologie, claiming that the nominalist and Counter-Reformation understandings ofthese concepts are wrong and damaging, and that St. Thomas's understanding of them should be accepted instead. Because St. Thomas's views on these subjects are still often misunderstood, and the opposing views remain well entrenched, the arguments for St. Thomas's position need to be substantial. 169 170 JOHN R. T. LAMONT I. CONSCIENCE VS. PRUDENCE A) Conscience in St. Thomas Discussions of conscience usually proceed on the assumption that its basic features are known and not controverted, or at least not controverted by morally decent and sincere people. Frequent rhetorical appeals to the rights of conscience and the inviolability of conscience rest on this assumption. In fact, however, this assumption is mistaken. The understanding of conscience to which such rhetoric appeals is not an evident notion that arises from universal human experience, but is rather the product of a particular philosophical and theological development. This development, together with the notion of human freedom with which it is connected, began to be elaborated in the Middle Ages, and was brought to completion by the theologians of the CounterReformation . It is radically different from the notion of conscience held by St. Thomas, and the understanding of freedom that it involves is radically different from St. Thomas's understanding of freedom. To attain the degree of clarity that we require about St. Thomas's understanding and the CounterReformation understanding, it will be necessary to put them in the contexts of the accounts of human action of which they are parts. This is particularly necessary in St. Thomas's case, in order to remove the layers of misinterpretation that have been imposed on his views by commentators trying to force his thought into the mold of Counter-Reformation moral theology. Conscience, according to St. Thomas, is not a power or a habitus, but an act (STh I, q. 79, a. 13; De Verit., q. 17, a. 1}; it is the act of making a speculative judgment about the goodness or badness of a particular act of the will. The making of this speculative judgment need not occur in the course of deliberating about whether or not to do the act to which the judgment applies; it can be made about actions in the past. This understanding of conscience is at odds with the notions that conscience is an CONSCIENCE, FREEDOM, RIGHTS 171 authority, is "the most immediate giver of moral imperatives,"1 or is the proximate rule of human acts, with the divine law being the remote rule.2 The act of making a judgment of conscience does not as such give rise to moral permission or a moral imperative to act, nor does it contain the power to motivate an action. It is the reasons assented to in the judgment that perform these functions, rather than the act of making the judgment. As Herbert McCabe says, "it is not the strength and sincerity of my conviction that the use of nuclear weapons must always be evil, but rather the grounds for this conviction, that make...

One Cheer for Constantinople: A Comment on Pettit and Skinner on Hobbes and Freedom

AbstractPhilip Pettit and Quentin Skinner find Hobbes's understanding of freedom as non-interference inadequate because it fails to appreciate what is wrong with a life lived as a slave. Though their critiques have some force, however, Hobbes's view of freedom has virtues of its own. It is highly sensitive to the fact that freedom is a matter of degree. It is also unlikely to mistake freedom for something else, like security or dignity. Moreover, Hobbes is not as unmindful of the dangers of servility as many think.