Are you free to do, what you're forced to do?

If you are forced to do something, do you then have the right to do it? Are you free to do what you have no choice in doing?

This question seems to be at the heart of the libertarian dilemma. A anarchist society degenerates into adopting a social system whereby the strong dominate the weak. In this free society, do the weak have the right to do what they are coerced into doing? Or must a free man by definition have a choice of actions?

What exactly is freedom? And are rights merely the components of freedom?

No dictionary definitions, please.

To say ‘you have the right to…’ implies that you haven’t got the right of something else. If we were totally free in a society, than the right to’ wouldn’t exist.

I find it complicated to imagine a society where people are allowed to everything with no consequences… The fact that consequences come from our choices and actions limits our freedom to choose and act. But there is no other way to it… so it is silly to say we aren’t free because we suffer consequences.

According to Sartre, man unconditionally free. You are free to make choices in which will bring you consequences. You are what you make of yourself.

But lets come back to earth a bit.

A starving child in Africa is free? Do they have a choice?

I live in a capitalist society, however I would like to live in a commune where people work for themselves and not for a multinational. Am I free to choose that?

I think we are naturally free animals, but with centuries of social contracts made us a limited society. It’s like going to a restaurant… you have a menu, and must choose a dish from there…. So the restaurant managers say… but you can always fight this and try to go into the kitchen and cook whatever you want….

A Man in a room chooses not to leave as he is happy where he is. Unkown to him the door is locked however. Is he choosing freely to stay in the room?

If the door is locked he isn’t free, because he doesn’t have a choice, so staying in the room, isn’t a choice at all. Once the door is unlocked he will have what to choose and be free to do so. When you have one single option, you can’t choose, right?

It depends on which way you look at it. From his perspective he is making a free choice to stay in the room. From your perspective, that the door is locked, he isn’t making a free choice. I disagree with you, I think the man in the room is freely choosing to stay in it, even though he has no choice in the matter.

I suppose I was trying to answer Pangloss’ question thus, if you want to do it, then yes you are doing it freely, it is a choice. It is your attitude to the act and whether you would do it anyway even if you wern’t forced which makes it a free choice. If you wouldn’t, then it’s not.

Further to the above point, if you asked him if he was freely staying in the room he would reoply yes, he doesn’t know he’s locked in. If you were then to tell him he was locke in, he may reply, “well I wanted to stay here anyway”.

When he decides he wants to leave (which can happen as soon as you tell him he’s locked in, that he can’t leave, take any teenager as a good example) he then is no longer freely choosing to do so.

I’ve been thinking about it… and changed my mind.

If the man believes the door is unlocked and chooses to stay in then from his perspective he is free. Once he knows the door is locked, even if he wants to stay in, he isn’t free anymore for he won’t even be able to change his mind.
From someone elses perspective, he isn’t free.

I might think about it more and still change my mind tho… hehe

Clem, you mentioned Sartre’s unconditional freedom. This is often misunderstood as saying “you are free to do anything.” Obviously, freedom is not unlimited, and Sartre knows that. All freedom is constrained unless you’re God. For Sartre, that doesn’t mean we aren’t free in a different sense.

Really, what he’s getting at is that no amount of coercion, no amount of exterior control can take away your freedom. They might be able to delimit your options to A) hand over my wallet or B) get shot in the head. However unsavory the prospect is, this is still a choice, and not a few people in real life have chosen B. Sartre arrived at this idea, in part, from knowing of people in the French resistance who, captured by the Nazis, refused to comply with their captor’s demands even under torture, threats, and other extremes of coercion. This kind of freedom no one can take away from you. Maybe truth serum would make you talk, but that would be like comparing rape to consensual sex and seeing no difference. This kind of freedom does not require a predicate. It is not freedom to do a particular thing or other. Having all other options closed off, it may come down to the mere freedom to think–to refuse to have your spirit broken.

If you are not free to live in a commune, that does not mean, in Sartrean terms, that you are not free.

(Actually you really are free to do this, more free in capitalist countries than others, assuming your group owns the land it will be “communing” on. I wouldn’t try it in North Korea, but go to Israel and join a Kibbutz–it’s not so difficult. Property laws protect property owners, even if the owner is a communist, ironically. It might be morally bankrupt and immature for a group to rely on a system it condemns, but law and morality are different things.)

Now, I think this is all pretty much true, except with a few footnote.

Ok, based on this… what do you think of the following hypothesis:

Our freedom is made possible by our subjectivity, so I would say we can never be free to end or disolve our subjectivity, because that would be a logical paradox. We can think about it or imagine it. We can even jump out a window with the intention of suicide. Assuming we don’t survive the fall, our death would still not have been willed, because when it happens there’s no one there to will it. Our intention which we willed while we were alive cannot be considered death itself. Since we’ve never been dead, we don’t know what it is that we are intending.

It would be like walking backwards and stepping on a piece of dog poop I didn’t know was there (elevated example, I know). Though it would be the result of intentional action (walking backward), you still can’t say I intended the outcome.

Actually, I think I see the way out of this now, but I’ve already written too much!