On Liberty: I have a cousin who has made some mistakes. The state has removed his liberty -- or, maybe has granted him liberty.
I am accustomed to the philosophical notion of liberty, which is free will as contrasted to determinism. This sort of liberty cannot be taken away -- if it exists at all.
The liberty that the state has removed is the social and political freedoms enjoyed by citizens. The right to go where you want, when you want. The right to pay rent. And the right to starve.
There is another notion of liberty, one I use less often. This is the freedom from the bondage of sin, as used in theology.
In this sense, the state is granting him liberty. He cannot commit the crimes that put him where he is, and does not have access to the substances that impact his liberty.
(And yes, I realize this isn't factually true. It should be theoretically true. Right now, I'm not ready to think about the crimes that may be committed against him -- or by him -- in prison. Please respect that boundary for this conversation.)
And, in many uses, I have that liberty by default. I don't commit crimes, I don't have any particularly harmful addictions.Instead, I live a life that I view as meaningful: connected to a real group of people I care about and who care about me, I get to play board games to wile away the time, and RPGs to punch myself in the gut. And yes, to engage in philosophy on the internet on the nature of liberty.
Effectively, by having the liberty from sin, the state continues to grant me the liberty of person.
Having those freedoms removed may do him some good -- being given structure might let him become the man he wants to be.
So -- can having your liberty of person removed possibly grant you the liberty from sin? Does that even make sense?
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Kant's philosophical notion of liberty is one of the freedom of the will, not from determinism, but from inclinations like anger, fear, and greed. Basically, when those control what we do rather than pure reason, we are acting unfree. Acting ethically, therefore, is acting freely.
ReplyDeleteIn that sense, when you're imprisoned and people are keeping you from acting on your inclinations, you could be said to be more free. Society itself and the safety and structure it provides allow such a dynamic.
But Kant is also an intentionalist. It matters why you do things (see above). So if you're in prison feeling engaged that you can't act out, you're really still not free from those inclinations controlling your will.
Christian Griffen Kant's views have always been particularly strange to me. And not just due to the lack of a right to lie for philanthropic concerns, but the question of what's left when we have removed the passions.
ReplyDeleteHume, who I'm much more aligned to, said something like: Reason is, and rightfully out to be, the slave of passions. That's a notion I understand much more -- that our passions dictate what we care about, not the opposite.
But then, I'm really uncomfortable with this third notion of liberty and I'm not entirely sure how to use it. If we have liberty from sin and liberty from desire, then what is left?