essay on the freedom

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Why the “freedom writers essay” is an inspiring tale of hope, empathy, and overcoming adversity.

Education has always been a paramount aspect of society, shaping individuals’ intellect and character. Within the vast realms of academia, written expressions have played a pivotal role in documenting and disseminating knowledge. Among these, the essays by Freedom Writers stand out as a testament to the importance of personal narratives and the transformative power they hold.

By delving into the multifaceted dimensions of human experiences, the essays penned by Freedom Writers captivate readers with their raw authenticity and emotional depth. These narratives showcase the indomitable spirit of individuals who have triumphed over adversity, providing invaluable insights into the human condition. Through their stories, we gain a profound understanding of the challenges faced by marginalized communities, shedding light on the systemic issues deeply ingrained in our society.

What makes the essays by Freedom Writers particularly significant is their ability to ignite a spark of empathy within readers. The vivid descriptions and heartfelt accounts shared in these personal narratives serve as a bridge, connecting individuals from diverse backgrounds and fostering a sense of understanding. As readers immerse themselves in these stories, they develop a heightened awareness of the struggles faced by others, ultimately cultivating a more inclusive and compassionate society.

The Inspiring Story of the Freedom Writers Essay

The Freedom Writers Essay tells a powerful and inspiring story of a group of students who were able to overcome adversity and find their own voices through the power of writing. This essay not only impacted the education system, but also touched the hearts of many individuals around the world.

Set in the early 1990s, the Freedom Writers Essay highlights the journey of a young teacher named Erin Gruwell and her diverse group of students in Long Beach, California. Faced with a challenging and often hostile environment, Gruwell used literature and writing as a platform to engage her students and help them express their own experiences and emotions.

Through the use of journals, the students were able to share their personal stories, struggles, and dreams. This essay not only became a therapeutic outlet for the students, but it also allowed them to see the power of their own voices. It gave them a sense of empowerment and hope that they could break free from the cycle of violence and poverty that surrounded them.

As their stories were shared through the Freedom Writers Essay, the impact reached far beyond the walls of their classroom. Their words resonated with people from all walks of life, who were able to see the universal themes of resilience, empathy, and the importance of education. The essay sparked a movement of hope and change, inspiring individuals and communities to work together towards a more inclusive and equitable education system.

The Freedom Writers Essay is a testament to the transformative power of education and the incredible potential of young minds. It serves as a reminder that everyone has a story to tell and that through the written word, we can create understanding, bridge divides, and inspire change.

In conclusion, the Freedom Writers Essay is not just a piece of writing, but a catalyst for change. It showcases the remarkable journey of a group of students who found solace and strength in their own stories. It reminds us of the importance of empowering young minds and providing them with the tools necessary to overcome obstacles and make a difference in the world.

Understanding the background and significance of the Freedom Writers essay

The Freedom Writers essay holds a notable history and plays a significant role in the field of education. This piece of writing carries a background rich with hardships, triumphs, and the power of individual expression.

Originating from the diary entries of a group of high school students known as the Freedom Writers, the essay documents their personal experiences, struggles, and remarkable growth. These students were part of a racially diverse and economically disadvantaged community, facing social issues including gang violence, racism, and poverty.

Despite the challenging circumstances, the Freedom Writers found solace and empowerment through writing. Their teacher, Erin Gruwell, recognized the potential of their stories and encouraged them to share their experiences through written form. She implemented a curriculum that encouraged self-expression, empathy, and critical thinking.

The significance of the Freedom Writers essay lies in its ability to shed light on the experiences of marginalized communities and bring attention to the importance of education as a means of empowerment. The essay serves as a powerful tool to inspire change, challenge social norms, and foster understanding among diverse populations.

By sharing their narratives, the students of the Freedom Writers not only found catharsis and personal growth, but also contributed to a larger discourse on the impact of education and the role of teachers in transforming lives. The essay serves as a reminder of the profound impact that storytelling and education can have on individuals and communities.

Learning from the Unique Teaching Methods in the Freedom Writers Essay

The Freedom Writers Essay presents a remarkable story of a teacher who uses unconventional teaching methods to make a positive impact on her students. By examining the strategies employed by the teacher in the essay, educators can learn valuable lessons that can enhance their own teaching practices. This section explores the unique teaching methods showcased in the Freedom Writers Essay and the potential benefits they can bring to the field of education.

Empowering student voice and promoting inclusivity: One of the key themes in the essay is the importance of giving students a platform to express their thoughts and experiences. The teacher in the Freedom Writers Essay encourages her students to share their stories through writing, empowering them to find their own voices and fostering a sense of inclusivity in the classroom. This approach teaches educators the significance of valuing and incorporating student perspectives, ultimately creating a more engaging and diverse learning environment.

Building relationships and trust: The teacher in the essay invests time and effort in building meaningful relationships with her students. Through personal connections, she is able to gain their trust and create a safe space for learning. This emphasis on building trust highlights the impact of positive teacher-student relationships on academic success. Educators can learn from this approach by understanding the importance of establishing a supportive and nurturing rapport with their students, which can enhance student engagement and motivation.

Using literature as a tool for empathy and understanding: The teacher in the Freedom Writers Essay introduces her students to literature that explores diverse perspectives and themes of resilience and social justice. By incorporating literature into her curriculum, she encourages her students to develop empathy and gain a deeper understanding of the experiences of others. This approach underscores the value of incorporating diverse and relevant texts into the classroom, enabling students to broaden their perspectives and foster critical thinking skills.

Fostering a sense of community and belonging: In the essay, the teacher creates a sense of community within her classroom by organizing activities that promote teamwork and collaboration. By fostering a supportive and inclusive learning environment, the teacher helps her students feel a sense of belonging and encourages them to support one another. This aspect of the teaching methods showcased in the Freedom Writers Essay reinforces the significance of collaborative learning and the sense of community in fostering academic growth and personal development.

Overall, the unique teaching methods presented in the Freedom Writers Essay serve as an inspiration for educators to think outside the box and explore innovative approaches to engage and empower their students. By incorporating elements such as student voice, building relationships, using literature for empathy, and fostering a sense of community, educators can create a transformative learning experience for their students, ultimately shaping them into critical thinkers and compassionate individuals.

Exploring the innovative approaches used by the Freedom Writers teacher

The Freedom Writers teacher employed a range of creative and groundbreaking methods to engage and educate their students, fostering a love for learning and empowering them to break the cycle of violence and poverty surrounding their lives. Through a combination of empathy, experiential learning, and personal storytelling, the teacher was able to connect with the students on a deep level and inspire them to overcome the obstacles they faced.

One of the innovative approaches utilized by the Freedom Writers teacher was the use of literature and writing as a means of communication and healing. By introducing the students to powerful works of literature that tackled relevant social issues, the teacher encouraged them to explore their own identities and experiences through writing. This not only facilitated self-expression but also fostered critical thinking and empathy, as the students were able to relate to the characters and themes in the literature.

The teacher also implemented a unique system of journal writing, where the students were given a safe and non-judgmental space to express their thoughts, emotions, and personal experiences. This practice not only helped the students develop their writing skills but also served as a therapeutic outlet, allowing them to process and reflect upon their own lives and the challenges they faced. By sharing and discussing their journal entries within the classroom, the students built a strong sense of community and support among themselves.

Another innovative strategy utilized by the Freedom Writers teacher was the integration of field trips and guest speakers into the curriculum. By exposing the students to different perspectives and experiences, the teacher broadened their horizons and challenged their preconceived notions. This experiential learning approach not only made the subjects more engaging and relatable but also encouraged the students to think critically and develop a greater understanding of the world around them.

In conclusion, the Freedom Writers teacher implemented a range of innovative and effective approaches to foster learning and personal growth among their students. Through the use of literature, writing, journaling, and experiential learning, the teacher created a supportive and empowering environment that allowed the students to overcome their adversities and become agents of change. These methods continue to inspire educators and highlight the importance of innovative teaching practices in creating a positive impact on students’ lives.

The Impact of the Freedom Writers Essay on Students’ Lives

The Freedom Writers Essay has had a profound impact on the lives of students who have been exposed to its powerful message. Through the personal stories and experiences shared in the essay, students are able to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges and resilience that individuals can possess. The essay serves as a catalyst for personal growth, empathy, and a desire to make a positive difference in the world.

One of the key ways in which the Freedom Writers Essay impacts students’ lives is by breaking down barriers and promoting understanding. Through reading the essay, students are able to connect with the struggles and triumphs of individuals from diverse backgrounds. This fosters a sense of empathy and compassion, allowing students to see beyond their own experiences and appreciate the unique journeys of others.

In addition to promoting empathy, the Freedom Writers Essay also inspires students to take action. By showcasing the power of education and personal expression, the essay encourages students to use their voices to effect change in their communities. Students are empowered to stand up against injustice, advocate for those who are marginalized, and work towards creating a more inclusive and equitable society.

Furthermore, the essay serves as a reminder of the importance of perseverance in the face of adversity. Through the stories shared in the essay, students witness the determination and resilience of individuals who have overcome significant challenges. This inspires students to believe in their own ability to overcome obstacles and pursue their dreams, no matter the circumstances.

Overall, the impact of the Freedom Writers Essay on students’ lives is profound and far-reaching. It not only educates and enlightens, but also motivates and empowers. By exposing students to the power of storytelling and the potential for personal growth and social change, the essay equips them with the tools they need to become compassionate and engaged citizens of the world.

Examining the transformation experienced by the Freedom Writers students

The journey of the Freedom Writers students is a testament to the power of education and its transformative impact on young minds. Through their shared experiences, these students were able to overcome adversity, prejudice, and personal struggles to find their voices and take ownership of their education. This process of transformation not only shaped their individual lives but also had a ripple effect on their communities and the educational system as a whole.

The transformation experienced by the Freedom Writers students serves as a powerful reminder of the potential within every student, regardless of their background or circumstances. It highlights the importance of creating an inclusive and supportive educational environment that encourages self-expression, empathy, and a belief in one’s own abilities. By fostering a love for learning and empowering students to embrace their unique voices, education can become a catalyst for positive change, both within individuals and society as a whole.

Addressing Social Issues and Promoting Empathy through the Freedom Writers Essay

In today’s society, it is important to address social issues and promote empathy to create a more inclusive and harmonious world. One way to achieve this is through the powerful medium of the written word. The Freedom Writers Essay, a notable piece of literature, serves as a catalyst for addressing social issues and promoting empathy among students.

The Freedom Writers Essay showcases the experiences and struggles of students who have faced adversity, discrimination, and inequality. Through their personal narratives, these students shed light on the social issues that exist within our society, such as racism, poverty, and violence. By sharing their stories, they invite readers to step into their shoes and gain a deeper understanding of the challenges they face. This promotes empathy and encourages readers to take action to create a more equitable world.

Furthermore, the Freedom Writers Essay fosters a sense of community and unity among students. As they read and discuss the essay, students have the opportunity to engage in meaningful conversations about social issues, sharing their own perspectives and experiences. This dialogue allows them to challenge their beliefs, develop critical thinking skills, and broaden their horizons. By creating a safe space for open and honest discussions, the Freedom Writers Essay creates an environment where students can learn from one another and grow together.

In addition, the essay prompts students to reflect on their own privileges and biases. Through self-reflection, students can gain a better understanding of their own place in society and the role they can play in creating positive change. This reflection process helps students develop empathy for others and encourages them to become active agents of social justice.

In conclusion, the Freedom Writers Essay serves as a powerful tool for addressing social issues and promoting empathy among students. By sharing personal narratives, fostering dialogue, and prompting self-reflection, this essay encourages students to confront societal challenges head-on and take meaningful action. Through the power of the written word, the essay helps create a more inclusive and empathetic society.

Analyzing how the essay tackles significant societal issues and promotes empathy

In this section, we will examine how the essay addresses crucial problems in society and encourages a sense of understanding. The essay serves as a platform to shed light on important social issues and foster empathy among its readers.

The essay delves into the depths of societal problems, exploring topics such as racial discrimination, stereotyping, and the achievement gap in education. It presents these issues in a thought-provoking manner, prompting readers to reflect on the harsh realities faced by marginalized communities. Through personal anecdotes and experiences, the essay unveils the profound impact of these problems on individuals and society as a whole.

Furthermore, the essay emphasizes the significance of cultural understanding and empathy. It highlights the power of perspective and the importance of recognizing and challenging one’s own biases. The author’s account of their own transformation and ability to connect with their students serves as an inspiring example, urging readers to step outside their comfort zones and embrace diversity.

By confronting and discussing these social issues head-on, the essay not only raises awareness but also calls for collective action. It encourages readers to become advocates for change and actively work towards creating a more inclusive and equitable society. The essay emphasizes the role of education in addressing these societal problems and the potential for growth and transformation it can bring.

In essence, the essay provides a platform to examine important societal problems and promotes empathy by humanizing the issues and encouraging readers to listen, understand, and work towards positive change.

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Essays About Freedom: 5 Helpful Examples and 7 Prompts

Freedom seems simple at first; however, it is quite a nuanced topic at a closer glance. If you are writing essays about freedom, read our guide of essay examples and writing prompts.

In a world where we constantly hear about violence, oppression, and war, few things are more important than freedom. It is the ability to act, speak, or think what we want without being controlled or subjected. It can be considered the gateway to achieving our goals, as we can take the necessary steps. 

However, freedom is not always “doing whatever we want.” True freedom means to do what is righteous and reasonable, even if there is the option to do otherwise. Moreover, freedom must come with responsibility; this is why laws are in place to keep society orderly but not too micro-managed, to an extent.

5 Examples of Essays About Freedom

1. essay on “freedom” by pragati ghosh, 2. acceptance is freedom by edmund perry, 3. reflecting on the meaning of freedom by marquita herald.

• 4.  Authentic Freedom by Wilfred Carlson

5. What are freedom and liberty? by Yasmin Youssef

1. what is freedom, 2. freedom in the contemporary world, 3. is freedom “not free”, 4. moral and ethical issues concerning freedom, 5. freedom vs. security, 6. free speech and hate speech, 7. an experience of freedom.

“Freedom is non denial of our basic rights as humans. Some freedom is specific to the age group that we fall into. A child is free to be loved and cared by parents and other members of family and play around. So this nurturing may be the idea of freedom to a child. Living in a crime free society in safe surroundings may mean freedom to a bit grown up child.”

In her essay, Ghosh briefly describes what freedom means to her. It is the ability to live your life doing what you want. However, she writes that we must keep in mind the dignity and freedom of others. One cannot simply kill and steal from people in the name of freedom; it is not absolute. She also notes that different cultures and age groups have different notions of freedom. Freedom is a beautiful thing, but it must be exercised in moderation. 

“They demonstrate that true freedom is about being accepted, through the scenarios that Ambrose Flack has written for them to endure. In The Strangers That Came to Town, the Duvitches become truly free at the finale of the story. In our own lives, we must ask: what can we do to help others become truly free?”

Perry’s essay discusses freedom in the context of Ambrose Flack’s short story The Strangers That Came to Town : acceptance is the key to being free. When the immigrant Duvitch family moved into a new town, they were not accepted by the community and were deprived of the freedom to live without shame and ridicule. However, when some townspeople reach out, the Duvitches feel empowered and relieved and are no longer afraid to go out and be themselves. 

“Freedom is many things, but those issues that are often in the forefront of conversations these days include the freedom to choose, to be who you truly are, to express yourself and to live your life as you desire so long as you do not hurt or restrict the personal freedom of others. I’ve compiled a collection of powerful quotations on the meaning of freedom to share with you, and if there is a single unifying theme it is that we must remember at all times that, regardless of where you live, freedom is not carved in stone, nor does it come without a price.”

In her short essay, Herald contemplates on freedom and what it truly means. She embraces her freedom and uses it to live her life to the fullest and to teach those around her. She values freedom and closes her essay with a list of quotations on the meaning of freedom, all with something in common: freedom has a price. With our freedom, we must be responsible. You might also be interested in these essays about consumerism .

4.   Authentic Freedom by Wilfred Carlson

“Freedom demands of one, or rather obligates one to concern ourselves with the affairs of the world around us. If you look at the world around a human being, countries where freedom is lacking, the overall population is less concerned with their fellow man, then in a freer society. The same can be said of individuals, the more freedom a human being has, and the more responsible one acts to other, on the whole.”

Carlson writes about freedom from a more religious perspective, saying that it is a right given to us by God. However, authentic freedom is doing what is right and what will help others rather than simply doing what one wants. If freedom were exercised with “doing what we want” in mind, the world would be disorderly. True freedom requires us to care for others and work together to better society. 

“In my opinion, the concepts of freedom and liberty are what makes us moral human beings. They include individual capacities to think, reason, choose and value different situations. It also means taking individual responsibility for ourselves, our decisions and actions. It includes self-governance and self-determination in combination with critical thinking, respect, transparency and tolerance. We should let no stone unturned in the attempt to reach a state of full freedom and liberty, even if it seems unrealistic and utopic.”

Youssef’s essay describes the concepts of freedom and liberty and how they allow us to do what we want without harming others. She notes that respect for others does not always mean agreeing with them. We can disagree, but we should not use our freedom to infringe on that of the people around us. To her, freedom allows us to choose what is good, think critically, and innovate. 

7 Prompts for Essays About Freedom

Freedom is quite a broad topic and can mean different things to different people. For your essay, define freedom and explain what it means to you. For example, freedom could mean having the right to vote, the right to work, or the right to choose your path in life. Then, discuss how you exercise your freedom based on these definitions and views. 

The world as we know it is constantly changing, and so is the entire concept of freedom. Research the state of freedom in the world today and center your essay on the topic of modern freedom. For example, discuss freedom while still needing to work to pay bills and ask, “Can we truly be free when we cannot choose with the constraints of social norms?” You may compare your situation to the state of freedom in other countries and in the past if you wish. 

A common saying goes like this: “Freedom is not free.” Reflect on this quote and write your essay about what it means to you: how do you understand it? In addition, explain whether you believe it to be true or not, depending on your interpretation. 

Many contemporary issues exemplify both the pros and cons of freedom; for example, slavery shows the worst when freedom is taken away, while gun violence exposes the disadvantages of too much freedom. First, discuss one issue regarding freedom and briefly touch on its causes and effects. Then, be sure to explain how it relates to freedom. 

Some believe that more laws curtail the right to freedom and liberty. In contrast, others believe that freedom and regulation can coexist, saying that freedom must come with the responsibility to ensure a safe and orderly society. Take a stand on this issue and argue for your position, supporting your response with adequate details and credible sources. 

Many people, especially online, have used their freedom of speech to attack others based on race and gender, among other things. Many argue that hate speech is still free and should be protected, while others want it regulated. Is it infringing on freedom? You decide and be sure to support your answer adequately. Include a rebuttal of the opposing viewpoint for a more credible argumentative essay. 

For your essay, you can also reflect on a time you felt free. It could be your first time going out alone, moving into a new house, or even going to another country. How did it make you feel? Reflect on your feelings, particularly your sense of freedom, and explain them in detail. 

Check out our guide packed full of transition words for essays .If you are interested in learning more, check out our essay writing tips !

Freedom Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on freedom.

Freedom is something that everybody has heard of but if you ask for its meaning then everyone will give you different meaning. This is so because everyone has a different opinion about freedom. For some freedom means the freedom of going anywhere they like, for some it means to speak up form themselves, and for some, it is liberty of doing anything they like.

Meaning of Freedom

The real meaning of freedom according to books is. Freedom refers to a state of independence where you can do what you like without any restriction by anyone. Moreover, freedom can be called a state of mind where you have the right and freedom of doing what you can think off. Also, you can feel freedom from within.

The Indian Freedom

Indian is a country which was earlier ruled by Britisher and to get rid of these rulers India fight back and earn their freedom. But during this long fight, many people lost their lives and because of the sacrifice of those people and every citizen of the country, India is a free country and the world largest democracy in the world.

Moreover, after independence India become one of those countries who give his citizen some freedom right without and restrictions.

The Indian Freedom Right

India drafted a constitution during the days of struggle with the Britishers and after independence it became applicable. In this constitution, the Indian citizen was given several fundaments right which is applicable to all citizen equally. More importantly, these right are the freedom that the constitution has given to every citizen.

These right are right to equality, right to freedom, right against exploitation, right to freedom of religion¸ culture and educational right, right to constitutional remedies, right to education. All these right give every freedom that they can’t get in any other country.

Value of Freedom

The real value of anything can only be understood by those who have earned it or who have sacrificed their lives for it. Freedom also means liberalization from oppression. It also means the freedom from racism, from harm, from the opposition, from discrimination and many more things.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Freedom does not mean that you violate others right, it does not mean that you disregard other rights. Moreover, freedom means enchanting the beauty of nature and the environment around us.

The Freedom of Speech

Freedom of speech is the most common and prominent right that every citizen enjoy. Also, it is important because it is essential for the all-over development of the country.

Moreover, it gives way to open debates that helps in the discussion of thought and ideas that are essential for the growth of society.

Besides, this is the only right that links with all the other rights closely. More importantly, it is essential to express one’s view of his/her view about society and other things.

To conclude, we can say that Freedom is not what we think it is. It is a psychological concept everyone has different views on. Similarly, it has a different value for different people. But freedom links with happiness in a broadway.

FAQs on Freedom

Q.1 What is the true meaning of freedom? A.1 Freedom truly means giving equal opportunity to everyone for liberty and pursuit of happiness.

Q.2 What is freedom of expression means? A.2 Freedom of expression means the freedom to express one’s own ideas and opinions through the medium of writing, speech, and other forms of communication without causing any harm to someone’s reputation.

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Essay on Freedom in 100, 200 and 300 Words

• Updated on  
• Nov 15, 2023

Before starting to write an essay on freedom, you must understand what this multifaceted term means. Freedom is not just a term, but a concept holding several meanings. Freedom generally refers to being able to act, speak or think as one wants without any restrictions or hindrances. Freedom encompasses the ability to make independent decisions and express your thoughts without any fear so that one can achieve their goals and aspirations. Let’s check out some essays on freedom for more brief information.

Table of Contents

• 1 Essay on Freedom in 100 Words
• 2 Essay on Freedom in 200 Words
• 3 Essay on Freedom in 300 Words

Also Read: English Essay Topics

Also Read: How to Write an Essay in English

Also Read: Speech on Republic Day for Class 12th

Essay on Freedom in 100 Words

Freedom is considered the essence of human existence because it serves as the cornerstone on which societal developments and individual identities are shaped. Countries with democracy consider freedom as one of the fundamental rights for every individual to make choices and live life according to their free will, desires and aspirations. This free will to make decisions has been a driving force behind countless movements, revolutions and societal progress throughout history.

Political freedom entails the right to participate in governance, express dissent, and engage in public discourse without the threat of censorship or retribution. It is the bedrock of democratic societies, fostering an environment where diverse voices can be heard.

Also Read: In Pursuit of Freedom- India’s Journey to Independence From 1857 to 1947

Essay on Freedom in 200 Words

Freedom is considered the lifeblood of human progress and the foundation of a just and equitable society. It is a beacon of hope that inspires individuals to strive for a world where every person can live with dignity and pursue their dreams without fear or constraint. Some consider freedom as the catalyst for personal growth and the cultivation of one’s unique identity, enabling individuals to explore their full potential and contribute their talents to the world.

• On a personal level, freedom is synonymous with autonomy and self-determination . It grants individuals the liberty to choose their paths, make decisions in accordance with their values, and pursue their passions without the shackles of external influence.
• In the political sphere, it underpins the democratic process, allowing individuals to participate in governance and express their opinions without retribution.
• Socially, it ensures equality and respect for all, regardless of differences in race, gender, or beliefs.

However, freedom comes with the responsibility to exercise it within the bounds of respect for others and collective well-being. Balancing individual liberties with the greater good is crucial for maintaining societal harmony. Upholding freedom requires a commitment to fostering a world where everyone can live with dignity and pursue their aspirations without undue restrictions.

Also read: Essay on Isaac Newton

Essay on Freedom in 300 Words

Freedom is considered the inherent right that lies at the core of human existence. It encompasses the ability to think, act and speak without any restrictions or coercion, allowing individuals to pursue their aspirations and live their lives according to their own values and beliefs. Ranging from personal to political domains, freedom shapes the essence of human dignity and progress.

• In the political sphere, freedom is the bedrock of democratic societies, fostering an environment where citizens have the right to participate in the decision-making process, voice their concerns, and hold their leaders accountable.
• It serves as a safeguard against tyranny and authoritarian government , ensuring that governance remains transparent, inclusive, and responsive to the needs of the people.
• Social freedom is essential for fostering inclusivity and equality within communities. It demands the eradication of discrimination based on race, gender, religion, or any other characteristic, creating a space where every individual is treated with dignity and respect.
• Social freedom facilitates the celebration of diversity and the recognition of the intrinsic worth of every human being, promoting a society that thrives on mutual understanding and cooperation.
• On an individual or personal level, freedom signifies the autonomy to make choices, follow one’s passions, and cultivate a sense of self-worth. It encourages individuals to pursue their aspirations and fulfil their potential, fostering personal growth and fulfilment.
• The ability to express oneself freely and to pursue one’s ambitions without fear of reprisal or oppression is integral to the development of a healthy and vibrant society.

However, exercising freedom necessitates a responsible approach that respects the rights and freedoms of others. The delicate balance between individual liberty and collective well-being demands a conscientious understanding of the impact of one’s actions on the broader community. Upholding and protecting the principles of freedom requires a collective commitment to fostering an environment where everyone can thrive and contribute to the betterment of humanity.

Also Read: How to Prepare for UPSC in 6 Months?

Freedom generally refers to being able to act, speak or think as one wants without any restrictions or hindrances. Freedom encompasses the ability to make independent decisions and express your thoughts without any fear so that one can achieve their goals and aspirations.

Someone with free will to think, act and speak without any external restrictions is considered a free person. However, this is the bookish definition of this broader concept, where the ground reality can be far different than this.

Writing an essay on freedom in 100 words requires you to describe the definition of this term, and what it means at different levels, such as individual or personal, social and political. freedom comes with the responsibility to exercise it within the bounds of respect for others and collective well-being.

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Shiva Tyagi

With an experience of over a year, I've developed a passion for writing blogs on wide range of topics. I am mostly inspired from topics related to social and environmental fields, where you come up with a positive outcome.

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Essay on Importance of Freedom

Students are often asked to write an essay on Importance of Freedom in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Importance of Freedom

Understanding freedom.

Freedom is a fundamental right that everyone deserves. It means the power to act, speak, or think without hindrance or restraint. Freedom is crucial for personal growth and happiness.

Freedom’s Role in Society

In a society, freedom is necessary for the development of individuals. It allows us to express our thoughts, make choices, and pursue our dreams.

Freedom and Responsibility

While freedom is essential, it must be balanced with responsibility. We should use our freedom wisely, respecting others’ rights and maintaining peace.

Preserving Freedom

We must always strive to preserve and protect our freedom, ensuring a just and equitable society for all.

250 Words Essay on Importance of Freedom

Introduction to freedom.

Freedom, a term often associated with liberty and autonomy, is a fundamental human right, pivotal to our existence. It is the power to act, speak, or think without externally imposed restraints.

The Essence of Freedom

Freedom is the cornerstone of democracy, where citizens are free to express their thoughts, make choices, and pursue their aspirations. It fosters creativity and innovation, encouraging individuals to explore beyond the confines of conventionality. Freedom is the catalyst for personal and societal evolution.

However, freedom should not be misconstrued as anarchy. It comes with inherent responsibility. The ability to differentiate between right and wrong, the courage to stand up for justice, and the sense of responsibility towards fellow beings, all stem from the seed of freedom.

Freedom: A Global Perspective

On a larger scale, freedom is the backbone of international peace and cooperation. Nations that respect and uphold freedom tend to have more harmonious relationships with others, fostering global unity.

In conclusion, freedom is not just a right, but a necessity for the holistic development of individuals and societies. It is the essence of human dignity and a fundamental element of democracy. However, it is crucial that we exercise our freedom responsibly, to ensure a harmonious co-existence.

500 Words Essay on Importance of Freedom

The concept of freedom, freedom and human dignity.

Freedom is intrinsically tied to human dignity. It allows individuals to express their unique identities, beliefs, and values without fear of persecution or discrimination. Freedom empowers individuals to pursue their aspirations, fostering creativity, innovation, and personal growth. It provides a platform for people to voice their opinions, engage in dialogue, and contribute to societal progress.

Political Freedom

Political freedom is a cornerstone of democratic societies. It involves the right to vote, freedom of speech, and the right to peaceful assembly. Political freedom enables citizens to participate in decision-making processes, promoting transparency and accountability in governance. It ensures that power is not concentrated in the hands of a few, preventing authoritarianism and fostering a balanced societal structure.

Freedom of Thought and Expression

While freedom is essential, it is not absolute. It comes with the responsibility to respect the rights and freedoms of others. This balance between freedom and responsibility is crucial to maintaining social harmony and preventing the misuse of freedom to harm others or infringe upon their rights. Thus, freedom should not be perceived as an unrestricted license, but rather as a principle that promotes mutual respect and coexistence.

Challenges to Freedom

Despite its importance, freedom remains under threat in many parts of the world due to authoritarian regimes, censorship, discrimination, and social inequality. Upholding freedom requires constant vigilance, advocacy, and education. It is the collective responsibility of individuals, communities, and nations to safeguard this fundamental human right.

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Locke On Freedom

John Locke’s views on the nature of freedom of action and freedom of will have played an influential role in the philosophy of action and in moral psychology. Locke offers distinctive accounts of action and forbearance, of will and willing, of voluntary (as opposed to involuntary) actions and forbearances, and of freedom (as opposed to necessity). These positions lead him to dismiss the traditional question of free will as absurd, but also raise new questions, such as whether we are (or can be) free in respect of willing and whether we are free to will what we will, questions to which he gives divergent answers. Locke also discusses the (much misunderstood) question of what determines the will, providing one answer to it at one time, and then changing his mind upon consideration of some constructive criticism proposed by his friend, William Molyneux. In conjunction with this change of mind, Locke introduces a new doctrine (concerning the ability to suspend the fulfillment of one’s desires) that has caused much consternation among his interpreters, in part because it threatens incoherence. As we will see, Locke’s initial views do suffer from clear difficulties that are remedied by his later change of mind, all without introducing incoherence.

Note on the text: Locke’s theory of freedom is contained in Book II, Chapter xxi of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding . The chapter underwent five revisions in Locke’s lifetime [E1 (1689), E2 (1694), E3 (1695), E4 (1700), and E5 (1706)], with the last edition published posthumously. Significant changes, including a considerable lengthening of the chapter, occur in E2; and important changes appear in E5.

1. Actions and Forbearances

2. will and willing, 3. voluntary vs. involuntary action/forbearance, 4. freedom and necessity, 5. free will, 6. freedom in respect of willing, 7. freedom to will, 8. determination of the will, 9. the doctrine of suspension, 10. compatibilism or incompatibilism, select primary sources, select secondary sources, additional secondary sources, other internet resources, related entries.

For Locke, the question of whether human beings are free is the question of whether human beings are free with respect to their actions and forbearances . As he puts it:

[T]he Idea of Liberty , is the Idea of a Power in any Agent to do or forbear any Action, according to the determination or thought of the mind, whereby either of them is preferr’d to the other. (E1–4 II.xxi.8: 237)

In order to understand Locke’s conception of freedom, then, we need to understand his conception of action and forbearance.

There are three main accounts of Locke’s theory of action. According to what we might call the “Doing” theory of action, actions are things that we do (actively), as contrasted to things that merely happen to us (passively). If someone pushes my arm up, then my arm rises, but, one might say, I did not raise it. That my arm rose is something that happened to me, not something I did . By contrast, when I signal to a friend who has been looking for me, I do something inasmuch as I am not a mere passive recipient of a stimulus over which I have no control. According to some interpreters (e.g., Stuart 2013: 405, 451), Locke’s actions are doings in this sense. According to the “Composite” or “Millian” theory of action, an action is “[n]ot one thing, but a series of two things; the state of mind called a volition, followed by an effect” (Mill 1974 [1843]: 55). On this view, for example, the action of raising my hand is composed of (i) willing to produce the effect of my hand’s rising and (ii) the effect itself, where (ii) results from (i). According to some interpreters (arguably, Lowe 1986: 120–121; Lowe 1995: 141—though it is possible that Lowe’s theory applies only to voluntary actions), Locke’s actions are composite in this sense. Finally, according to what we might call the “Deflationary” conception of action, actions are simply motions of bodies or operations of minds.

Some of what Locke says suggests that he holds the “Doing” theory of action: “when [a Body] is set in motion it self, that Motion is rather a Passion, than an Action in it”, for “when the Ball obeys the stroke of a Billiard-stick, it is not any action of the Ball, but bare passion” (E1–5 II.xxi.4: 235—see also E4–5 II.xxi.72: 285–286). Here Locke is clearly working with a sense of “action” according to which actions are opposed to passions. But, on reflection, it is unlikely that this is what Locke means by “action” when he writes about voluntary/involuntary actions and freedom of action. For Locke describes “a Man striking himself, or his Friend, by a Convulsive motion of his Arm, which it is not in his Power…to…forbear” as “acting” (E1–5 II.xxi.9: 238), and describes the convulsive leg motion caused by “that odd Disease called Chorea Sancti Viti [St. Vitus’s Dance]” as an “Action” (E1–5 II.xxi.11: 239). It would be a mistake to think of these convulsive motions as “doings”, for they are clearly things that “happen” to us in just the way that it happens to me that my arm rises when someone else raises it. Examples of convulsive actions also suggest that the Millian account of Locke’s theory of action is mistaken. For in the case of convulsive motion, there is no volition that one’s limbs move; indeed, if there is volition in such cases, it is usually a volition that one’s limbs not move. Such actions, then, cannot be composed of a volition and the motion that is willed, for the relevant volition is absent (more on volition below).

We are therefore left with the Deflationary conception of action, which is well supported by the text. There are, Locke says, “but two sorts of Action, whereof we have any Idea , viz. Thinking and Motion” (E1–5 II.xxi.4: 235—see also E1–5 II.xxi.8: 237 and E4–5 II.xxi.72: 285); “Thinking, and Motion…are the two Ideas which comprehend in them all Action” (E1–5 II.xxii.10: 293). It may be that, in the sense in which “action” is opposed to “passion”, some corporeal motions and mental operations, being produced by external causes rather than self-initiated, are not actions. But that is not the sense in which all motions and thoughts are “called and counted Actions ” in Locke’s theory of action (E4–5 II.xxi.72: 285). As seems clear, convulsive motions are actions inasmuch as they are motions, and thoughts that occur in the mind unbidden are actions inasmuch as they are mental operations.

What, then, according to Locke, are forbearances? On some interpretations (close counterparts to the Millian conception of action), Locke takes forbearances to be voluntary not-doings (e.g., Stuart 2013: 407) or voluntary omissions to act (e.g., Lowe 1995: 123). There are texts that suggest as much:

sitting still , or holding one’s peace , when walking or speaking are propos’d, [are] mere forbearances, requiring…the determination of the Will . (E2–5 II.xxi.28: 248)

However, Locke distinguishes between voluntary and involuntary forbearances (E2–5 II.xxi.5: 236), and it makes no sense to characterize an involuntary forbearance as an involuntary voluntary not-doing. So it is unlikely that Locke thinks of forbearances as voluntary not-doings. This leaves the Deflationary conception of forbearance, according to which a forbearance is the opposite of an action, namely an episode of rest or absence of thought. On this conception, to say that someone forbore running is to say that she did not run, not that she voluntarily failed to run. Every forbearance would be an instance of inaction, not a refraining.

In E2–5, Locke stipulates that he uses the word “action” to “comprehend the forbearance too of any Action proposed”, in order to “avoid the multiplying of words” (E2–5 II.xxi.28: 248). The reason he so stipulates is not that he literally takes forbearances to be actions (as he puts it, they “pass for” actions), but that most everything that he wants to say about actions (in particular, the distinction between voluntary and involuntary actions, and the account of freedom of action) applies pari passu to forbearances (see below).

Within the category of actions, Locke distinguishes between those that are voluntary and those that are involuntary. To understand this distinction, we need to understand Locke’s account of the will and his account of willing (or volition). For Locke, the will is a power (ability, faculty—see E1–5 II.xxi.20: 244) possessed by a person (or by that person’s mind). Locke explains how we come by the idea of power (in Humean vein, as the result of observation of constant conjunctions—“like Changes [being] made, in the same things, by like Agents, and by the like ways” (E1–5 II.xxi.1: 233)), but does not offer a theory of the nature of power. What we are told is that “ Powers are Relations” (E1–5 II.xxi.19: 243), relations “to Action or Change” (E1–5 II.xxi.3: 234), and that powers are either active (powers to make changes) or passive (powers to receive changes) (E1–5 II.xxi.2: 234). In this sense, the will is an active relation to actions.

Locke’s predecessors had thought of the will as intimately related to the faculty of desire or appetite. For the Scholastics (whose works Locke read as a student at Oxford), the will is the power of rational appetite. For Thomas Hobbes (by whom Locke was deeply influenced even though this was not something he could advertise, because Hobbes was a pariah in Locke’s intellectual and political circles), the will is simply the power of desire itself. Remnants of this desiderative conception of the will remain in Locke’s theory, particularly in the first edition of the Essay . Here, for example, is Locke’s official E1 account of the will:

This Power the Mind has to prefer the consideration of any Idea to the not considering it; or to prefer the motion of any part of the body to its rest. (E1 II.xxi.5: 236)

And here is Locke’s official E1 account of preferring:

Well, but what is this Preferring ? It is nothing but the being pleased more with the one , than the other . (E1 II.xxi.28: 248)

So, in E1, the will is the mind’s power to be more pleased with the consideration of an idea than with the not considering it, or to be more pleased with the motion of a part of one’s body than with its remaining at rest. When we lack something that would deliver more pleasure than we currently experience, we become uneasy at its absence. And this kind of uneasiness (or pain: E1–5 II.vii.1: 128), is what Locke describes as desire (E1–5 II.xx.6: 230; E2–5 II.xxi.31–32: 251) (though also as “joined with”, “scarce distinguishable from”, and a “cause” of desire—see Section 8 below). So, in E1, the will is the mind’s power to desire or want the consideration of an idea more than the not considering it, or to desire or want the motion of a part of one’s body more than its remaining at rest. (At E2–5 II.xxi.5: 236, Locke adds “and vice versâ ”, to clarify that it can also happen, even according to the E1 account, that one prefers not considering an idea to considering it, or not moving to moving.) [ 1 ]

In keeping with this conception of the will as desire, Locke in E1 then defines an exercise of the will, which he calls “willing” or “volition”, as an “actual preferring” of one thing to another (E1 II.xxi.5: 236). For example, I have the power to prefer the upward motion of my arm to its remaining at rest by my side. This power, in E1, is one aspect of my will. When I exercise this power, I actually prefer the upward motion of my arm to its remaining at rest, i.e., I am more pleased with my arm’s upward motion than I am with its continuing to rest. This is what Locke, in E1, thinks of as my willing the upward motion of my arm (or, as he sometimes puts it, my willing or volition to move my arm upward ).

In E2–5, Locke explicitly gives up this conception of the will and willing, explaining why he does so, making corresponding changes in the text of the Essay , even while leaving passages that continue to suggest the desiderative conception. He writes: “[T]hough a Man would preferr flying to walking, yet who can say he ever wills it?” (E2–5 II.xxi.15: 241). The thought here is that, as Locke (rightly) recognizes, my being more pleased with flying than walking does not consist in (or even entail) my willing to fly. This is in large part because it is necessarily implied in willing motion of a certain sort that one exert dominion that one takes oneself to have (E2–5 II.xxi.15: 241), that “the mind [endeavor] to give rise…to [the motion], which it takes to be in its power” (E2–5 II.xxi.30: 250). So if I do not believe that it is in my power to fly, then it is impossible for me to will the motion of flying, even though I might be more pleased with flying than I am with any alternative. Locke concludes (with the understatement) that “ Preferring which seems perhaps best to express the Act of Volition , does it not precisely” (E2–5 II.xxi.15: 240–241).

In addition, Locke points out that it is possible for “the Will and Desire [to] run counter”. For example, as a result of being coerced or threatened, I might will to persuade someone of something, even though I desire that I not succeed in persuading her. Or, suffering from gout, I might desire to be eased of the pain in my feet, and yet at the same time, recognizing that the translation of such pain would affect my health for the worse, will that I not be eased of my foot pain. In concluding that “ desiring and willing are two distinct Acts of the mind”, Locke must be assuming (reasonably) that it is not possible to will an action and its contrary at the same time (E2–5 II.xxi.30: 250). [ 2 ]

With what conception of the will and willing does Locke replace the abandoned desiderative conception? The answer is that in E2–5 Locke describes the will as a kind of directive or commanding faculty, the power to direct (or issue commands to) one’s body or mind: it is, he writes,

a Power to begin or forbear, continue or end several actions of our minds, and motions of our Bodies, barely by a thought or preference of the mind ordering, or as it were commanding the doing or not doing such or such particular action. (E2–5 II.xxi.5: 236)

Consonant with this non-desiderative, directive conception of the will, Locke claims that

Volition , or Willing , is an act of the Mind directing its thought to the production of any Action, and thereby exerting its power to produce it, (E2–5 II.xxi.28: 248)

Volition is nothing, but that particular determination of the mind, whereby, barely by a thought, the mind endeavours to give rise, continuation, or stop to any Action, which it takes to be in its power. (E2–5 II.xxi.30: 250)

Every volition, then, is a volition to act or to forbear , where willing to act is a matter of commanding one’s body to move or one’s mind to think, and willing to forbear is a matter of commanding one’s body to rest or one’s mind not to think. Unlike a desiderative power, which is essentially passive (as involving the ability to be more pleased with one thing than another), the will in E2–5 is an intrinsically active power, the exercise of which involves the issuing of mental commands directed at one’s own body and mind.

Within the category of actions/forbearances, Locke distinguishes between those that are voluntary and those that are involuntary. Locke does not define voluntariness and involuntariness in E1, but he does in E2–5:

The forbearance or performance of [an] action, consequent to such order or command of the mind is called Voluntary . And whatsoever action is performed without such a thought of the mind is called Involuntary . (E2–4 II.xxi.5: 236—in E5, “or performance” is omitted from the first sentence)

Locke is telling us that what makes an action/forbearance voluntary is that it is consequent to a volition, and that what makes an action/forbearance involuntary is that it is performed without a volition. The operative words here are “consequent to” and “without”. What do they mean? (Henceforth, following Locke’s lead, I will not distinguish between actions and forbearances unless the context calls for it.)

We can begin with something Locke says only in E1:

Volition, or the Act of Willing, signifies nothing properly, but the actual producing of something that is voluntary. (E1 II.xxi.33: 259)

On reflection, this is mistaken, but it does provide a clue to Locke’s conception of voluntariness. The mistake (of which Locke likely became aware, given that the statement clashes with the rest of his views and was removed from E2–5) is that not every instance of willing an action is followed by the action itself. To use one of Locke’s own examples, if I am locked in a room and will to leave, my volition will not result in my leaving (E1–5 II.xxi.10: 238). So willing cannot signify the “actual producing” of a voluntary action. However, it is reasonable to assume that, for Locke, willing will “produce” a voluntary action if nothing hinders the willed episode of motion or thought. And this makes it likely that Locke takes a voluntary action to be not merely temporally consequent to, but actually caused by, the right kind of volition (Yaffe 2000; for a contrary view, see Hoffman 2005).

Understandably, some commentators have worried about the problem of deviant causation, and whether Locke has an answer to it (e.g., Lowe 1995: 122–123; Yaffe 2000: 104; Lowe 2005: 141–147). The problem is that if I let go of a climbing rope, not as a direct result of willing to let it go, but as a result of being discomfited/paralyzed/shaken by the volition itself, then my letting go of the rope would not count as voluntary even though it was caused by a volition to let go of the rope. The solution to this problem, if there is one, is to claim that, in order for an action to count as voluntary, it is not sufficient for it to be caused by the right kind of volition: in addition, it is necessary that the action be caused in the right way (or non-deviantly) by the right kind of volition. Spelling out the necessary and sufficient conditions for non-deviant causation is a steep climb. Chances are that Locke was no more aware of this problem, and was in no better position to answer it, than anyone else was before Chisholm (1966), Taylor (1966) and Davidson (1980) brought it to the attention of the philosophical community.

Locke’s view, then, is that an action is voluntary inasmuch as its performance is caused by a volition. The volition, as we have so far presumed, must be of the right kind. For example, Locke would not count the motion of my left arm as voluntary if it were caused by a volition that my right arm move (or a volition that my left arm remain at rest). Locke assumes (reasonably) that in order for an action A to be voluntary, it must be caused (in the right way) by a volition that A occur (or, as Locke sometimes puts it, by a volition to do A ).

What, then, on Locke’s view, is it for an action to be involuntary ? Locke says that an involuntary action is performed “without” a volition. This might suggest that an action of mine is involuntary only when I have no volition that the action occur. Perhaps this is what Locke believes. But it is more reasonable to suppose that Locke would also count as involuntary an action that, though preceded by the right kind of volition, is either not caused by the volition or caused by the volition but not in the right way. [ 3 ]

Some commentators have worried that Locke’s “locked room” example is a problematic illustration of his theory of voluntariness, at least as applied to forbearances (e.g., Lowe 1986: 154–157; Stuart 2013: 420). Locke imagines a man who is “carried, while fast asleep, into a Room, where is a Person he longs to see and speak with”, but who is “there locked fast in, beyond his Power to get out: he awakes, and is glad to find himself in so desirable Company” and “stays willingly” in the room. Locke makes clear that, on his view, the man’s remaining in the room is a voluntary forbearance to leave (E1–5 II.xxi.10: 238). But one might worry that if the man is unable to leave the room, then it is false to say that his volition not to leave causes his not leaving. At best, it might be argued, the man’s not leaving is overdetermined (Stuart 2013: 420). But, as some authors have recently argued, cases of overdetermination are rightly described as involving two (or more) causes, not a single joint cause or no cause at all (see, e.g., Schaffer 2003). On such a view of overdetermination, it is unproblematic for Locke to describe the man in the locked room as caused to remain both by his volition to remain and by the door’s being locked. [ 4 ]

Another problem that has been raised for Locke stems from his example of a man who falls into a river when a bridge breaks under him. Locke describes the man as willing not to fall, even as he is falling (E1–5 II.xxi.9: 238). The worry here is that Locke holds that the objects of volition are actions or forbearances, so the man would need to be described as willing to forbear from falling. But, it might be argued, falling is not an action, for it is something that merely happens to the man, and not an exercise of his agency; so his willingly forbearing from falling would be willingly forbearing from something that is not an action, and this is impossible (Stuart 2013: 405). The answer to this worry is that falling is an action, according to Locke’s Deflationary conception of action, which counts the motion of one’s body in any direction as a bona fide action (see Section 1 above).

Some commentators think that Lockean freedom (or, as Locke also calls it, “liberty”) is a single power, the power to do what one wills (Yolton 1970: 144; D. Locke 1975: 96; O’Higgins 1976: 119—see Chappell 1994: 103). However, as Locke describes it, freedom is a “two-way” power, really a combination of two conditional powers belonging to an agent, that is, to someone endowed with a will (see Chappell 2007: 142). (A tennis ball, for example, “has not Liberty , is not a free Agent”, because it is incapable of volition (E1–5 II.xxi.9: 238).) In E1, Locke’s definition reflects his conception of the will as a power of preferring X to Y , or being more pleased with X than with Y . But in E2–5, Locke’s definition reflects his modified conception of the will as a power to issue commands to one’s body or mind (see Section 2 above):

[S]o far as a Man has a power to think, or not to think; to move, or not to move, according to the preference or direction of his own mind, so far is a Man Free . (E2–5 II.xxi.8: 237) So that the Idea of Liberty , is the Idea of a Power in any Agent to do or forbear any particular Action, according to the determination or thought of the mind, whereby either of them is preferr’d to the other. (E2–5 II.xxi.8: 237) Liberty is not an Idea belonging to Volition , or preferring; but to the Person having the Power of doing, or forbearing to do, according as the Mind shall chuse or direct. (E2–5 II.xxi.10: 238) Liberty …is the power a Man has to do or forbear doing any particular Action, according as its doing or forbearance has the actual preference in the Mind, which is the same thing as to say, according as he himself wills it. (E1–5 II.xxi.15: 241)

The central claim here is that a human being (person, agent) is free with respect to a particular action A (or forbearance to perform A ) inasmuch as (i) if she wills to do A then she has the power to do A and (ii) if she wills to forbear doing A then she has the power to forbear doing A (see, e.g., Chappell 1994: 103). [ 5 ] So, for example, a woman in a locked room is not free with respect to the act of leaving (or with respect to the forbearance to leave) because she does not have the power to leave if and when she wills to leave, and a woman who is falling (the bridge under her having crumbled) is not free with respect to the forbearance to fall (or with respect to the act of falling) because she does not have the power to forbear falling if she wills not to fall (E1–5 II.xxi.9–10: 238). (Locke describes agents who are unfree with respect to some action as acting under, or by, necessity—E1–5 II.xxi.8: 238; E1–5 II.xxi.9: 238.) But if the door of the room is unlocked, then the woman in the room is able to stay if she wills to stay, and is able to leave if she wills to leave: she is therefore both free with respect to staying and free with respect to leaving.

Notice that freedom, on Locke’s conception of it, is a property of substances (persons, human beings, agents). This simply follows from the fact that freedom is a dual power and from the fact that “ Powers belong only to Agents , and are Attributes only of Substances ” (E1–5 II.xxi.16: 241). At no point does Locke offer an account of performing actions or forbearances freely , as if freedom were a way of performing an action or a way of forbearing to perform an action. (For a contrary view, see LoLordo 2012: 27.)

Locke does write that

[w]here-ever any performance or forbearance are not equally in a Man’s power; where-ever doing or not doing, will not equally follow upon the preference of his mind directing it, there he is not Free . (E2–5 II.xxi.8: 237)

The “follow upon” language might suggest a counterfactual analysis of the claim that an agent has the power to do A if she wills to do A , namely, that if she were to will to do A then she would do A (e.g., Lowe 1995: 129; Stuart 2013: 407—for a similar account that trades the subjunctive conditionals for indicative conditionals, see Yaffe 2000: 15). The counterfactual analysis is tempting, but also unlikely to capture Locke’s meaning, especially if he has a Deflationary conception of action/forbearance (see Section 1 above). It might happen, for example, that I am prevented (by chains or a force field) from raising my arm, but that if I were to will that my arm rise, you would immediately (break the chains or disable the force field and) raise my arm. Under these conditions, I would not be free with respect to my arm’s rising, but it would be true that if I were to will that my arm rise, then my arm would rise. So Locke’s dual power conception of freedom of action is not captured by any counterfactual conditional or pair of counterfactual conditionals.

Does Locke think that there is a conceptual connection between freedom of action and voluntary action? It might be thought that freedom with respect to a particular action requires that the action be voluntary, so that if an action is not voluntary then one is not free with respect to it. In defense of this, one might point to Locke’s falling man, whose falling is not voluntary and who is also not free with respect to the act of falling (Stuart 2013: 408). But the falling man’s unfreedom with respect to the act of falling is not explained by the involuntariness of his falling. In general, it is possible for one’s action to be involuntary even as one is free with respect to it. Imagine that you let your four-year old daughter raise your arm (just for fun). According to Locke’s conception of voluntariness, the motion of your arm is not voluntary, because it is not caused by any volition of yours (indeed, we can even imagine that you do not even have a volition that your arm rise). But, according to Locke’s conception of freedom, you are most certainly free with respect to your arm’s rising: (i) if you will that your arm rise, you have the power to raise it, and (ii) if you will that your arm not rise, you have the power to forbear raising it.

Voluntariness, then, is not necessary for freedom; but it is also not sufficient for freedom, as Locke’s “locked room” and “paralytick” cases show. The man in the locked room wills to stay and talk to the other person in the room, and this volition is causally responsible for his staying in the room: on Locke’s theory, his remaining in the room is, therefore, voluntary. But the man in the locked room “is not at liberty not to stay, he has not freedom to be gone” (E1–5 II.xxi.10: 238). The reason is that even if the man wills to leave, he does not have the power to leave. Similarly, if the paralyzed person wills to remain at rest (thinking, mistakenly, that he could move if he willed to move) and his remaining at rest is caused (at least in part) by his volition not to move, then his “sitting still…is truly voluntary”. But in this case, says Locke, “there is want of Freedom ” because “a Palsie [hinders] his Legs from obeying the determination of his Mind, if it would thereby transferr his Body to another Place” (E2–5 II.xxi.11: 239): that is, the paralyzed person is unable to move even if he wills to move.

Thus far, we have been focusing on freedom with respect to motion or rest of one’s body . But, as we have seen, Locke thinks that actions encompass acts of mind (in addition to acts of body). So, in addition to thinking that some acts of mind are voluntary (e.g., the mental acts of combining and abstracting ideas involved in the production of abstract ideas of mixed modes—E2–5 II.xxxii.12: 387–388), Locke thinks that we are free with respect to some mental actions (and their forbearances). For example, if I am able to combine two ideas at will, and I am able to forbear combining two ideas if I will not to combine them, then I am free with respect to the mental action of combining two ideas. It can also happen that we are not free with respect to our mental acts:

A Man on the Rack, is not at liberty to lay by the Idea of pain, and divert himself with other Contemplations. (E4–5 II.xxi.12: 239)

In this case, even though the man on the rack might will to be rid of the pain, he does not have the power to avoid feeling it. [ 6 ]

Is the will free? This question made sense to Scholastic philosophers (including, e.g., Bramhall, who engaged in a protracted debate on the subject with Hobbes), who tended not to distinguish between the question of whether the will is free and the question of whether the mind or soul is free with respect to willing, and, indeed, some of whom thought that acts cannot themselves be free (or freely done) unless the will to do them is itself free. But, according to Locke, the question, if literally understood, “is altogether improper” (E1–5 II.xxi.14: 240). This follows directly from Locke’s account of the will and his account of freedom. The will is a power (in E2–5, the power to order the motion or rest of one’s body and the power to order the consideration or non-consideration of an idea—see Section 2 above), and freedom is a power, namely the power to do or not do as one wills (see Section 4 above). But, as Locke emphasizes, the question of whether one power has another power is “a Question at first sight too grosly absurd to make a Dispute, or need an Answer”. The reason is that it is absurd to suppose that powers are capable of having powers, for

Powers belong only to Agents , and are Attributes only of Substances , and not of Powers themselves. (E1–5 II.xxi.16: 241)

The question of whether the will is free, then, presupposes that the will is a substance, rather than a power, and therefore makes no more sense than the question of whether a man’s “Sleep be Swift, or his Vertue square” (E1–5 II.xxi.14: 240). To suppose that the will is free (or unfree!) is therefore to make a category mistake (see Ryle 1949: chapter 1).

The fact that it makes no sense to suppose that the will itself is free (or unfree) does not entail that there are no significant questions to be asked about the relation between freedom and the will. Indeed, Locke thinks that there are two such questions, and that these are the questions that capture “what is meant, when it is disputed, Whether the will be free” (E2–5 II.xxi.22: 245). The first (discussed at E1–5 II.xxi.23–24) is whether agents (human beings, persons) are free with respect to willing-one-way-or-another; more particularly, whether agents are able, if they so will, to avoid willing one way or the other with respect to a proposed action. The second (discussed at E1–5 II.xxi.25) is whether agents are free with respect to willing-a-particular-action. The majority of commentators think that Locke answers both of these questions negatively, at least in E1–4 (see Chappell 1994, Lowe 1995, Jolley 1999, Glauser 2003, Stuart 2013, and Leisinger 2017), and some think that Locke then qualifies his answer(s) in E2–5 in a way that potentially introduces inconsistency into his moral psychology (e.g., Chappell 1994). Other commentators think that Locke answers the first question negatively for most actions, but with one important qualification that is clarified and made more explicit in E5, and that he answers the second question positively, all without falling into inconsistency (Rickless 2000; Garrett 2015). What follows is a summary of the interpretive controversies. In the rest of this Section, we focus on the first question. In the next, we focus on the second question.

In E1–4, Locke states his answer to the first question thus:

[ A ] Man in respect of willing any Action in his power once proposed to his Thoughts cannot be free . (E1–4 II.xxi.23: 245)

His argument for the necessity of having either a volition that action A occur or a volition that action A not occur, once A has been proposed to one’s thoughts, is simple and clever: (1) Either A will occur or A will not occur; (2) If A occurs, this will be the result of the agent having willed A to occur; (3) If A does not occur, this will be the result of the agent having willed A not to occur; therefore, (4) The agent necessarily wills one way or the other with respect to A ’s occurrence (see Chappell 1994: 105–106). It follows directly that “in respect of the act of willing , a Man is not free” (E1–4 II.xxi.23: 245). For, first, “ Willing , or Volition [is] an Action” (E1–5 II.xxi.23: 245—this because actions comprise motions of the body and operations of mind, and volition is one of the most important mental operations—E1–5 II.vi.2: 128), and, second, freedom with respect to action A , as Locke defines it, consists in (i) the power to do A if one wills to do A and (ii) the power not to do A if one wills not to do A . Thus, if an agent does not have the power to avoid willing one way or the other with respect to A (even if the agent wills to avoid willing one way or the other with respect to A ), then the agent is not free with respect to willing one way or the other with respect to A .

In his New Essays on Human Understanding (ready for publication in 1704, but not published then because that was the year of Locke’s death) Gottfried Leibniz famously questions premise (3) of this argument:

I would have thought that one can suspend one’s choice, and that this happens quite often, especially when other thoughts interrupt one’s deliberation. Thus, although it is necessary that the action about which one is deliberating must exist or not exist, it doesn’t follow at all that one necessarily has to decide on its existence or non-existence. For its non-existence could well come about in the absence of any decision. (Leibniz 1704 [1981]: 181)

Leibniz’s worry is that, even if one is thinking about whether or not to do A , it is often possible to postpone willing whether to do A , and the non-occurrence of A might well result from such postponement. Under these conditions, it would be false to say that A ’s non-occurrence results from any sort of volition that A not occur. Leibniz illustrates the claim with an amusing reference to a case that the Areopagites (judges on the Areopagus, the highest court of appeals in Ancient Athens) were having trouble deciding, their solution (i.e., de facto , but not de jure , acquittal) being to adjourn it “to a date in the distant future, giving themselves a hundred years to think about it” (Leibniz 1704 [1981]: 181).

It is something of a concern, then, that Locke himself appears committed to agreeing with Leibniz’s criticism of his own argument, at least in E2–5. For in E2–5 (but not in E1) Locke emphasizes his acceptance of the doctrine of suspension, according to which any agent has the “power to suspend the execution and satisfaction of any of its desires”, during which time the will is not yet “determined to action” (E2–5 II.xxi.47: 263). That is, Locke acknowledges in E2–5, even as he does not remove or alter the argument of II.xxi.23 in E2–4, that it is possible to postpone willing with respect to whether to will one way or the other with respect to some proposed action (see Chappell 1994: 106–107).

However, Locke makes changes in E5 that have suggested to some commentators how he would avoid Leibniz’s criticism without giving up the doctrine of suspension. Recall Locke’s answer to the first question:

[A] Man in respect of willing any Action in his power once proposed to his Thoughts cannot be free. (E1–4 II.xxi.23: 245)

Here, now, is Locke’s restatement of his answer in E5:

[A] Man in respect of willing , or the Act of Volition, when any Action in his power is once proposed to his Thoughts , as presently to be done, cannot be free. (E5 II.xxi.23: 245—added material italicized)

The crucial addition here is the phrase “as presently to be done”. In E5, Locke is not saying that it is with respect to willing one way or the other with respect to any proposed action that an agent is not free: what he is saying is that it is with respect to willing one way or the other with respect to any proposed action as presently to be done that an agent is not free. Some actions that are proposed to us are to occur at the time of proposal : as I am singing, a friend might propose that I stop singing right now . Other actions that are proposed to us are to occur at a time later than the time of proposal : at the beginning of a long bicycle trip, a friend might propose that we take a rest once we have reached our destination. Locke is telling us in E5 that premise (3) is supposed to apply to the former, not to the latter, sort of actions. If this is right, then it is no accident that Locke’s own illustration of the argument of II.xxi.23 involves “a Man that is walking, to whom it is proposed to give off walking” (E1–5 II.xxi.24: 246).

So, as Locke incipiently recognizes as early as E1 but explicitly underlines in E5, his initial answer to the first question is an overgeneralization, and needs to be restricted to those actions that are proposed to us as presently to be done (see Rickless 2000: 49–55; Glauser 2003: 710; Garrett 2015: 274–277). But it is also possible that Locke comes to recognize, and eventually underline, a second restriction. At the moment, I am sitting in a chair. In a few minutes, my children will walk in and propose that I get up and make dinner. I am busy, my mind is occupied, so I will likely postpone (perhaps only for a few minutes) making a decision about whether to get up. The result of such postponement is that I will not get up right away, but this will not be because I have willed not to get up right away. Again, it seems that premise (3) is false, for reasons similar to the ones described by Leibniz. But this time, the relevant action (getting up) is proposed as presently to be done. Locke’s E5 emendations do not explicitly address this sort of example.

However, in E2–5, but not in E1, Locke emphasizes the fact that in his “walking man” example, the man either “continues the Action [of walking], or puts an end to it” (E2–5 II.xxi.24: 246). This suggests a different restriction, on top of the “as presently to be done” restriction. It may be that Locke is thinking that premise (3) applies, not to actions of all kinds, but only to processes in which one is currently engaged. The walking man is already in motion, constantly putting one leg in front of the other. When it is proposed to him that he give off walking, he has no option but to will one way or the other with respect to whether to give off walking: if he stops walking, this will be because he willed that his walking cease; and if he continues to walk, this will be because he willed that his walking continue. Either way, he must will one way or the other with respect to whether to stop walking. By contrast, when I am sitting in my chair, I am not engaged in a process: I am (or, at least, my body is) simply at rest. It is for this reason that it is possible for me to avoid willing with respect to whether to get up right now: processes require volition to secure their continuation, but mere states (non-processes) do not (see Rickless 2000: 49–55; for a contrary view, see Glauser 2003: 710).

Locke’s considered answer to the first question, then, is this: (i) when an action that is a process in which the agent is currently engaged is proposed as presently to be continued or stopped, the agent is not free with respect to willing one way or the other with respect to its continuing, but (ii) when an action is not a process in which the agent is currently engaged or is proposed as to be done sometime in the future, then it is possible for the agent to be free with respect to willing one way or the other with respect to its performance or non-performance. Given that, as Locke puts it in E5, the vast majority of voluntary actions “that succeed one another every moment that we are awake” (E5 II.xxi.24: 246) are (i)-actions rather than (ii)-actions, it makes sense for him to summarize his answer to the first question as that it is “in most cases [that] a Man is not at Liberty to forbear the act of volition” (E5 II.xxi.56: 270). But, as Locke also emphasizes, one has the ability, at least with respect to (ii)-actions, to suspend willing. So there is no inconsistency at the heart of Locke’s theory of freedom in respect of willing.

The second question regarding the relation between freedom and the will that Locke takes to be significant is “ Whether a Man be at liberty to will which of the two he pleases , Motion or Rest ” (E1–5 II.xxi.25: 247). Consider a particular action A . What Locke is asking is whether an agent is free with respect to the action of willing that A occur . For example, suppose that I am sitting in a chair and that A is the action of walking to the fridge. Locke wants to know whether I am free with respect to willing the action of walking to the fridge.

Most commentators think that Locke’s answer to this question is NO. The main evidence for this interpretation is what Locke says about the question immediately after raising it:

This Question carries the absurdity of it so manifestly in it self, that one might thereby sufficiently be convinced, that Liberty concerns not the Will. (E5 II.xxi.25: 247)

It is tempting to suppose that the thought that “Liberty concerns not the Will” is the thought that agents are not free to will, and that Locke is saying that we are driven to this thought because the second question is absurd, in the sense of demanding a negative answer.

But it is difficult to make sense of what Locke goes on to say in II.xxi.25 if he is interpreted as answering the second question negatively. Section 25 continues:

For to ask, whether a Man be at liberty to will either Motion, or Rest; Speaking, or Silence; which he pleases, is to ask, whether a Man can will , what he wills ; or be pleased with what he is pleased with. (E1–5 II.xxi.25: 247)

Locke says that the second question reduces to another that can be put in two different ways: whether a man can will what he wills, and whether a man can be pleased with what pleases him. (The reason it can be put in these two different ways, at least in E1, is that Locke there adopts a desiderative theory of willing, according to which willing an action is a matter of being more pleased with the action than with its forbearance.) But asking whether a man can will what he wills, or whether a man can be pleased with what he is pleased with, is similar to asking whether a man can steal what he steals. And the answer to all of these questions is: “OF COURSE!”

It is obvious that whatever it is that a man actually steals he can steal. Similarly, it is obvious that whatever it is that a man actually wills (or is actually pleased with) is something that he can will (or can be pleased with). The reason is that it is a self-evident maxim (just as self-evident as the maxim that whatever is, is—see E1–5 IV.vii.4: 592–594) that whatever is actual is possible. Locke, it seems, wishes to answer the second question in the affirmative!

This raises the issue of what Locke could possibly mean, then, when he describes the second question as “absurd”. One possibility is that, for Locke, a question counts as absurd not only when the answer to it is obviously in the negative (think: “Is the will free?”), but also when the answer to it is obviously in the affirmative (think: “Is it possible for you to do what you are actually doing?”). But it also raises the issue of why Locke would think that the second question actually reduces to an absurd question of the latter sort. One possible solution derives from Locke’s theory of freedom of action. As we have seen, Locke thinks that one is free with respect to action A if and only if (i) if one (actually) wills to do A , then one can do A , and (ii) if one (actually) wills not to do A , then one can avoid doing A . Applying this theory directly to the case in which A is the action of willing to do B , we arrive at the following: one is free with respect to willing to do B if and only if (i) if one (actually) wills to will to do B , then one can will to do B , and (ii) if one (actually) wills to avoid willing to do B , then one can avoid willing to do B . Suppose, then, that willing to will to do an action is just willing to do that action, and willing to avoid willing to do an action is just not willing to do that action. In that case, one is free with respect to willing to do B if and only if (i) if one (actually) wills to do B , then one can will to do B , and (ii) if one (actually) avoids willing to do B , then one can avoid willing to do B . Given that actuality obviously entails possibility, it follows that (i) and (ii) are both obviously true. This is one explanation for why Locke might think that the question of whether one is free with respect to willing to do B reduces to an absurd question, the answer to which is obviously in the affirmative. It may be for this reason that Locke says that the question is one that “needs no answer” (E1–5 II.xxi.25: 247).

Locke goes on to say, at the end of II.xxi.25, that

they, who can make a Question of it [i.e., of the second question], must suppose one Will to determine the Acts of another, and another to determinate that; and so on in infinitum . (E1–5 II.xxi.25: 247)

It is unclear what Locke means by this. One possibility, consistent with the majority interpretation that Locke provides a negative answer to the second question, is that Locke is providing an argument here for the claim that the proposition that it is possible to be free with respect to willing to do an action leads to a vicious infinite regress of wills. The thought here is that being free with respect to willing to do an action, on Locke’s theory, requires being able to will to do an action if one wills to will to do it; that being free with respect to willing to will to do an action then requires being able to will to will to do it if one wills to will to will to do it; and so on, ad infinitum . But another possible interpretation, consistent with the minority interpretation that Locke provides an affirmative answer to the second question, is that Locke’s argument here is not meant to target those who answer the question affirmatively, but is rather designed to target those who would “make a question” of the second question, i.e., those who think that the answer to the second question is un obvious, and worth disputing. These people are the ones who think that willing to will to do A does not reduce to willing to do A , and that willing to avoid willing to do A does not reduce to avoiding willing to do A . These are the people who are committed to the existence of an infinite regress of wills, each determining the volitions of its successor. According to Locke, who accepts the reductions, the infinite regress of wills can’t get started (see Rickless 2000: 56–65; Garrett 2015: 269–274).

The next important question for Locke is “what is it determines the Will” (E2–5 II.xxi.29: 249—the question is also raised in the same Section in E1). Locke gives one answer to this question in E1, and a completely different answer in E2–5. The E1 answer is that the will is always determined by “ the greater Good ” (E1 II.xxi.29: 251), though, when he is writing more carefully, Locke says that it is only “the appearance of Good, greater Good” that determines the will (E1 II.xxi.33: 256, E1 II.xxi.38: 270). Regarding the good, Locke is a hedonist:

Good and Evil…are nothing but Pleasure and Pain, or that which occasions, or procures Pleasure or Pain to us. (E1–5 II.xxviii.5: 351—see also E1–5 II.xx.2: 229 and E2–5 II.xxi.42: 259)

So Locke’s E1 view is that the will is determined by what appears to us to promise pleasure and avoid pain.

When in 1692 Locke asks his friend, William Molyneux, to comment on the first (1690) edition of the Essay , Molyneux expressly worries that Locke’s E1 account of freedom appears to “make all Sins to proceed from our Understandings, or to be against Conscience; and not at all from the Depravity of our Wills”, and that “it seems harsh to say, that a Man shall be Damn’d, because he understands no better than he does” (de Beer 1979: 601). Molyneux’s point is well taken, and Locke acknowledges as much in his reply (de Beer 1979: 625). The source of the problem for the E1 account is that, with respect to the good (at least in the future), appearance does not always correspond with reality: it is possible for us to make mistakes about what is apt to produce the greatest pleasure and the least pain. Sometimes this is because we underestimate how pleasurable future pleasures will be (relative to present pleasures) or overestimate how painful present pains are (relative to future pains); and sometimes this is because we just make simple mistakes of fact, thinking, for example, that bloodletting will ease the pain of gout. As Molyneux sees it, we are not responsible for many of these mistakes, and yet it seems clear that we deserve (divine) punishment for making the wrong choices in our lives (e.g., when we choose the present pleasures of debauchery and villainy over the pleasures of heaven). Our sins, in other words, should be understood to proceed from the defective exercise of our wills, rather than from the defective state of our knowledge.

Part of Locke’s answer in E2–5 is that what determines the will is not the appearance of greater good, but rather “always some uneasiness” (E2–4 II.xxi.29: 249—the word “uneasiness” is italicized in E5). “Uneasiness” is Locke’s word for “[a]ll pain of the body of what sort soever, and disquiet of the mind” (E2–5 II.xxi.31: 251). On this view, then, our wills are determined by pains (of the mind or of the body). How this answer is supposed to address Molyneux’s concern is not, as yet, entirely clear.

What, to begin, does Locke mean by “determination”? On a “causal” reading, for a will W to be determined by X is for X to cause W to be exercised in a particular way. One might say, for example, that fear of the tiger caused Bill to choose to run away from it, and, in one sense, that Bill’s volition to run away from the tiger was determined by his fear of it. On a “teleological” reading, for a will W to be determined by X is for the agent to will the achievement or avoidance of X as a goal. One might say, for example, that the pleasure of eating the cake determined my will in the sense of fixing the content of my volition (as the volition to acquire the pleasure of eating the cake) (see Stuart 2013: 439; LoLordo 2012: 55–56).

It would be anachronistic to suppose that Locke is using the word “determine” as we do today when we discuss causal determinism (see the entry on causal determinism ). And the desire to avoid anachronism might lead us to adopt the teleological interpretation of determination. But there are many indications in E2–5 II.xxi that Locke has something approaching the causal interpretation in mind. Locke’s picture of bodies, both large and small, is largely a mechanistic one (though he allows for phenomena that can’t be explained mechanistically, such as gravitation, cohesion of body parts, and magnetism): bodies, he writes, “knock, impell, and resist one another,…and that is all they can do” (E1–5 IV.x.10: 624). And there are indications that this mechanistic model of corporeal behavior affects Locke’s model of mental phenomena. Throughout the Sections of II.xxi added in E2–5, Locke talks of uneasiness moving the mind (E2–5 II.xxi.29: 249; E2–5 II.xxi.43–44: 260), setting us upon a change of state or action or work (E2–5 II.xxi.29: 249; E2–5 II.xxi.31: 251; E2–5 II.xxi.37: 255; E2–5 II.xxi.44: 260), working on the mind (E2–5 II.xxi.29: 249; E2–5 II.xxi.33: 252), exerting pressure (E2–5 II.xxi.32: 251; E2–5 II.xxi.45: 262), driving us (E2–5 II.xxi.34: 252; E2–5 II.xxi.35: 253), pushing us (E2–5 II.xxi.34: 252), operating on the will, sometimes forcibly (E2–5 II.xxi.36: 254; E2–5 II.xxi.37: 255; E2–5 II.xxi.57: 271), laying hold on the will (E2–5 II.xxi.38: 256), influencing the will (E2–5 II.xxi.38: 256; E2–5 II.xxi.39: 257), taking the will (E2–5 II.xxi.45: 262), spurring to action (E2–5 II.xxi.40: 258), carrying us into action (E2–5 II.xxi.53: 268), and being counterbalanced by other mental states (E2–5 II.xxi.57: 272; E2–5 II.xxi.65: 277). It is difficult to read all of these statements without thinking that Locke thinks of uneasiness as exerting not merely a pull, but also a push, on the mind.

Locke’s view, then, seems to be that our volitions are caused (though not, perhaps, deterministically, i.e., in a way that is fixed by initial conditions and the laws of nature) by uneasinesses. How is this supposed to work? As Locke sees it, either “all pain causes desire equal to it self” (E2–5 II.xxi.31: 251) or desire is simply identified with “ uneasiness in the want [i.e., lack] of an absent good” (E2–5 II.xxi.31: 251). So the desire that either is or is caused by uneasiness is a desire for the removal of that uneasiness, and this is what proximately spurs us to take means to secure that removal.

Locke provides evidence from observation and from “the reason of the thing” for the claim that it is uneasiness, rather than perceived good, that determines the will. Empirically, Locke notes that agents generally do not seek a change of state unless they experience some sort of pain that leads them to will its extinction. A poor, indolent man who is content with his lot, even one who recognizes that he would be happier if he worked his way to greater wealth, is not ipso facto motivated to work. A drunkard who recognizes that his health will suffer and wealth will dissipate if he continues to drink does not, merely as a result of this recognition, stop drinking: but if he finds himself thirsty for drink and uneasy at the thought of missing his drinking companions, then he will go to the tavern. That is, Locke recognizes the possibility of akratic action, i.e., pursuing the worse in full knowledge that it is worse (E II.xxi.35: 253–254). (For more on Locke on akrasia, see Vailati 1990, Glauser 2014, and Moauro and Rickless 2019.)

Regarding “the reason of the thing”, Locke claims that “we constantly desire happiness” (E2–5 II.xxi.39: 257), where happiness is “the utmost Pleasure we are capable of” (E2–5 II.xxi.42: 258). Moreover, he says, any amount of uneasiness is inconsistent with happiness, “a little pain serving to marr all the pleasure” we experience. Locke concludes from this that we are always motivated to get rid of pain before securing any particular pleasure (E2–5 II.xxi.36: 254). Locke also argues that absent goods cannot move the will, because they don’t exist yet; by contrast, on his theory, the will is determined by something that already exists in the mind, namely uneasiness (E2–5 II.xxi.37: 254–255). Finally, Locke argues that if the will were determined by the perceived greater good, every agent would be consistently focused on the attainment of “the infinite eternal Joys of Heaven”. But, as is evidently the case, many agents are far more concerned about other matters than they are about getting into heaven. And this entails that the will must be determined by something other than the perceived greater good, namely, uneasiness (E2–5 II.xxi.38: 255–256). (For interesting criticisms of these arguments, see Stuart 2013: 453–456.)

So far, Locke has argued that the wrong turns we make in life do not usually proceed from defects in our understandings. What spurs us to act or forbear acting is not perception of the greater good, but some uneasiness instead. This answers part, but not the whole, of Molyneux’s worry. What Locke still needs to explain is why agents can be justly held responsible for choices that are motivated by uneasinesses. After all, what level of pain we feel and when we feel it is oftentimes not within our control. Locke’s answer relies on what has come to be known as the “doctrine of suspension”.

Having argued that uneasiness, rather than perception of the greater good, is what determines the will, Locke turns to the question of which of all the uneasinesses that beset us “has the precedency in determining the will to the next action”. His answer:

that ordinarily, which is the most pressing of those [uneasinesses], that are judged capable of being then removed. (E2–5 II.xxi.40: 257)

Locke therefore assumes that uneasinesses can be ranked in order of intensity or strength, and that among all the uneasinesses importuning an agent, the one that ordinarily determines her will is the one that exerts the greatest pressure on her mind. The picture with which Locke appears to be working is of a mind that is the playground of various forces of varying strengths exerting different degrees of influence on the will, where the will is determined by the strongest of those forces.

Notice, however, Locke’s use of the word “ordinarily”. Sometimes, as Locke emphasizes, the will is not determined by the most pressing uneasiness:

For the mind having in most cases, as is evident in Experience, a power to suspend the execution and satisfaction of any of its desires, and so all, one after another, is at liberty to consider the objects of them; examine them on all sides, and weigh them with others. (E2–5 II.xxi.47: 263)

This is the doctrine of suspension. On this view, we agents have the “power to suspend any particular desire, and keep it from determining the will , and engaging us in action” (E2–5 II.xxi.50: 266). As Locke makes clear, this power to prevent the will’s determination, that is, this power to avoid willing, is absent when the action proposed is to be done presently and involves the continuation or stopping of a process in which one is currently engaged (see Section 6 above). But when it comes to “chusing a remote [i.e., future] Good as an end to be pursued”, agents are “at Liberty in respect of willing ” (E5 II.xxi.56: 270). [ 7 ]

Some commentators (e.g., Chappell 1994: 118) think that, at least in E5, Locke comes to see that the doctrine of suspension conflicts with his answer to the question of whether we are free to will what we will (raised in II.xxi.25). This is because they take Locke’s answer to the latter question to be negative, and take the doctrine of suspension to entail a positive answer to the same question, at least with respect to some actions. But there are good reasons to think that there is no inconsistency here: for Locke’s answer to the II.xxi.25 question is arguably in the affirmative (see Section 7 above). [ 8 ]

Commentators also wonder whether the doctrine of suspension introduces an account of freedom that differs from Locke’s official account, both in E1 and in E2–5. The problem is that Locke says that “in [the power to suspend the prosecution of one’s desires] lies the liberty Man has”, that the power to suspend is “the source of all liberty” (E2–5 II.xxi.47: 263), that it is “the hinge on which turns the liberty of intellectual Beings” (E2–5 II.xxi.52: 266), and that it is “the great inlet, and exercise of all the liberty Men have, are capable of, or can be useful to them” (E2–5 II.xxi.52: 267). These passages suggest that Locke takes freedom to be (something intimately related to) the power to suspend our desires, a power that cannot simply be identified with the two-way power that Locke identifies with freedom of action at II.xxi.8 ff. (see Yaffe 2000: 12–74).

But there is a simple interpretation of these passages that does not require us to read Locke as offering a different account of freedom as the ability to suspend. The power to suspend is the power to keep one’s will from being determined, that is, the power to forbear willing to do A if one wills to forbear willing to do A . This is just one part of the freedom to will to do A , according to Locke’s definition of freedom of action applied to the action of willing to do A . (The other part is the power to will to do A if one wills to will to do A .) Thus if, as Locke seems to argue in II.xxi.23–24, we are (except under very unusual circumstances) free with respect to the act of willing with respect to a future course of action, then it follows immediately that we have the power to suspend. Locke’s claims about the power to suspend being the source of all liberty and the hinge on which liberty turns can be understood as claims that the power to suspend is a particularly important aspect of freedom of action as applied to the action of willing. What makes it important is the fact that it is the misuse of this freedom that accounts for our responsibility for actions that conduce to our own unhappiness or misery.

How so? Locke claims that the power of suspension was given to us (by God) for a reason, so that we might “examine, view, and judge, of the good or evil of what we are going to do” (E2–5 II.xxi.47: 263) in order to discover

whether that particular thing, which is then proposed, or desired, lie in the way to [our] main end, and make a real part of that which is [our] greatest good. (E2–5 II.xxi.52: 267)

When we make the kinds of mistakes for which we deserve punishment, such as falling into gluttony or envy or selfishness, it is not because we have, after deliberation and investigation, perhaps through no fault of our own, acquired a mistaken view of the facts; it is because we engage in “a too hasty compliance with our desires” (E2–5 II.xxi.53: 268) and fail to “hinder blind Precipitancy” (E2–5 II.xxi.67: 279). What matters is not that we have failed to will the forbearing to will to go to the movies or clean the fridge. What matters is that we have failed to will the forbearing to prosecute our most pressing desires, allowing ourselves to be guided by uneasinesses that might, for all we know, lead us to evil. If we have the power to suspend the prosecution of our desires (including our most pressing desire), then we misuse it when we do not exercise it (or when we fail to exercise it when its exercise is called for). So, not only is Locke’s doctrine of suspension consistent with his account of the freedom to will, it also provides part of the answer to Molyneux’s worry:

And here we may see how it comes to pass, that a Man may justly incur punishment…: Because, by a too hasty choice of his own making, he has imposed on himself wrong measures of good and evil…He has vitiated his own Palate, and must be answerable to himself for the sickness and death that follows from it. (E2–5 II.xxi.56: 270–271) [ 9 ]

Compatibilism is the thesis that free will is compatible with causal determinism, and incompatibilism is the thesis that free will is incompatible with causal determinism. Is Locke a compatibilist or an incompatibilist?

The fact that Locke thinks that freedom of action is compatible with the will’s being determined by uneasiness might immediately suggest that Locke is a compatibilist. But, as we have seen ( Section 8 above), it is illegitimate to infer compatibility with causal determinism from compatibility with determination of the will by uneasiness. Still, the evidence strongly suggests that Locke would have embraced compatibilism, if the issue had been put to him directly. Freedom of action, on Locke’s account, is a matter of being able to do what one wills and being able to forbear what one wills to forbear. Although we sometimes act under necessity (compulsion or restraint—E1–5 II.xxi.13: 240), the mere fact (if it is a fact) that our actions are determined by the laws of nature and antecedent events does not threaten our freedom with respect to their performance. As Locke makes clear, if the door to my room is unlocked, I am free with respect to the act of leaving the room, because I have the ability to stay or leave as I will. It is only when the door is locked, or when I am chained, or when my path is blocked, or something else deprives me of the ability to stay or leave, that I am unfree with respect to the act of leaving. Determinism by itself represents no threat to our freedom of action. In this respect, Locke is a forerunner of many other compatibilist theories of freedom, including, for example, those of G.E. Moore (1912) and A.J. Ayer (1954). (For a contrary view, see Schouls 1992: 121. And for a response to Schouls 1992, see Davidson 2003: 213 ff.)

• de Beer, E.S. (ed), 1979, The Correspondence of John Locke , volume 4, Letters 1242–1701, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 1704 [1981], New Essays on Human Understanding , edited by Jonathan Bennett and Peter Remnant, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
• Locke, John, 1690, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding , edited by Peter H. Nidditch, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975.
• Ayer, A.J., 1954, “Freedom and Necessity”, in Philosophical Essays , London: Macmillan, pp. 271–284.
• Chappell, Vere, 1994, “Locke on the Freedom of the Will”, in Locke’s Philosophy: Content and Context , edited by G.A.J. Rogers, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 101–121.
• –––, 2004, “Review of Liberty Worth the Name , by Gideon Yaffe”, Mind , 113: 420–424.
• –––, 2007, “Power in Locke’s Essay ”, in The Cambridge Companion to Locke’s “Essay Concerning Human Understanding” , edited by Lex Newman, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 130–156.
• Chisholm, Roderick, 1966, “Freedom and Action”, in Freedom and Determinism , edited by Keith Lehrer, New York: Random House, pp. 11–44.
• Davidson, Donald, 1980, “Freedom to Act”, in Essays on Actions and Events , Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 63–81.
• Davidson, Jack D., 2003, “Locke’s Finely Spun Liberty”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy , 33: 203–227.
• Dicker, Georges, 2019, Locke on Knowledge and Reality: A Commentary on An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, New York: Oxford University Press, Chapter 9.
• Garrett, Don, 2015, “Liberty and Suspension in Locke’s Theory of the Will”, in A Companion to Locke , edited by Matthew Stuart, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 260–278.
• Glauser, Richard, 2003, “Thinking and Willing in Locke’s Theory of Human Freedom”, Dialogue , 42: 695–724.
• –––, 2014, ‘Locke and the Problem of Weakness of the Will’, in Mind, Values, and Metaphysics , Anne Reboul (ed.), Cham: Springer, pp. 483–499.
• Hoffman, Paul, 2005, “Locke on the Locked Room”, Locke Studies , 5: 57–73.
• Jolley, Nicholas, 1999, Locke: His Philosophical Thought , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Leisinger, Matthew A., 2017, ‘Locke’s Arguments Against the Freedom to Will’, British Journal for the History of Philosophy , 25: 642–662.
• Locke, Don, 1975, “Three Concepts of Free Action, Part 1”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Supplemental Volume), 49: 95–112.
• LoLordo, Antonia, 2012, Locke’s Moral Man , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Lowe, E.J., 1986, “Necessity and the Will in Locke’s Theory of Action”, History of Philosophy Quarterly , 3: 149–163.
• –––, 1995, Locke on Human Understanding , London: Routledge.
• –––, 2004, “Locke: Compatibilist Event-Causalist or Libertarian Substance-Causalist?” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research , 48: 688–701.
• –––, 2005, Locke , London: Routledge.
• Magri, Tito, 2000, “Locke, Suspension of Desire, and the Remote Good”, British Journal for the History of Philosophy , 8: 55–70.
• Mill, John Stuart, 1974 [1843], System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive , in Collected Works of John Stuart Mill , Vol. 7, edited by J.M. Robson, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Moauro, Leonardo, and Rickless, Samuel C., 2019, ‘Does Locke Have an Akrasia Problem?’, Journal of Modern Philosophy , 1: 9. doi:10.32881/jomp.39
• Moore, G.E., 1912, Ethics , London: Williams and Norgate.
• O’Higgins, J., 1976, “Introduction” and “Notes”, in Determinism and Freewill: Anthony Collins’ A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty , edited by J. O’Higgins, The Hague: Nijhoff, pp. 1–45 and 115–124.
• Rickless, Samuel C., 2000, “Locke on the Freedom to Will”, Locke Newsletter (now Locke Studies ), 31: 43–67.
• –––, 2001, “Review of Liberty Worth the Name: Locke on Free Agency , by Gideon Yaffe”, Locke Studies , 1: 235–255.
• –––, 2014, Locke , Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Ryle, Gilbert, 1949, The Concept of Mind , London: Hutchinson.
• Schaffer, Jonathan, 2003, “Overdetermining Causes”, Philosophical Studies , 114: 23–45.
• Schouls, Peter, 1992, Reasoned Freedom: John Locke and Enlightenment , Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• Stuart, Matthew, 2013, Locke’s Metaphysics , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Taylor, Richard, 1966, Action and Purpose , Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
• Vailati, Ezio, 1990, ‘Leibniz on Locke on Weakness of Will’, Journal of the History of Philosophy , 28: 213–228.
• Walsh, Julie, 2014, “Locke and the Power to Suspend Desire”, Locke Studies , 14: 121–157.
• –––, 2018, ‘Locke’s Last Word on Freedom: Correspondence with Limborch’, Res Philosophica , 95: 637–661.
• Yaffe, Gideon, 2000, Liberty Worth the Name: Locke on Free Agency , Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Yolton, John W., 1970, Locke and the Compass of Human Understanding , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Broad, Jacqueline, 2006, “A Woman’s Influence? John Locke and Damaris Masham on Moral Accountability”, Journal of the History of Ideas , 67: 489–510.
• Chappell, Vere, 1994, “Locke on the Intellectual Basis of Sin”, Journal of the History of Philosophy , 32: 197–207.
• –––, 1998, “Locke on the Suspension of Desire”, Locke Newsletter (now Locke Studies ), 29: 23–38.
• Colman, John, 1983, John Locke’s Moral Philosophy , Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
• Corneanu, Sorana, 2011, Regimens of the Mind: Boyle, Locke, and the Early Modern Cultura Animi Tradition , Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Darwall, Stephen, 1995, The British Moralists and the Internal ‘Ought’, 1640–1740 , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Glauser, Richard, 2009, “Liberté, Compatibilisme et Agnosticisme chez Locke”, Revue Philosophique de Louvain , 107: 675–697.
• Harris, James, 2005, Of Liberty and Necessity: The Free Will Debate in Eighteenth-Century British Philosophy , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• LoLordo, Antonia, 2013, “Reply to Rickless”, Locke Studies , 13: 55–64.
• Marko, Jonathan S., 2017, ‘Why Locke’s Of Power Is Not a Metaphysical Pronouncement: Locke’s Response to Molyneux’s Critique’, Philosophy and Theology: Marquette University Quarterly , 29: 41–68.
• Rickless, Samuel C., 2013, “Locke on Active Power, Freedom, and Moral Agency”, Locke Studies , 13: 33–54.
• –––, 2013, ‘Will and Motivation’, in The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century , Peter R. Anstey (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 393–414.
• Schindler, D. C., 2017, Freedom from Reality: The Diabolical Character of Modern Liberty , Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, Chapter 1.
• Sleigh, Robert, Vere Chappell, and Michael Della Rocca, 1998, ‘Determinism and Human Freedom’, in The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy , Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Volume 2: 1195–1278.
• Walsh, Julie, 2010, “‘Things’ for ‘Actions’: Locke’s Mistake in ‘Of Power’”, Locke Studies , 10: 85–94.
• Wolfe, Charles T, 2009, “Locke’s Compatibilism: Suspension of Desire of Suspension of Determinism?” in Action, Ethics and Responsibility , edited by Joseph Keim Campbell, Michael O’Rourke, and Harry Silverstein, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 109–126.
• Yaffe, Gideon, 2001, “Locke on Refraining, Suspending, and the Freedom to Will”, History of Philosophy Quarterly , 18: 373–391.

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Locke: Ethics entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy , by Julie Walsh.

agency | Collins, Anthony | compatibilism | determinism: causal | euthanasia: voluntary | free will | Hobbes, Thomas | Hume, David: on free will | incompatibilism: (nondeterministic) theories of free will | Locke, John | Locke, John: moral philosophy | Masham, Lady Damaris

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• Freedom Essay

What is Freedom?

If we ever wonder what freedom is, we can look around and see the birds flying high up in the sky. While we in the land work in order to get something, we are actually captivated by that invisible power of want. The former indicates what freedom is while the latter indicates slavery. Well, this is a philosophical justification of what we mean about the term ‘freedom’. The real meaning of freedom is the state of independence where one can do whatever one likes without any restriction by anyone. Moreover, freedom is defined as the state of mind where we have the right and are free to do what we can think of. The main emphasis of freedom is we need to feel freedom from within.

Freedom is a very common term everybody has heard of but if you ask for its exact definition or meaning then it will differ from person to person. For some Freedom may mean the Freedom of going anywhere in the world they would like, for some it means to speak up for themselves and stay independent and positive, and for some, it is the liberty of doing anything whatever they like.

Thus Freedom cannot be contained and given a specific meaning. It differs from every culture, city, and individual. But Freedom in any language or any form totally depends on how any particular person handles the situation and it largely shows the true character of someone.

Different Types of Freedom

Freedom differs from person to person and from every different situation one faces. Hence Freedom can be classified as

Freedom of association.

Freedom of belief.

Freedom of speech.

Freedom to express oneself.

Freedom of the press.

Freedom to choose one's state in life.

Freedom of religion.

Freedom from bondage and slavery.

The list can even continue because every individual's wish and perspective differ.

FAQs on Freedom Essay

1. What is democracy?

Democracy can be defined as - "a government by the people in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system". Also, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, democracy is a government that is "of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Democracy is such a form of government where the rulers are being elected by the people. The single chief factor that is common to all democracies is that the government is chosen by the people. The non-democratic government can be the example of Myanmar, where the rulers are not elected by the people.

2. Why is freedom important in our life?

Freedom is very important as this gives us the right to be ourselves, and this helps to work together after maintaining autonomy. Freedom is quite important as the opposite is detrimental to our own well-being and which is inconsistent with our nature.

Freedom is a necessary ingredient for the pursuit of happiness for an individual. Freedom also may be negative or positive – freedom from the constraints on our choices and actions, and the freedom to grow, in order to determine who and what we are.

3. What do you mean by ‘Right to Freedom of Religion’?

We all have the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and also religion. This right includes the freedom to change our religion or belief. We can change our religion either alone or in community with others in public or in private, to manifest this religion or the belief, in worship, in teaching also in practice and observance.

4. Why is Freedom essential in everyone's life?

Freedom is a space or condition in which people will have the sole opportunity to speak, act and pursue their own happiness without unnecessary or any external restrictions which may even involve their own parents, friends, or siblings. Literally no one has the right to get involved in someone else’s life and try to fit in their opinion. Freedom is really important in everyone's life because it leads to enhanced expressions of creativity and original thought, increased productivity in their own view, and overall high quality of life. 

5. What does real Freedom actually look like?

Real Freedom is being able to do what you want and whenever you want without someone actually getting involved in your life, being duty and responsibility-free but that doesn't mean being unemployed and this means Freedom to choose your own career and working in your own space with full acknowledgment not really bothered by what other people think, being careless but not being irresponsible about whatever happens in your life by taking full control of your life in your hands, being Spiritually Free is definitely another form of Freedom from certain beliefs and superstitions and finally having enough money to enjoy your life in your taste is the most important form of Freedom.

6. Is Freedom a better option always in every situation?

It is definitely a no because we Indians are brought up in that way that we always tend to be dependent or rely on someone for at least one particular thing in our life. Because we tend to make mistakes and make wrong decisions when we are in an emotional state, hence it is good to have one soul you might go back to often when you are confused. Our parents have brought us up in a way where we are expected to meet certain family standards and social standards so we are bound to get tied under some family emotions most of the time. But it is necessary to decide what is good for you in the end.

7. What does the feeling of finally enjoying Freedom look like?

You will have an ample amount of energy for desiring and taking the required action, and you will finally move whole-heartedly towards your own decision. You feel happy with the Freedom of just existing on this earth itself. You think your individuality has value now among both family and society. It's important that you do not just have the right to do what you want but can also choose happiness over adjustments and don't do what you actually do not want.

8. Why is Freedom of Expression more important than anything else?

Freedom of Expression is the most important human right which is essential for a society to be democratic and equal in serving both men and women or anyone. It enables the free exchange of ideas, opinions, and information and thus allows members of society to form their own opinions on issues of public importance but not only public opinion but also regarding families or any relationship for that matter. Expressing what one feels or what they actually go through is absolutely their own right which no one can ever deny.

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It is hard to find an assignment duller than writing an essay. A freedom essay was my last task that I had performed thanks to lots of online sources and examples given on the Internet. How did I cope with it? I can share my plan of actions with you and I hope it will help to save your time and efforts. When I was a child there was a movie called “Braveheart”. Maybe you haven’t heard of it but people around me adored that cool epic war film with Mel Gibson . There was an episode when during horrible tortures Mel screamed “Freedom!” I thought that he had gone out of his mind. What was the point of being free and fighting for rights when you wouldn’t have a chance to live? When I got the task I decided to watch the whole movie and finally understood that our freedom really matters. That’s why firstly I started to look for the definition of the word “freedom”. I think that the primary thing is to find out what your topic means because if you don’t understand the meaning of the “freedom” concept, you’d hardly succeed. So, freedom is a state of mind, it is a right to make a choice, to be yourself. It depends on many things - the epoch and the culture. I’ve chosen several definitions of the word “freedom”– the philosophical, the psychological and the juridical. I considered my essay just a story. It simplifies the task. I imagined that I had to tell a story, that my assignment wasn’t retelling the collected information. It should be a story on the topic “Freedom”.  

Don’t Forget About Boring Rules Which Steal Your Freedom

I wondered why a student hates academic writing. When I had written my first essay I realized why people hate coping with it. My personal experience showed that I didn’t like to write essays because of the following reasons:

• It’s hard to concentrate on the topic when you don’t like or even don’t understand it. Firstly, my tutor didn’t allow me to choose the theme to discuss and I had to squeeze ideas from nowhere.
• Tutors ask to write about the things THEY want. That’s a horrible mistake because a person has no chance to choose and get creative. There is no freedom.
• I tried to get an “A” instead of writing something really qualitative and interesting.
• The topic wasn’t catchy and I wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible.
• I wanted to post my pictures on Instagram more than to deal with the paper.
• I HAD to follow someone’s rules. Format, style, number of pages and words and a great number of other things irritate greatly.

I decided to find the right method of approach. I think that when a person takes a task as something pleasant, not just a duty, it will be much easier to cope with it.

Helpful Tips on Writing a Successful Freedom Essay

I decided to work out my rules which would help to write freely and not fear the task. Here they are! Think that it’s not an essay - just a blog story on freedom. I feel good when posting something. I share my ideas and get rid of the pressure. People love blog stories about freedom. So, imagine that you just develop your website.  

• Love what you do. Writing about freedom may be funny and bring much pleasure. Find the idea and highlight it the way you want.
• Your opinion matters much. You are not to agree with everyone. Rebel and be original. If something about the topic “freedom” surprises you, it can surprise everyone.
• Don’t limit yourself. I never depend on one source and don’t stick to one point. First, I investigate the topic and read the FAQ which concerns my essay to get different points of view. I never force myself to write at least something. I take a rest when I need it and write what I love because that’s MY essay.
• Quote and respect somebody’s idea. And be sure that you know how to quote a quote . Tutors appreciate when students sound logical and clever. Quotes are not always good. It’s better to get ideas and rewrite them by adding your own opinion. “When I do something I do it for my country and don’t wait for the appraisal.” Sounds familiar? Yes! I just rewrote the idea taken from Kennedy’s speech. That’s how freedom quotes should be paraphrased.
• Start with theme essay outline . Continue writing the body and then write the intro and the conclusion. I write the body of my freedom essay, investigate and improve it. I see the strongest point and present it in the intro and highlight it in my freedom essay conclusion. Once I tried to begin with the introduction soon found out that my essay had stronger ideas and, as a result, I had to delete it and write the new one.
• Your writing is your freedom - enjoy it. I don’t like to measure myself. If I have something to say right now, I write it. It can be a single sentence or a paragraph. Later I insert it into my essay. I don’t always have time to finish the paper at once. I can write it for many days. One day I feel great and creative and the other day I feel terrible and don’t touch the keyboard. Inspiration is essential.
• Don’t deal with taboo issues. Clichés and too complicated language spoil the paper. One more thing to remember is avoiding plagiarism. Once a friend of mine had copied a passage from the work and his paper was banned. I am unique, you are unique, and the freedom essay must be unique as well.
• Learn the topic properly. It’s important to find the topic captivating for the society and for you. Freedom is not a limited topic and there are a number of variations.

Below are some topics offered by our creative title generator for essay :

• Freedom of conscience
• Freedom of worship
• Freedom in choosing
• Freedom of action
• Freedom of speech
• Freedom of assembly
• Free people.

Now you can see that freedom can be different. Freedom is a part of the human life and you can describe it in different ways.

Freedom of Speech Essay Sample

It’s not easy to write a freedom of speech essay because freedom of speech doesn’t exist. Freedom is an illusion and our politicians try to serve freedom as a main course. People pay much attention to each word being afraid that social networks will ban their “freedom” paper. Every online website must keep within laws that our government creates. Why do people speak of freedom of the press and other freedom issues?

Contact our essay website and free yourself up from academic writing. Our professionals will deliver fantastic result on any topic even if you have 3 hours before the deadline is over.

Daniel Howard is an Essay Writing guru. He helps students create essays that will strike a chord with the readers.

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First of all, it’s necessary to find out what the word “freedom” means. According to the thesaurus, freedom is the power or right to act, think, and speak the way one wants. Its synonym is the word “liberty” that deals with “independence” and “sovereignty”. Freedom of speech is the ability to express ideas, beliefs, complaints, and grudges freely. The government mustn’t punish people who said something wrong or present information without supporting it with facts. Do we really have such freedom? The problem is that freedom of speech doesn’t exist alone and cannot be limitless. If you lie, you deprive a person of the right to live normally. If you publish the harsh truth, you can harm someone innocent and spoil somebody’s freedom. Do you really think that you read and hear 100% verified news on TV, radio, social networks, and printed sources? There is always someone behind it. The team of editors corrects everything they don’t like; they can even refuse to publish the announcement at all. There are only a few bloggers who share the truth and don’t decorate it with beautiful words and nice pictures. Still, some countries try to make everything possible to let people speak without limitations and strict censorship. The first country that provided people with the freedom of speech was Ancient Greece. Everybody could express themselves and say both positive and negative issues about policy, country, and other people. The United States of America introduced the First Amendment that declared the right of Americans to discuss things openly. Though, not all types of speech freedom are protected by the law. It’s forbidden to humiliate somebody, post defamation, threat somebody, publish works that are absolutely not unique and spread the material that contains child pornography or other similar issues. Provocative publications or those which aim us to make somebody violate a law belong to the category of unprotected speeches. Freedom of speech is a part of democracy. Unfortunately, not all democratic countries let their citizens express their thoughts the way they want and need. As long as there are such countries we cannot speak about the notion of absolute freedom of speech.

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What Does Freedom Mean to You

• Categories: Freedom

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Published: Mar 19, 2024

Words: 584 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

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Personal liberty, political freedom, intellectual freedom, emotional freedom.

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A French army patrol checking the papers of the local Arab population during the Algerian war of independence, December 1960. Photo by Nicolas Tikhomiroff/Magnum

Decolonising psychology

At times complicit in racism and oppression, psychology has also been a fertile ground for radical and liberatory thought.

by Rami Gabriel   + BIO

In recent years, psychology has come under attack as a racist tool of Western thought. No one can deny that it has been used to stigmatise, categorise, infantilise, manipulate and transform our ways of seeing ourselves, each other and even the very function of civilisation. But the study of the mind has simultaneously been a part of the story of anticolonialism and liberation, a potent tool for overcoming delusion and confusion in the face of oppression and assault.

When the Delphic oracle urged the supplicant to ‘Know thyself’, what exactly was to be gained by knowing? Presumably, he was to be liberated from delusion through the capacity to clearly understand his own motives, fears and aspirations. For Socrates, it was the method of dialogue with another person that allowed one to know oneself, while for Epictetus, an acknowledgement of the forces outside one’s control was crucial to knowing. Knowledge of thyself is always embedded in a context. A decolonial psychology becomes possible with awareness that subjectivity is embedded in history and hierarchy.

What happens when the context one lives under is colonial oppression? The modern form of knowing thyself that we call psychology has served as a source of resistance by allowing individuals to forge their own identities within their lived context. In the middle of the 20th century, psychoanalysis served as a language for structuring, theorising and articulating the inner landscape. After the Second World War, when colonial declensions of land and people in Africa and the Middle East bore the strange fruit of new nations, psychodynamic theory offered the potential of analysing the nature of personal and collective trauma through liberatory discourse.

This year, a report from the Holmes Commission on Racial Equality in American Psychoanalysis (APsA) indicates that ‘the “social”’ is deeply embedded in the psyche, and ‘an essential focus for psychoanalytic thought and practice’. The implication is that, in this world of displaced peoples, psychologists must tend to the consequences of history. What’s more, psychology provides a format for self-knowledge through which individuals can articulate their experiences and derive explanations for their sense of dislocation.

In the modern world, we use the language of psychology to manage and assess concepts of agency, mastery and power. Psychology can provide the capacity to critique power, and express suffering and frustration in the face of oppressive economic forces the individual must survive. In recent years, a powerful interest among psychologists in the ‘decolonisation of psychology’ itself aims to isolate and eradicate the epistemic violence caused when Western models of society eclipse and obfuscate local cultural notions of ethics and identity.

The development of an inner landscape through which an individual can know herself constitutes what I like to call the ‘liberatory potential’ of psychology – the potential of psychology to liberate us from oppression. From the proliferation of analysts in Buenos Aires to the work of remarkable individuals in Martinique, India, Egypt and Ghana, psychology has provided a language rich enough to alleviate suffering, buttress the sense of agency and provide tools for discourse. To know oneself in the postcolonial moment of the 20th century and beyond, to achieve true liberatory knowledge, is to conceive an intersubjective space in which one can forensically analyse the consequences of subjugation in our behaviours and thought patterns, and understand them in the context of the wider world.

T he great American scholar W E B Du Bois was a student of the psychologist William James at Harvard from 1888-90. This foundation in psychology was subsequently extended during a research fellowship with social scientists in Germany and led to the development of the notion of double consciousness in Du Bois’s book The Souls of Black Folk (1903).

Double consciousness identifies the psychological splitting in perspective that Black Americans often engage in as a response to the misrecognition and alienation of racism. Du Bois remarked that Black Americans have a bifurcated sense of identity in which they simultaneously experience themselves not only as thinking subjects but also as stigmatised, Black bodies. As dramatised by Richard Wright in Native Son (1940) and Ralph Ellison in The Invisible Man (1952), double consciousness is the basis of the imposter syndrome . This self-doubt of intellect and capacities that high-achieving people report derives from the continuous sense of misrecognition they experience through the imposition of double consciousness. The constant siege on one’s dignity creates ruptures in the subjective sense of agency. For seminal thinkers in Africana philosophy, psychological concepts such as double consciousness and imposter syndrome provided a helpful language with which to consider how the emotional lacerations of unequal relations transform cognition and behaviour.

During the mid-20th century, the Martinican psychologist Frantz Fanon (1925-61) drew concepts like double consciousness and stigma from psychology to articulate the neuroses created by the prevalent racist equation of evil and threat with Black skin. He resisted the obfuscations and dehumanisation that came with colonisation and, seeking clarity, paired psychological modes of analysis with the imperatives of humanism and existentialism.

The sense of inferiority for subjugated peoples led to feelings of psychic oppression and alienation

In French-colonised Algeria, Fanon observed the racist practices and beliefs that separated natives from their colonisers through sets of rules, proscriptions and duties. Those lines ultimately had the psychological effect of denying personhood to individuals, causing so much stigma that people came to demonstrate symptoms of alienation and dislocation.

Fanon drew from Sigmund Freud’s notions of repression and mourning and melancholy to understand and analyse the consequences of colonial imposition of racial hierarchy. Similarly, he drew from Alfred Adler’s concept of the inferiority complex to analyse how the sense of inferiority for subjugated peoples led to feelings of psychic oppression and alienation. Fanon aimed to delineate the psychic trauma of racism towards the goal of replacing inferiority with pride. Infusing an archaeology of the toxic socialisation of negroes in the colonies and the metropole into these psychological concepts, intellectuals like Fanon were able to articulate strategies for dissolving oppressive socialisation. Many overlook the fact that Freud himself developed psychoanalysis in the context of his own drive to attain self-knowledge as a minority Moravian Jew in the Catholic Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Psychology can pinpoint the cause, or source, of pathology in the individual, or out in the social environment. This flexibility is one of the reasons it is such an effective form of resistance and liberation. Fanon’s use of psychoanalysis merged with the politicisation of psychology in Algeria during the overthrow of the French colonial administration, starting in 1954. In his position at the psychiatric hospital at Blida-Joinville, he developed techniques to give patients back a sense of agency and remove subtle forms of stigma by modifying the relationship between doctor and patient. He used psychology as a tool for revolutionary critique by tracing the causes of suffering to the structures of colonialism. This approach, which emphasised that pathology arises from the internalisation of relations between people and groups, was effectively an affective politics of resistance. The articulation of pain, alienation and fury were cathartic rejections of oppressive power relations, which were determined by the historical situation – knowledge of thyself is indeed always embedded in a context.

The use of psychology in Fanon’s political analysis and practice was a means to strengthen the sense of agency as knowledge of the inner psychic landscape. Fanon took principles of psychoanalysis like the inferiority complex beyond the psychiatric ward to address how the colonised mind suffers from continuous oppression that estranges the individual from her identity and cultural values. Fanon clarified the intimate psychological causality of this harsh reality to make the connection between the tools of oppression of subjectivity – including dehumanisation through consistent subjugation of will, economic opportunity and territorial segregation – and the Algerian revolutionary struggle for recognition and liberty under French colonial rule. Modern psychiatry affirms that people displaced through exile or civil unrest tend to experience hypervigilance and anxiety as the relational consequences of losing their homes.

P art of the process of colonialism is the importation of narratives that legitimise hierarchies imposed through military and economic force. In India, the Bengali psychoanalyst Girindrasekhar Bose (1887-1953) resisted this epistemic violence by creating a unique amalgam of Advaita Vedanta and psychoanalysis. His leadership of the first and longest-running department of psychology in India at the University of Calcutta and as president of the Indian Psychoanalytical Association underline the significance of his accomplishment. The late Alfred Hiltebeitel, Columbian professor of religion at George Washington University, described how Bose’s interpolations of psychodynamic theory into ancient Vedic texts, like the Upanishads, delivered rich psychological formats to consider ethics and order. Bose’s accomplishment was to maintain local cultural conceptions of the self, the mind and salvation, while incorporating the modern, technical language of psychoanalysis.

In contrast to Freud’s atheism, Bose was a Bihari Vedantist who considered religion a useful palliative. The devotional needs embodied in Vedanta and Mimamsa dogma and practice served as the motivating condition for Bose’s liberatory use of psychology. Ultimately, he discovered profound alignments between the introspective methodology of psychoanalysis and the tenets of Hindu philosophy, including ancient Vedic rituals. As a result, he responded to the imposition of colonial narratives of progress, value and hierarchy, in which Hindu philosophical systems were backward and outdated, by integrating psychodynamic theory into Vedic metaphysics in a way that maintained and strengthened local knowledge practices. In particular, Bose was able to demonstrate that psychoanalysis itself could be framed in the older and more accomplished palliative technologies of Vedanta and yogic practices. Bose deftly navigated differences between Western materialist metaphysics and Hindu notions of nondualism, karma and kāma (desire or wish), and provides us with an example of how psychology inspires synthetic revolutionary possibilities for the postcolonial subject.

Bose and Fanon both resisted the racist narratives of their British and French colonisers by using psychology to develop and maintain more familiar cultural narratives lacking those racist preconceptions of value and legitimacy.

T he emergence of modern Egypt provides yet one more example of psychology’s powerful potential to bridge gaps. In mid-century Cairo, popular and academic psychology occupied a position between biological traditions like medicine on the one hand, and prescriptive traditions such as the law on the other. Psychology thus could be applied in institutions within the modernising state. Indeed, the Free Officers who backed Gamal Abdel Nasser attended lectures on psychoanalysis and integrated this information into their organisational plans for the state.

Meanwhile, a circle of intellectuals in Cairo crafted a radical synthesis of Freudian theory and mystical Islam that resisted burgeoning religious fundamentalism on the one hand and blind devotion to Western modernity on the other. Yusuf Mourad’s circle of intellectuals admired the humanist values of the Enlightenment but were also invested in a radical rejection of European colonialism. They developed concepts that perpetuated the collectivist core of Egyptian society by asserting how the self is socialised by family, community and the state. To bridge the gap between the old way and the new, psychology was aligned with the native resources embedded in mystical Islam; used that way, it was a handy tool.

The ethical programme of Islam was fused with modern psychological texts addressing mental health

For instance, psychoanalysis provided a way to analyse psychosexual development in scientific language that was not ethically forbidden. It was similarly used to adapt the 12th-century Persian philosopher Al-Ghazali’s notion of instinct ( ghariza ) into a Darwinian context. This space of liberal subjectivity was often otherwise censored by religious elites.

In The Arabic Freud (2017), the historian Omnia El Shakry describes how Cairene intellectuals like Mourad used psychology as a systematic liberatory language with which to unite introspection, positivism and phenomenology with Islam. These intellectuals synthesised psychoanalysis and the notion of intuition developed by the French philosopher Henri Bergson with prior traditions of spiritual insight and gnosis in Sufist Islam by emphasising continuities. Proto-psychologists like Ibn ‘Arabi (1165-1240) provided Sufi concepts that thinkers like Abu al-Wafa al-Ghunaymi al-Taftazani (1930-94) used to integrate the notion of the unconscious as a reclusive element of the mind with the Sufi concept of batin (the hidden). The ethical programme of Islam, which emphasised the tareeq (way, road) of the Sufi traveller as a battle between the development of understanding and the base instincts of man, was fused with modern psychological texts addressing mental health.

This kind of psychodynamic framing provided people with the discursive tools not only to understand their own motivations, but also to craft frameworks by which to navigate ethical matters. The use of psychology in both India and Egypt demonstrates that psychology is a flexible language that allowed intellectuals to creatively devise a sense of subjectivity that synthesises native and imported knowledge practices so as to adaptively cope in the postcolonial condition.

T he anthropologist M J Field pursued a similar line in employing ethnopsychiatry to study local culture in Ghana during the midcentury. Field’s thorough analysis of widespread belief in magic and animistic religion as a form of psychology cast local beliefs on the same plane as ideas being imported from the West. In short, the language of psychology could mediate between alternative systems of belief in a way that did not deny or delegitimise local knowledge practices. If the colonial project is to replace and, eventually, to erase, then psychology can prohibit the dehumanisation of native cultures by rendering commonalities in the human condition. For better or worse, that is why its pronouncements carry moral consequences.

The unique form of West African colonialism that Field analysed included Methodist and Presbyterian cosmologies, tribal identity and local practices. The main traditional religion of Ghana is Akan, which centres around a supreme deity, though there are many variations and subgroups, such as Fanti, Ashanti and Akuapem. These subgroups serve as the basis of communitarian, collectivist identities that persist throughout the country through marriage bonds, economic collectives and social hierarchies across the various power centres of respective groups. Akan religion has been combined with Christianity since the earlier waves of European colonialists starting in the 15th and 16th centuries, though it also remains a distinct set of cultural practices in certain communities.

In her classic text Search for Security (1960), Field describes how traditional psychology based on individualist Judeo-Christian traditions was altered in the context of Akan cosmology. As in many Biblical narratives, rural Ghanaians insist on the prevalence of spirit possessions wherein the possessed individual emits prophesy. Here, magic and medicinal rituals are enacted through the mediation of the suman (a talisman or charm). The ritual she studied is the psychological practice by which individuals act out their guilt. Field writes:

[W]itchcraft meets … the depressive’s need to steep herself in irrational self-reproach and to denounce herself as unspeakably wicked.

Field describes how a belief system that relies upon witchcraft and employs concepts like kra (soul) and sunsum (mind, spirit) to explain psychiatric disturbances constituted a form of psychology whose function was to shape an individual’s inner landscape as well as to provide a language with which one may testify to their community.

Psychology provides an intersubjective mirror for social interaction across cultures and value systems

Witchcraft seeks goals similar to those of psychology: to alleviate suffering and manage the trauma and stigma an individual experiences in their local context. Yet, the presumed universalism of colonial enterprises often serves to obfuscate the historical and experiential fact that local traditions create drastically distinct inhabited worlds. Akan practice can be portrayed as witchcraft for the purposes of psychological purging, but it has other uses for identity, emotional coping and metaphysical practices that involve mystical states of mind in distinct cosmological systems. It is the historical crafting of identity in the context of metaphysical concepts such as the complicated strands of Akan, Christian and animist practices that make up an individual’s way of life. That is to say, psychology as a way to know oneself cannot be extricated from the complex living cultures of the day.

This brings up the motivation behind decolonial psychology: that the human sciences are necessarily a colonial imposition because they were created by Western intellectual society. This is a powerful interpretation, yet psychology is flexible and can be adapted to the opposite end. Psychology might be used to colonise the way we think of our minds and bodies, but it can equally be employed as a language to decolonise from these impositions.

By addressing the colonial nature of the human sciences, the psychologists Paul Parin, Goldy Parin-Matthèy and Fritz Morgenthaler combined ethnographic methods and psychoanalysis to explore transcultural relations between self and society. Their extensive interviews and consultations in Mali in the 1950s led to ethnopsychoanalysis, a new way of assessing how social practices, especially concerning sexual mores and the anxieties they produce, shape ego identity. For example, they theorised how so-called sexual perversions of adolescent polygamy served as creative solutions to psychological difficulties arising in early development. Morgenthaler was led by this work to consider how the deeply intersubjective nature of the mind required mutual knowing, or complementarity, to engender emotional healing. This suggests a model for healing through a sophisticated, shared language with which to understand, analyse and communicate our shared culture and inner lives.

Psychology provides an intersubjective mirror for social interaction across cultures and value systems. Such intersubjectivities allow for the development of morality, ethics and understanding. In their application, these mirrors create space for consideration of the irreducibility of the human experience.

As a set of therapeutic practices, psychology can restructure subjectivity in a political context because its practices align individuals through shared values. We observed this in the work of Frantz Fanon, Girindrasekhar Bose, M J Field and Yusuf Mourad. For them, psychology shapes the potential of agency for the political subject; this is the wellspring of the current movement to decolonise psychology.

During the tumult of the 20th century, individuals were scattered across the globe. Employing shared symbols and methods, psychology was used to minister to the travails of dislocated peoples. In this regard, it helped satisfy the human drive for sense and purpose by providing techniques to promote agency and mastery. Indeed, the unique human capacity for reflection means that knowledge is a form of power. What psychology provides is the language for exercising that power and then liberating the oppressed by uncovering for individuals the context within which they exist.

Meaning and the good life

Beyond authenticity

In her final unfinished work, Hannah Arendt mounted an incisive critique of the idea that we are in search of our true selves

Samantha Rose Hill

Politics and government

Governing for the planet

Nation-states are no longer fit for purpose to create a habitable future for humans and nature. Which political system is?

Jonathan S Blake & Nils Gilman

Anthropology

The Ju/’hoansi protocol

Hunter-gatherer societies are highly expert in group deliberation and decision-making which respects both difference and unity

Vivek V Venkataraman

Progress and modernity

In praise of magical thinking

Once we all had knowledge of how to heal ourselves using plants and animals. The future would be sweeter for renewing it

Anna Badkhen

History of ideas

Baffled by human diversity

Confused 17th-century Europeans argued that human groups were separately created, a precursor to racist thought today

Jacob Zellmer

Archaeology

Beyond kingdoms and empires

A revolution in archaeology is transforming our picture of past populations and the scope of human freedoms

David Wengrow

Essay on Freedom

The freedom essay portrays the meaning of freedom, the Indian freedom struggle and its importance. Freedom is one of the essential values in our society. It sets us apart from other countries, and it has been our main goal since we were born. For some, freedom means different things. It is the opportunity to voice your opinion without fear. For others, it can be obtaining a higher level of education and knowledge than what is available to the general public. There are many different definitions of freedom, and no two people will have the same interpretation or experience of this word. However, one common idea that unites them is that freedom means having unrestricted rights and privileges.

Freedom is something that humans desire to have. We want to do what we please without any restrictions because it gives us a sense of power. It makes us feel like we are in control. However, freedom can be very challenging. When people are forced to face their challenges due to a lack of choices, they often develop coping mechanisms. An essay on freedom helps the little ones understand the value of freedom and write a better essay.

Indian Freedom Movement

The Indian freedom movement was a mass movement that led to the end of British rule in India and the establishment of an independent nation. The campaign was started by Indian nationalists demanding independence from Britain. This short essay on freedom in English is an excellent way to help kids learn about Indian independence.

India had an active freedom movement that started in the late 19th century. The Indian freedom movement was a significant movement to gain independence from the colonial rule. It started in the early 1800s and led to the Independence of India in 1947. The freedom movement was led by Indian nationalist leaders who wanted to free the country from British rule . These leaders wanted to create an independent and democratic state.

Bhagat Singh, Uddham Singh, Tantia Tope, Mahatma Gandhi and others are the most popular Indian leaders. Among them, Mahatma Gandhi started a nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement against the British Empire.

Importance of Freedom

Freedom is a fundamental human right and an essential element of individual liberty. The value of freedom is the intangible worth of making decisions without outside interference. From the perspective of people who enjoy freedom, there may be no good reason why others should not be free from control or domination.

Freedom is one of the most valuable things people can have. It allows them to do what they want and how they want. This is more valuable than many might think. It also has many benefits for those who have it and those around them.

Teach kids to write the freedom essay by perusing BYJU’S essay on freedom. You can also find more essays, poems, short stories, worksheets, etc., on the website.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are some of the renowned freedom fighters of india.

Bhagat Singh, Uddham Singh, Tantia Tope, Mahatma Gandhi and others are some of the most popular Indian freedom fighters.

When did the Indian freedom movement begin?

The Indian freedom movement began in the late 19th century.

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Religious Liberty in the States

The RLS project uses 39 objective indicators to evaluate the success of each US state in safeguarding religious freedom.

When Americans think about religious liberty, our minds naturally turn to the protections offered by the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This amendment, and related federal legislation, offer important protections, but there are numerous areas in which states are free to protect, or not protect, religious liberty. 

The Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy’s (CRCD) project Religious Liberty in the States (RLS), now in its third year, measures 39 distinct ways that states may, but don’t have to, protect religious liberty. For instance, every state in the union requires children to be vaccinated before attending public (and sometimes private) schools, but 39 states provide exemptions for families that have religious objections to vaccinations. On the other hand, only one state protects the ability of for-profit businesses to decline to participate in ceremonies to which they have religious objections. 

After determining whether states have statutes protecting each provision we measure, we aggregate protections into sixteen “safeguards” which are then averaged to produce one index score per state. The index allows us to rank states and track changes in religious liberty protections over time. Source data, including hyperlinked citations to state statutes, are published online at religiouslibertyinthestates.com . This permits legislators, activists, and interested citizens to examine in detail how well their states protect religious liberty and to find existing examples of statutes they could adopt to better guard what many founders called “the sacred rights of conscience.”

One might assume that conservative states would do a better job protecting religious liberty than progressive states. This is partially true, but it is noteworthy that very progressive Illinois does a better job protecting religious liberty than any other state, having adopted 80 percent of the possible protections. Strongly conservative West Virginia, on the other hand, is dead last. It has enacted a mere 25 percent of the protections we consider. 

Focusing on the extremes of Illinois and West Virginia may be misleading. More conservative states do, on the whole, tend to have more robust legal protections. Nevertheless, legislators in all states still have a great deal of work to do, as even the top ten states all lack between 20 percent and 47 percent of the possible protections.

It is the case that conservative states today are more likely to pass religious liberty protections than progressive states. Some of the most remarkable changes from RLS 2023 to 2024 are the significant improvement in scores in Florida, Montana, and even West Virginia. Florida now has a safeguard score of 73 percent (compared to 60 percent in 2023), Montana has a safeguard score of 66 percent (compared to 46 percent), and although it is still in last place, West Virginia’s safeguard score improved from 14 to 25 percent. Many of these changes are a result of religious liberty laws passed by these states in 2023.

If conservative states are more likely to protect religious liberty than progressive states, why does Illinois remain in first place? Simply put, almost all of the state’s religious liberty protections were adopted between 1934 and 1998 during which time the state was far more conservative. Indeed, Republican presidential candidates won the state in eight of ten elections between 1952 and 1988, but they haven’t come close in the last eight elections. Similarly, Democrats have controlled both houses of the state legislature since 2003. 

A recent study commissioned by the CRCD demonstrates that Illinois is resting on its laurels. Indeed, the state legislature has recently attempted to remove protections adopted earlier, and it has been less likely to adopt new protections. For instance, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, eighteen states passed statutes that prohibit governments from treating houses of worship differently than similarly situated businesses. Illinois is not among them.

Even in states with a political climate friendly to religious practices, the establishment of formal legal protections is essential. For one thing, political climates change.

It seems likely to us that conservative states such as West Virginia, Texas, Louisiana, and Idaho do not have as many religious liberty protections because the climate in these states is far less hostile to persons of faith. But these and other conservative states should learn a lesson from Illinois and pass religious liberty statutes while it is still possible to do so. Although statutes may be repealed, it is far harder to remove a law from the books than to get one on it. 

If Illinois was relatively conservative in the late twentieth century, Colorado was a bastion of political conservativism. Between 1952 and 2004, Colorado voted Republican in 12 of 14 presidential elections and Republicans routinely controlled both houses of the state legislature. The statewide environment was quite friendly towards religious liberty, and Colorado Springs was considered to be a Mecca for evangelicalism. And yet the state legislature did not take much religious liberty legislation when it had a chance, which helps account for the state’s abysmal 43rd place finish in RLS 2024.

It is possible, of course, that today’s Colorado legislature could return to the practices of the 1990s and pass religious liberty legislation. Alas, elected and appointed officials in the state are going in the opposite direction. Just ask Jack Phillips , who just last month returned to court yet again in an attempt to protect his ability to freely exercise his religion. 

Even in states with a political climate friendly to religious practices, the establishment of formal legal protections is essential. For one thing, political climates change. But there are other good reasons for doing so. Even in conservative states, cities or counties pass laws or ordinances that may limit the ability of citizens to act upon their religious convictions. In Texas, for instance, cities including Austin, Dallas, and Plano (home of First Liberty, of which the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy is a part) have laws banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in places of public accommodation. Such ordinances could be used to attempt to coerce the Texas equivalent of Jack Phillips to act against his religious convictions.

A statewide ordinance protecting the ability of such professionals to decline to participate in ceremonies or events to which they have sincere religious objections would alleviate that potential infringement of religious liberty. 

Today, political conservatives are far more likely to favor religious liberty than political progressives. But this wasn’t always the case. When the Supreme Court limited the extent to which the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause protects religious liberty in 1990, Democrats and Republicans came together to pass the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993 to ensure that religious freedom is robustly protected. It is noteworthy that the bill was passed in the House without a dissenting vote, was approved 97 to 3 by the Senate, and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Seven years later, Congress passed without a recorded dissenting vote the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (2000). Among the chief purposes of this bill was to ensure that prisoners can act according to their religious convictions whenever possible.

Religious liberty shouldn’t be a Republican or a Democratic issue. Historically , it has been a fundamental American value. RLS’s website contains links to every religious liberty statute we consider, and these statutes serve as models—or at least starting places—for related legislation in states that lack them.

Forum Playing Catch-Up on Grand Strategy Christopher Parry

Essay Lowering the Temperature John G. Grove

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Book Review Outgrowing Skintellectualism Isaac Willour

Essay Libertarianism Updated Randy E. Barnett

A New Concept of Freedom

Roger Berkowitz The 2024 Alpine Fellowship took place last weekend in Tuscany. The last three years the Hannah Arendt Center has had the opportunity to co-sponsor The Alpine Fellowship , a themed gathering of inquisitive people from all across the world. Very much like Arendt Center Conferences, The Alpine Fellowship picks a topic (this year it was “language”) and curates a series of discussions, talks, performances and workshops around that theme. Both these gatherings incorporate poetry, literature, philosophy, and the humanities to think deeply about our world. But the Alpine Fellowship also emphasizes a holistic approach to character, offering workshops in Yoga, Cranial Sacral healing, breathing work, the power of silence, and more. And the Alpine Fellowship brings its participants into nature, taking hikes and embracing early morning plunges into mountain lakes and rambling rivers. At the root of the Alpine Fellowship is the idea that any meaningful community depends on a strong and grounded sense of self. There is no political freedom without individuals capable of exercising freedom.  How one teaches character, and if it can be taught, are important questions. Arendt herself connected character with the practice of thinking. It is thinking, she imagines, that might inspire a person to see the world from multiple perspectives and thus could free one from parochial prejudices and the lure of ideology, thus liberating man to embrace a broader common sense. It is in thinking that we let ourselves go wandering and think from the perspectives of many others—only then can modern men ground themselves in a common sense world that we share with others. For Arendt, character is something that emerges with the thinking person. Most often, Arendt argues, thinking is something that is only taught by example. But it is also possible to “exercise” our capacity for thought. Arendt’s essays in her book Between Past and Future are imagined as exercises in thinking. And it may be that engaging in thoughtful encounters with other persons and with oneself can also offers such exercises in thinking.  Character, today, is sought in ways beyond thinking. One way to expand our minds and connect with a world beyond ourselves is through mindfulness and attention to the natural and spiritual worlds around us. By steeling our selves through silence, attentiveness, and awareness, the hope is that we ground ourselves in ways that make true community possible. The reason the Alpine Fellowship’s mix of intellectual and holistic learning strikes me as important is because of what N.S. Lyons calls the “paradox of individual autonomy.” The paradox is simple. The more we live within large, bureaucratic, and increasingly automated systems of government, media, and social life, the more desperately we crave a kind of rebellious individualism that protects us from the rising uniformity and conformity of what Hannah Arendt called “the social.” But the reactive individualism that bureaucracy inspires leads, in turn, to the kind of loneliness and atomism that is attracted to mass totalitarian movements.  The great German writer Ernst Jünger worried that “Man has immersed himself too deeply in [his] constructions,” that he has “lost contact with the ground. This brings him close to catastrophe, to great danger, toward destruction.” As I participated in the Alpine Fellowship this year, I thought of Ernst Jünger’s recognition that we are, today, confronted with a new kind of power that demands that we call forth a new experience of freedom. Jünger writes:    "A new conception of power has emerged, a potent and direct concentration. Holding out against this force requires a new conception of freedom, one that can have nothing to do with the washed-out ideas associated with the word today. It presumes, for a start, that one does not want to merely save one’s own skin, but is also willing to risk it." Reflecting on Jünger’s call for a new concept of freedom, N.S. Lyons writes:   That’s Ernst Jünger (German WWI hero, novelist, dissident philosopher) writing in 1951 in The Forest Passage, a slim volume on resistance to totalitarian tyranny that I’ve come to consider one of the most poetic meditations on the nature of individual freedom ever written. Densely, often even beautifully symbolic, his book aims to show us the importance of man’s individuality in maintaining our collective humanity. But it also helps reorient us, reminding us that the way in which we typically conceive of individual freedom today is indeed corrupted, “washed out,” and feeble compared to what we once understood. Moreover, I believe Jünger helps resolve a paradox that I at least have wrestled with for some time (especially as a freedom-loving American): the paradox of individual autonomy. The paradox is this: we subsist under an increasingly totalizing and oppressive managerial regime , in which a vast impersonal hive-mind of officious bureaucrats and ideological programmers aims to surveil, constrain, and manage every aspect of our lives, from our behavior to our associations and even our language and beliefs. This rule-by-scowling-HR manager could hardly feel more collectivist – we’re trapped in a “ longhouse ” ruled over by controlling, emasculating, spirit-sapping, safety-obsessed nannies. Naturally, our instinct is to sound a barbaric yawp of revolt in favor of unrestrained individual freedom. And yet, as I’ve endeavored to explain several times before, it is also a kind of blind lust for unrestrained individualism that got us stuck here in the first place… The paradox is that the more individuals are liberated from the restraints imposed on them by others (e.g. relational bonds, communal duties, morals and norms) and by themselves (moral conscience and self-discipline), the more directionless and atomized they become; and the more atomized they become, the more vulnerable and reliant they are on the safety offered by some greater collective. Alone in his “independence,” the individual finds himself dependent on a larger power to protect his safety and the equality of his proliferating “rights” (desires) from the impositions of others, and today it is the state that answers this demand. Yet the more the state protects his right to consume and “be himself” without restraint, the less independently capable and differentiated he becomes, even as his private affairs increasingly become the business of the expanding state. Subject to the impersonal regulations of mechanistic processes and procedures rather than his own judgement or that of the people in close communion with him, the individual is molded into a more and more uniform cog to fit into the machine: a mere passive “consumer” and easily manipulated and programmed puppet – an automaton – rather than  a true individual actor. In the effort to maximize his autonomy, his real autonomy has been lost. Such an individual has succumbed to what Jünger fittingly describes as the all-encompassing “automatism” of our modern age, in which more and more of human life seems reduced to “mere functionality” and constrained by unliving mechanistic processes. Even our minds become subject to ideological machine code alongside base desires. And it is out of this loss of our humanity that totalitarianism and its atrocities are born. To escape this automatism, achieve real individuality, and recover our humanity will require us to find a “new freedom” – or rather, an older and nobler freedom – that reconciles liberty with duty, independence with love, life with sacrifice, and the barbarian with the saint. This is the passage to freedom that Jünger seeks to offer us. Jünger also has much to say about the rise of artificial intelligence and robots. You can read a short essay about Jünger’s novella The Bees here . 

• Made by History

60 Years Later, Freedom Schools Are Still Radical—and Necessary

S ixty years ago, over 40 Freedom Schools opened their doors to all children in the state of Mississippi. Iterations of “freedom schooling”—clandestine or fugitive learning by and for Black communities—existed for centuries, since the era of enslavement. For those communities, education was linked to liberation and the democratic project itself.

But the Freedom Schools of 1964 were historically unique. Teacher activists and Freedom School organizers developed a curriculum that was barred in 1964—and the essence of that curriculum remains illegal today.

Since the Second World War, Black activists and activists of color amplified demands for fuller inclusion into the United States. But major milestones such as the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954—which deemed segregated education to be unconstitutional, but failed to enforce it—left many activists disillusioned. Segregation remained rampant for years to come.

Until 1964, education was rarely used on the front lines of the movement.

Bob Moses, Dave Dennis, Judy Richardson, Charlie Cobb, and other activists with the college-student-led Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ( SNCC ) organized a “Freedom Summer” campaign for the election year of 1964. Activists wanted to break the back of segregation in Mississippi with a volunteer corps of over 1,000 college students.

Read More: The Black Power Movement Is a Love Story

By organizing the vote, they reasoned, Black voters could elect people who represented their interests. Voters could put someone in office who protected the rights of all in the interest of the larger public good. White supremacists could be voted out of office once and for all. But white people violently assailed these plans before the project even began.

White Christian nationalists burned down the Mount Zion Methodist Church in Philadelphia, Miss. Earlier in the spring of 1964, the congregation agreed to host a Freedom School there. The Klan burned the church—not an uncommon act during the 1950s and 1960s at Black churches committed to the freedom struggle. It was a local movement center and part of the expansive Black church that uplifted the movement. Mississippi activist James Chaney and Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, two volunteers who were organizing communities ahead of the summer project, were sent to investigate the burning and identify the site for a new school. Local police and Klansmen stopped and killed them on their way home.

Teachers and students of the movement understood the violent pushback their plans for liberatory education would inspire. Freedom schools directly challenged white nationalism and inequitable access to quality education at a time when the state sanctioned violence and joining the movement was criminal, regardless of age. Just one year before, Bull Conner and his police force in Birmingham arrested over 1,000 children in K-12 schools. The students were then expelled.

But they proceeded with their plans. Movement veterans developed a curriculum for the schools that was radical for its time. Arguably some of the greatest minds of the movement gathered to write it, including Ella Baker, Septima Clark, Bayard Rustin, and Myles Horton. These activist educators not only shaped the movement, but also understood the essential role education would play.

They met in New York in March 1964 to write what was arguably the most progressive curriculum in the history of education in the United States. The curriculum and the larger purpose of the schools pushed the boundaries of education in the United States. As curriculum writers noted, they aimed to instill a “more realistic perception of American society, themselves, the conditions of their oppression, and alternatives offered by the Freedom Movement.”

By May the curriculum was printed and copied on a ditto machine. The Freedom School coordinator, Staughton Lynd, a history professor at Spelman, weighed down his car and distributed it to the teachers.

When Freedom Schools opened their doors in early July of 1964, some schools like those in Hattiesburg had over 600 students enroll. In Canton , an area organized by Dave Dennis and the Congress of Racial Equality, over 200 students attended five different Freedom Schools.

Teachers were prepared to deliver seven formal units of study. It was equivalent to a social studies curriculum today that included history, civics, and current events.

Read More: Teaching Black History Has Become a Flashpoint. Three New Docuseries Refuse to Sugarcoat Their Narratives

Students examined the power structure of United States society, who made the rules, and why. Students explored differences between “the North” and what they knew as the South and the former Confederacy. They discussed Black culture in relation to capitalism in a unit called “material things versus soul things.”

They learned of rebellions against enslavers predating the Declaration of Independence—a document that was also critically analyzed for its contradictions. Students explored the ongoing Civil Rights movement, linking what they were studying to what was occurring outside the classroom walls.

Freedom School students also learned how to change the system. Students examined the process of voting and writing laws. In the afternoons, students canvassed voters and engaged in the necessary though exhausting work of going door-to-door to register people to vote for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party . As scholars of the movement, they also published Freedom School newspapers across the state. Through their own press, students shared information about upcoming events, they critiqued local representatives, and they published poetry.

The education front of the Freedom Summer campaign—Freedom Schools—was arguably the most successful part of the summer project. By the end of the summer, over 2,500 students enrolled in over 40 schools, doubling organizers’ original expectations.

Read More: Black Political Rights Can’t Be Divorced From Economic Justice. Why Fannie Lou Hamer's Message and Fight Endure Today

After Democrats, led by President Lyndon B. Johnson, refused to seat members of the activist MFDP at the Democratic National Convention at the end of the summer campaign, it was clear that the Freedom Schools would be a lasting legacy of the summer.

Marian Wright Edelman , the first Black woman to pass the bar exam in Mississippi, carried forth the promise of the Freedom Schools. In 1995 , she established two Freedom Schools with her organization, the Children’s Defense Fund. Since then, over 200,000 children have attended Freedom School and over 20,000 young teachers have been trained in the curriculum and pedagogy of the historic program.

Much like in the 1960s, these schools operate free of charge to learners. They are supported by donations from philanthropists, communities, church congregations, and some school districts. Illinois legislators recently passed a grant that funded Freedom Schools across the state, albeit temporarily.

The Freedom Schools compel us to reimagine education even at a time when parents, school boards, and conservative organizers ban books. In the last academic year, books were banned across 23 states, with over 4,000 book banning incidents reported.

Books that could be in the Freedom School curriculum are among the prohibited lists. These books include Amanda Gorman’s The Hill We Climb , Fred T. Joseph’s, The Black Friend , Ibram X. Kendi’s, Stamped from the Beginning , and other acclaimed books that have been targeted as a "Critical Race Theory" curriculum. Such books were banned based on false claims about "reverse discrimination" and the guilt it purportedly induced among white students.

This makes a historic curriculum essentially illegal and out of reach to our nation’s youth at a time when the entire nation needs it the most.

Today, the Freedom Schools continue to instill lessons of the past and for democracy. Freedom Schools will continue to assign books that center the experiences of children and families historically marginalized. Moreover, the Children’s Defense Fund each year designates a day of “social action” to work with students to address areas of inequality. This July, Freedom Schools will designate their day of social action to raise awareness about banned books. Students and teachers will take a national stand against book bans. Much like 1964, students will march, canvas, and attempt to educate a nation.

But it is yet to be determined if we will hear the call.

Jon Hale is the author of The Freedom Schools and The Choice We Face . He is a professor of education history and policy at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here . Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors .

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Why Project 2025 is a hateful plan all Americans should fear

"project 2025 is worse than out of touch. it’s everything that america should aspire not to be," ray marcano.

Ray Marcano, a longtime journalist, is the former national president of the Society of Professional Journalists, a two-time Pulitzer juror, and a Fulbright fello w.  He is a frequent Columbus Dispatch contributor.

Project 2025 serves as blueprint for a conservative remaking of the federal government through “policy, personnel and training.”

But Project 2025 , with thoughts from more than 400 conservative policy experts and scholars, does something else. It fosters intolerance and hatred of those who don’t agree with its views and seeks to ostracize its philosophical enemies in the name of setting a lost America on the right track.

At first glance, that doesn’t appear to be the case.

The Project’s report, “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise” contains four “pillars” that seem reasonable on its face:

• Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children
• Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people.
• Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats
• Secure our God-given individual right to enjoy “the blessings of liberty.”

Sounds reasonable. Those are all mainstream positions that most Americans can support.

What Project 2025 would actually do to America

But the devil is always in the details.

You have to read beyond the headlines (something few people do) to see how Project 2025 wants to achieve those goals. When you do, the tone and tenor turn to from plausible to preposterous.

Fact check: Claim of 'period passports' under Project 2025 is from satire

In restoring the family, the authors write the next President remove “the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion, gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.”

The report likens pornography to transgender ideology, which it says is in the realm of “child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women.”  Librarians who produce and distribute “pornography” should be forced to register as sex offenders.

Project 2025 an unchecked attack on America

Most people prefer a smaller government, and the report rightfully points out the Congtress has given too much power to bureaucrats. 

But then it begins attacking the agencies that don’t fit the conservative agenda.

It accused the EPA of strangling “domestic energy production,” but doesn’t provide any examples. It says the Department of Homeland Security allows migrant criminals to enter the country unchecked. The Department of Education injects “racist, anti-American, ahistorical propaganda into America’s classrooms,” and the Department of Justice “forces school districts to undermine girls’ sports and parents’ rights to satisfy transgender extremists.”

Biden? Harris? I don't care. Stopping Trump and Project 2025 is all that matters.

Americans, by in large, want safe borders and a tougher yet compassionate immigration policy. But in this section, Project 2025 criticizes the left for supporting the United Nations, the European Union, open borders and China policies. It’s more railing instead of offering questions to contemplate or real solutions.

Project 2025 thinks induvial rights are under attack and the country is engaged in a battle to save it from “elite-directed socialism.”

Throughout the report, the “left” is a common foil.

The report asserts the “Left does not believe that all men are created equal—they think they are special.” The “left” is an “anti-American” cabal that loves “environmental extremists.”

As quickly as the report came out, prominent Republicans distanced themselves from it.

Donald Trump called parts of the report “ ridiculous and abysmal ." Two senators and potential Trump vice presidential nominees , J.D. Vance of Ohio and Marco Rubio of Florida, also downplayed the report.

That makes sense. Project 2025 is a fantastic document for the ultra-right, but it’s not policy positions that resonate with most Americans. For example, roughly one on three Americans born since 1981 identify as LGBT, according to Gallup . That’s a lot of young voters to disenfranchise.

Trump should be wary. Vance, Donalds and Carson have credibility issues.

Barring any unexpected developments, Trump appears on a trajectory to reclaim the White House.

But the GOP is still in a fight to regain the Senate (likely) and keep the House (tougher). Republicans don’t want to answer questions about a report that’s out of touch with most Americans.

Project 2025 is worse than out of touch. It’s everything that America should aspire not to be.

Personal Understanding of Freedom Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Freedom should be viewed as one of the most fundamental values of humanity. It is the ability to make decisions for oneself and to act upon them, free from external constraints or interference. For me, freedom is the opportunity to choose my own destiny, pursue my dreams, and make choices that are in alignment with my values and beliefs. From this perspective, freedom can be described as an inherent right, and it is the foundation of individual autonomy and self-determination.

Freedom is often discussed in terms of its political aspects, such as the right to hold political views without interference or opposition, the right to vote, and the right to privacy. However, freedom is also undeniably crucial in other areas of life. This concept encompasses being self-governing and making choices without being bound by external forces. It also allows expressing oneself without fear of repercussion or consequence (Junger, 2021). Furthermore, freedom enables people to make choices that are in their best interests, free from the pressures of external forces.

One should state that freedom is essential for individual growth and development. Without it, individuals are limited in their ability to explore their potential and reach their goals. If it were not for freedom, people would be trapped in the constraints of external forces, unable to make choices for themselves or pursue their dreams. Freedom allows individuals to take control of their own lives, explore their options, and make informed decisions that are beneficial both for themselves and society (Junger, 2021). Freedom also provides people with the opportunity to develop and strengthen their character. When individuals have the freedom to make their own decisions, it pushes them to think critically and take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. Freedom also enables people to explore their own values and beliefs and make informed choices that are in alignment with those values. Ultimately, freedom helps individuals develop into responsible and successful members of society.

Finally, it is also necessary to state that freedom is significant in ensuring fairness and justice. Everyone deserves the right to make their own decisions, chase their goals, and be treated fairly and equitably by others. Freedom ensures that individuals’ rights are respected and that they are not unfairly denied the opportunities and benefits that come with it. Freedom is an essential part of an individual’s life, permitting them to choose their own path and stand up for their beliefs (Junger, 2021). It empowers them to create their own life experiences, both good and bad, and to learn and grow from them. In most cases, freedom also helps a person to be creative and explore the world around them. It gives them the opportunity to express themselves and connect with others, making everyone a more engaged member of society.

In conclusion, freedom is an essential value of humanity and a fundamental part of individual autonomy and self-determination. It grants the opportunity to make decisions for oneself and to pursue one’s dreams without external interference. Freedom is essential for individual growth and development, and it helps individuals to make informed decisions that are in alignment with their values and beliefs. Finally, freedom is paramount for individuals living in society to ensure fairness and justice, as well as to secure that everyone has the opportunity to realize their full potential.

Junger, S. (2021). Freedom. Simon & Schuster.

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IvyPanda. (2024, January 29). Personal Understanding of Freedom. https://ivypanda.com/essays/personal-understanding-of-freedom/

"Personal Understanding of Freedom." IvyPanda , 29 Jan. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/personal-understanding-of-freedom/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Personal Understanding of Freedom'. 29 January.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Personal Understanding of Freedom." January 29, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/personal-understanding-of-freedom/.

1. IvyPanda . "Personal Understanding of Freedom." January 29, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/personal-understanding-of-freedom/.

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IvyPanda . "Personal Understanding of Freedom." January 29, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/personal-understanding-of-freedom/.

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J.D. Vance on the Issues, From Abortion to the Middle East

Like Donald J. Trump, the Ohio senator has been skeptical of American intervention overseas and argues that raising tariffs will create new jobs.

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By Adam Nagourney

• Published July 15, 2024 Updated July 17, 2024

Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, Donald J. Trump’s newly chosen running mate, has made a shift from the Trump critic he was when he first entered politics to the loyalist he is today. It was a shift both in style and substance: Now, on topics as disparate as trade and Ukraine, Mr. Vance is closely aligned with Mr. Trump.

Here’s a look at where the senator stands on the issues that will most likely dominate the campaign ahead and, should Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance win in November, their years in the White House.

Mr. Vance opposes abortion rights, even in the case of incest or rape, but says there should be exceptions for cases when the mother’s life is in danger. He praised the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. As he ran for Senate in 2022, a headline on the issues section of his campaign website read simply: “Ban Abortion.”

Mr. Vance has said that he would support a 15-week national ban proposed by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. He has also said the matter is “primarily a state issue,” suggesting states should be free to make more restrictive laws. “Ohio is going to want to have a different abortion policy from California, from New York, and I think that’s reasonable, he said in an interview with USA Today Network in October 2022.

Mr. Vance has been one of the leading opponents of U.S. support for Ukraine in the war with Russia. “I think it’s ridiculous that we’re focused on this border in Ukraine,” he said in a podcast interview with Stephen K. Bannon, the former Trump adviser and longtime ally. “I’ve got to be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.”

He led the battle in the Senate, unsuccessfully, to block a $60 billion military aid package for Ukraine. “I voted against this package in the Senate and remain opposed to virtually any proposal for the United States to continue funding this war,” he wrote in an opinion essay for The New York Times early this year challenging President Biden’s stance on the war. “Mr. Biden has failed to articulate even basic facts about what Ukraine needs and how this aid will change the reality on the ground.”

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