Freedom is the power or right to act, speak, and change as one wants without hindrance or

restraint. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving oneself
one's own laws".[1]

In one definition, something is "free" if it can change and is not constrained in its present state.
Physicists and chemists use the word in this sense.[2]

Philosophy and religion sometimes associate freedom with free will, as distinct from predestination.
[3]

In modern liberal nations, freedom is considered a right, especially freedom of speech, freedom of
religion, and freedom of the press.

Many contemporary philosophers like Charles Taylor and Isaiah Berlin make a distinction between
"positive freedom" and "negative freedom".

Types[edit]

Main articles: Academic freedom, Artistic freedom, Intellectual freedom, Scientific freedom, Economic
freedom, Freedom of religion, Political freedom, Civil liberties, and Liberty

In political discourse, political freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy, and a
distinction is made between countries that are free and dictatorships. In the area of civil rights, a
strong distinction is made between freedom and slavery and there is conflict between people who
think all races, religions, genders, and social classes should be equally free and people who think
freedom is the exclusive right of certain groups. Frequently discussed are freedom of
assembly, freedom of association, freedom of choice, and freedom of speech.

Sometimes the terms "freedom" and "liberty" tend to be used interchangeably.[4][5] Sometimes
subtle distinctions are made between "freedom" and "liberty"[6] John Stuart Mill, for example,
differentiated liberty from freedom in that freedom is primarily, if not exclusively, the ability to do as
one wills and what one has the power to do, whereas liberty concerns the absence of arbitrary
restraints and takes into account the rights of all involved. As such, the exercise of liberty is subject
to capability and limited by the rights of others.[7]

Isaiah Berlin made a distinction between "positive" freedom and "negative" freedom in his seminal
1958 lecture "Two concepts of liberty". Charles Taylor elaborates on this idea, claiming that it is
undeniable that there are two such kinds of freedom. Negative liberty means an ability to do what
one wants, without external obstacles; positive liberty is the ability to fulfill one's purposes.[8][9]

Wendy Hui Kyong Chun explains these differences in terms of their relation to institutions:

"Liberty is linked to human subjectivity; freedom is not. The Declaration of Independence, for
example, describes men as having liberty and the nation as being free. Free will—the quality of being
free from the control of fate or necessity—may first have been attributed to human will,
but Newtonian physics attributes freedom—degrees of freedom, free bodies—to objects."[10]

"Freedom differs from liberty as control differs from discipline. Liberty, like discipline, is linked to
institutions and political parties, whether liberal or libertarian; freedom is not. Although freedom
can work for or against institutions, it is not bound to them—it travels through unofficial networks.
To have liberty is to be liberated from something; to be free is to be self-determining, autonomous.
Freedom can or cannot exist within a state of liberty: one can be liberated yet unfree, or free yet
enslaved (Orlando Patterson has argued in Freedom: Freedom in the Making of Western Culture that
freedom arose from the yearnings of slaves)."[10]

Another distinction that some political theorists have deemed important is that people may aspire to
have freedom from limiting forces (such as freedom from fear, freedom from want, and freedom
from discrimination), but descriptions of freedom and liberty generally do not invoke having
liberty from anything.[5] This is the concept of negative liberty.[5]

Other important fields in which freedom is an issue include economic freedom, academic
freedom, intellectual freedom, scientific freedom, and political freedom.

In its origin, the English word "freedom" relates etymologically to the word "friend".[2]

See also[edit]

 Internet freedom

 Freedom Riders – civil-rights activists

 Freethought

 Harm principle

 Personal freedom

 Refusal of work

 Statue of Freedom, an 1863 sculpture by Thomas Crawford atop the dome of the US Capitol

 Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World), 1886 statue by Frédéric Auguste
Bartholdi in New York City

 Goddess of Liberty, an 1888 statue by Elijah E. Myers atop the Texas State Capitol dome,
in Austin, Texas

 Miss Freedom, 1889 statue on the dome of the Georgia State Capitol (US)

 Freedom, 1985 statue by Alfred Tibor in Columbus, Ohio

 Freedom songs

 Freedom & Civilization, 1944 book by Bronislaw Malinowski about freedom from
anthropological perspective

References[edit]

1. ^ Stevenson, Angus; Lindberg, Christine A., eds. (2010-01-01). "New Oxford American
Dictionary". Oxford
 Reference. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195392883.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-539288-3. A
rchived from the original on 2020-03-12. Retrieved 2023-06-02.[clarification needed]

2. ^ Jump up to:a b "free". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University
Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)

3. ^ Baumeister, Roy F.; Monroe, Andrew E. (2014). "Recent Research on Free

Will". Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. Vol. 50. pp. 1–
52. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-800284-1.00001-1. ISBN 978-0128002841.

4. ^ See Bertrand Badie, Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Leonardo Morlino, International

Encyclopedia of Political Science (2011), p. 1447: "Throughout this entry,
incidentally, the terms freedom and liberty are used interchangeably".

5. ^ Jump up to:a b c Anna Wierzbicka, Understanding Cultures Through Their Key

Words (1997), pp. 130–131: "Unfortunately... the English words freedom
and liberty are used interchangeably. This is confusing because these two do not
mean the same, and in fact what [Isaiah] Berlin calls "the notion of 'negative'
freedom" has become largely incorporated in the word freedom, whereas the
word liberty in its earlier meaning was much closer to the Latin libertas and in its
current meaning reflects a different concept, which is a product of the Anglo-Saxon
culture".

6. ^ Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Control and Freedom: Power and Paranoia in the Age of
Fiber Optics (2008), p. 9: "Although used interchangeably, freedom and liberty have
significantly different etymologies and histories. According to the Oxford English
Dictionary, the Old English frei (derived from Sanskrit) meant dear and described all
those close or related to the head of the family (hence friends). Conversely in
Latin, libertas denoted the legal state of freedom versus enslavement and was later
extended to children (liberi), meaning literally the free members of the household.
Those who are one's friends are free; those who are not are slaves".

7. ^ Mill, John Stuart. [1859] 1869. On Liberty (4th ed.). London: Longmans, Green,
Reader, and Dyer. pp. 21–22 Archived 17 November 2022 at the Wayback Machine.

8. ^ Taylor, Charles (1985). "What's Wrong With Negative Liberty". Philosophical

Papers: Volume 2, Philosophy and the Human Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. pp. 211–229. ISBN 978-0521317498. Archived from the original on
28 February 2023. Retrieved 28 February 2023.

9. ^ Berlin, Isaiah. Four Essays on Liberty. 1969.

10. ^ Jump up to:a b Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Control and Freedom: Power and Paranoia
in the Age of Fiber Optics (2008), p. 9.