Liberty under Control, Immunity from Authority - Coursework Example

11 Feb. 2008 Liberty under control The definition of liberty as mere absence of restraint will be improper since it will make it appear that no one has liberty. Analyzing the general meaning of the word as immunity from authority and also a personal freedom of making one's own choice or freedom from confinement, we look at how the word can be defined in a better way. Finally, we conclude that liberty is not just an absence of restraint but, the absence of those external forces, among different forms of coercion that harms others in pursuit of one's own interests can be called a state of liberty. Introduction "Liberty of each, limited by the like liberties of all, is the rule in conformity with which society must be organized." ( Spencer, 1891) Liberty in general, means freedom or independence. Liberty is a word which is often used politically wherein it is advocated and fought for. According to most dictionaries liberty is the state of immunity from exercise of authority. It also means a personal freedom one possesses or has to possess so as to make one's own choice, be it in speech, opinion, worship, occupation or anything. Defining liberty is almost impossible without using the words which mean the absence of coercion. But is liberty just the absence of restraint "By liberty then we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will; this is, if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may." (David Hume, 1748) Good and bad are relative things. One person's good may be other person's bad. Likewise, liberty and restraint are also relative things. An absence of restraint for committing an act of robbery cannot be called liberty. If all restraints are minimized, so as to bring a complete absence of any kind of control, one would hope to achieve liberty. But when restraints are removed entirely, the world will not have equality, and there will be battles and bloodshed. So the definition of the word needs something more or less than bare absence of restraints. Going by the general definitions, no one can have liberty because no one is free to do all that is wanted. Everybody is subject to some superior power to live against personal wishes. In the following sub-headings let us take a deeper study of the word and its meaning. Immunity from Authority "He (Man) must have a master; but the master may be Nature or may be a fellow man. When he is under the impersonal coercion of Nature, we say that he is free; and when he is under the personal coercion of some one above him, we call him, according to the degree of his dependence, a slave, a serf, or a vassal." (Spencer, 1891) History has many instances showing that liberty was the cause for people of various countries to fight which eventually lead to the overthrow of their governments. Aristocrats have always been revolted against and the French revolution and the Russian revolution stand testimony to that. As a matter of fact, Jean Jacques Rousseau's French Revolution slogan, "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" became the basic principles for democracy in the world. Even now many parts of the world struggle for liberty. In Pakistan and Myanmar, people are fighting for democracy against the military regimes. In this political sense, the restraint is in the form of anti-democratic rule. Such a government can be said to curb the people's freedom because the restraint imposed on them affects them, their country and prevents improvement on a global level. But at the same time, every country has a judiciary and the police, in order to protect the people from law offenders. The judicial laws are also restrictions laid down so that any action committed by common men does not go against the welfare of the nation. The judiciary has the power to punish offenders of the law. One may tend to opine that this affects the freedom of thought, belief and action of, say, a thief, or a murderer. Police could be wrongly thought of as ones who wipe out the liberty of a thief. Thus, it is possible to expect offenders too, to fight for liberty. The argument that comes in here is that aristocratic government is not the same as law enforcement. No doubt they are two totally different things, yet, when we define liberty, care should be taken that the words are always interpreted in the proper way. The same meaning cannot be associated with the word at all instants. For this, we have to understand that it will never be sufficient to define liberty as mere absence of factors that retard or impede one's own freedom. Without some kind of rules or control, it is not possible for liberty to reach every common man. A deeper analysis has to be made to understand the proper implication of liberty. Personal Freedom Liberty also means one's personal freedom of choice as stated already. It is the power to think or feel or act as one pleases. But the question is whether one can be at liberty to think or feel or act as one pleases, whether one can be free from restraints to think or feel or act. For example, suppose a person dislikes red colour, he might want to avoid wearing the colour. He might even want to avoid seeing others wear the colour. But he has no rights to order his colleagues at his workplace, to stop wearing red colour dress. He may have the personal freedom to dislike red colour, but he cannot have the personal freedom of expecting others too to dislike it. This is because, it may be others freedom to like the colour and wear it. The reverse will have to be also possible, if others want the person, who dislikes red colour, to wear dress in that colour. Here, interest conflict occurs and this will cause fighting between the opposite parties, if both were to exercise their control having full liberty to contend. Internet, another for an example, is the new rage of the world society. It has rather become a part of living and lifestyle, than just a data bank or a tool for quicker communication. Internet is a platform where people have the liberty to exchange ideas, and explore the furthest potentialities of human mind. But, not everyone thinks the same ways. Hackers misuse the internet by breaking codes to steal a nation's defense secrets and other information which can be used in either good or bad ways. This can lead to sabotage activities even in civilized world. Even as cyber laws are being enacted, hackers are at liberty to secure confidential information on the internet. There needs to be some means by which anti-social activities are to be held back. That comes in the form of laws that can question whomsoever concerned. But this will be against the existing idea about liberty. So liberty cannot be anything of an unrestrained condition. Restraints No one wants to be subservient to authority. But at the same time, there should be rules and regulations, guidance and instructions, so that one's liberty does not affect others' liberty. When we talk about restraints, generally, most people think that it is a superior power or authority that exercises control, preventing one from doing what he would do otherwise. Restraints are not limited to such powers, but they can take several other forms. Let us take for example, liberty of speech. It is impossible to tell whether a person who enjoys the liberty of speech, speaks unrestrainedly. Human thinking is affected by his surroundings, his education, influence of other people and several other things. "What, if the ideas the individual conveys is not a product of his own thinking but implants of extraneous forces What if the mouth is free to speak but the mind is not free to think"(Roshwald) It is not possible to say that any opinion that is expressed comes out of one's mind spontaneously. Every idea that is conceived is affected by prevailing codes and ethics. The established practices cause self-imposed restrictions since there is always a fear of what others might think. This is another kind of restraint which suppresses liberty. There can never be a state where there is a complete absence of restraint because there is always one of these forms of restraint namely, dictated restraint, influenced restraint and self-imposed restraint. If a restraint is always present, then how is it possible to have liberty It is more important to know how the restraint is than what the restraint is. A Modification "The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it."(John Stuart Mill, 1869) Liberty is a state of being, where an individual is sovereign and answerable only to himself; where each is free to put at stake: his own life, his own well-being, his own time and his own property; where each, at all times, lives and acts as he wants within society at his own cost or to his own benefit, as the case may be; subject only and always to the restriction that an individual cannot proceed to act if that act clashes with or is in violation of the liberty of another. Liberty is our birth right. We all are born with liberty and it is required for our evolvement and even our very existence. It is essential in order to have improvement in our life. "All that makes existence valuable to any one depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people. Some rules of conduct, therefore, must be imposed, by law in the first place, and by opinion on many things which are not fit subjects for the operation of law."(John Stuart Mill, 1869) "Freedom consists in a people being governed by laws made with their own consent." [Swift: Drapier's Letters (1725).] Thus, it can be said that the full benefit of liberty cannot be realized without restraining others from intruding our freedom. On the other way round, it can be stated that we have to obey certain laws, a code of conduct, which restrains us from hindering others' liberty. In essence, liberty can be accounted to the fullest use of one's faculties for one's own interests such that, it does not do harm to others by any means. Freedom is the absence of an intentional interference in the private sphere of another person, sufficient to produce the intended effect. "The question is how to secure the greatest possible freedom for all. This can be secured by uniformly restricting the freedom of all by abstract rules that preclude arbitrary or discriminatory coercion by or of other people that prevent any from invading the free sphere of any other. In short, common concrete ends are replaced by common abstract rules. Government is needed only to enforce these abstract rules, and thereby to protect the individual against coercion, or invasion of his free sphere, by others. Whereas enforced obedience to common concrete ends is tantamount to slavery, obedience to common abstract rules (however burdensome they may still feel) provides scope for the most extraordinary freedom and diversity. Although it is sometimes supposed that such diversity brings chaos threatening the relative order that we also associate with civilizations, it turns out that greater diversity brings greater order. ..."( Friedrich A. Hayek, 1989) By laws, we do not mean to take away the freedom of one to give freedom to another. Laws are set common to all and nobody can act against the laws. As long as the sphere of maximum liberty of others remains undisturbed, one can enjoy his liberty. Liberty is not just the absence of restraint but it is the absence of those restraints that harm. Conclusion We have seen how difficult it is to simply define liberty as a single conception, and we have seen with the help of a few references, the characteristics that liberty must possess. In order to explain in the simplest possible way in what significance one can have liberty, there has to be a balance between the extent of restriction imposed, on an individual and that imposed by the individual on the rest of the world. It is finding this balance that has proven to be the most challenging aspect of the ongoing question of liberty, throughout ages. Liberty normally comes to each of us but it only exists in degrees. A little restriction is necessary generally, so that most amount of freedom can be had by everyone in the society. Liberty is necessary, as stated before, as a fundamental necessity to life. But the limitation is that, it cannot be had to that extent, where others' life will be at threat. If liberty be taken away from a person, he will only fall into misery leading to eventual death. Liberty is not an individual concept but it is a collective idea used in a relative manner. Except maybe Robinson Crusoe, all other people in this world have to appreciate others' freedom in order to have their own. There is no such thing as absolute liberty since we all are bound by nature's laws. Within the boundaries set by nature, we can enjoy full liberty if we were to be Robinson Crusoe, on a separate island free from mankind. But since we live in a society of various kinds of people, we need laws like the ones of nature, within which we can bask in liberty. When the boundaries are interfered, liberties will be affected by enforcement of laws. Thus, we can say that liberty cannot be a freewheeling state of living, but it is a state where people are subject to common laws and are compliable to them. The restraints that hinder liberty are those which intrude and impair the sphere of maximum latitude within which one can utilize liberty. Hence it becomes needful to know the kind of restraint to determine liberty. Works Cited David Hume. (1748) "Of Liberty and Necessity." An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. London, Oxford University Press. Friedrich A. Hayek, Prof. W.W. Bartley. ed, The Fatal Conceit, The Errors of Socialism Vol. I, (1989) University of Chicago Press, at pp. 63-4. Herbert Spencer (1891) A Plea for Liberty. New York, Appleton, p. 6 James Fitzjames Stephen. (1873) Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. London, Smith, Elder, & Co., John Stuart Mill, (1869) On Liberty. 4th edition London, Longman, Roberts, & Green Co., p.9 John Stuart Mill, (1869) On Liberty. 4th edition London, Longman, Roberts, & Green Co., p.4 Jonathan Swift (1725), Herbert Davis. ed,(1935) The Drapier's Letters. Oxford, Clarendon Press. Mordecai Roshwald, Liberty: Its Meaning and Scope. Read More