222. JUSTIFYING FREEDOM - On Assuming Rights We Might Not Have
I’ve been noticing something recently in the classroom. As a Philosophy teacher, we often have discussions and debates on a range of issues. The last few weeks have seen classes talk about the ethics of euthanasia, freedom of speech, trolley problems and resource allocation in hospitals, the ethics of using AI to do your work, and whether teachers are right to set homework at all. And while much of the philosophical discussion is of a very high quality, something keeps happening in these discussions and, when it does, the philosophy tends to fall away.
“If we stop people from being given euthanasia then we’re taking away their right to do what they want with their own life.”
“If we stop people from being able to speak freely they won’t be able to say everything they want to say.”
“Just because there aren’t enough resources for everyone it isn’t a good enough reason to not treat a patient. It unfairly takes away their ability to live their lives.”
“Why can’t I use AI if I want to? Isn’t it my own free choice?”
“Homework stops me doing what I actually want to do in my own free time, and that isn’t right.”
Essentially every discussion seems to come back to some sort of idea that freedom really matters. Freedom of choice, freedom of speech, freedom to do what we want to ourselves and with our own time. However, what never seems to happen is that these arguments about freedom are, themselves, argued for. The freedom claimed is simply assumed. Something self-evident. Of course we should have freedom over our own lives, our own bodies, our own time.
And I am not saying that we shouldn’t have those freedoms. But I am saying that it is important that we can actually argue for why we think we should have them rather than simply assume that we must. Because a little scrutiny and we can see that, at least in our current society, such absolute individual autonomy is not something supported by law. After all, if I try to use my freedom to harm myself or others, I can get sectioned or arrested. If I use my freedom to say whatever I want and what I want to say incites violence or harm, I can be silenced and even put in jail. If I use my freedom to intentionally lie and commit fraud or slander or libel someone, I am committing a crime. If I decide to use the freedom over my own body to fill them with illegal drugs or use my freedom of speech to support a proscribed terrorist group, I swiftly find out that, in the eyes of the law, such freedom shouldn’t be allowed.
And whether we agree with the specific laws in place — the specific forbidden substances or proscribed organisations; the specific self-harms which are illegal compared to the many legal ones — we can understand that there is a legitimate argument which supports their existence. Arguments based on the harm principle or forms of paternalism. Arguments based on mutual security or the preservation of other, interconnected, freedoms (my freedom from eviction under property law precludes your freedom to steal my home, or take my job from me even if you would like it very much). In a world where all of our lives are entwined with other lives and the things we do impact others, freedom of any kind does not take place within a vacuum, and comes up repeatedly against our responsibilities to others. A parent, for example, may not really be free to quit their job and travel the world, even if it remains possible for them to do that, because their obligations to feed their children and keep a roof over their heads prevent certain choices. A partner in a committed monogamous relationship gives up their freedom to see other people for many reasons, a significant one being the way it would affect the emotions of the person they have promised fidelity to.
In the UK, specifically, freedom of speech has never been guaranteed. We have some of the strictest libel laws in the world and no formal constitutional right to free speech. We have entrenched class hierarchies that have long embedded inequalities in freedom of movement up and down the economic ladder until recent ideas of social mobility, which are themselves largely out of our individual control. Indeed, the students constantly raising the spectre of freedom to me are doing so in the classrooms they are legally obliged to be in at their age. They are not even free enough to choose not to attend their Philosophy lessons until they reach the age of GCSE options.
All of which is to say that while the arguments for freedom are there, and certainly the arguments for more freedoms, if not total absolute libertarianism, freedom is not as self-evident as these young people seem to think it is, and an appeal to individual freedom is not the knock-down killer argument they seem to think that it is. In a world where are freedoms are routinely curtailed, often for very good collective reasons, the argument that X can’t be allowed because it will take away some freedom or another is simply insufficient. Moreover, the entitled assumption coming from so many students that their own individual freedom should be sacrosanct over any other, collective, obligations that we might have, perhaps points to a worrying breakdown in some of the old shared assumptions of society that makes civilisation work? Once we fail to see our collective duties and obligations to those with whom we share a society, and operate on the principle of “do what you want”, we cease to have a society. We have more of what we have now. Atomistic, disconnected individualism. Dog-eat-dog competition and dwindling safety nets. Lost compassion and vanishing empathy.
Perhaps my students simply have a blindspot when it comes to the arguments for individual freedom. Or perhaps it points to a wider issue that we all are forgetting those mutual bonds we trade some of our freedoms for in order to do more together than we can alone?
Author: DaN McKee (he/him)
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