We talk and read a lot about freedom and liberty, often with an unstated assumption that the meaning of these terms is universal and self-evident.
I've always thought that a free country meant that you could pretty much do whatever you wanted as long as you weren't hurting anyone else.
However, I've recently come across a couple of quotes which struck me both by their similarity, and also with a realization that conservatives, especially religious conservatives, sometimes use the word "freedom" in a special sense, one that is strongly tied to their own subjective morality and notion of "virtue".
First up,
Rick Santorum (from a review of his book a couple of years ago):
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In Santorum's view, freedom is not the same as liberty. Or, to put it differently, there are two kinds of freedom. One is "no-fault freedom," individual autonomy uncoupled from any larger purpose:
"freedom to choose, irrespective of the choice." This, he says, is "the liberal definition of freedom," and it is the one that has taken over in the culture and been imposed on the country by the courts.
Quite different is
"the conservative view of freedom," "the liberty our Founders understood." This is
"freedom coupled with the responsibility to something bigger or higher than the self." True liberty is freedom in the service of virtue—not "the freedom to be as selfish as I want to be," or "the freedom to be left alone," but "the freedom to attend to one's duties—duties to God, to family, and to neighbors."
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Then today, I saw the
same general idea:
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“The country was founded,” [Tim Minnery, vice president of public policy for Focus on the Family] said, “on a belief that freedom is an inalienable right that comes from the hand of God himself.
That freedom is not a freedom to do what you want; that’s anarchy.
It is a freedom to do what you ought to do.”
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Personally, my hedonistic notion of freedom is precisely the freedom to be as selfish as I want to be, as well as the freedom to be left alone, obviously within limits.
But it also occurs to me that this notion of freedom in the service of virtue could appeal both to values-conscious religious conservatives (as above) as well as socialist-leaning liberals who are willing to sacrifice personal freedom in order to advance the common collective good.
What's your definition of freedom? Is there anyone who advocates Santorum's "conservative view of freedom"?