Freedom is it the ability to choose good or evil, or is true freedom the ability to choose good?

Question

If I choose to smoke crack am I still free or have I lost my freedom.
If I choose to smoke cigarettes am I still free or have I lost my freedom. Could we say that the day I chose a wrong action was the day I lost my freedom. How free are You?

Answer 1

Friend - I think true freedom is knowing good from evil and being able to choose it. If you break a law in a choice you make, then you may loose SOME freedoms (in the US).

If you break a law in a choice you make, then you are still free to make the right choice by accepting responsibility for the choice you made and not blaming others or society for your wrong choice.

All in life is freedom to make a choice, but knowing and being willing to pay the consequences, good or bad for the choice you make. GB

Answer 2

I sometimes define 'freedom' as the gap in time between when a desire first manifests and that desire is satiated. By this definition, freedom is very dependant on the kind of desire and the amount of power you possess.

For example, suppose you wanted to pick your nose. In most circumstances that's not a problem - the gap is almost nonexistent. However even here we can imagine some people who have no fingers (or nose!) and thus lack power, and those who are in circumstances (at the office) where they feel that they cannot and thus lack as much freedom.

Or suppose you wanted to move somewhere. If you are a medieval serf, you may long all your life to do this and never accumulate enough power to do so. Today, you might need to save up some money, perhaps make some arrangements for an apartment or something, so it might take you a month or two. If you were a mega-millionaire, you could probably have one or your 'people' acquire a house and have it furnished for you by the time you arrived in an hour.

If your desire is to fly through the air on your own power, then no amount of terrestrial power right now is likely to be able to grant you this. Everybody has an indefinite gap. But maybe some aliens could pull it off, or a god could float merrily along, should the desire manifest.

It is worth nothing that by this definition the ONLY way to be COMPLETELY free is to be omipotent. So don't hold your breath on that one.

Or, if we take up the example of smoking crack, a person who has no desire to smoke crack is not free to do it. With no desire present, the question is a non sequitur.

But let us suppose that everyone has at least some minute desire to smoke crack... after all, a person might be curious, or understand that the sensation can be quite pleasant. In this sense, we might say that nobody really has NO desire to smoke crack - they just have greater desires to not smoke it. In that sense they are slaves. Until their desires change or crack is forced upon them, they have no hope of ever smoking crack. And they are less free than their crack-smoking brethren.

I would say this is almost patently obvious, though. When we think of total freedom, things like fear of addiction, withdrawal, social disapproval, or physical ruin don't come into the equation. A person who has to worry about those things is not free. They just have a different kind of chain. A person who DOESN'T worry about those things (perhaps even if they should) is also more free.

Answer 3

Freedom is the ability to choose. But you are right to say that a drug addict has lost (or given up) their freedom because they are now a self-made prisoner or slave to an addiction that is very difficult, if not impossible to quit. They still have the freedom to get help & change their lives if they choose. Many have done so, against all odds. (Whether it's alcohol, heroin, nicotine, food, sex or any other unhealthy addiction. You are always free to change your life. Some people just forget this however. Or refuse to see it.)

Being free to only choose good isn't freedom. Freedom is about choice. As soon as you limit choices, you limit freedom. Certainly boundaries can be a good thing (for instance, you want to give your children rules & structure to limit their freedom to an extent for their own good, such as curfew etc. This is just showing that you care. To give a child too much freedom is actually negligent & is more damaging than being too strict with them. It's tough as a parent to get the perfect balance but that's what's needed. Just enough freedom & discipline.)

God gives us freewill to do as we choose, though he tries to give us guidelines & hopes we go in the right direction, we control our own destinies. Otherwise we'd just be puppets on a string doing only what he wanted us to. What would be the point of that?

With freedom comes responsibility. We must be careful what we choose. Sometimes when you make a bad decision, you can lose some of your freedom (for instance, you commit a crime & get caught, now you're in jail. But even there you are free to make the best of it, to become rehabilitated. To make the most of your time, to develop a positive attitude & improve yourself & your life, get time off for good behaviour etc. Even at the lowest point of your life, you always have some measure of freedom. You have the freedom to choose how you react to your situation. You have the freedom to change if you really want to.)

I'm very free in the sense that I've made my own choices and am happy with them. I'm not a slave to any sort of addiction. The only time I don't feel free is at work because I hate my job, but admittedly even there I am free to quit if I really wanted, I could find another job, etc. I just choose to stay because it's easier & is a means to an end (enough money to afford my house etc).

Answer 4

Depends on what you think. If you say to yourself, If I start smoking crack, I'd lose my freedom, and then you start smoking crack, then boom, your freedom is gone. And that has nothing to do with whether you get addicted to crack or not. And the society says that smoking crack is for dirty, uncivilized losers, and that if you smoke it that means you're a dirty, uncivilized loser. So you get the impression that smoking crack is bad. But for instance if you lived in a society where crack isn't considered a bad thing, then you wouldn't think of it as a bad thing. You could get a heart attack and die. So what? You're gonna die sooner or later. If you're addicted to crack, you're not addicted because of anything that is in crack. You're addicted because your brain has told you that you were addicted. You can't quit because you don't want to quit. If you really had freedom, it wouldn't matter what you choose, because you can always change it. The problem is that you don't have freedom. That's why you choose evil.

Answer 5

First, who is to say what is good or evil?
Could it be that what is good for one person may be bad for another? Hence evil.
Or what is good at one point in time is said to be evil at another.

I am having a hard time putting the choice between "good or evil" as a determining factor of how free one is.
For me, freedom is the ability to choose be it good or evil in some one elses eyes. I can not choose for others or worry about their thoughts on good or evil for that would limit my freedom.

Answer 6

This question may be simply the result of a funky use of grammar. The freedom to choose between good and evil must includes the ability to choose good, or it contradicts itself. Likewise, the ability to choose good, rather than the power simply to cause it without choice. implies some option beyond good, that option necessarily being something other than good, meaning evil.

Answer 7

with smoking stuff you still have freedom but your just putting a limit on how long ur life is. and the day u lost freedom is when u give up. you dont have to believe god. you can do whatever. laws just makes it so u dont f*k up too bad. im very free. right now im free to kill my family but im on the computer so i dont. im free to do whatever i want. ARE YOU

Answer 8

Whether or not you choose to smoke ciggarettes or crack or whatever else,you still have the freedom to stop if you want to.So,I think you would still have freedom in some way or another.

Answer 9

I would say that when you first use to smoke crack, if it is truly your decision and you are not forced into it by peers, then you have freedom, but after the drug starts to take hold and addiction impairs your choices, then you are no longer free.

TW x

Answer 10

Having a choice is freedom. People make bad choices. True freedom is the ability to make wise choices.