# Contested concept: freedom

_**What you are reading**: one contested-concept page in Deliberus's deliberation graph. Deliberus maps human reasoning — including claims that are contested, mistaken, or extreme — so that disagreement can be examined precisely. A claim's presence here is not an endorsement: the graph records that someone argued it, how it connects to other reasoning, and how far scrutiny has gotten. The metadata on this page describes the state of that scrutiny, not the truth of the claim._

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- **Contestedness**: criterion
- **Diagnosis**: Disagreement on whether humans are free reflects deeper disagreement over what standard of freedom is worth wanting.
- **Canonical**: `/concept/freedom` (data: `/concept/freedom.json`)

## Senses in use
- **Negative liberty to act without restriction (to breed, use the commons); defended by opponents as rights, but self-destructive when it leads to ruin** — used in 5 claim(s)
- **Freedom as integration of thought and moral imagination, and relative freedom in degrees** — used in 4 claim(s)
- **Absolute freedom of choice is unwise, but determinism is also incorrect** — used in 3 claim(s)
- **Freedom as absence of hindrance or coercion** — used in 3 claim(s)
- **Freedom as transcending the causal universe or realizing the separateness of matter and self** — used in 3 claim(s)
- **Freedom gained through mutual constraint, as with laws against robbing, or Hegel's 'recognition of necessity'** — used in 3 claim(s)
- **Freedom as causal indetermination and origination** — used in 2 claim(s)
- **Freedoms ranked by precedence: breeding sacrificed to preserve more precious freedoms** — used in 2 claim(s)

## Claims using this term
- [There are really two notions of freedom: voluntary action and origination.](/claim/claim_0749eb6eb5a0.md) _(sense: Freedom as causal indetermination and origination)_
- [Steiner argues that outer freedom is attained by permeating our deeds with moral imagination.](/claim/claim_0e777445811f.md) _(sense: Freedom as integration of thought and moral imagination, and relative freedom in degrees)_
- [Steiner argues that inner freedom is achieved when we integrate our sensory impressions, which reflect the outer appearance of the world, w…](/claim/claim_11f6f716527b.md) _(sense: Freedom as integration of thought and moral imagination, and relative freedom in degrees)_
- [It is the newly proposed infringements [of personal liberty, through new enclosures of the commons] that we vigorously oppose; cries of "ri…](/claim/claim_1e547674e7ba.md) _(sense: Negative liberty to act without restriction (to breed, use the commons); defended by opponents as rights, but self-destructive when it leads to ruin)_
- [Individuals locked into the logic of the commons are free only to bring on universal ruin.](/claim/claim_3c50742563b3.md) _(sense: Negative liberty to act without restriction (to breed, use the commons); defended by opponents as rights, but self-destructive when it leads to ruin)_
- [The only way we can preserve and nurture other and more precious freedoms is by relinquishing the freedom to breed, and that very soon.](/claim/claim_482f6c29157e.md) _(sense: Freedoms ranked by precedence: breeding sacrificed to preserve more precious freedoms)_
- [Hegel said, "Freedom is the recognition of necessity."](/claim/claim_53168691ea2d.md) _(sense: Freedom gained through mutual constraint, as with laws against robbing, or Hegel's 'recognition of necessity')_
- [Freedom to breed will bring ruin to all.](/claim/claim_5c93e413c579.md) _(sense: Negative liberty to act without restriction (to breed, use the commons); defended by opponents as rights, but self-destructive when it leads to ruin)_
- [[In Buddhism,] the idea that humans have no choice in life or that their lives are pre-determined is incorrect, [as is the idea of absolute…](/claim/claim_5d601bde08c2.md) _(sense: Absolute freedom of choice is unwise, but determinism is also incorrect)_
- [Once individuals locked into the logic of the commons see the necessity of mutual coercion, they become free to pursue other goals.](/claim/claim_5d7b1ea3f6c4.md) _(sense: Freedom gained through mutual constraint, as with laws against robbing, or Hegel's 'recognition of necessity')_
- [Steiner aims to show that true freedom is only achieved when inner and outer freedom are united.](/claim/claim_69d1d6d498a6.md) _(sense: Freedom as integration of thought and moral imagination, and relative freedom in degrees)_
- [If the assumption that decisions reached individually will be the best decisions for an entire society is not correct, we need to reexamine…](/claim/claim_7334e32861c4.md) _(sense: Freedoms ranked by precedence: breeding sacrificed to preserve more precious freedoms)_
- [[Freedom] cannot be found [in this universe].](/claim/claim_78efde207abd.md) _(sense: Freedom as transcending the causal universe or realizing the separateness of matter and self)_
- [[In Aristotle and Epictetus], it was the fact that nothing hindered us from doing or choosing something that made us have control over [the…](/claim/claim_7a4f5577defb.md) _(sense: Freedom as absence of hindrance or coercion)_
- [To acquire freedom we have to get beyond the limitations of this universe](/claim/claim_7fc1b82aba42.md) _(sense: Freedom as transcending the causal universe or realizing the separateness of matter and self)_
- [Equally incorrect [as the idea of absolute freedom of choice] is the idea that humans have no choice in life or that their lives are pre-de…](/claim/claim_8fdbb4da79b0.md) _(sense: Absolute freedom of choice is unwise, but determinism is also incorrect)_
- [man has relative freedom, i.e. freedom in degrees](/claim/claim_92290182d92b.md) _(sense: Freedom as integration of thought and moral imagination, and relative freedom in degrees)_
- [[In Alexander of Aphrodisias], what makes us have control over things is the fact that we are causally undetermined in our decision and thu…](/claim/claim_95e1e37ba635.md) _(sense: Freedom as causal indetermination and origination)_
- [Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the com…](/claim/claim_973695601c91.md) _(sense: Negative liberty to act without restriction (to breed, use the commons); defended by opponents as rights, but self-destructive when it leads to ruin)_
- [[Like the judgments of courts of law about free will,] political liberty is a non-metaphysical concept.](/claim/claim_d17605992b26.md) _(sense: Freedom as absence of hindrance or coercion)_
- [When men mutually agreed to pass laws against robbing, mankind became more free, not less so.](/claim/claim_d92c881df837.md) _(sense: Freedom gained through mutual constraint, as with laws against robbing, or Hegel's 'recognition of necessity')_
- [Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.](/claim/claim_eccab1023263.md) _(sense: Negative liberty to act without restriction (to breed, use the commons); defended by opponents as rights, but self-destructive when it leads to ruin)_
- [In Buddhism it is taught that the idea of absolute freedom of choice (that is that any human being could be completely free to make any cho…](/claim/claim_f94ee5183cfa.md) _(sense: Absolute freedom of choice is unwise, but determinism is also incorrect)_
- [Free will holds as long as humans are not externally constrained or coerced](/claim/claim_fd3b01a669d9.md) _(sense: Freedom as absence of hindrance or coercion)_
- [For the Samkhya school, the only real freedom (*kaivalya*) consists in realizing the ultimate separateness of matter and self.](/claim/claim_ff2b14a062a6.md) _(sense: Freedom as transcending the causal universe or realizing the separateness of matter and self)_