Thinking Ethically About Freedom

In modern societies today, it seems largely the case that people are (at least nominally) in favor of freedom. Very few argue for social models of slavery. This is hardly a very enthusiastic endorsement of freedom, but it can at least serve as a starting point where most people agree. What remains to be hammered out, and what is often found lacking beneath the rhetoric, is what is meant by the term. What does freedom entail? How are we properly to use whatever freedom we have? Freedom can be seen largely as a question of how we are to act. To contend that a person is free is really to claim that a person is free to perform some action. And such action, if we are thinking ethically about freedom, may or may not be viewed as acceptable moral behavior.

Many theorists working on the question of what freedom, in fact, means have spoken about it in terms of freedom being unwarrantedly restricted only when one person is dictating the actions of another. A restriction of freedom is a question of whether one person imposes his or her will upon another; whether one person makes another do something he or she did not want to do. Suppose I am in my apartment and there is someone at the door who wants to enter. I would prefer he did not. If I do not allow him entry, it may be the case that my will is winning out, but I am not imposing my will upon the person. I do not force the person not to enter, I just do not permit it.

This notion of freedom, then, must presuppose a right I exercise with regard to who enters my apartment. An unwarranted restriction of liberty occurs only if someone prevents another from doing what he or she has a right to do. Whether my stopping a neighbor from using profane speech is an unwarranted restriction of his freedom, or whether his profane speech is an unwarranted restriction of mine, depends upon who possesses the right. And this will depend upon, among other things, where we are; whether we are in his apartment or mine. Here, the term freedom only makes sense against a background of individual rights.

The statement expressing this notion of freedom is most commonly attributed to J. S. Mill:

I would be hard-pressed to deny the wisdom and appeal of this passage. A social arrangement based upon the notion of freedom Mill expressed in On Liberty -- limiting coercive state intrusion expressly to those instances where one is harming another -- might be the best we could ever expect. However, Mill's credo fails as a minimum moral acceptance level that guides individuals in their interactions with each other and as a standard with which people might evaluate the appropriateness of their actions. Serious problems with respect to how we are to properly use our freedom remain with Mill's viewpoint. To put it another way, it is a mistake to confuse a political theory with a moral theory. C. S. Lewis recognized this difference:

But it probably would not be a Christian apologist who would deny the importance of ethical behavior. As we will see below, Lewis certainly does not. The point is that the questions: "When are your actions acceptable?" and "How are you to be moral?" are not primarily determined by the political body. The minimum moral acceptance level may sometimes involve more than what can be legislated and more than the Millean credo. As such, these considerations may be calling for a better guide for people regarding how they might properly use their freedom.

Moral philosophers have long searched for some model of universal application whereby an action may be judged with regard to its rightness or wrongness. Some libertarian-minded theorists active in this field have offered solid contributions, applying Mill's credo. The libertarian model establishes a minimum moral acceptance level consisting in the rights of others. Actions negotiating this hurdle may be seen as falling onto a continuum from the dutiful, merely observing these rights, to the supererogatory, actions exceeding minimum obligations. Those who fail even to observe the rights of others fall below the minimum moral acceptance level.

There are actually two ways to set up this model. They are outlined by Robert Nozick, and referred to as the "utilitarianism of rights" and the side-constraint view.³ The first, "utilitarianism of rights," replaces maximization of social utility with minimization of violations of rights in the model. According to Nozick, "This ... would require us to violate someone's rights when doing so minimizes the total (weighted) amount of the violation of rights in the society."⁴ This is true because the rule calls for a minimization of a weighted aggregate. For example, whether or not the small-town sheriff gives up an innocent person to an angry but mistaken lynch mob depends upon how many, and how important, are the rights violations exhibited by the mob in acting out their frustration.

The second alternative incorporates side-constraints to determine what actions may be done: "Don't violate constraints C. The rights of others determine the constraints upon your actions."⁵ This is simply what I referred to as the libertarian model above. This view allows us to differentiate among those who do meet the minimum moral acceptance level. For example, Montgomery Burns in the television cartoon The Simpsons is greedy and vicious even when he does observe the rights of others. Though he is above the minimum level, we are able to place him lower on the continuum than someone who is, for example, kind and compassionate.

Judith Jarvis Thomson has taken exception to Nozick's side- constraint view, challenging the idea that it is always below the minimum moral acceptance level to infringe upon someone's rights.⁶ She uses the following illustration: "There is a child who will die if he is not given some drug in the near future. The only bit of that drug that can be obtained for him in the near future is yours. You are out of town, and hence cannot be asked for consent within the available time."⁷ Thomson argues that we do not act wrongly if we take the drug for the child. The argument turns on the question of whether or not rights are always absolute. Thomson argues they are not.⁸

Thomson's argument is that we may not be engaging in wrongdoing when we infringe upon someone's right. However, I would like to consider an alternative case where, even assuming that an infringement constitutes a wrongdoing, it may be the case that someone who never infringes may actually be "worse" than a person who does. Keeping with our previous example, assume that Montgomery Burns never violates the rights of any of the people of Springfield. He is above the moral baseline, but because of his greediness and viciousness, just not that far above. However, Bart Simpson frequently violates the rights of those around him. He is below the level of minimum acceptability. But we would not want to say that Bart is "worse than;" i.e., less moral, than Burns. That is, under what I called the libertarian model, we could think of many examples where someone who respects the rights of others could generally be held in lower regard than someone who would fall below this view's minimum moral baseline. This appears counter- intuitive, and suggests that a minimum moral acceptance level must involve not only more than what can be legislated but also more than what is called for by Mill's libertarian credo.

Indeed, it seems that the two depend on one another. If the ships are always colliding, they will not be seaworthy for long. And if some internal mechanism is fouled up, they may not be able to avoid colliding.¹⁰ Morality is concerned with, if nothing else, relations between individuals and their own internal mechanisms. It is more than "it isn't wrong because it doesn't hurt anyone." Richard Epstein put it this way: "You would deliver a feeble eulogy if all you said was that the deceased won over the admiration of a large circle of friends by avoiding criminal misconduct and by honoring contracts."¹¹

In going about the exercise of constructing an ethic that avoids the problems discussed above and incorporates an expanded minimum moral acceptance level, I am confronted with two problems of my own. It seems unlikely that any model of the structure of the moral view I would present could be as objective (in the sense that it clearly and concisely evaluates the rightness of many different actions), as the framework I have criticized. That is, I need a standard of evaluation. Also, as I have previously mentioned, the minimum moral acceptance level is not for the political body to determine -- I need a means of enforcement.

With regard to the means of enforcement, informal systems of social control are at work every day. Perhaps it seems as if they are not as prevalent today as in the past. But it is one thing to say that they are not used as much, and another to say that they are not as pervasive. That is, informal sanctions are still in use, but, for better or for worse, they are more permissive.

With regard to the standard of evaluation, which I take to be the more difficult problem, I would fashion my model to the method Aristotle employed in approaching the same problem. Rather than a model that for any given incident provides a yes-no answer with regard to what one may do, Aristotle employed the concept of "hitting the mean." He discussed for each virtue what hitting the mean entailed. For me to try this is obviously beyond the scope of this paper. But I do need to address some obvious questions that confront an attempt at an expanded minimum moral acceptance level.

Henry Hazlitt illustrated the problem I am referring to as follows: "If even a hundred other unarmed citizens are by when a bandit is robbing one of them at gunpoint, is it the duty of one of the bystanders to try to take the gun away? And which one?"¹²

The answer I want to give is that it depends. In fact, it depends in a way that is, again, similar to the way it depended for Aristotle.

Explaining what he meant by the mean, Aristotle wrote, "By the intermediate in the object I mean what is equidistant from each extremity; this is one and the same for everyone. But relative to us the intermediate is what is neither superfluous nor deficient; this is not one, and is not the same for everyone."¹³ Therefore, for Aristotle, what constitutes, for example, the virtue of courage is different for each person depending on one's aptitude for it.

Lewis' discussion of this idea was, in many respects, similar. He referred to the idea of a person's "raw material."¹⁴ For example, imagine that three people go to war. Person A has the natural fear of danger that anyone may have but subdues it and is able to perform his duty. However, Persons B and C have exaggerated or irrational fears that prevent them from performing their duties regardless of considerable moral effort. Now suppose a psychoanalyst is able to cure both of them of their paranoia. Here is where the "raw material" problem ends and the moral problem begins. Imagine Person B now makes the moral decision to perform his duty. However, Person C is determined to look just after himself and will shirk his duties whenever possible. The difference between Persons B and C is purely a moral one. Given that people possess a healthy "raw material," what you get is the "real, free choice of the man, on the [situation] presented to him, either to put his own advantage first or to put it last. And this free choice is the only thing that morality is concerned with."¹⁵ For Lewis, then, after becoming, in a sense, free from their irrational fears, Persons B and C have different ideas about how best to use their freedom. Both are now able to do what they ought, but only one ends up doing so.

This same idea can be illustrated as follows: Suppose a small child crawls out onto the ledge of a tall building. There are two people present who could walk out and rescue the child. Person A has an intense fear of heights. Person B is a professional tightrope walker. If neither rescue the child, then because of their "raw materials," Person A is less blameworthy than Person B. And if Person A forces himself out onto the ledge and rescues the child, then he would be more praiseworthy than Person B would have been if he had rescued the child. For Lewis, then, the actions of individuals are not evaluated on the basis of a person's "raw material" but on what one has done with it. This is the standard of evaluation.

J. S. Mill's definition of freedom expressed in On Liberty, the view that strictly enforced rights of individuals are of paramount importance, while proving to be more than governments can effectively legislate, turns out to be much less than society should expect. The question of freedom is a question of how we are to act. It is decided by the manner in which we interact with others and tied up with what we conceive to be moral behavior. This kind of freedom is impossible to ensure solely through legislation. It entails more than simply being free from others harming you. Yet this minimal security is necessary. But once this minimal level has been secured, a more meaningful experience of freedom will be found in active benevolence, kindness, and compassion toward others -- from small, gratuitous acts to the heroic.

Kyle Swan is a graduate student in philosophy at Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio. His interests include issues in moral, political, and social philosophy.