Personal Autonomy and Freedom
Freedoms are inherent human rights; however we do not have the freedom to infringe on the rights of others. Are our freedoms free, a figment of our imagination, a side effect of free will, or dictated my our government or society? In the western world, and throughout the civilized world, debates have been ongoing as to what inherent rights are, and what they are not. Some laws and freedoms, across every generation and culture, allow or show people how to act within a culture and allow for punishment of those who manipulate those freedoms or break the laws of the culture. However, is this freedom relative or absolute? Cicero and Kant set forth this determination within two quotes which examine autonomy, freedom, and morality. Autonomy is a sense of independence or a person’s free will. Government cannot strip us of our free will; neither can our free will be determined or undermined by an outside force. In other words, our sense of right and wrong is both learned and innate. While Cicero determines this autonomy is free from governmental influence, Kant determines that morality is not absolute, nor is it necessarily universal.
Throughout our lives, we as people have a quest to run our lives as independent as possible, within the culture we are a part of. As babies, we are dependent on our parents to take care of us and teach us life skills. As we grow, we surrender our independence to our parents until we learn how to thrive and make decisions on our own. We learn how to navigate the social norms within the culture which we remain a part of, and forge our independence from our parents into adulthood. As adults we learn that our free will or our freedoms have limitations.
When our free will or freedoms infringe upon the rights of others then should the public or government have the right to place boundaries on our freedoms? For example, one of the newest debates within the American culture is whether a smoker’s rights are being suppressed due to the non-smoker’s rights to clean air. A smoker may argue that they should have the right to smoke wherever they want; on the other side of the issue, non-smokers think it is against their rights to have to endure the effects of second hand smoke. So, then the question becomes who’s to say who’s rights should be observed.
Practical reason is a human beings ability to resolve issues, through reflection, about what he or she should do. Bader (2009) states, “Categories of freedom or categories of practical reason are fundamental practical concepts that can be used in practical contexts and are concerned with rules for actions” (p. 801). In other words the concepts discussed in the quotes by Cicero and Kant refers to concepts of freedom and practical reasoning which are used in our daily lives from the moral choices we make to the fulfillment of our duties to ourselves and our fellow humans. Practical reason would then tell us that smokers have no rights when their bad habit effects negatively on non-smokers.
Kant is, in his indirect way, stating that “imperatives of duty” (or fulfillment of duty) does not rest on the consequences of our actions. “However, the results of an action may be necessary in determining duty” (Guthrie, 2001). Guthrie states that Kant recognizes morality as an “unconditional ought”. In other words, he believed we should perform an act without desiring a reward for that behavior. When an act is considered universal, such as smoking is wrong, then the consequences towards the behavior should be the same across the board. To make an act universal means to make it a norm or one act that is generally accepted by other people within the culture. A maxim is a rule of conduct. Therefore, Kant is stating that any rule of conduct should not be considered a generally accepted norm since it is not considered an absolute.
If one was to explore the differences of relative freedom versus absolute freedom, they could say that relative freedom exists but absolute freedom does not since the idea of freedom is alluded to because there are no limitations, boundaries, or restraints. In other words freedom is just a figment of our imagination or dreams (Pardeep, 2007). Absolute freedom does not exist because all freedom has limitation set within the cultural norms.
It seems as if Cicero and Kant contradict each other, however freedom is innate (part of our inner selves) and gives us autonomy, which should not be denied by any outward influence – whether it be government or a smoker. By recognizing our inner autonomy, we recognize an absolute truth about our freedom; which is that freedom (which is one's true nature and ever present) is realized simply by remembering it can also be relative (objective). Cicero and Kant both explore the absolute and relative definitions of this freedom, as well as free will and morality. We have the freedom to decide what we think is right or wrong, provided our decisions stay within the societal norms, or what Cicero refers to as Universal. So, whether it is absolute or relative, freedoms are still the right of every person, provided it does not over-ride the rights of other people. Whether the government sets our freedoms or we, as a people, practice our own autonomy and self-control, free will cannot be taken from us.
References
- Bader, R. (2009). Kant and the Categories of Freedom. British Journal for the History of
Philosophy, 17(4), 799-820. doi:10.1080/09608780903135121.
- Guthrie, S. L. (2001). Immanuel Kant and the Categorical Imperative. The Examined Life on
line Philosophy Journal II(7). Retrieved on http://sguthrie.net/kant.htm.
- Pardeep, S. (2004 – 2007). Relative truth: the spiritual realm versus Absolute truth: the
Metaphysical realm. Retrieved from http://www.theself.com/absolutevsrelativetruth.cfm.
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