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Defining Human Freedom

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Man has always struggled to find his very meaning and his own freedom. Millions of years have passed since the world’s creation giving way for humanity to achieve so many things and yet, has man even achieved his own freedom? Can every single man living on the Earth’s soil really claim himself free and unbroken with his own autonomy? When we speak of the word, “Freedom”, it is more than just man’s breakage from the shackles that enclose him to a tight four-walled room. Freedom has various different terms, essentially, freedom means that man is in control of his destiny or that he is in charge of his life. Needless to say, looking at the present society our world has, human freedom is still far imperceptible. Human freedom will never be said valid until no single person in the world is deprived to have power over his own destiny and live his life under his own conditions. Nowadays, not everyone is guaranteed of freedom, neither from his sexuality, religion, or his personal desires. Man is supposedly in charge of creating and re-creating his destinies, being the sole agent of change in his very life and the society where he lives. The norms and customs are all reminders to man of the limits of his freedom and what they believe is right, and not essentially a hindrance for man to manifest himself as a free being. It is a social context to what man is only capable for because he can also have a tendency to overestimate his limits. There are huge differences between human freedom and overindulgence. It is when man misuses his free will into abuse that makes society be restrictive. Defining Human Freedom In describing the meaning of Human Freedom, we look unto the words of the established German philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He did not believe that there was such a thing as human nature, he did provide two possibilities he found most reasonable. The first, freedom, relates directly to our question; the second, a capacity for self-perfection, also supports it. Rousseau compares freedom in terms of the animals. He states that animals are slaves in nature, they have thinking and observing capacities as humans do, but they already have a mindset to what positions they can only portray in the animal kingdom. Humans, however, differ from the rest of the living beings. Man has the capability to follow and enact his objectives, for he has the free will to do so. Man and animals both have imprinted instincts, but man has the ability to override them. In that ability to override instincts lays Rousseau’s definition of free will. For instance, a girl may skip sleeping early in the midst of a heating and exciting movie marathon. Although she can just easily close her eyes and fall to an immediate sleep as she wishes, she overrides it in order to do something which instinct provides him no reason to do. According to Rousseau, an animal would not do so. Also under his assertions, the ability to advance as a species and as an individual also supports human freedom.  Animals can, to a very limited degree; most grow to a better-adapted adult stage and all are able to learn to a limited degree through conditioning.  What make humans different is their ability to make huge leaps and bounds, far surpassing their “natural” abilities and evolving into a society that freely manifests the resources of nature into modern industrial and technological advancements.  It is man’s free will that thrives him to these advancements and evolution. What man is today is a result of what man risked from yesterday. Scientists, geologists, doctors and all other professions did not reach an astounding advancement in today’s world if not of the free will of the same persons that came before them who strived and risked what they believed was true disregarding any circumstances. Even in Rousseau’s refutation of freedom as human nature we find support for the existence of this type of free will.  Freedom means that all individuals are able to act differently and against instinct.  Thus, the only thing we have in common is that we’re differe

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