On the Limits of Freedom

The state of Virginia currently has the tightest laws when it comes to speed limits in America.  The interstate limit is 70 mph, which granted, is high, but the state enforces it to a tee.  Virginia is the only state that outlaws radar detectors.  Virginia also greets its visitors with much love and affection - I received a bouquet of flowers from a state trooper last time I crossed its borders.  Oh, wait, I’m thinking of another state.  Virginia greets its visitors with signs like this:

On the surface, this gripping restriction on speed seems like an abhorrent violation of our freedom.  And yet anyone who complains that their freedom is being limited because they can’t drive their BMW at 150mph is clearly not thinking logically.  Of course there needs to be speed limits, and of course they need to be enforced, sometimes strictly, in order for those BMW drivers to understand that it isn’t a speed suggestion.

But why?  Why do we insist that there needs to be limits on our freedom when it comes to things like speed, but we complain about institutions limiting our freedom when it comes to things like sexual morality?  What does it mean to really be free?  The answer, surprisingly, has nothing to do with the kind of “freedom” that is promoted throughout the Western world today.  Indeed, it’s ironic how one of the few things most valued in our society is perhaps the one thing society gets so wrong.

The key to understanding our common misconception with freedom is that we wrongly use the word interchangeably with license.  We lie to ourselves with idioms like, “I’m free to do what I want,” without comprehending the cliche, spitting it out to excuse ourselves of some behavior that tugs at our conscience.

We only need to apply the idiom to practical examples to see its absurdity.  If I am really “free to do what I want,” can I take your laptop for myself if you leave it unattended for a minute at a coffee shop?  Can I drive at 150mph on the interstate if it’s a free country?  The best answer I have received for these rhetorical questions was actually quite perceptive: “Of course not,” one man once told me on an internet forum.  He explained, “you are free insofar as it does not harm other people.”

Herein lies the rub - if freedom is limited to the wellbeing of other people, freedom is therefore trumped by a hierarchy of goods.  Make no mistake: it is very good indeed that we have the ability to choose.  However the question must be asked, “choose what?”  In the examples above, we choose the good of our neighbors’ wellbeing.  Our neighbors are infinitely more good than the good we would achieve by getting a new computation device, or getting to work five minutes early.  By not stealing the laptop and not speeding on the interstate, one sees a good for himself, but then acts in accordance with freedom to choose a higher good.  This is the proper use of human freedom, and fits perfectly with the definition given by the great doctor, Thomas Aquinas: freedom is the ability to choose the good.

Understanding freedom in this context brings us to a stark conclusion: the only hope there is to maintain a truly free society is to enable laws that protect the greater good.  If the greater good is not chosen and men continue to abuse freedom without repercussion, then society will be doomed to fail.  It will be an archetype of what freedom does not look like.

Stay tuned for a follow up post where I mention love, virtue, vice, and the odd proposition that slavery may be better than freedom.