It is extremely important for every person to feel free and independent from external circumstances and from other people. However, it is not at all easy to figure out whether there is true freedom, or whether all our actions are due to necessity.
Freedom and necessity. Concepts and categories
Many believe that freedom is the ability to always do and act as you want, to follow your desires and not depend on someone else's opinion. However, such an approach to the definition of freedom in real life would lead to arbitrariness and infringement of the rights of other people. That is why the concept of necessity stands out in philosophy.
Necessity is some life circumstances that hold back freedom and force a person to act according to common sense and accepted norms in society. Necessity sometimes contradicts our desires, however, thinking about the consequences of our actions, we are forced to limit our freedom. Freedom and necessity in human activity are categories of philosophy, the relationship between which is the subject of dispute for many scientists.
Is there absolute freedom
Total freedom implies the ability of a person to do absolutely whatever he wants, regardless of whether his actions will harm or inconvenience anyone. If everyone could act according to their desires without thinking about the consequences for other people, the world would be in total chaos. For example, if a person wanted to have the same phone as a colleague, having complete freedom, he could simply come and take it away.
That is why society has created certain rules and norms that limit permissiveness. In the modern world, freedom in human activity is regulated, first of all, by law. There are other norms that influence people's behavior, such as etiquette and subordination. Such a restriction of freedom of action gives a person confidence that his rights will not be infringed by others.
The connection between freedom and necessity
In philosophy for a long time there have been disputes about how freedom and the need for human activity are related. Do these concepts contradict each other or, on the contrary, are inseparable.
Freedom and necessity in human activity are considered by some scientists as mutually exclusive concepts. From the point of view of adherents of the theory of idealism, freedom can exist only in conditions in which it is not limited by anyone or anything. In their opinion, any prohibitions make it impossible for a person to understand and evaluatethe moral consequences of his actions.
Proponents of mechanical determinism, on the contrary, believe that all events and actions in a person's life are due to external necessity. They completely deny the existence of free will and define necessity as an absolute and objective concept. In their opinion, all actions performed by people do not depend on their desires and are obviously predetermined.
Scientific approach
From the standpoint of a scientific approach, freedom and the need for human activity are closely interconnected. Freedom is defined as a recognized necessity. A person is not able to influence the objective conditions of his activity, but at the same time he can choose the goal and means to achieve it. Thus, freedom in human activity is an opportunity to make an informed choice. That is, to make this or that decision.
Freedom and the need for human activity cannot exist without each other. In our life, freedom manifests itself as a constant freedom of choice, while necessity is present as objective circumstances in which a person is forced to act.
Freedom of choice in everyday life
Every day a person is given the opportunity to choose. Almost every minute we make decisions in favor of one or another option: get up early in the morning or sleep longer, eat something hearty for breakfast or drink tea, go to work on foot or drive. External circumstances at the same time of our choicedo not influence in any way - a person is guided solely by personal beliefs and preferences.
Freedom is always a relative concept. Depending on the specific conditions, a person may have freedom or lose it. The degree of manifestation is also always different. In some circumstances, a person can choose goals and means to achieve them, in others - freedom lies only in choosing a way to adapt to reality.
Link to progress
In ancient times, people had rather limited freedom. The need for human activity was not always recognized. People depended on nature, the secrets of which the human mind could not comprehend. There was a so-called unknown necessity. Man was not free, for a long time he remained a slave, blindly obeying the laws of nature.
As science advances, people have found answers to many questions. Phenomena that used to be divine for man received a logical explanation. The actions of people became meaningful, and cause-and-effect relationships made it possible to realize the need for certain actions. The higher the progress of society, the freer a person becomes in it. In the modern world in developed countries, only the rights of other people are the boundary of an individual's freedom.
