Updated:
Throughout time, philosophers have and will
continue to debate the concept of Liberty/Freedom. For simple clarification, I
am defining what I mean by the term Republican freedom.
Republican freedom is a condition where
individuals, through a democratic process, give up certain freedoms to create a
state of collective freedom for the whole, based on the following principles:
This model draws from classical republican
traditions while grounding them in divine authority, emphasizing that true
liberty originates from God and is exercised through self-governance. The
divine aspect is central: God's grant of dominion (as referenced in Genesis
The U.S. Constitution is based on the
republican freedom model. I believe the Founding Fathers had this vision in
mind when drafting it, blending Enlightenment ideas of self-governance with a
profound respect for divine providence. As evident in documents like the
Declaration of Independence, which appeals to "the Laws of Nature and of
Nature's God" and asserts that governments derive "their just powers
from the consent of the governed," the Constitution embodies a system
where sovereign individuals—endowed by their Creator with unalienable
rights—establish a republic to secure those blessings of liberty. This
republican structure, with its checks and balances, federalism, and emphasis on
civic virtue, prevents domination and arbitrary power, aligning closely with
the principles outlined here.
In today's political landscape, I feel the
Republican Party represents the best hope among the two major parties for
reviving and preserving this concept. By championing limited government,
individual rights, and traditional values rooted in faith, the party echoes the
founders' intent to protect God-given liberties from overreach. While not
perfect, its focus on constitutional originalism and resistance to expansive
federal power offers a pathway to restore republican freedom in an era of
growing centralization.
To further clarify and build upon this model, I
recommend considering it through the lens of "Constitutional
Liberty," a term that captures the essence of republican freedom while
highlighting its constitutional embodiment. Constitutional Liberty is a
condition where individuals, empowered by their God-given dominion and liberty,
exercise self-governance through a democratic process to establish and maintain
a framework of collective freedom. This term underscores the U.S. Constitution
as the practical manifestation of republican principles, where:
By framing republican freedom as Constitutional
Liberty, we gain a clearer, more actionable understanding that honors the
divine origins while applying them to contemporary challenges. This expanded
view reinforces that liberty is both a personal gift from God and a collective
achievement through constitutional means, ensuring a free society for
generations to come.
“……freedom is not merely the
enjoyment of a sphere of non-interference but the enjoyment of certain
conditions in which such non-interference is guaranteed (see especially Pettit
1997, 2001, 2007, and Skinner 1998, 2002, 2007)…. I am free only if I
live in a society with the kinds of political institutions that guarantee the
independence of each citizen from exercises of arbitrary power. Quentin Skinner
has called this view of freedom ‘neo-Roman’, invoking ideas about
freedom both of the ancient Romans and of a number of Renaissance and early
modern writers. Philip Pettit has called the same view
‘republican’, and this label has tended to dominate in the recent
literature (Weinstock and Nadeau 2004; Larmore 2004; Laborde and Maynor 2007).
Republican freedom can be thought of as a kind
of status: to be a free person is to enjoy the rights and privileges attached
to the status of republican citizenship, whereas the paradigm of the unfree
person is the slave. Freedom is not simply a matter of non-interference, for a
slave may enjoy a great deal of non-interference at the whim of her master.
What makes her unfree is her status, such that she is permanently liable to
interference of any kind. Even if the slave enjoys non-interference, she is, as
Pettit puts it, ‘dominated’, because she is permanently subject to
the arbitrary power of her owner.“ : http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative/#ParPosLib
“….Rousseau's theory of freedom,
according to which individual freedom is achieved through participation in the
process whereby one's community exercises collective control over its own
affairs in accordance with the 'general will'. [3] Some interpret the Social
Contract to suggest that Rousseau believed that liberty was the power of
individual citizens to act in the government to bring about changes; this is
essentially the power for self-governance and democracy. [citation
needed] Rousseau himself said, "the mere impulse to appetite is slavery,
while obedience to law we prescribe ourselves is liberty." [9]”
However, this is only one interpretation of
Rousseau's work. This view is not really describing the General Will in terms
of its more modern interpretations. Rather, it is describing more the 'Will of
All' (in Rousseau's terminology). The Will of All contrasts to the General Will
in that the prior comprises the composite desires and appetites of those who
make up society and the latter the reasoned, objective opinions and beliefs of
those who see themselves as part of a nation and of a group of men. A law
cannot be said to be of the General Will unless it is general in its origins
and applications. Particular wills cannot be homogeneous in the way which the
General Will requires. However, this does not mean that Rousseau's liberty is
incompatible with positive liberty. Rather, we have to remove the implication
that positive liberty requires collective control over affairs which is derived
from the conscious and expressed decisions of men. The task which Rousseau
gives 'The Lawgiver' in the Social Contract is that of deciphering the General
Will from the mass of particular wills. If The Lawgiver, whatever form this may
take, is able to do so, then the individuals who comprise a society have truly
participated (via their real, reasoned and tempered will) in the collective
control of their own affairs. As the extract above says, government by the Will
of All is slavery. Rousseau's usual solution to how the Lawgiver may be able to
do this is cultural homogeneity on the one hand and physically small states on
the other. These two themes recur within Rousseau's works often with the view
to homogenising inharmonious particular wills.
: Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_liberty