ABSTRACT

Everyday usage of the word "free" recognizes no distinction between liberty and license, as in "Young people have too much freedom today". But most social theorists who describe freedom do so in such a way as to exclude license. This sophisticated usage becomes self-conscious in some stipulative definitions of the word "freedom", and is reflected in some lexical definitions of the word. A thing can be analyzed when it differs in kind from all other things or when the members of the class to which it belongs differ in kind from all other things. The kind of problem that arises in analyzing freedom is how to classify a marginal class of relations that have distinct and identical characteristics — for instance, whether we are free to do a thing if we want to do it and are physically compelled to do it. The idea of liberty is, primarily, a negative one, the removal of restraints upon doing what one wishes.