![]() We are negatively free externally when unencumbered by such restraints as chains, shackles, walls, and jails, and/or by such constraints as laws, institutional prohibitions, threats, intimidations, and coercive or covert pressures from others. Many negative conditions interfere significantly with freedom of action. Negative external freedom is the absence of external pressures, constraints, or restraints that inhibit or prevent us from doing what we want or choose to do. Patients in great pain who desire analgesic medication may or may not have compassionate doctors who will prescribe adequate means to pain relief if denied such means by uncaring, inattentive, or intimidated doctors, these patients lack external freedom. Whether society should pay for contraception services and abortions for the poor, thereby enhancing their positive freedom, is highly controversial (Edwards, 1997). ![]() A pregnant woman who desires an abortion but lacks the money to pay for it has insufficient positive external freedom. These means are positive conditions in our environment such as money to pay our way, schools open to all, or accessible medical resources and personnel. Positive external freedom is having the external means to achieve our ends and fulfill our desires or interests. In the free will controversy, freedom of action equates with external freedom, both positive and negative, while freedom of will is a variety of internal freedom. Examples of these, respectively, are lack of money, being handcuffed, fear, and weakness. Joel Feinberg (1980) developed a useful four-way typology of constraints: external positive, external negative, internal positive, and internal negative. Some freedom-inhibiting conditions are internal to persons, some external, some negative, some positive. Types of FreedomÄiverse freedoms contrast with different types of restrictions, limitations, or restraints that negate them. ![]() Despite multiple meanings, the main types of freedom can be defined and distinguished. ![]() Freedom is widely regarded as a highly desirable component of human personalities, interpersonal relations, and social and governmental arrangements. ![]()
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