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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

Dr. Mortimer J. Adler's 

Six Great Ideas

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The distinction between liberty and license, together with
the distinction between anarchic autonomy and freedom in
organized society under law and government, leads us to a
fourth kind of liberty that is a special variety of circumstan-
tial freedom.

Political liberty, though it is conferred upon the individual
by favorable circumstances, is not, like the main form of cir-
cumstantial freedom, a freedom to do as one pleases within the
constraints of justice. It is instead the liberty that individuals
possess when, as fully fledged, enfranchised citizens of a re-
public, living under constitutional government, their suffrage
gives them a voice in the making of the laws under which they
live. They are not subject to the arbitrary will of a despot.

While not autonomous, they are self-governing to the extent
that they are participants in government. The citizens of a re-
public are not sovereigns, but each has, in the words of Rous-
seau, a share in the sovereignty. Constitutional government,
said Aristotle, is that form of government in which the citizens
are free men and equals, ruling and being ruled in turn.

Slaves do not have political liberty. They are ruled tyranni-
cally in the interest of their masters, not for their own good.
The subjects of an absolute monarch do not have political lib-
erty. Even when the absolute despotism under which they live
is benevolent, and they are ruled to some extent for their own
good, they are ruled as very young children are governed in the
household—without a voice in their own government and
without participation in the making of the decisions that gov-
ern their lives. In a republic, living under constitutional gov-
ernment, those who are deprived of suffrage, for whatever
reason, are subjects rather than citizens. They, too, are de-
prived of political liberty by being disfranchised members of
the society in which they live.

Being granted and being denied suffrage constitute the favor-
able and unfavorable circumstances that confer political liberty
upon individuals or deprive them of it. With regard to the main
form of circumstantial freedom, which consists in being able,
within limits, to do as one pleases, the favorable and unfavor-
able circumstantial factors are of a different sort.

The unfavorable factors are coercion, constraint, and duress.
An individual is not free to do as he pleases when he is con-
strained by the application of physical force, nor is he free to
do as he pleases when he is physically coerced into doing the
opposite.

Duress consists in the threat of physical constraint or coer-
cion. The individual who acts contrary to his wishes under a
pointed gun is responding to a threat, but the effect is the same
as physical coercion. Duress may take other forms. The individ-
ual who does the opposite of what he wishes in order to avoid
the undesirable consequences of the desired action suffers a
loss of freedom from duress.

Circumstances that confer enabling means upon individuals
also give them the freedom to do what they wish. Sufficient
wealth enables me to dine at the Ritz if I wish to. Deprived of
such enabling means, the poor man is not free to dine at the
Ritz if he wishes. Without the enabling means provided by
scholarships or public funds, the poor in prior centuries were
not free to go to colleges or universities if they wished to.

The circumstantial freedom to do as one pleases, within lim-
its, is thus seen to be a freedom from coercion, constraint, and
duress and a freedom to act as one wishes that is provided by
enabling means. It is not, however, a freedom from having
one's conduct regulated by the prescriptions and proscriptions
of law.

The sphere of circumstantial liberty is not, as John Stuart Mill
wrongly supposed, the sphere of conduct unregulated by law,
with the consequence, in Mill's view, that the more our conduct
is regulated by law, the less freedom we have. Nor is it true, as
Thomas Jefferson said, that the less government the better, be-
cause the less government, the freer we are.

An earlier English philosopher, John Locke, provides us with
a sounder view of the matter. In the first place, much of our
conduct is not and cannot be regulated by law, no matter how
massive such regulation may be. This is true not only of the
civil law, the positive law of the state, but also of the moral law;
for much of our conduct is morally indifferent, neither pre-
scribed nor proscribed by moral rules. In this area where, in
Locke's words, "the law prescribes not," we are quite free to do
as we please.

Where our conduct does fall under the commands or prohi-
bitions of law, either the civil or the moral law, the virtuous
man is still able to do as he pleases, since he pleases to do what
he ought. A right rule of conduct and a just civil law command
actions that ought to be performed and prohibit acts that ought
not to be done.

The morally virtuous individual is one who, having the moral
freedom of being able to will and choose as he ought, does
voluntarily and freely what the law commands and refrains vol-
untarily and freely from doing what the law prohibits. He does
not suffer restraint from the coercive force of law; he does not
act under duress from the threat of coercion.

As Aristotle said, the virtuous man does freely what the crim-
inal does only from fear of the law—fear of its coercive force
and of the punishment that may result from violating the law.
The criminal, however, does not suffer any loss of liberty when
he refrains from breaking the law, for what he wishes to do,
being unlawful and unjust, is something he ought not to do
anyway, even if he were not constrained by law. His license to
do as he wishes, not his liberty, has been taken away.

This leads us to a further point about the relation of law to
liberty. Not only is it the case that we are not deprived of liberty
by just laws or morally sound rules of conduct. It is also the
case that the laws of the state, when they are just, apply coer-
cive force and constraints to secure us from infringements upon
our freedom by other individuals who would use illegitimate
or unlawful force to interfere with it. Where just laws do not
exist or where they are not effectively enforced, individuals are
subject to all sorts of depredations and invasions that diminish
their freedom.

When just laws are enforced, they enlarge the liberty of the
individual. Quite contrary is the condition of persons living
under the tyranny of unjust laws, the rule of might rather than
of right. Compelled by coercive force or by duress to act neither
as they please nor as they ought, their freedom is severely lim-
ited. What they have lost by such limitation is true liberty, not
license.

The maximization of our circumstantial freedom to do as we
please is the great and real good conferred upon human beings
by just laws, effectively enforced. That good is further en-
hanced by just government, which confers political liberty
upon all who are entitled to be enfranchised and to become
self-governing through exercising their suffrage.

We have seen why it can be truly said that the virtuous man
suffers no loss of freedom when he obeys just laws. It can also
be truly said that the citizen who, exercising his suffrage, finds
himself in the minority on an important political issue has not
ceased to be self-governing and politically free.

The constitution to which the citizen has given consent by
exercising his suffrage provides for a decision by the vote of
the majority. He has accepted the principle of majority rule
and, having done so, the citizen has also accepted, in advance,
the result of majority rule, whether or not the voting places him
in the majority or in an adversely affected minority.

He may not like the law or policy that the majority has insti-
tuted or adopted. Conforming to it may be contrary to his
wishes, but when members of a minority do conform to it, they
do so without any loss of political liberty. If the law or policy is
just, however contrary to their individual interest or judgment
it may be, their compliance with it does not deprive them of
any freedom at all.