The Burden of Freedom, Research Paper Example

In the history of human philosophic thought, there were numerous issues philosophers and thinkers of all times referred to and still could not give an exact and definite answer to them and give them a definite place in human life. Among those issues are problems of life and death, love and morality, individualism and universalism, common benefits of society and opportunity of an individual to evolve in his own way, and connection of freedom of choice with all mentioned above issues. Just as thinkers of ancient Greece and Rome could give definite answer to those questions, contemporary thinkers are even more confused by existence of democratic regime, irrespective of which human rights remain violated and an individual is still left on his own in the fight against the system and society in general. The aim of the present paper is not in comparative analysis of Ancient and contemporary thoughts on the meaning of democracy and freedom of choice in political theory, but to consider the connection between Martha Nussbaum’s philosophy of capability approach and contemporary problem of human freedom in the democratic society meaning the example of Bradley Manning. In this context, this paper will cover such issues as acceptable limits of freedom, truth and justice, individual and common.

Martha Nussbaum belongs to those post-modern philosophers who have their own position on numerous issues irrespective of the classic tradition, mainly because contemporary reality is entirely different from the Ancient times. In this regard, irrespective of her certain connectivity with the Ancient philosophy of Aristotle and complete refutation of Plutonian perception of reality, she managed to develop her own way to view contemporary reality in the framework of democratic regime as we know it today and not as it was in times of Ancient Greece (Nussbaum 65). Particular feature of her philosophy is that she does not separate political aspect of it from the strictly individual. She views an individual of contemporary society as a thinking and rationale person, reasoning of whom is based on morale and political basis (Nussbaum 34). In this context, she outlines that no other distinctive features of one’s self-identification like gender, trace, ethno-cultural belonging, social class and religion.

In this context, her theory of human rights is based not on states’ granting and actual giving certain rights and privileges to an individual, but on the idea of freedom of choice. In this regard, an individual is viewed as a rational, self-sufficient human being characterised by dignity and power of worth, which originates in moral choice within those individuals (Nussbaum 28). Thus, they are capable of planning their lives’ outcomes and actual goals to be achieved on their own, paying attention only to their will, capabilities and need, which in their turn, are based on personal rationales and inclinations to specific activity (Nussbaum 87). Capability approach is crucial for this discourse. First of all, unlike utilitarianism, it does not proclaim division of resources and satisfaction of individuals needs on the basis of preferences concept, suggesting that since preferences might be different, resources for their satisfaction also should be different (Nussbaum 65). Nussbaum rejects the preferences concept, arguing that it is situational and could be distorted under the burden of various negative influences.

In her perception, in order for an individual to be able to achieve satisfaction from life, he/she should not only be equally provided with resources, but also have an opportunity to use them when and how it will be preferred and suitable for an individual under certain circumstances. Meaning of such statement can be viewed on the corporate example. Although an employee is usually entitled with the right to be creative and tell manager what he is doing wrong and how the situation can be improved, actual use of this right is limited by negative consequences of possible demotion and even dismissal. Thus, from practical perspective, the right is useless unless it can be practiced without fear of negative consequences for an individual. In this regard, Nussbaum is taking rather pragmatic approach to the meaning of rights and their actual functionality. If substantial freedoms, based on capabilities, are limited by social conditionality, what is their value, on the first place, and can we speak about having those freedoms on the second place. The best real life example of such inconsistency is the case of Bradley Manning.

Being accused of spreading national secret intelligence information and state treason, Bradley Manning is the best example of how actual rights of an individual for the free information, individual’s freedom of choice collided with national security and interest of the state. From Nussbaum’s point of view, in the framework of human rights, Manning was entitled of freedom of choice in provision of people with coherent actual information about events in Afghanistan and Iraq. In this context, he was not only favouring his personal substantial freedom of spreading the information worldwide, but also contributed to other people’s opportunity to favour their right for fair, uncensored information. Thus, from capability approach, he had complete justification and moral right to do so. From the point of individual and common benefits of Manning and people who had an opportunity to access this information, there was no conflict but cooperation.

On the other hand, unlike capabilities approach, contemporary human rights as pillar of democracy are more about responsibilities and duties of citizens than their freedom. In this context, from institutional perspective of the state, that is an embodiment of contemporary democracy, Manning’s actions were against his duties before the state and community in sense of security and wholeness of the state. In this context, the conflict is not between individual rights and common goodness of human community, but between individual and state as an institution, the embodiment of the system, bureaucratic machine of democracy as we know it. In this regard, the statement that Manning had violated common goodness and common rights of people for security and safety are based on contractual nature of state power and its representation of people’s society (Star 41). From the point of contractual nature of state power, citizens had given part of their freedoms to the state in order to get more organised society and certain stability, which is denied in animalistic environment of war of all against all. In this regard, freedom limitations are acceptable; so far they do not violate common goodness, well-being and security. From this perspective, Manning might be considered as violator of common security right, which is also complicated by his military status of a soldier on duty (Star 32). Thus, it can be assumed that he had not just violated his military duty, state’s duty, but endangered other members of his community and violated the part of freedom they gave to the government as their protector (Star 35).

Although this rationale has the right for existence, it has one crucial weakness – the harm imposed by Manning’s action had no direct implications for the community except for letting people know how their government was doing things in their name. It was status of state as an institution which suffered from the information leaking and not community itself. Therefore, again Manning’s actions did not violate common well-being or democratic freedoms, his actions did not interfere with the common goodness and favouring of freedoms by other citizens. It can be argued that Mannign violated his duties as a soldier, but he cannot be considered as violating human rights of other members of his society. In this context, he could have been a violator if his individual actions had negative implications for the common goodness rights of other individuals, which was not the case. Thus, it can be concluded that acceptable limitations of human freedom refer to the case when they do not violate the freedoms of other individuals and common goodness of the society in general. From the perspective of the state, this can be transformed into dimension of security and individual’s actions should not harm security of the state, but Manning’s actions did not really harm the security, but the status of the state as an institution, which should first of all, act in interest of its citizens rather than its own. In this context, Manning’s actions showed unfavourable and arguable side of neither state’s actions which might not be accepted nor intended by the citizens who gave part of their freedom to the state on the first place. In any case, it is rather the matter of common society and state rather than individual and common or as Nussbaum posed it ability of an individual to have control over his environment, both political and material (Nussbaum 82).

The whole discourse of this argument refers to another substantial issue truth and justice. In this context, it is essential to realise whether truth and justice can be dismissed before other interests. From Nussbaum’s perspective, it may seem that truth is universally acceptable and that substantial freedoms are part of social justice and, in fact, it is so with the exception for some cases. One of those cases would be national security and common interest. It would be incredibly unadvisable for people to know about each possible terroristic attack which could have occurred on the territory of the country mainly because panic could cause more devastation than the attack itself. This also refers to the foreign affairs matters. The problem of state’s means of national interests’ satisfaction is not really about states’ reluctance to tell people what is going on and how wars are fought, but actually lack people’s readiness to embrace the fact that their comfortable living is achieved by the costs of others’ sufferings. From this perspective truth becomes inconvenient in contemporary democratic society. It never was universal and most likely will not be universal in the future.

Overall, it can be concluded that, contemporary democratic society is quite far away from Margaret Nussbaum’s perception of substantial freedoms. The main reason is not government’s reluctance to impose such kind of democracy, but unpreparedness of people to accept the reality and complexity of truth, which would lead to more substantial responsibilities on their behalf. The case of Bradley Manning is the best example of it.

Works Cited

Nussbaum, Martha C. Development as Freedom. Oxford, OX: Oxford University Press. 1999 Print.

Star Alexander: Wikileaks, War and American Diplomacy. New York, NY: New York Times. 2011 Print.