Individual freedom quotes8/15/2023 In the recent bestseller Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey observes that interdependence is a choice that only independent people can make. Individualism and independence liberate interdependence. The uniqueness and worth of the person is affirmed when membership in a community is freely chosen by the individuals that comprise it. Voluntary, mutually beneficial relations among autonomous individuals are essential for the attainment of authentic human communities. In fact, individualism provides the best theoretical basis for a genuine community that is worthy of human life. In a free society, all cooperative social ventures are entered voluntarily. Man’s rationality allows him to cooperate and communicate with others. Cooperative action affords possibilities for growth and brings benefits that otherwise would be unattainable by isolated individuals. Humans are not only distinct individuals but also social beings. Genuine Communities Are Freely Chosen CommunitiesĪssigning primary emphasis to the individual does not devalue social cooperation. A free political order, which respects natural rights and allows for individual freedom, best nourishes the formation of voluntary communities through which people choose to live according to their freely chosen common values. Social bonds are instrumentally valuable for the satisfaction of individuals’ non-social desires affiliation is necessary for flourishing. Coordinated group action is a function of the self-directed and self-initiated efforts of each person within the group.Īlthough the individual is metaphysically primary (and communities are secondary and derivative), communities are important because people need them to reach their potential for happiness. A community or a society is simply the association of persons for cooperative action. There is no such thing as the general will, collective reason, or group welfare there are only the will, reason, and welfare of each individual in a group. To use an abstract term such as community or society is to refer to certain persons sharing particular characteristics and related in specifiable ways. A community or society is a collection of individuals-it is not a concrete thing or living organism distinct from its members. Individualism denies that a community or a society has an existence apart from the individuals that constitute it. The sense of belonging to freely chosen communities is an important constituent of happiness. Individual happiness can be defined as the positive conscious emotional experience that accompanies or derives from the use of one’s human potentialities, including one’s talents, capabilities, and virtues. It follows that freedom is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for happiness. Freedom means the absence of coercive constraints however, it does not mean the absence of all constraints. Non-manmade obstacles such as lack of ability, intelligence, or resources may result in the failure to attain one’s desires. Freedom is not the ability to get what we desire. People can initiate their own purposive action when they are free from manmade restraints-when there is an absence of coercion by other individuals, groups of people, or the government. From birth, each person has the potential to think his own thoughts and control his own energies in his efforts to act according to those thoughts. The individualist assumes responsibility for thinking for himself, for acting on his own thought, and for achieving his own happiness.įreedom is the natural condition of the individual. Individuals can interrelate, but thinking requires a specific, unique thinker. It is the individual who has the capacity for original and creative rationality. Each individual exists, perceives, experiences, thinks, and acts in and through his own body and therefore from unique points in time and space. Individualism is the view that each person has moral significance and certain rights that are either of divine origin or inherent in human nature. Edward Younkins is professor of accountancy and business administration at Wheeling Jesuit University, Wheeling, West Virginia.
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