Freedom and responsibility - what is the meaning of these concepts? Freedom in itself is a fairly broad definition of both human capabilities and the philosophical canon, which is based on more than one treatise of the Athenian sages. To be free means to have oneself exactly to the extent that the capabilities of one or another person allow it. But at the same time, it’s hard not to get confused in the definitions, trying to distinguish between the characteristics of “freedom from” and “freedom for”.
The first forms the space of complete anarchy, freeing the animal principle of man and the desire for randomness. The second characteristic, on the contrary, implies the freedom enshrined in the sets of legal documents. It allows you to use the inalienable rights received from birth without violating the personal space of other people. Thus, if the first definition is chaotic and does not accept systematics, then the second implies the conditional responsibility of the person for his actions, thoughts and actions.
But the question of the topic considered today is freedom and responsibility, which means that when defining the first, it follows from it that the second is deduced. Responsibility, in the narrow sense of the word, implies the limited ability of the law and human morality to be responsible for committed acts. But if the legal characteristic is more or less clear, then what about morality? Freedom and responsibility in the moral and ethical sense are inseparable, dependent on each other concepts. And, accordingly, each person possesses them, regardless of his legal capacity, legal capacity and other legal aspects. Morality, on the other hand, is a much broader scope, if only because, unlike the law, it considers a person from within, giving a complete description of all accomplished or not accomplished acts within the framework of the possibilities of his self-consciousness.
It immediately becomes clear that the topic of this issue is heterogeneous and ambiguous. After all, freedom and responsibility, giving rise to each other, are philosophically mutually exclusive concepts.
For example, a policeman, in pursuit of an armed criminal and protecting his own and others' lives, has every right to kill him and thereby does not go beyond the rights granted to him by law.
But by the same action, this policeman crosses the line of permissible influence on the freedom of a murdered person, and therefore, in moral terms, exceeds even the boundaries of what is permitted to him by society. In this case, from the point of view of the same society, the policeman will be right. If the victim, defending himself, kills the guardian of the law, then the society considers this murder as an aggravating circumstance and an excess of the killer’s rights in relation to the victim …
I would like to note that freedom and responsibility should be inseparable not only within the framework of the rule of law and human conscience. The meaning of these concepts, their correct understanding should be inculcated by parents and educational institutions from the very moment a person is born and becomes a person. Otherwise, “being free” will become for him the equivalent of “succumbing to anarchy, ” and responsibility will only be a cell, which will inevitably lead to deviant behavior of a person and will pose a threat not only to him, but to society as a whole.
