We often talk about a person in love being “captive” to that emotion; is this possible? Is a person who acts out of love less free than a person who acts out of deliberate reasoning?

Freedom

1. It is one of the main themes of American literature and folklore that freedom (or liberty) is one of the few things worth fighting for, even dying for. What does this mean? Describe a set of circumstances in which you would accept this as true. Describe a set of circumstances in which you would not accept this as true. What are the important differences between the two cases?

2. Most of what you do and say reflects the influences, training, education, examples, and rules that have affected you all your life. Some of these come from your parents; there were prejudices and preferences taught to you when you were very young so that you have never even been able to consider the alternatives. Some have been imposed on you by force (through threat of punishment or nonacceptance), and other people have subtly influenced you through television, magazines, and other forms of mass communication. Does all this make your actions and decisions any less “free”? To what extent would you be more free if you could get outside of all these influences and make decisions without them?

3. Have you ever made a decision that was entirely your own? If so, describe it.

4. We often talk about a person in love being “captive” to that emotion; is this possible? Is a person who acts out of love less free than a person who acts out of deliberate reasoning?

5. If a person commits a serious crime, but is wholly determined or caused to do so by his or her upbringing, by criminal influences, or by drugs, should he or she be held responsible for the crime? Should society be held responsible? Friends? The drug dealer? Should anyone be held responsible? Or is that just “the way things had to happen”?

6. Is freedom necessary for living the good life in a good society? Can you imagine circumstances in which freedom would be undesirable, or at least irrelevant? Is giving people freedom always giving them something good?

7. Is a person alone more free than a person bound by obligations to other people? Is it true, as our love songs often say, that breaking up a relationship is “being free again”? Is a person caught up in a web of duties and obligations at work necessarily less free than a person who, by choice, does not work at all?