Social Aspect of Freedom

Abstract

Social freedom consists in a possibility that everybody can express freely his thought, feeling and will without being persecuted for this expression by the social environment. But it is also quite natural that the coexistence of man with man necessitates certain limitations in regard to the social freedom of everybody. This coexistence transforms the absolute freedom of man as a separate individual, as a separate “I,” into the coordinated freedom of man as a part of human society, as an element of a collective “We.” The following formula can serve as a symbol for this coordinated social freedom of man: “My freedom begins where the freedom of another man ends, and my freedom ends where the freedom of another man begins.”