It is commonly said that people in Western democracies are free — free as in what they are legally and de facto permitted to do by their governments. This is true, to a large degree. We enjoy historically unprecedented levels of political freedoms in the west. We have freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. We are free to start businesses, invest in the future, and try our best to improve our lives.
Yet, it feels differently as I stare out my office window. Mentioning this to others is usually met with statements such as ”well, you are free to quit”, or ”you are free to find another job.” This is true, but it also somehow misses the point. I am not in the office because I want to, yet I am free not to be here. How could this be?
In an article from 1975, the philosopher Max Hocutt points out an important distinction between what people may do from what they can do.[1] Bob can shoot or rape his neighbor, but he is not free to do so. His country has laws against it, whereby if he performs such misdeeds (and is caught) then other people will punish him for it. Conversely, there are things Bob is free to do that he cannot do. No one would try to stop or punish him if he, for example, attempted to lift his car above his head. He is permitted to do so but is simply unable.
In Hocutt’s terms, what a person is free (socially permitted) to do is not the same as what they are able to do. One can be free but not able, able but not free, and any combination in between. Freedom in this sense is what we are permitted to do, and not prevented from doing, by other people; and political freedoms are what we are permitted to do by our governments. Capabilities, on the other hand, are what we have real opportunities to achieve.
This is why it makes sense to forbid what we can do and less sense to forbid what we cannot do. Laws usually focus on the former because forbidding the latter serves little purpose. There were no laws against telemarketing before telephones, and there are currently no laws against teleportation. Similarly, we seldom fight for people’s right to do something they cannot do. The absurdity of doing so is illustrated by Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979) which makes fun of the (then hypothetical) struggle for men’s freedom to have babies. What is the point of doing so, they ask, when men can’t have babies?
Hocutt goes on to point out that grants of freedom without ability are largely empty gestures.[1, p.261] In other words, pointing out or giving you the freedom to do something you are unable to do is not meaningful. Permitting a person to lift a car above their head won’t help them do so. Being free to be and do what you want is meaningless without the capability to be and do it. Likewise, being free to quit one’s job is meaningless without the actual ability to do so.
So, how able are we to quit our jobs? Capabilities and freedoms must be specified and quantified. Consequently, figuring this out requires further analysis beyond this text. Let us note, however, that we are physically able to walk up to our boss and hand in our resignation. What most cannot do is do so and still have a table and food to put on it. And without the ability to satisfy our basic needs, we are unable to do much else. This, however, is a topic for another time.
For now, let us conclude that how permitted we are to quit or change our jobs, whether by our employer, the government, or anyone else, is not enough to have a meaningful discussion about the freedom to do so. Saying we are free is meaningless without additionally considering how capable we are.
Bibliography
[1] Max Hocutt. “Freedom and Capacity”. In: The Review of Metaphysics 29.2 (1975). Publisher: Philosophy Education Society Inc., pp. 256–262. issn: 0034–6632. url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20126774 (visited on 07/18/2021).
