Law Commons^™

What Is Meant By Freedom?, Paul D. Callister

Faculty Works

Freedom is overlooked as a legal and social concept, with few attempts to define it. Lon Fuller articulated the critical question about freedom: “How can the freedom of human beings be affected or advanced by social arrangement, that is by laws, customs, institutions, or other forms of social order that can be changed or preserved by purposive human actions?” Freedom needs to be defined in the context of this question — as an ideal to be advanced by our social institutions, laws, and customs. The article first begins with a framework for freedom established by Lon Fuller in a neglected …