A Critical Review on the Bases of Freedom Justification in Liberal Thought

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Associate professor of Baqir al-Olum University

Abstract

Following the detachment from tradition, the liberal thought has been looking for the latest foundation to justify its own values. Meanwhile, it has been endeavored to defend from the freedom being considered the most superior value ahead of this thought. Reviewing the thought of some outstanding intellectuals linked to liberalism, the article illuminates that the freedom in this viewpoint has been alienated from an indispensable theme of the idealist value as well as the rational virtue, and it has been appeared in the form of negative concept of freedom out of the external obstacles, and due to some particular gnosis-based principles, even the necessity of humane and moral values independent from the will of individual has been considered an unacceptable external hindrance.
This interpretation from the freedom is followed by hazardous consequences in the meaningfulness of individual life and humane considerations regarding the communal life which will be partly noted.    
 

Keywords