Freedom Without Virtue Is Permission To Do Evil

Freedom is one of the most misunderstood and abused concepts in America, which is ironic since you’d normally expect our most cherished principle to at least be one we understand properly.

See, freedom is usually thought of as being fundamentally valuable, which means that the purpose of having freedom is to have freedom. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

The purpose of freedom is to preserve the meaningfulness of being good. Enforced goodness is obligation, not goodness. This means that every time we talk about freedom without also talking about the use that gives that freedom with its value, we’re just enabling depravity. We see this happening way too much.

We should never talk about freedom of speech without also encouraging courtesy and edifying the use of that speech. In other words, freedom without the expectation of virtue is just permission to do evil.