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John Stuart Mill. Philosophers from the earliest times have considered the question of liberty. Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121–180 AD) wrote: . a polity in which there is the same law for all, a polity administered with regard to equal rights and equal freedom of speech, and the idea of a kingly government which respects most of all the freedom of the governed.
Controversial examples include property rights, reproductive rights, and civil marriage. In authoritarian regimes in which government censorship impedes on perceived civil liberties, some civil liberty advocates argue for the use of anonymity tools to allow for free speech, privacy, and anonymity. [5]
It is considered by some that the sole purpose of government is the protection of life, liberty , and property. [15] Some thinkers have argued that the concepts of self-ownership and cognitive liberty affirm rights to choose the food one eats, [16] [17] the medicine one takes, [18] [19] [20] and the habit one indulges. [21] [22] [23]
The Declaration of Independence, for example, describes men as having liberty and the nation as being free. Free will— the quality of being free from the control of fate or necessity —may first have been attributed to human will, but Newtonian physics attributes freedom— degrees of freedom , free bodies —to objects."
Civil liberties are simply defined as individual legal and constitutional protections from entities more powerful than an individual, for example, parts of the government, other individuals, or corporations. The explicitly defined liberties make up the Bill of Rights, including freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, and the right to privacy ...
Hayek maintained that once any possible "identification of freedom with power is admitted," a "totalitarian state" coalesced where "liberty has been suppressed in the name of liberty." [9] Social anarchists see negative and positive liberty as complementary concepts of freedom. Such a view of rights may require utilitarian trade-offs, such as ...
Positive liberty is the possession of the power and resources to act in the context of the structural limitations of the broader society which impacts a person's ability to act, as opposed to negative liberty, which is freedom from external restraint on one's actions.
For example, it has been argued that humans have a natural right to life. These are sometimes called moral rights or inalienable rights. Legal rights, in contrast, are based on a society's customs, laws, statutes or actions by legislatures. An example of a legal right is the right to vote of citizens.