Jean-Paul Sartre an interesting fellow
I've been reading his book "Essays in Existentialism" lately and I've found the essay "Freedom and Responsibility" quite fitting right now. He talks about how all human beings are free to do as they wish. They are given that right at birth. this right cannot be taken away by anyone even the self. some criticize this by saying "That means you can do anything you want then!" which, if it were true, would be bad. That however is not true. We can't just do whatever we want. We are given freedom over our own lives and actions at birth but we are also given the power to make responsible decisions. We should look at every choice we are given and thinik about responsibility. We are free to choose therefore we are responsibile for what we choose. For instance. If I were to go out for a drive to Minneapolis, and on that drive I get cut off and I decide to pass them and then slam on my breaks. I have choosen to destroy my car, and possibly several other cars on the freeway because I got mad and overreacted. I may have even choosen death depending on the circumstances. Now say I lived. I now have to live with the responsibility of that crash for the rest of my life. Take another example, there is a couple that is married and one of the counterparts of the marriage decides to stay out late drinking and partying all night. Said person decides, after several drinks, that it will have an extramarital affair that night. The next morning said person comes home and smells of alcohol, drugs, and the aroma of another person. Said person also blames the drinking and drugs on his actions. "The alcohol made me do it. Its the fault of the alcohol." The victim of this relationship decides that they have had it and leaves the perpetrator alone. In this situation the perpetrator now is homeless, and not married anymore. The perpetrator cannot blame the drinking or the drugs on its actions because they were ultimately its actions. It made a bad choice and it is getting the reaction of that bad choice and if he takes responsibility for its actions maybe things will turn out better, until it can do that however, it will be shamed with this burden of drinking and drugs causing the end of its marriage. So in conclusion people are inheirently free to make their own decisions as long as they take responsibility for them.