What makes a free society?

Question

can a free society have rules/restrictions??

Answer 1

A free society is put forth in the Declaration of Independence. A society that lets men act however they wish as long as they do not infringe on the rights of other men (their life or property, including intellectual property) with a justice system upholding these rights. There is so much reference to how the United States was formed in my answer because it was the first free society ever born.

If this is a direct question from a philosophy course my answer is probably not right. If society has a definite definition in philosophy that i am not aware of it is not right. That is my view of a free society.

"I swear by my life and my love of it, that i will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."-Ayn Rand

Answer 2

A free society is a society where people have the liberty to freely express themselves. The expression isn't 100% though. There have to be limits on speech that uses false information to destroy somebodies character or speech that creates violence.Rules are necessary for there to be a society.

Answer 3

There is a rule of law that governs everyone, and that is natural law.  Natural law is that which allows nature to function in perfect order and harmony.  Animals live in perfect harmony, because they live according to natural law.  That isn't to say they don't kill each other, but they do so only for food, not out of disharmony.  This is the rule of nature.

Man, too, is subject to natural law.  But somewhere in history we fell out of harmony with it.  We set ourselves apart from nature and began to attempt to control and subjugate it.  And we set ourselves to try to control and subjugate and enslave each other, and this led to large societies with central authority that governed by manmade laws, laws which were usually not much in harmony with natural law.

In nature, no one has to tell anything what to do; it is not necessary for anything to control anything else.  Every creature is entirely self-governing, because it is in harmony with natural law.  

Man has that same capacity within, to live according to natural law.  When a human being does that, when he finds the source of the laws of nature within himself, he becomes self-governing too; he lives in harmony with everyone and everything around him.

The only way a society can be truly free is for everyone in it to be self-governing by living according to natural law.  Only then is there no need for rules and restrictions, because everyone is following one rule of law with complete willingness.  The more a society does this, the more free it is.

Answer 4

the term free society is in itself an oxymoron

if everyone in the society is completely free then it is not a society

to be a society there must be rules that govern how you communicate with one another, how you act with one another...

a society requires even the smallest rules that make it no longer free

Answer 5

In a free society no one would ever exert controls over anyone else.

In a utopian society, it would not be necessary to have rules and restrictions. But in such a Utopia each and every member of such society would be compatible in every way possible. Therefore, all desires of everyone there would be complimentary to those of others and of course that would result in everyone there being completely happy because all of their desires would be fulfilled and no one would be imposing anything on anyone else. Unfortunately, we live in a world where many people are sociopathic and do not care if they are hurting someone else in their efforts to get what they want. That's why it is necessary to have rules and restrictions, even though many people often ignore them.  

Answer 6

The Bill of Rights and the US Constitution made a free society. I miss them terribly.