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Article: Freedom
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Science and Religion
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Freedom
Freedom as understood in the modern West is self-determination by an autonomous being with a rational mind. Precursors to this understanding of freedom begin with Plato in ancient Greece, who shifted the locus of freedom from the political distinction between citizen and slave to the internal will that exercises influence on external events. Aristotle saw in the human will the capacity to harmonize itself with the will of God and the pursuit of the transcendent good and the good life.
Conceptions in Various Religious Traditions
In Hinduism and sister traditions such as Buddhism the doctrine of
karma
places the human person in a causal nexus of moral determinism where past ...