Empirical freedom is a negative concept defined by absence of constraint within a situation.
Evidence
I will be said to be free in relation to this state of things when it does not constrain me. Thus the empirical and practical concept of freedom is wholly negative; it issues from the consideration of a situation and establishes that this situation leaves me free to pursue this or that end. One might say even that this situation conditions my freedom in this sense, that the situation is there in order not to constrain me. Remove the prohibition to circulate in the streets after the curfew, and what meaning can there be for me to have the freedom (which, for example, has been conferred on me by a pass) to take a walk at night? — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1158
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines the empirical, negative concept of freedom as conditioned by the situation it escapes.
- XREF: Sets up Beauvoir’s reliance on the situation as the ground of freedom in The Ethics of Ambiguity. — connects to: Empirical freedom is a secondary nihilation that presupposes an original nothingness — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 262; Freedom depends on overcoming negativity and constraint — Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, 147; The given never conditions freedom because freedom is its internal negation — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1160 (+7 more)
- ADDENDUM: Relevant to ‘On Sacrifice’ — the curfew example parallels how prohibitions create the very meaning of freedom.
Broader Connections
- Positive freedom means self-mastery, negative freedom means absence of restraint
#expands(0.95) - The given never conditions freedom because freedom is its internal negation
#contradicts(0.85) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1160 - Freedom must be conceived negatively as freedom from the economy
#exemplifies(0.85) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 112 - Freedom depends on overcoming negativity and constraint
#qualifies(0.82) — Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, 147 - Freedom and situation are mutually constituting rather than opposites
#contradicts(0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1164 - Situation-limits are given meaning only by the freedom they nevertheless bound
#qualifies(0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1241 - Freedom arises when necessity manifests its inner identity, not by its removal
#contradicts(0.80) - Innate qualities constrain but do not abolish freedom within a situation
#qualifies(0.78) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 717 - Freedom is the small capacity to not fully reproduce one’s conditioning.
#expands(0.75) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 635