> Freedom is not “doing anything you want”. It’s “not having to do the things you don’t want to do”. Both of those are anemic views of "freedom". The most rob

> Freedom is not “doing anything you want”. It’s “not having to do the things you don’t want to do”. Both of those are anemic views of "freedom". The most robust understanding of freedom is and must be rooted in morality and thus human nature: Freedom is the ability to do what is *good*, or what one *ought*. Because we're talking about human agency, "good" and "ought" here are normative and thus moral in nature. But morality itself is determined and underpinned by human nature. What makes a human act "good" depends on what it means to be human. There is no other basis for morality. Everything else is arbitrary, circular, or ultimately a tacit appeal to human nature. And human nature has a direction. Good acts further human beings along that general axis (neutral acts at least do not retreat or deviate). Eating lead is unhealthy, but doing so intentionally, knowing fully well that lead is harmful, is evil, because a choice was made in light of knowledge to do what one should not.