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Yes we do.

Being able to do what i want beween waking up and sleeping is not my definition of freedom. "Wanting" itself can be free or not free. Just look at our current advertisment. It is eager to create desires. And it is succesfull in creating illusions of what we "want". So we need to be able to differentiate between the those " wants"

1. I think you should state this "ultimate"/"proximate" distinction more clearly.

According to the theory or hypothesis of Michael Tomasello and others: there were evolutionary pressures on our ancient ancestors (beginning with Homo erectus, 2 million years ago) that caused them to behave strategically in ways that were encoded over later time as moral emotions and instincts. These evolutionary pressures were obligate collaborative foraging: "I must collaborate with others in order to survive". In turn, this leads to a situation of enforced interdependence , and this is what made morality evolve in humans (but not chimpanzees, bonobos, or arguably, any other species). Morality is defined here as that for which we are held accountable by others, when we work together towards joint goals. If we are not interdependent, then there is no need to hold others accountable. For example, interdependence requires that I help my partners to survive (empathic concern / compassion) and that I willingly share with others (proto-fairness).

I think your other questions are best decided in terms of modern-day moral psychology, which has its ultimate roots in evolution, rather than in terms of evolutionary pressures per se.

>2. Camus feels himself a "Stranger" in an absurd world. ...

I've read some Camus. He may consider himself a free agent, as do I, but there are times when he comes head to head with the cultural mores of the day.

>A monk's morality may be guided by the goal of achieving his own enlightenment, ...

Arguably, so is most people's, in their way. We all strive to grow and refine ourselves morally, if we are "light" enough (prosocial). See my ebook https://orangebud.co.uk/Understanding%20morality%20and%20ethics.pdf p. 194, "A quiet ego". I studied Buddhism when I was writing the book. Again, if a monk wants to immolate himself, that's up to him. Most people wouldn't do that.

>The morality of a Tang poet ...

Again, there's always going to be a tension between interpersonal and intrapersonal morality (the conscience and how we treat others, and behave) and cultural morality, which may dictate just the opposite of compassion and justice.

So Crowded House were right?

Neither of these is negative freedom, though. They’re both positive freedom concepts lol

So what's the tl;dr version?

A man is free when he wakes up in the morning and goes to bed at night and does what he wants in between.

Do we actually need to debate or complicate that?

Awwww!! He’s an illusion 🔮

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What he said is not wrong; it’s just bordering on being convoluted. That was a difficult read for me… The writer has a good pulse as far as what they are touching on, but I wish they would’ve conveyed it a little better.

What's your address?

/s

EDIT: apparently joking in response to an absurd comment is too abstract to be considered a valid (philosophical) expression?

Can you eli5?

there is no freedom when you have a physical body

Quentin Skinner, reflecting on Gerald MacCallum and Isaiah Berlin in the review below, argues for a third concept of freedom.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v24/n07/quentin-skinner/a-third-concept-of-liberty

Or the illusion of freedom.

Sounds much better than "negative freedom" when you put it that way.

Just started digesting this, lots of good points, I'll need some thinking time before I get back to you.

The classic example may be René Descartes and the Mind-body problem and the philosophy of consciousness.

When I am trying to find something specific, in this case physical properties and another entire subject -- names for our selves/identity.

I look at the footnotes of pages in Wikipedia. Everybody writes the pages in the wiki so proceed with a note open to write down article titles, books and people to look up.

Also, what I think you are asking about may be neurology, because of the thoughts not having physical properties' part of your question. There are some measurable physical properties of thoughts. But, in a way you are correct in that there are many, many areas of the brain that process language, in different ways, like listening, speaking, reading, and writing, not just one area.

A brief defense of Dialectical Materialism (I published this in a post a few days ago and an admin told me it's better suited here so here it is)

I often see in some discussions regarding Marxist Philosophy that it is very common the belief that Dialectical Materialism wasn't present in either Marx or Engels just because that formulation isn't found in their work, and that, instead, it was just a dogmatic theory (the "diamat") made by Soviet academics for their manuals; and, accompanying this conception, the conviction that Marx was just a purely socio-economic scientist and philosopher which didn't support any particular position regarding natural sciences nor any philosophical worldview.

This is not true, and is, in fact, a deep mistake that makes impossible to understand Marxism properly. I will try to explain here why in a very very basic, synthetic and even brute way, so that my general point can be easily digested, as far as I can.

I will quote two statements, and I will put their references as footnotes, like this: "blablabla". (n), where "n" will be the number of the footnote. In the footnote itself, I will write the source from where the quote is from (the APA thing), as well as the same quote repeated, but in Spanish. Why would I do that? Because I took these two references second-handly from a book in Spanish (whose argument is what I'm mainly following), and the book's references are from editions in Spanish. After all, It's easier to find the quoted statement in a book in its original language with just a quick word search (Ctrl-F). I will put the full reference this book at the bottom of the post ("consulted works"), and, below it, the full reference of another one that covers the same topic and I consider relevant as well. I'm not putting the quotes' references nor the books ones from editions in English cuz I'm lazy (and in the case of the books, idk if there are even editions in English). But if this gets some attention and the demand for it is high, I will put them as well.

I don't know if I have explained this clearly. Maybe I have put too much effort. Anyway, if you have doubts, feel free to ask.

I begin now.

Dialectical materialism was developed by both Marx and Engels, as well as their disciples: Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Gonzalo, etc. It's true that the term "dialectical materialism" doesn't appear in their texts but rather later, first in the work of Plekhanov and then in the work from the rest of the founders of Marxism stated above, but that doesn't mean that their dialectical and materialist conceptions aren't, in fact, dialectical and materialist.

It's true that many Soviet manuals do commit deterministic and naturalistic mistakes, but this don't apply to the works of the founders of marxism. The idea that Marx didn't have any worldview, which has been propelled by academic revisionists such as the Neue Lektüre, and which has its root in an anti-engelsian current that appeared in "occidental marxism", is not consistent at all, and there is plenty of evidence of it:

Marx and Engels had to divide their work so that Marx could finish The Capital while Engels exposed the basic elements of dialectical materialism in Anti-Dühring and in Dialectics of Nature, and Marx never rejected it (he even wrote one of the chapters of the Anti-Dühring). Marx knew Engels work, both A-D and DoN, even praising the later in one letter to Wilhelm Alexander Freund stating that it was "incomparably more important" than the A-D. (1)

But even those that, independently of Marx's opinion, think that Engels' dialectics of nature was not marxist, aren't consequent knowing that many of this critics attack a supposedly mechanistic and deterministic base on Engels. This can't be the case knowing that Engels criticized these very mistakes from his own rivals in his letters, and that his emphasis on the materialistic side of his dialectical materialist thought comes from his historical context, in which he had to defend materialism against idealism (like with the left hegelians) than dialectics against metaphysics in order to demarcate and separate Marxism from other currents of though which, inversely, emphasized idealism.

But this doesn't come from forgetting the dialectical part, because, as it can be seen in his Ludwig Feuerbach..., it remains as the key to his criticism against those conceptions that require the supernatural and therefore God as the external-from-matter source of its movement, and this idea is not present in Engels' thought because he thinks dialectically. He understands that movement is the counterpart of matter, not an external addition to it. In other words, that matter doesn't move because of a finite chain of external causes that necessary lead to God, as movement is not external but intrinsic to matter (just as thermodynamic laws imply). Indeed, in LW..., he states against Hegel, the one that developed idealism the most, that if men "only existed out of condescension of the Idea", freedom would be impossible. (2)

This is absolutely incompatible with both idealism and mechanistic materialism. It's incompatible with idealism because it rejects that an absolute consciousness comes before matter in movement and instead accepts that infinite matter in infinite movement constitute the base of consciousness; but also incompatible with mechanistic materialism because accepting what we have just said means, one, to accept that causes of things are internal to them and therefore understandable only through them, not externally, mechanistically; and two, that human life must also be understood in the same way, which implies to assume volition, subjectivity, consciousness, as the specific way in which it determines itself on the base of its condition as an animal that objectifies/produces itself through labor. Determination of humanity comes mainly within it, not externally, mechanistically, and that's why it can free itself (specifically, through the Proletarian Revolution).

In conclusion, anti-Engelsianism, and therefore a "purely social philosopher" conception of Marx that reduces his thought to just the critique of political economy and that rejects "Orthodox Marxism" (which is really just Marxism) as the true development trajectory of Marxism after Marx, is simply and plainly unsustainable.

Footnotes:

1. Carlos Marx y Federico Engels: Cartas sobre las ciencias de la naturaleza y las matemáticas, ed. cit. , p. 90.; "Incomparablemente más importante".

2. Federico Engels: "Ludwig Feuerbach y el fin de la filosofía clásica alemana", en Carlos Marx y Federico Engels: Obras escogidas (en tres tomos), Ed. Progreso, t. lll, Moscú, 1980, p. 362.; "Existir solo por condescendencia de la Idea".

Consulted works:

Arencibia, P. R. (2019). Marxismo y dialéctica de la naturaleza. Edithor; M., B. A. J. (1979).

Ávila, B. J. Conocer Engels y Su Obra. DOPESA.

I hope I have written these well. I always make a mess with the APA thing.

Summary: There are two types of freedom: actual freedom and conscious freedom. Actual freedom is the perception of being free and having choices. This type of freedom determines the limits of our free will and moral responsibility. Conscious freedom is acting in accordance with our higher-order principles. This consciously free state creates and consents to the social contract since the social contract represents our higher-order principles of freedom and reason expressed through universal principles.

https://pastebin.com/XgtTFgam

I believe most living beings probably have some form of consciousness, so it isn't human-centred to me

Excellent comment!

I'm already pretty committed to open/empty individualism, so this post was really meant to be me thinking through what utilitarianism means in this context. I get that it's controversial, but my own experiences in meditation and thinking about the scientific ambiguity of "self" have convinced me that closed individualism doesn't make sense.

> I don't see how logarithmic scaling helps with repugnant conclusion

You're right that it doesn't make any difference in the pure form of the thought experiment, however I think it does make a difference when you have limited resources to build your world. It's much easier to push someone's conscious valence up than to generate another 1000 miserable beings. The main thing that makes a difference here is open/empty individualism.

> I don't see why boundedness of consciousnesses (restriction from accessing other's consciousness unmediated) isn't enough to ground for individuation

If you go down this line of reasoning, your future self is separate from your past self, they don't share a bound experience either, it's just that your future self has a bunch of memories that it puts together into a story to relate to your past self. Most common sense ethics still tries to reduce suffering for a future self, why is this any different than claiming that you should help others?

> I also don't see the meaning of calling it the "same" consciousness if it doesn't have a single unified experience (solipsistic).

I mean that all consciousness is the same in the sense that two different electrons are the same, all consciousness has the same ontological properties. So if you buy that your own suffering is "real", then so is someone else's.