Freedom

Melvyn Bragg considers what it is to be free and how freedom became such a powerful value. Freedom has been a subject of enquiry for philosophers, theologians and politicians who have attempted to define the conditions required for humans to be free, not just in their minds but in the wider world. Some have argued that man is naturally free and no laws should confine his liberty. Others have countered that laws are the only way to preserve freedom; they protect us from the slavery of the abyss. The very idea of freedom is riddled with constraints, limitations and qualifications, yet it is seen by many as the most basic of human rights and for some as a principle worth fighting and dying for.

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• John Keane 6 episodes
  Professor of Politics, University of Westminster
• Bernard Williams No other episodes
  Professor of Philosophy, University of California
• Annabel Brett 5 episodes
  Lecturer in History, University of Cambridge

Related episodes

• Free Will
  
  10 Mar, 2011 100 Philosophy
• Hegel’s Philosophy of History
  
  26 May, 2022 900 History
• Roman Slavery
  
  5 Apr, 2018 930 History of the Ancient World
• The Social Contract
  
  7 Feb, 2008 320 Political science
• Plato’s Gorgias
  
  25 Nov, 2021 180 Ancient, medieval, and Eastern philosophy
• Aristotle’s Politics
  
  6 Nov, 2008 320 Political science
• Redemption
  
  13 Mar, 2003 230 Christianity
• Hobbes
  
  1 Dec, 2005 320 Political science
• Human Nature
  
  7 Nov, 2002 150 Psychology
• The Art of War
  
  12 Jun, 2003 350 Public administration and military science
• Economic Rights
  
  27 Jan, 2000 330 Economics
• Writing and Political Oppression
  
  8 Apr, 1999 320 Political science
• Imagination and Consciousness
  
  29 Jun, 2000 120 Epistemology
• The Individual
  
  21 Oct, 1999 100 Philosophy
• Guilt
  
  1 Nov, 2007 170 Ethics
• Sovereignty
  
  30 Jun, 2016 320 Political science
• The Philosophy of Solitude
  
  19 Jun, 2014 120 Epistemology
• The Magna Carta
  
  7 May, 2009 340 Law
• Relativism
  
  19 Jan, 2006 100 Philosophy
• Nature
  
  10 Jul, 2003 100 Philosophy

---

Programme ID: p00548hh

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00548hh

Auto-category: 320.01 (Political science and political philosophy)