Is Freedom Truly Free?

Every human act has different degrees of freedom. Some are freer than the others. A human act is only truly free when its object is the real good.

Every act comes from the activities of human will and intellect. The will' always wills the good. However the will judgment of the goodness of a thing depends upon the intellect. In other words if the intellect provides erroneous data i.e. telling the will that such and such is good where in fact it isn't, then the will wills it as good.

Let's take the act of smoking as an example. Before a person wills to smoke, his intellect will undergo a series of investigation whether it is good or bad. His criteria in judging the goodness of a thing or an act depends on his collective knowledge and conscience formation. After such deliberation it would pass its judgment to the intellect. Whatever the intellect findings the will takes it at its face value. If the intellects passed on the message to the will that it is good, then the will wills it and the person will smoke.

Hence an act is only truly free when a subjective good agrees with an objective good. In other words if the intellect discerns that a certain act is good and it is indeed good then it is true freedom. On the other hand if the intellect judges an objectively evil as good, then his action is still free i.e. directed towards good but it is of lesser degree of freedom because an objective evil was perceived as good subjectively.

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