4

Can I ask question about individual freedom on this site?

I want to ask, if banning alcohol or beef consumption, in some states of India, can be considered a breach of individual freedom of people of those states.

Since, India is a democracy and everyone has right to freedom, can these things be considered inside the individual freedom of a person? and government banning these be considered as a breach of that individual freedom?

1 Answer 1

5

The problem with this question is that it seems opinion-based.

Any law is an infraction on the personal freedom of those people who would like to violate that law. That's the purpose of laws: provide a list of things you are not allowed to do or obligated to do, no matter if you want it or not. So every law restricts personal freedoms, even when it in turn protects the freedom of other people.

But how far should governments go with restricting individual freedom for the greater good? Should they just not make any laws at all (anarchy)? Should they be allowed to make any law they want when they can somehow argue that doing so has a benefit for society as a whole (autocracy)? Or should they find a balance and only make laws which protect other's freedoms more than they restrict the freedom of the individual in order to maximize the "net freedom" of society (libertarianism)?

That's an ethical and philosophical question people are arguing about since the birth of human civilization, are still arguing about today and will likely still argue about until the end of humanity. And Politics.SE is not the place to solve such an age-old conundrum.

Such discussion-based questions are not a good fit for the Q&A concept of Stackexchange. We generally want questions where you can definitely say "this answer is objectively wrong" or "this answer is objectively correct". Questions where you would up- or downvote the answers based on how much you personally agree with them are not appropriate here.

1
  • Thanks for the answer. I was looking for a site, where I can get a "good enough" answer from (term good-enough is subjective in itself), for this question. But, it seems SO won't be entertaining this because of rules. All good though. Thanks again :)
    – DroidDev
    Feb 23, 2017 at 6:04

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .