Freedom and Necessity

Necessity is the inherent law of development of nature and society that does not depend on man’s consciousness. Freedom is a state of human activity that is achieved based on the conscious knowledge of necessity, i.e., laws, and the dynamic reshaping of the world based on such knowledge. As objective necessity, laws are forced upon human activity. Man is capable of knowing and exploiting the laws of development of nature and society and achieving freedom. The relation between freedom and necessity runs through the existence and development of mankind from beginning to end and this relation constitutes an eternal contradiction between human existence and development. Engels pointed out: “Freedom does not consist in any dreamt-of independence from natural laws, but in the knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility this gives of systematically making them work towards definite ends.”

Freedom and necessity are both opposite and unified. Necessity is primary and freedom is secondary. Until men know necessity, they are only slaves to it. Man can only be free when he knows and exploits necessity to consciously change nature and society. Necessity and freedom are interconnected and transform into each other under certain conditions. Necessity is the basis of freedom, and there can be no freedom without necessity. Freedom does not exclude necessity, but contains necessity. Necessity is transformed into freedom when people master the objective laws, act in accordance with them and achieve certain ends. The results of man’s reshaping of the objective world are achieved in the constant transformation of necessity and freedom into each other. However, it is only in creative practice that necessity and freedom can be constantly transformed and developed. The degree to which mankind gains freedom from necessity is closely related to the level of the productive forces of society, the progress in science and technology and human capacity for thinking. With each of these progresses, mankind gains a different degree of freedom from necessity. The degree of man’s freedom is also conditioned by social relations and social systems. Metaphysicians placed necessity and freedom in absolute opposition, either by regarding man’s activity as completely subject to external necessity and denying that men can know and master objective laws, thus lead to fatalism; or by exaggerating the part played by freedom in human activity and denying the existence of objective laws of nature and society, thus relapsed into voluntarism.