Do Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms Promote Freedom

Date Written: 1/10/2023

Assignment: Did all four of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms promote liberty?

One of Franklin D. Roosevelt”s most famous speeches was his Four Freedoms Speech. In it he declared that there are four fundamental freedoms that all mankind share. They are:

Freedom of speech and expression.
Freedom of every person to worship God in his own way.
Freedom from want.
Freedom from fear

The first two freedoms, freedom of speech and freedom of religion, are indeed fundamental freedoms that promote liberty. We all know that they are essential for a free world. The reason why is inherent in their names. Sadly, we are losing the first freedom, freedom of speech, in our modern world. With the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, news and information started to become increasingly censored. However this topic deserves an article of its own, so let’s move on.

Freedom from Want

The third freedom, freedom from want, isn’t the same as the first two. This freedom implies that everyone is entitled to everything they want because if someone is free from want they must have obtained everything they want. However, this is not possible. The human mind can conjure up an infinite number of wants. For example, imagine you just bought a mansion. Now that you have the mansion most likely you’re going to want to get nice furniture for it. Then you’re probably going to want a nice car or two for the garage. Then you will probably want a maid to clean your mansion. This list will go on and on for eternity. We, humans, simply have an infinite number of wants.

For the sake of the argument, let’s assume that it is possible to satisfy all human wants. Even if it’s possible there would still be a great many of them. Think of literally everything you may want. That list would get very big and very expensive fast wouldn’t it? Nobody has the means to obtain all the things that they may want not even the richest billionaire, so they would have to take from someone else. Here lies the problem as this taking action is immoral. It would be theft as someone is taking someone else’s property and nobody can rightly believe that theft is moral. This “freedom” certainly doesn’t promote actual freedom it does the opposite by promoting theft. This concept of the freedom from want is an impossible immoral mess that should be disregarded.

Freedom from Fear

The fourth freedom, freedom from fear, is like the third one. If you interpret it by its literal definition then it implies that everyone should no longer be afraid. Clearly this is impossible; everyone is going to be afraid of something. It’s an emotion that is not going away. However, this is not what Roosevelt meant when he created this. His interpretation was that no one should be afraid of another nation attacking their nation via the military, so he wanted a global reduction of armaments. However this still wouldn’t eliminate fear as whether there is a threat of not some people will still be paranoid and afraid, so this “freedom” is also literally impossible.

However this “freedom” still does nothing to promote actual freedom. It would be forcing nations to reduce their armaments even if they don’t want to. This is the opposite of freedom it is restricting nations ability to do certain things. Now don’t get me wrong I am not promoting war. That is also wrong as it is a harmful act against others. But forcing nations to do things is also wrong and it certainly doesn’t promote freedom.

In conclusion, Roosevelt’s four freedoms are not all bad. The first two are great pillars of liberty. However the second two are immoral and impossible. They coercively force others to do certain things, which is not right. They were disguised as freedoms to push Roosevelt’s agenda. They are not true freedoms.