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Hello, Mahatma Gandy said that freedom and slavery are mental states, that may be, but in

the last 25 centuries freedom has been a subject of inquiry 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 law should confine his liberty.

Others have counted that laws are the only way to preserve freedom.

They protect us from the slavery of the abyss.

Individual freedom is a recent invention.

Is freedom service, some have asked.

The very idea of freedoms riddled with constraints, limitations,

and qualifications, yet it's seen by many as the most basic of human rights and for some

as a principle worth fighting and dying for. How did freedom become such a powerful value?

And is that such a thing as natural freedom or is it always culturally defined and what happens

when our ideas about freedom conflict.

With me to discuss on the 4th of July Independence Day for the land of the free are John Keene,

professor of politics at the University of Westminster and author of forthcoming history of democracy.

Bernard Williams, fellow of all so as Oxford,

professor of philosophy at the University of California,

and author of the forthcoming book Truth and Truthfulness.

And Annabel Brett, lecturer in history at the University of Cambridge and author of Liberty,

...