Freedom is understood as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one's purposes unhindered. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving oneself their own laws", and with having rights and the civil liberties with which to exercise them without undue interference by the state. Frequently discussed kinds of political freedom include freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom of choice, and freedom of speech.
In one definition, something is "free" if it can change easily and is not constrained in its present state. In philosophy and religion, freedom is sometimes associated with having free will and being without undue or unjust constraints on that will, such as enslavement. It is an idea closely tied with the concept of Negative liberty.
Charles Taylor resolves one of the issues that separate ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ theories of freedom, as these have been initially distinguished in Isaiah Berlin's seminal essay, ‘Two concepts of liberty'. Taylor sees it as undeniable that there are two such families of conceptions