Remember when you were a little kid? Remember how you acquired freedom? Remember how you acquired virtue? Remember raising a kid? Remember how they acquired freedom? Remember how they acquired virtue? Did the level of freedom and the level of virtue ever change. How did they change?
Man may be created free and equal, and freedom maybe our birthright, but at the moment of birth, humans are hardly free to do what they wish. They're babies and they have no freedom. They're babies and so they also have a clean history of morality and lack all virtues. Babies can't even take care of themselves and rely on adults to shove food nearly all the way into their mouths.
But babies grow up into children. Children grown into teenagers, and teenagers turn into adults. At least, that is how it is suppose to work. At every step along the way, maturing individuals become more capable of taking responsibility for their own well-being. In turn they are given more freedoms and acquire their own moral compass and other moral virtues. Often parents, stewards of their children's freedoms, give their children more freedoms once the children demonstrate an ability to effectively use their existing freedoms. Often the ability to effectively use freedoms is considered a virtue.
So for immature individuals, the idea of linking virtue and freedom is a valid and natural phenomenon. But the rule applies on an individual basis and only for children who are under the stewardship of their parents. How could the rule apply to the entirety of society or to full-grown adults?
But more about the development of freedom and virtue in children. In a way, freedom and virtue go hand-in-hand, increasing as the children get old. That's the way it has always worked, so that children may develop into a full responsible adult by the time they reach the age of maturity. So is it ever a good idea on the part of the parent to permanently revoke a freedom that a child might have acquired? Is it a good idea for a child to reach the age of maturity without having a taste of any of the freedoms that adults have? Is it really a good idea to treat your teenagers like a 10 year old kid or your 10 year old kid like they're little babies?
