In its broadest sense, the term freedom refers to an absence of constraint over human action. As we saw in Section 1, action is always constrained by the natures of entities, so that human beings cannot act in such a way as to violate laws of nature; within these limits, however, multiple alternatives may be metaphysically possible to a human being, giving rise to volition, also called free will (p. 1.4:12). Philosophers sometimes refer to this capacity for volitional choice as "metaphysical freedom." In a political context, however, we are more specifically concerned with the constraints imposed by political power—that is, by the initiation of force (coercion). We can therefore define freedom as a state of human action in which the actor is not constrained by coercion of others.

Politicians and journalists often use the term far less precisely, particularly in references to "freedom from wants." In reality, this latter notion denotes a logical impossibility. As we have just seen, wants are by their very nature unlimited. As values are obtained, human beings aspire to still higher values, so that they are never truly "free from wants." The desire for "freedom from wants" is really a desire for freedom from nature, that is, for the metaphysically impossible. Even a goal of "freedom from basic wants," where the phrase "basic wants" is interpreted to refer not to wants per se but to essential needs, can only be defined in an arbitrary manner, since essential needs are always evolving, as seen above. This notion of "freedom" can in fact never be attained because its social "definition" is perpetually changing.