On The Freedom of Infants

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The question is not often asked:

Who is more free:  an intelligent person or an
unintelligent one?

But I think most people's assumption would
be that intelligence enlarges one's freedom.
After all you'd think intelligence would at
least help you come up with a wider range
of choices on which to act.

But I wonder how true our intuition is on
this point.  If very intelligent babies learn
learn to speak earlier than other babies in
similar circumstances, doesn't this mean
they have less freedom?

They don't choose to speak; they are
programmed or designed by nature to learn
to speak, and the more intelligent the child,
the more relentlessly nature makes her
develop according to a preset design. 

Perhaps intelligence is finally a measure
of how successfully nature shapes us
to her own ends.