On 21 Jul 2002 at 19:41, Jayr wrote:
> >What is important here is that we make the
> >effort to find out what we can about our choices, and the more important
> >the choice, the more diligently we should investigate, and choose
> >between them with benevolent intent.
>
> This makes good sense to me, though the importance of a choice is in itself
> subjective... well, we cannot escape that. I guess it comes down to the
> point of living your life as consciously as possible. Get as much
> information as "reasonable" - or as much as you have the time to spare...
>
Yep...the energy devoted to the investigation should be proportional to
the importance of the choice.
>
> >The best defence against enslavement is a good
> >offence on behalf of freedom, and an ounce of enslavement prevention
> >is worth a pound of the struggle necessitated in pursuit of an after-the-
> >fact cure.
>
> But again, freedom is an elusive concept, isn't it? How sensitive are it's
> boundaries? Isn't other people's freedom violated by merely possibly
> violating it? For example (as my availability heuristic suggests), is
> driving drunk not violating other's freedom by *threatening* it? (I do not
> want to express my opinion on that matter, it is just an example...)
>
An old philosophy professor of mine once said that "relative" was a
derivative and parasitic term; relative to what? he would ask, and then
answer, to an absolute, of course. He had a point, in that 'relative'
implies relation, but he was wrong about the absolute. Instead, think
correlation (co-relation) or interrelation. The components or aspects of
any system, including one's life situation, can be both supported by and
supporting of one another, in reciprocal mutuality, without any of them
having to be foundational. My freedom to swing my fist, therefore, is
corelational with the position of your nose; my freedom-to-swing ends
where your nose begins. likewise, I do not have the right to drive drunk
because that would impinge upon the freedom of many anonymous
others to travel the same roads in safety; I do not have the right to thus
endanger them.
>
> What
> I'm saying is, how can you go into the "offence on behalf of freedom" if
> that freedom is of your choosing. Of course, abstract freedom may be tracked
> down to a few principles, but once you start acting on it, it appears to be
> highly arbitrary still.
>
You can go on the offence in defence of freedom by defending the
freedom of others as you would your own, for instance, reporting
corporate polluters who infringe upon our freedom to live in a nontoxic
environment. Also, one way to preserve the freedom of some to live is
to work to remove the means to kill from others who are likely to use it
against innocent others - this means working to pass laws that forbid
the sale to or possession of firearms by violent criminals, the certifiably
deranged, and children too young to shoulder the responsibility of safe
firearm practices, for freedom and responsibility are correlative terms -
one must be responsible to the situation in which one acts, in the
exercise of one's freedom (the term 'responsibility comes from the latin
respondere, to respond).
>
> Quite a relativist attitude - argh!
>
I appreciate relativist thinking - for instance, our rights and
responsibilities are correlated to our situation as consciously self-and-
other-aware finite mortals sharing a common home with others of our
kind. However, absolute relativism is an oxymoron. One can only be
relatively relativistic ;~), that is, relative to one's situation.
>
> Petrified with fear,
>
> Jayr
>
>
> p.s.: It seems I can't get rid of that spectre... relativism...
>
>
> <<Ygnailh... ygnaiih... thflthkh'ngha.... Yog-Sothoth... Y'bthnk... h'ehye -
> n'grkdl'lh...>>
>
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