Why Freedom Isn't Best

Received said:

Gah, this is complicated, because who's to say you can't have the "right" to hold contradictory things, and if you don't (have the right to hold contradictory things), then your distinction in the first sentence doesn't hold?

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Well, I don´t care about "justice", so the first paragraph in my sentence doesn´t hold anyway, as far as I am concerned.

"Right of the abused" means this person has the right to be abused if she prefers it.

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Yeah, but what is that supposed to mean?
Other than in legislation I don´t know what "a right" is supposed to be (and where I live there is no legal right to be abused).

The refusal to comply wouldn't be, er, unethical, I think, uhhh -- maybe because "ethics" implies a corporate sense of what constitutes personal becoming (with or without regard to others, which is what morals is about).

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Typically, one person having "a right" implies that another person has an obligation. As long as "the right to be abused" doesn´t pose an obligation to abuse them for me, they can have this "right".

But if you understand ethics as a potentially personal thing ("my own ethic"), then you could technically say that insofar as the person believes being abused is a good (ethical) thing, the degree to which she doesn't fulfill this means she isn't ethical. You made it complicated.

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Me?

I don't really know what rights are either, other than the implicit sense of how people use them.

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Then I do not quite understand why you ask a question using a word as a keyterm of which you don´t know what it means.
Maybe your question gets a little clearer if you reword it without using "a right"?

Philosophically, at face value, anyone has entitlement to anything they want because we all have free will.

Morally, should one be entitled to abuse if one so desires? In the definition of the treatment of a person (physically, verbally, etc..) yes, because it does not define the charge (+/-) of the effect; but, by desire of the abused, it begs to not restrict free will.

As a [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse], I can't say that anything done to me in the dungeon was ever immoral nor did I ever see any effect immorally with those I keep in contact with. In fact, there was more regulation and checks to make sure everyone is on the same page and ok than I have seen in any other sect of life.

There are many people who send themselves to disciplinary camps or into the military with an intent of stability, growth, and regulation by way of the abusive (not always, mind you) methods of those kinds of places that they would not get elsewhere in a "soft" world.

Anger management groups often use the "feel my pain" strategy for expression of the abuser and understanding of the abused and vice versa.

However, I think there's something to be said about the definition of abuse that is to use something improperly or wrong, philosophically. There, it defines it as a strictly negative behavior. The problem with this is that the mode of abuse must be subjectively recognized as having a negative effect. The subject is the issue.

If the observer of the abused-abuser relationship subjectively thinks that the mode of abuse is negative, but neither of the participants do, there can be dispute; socially, at minimum.

If the abused subjectively considers the mode of the abuse negative, but neither the abuser nor the observer (here we have the possibility of an observer but is not necessary for this consideration) consider it negative, it is probably the most challenging model of this question. I'm not sure if I know of any instance where one would desire a negative abuse without it, ultimately, being a positive. I'm not sure if one can truly want something purely negative happen to them. So, unless someone has thoughts on this, I would consider it a null model and therefore all models following with the abused desiring abuse, regardless of the subjectivity of the abuser or the observer cannot exist.

Ultimately, free will entitles someone to desire of abuse. Is it always a sane, healthy choice? Of course not.

I tend to think of traffic as a useful analogy.

Say everyone has an all-terrain vehicle that can take us anywhere on land that we want them to.

If you're alone on your continent, would you have more freedom if you're restricted to roads? Does it make sense to say that restricting yourself to roads is best?

If you're in a crowded city, would people be more free to drive where they want, if they are completely unrestricted? Does it make sense to say that freedom from roads and traffic rules is best?

Depending on context, restrictions can either restrict us and reduce freedom, or they can also maximize freedoms.

Nanopants said:

I tend to think of traffic as a useful analogy.

Say everyone has an all-terrain vehicle that can take us anywhere on land that we want them to.

If you're alone on your continent, would you have more freedom if you're restricted to roads? Does it make sense to say that restricting yourself to roads is best?

If you're in a crowded city, would people be more free to drive where they want, if they are completely unrestricted? Does it make sense to say that freedom from roads and traffic rules is best?

Depending on context, restrictions can either restrict us and reduce freedom, or they can also maximize freedoms.

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The fallacy in this is your second argument. You ask if people would be more free IF they were completely unrestricted, which they would because that's the definition of freedom. Yet, you restrict them by other people and buildings therefore failing the "if". If they were completely unrestricted, they would be alone on their continent as the first clause.

If(restrictions) //true/false
then(freedom = true) // clause A,
else(freedom = false) // clause B, Clause A if one restricts to roads

Received said:

Okay. In which case you dig freedom over what's best for a person.

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"Whose freedom over whose best?" would be the accurate question.

I guess I'll somewhat arbitrarily use this definition (because it seems to line up with my sense of what it means as I use the term): a moral or legal entitlement to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way. Except I'm going to broaden this from moral and replace the word with "ethical", which to me connotes personal becoming (of which morality is only a part).

So let me put the second part of the OP like this: does she have an entitlement to be (obtain) abused if she wants it?

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Yes, I am aware that "right" and "entitlement" are often almost used as synonyms.
I still don´t know what that practically means, what the implications and consequences would be.
As far as I can tell, abusing another person isn´t personally becoming to me - so if she has a "right or entitlement to be abused" I hope this doesn´t mean any obligation for me. She will have to take care of that "right/entitlement" herself, I am afraid.
Furthermore, I have no idea how "abuse" and "personal becoming" are reconcilable for any of the persons involved (rather, they seem to form a contradiction in terms, by definition).

So, sorry, I am still pretty clueless what it is you are asking.

Star Adept said:

The fallacy in this is your second argument. You ask if people would be more free IF they were completely unrestricted, which they would because that's the definition of freedom. Yet, you restrict them by other people and buildings therefore failing the "if". If they were completely unrestricted, they would be alone on their continent as the first clause.

If(restrictions) //true/false
then(freedom = true) // clause A,
else(freedom = false) // clause B, Clause A if one restricts to roads

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If I want to go to the grocery store, and I am able to do so then I have the freedom to do so. If I do, but you want to say that I do not possess freedom because I'm restricted to roads and traffic laws, then I would just disagree with your definition of freedom.

Free will and freedom are separate concepts and I was trying to explain that in reference to your post.

Free will is to be free to choose among available choice. Freedom is to be free in all choices.

You do not have the freedom to fly to the grocery store, therefore you do not have the free will to choose to do so. You have freedom of how fast you want to go in your car (restricted by how fast your car can go), therefore you are free to choose whether or not you want to obey or ignore traffic law.

Star Adept said:

Free will and freedom are separate concepts and I was trying to explain that in reference to your post.

Free will is to be free to choose among available choice. Freedom is to be free in all choices.

You do not have the freedom to fly to the grocery store, therefore you do not have the free will to choose to do so. You have freedom of how fast you want to go in your car (restricted by how fast your car can go), therefore you are free to choose whether or not you want to obey or ignore traffic law.

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I may not be free to teleport to the grocery store, but if I am free to travel there via some means, then I possess that freedom. I do not need to be free in every sense to be free in some sense. We're not talking about the same concepts and tbh, I'm having a tough time making sense of your version of "freedom."

Received said:

Says the non-moral realist.

Translation: impasse.

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Actually, I am not quite seeing how my statement is at odds with being moral non-realist. I just meant to point out that it is not an issue of "freedom vs. well-being", but "my freedom vs. her freedom", "my well-being against hers", "my freedom against her well-being" or "my well-being against my freedom.

Impasse? I haven´t even taken sides. I´m still busy trying to understand what you are trying to ask (this seems to be prevented by the fact that you are asking in the totally abstract. Maybe an example would help me understand better?).
I´m also confused by the terminology. I don´t think that if someone demands an action from me it can be "abuse" (by definition of these terms, and even more so, since you are appealing to the fact that it will contribute to her subjective well-being).
So I´ll give you an example: I ask someone to rape me. By virtue of the fact that I demand it, this isn´t going to be rape (it´s not only consensual, it´s my explicit request. And if I had a right to be raped on demand, those abstract terms would even get more absurd).

For quite some time now I have ceased to think in terms of rights, obligations, entitlements etc. In my world, all we can say to each other is "please", "yes/no" and "thank you" (everything else is just a clumsy, counterproductive of even suicidal way of trying to have our needs fulfilled). We can invite each other to do what we think enhances our quality of life, our well-being, helps - in VE speak - our "flourishing" sigh, which at the same time is an offer to enhance the quality of life of the other person. Giving and taking being indistinguishable.
The other person can accept/take this request/offer or refuse to take/accept it.
That´s all.

What I am wondering: By taking the concepts of rights/entitlements/obligations to an absurd, paradox extreme (as if they weren´t absurd enough without that), are you actually trying to confirm the way of looking at things?

I think the crux depends on the response (to what you said) above. But "personal becoming" means having a goal that you can use toward which you become; ethically if a person thinks being abused is better than not being abused, then it would be more becoming (ethical) for the individual person to be abused.

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Again: I can´t get over this absurd terminology. If what´s "becoming to a person" is at the same time "abuse" of said person, these terms (which actually owe their existence to their positive/negative connation and nothing else) get unusable.
I can´t answer a question that is set up to lead to a semantic paradox.
That´s why I propose you give an example.
What precisely is it that the person demands and of which you are asking whether it´s her right/entitlement? What would it mean for me that she has this right/entitlement? Does it come with an obligation on my part? Do I have any rights/entitlement? What would my entitlements/rights in this matter mean for her and her obligations towards me? Whose rights/entitlements trumps whose? Whose freedom trumps whose?

I think I have never seen the concepts of "rights", "entitlements", "obligations" deconstructed any better and thoroughly than by your question.
Maybe that was your very intention?

Received said:

Say you have a person who says -- and this happens, and I've seen it repeatedly -- that she deserves to be punished, abused, whatever. Does she have the right to be abused?

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Possibly, but that doesn't mean that anyone else is entitled to administer it.