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Please Help Me Debunk This Theory
I know that philosophy is not a science. Because it is about what we cannot know, as some smart people out there say. But I've got here a philosophical theory which I want you to debunk. The theory is something I truly believe in, and therefor I'm biased towards it. So I suppose you could be better at debunking it, since you are not me.
The theory goes like this:
Given the definition of "Freedom" as: Control over one self and things belonging to one self. Even if the problem has no known solution. Anything considered a problem to one self is in essence a lack of freedom of some kind.
I want you to debunk it because if there is a scientific test that you can come up with that will test this theory, and the theory passes, then it is probably a fact. But for this test to exist the theory should be debunk-able. Although I fear that it is similar to religion or conspiracy theories. Where there is no test that can be good enough. And therefor the theory is only worth philosophical discussion that leads ultimately nowhere concrete.
If the theory is true, then the following should also be true:
If there is any solvable problem, it ought to be solved by removing the lack of freedom that created the problem in the first place.
Reasoning for the theory
Time and time again I see problems in the world that in this or that way seem to have some kind of relationship with freedom of some kind. Malicious Software Features are closely linked with a lack of freedom of the user to control what features the software has and what it hasn't. Every law in a good country is there to protect some kind of freedom, even if it is not obvious at a glance. Rape is illegal because rape is a direct violation of freedom. Murder is illegal because people do not want to die. And so every problem a person has should be something a person doesn't want. And therefor it is a lack of freedom. It is not necessarily a violation of such freedom. Because it's not necessarily anybodies fault. But it is a lack of freedom.
Say somebody is upset about not being able to live on Mars. At the current stage of our technology it is impossible. In future, maybe. But now there no way to live on Mars. And this person has a problem with it. And if you think about it, it is nobodies fault that we can't get to Mars yet. Nobody was malicious to make it harder to get to Mars. But it is still a lack of freedom. This person desires to be on Mars. But can't. He has no freedom to choose if he will be on Mars or not.
But this kind of example is in a way boring. Yesterday I talked with my girlfriend about this and the proof that I came up with that she liked the most was about School Shootings. About which I written an article some time ago, which actually lead me to this theory in the first place.
The proof goes like this: Because the shooter wants to traumatize and shock people as much as possible, he chooses children as his victims. And the schools are places always full of children and they are there in predictable hours. Which makes schools an easy target. But why are children in schools? And why are they there in predictable hours? Well, because of the law that tells that they should be there in those predictable hours. Therefore kids do not have freedom to say "no" to a school. And therefor this is a problem of freedom.
I could prove the theory in a different way. I could say that the problem is in that it is murder and those children do not want to die, therefor the shooter takes their freedom away by shooting them. But while this proves my theory it does not give a solution to the problem. And therefor the proof is not as satisfactory.
If there is a solution, we should look for a lack of freedom to solve.
In the example of school shootings the proposed solutions that various political parties propose, both have an effect to reduce freedom. Both might have worked. But there always seems to be a solution which increases freedom instead. And why should we choose anything else then?
Here is one more example, also related to children. There is a problem of children being abused in one way or another ( mostly the media only cares about the sexual abuse, while completely ignoring other types of abuse. I will focus on all abuse. ). One solution that a lot of countries propose is to ban end-to-end encryption. An article about which I already written as well. This is a solution that reduces freedom further.
Let's go over the justifications for the solution. With end to end encryption various people that want to abuse children can plan their actions in secrecy and talk to the children themselves in secrecy. To lure them into a situation of abuse. Therefor to reduce end to end encryption is to end this kind of planning and luring activity.
There is also a side-issue for illegal pornography, but that is more to do with children's privacy, not with direct abuse. And reducing privacy for the sake of privacy does not make any sense what so ever.
To see how this could be solved instead by increasing freedom we have to ask ourselves a few questions. Could end to end encryption be used to prevent abuse? And why this luring tactic works in the first place?
For the first question, the answer is yes. If a child is being in an abusive situation, end to end encryption can be very useful to communicate with law enforcement or any other party that can act to rescue the child from the abuser. Without the abuser being able to know or read the conversations. Even if the abuser is a hacker of some kind. Therefor there should be more secure channels, especially accessible to children. So they could talk to somebody they trust about something they do not like. This solution also work in a system where some level of corruption is present. And protects the child more adequately.
On the other hand with reduced privacy online the security of the child is also reduced. For example, a child might communicate with somebody who they trust about day to day things, on a chat which is not properly encrypted. And an abuser therefor might have a potential access to this chat, and use it to plan an abuse. The child might communicate things like where she is or where she plans to be. And an abuser might use this information against the child's security. Therefor reducing encryption might only harm more.
On the other hand, with adequate privacy, more security is possible. Perhaps the abuser is one of the parents. Or even worse, perhaps the abuser is a member of law enforcement. In which case, there should be a way to talk a third party, somebody that a child trusts, which is not a parent and not a member of law enforcement. Which would only be possible with adequate protections of privacy. Meaning more end to end encryption and other techniques to make communications more private, like self-deleting messages, and so on.
This brings us to the second question. How is this that communication of an abuser with the child leads to abuse? In my opinion it is a lack of experience. And what is the best way to get experience now a days? Apart from doing something for real? Well, by communicating with people. By having access to information. By being told scary stories.
Children are under heavy censorship. Which makes them naive about the world. So the second problem that could be fixed here is related to freedom of speech. So children would have access to information and therefor to experience. So they could recognize when something in malicious and say "no" to it. And perhaps also communicate with somebody else about it, to make it stop way before it become an issue.
If we further this thought, any problem of any kind, if it is solvable, there should be a solution that provides people with more freedom, not less.
Please try to debunk my theory in the comment section below!
Happy Hacking!!!
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Anonymous GuestHi. I'm the guy from Mastodon with the philosophy background who talked with you :)
As I was saying, philosophy does have a different set of tools than science. But it is a discipline with established ways of getting at the truth.
There's two ways philosophy can "debunk a theory." The first would be to show that there is some internal contradiction in the theory, so the theory can't possibly be true. I don't think I can do that here, which is good, since I largely agree with your thesis.
The other way would be to show that there's something wrong with the argument that supports the theory. The argument might have an invalid form, it might equivocate on a term, or one of the premises is false. This wouldn't be enough to disprove the theory, it would only show that we don't know the theory is true yet.
At this point, I would say that your reasoning isn't precisely formulated enough yet for this kind of "debunking" to work. But I think the argument could be improved.
In order for an argument to work, the terms of it need to link together in a certain way. For example, you should consider how "problem" and "freedom" are defined, and how those definitions reveal connections between them.
You provide a definition of freedom, and it's a common one. But in order to better link up with "problem" (and also because I think it's a better account of freedom), I would suggest Phillip Pettit's non-domination account of freedom: you're free just to the extent you aren't dominated, and you're dominated just if somebody is able to interfere with you and you aren't able to interfere back.
I would suggest that what you mean by "problem" are cases where people are being dominated. And that's why the Mars case isn't a "interesting problem," since nobody is being dominated there.
I have more to say, but I'll wait for a response.
blenderdumbassPhillip Pettit's definition gives for way more Freedom Collision cases. Since what if somebody want to dominate somebody else and being interfered with? In this case you propose that his freedom was violated. And he had a freedom to violate other people's freedom. Which makes everything way more imbalanced.
With the definition I use I make sure that violation of other people's freedoms it's not freedom already. It's power instead. And this is very important for almost everything I talk about on this website. So that's why I use this definition of freedom.
The definition of "problem" is an interesting one. And it seem like it is: Any unpleasantry caused by a lack of freedom. But it is kind of what the theory is about.
Anonymous GuestHi. I'm the guy from Mastodon with the philosophy background who talked with you :)
As I was saying, philosophy does have a different set of tools than science. But it is a discipline with established ways of getting at the truth.
There's two ways philosophy can "debunk a theory." The first would be to show that there is some internal contradiction in the theory, so the theory can't possibly be true. I don't think I can do that here, which is good, since I largely agree with your thesis.
The other way would be to show that there's something wrong with the argument that supports the theory. The argument might have an invalid form, it might equivocate on a term, or one of the premises is false. This wouldn't be enough to disprove the theory, it would only show that we don't know the theory is true yet.
At this point, I would say that your reasoning isn't precisely formulated enough yet for this kind of "debunking" to work. But I think the argument could be improved.
In order for an argument to work, the terms of it need to link together in a certain way. For example, you should consider how "problem" and "freedom" are defined, and how those definitions reveal connections between them.
You provide a definition of freedom, and it's a common one. But in order to better link up with "problem" (and also because I think it's a better account of freedom), I would suggest Phillip Pettit's non-domination account of freedom: you're free just to the extent you aren't dominated, and you're dominated just if somebody is able to interfere with you and you aren't able to interfere back.
I would suggest that what you mean by "problem" are cases where people are being dominated. And that's why the Mars case isn't a "interesting problem," since nobody is being dominated there.
I have more to say, but I'll wait for a response.
Anonymous GuestEven on the "liberal" non-interference account of freedom (the account you're using), it's said that your freedom ends at the other person's nose. The "republican" non-domination account does set the stage for more collisions, since you can dominate somebody without actually interfering with them. It just has to be the case that you could interfere with them and there's nothing they could do about it.
And Pettit proposes that governments are legitimate just to the extent that they promote freedom. When governments act "constitutionally," they take the "interests and ideas" of their citizens into account before they act. Pettit suggests that this kind of "interference" does not reduce freedom. When they act "arbitrarily," and don't take the interests and ideas of citizens into account, that does reduce freedom.
So, what I am saying is, intervening on an individual to prevent them from dominating others could be one way to increase freedom for everybody else. If the "interests and ideas" of the dominator were taken into account first, this would at least reduce the unfreedom of the dominator. But it would presumably still involve some loss of freedom on their part.
And Pettit says, in essence, that he'll be a consequentialist about freedom until given a good reason not to be. (With a nod to Rawls' reflective equilibrium.)
This approach is sort of a counter-example to your thesis. What you seem to be proposing is finding ways to enable people to interfere back with people who now dominate them, rather than reducing the ability of people to interfere with others.
blenderdumbassThis requires a lot of links. You can use markdown, if you want to to link stuff. Because half of the words here would benefit from having at least a wikipedia type thing.
I'm really hooked.
I see something like Police as a minimum allowable power to make freedom more sustainable. Otherwise you have this paradox. In which case freedom is literally very unstable.