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contractualist OP t1_ir2gw00 wrote

Summary: Morality exists only within the boundaries of freedom. First, the experience of freedom is a certainty, a la Descartes. Second, freedom is the standard for judging moral claims. We cannot be held morally responsible for actions that are beyond our control. And moral claims must outweigh the value of personal choice.

Conscious experience also sets the inherent boundaries of our moral community, which would exclude non-conscious life, inanimate objects, and mental fictions. Although that does not exclude a trustee relationship.

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Vainti t1_ir4v5pu wrote

You’re making a strong case for the argument that people shouldn’t be compelled to do things they provably cannot do. But nobody disagrees with that. Proving that freedom is in any sense meaningful or valuable is where you fall short. You don’t provide a way to compare freedom with utility or a reason why freedom would ever be more valuable than flourishing.

As far as I’m concerned the lack of free will makes freedom an illusory goal. The illusion of freedom is a path to well being, and any code of conduct should probably only ask for conduct that’s possible. But our code of conduct should be based entirely on utility.

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contractualist OP t1_ir4wl56 wrote

Thanks for the comment

I’ve addressed why utility isn’t foundational here

https://open.substack.com/pub/garik/p/the-utility-coach-thought-experiment?r=1pded0&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

And free will here https://open.substack.com/pub/garik/p/why-free-will-exists?r=1pded0&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

Freedom is foundational in that it’s required to underlie ethics and has a strong factual ground in our experience. And ethics needs to be built from there. A concern for the worlds welfare or our moral intuitions meanwhile are weak foundations and can’t be the basis of morality. Also, utilitarians have claimed we commit moral wrongs even as a result of actions beyond our control since outcomes matter rather than agency. Although since we can’t do anything about them, not focusing on them is strictly practicable.

I’ll be making more posts on utilitarianism in the future and I’d appreciate your thoughts.

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[deleted] t1_ir3hxqu wrote

It is way too difficult for me to understand. Can you please explain to me in layman’s terms and simple examples in real life?

Freedom is a philosophical topic that interests me... because it is what i wish to achieve in life

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contractualist OP t1_ir3ivsz wrote

Apologies, I’m trying to write less abstractly but I’ll continue to work on that.

The thesis of the article is that morality must rely on freedom. Morals can’t exist outside of freedom. Imagine a circle that represents freedom and a smaller circle inside it that represents our moral duties.

This has to be the case. We can’t have moral duties to do the impossible or control our involuntary functions. Therefore morality exists only within the realm of freedom. Additionally, the sense of freedom we experience is undeniable. It’s a strong foundation to rest an ethical theory on, yet it’s too often overlooked.

Additionally, our moral universe only includes free beings. Not objects, unconscious life or ideas. So whether a being is conscious is morally relevant.

Let me know if this helps.

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iiioiia t1_ir5p8jq wrote

>Morals can’t exist outside of freedom.

Non-voluntary income taxes would yield morality impossible then wouldn't it?

>This has to be the case.

What enforces this rule?

>Additionally, the sense of freedom we experience is undeniable.

I disagree.

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[deleted] t1_ir3k7so wrote

Thank you for taking the time to explain to me. I am trying to comprehend it... before i thought that it was the other way around, freedom is within the moral circle, it has to be. But now i think it is true, we(conscious beings) have freedom and it is thru that freedom that we set the standards for our morality. Did i understand it right?

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contractualist OP t1_ir3m75q wrote

Yes, freedom creates the capacity for morality. But it’s reason that binds freedom which actually establishes moral rules. Let me know if you have any topics you have questions about on this and I’ll try to write about them on my substack. Thanks for taking the time to comment and question.

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ttd_76 t1_irf1z3e wrote

>But it’s reason that binds freedom which actually establishes moral rules.

This is a solid enough starting framework. But it's also been the starting framework for thousands of years of Western moral philosophy.

We have choices. We need to decide which of these options is "right" or "just." So let's just use some logical problem-solving. Except that it seems as though "reasonable" people strongly disagree about many things.

So the real question morality is concerned with is when does MY "reason" trump YOUR "freedom?"

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TMax01 t1_ir7g8di wrote

>We can’t have moral duties to do the impossible or control our involuntary functions.

Would that it were so. But this perspective trivializes morality, reducing all moral duties to a preference rather than an obligation. Self-determination is only a strong foundation for a theory of an ethical system if "ethics" is merely a quid pro quo voluntarily entered into (conscientiously and knowledgeably understood) by all participants, the very opposite of morality, though admittedly as close to it as a formal, conventional, or historic philosophical theory has gotten. But if historical systems of ethics had successfully deduced the nature of morality, philosophers would not still be discussing such things. "Normative ethics" is as inadequate for explaining what morality is, let alone elucidating its ramifications on how we should behave, as scriptural faith is.

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bumharmony t1_ir4dm7z wrote

So a sleeping person has no rights? An embryo has no rights although he is like a sleeping person who wakes up later - in this case only much later?

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contractualist OP t1_ir4qvrj wrote

Sleeping people definitely have rights, as well as people under anesthesia. It’s the existing capacity for consciousness that’s morally relevant.

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bumharmony t1_ir52c8h wrote

So other people get to decide about the fate of a coma patient? How you know it is voluntary? I don’t see how the capacity argument works if there is no active participation to decision making. If an unborn baby ”wakes” up earlier than a coma patient, I would say that baby has more capacity to decide than that coma patient who let’s say wakes up in 5 years. (The chaotic slippery slope here is that we need to give birth to all potential babies)

Okay. The coma patient has showcased his capacity at some point but what if the rules have changed since and there is no evidence that he agrees with the common train of thought or whatever the given fixed point is.

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