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by scythe 1645 days ago
Does freedom have inherent value, or does it have to lead to something else in order to be valuable? This editorial seems to assume the latter.

For example, it suggests that the sole justification for alcohol legality is that it can have benefits in moderation. Notwithstanding the dubiousness of this claim, does anyone really believe that is why alcohol is legal?
1 comments
js8 1645 days ago
> Does freedom have inherent value, or does it have to lead to something else in order to be valuable?

If you assume the first then you're a fundamentalist. In order to compare different moral values, we need to look at what they lead to in practice, and weigh that. So the abstract "freedom" doesn't cut it, you need to be able to say, what is the practical benefit of such freedom? So that we could compare it with practical disadvantages of the freedom, in case of smoking, things like people getting addicted and less healthy, and Philip Morris shares decreasing in value.

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scythe 1645 days ago
>If you assume the first then you're a fundamentalist.

Apparently your opinion is that I should be dismissed out of hand as a "fundamentalist".

>So the abstract "freedom" doesn't cut it, you need to be able to say, what is the practical benefit of such freedom?

This is the conceit I intended to highlight, yes.

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js8 1645 days ago
> Apparently your opinion is that I should be dismissed out of hand as a "fundamentalist".

I don't know, do you hold the position that abstract freedom is valuable, regardless of the real-world consequences? In any case, I think giving you an option to change your mind is not a dismissal. :-)

I don't think anything is valuable in itself, without a real-world context. The story of Midas' gold illustrates that.

And when we think about the practical context, we find that lots of freedoms (for starters, the ones in EU Charter of Fundamental Rights) are actually valuable in most circumstances. But that doesn't mean we can generalize it to freedom to do anything is valuable in all contexts, which I think is a logical consequence of attributing value to freedom in the abstract.

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