Philosophy Now Forum

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Jan 06, 2020 12:48 am Henry Quirk wrote:

No, life and happiness come from being free, from havin' individual freedom bein' the baseline. Again, read what I wrote at the beginning of the thread.

We all love freedom.

Resources are limited and freedom includes equal distribution of resources. At least can we agree that each individual should at least begin their lives benefiting from equality of opportunity for all?

Not strictly true. And: what's that got to do with price of heroin in Thailand?

That ain't got nuthin' to do with my conception of freedom which is about me freely exercisin' myself in the world to provide for me and mine. Your scheme is a friggin' leash, and I'm no dog.

Absolutely not. Chasin' that rainbow always leads to misery and repression.

Henry Quirk wrote:

That ain't got nuthin' to do with my conception of freedom which is about me freely exercisin' myself in the world to provide for me and mine. Your scheme is a friggin' leash, and I'm no dog.

Engineering principle of the lever for instance. Your personal freedoms and mine are possible because of other people.

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Jan 06, 2020 11:39 am Henry Quirk wrote:

That ain't got nuthin' to do with my conception of freedom which is about me freely exercisin' myself in the world to provide for me and mine. Your scheme is a friggin' leash, and I'm no dog.

Engineering principle of the lever for instance. Your personal freedoms and mine are possible because of other people.

No. Certain conveniences and advantages are possible because of advances in knowlege. Good example: my kid benefits from what I do, what I've done, but his freedom, his liberty, is intrinsic, not bestowed. I don't make him free, I just make it easier to be free.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Mon Jan 06, 2020 4:52 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Jan 06, 2020 11:39 am Henry Quirk wrote:

That ain't got nuthin' to do with my conception of freedom which is about me freely exercisin' myself in the world to provide for me and mine. Your scheme is a friggin' leash, and I'm no dog.

Engineering principle of the lever for instance. Your personal freedoms and mine are possible because of other people.

No. Certain conveniences and advantages are possible because of advances in knowlege. Good example: my kid benefits from what I do, what I've done, but his freedom, his liberty, is intrinsic, not bestowed. I don't make him free, I just make it easier to be free.

Very true. You've explained why John Adams wrote: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."


This is why secularism seeks to replace what is intrinsic or the human potential for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and enables one nation under God with man made conceptions. Secularism or the belief in government supremacy cannot tolerate freedom so struggles against it. Consisting of man made interpretations they must be doomed to failure and result in their opposite; a natural result for the human condition.

The government has replaced the church in the center of town. The disastrous results of this change is obvious in terms of human freedom and ethics

Nick_A wrote: ↑Mon Jan 06, 2020 10:56 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Mon Jan 06, 2020 4:52 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Jan 06, 2020 11:39 am Henry Quirk wrote:


Engineering principle of the lever for instance. Your personal freedoms and mine are possible because of other people.

No. Certain conveniences and advantages are possible because of advances in knowlege. Good example: my kid benefits from what I do, what I've done, but his freedom, his liberty, is intrinsic, not bestowed. I don't make him free, I just make it easier to be free.

Very true. You've explained why John Adams wrote: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."


This is why secularism seeks to replace what is intrinsic or the human potential for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and enables one nation under God with man made conceptions. Secularism or the belief in government supremacy cannot tolerate freedom so struggles against it. Consisting of man made interpretations they must be doomed to failure and result in their opposite; a natural result for the human condition.

The government has replaced the church in the center of town. The disastrous results of this change is obvious in terms of human freedom and ethics

It's queer to me, this notion that freedom or liberty or personhood or self-possession is a bestowed status instead of the obviously intrinsic quality or characteristic it is. Even more peculiar are folks who promote such a queer notion. Sculptor, for example, sez a person isn't a person till he's declared one by others. I can't wrap my head around it.

Nick_A wrote:

It's queer to me, this notion that freedom or liberty or personhood or self-possession is a bestowed status instead of the obviously intrinsic quality or characteristic it is. Even more peculiar are folks who promote such a queer notion. Sculptor, for example, sez a person isn't a person till he's declared one by others. I can't wrap my head around it.
Top

Freedom, liberty,and personhood are indeed bestowed by others than oneself. If they were qualities bestowed on oneself everyone would be free to be whatever they wanted, at liberty to do whatever they wanted , and every pet cat would consider himself a person.
None of the above is the case.

Freedom relates to good fortune of health, strength, and status.

Liberty relates to others'permissions by way of the law, the religion, or the cultural mores and taboos.You and Henry are not at liberty to walk around the street naked. We are not at liberty to deride people's sexual orientations on this website.

Personhood relates to social status. For instance slaves who are bought and sold are usually non-persons for their
buyers and sellers in the slave owning community. In Nazi Germany Jews, Romany men and women, and homosexuals were non-persons. A foetus is a non person as the law stands. Many people nowadays want the great apes to be awarded the status of personhood. Personhood is a status that carries rights and responsibilities.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2020 4:36 am "Are you still in favour additional taxes to be levied on American consumers who choose to spend the money they earn through their own honest labours on products made in China?"

You have a poor, and mebbe selective, memory on this. I admitted I was wrong on that and credited you for revealin' my hypocrisy to me.

So: when you say to actually change that belief on the basis of that principle is practically superhuman you were talkin' about me.

I am the utterly self-consistent Superman.

Fear me, bitches.

This is one of the of the finest posts ever made on this forum, maybe on the entire Innertube. Just saying ...

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2020 11:20 pm The trick here is to realise that nobody, Henry included, actually has a principle from which they derive most of their beliefs. What they have is a set of stuff they believe and then they reverse the principled position that best fits with those beliefs in as a justification. Henry may like certain expressions of minimalism, but he also likes instinct and he likes to keep things simple. When those latter things conflict with the former thing, the simplicity and instinct are trusted ahead of it.

TL;DR

Arguments are smokescreens for our whimsical desires.

There are a multitude of self-contradictory principles (some even codified as "rights" and "freedoms") to justify every whim.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2020 11:20 pm He's hardly alone in this matter. It's pretty much what Hume was on about when he described reason as the slave of the passions.

This is the 3rd time I bump into this quote in the last 6 hours. 2 books and a forum. If you are superstitious do a dance.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Tue Jan 07, 2020 2:29 am Sculptor, for example, sez a person isn't a person till he's declared one by others. I can't wrap my head around it.

The easiest way to wrap your head around it is the 13th amendment.

Slaves may have been persons even before that, but it didn't matter in practice.

Henry

It's queer to me, this notion that freedom or liberty or personhood or self-possession is a bestowed status instead of the obviously intrinsic quality or characteristic it is. Even more peculiar are folks who promote such a queer notion. Sculptor, for example, sez a person isn't a person till he's declared one by others. I can't wrap my head around it.

This is one of the ideas which invite violent secular intolerance. It is denied with such passion that common sense must be excluded.

From the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

This is why secularism is so adamant with its agenda to transform America into a statism governed by the whims of who the government calls "experts." To become open to the origin of higher values requires opening to the idea of a conscious source for creation and that creation has a purpose served by higher universal values. Naturally this is intolerable for the secular agenda in which the Great Beast has replaced our conscious source.

As you suggest secularism cannot understand the objective meaning of respect for life so defines it subjectively which justifies the destruction of all that secular values believes unworthy of life not serving our whims.. Those open to philosophy and religion as the love of wisdom and the need for the experiential truth of our being sense something lacking in this attitude. They raise intolerable questions in secular society. You seem to sense something lacking with this approach. If you do, consider yourself lucky.

"Freedom, liberty,and personhood are indeed bestowed by others than oneself. If they were qualities bestowed on oneself everyone would be free to be whatever they wanted, at liberty to do whatever they wanted , and every pet cat would consider himself a person."

I'm a guy, yeah? My guyness is intrinsic. No one (not you, not me) declares me a guy: I just am one.

In the same way: bein' free, bein' a person is what I am. You can't bestow or gift these to me, you can only recognize that I am a free person or choose to ignore that I'm a free person. I can't bestow personhood on myself. I can only recognize what is intrinsic to me or deny it.

#

Freedom, liberty, self-possession/ownership, personhood, self, 'I'-ness: these, and a whole whack of other descriptors, all refer to refer to the intrinsic quality of the individual. Absolutely there is a legalistic interpretation of all of these descriptors, but you know, B, I ain't talkin' about legalisms.

mickthinks wrote: ↑Tue Jan 07, 2020 12:44 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2020 4:36 am "Are you still in favour additional taxes to be levied on American consumers who choose to spend the money they earn through their own honest labours on products made in China?"

You have a poor, and mebbe selective, memory on this. I admitted I was wrong on that and credited you for revealin' my hypocrisy to me.

So: when you say to actually change that belief on the basis of that principle is practically superhuman you were talkin' about me.

I am the utterly self-consistent Superman.

Fear me, bitches.

This is one of the of the finest posts ever made on this forum, maybe on the entire Innertube. Just saying ...

I have my moments (usually pre-dementia moments, but sometimes the opposite).

Skepdick wrote: ↑Tue Jan 07, 2020 3:07 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Tue Jan 07, 2020 2:29 am Sculptor, for example, sez a person isn't a person till he's declared one by others. I can't wrap my head around it.

The easiest way to wrap your head around it is the 13th amendment.

Slaves may have been persons even before that, but it didn't matter in practice.

A person is always a person, even if everyone else fails, or chooses not, to recognize him as such.

Slavery is never about withholding personhood; it's only about denying it (which is pretty friggin' awful).

henry quirk wrote: ↑Tue Jan 07, 2020 4:29 pm A person is always a person, even if everyone else fails, or chooses not, to recognize him as such.

That's good to know, but it helps nothing when you are being systemically denied basic human decency by your fellow persons.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Tue Jan 07, 2020 4:29 pm Slavery is never about withholding personhood; it's only about denying it (which is pretty friggin' awful).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distincti ... difference

Given the choice (if you can call it that) between your personhood being withheld and it being denied which one would you go for?

Nick_A wrote: ↑Tue Jan 07, 2020 3:49 pm Henry

It's queer to me, this notion that freedom or liberty or personhood or self-possession is a bestowed status instead of the obviously intrinsic quality or characteristic it is. Even more peculiar are folks who promote such a queer notion. Sculptor, for example, sez a person isn't a person till he's declared one by others. I can't wrap my head around it.

This is one of the ideas which invite violent secular intolerance. It is denied with such passion that common sense must be excluded.

From the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

This is why secularism is so adamant with its agenda to transform America into a statism governed by the whims of who the government calls "experts." To become open to the origin of higher values requires opening to the idea of a conscious source for creation and that creation has a purpose served by higher universal values. Naturally this is intolerable for the secular agenda in which the Great Beast has replaced our conscious source.

As you suggest secularism cannot understand the objective meaning of respect for life so defines it subjectively which justifies the destruction of all that secular values believes unworthy of life not serving our whims.. Those open to philosophy and religion as the love of wisdom and the need for the experiential truth of our being sense something lacking in this attitude. They raise intolerable questions in secular society. You seem to sense something lacking with this approach. If you do, consider yourself lucky.

You can see it in this thread: I'm talkin' about what's intrinsic to a person and I'm gettin' appeals to legalisms and society.