Just punted this out in another context & thought it might be worth running past my legions of followers...
Three rules of liberal individualism.
1. Freely chosen actions that don't hurt anyone else cannot be criticised.
(Obviously! Who's to say what's a 'bad' choice?)
Three rules of liberal individualism.
1. Freely chosen actions that don't hurt anyone else cannot be criticised.
(Obviously! Who's to say what's a 'bad' choice?)
2: A free choice is any choice which someone claims to have made freely.
(Obviously! What other evidence can you possibly have? Are you saying people don't know what they're doing? Or does this only apply to *those* people, hmm?)
(Obviously! What other evidence can you possibly have? Are you saying people don't know what they're doing? Or does this only apply to *those* people, hmm?)
3: Any free choice is assumed to be a free choice for everyone.
(Obviously! If A and B are working side by side, and A says they took the job freely, that establishes that the job *could* be taken freely - regardless of what B says.)
(Obviously! If A and B are working side by side, and A says they took the job freely, that establishes that the job *could* be taken freely - regardless of what B says.)
Conversely, it can be argued that
1. A choice that predictably harms the person making it, or limits the future choices that person can make, is a bad choice, even if no other person is harmed
1. A choice that predictably harms the person making it, or limits the future choices that person can make, is a bad choice, even if no other person is harmed
2. Individual human beings - you and me included - are subject to a lifetime's worth of influences while remaining convinced that we are in control; as such we're the worst possible authorities on whether our choices are made freely or not.
3. One person's free choice of a course of action - even if this could be proved (see 2.) - demonstrates only that that course of action *can* be chosen freely, not that it is chosen freely by everyone, or even by most people.
I am *much* more persuaded by these positions than by the first three - 2. in particular strikes me as an absolute killer.
But the first three are heavily dominant these days, the Left very much included.
But the first three are heavily dominant these days, the Left very much included.
Thinking about it some more, perhaps the most important rule is rule 4, which in its *non*-liberal form is:
4. Society is systematically organised to the advantage of some groups and the disempowerment and exploitation of others.
4. Society is systematically organised to the advantage of some groups and the disempowerment and exploitation of others.
and that one *is* held on the Left, despite being in tension (to say the least) with the liberal individualist rules 1-3.
(I guess the liberal individualist version would be
4. Lots of people, stuff happens, overall it doesn't work out too bad, does it?
)
(I guess the liberal individualist version would be
4. Lots of people, stuff happens, overall it doesn't work out too bad, does it?
)
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