What is Good: Fairness, or Freedom?

[Purple Knight]

Question for Debate: Is good fairness, or is good freedom?

...The ultimate good, the overriding principle. Which is it?

If you allow people their freedom, they will do all sorts of nasty things to one another. If you bound that freedom by rights, they will find a way not to violate the rights and hurt the other person anyway.

But if you enforce fairness, a positive duty not to hurt people, to treat them equally, everyone becomes amazingly depressed. It's almost as if they want the chimp dominance structure, they want ways left open to strike at one another, and they don't want to be equal. But it's just as likely that they simply enjoy their freedom. Even the nastiest racist can be an example of this. Perhaps he hires the slightly less proficient white person Randy instead of the more adept Jamal because he expects that Randy shares interests with him. He can talk to randy about Nascar, duck hunting, fishing, and camping. Perhaps there was another white person who didn't like these things, and he didn't hire them either, and it's still (by the modern definition) racism. But it has grown out of the desire to be around people who are similar to him and share interests because that brings a little enjoyment into a dreary and obligation-ridden life as a manager.

So which of these things represents good? Because you can't have both. You can either force people to treat one another fairly, in which case they are sad, or you can let them have their freedom in which case they will use it to hurt one another, even if that's incidental.

[oldbadger]

Question for Debate: Is good fairness, or is good freedom?

fairness through legislation and freedom within that construct.

So which of these things represents good? Because you can't have both. You can either force people to treat one another fairly, in which case they are sad,

Really? All people who live in countries with legislation and controls are sad?
Not true!

or you can let them have their freedom in which case they will use it to hurt one another, even if that's incidental.

That kind of freedom is only freedom for the strongest, all others live in fear, teror even.
Would you be strong enough?

[1213]

Question for Debate: Is good fairness, or is good freedom?
...

Freedom is fairness. It is not fair if someone can force others to live as he wants them to live.

[Shem Yoshi]

The fundamental idea of Liberty is freedom and fairness. Which i think the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen has a good definition.

"Article 4
Liberty consists in being able to do anything that does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of every man has no bounds other than those that ensure to the other members of society the enjoyment of these same rights. These bounds may be determined only by Law."

[Purple Knight]

Question for Debate: Is good fairness, or is good freedom?
...

Freedom is fairness. It is not fair if someone can force others to live as he wants them to live.

Let's say I want to force someone not to murder me. He wants to murder; that's how he likes to live his life. And Let's say I've just kicked him as hard as I could to stop him. Have I violated his precious freedom? If you're going to say no, he shouldn't get to kill me, and I get to stop him, is this anything to do with what Yoshi is quoting about rights being bounded by the rights of others? In other words, if he's going to stop me from my freedom (which killing me does do) then that is the one family of things (that stop others from their freedom) he cannot do.

The fundamental idea of Liberty is freedom and fairness. Which i think the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen has a good definition.

"Article 4
Liberty consists in being able to do anything that does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of every man has no bounds other than those that ensure to the other members of society the enjoyment of these same rights. These bounds may be determined only by Law."

It's certainly an above-the-cut definition but it still has flaws. Some people say words hurt them. Some people say words do not hurt them. So if it's open season on words, the green people just got their way, the blue people had no say, and the green people might as well be ripping arms off, as long as they really don't care if their arms are also ripped off. But if it's hurtful words are disallowed, the blue people have not only got it all their own way, they even still get to say whatever to the blue people because the blue people won't seek punishment, and they shouldn't seek punishment, because according to their own selves they weren't hurt.

[Shem Yoshi]

The fundamental idea of Liberty is freedom and fairness. Which i think the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen has a good definition.

"Article 4
Liberty consists in being able to do anything that does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of every man has no bounds other than those that ensure to the other members of society the enjoyment of these same rights. These bounds may be determined only by Law."

It's certainly an above-the-cut definition but it still has flaws. Some people say words hurt them. Some people say words do not hurt them. So if it's open season on words, the green people just got their way, the blue people had no say, and the green people might as well be ripping arms off, as long as they really don't care if their arms are also ripped off. But if it's hurtful words are disallowed, the blue people have not only got it all their own way, they even still get to say whatever to the blue people because the blue people won't seek punishment, and they shouldn't seek punishment, because according to their own selves they weren't hurt.

Well law has to determine the boundaries of rights, but words ought to be free.

For example. Say someone is talking about something controversial, and another person is offended... Do we have the right to offend? That is a question determined by law. However say the offended man speaks and says "your words offend me", he himself is speaking words that might offend the other person. Liberty is the right for all people. If someone says "your words offend me" chances are that their words themselves violate the idea of non-offence.

I mean some might say "words hurt me", but the law defines harm as "harm done to a person by the acts or omissions of another. Injury may include physical hurt as well as damage to reputation or dignity, loss of a legal right or breach of contract."

Harm is defined as "damage" of "a legal right"... Like the freedom of expression and freedom of speech, to take that away is to harm someone.

Personally I am a freedom of speech absolutist, and many modern democracies agree in freedom of speech.

The United Nations says:
"Article 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

[oldbadger]

Let's say I want to force someone not to murder me. He wants to murder; that's how he likes to live his life. And Let's say I've just kicked him as hard as I could to stop him. Have I violated his precious freedom?

Exactly what did this someone do to show that he wanted to murder you?
Inflicting grievous bodily harm on someone because you think they want to murder you is likely to get you locked up.

It's certainly an above-the-cut definition but it still has flaws. Some people say words hurt them. Some people say words do not hurt them.

Words can offend, hurt, upset and frighten mostly anybody, true?
So words that deliberately hurt, offend, upset and frighten folks need to be controlled.

A more free society extends the right to people to be, live with or marry by choice, to lgbt freedoms, to gender recognition, to choose a religion if they wish, ............to be free. But they shouldn't be free to be any kind of danger to any others.

[1213]

Question for Debate: Is good fairness, or is good freedom?
...

Freedom is fairness. It is not fair if someone can force others to live as he wants them to live.

Let's say I want to force someone not to murder me. He wants to murder; that's how he likes to live his life. And Let's say I've just kicked him as hard as I could to stop him. Have I violated his precious freedom? If you're going to say no, he shouldn't get to kill me, and I get to stop him, is this anything to do with what Yoshi is quoting about rights being bounded by the rights of others? In other words, if he's going to stop me from my freedom (which killing me does do) then that is the one family of things (that stop others from their freedom) he cannot do.whatever to the blue people because the blue people won't seek punishment, and they shouldn't seek punishment, because according to their own selves they weren't hurt.

Obviously, if the idea is let everyone live freely their own life, it can't mean that then someone could end your life, because it would be against your freedom. The freedom is fair only, if it is equally for all, not just for the murderers.

[Purple Knight]

Personally I am a freedom of speech absolutist, and many modern democracies agree in freedom of speech.

Now I would rather live in your world. But a blanket permission would, theoretically, give you permission to yell through a loudspeaker and burst someone's windows. What? They were words. I have absolute rights with words.

Let's even say you turn down the volume so no physical damage is caused, but you're yelling at someone's house 24/7. Now he says he can't get to sleep. This is no longer physical harm but it is a point at which even a freedom of speech absolutist would probably agree that no, you can't do that. If you do, you're conceding that nonphysical harm exists and that simply being bothered should restrict the rights of others.

If he says he can't get to sleep because you called him a ninny, the only difference is that he is probably lying. And we don't know he is. It's just probable in a world where saying this is enough to get the power over you to get you banned, make you stop, enforce some consequence, etc.

Inflicting grievous bodily harm on someone because you think they want to murder you is likely to get you locked up.

That's a whole other can of worms. But let's say he attacked me with a knife. Let's say for the purposes of the question that there is enough evidence that he does want to murder me, whatever you think that threshold is. And if you don't believe in self-defence at all, because technically I can never prove he was going to attack me again, making it either revenge or assumption, I respect that a lot more than I respect, "Self-defence, buuuuuut..."

It's certainly an above-the-cut definition but it still has flaws. Some people say words hurt them. Some people say words do not hurt them.

Words can offend, hurt, upset and frighten mostly anybody, true?

Not hurt, no. Some people will tell you that being offended, bothered, upset, or frightened does not count as hurting them, because they genuinely believe that. This is actually what many of us were taught as children: That sticks and stones hurt, but words do not. I was taught that no matter what someone says to me, it doesn't count as hurting me.

And who gets to decide which words are hurtful? Some people claim that the word "cis" is hurtful. They're rightly put in their places. This fellow rightly laughs at them, pointing out that the only reason cisgendered people wouldn't want a label that accurately describes them, applied to them, is that they think they ought to be the default and they want to otherise people.



But what if, for some reason, the word "cis" really did hurt people? It would have to be an absolutely nonsense reason, but it's not like nobody is crazy.

Obviously, if the idea is let everyone live freely their own life, it can't mean that then someone could end your life, because it would be against your freedom. The freedom is fair only, if it is equally for all, not just for the murderers.

To achieve this though, we do have to restrict people who would kill by accident. If someone is carrying ebola and can't get rid of it, he's going to be locked up and everyone is going to agree with that. But if half the people have it, and they're not hurt by it, and now they can't go outside because the other half might die, whose freedom wins out? Because nobody can self-restrict and just decide not to be carrying a disease. And nobody is trying to hurt anybody either. They just want to go outside. And because of extremely vulnerable individuals, they can't.

[Shem Yoshi]

Personally I am a freedom of speech absolutist, and many modern democracies agree in freedom of speech.

Now I would rather live in your world. But a blanket permission would, theoretically, give you permission to yell through a loudspeaker and burst someone's windows. What? They were words. I have absolute rights with words.

Let's even say you turn down the volume so no physical damage is caused, but you're yelling at someone's house 24/7. Now he says he can't get to sleep. This is no longer physical harm but it is a point at which even a freedom of speech absolutist would probably agree that no, you can't do that. If you do, you're conceding that nonphysical harm exists and that simply being bothered should restrict the rights of others.

If he says he can't get to sleep because you called him a ninny, the only difference is that he is probably lying. And we don't know he is. It's just probable in a world where saying this is enough to get the power over you to get you banned, make you stop, enforce some consequence, etc.

Well harassment laws are on the books. I believe if someone doesnt want to hear me they can leave, they have the freedom to leave my presence. If i restricted that freedom, to leave my presence, that would be me taking away their liberty.