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Being "allowed" and actually being capable are two very different things. This is essentially what the Existentialist philosophers have been lamenting. The grea

Being "allowed" and actually being capable are two very different things. This is essentially what the Existentialist philosophers have been lamenting. The great mass of people, if they're allowed to go off the rails, will simply crash.

vertex-four 10y ago
If the argument is that when people are given free will, very bad things will happen - I have no idea what to say, to be honest. It's certainly not compatible with the concept of a liberal democracy, at the least.
- mariodiana 10y ago
  No, my argument is that society puts constraints on people. People are free to ignore these constraints, but most people won't. And the fact that most people won't isn't necessarily a bad thing, when you consider the alternatives.
  - ams6110 10y ago
    And these constraints were developed over millenia (some are probably the result of natural selection, others by experience) and for the most part are documented in religious/moral codes of "good" and "sinful" behavior. Our ancestors were not dumb; they could identify what behaviors were beneficial and detrimental to society.
    - vertex-four 10y ago
      I mean. Societies even 20, 50, 100, 500 years ago did many awful things to many good people on the basis of "keeping society together". And yet we're still doing reasonably well, sometimes centuries after some of these religious rules were dropped. (Not that they were ever very well followed, so long as one's wife/neighbour/pastor didn't find out.) Additionally, there's quite a variety of different cultures around the world that all do different things. India had quite a number of polygamous marriages until relatively recently, for example - all of its major religions, and the culture surrounding them, are relatively neutral on the subject. Third genders were a relatively common and accepted thing across the world until British Colonialism introduced Christian morals to a lot of places, often reducing them to prostitutes and symbols of evil/bad luck. And so on and so forth. Honestly - existential worry about one's place in a changing world isn't a new thing. You can find stories on the subject going back centuries. People will figure it out.
      - mariodiana 10y ago
        The one specific cultural constraint I'm talking about is the where, when, how, and who may have children. It would seem like the overwhelming majority of cultures pay special attention to this.
        vertex-four 10y ago
        And many cultures have significantly different ideas on even that, and even in the Western world it's changed significantly over time.

vertex-four 10y ago

If the argument is that when people are given free will, very bad things will happen - I have no idea what to say, to be honest. It's certainly not compatible with the concept of a liberal democracy, at the least.

mariodiana 10y ago
No, my argument is that society puts constraints on people. People are free to ignore these constraints, but most people won't. And the fact that most people won't isn't necessarily a bad thing, when you consider the alternatives.
- ams6110 10y ago
  And these constraints were developed over millenia (some are probably the result of natural selection, others by experience) and for the most part are documented in religious/moral codes of "good" and "sinful" behavior. Our ancestors were not dumb; they could identify what behaviors were beneficial and detrimental to society.
  - vertex-four 10y ago
    I mean. Societies even 20, 50, 100, 500 years ago did many awful things to many good people on the basis of "keeping society together". And yet we're still doing reasonably well, sometimes centuries after some of these religious rules were dropped. (Not that they were ever very well followed, so long as one's wife/neighbour/pastor didn't find out.) Additionally, there's quite a variety of different cultures around the world that all do different things. India had quite a number of polygamous marriages until relatively recently, for example - all of its major religions, and the culture surrounding them, are relatively neutral on the subject. Third genders were a relatively common and accepted thing across the world until British Colonialism introduced Christian morals to a lot of places, often reducing them to prostitutes and symbols of evil/bad luck. And so on and so forth. Honestly - existential worry about one's place in a changing world isn't a new thing. You can find stories on the subject going back centuries. People will figure it out.
    - mariodiana 10y ago
      The one specific cultural constraint I'm talking about is the where, when, how, and who may have children. It would seem like the overwhelming majority of cultures pay special attention to this.
      - vertex-four 10y ago
        And many cultures have significantly different ideas on even that, and even in the Western world it's changed significantly over time.