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> There are also many cases where increased freedom doesn’t limit other people’s freedom; for example my freedom to have consensual sexual relationships with wh

> There are also many cases where increased freedom doesn’t limit other people’s freedom; for example my freedom to have consensual sexual relationships with whomever I choose doesn’t limit anyone else’s freedom. A bit earlier in the article: > Things like freedom or speech or religion can infringe on other people’s freedoms. If I say that all Jews should be kicked in the face whenever you see one this limits Jewish people’s freedom live a life without fear of being kicked in the face. No, no. You already made the typical mistake. If I kick a jew in the face, I infringe on their freedom to live a life without actually getting kicked in the face. But if I say jews should be kicked in the face, I infringe on their freedom to live a life without fear of getting kicked in the face - a freedom, you may note, that libertarians don't actually believe in, because anyone with a smidgen of security mindset can see that it's completely exploitable. For instance: you say your freedom to have consensual sexual relationships with whomever you want doesn't infringe my freedom, but what about my freedom to be free of fear about the gay agenda? What about my fear about the breakdown of society? My fear of the decline of traditional marriage? Fear, as opposed to outcomes, does not need to be rational or grounded in reality. Once you acknowledge a right to be free from fear, you are able to justify any tradeoff. I say - no! There is no right to be free of fear. Everybody has the right to be safe, but nobody has the right to feel safe. Adjusting your feeling to reality is everyone's own responsibility. We must not allow people to abdicate the responsibility for their own feelings and create a guilt of others not to cause upset. A free society cannot and must not take responsibility for fears - only for outcomes. Always for outcomes! No jew should ever be kicked in the face, we are completely agreed. But society's obligation to protect Jewish rights ends at their cranium. What happens inside people's heads is nobody's business but their own - for good or for ill. (Which is of course not to be understood as arguing against mental health services. One must be mentally healthy to be mentally responsible - if and exactly if.)

deleted 6y ago
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claudiawerner 6y ago
>Everybody has the right to be safe, but nobody has the right to feel safe. When stated this way, at least so directly, it's not surprising to me that more people aren't right-libertarians. Of course, when you have hard and fast principles, and trade only in 'thick' concepts, then you can get exploitable concepts (as you rightly point out), but we have institutions for dealing with that - the legislature and the judiciary, and there need not be a law that applies (practically speaking) in every circumstance. In society, we don't have to always be on a slippery slope. Here's a good paper on the vacuity of the pure harm principle, as you seem to espouse, in lawmaking: https://digital.sandiego.edu/lwps_public/art17/ https://digital.sandiego.edu/lwps_public/art17/ >Fear, as opposed to outcomes, does not need to be rational or grounded in reality. Once you acknowledge a right to be free from fear, you are able to justify any tradeoff. I say - no! The core question is whose reality? That of the victim or the perpetrator? However, if you'd like to talk about reality, it's not at all difficult to imagine psychological harms or even PTSD triggered by something as 'unreal' as fear, which has very real outcomes. Every industrialized country in the world has some legislation against, for example, sending threatening letters, despite the fact that their only outcome is 'fear'. This is usually known as a law against assault. The dichotomy between 'mental harms' and 'physical harms' with regard to the law (and 1A jurisprudence) is on extremely shaky metaphysical grounds[0]: >An immunization I choose to have may (momentarily) hurt me physically, but it does not constitute a harm if I have chosen to be immunized. And defamatory statements that damage my reputation may harm me even if they cause me no physical or even psychological injury (as in the case in which I don't find out about them). [0] http://susanbrison.com/files/B.16.-speech_harm_and_the_mindbody_problem_in_first_amendment_jurisprudence.pdf http://susanbrison.com/files/B.16.-speech_harm_and_the_mindb...
- ggrrhh_ta 6y ago
  I don't know if the person that wrote the parent comment has read "On Liberty" - a chapter on "Liberty of Thought and Discussion" makes the point of unfettered freedom of speech and goes into depth into it (thus somehow contradicting himself on the harm principle, but solving the contradiction by elevating the liberty of opinion though and expression). Also, regarding the harm principle (or self-harm), Stuart Mill had to deal with his own contradictions to defend the principle of right to inflict self-harm and at the same time defend his position against slavery. What I want to mean, but I can't devote to much time to, is that 'freedom' is a topic that is really difficult, full of struggles, and also, that it has been known to be difficult to tackle since antiquity and has produced an enormous corpus of interesting literature.
  - FeepingCreature 6y ago
    I haven't, but I'm not afraid to put forth a strong position. That way if I'm wrong, I will find out quickly. :) That said, it just seemed to me that the article fell into a typical mistake early on, of confusing the map and the territory- fear and harm- and from there weakening its own position by requiring the addition of special case rules and self-contradiction: fear of facepunching, but not fear of the gay - what makes one valid and the other invalid? And if it's real plausibility, why not just direct the right at the real thing that makes it plausible, and thus turn the fear into a justified expectation open to empirical argumentation? It seemed like the argument would vanish down a rabbit hole for little benefit.
    - claudiawerner 6y ago
      >weakening its own position by requiring the addition of special case rules and self-contradiction: fear of facepunching, but not fear of the gay - what makes one valid and the other invalid? You're asking this question with some knowledge that there is some difference in the minds of people between the two matters. Therefore, we can draw a difference, we just may not have a philosophical grounding to express the difference rigorously. I can see how that's a problem, but it does not stop consideration of the principles. Even if the difference is arbitrary, we can't escape arbitrary reasoning in our moral and legal systems. The difference from my perspective is that I'd be more inclined to protest a law criminalizing gay people for (using your example) having sex in private than I would be someone arguing in a public forum that Jews should be punched in the face. Is my decision arbitrary? Maybe. Does it rely on a judiciary and legislature that agrees with my ad-hoc principle in order not to run away with it? Yes. That's not necessarily a problem. It's not much to ask people to think beyond pure abstraction of high-minded principles. You (or some other citizen) may disagree with me and come to the opposite conclusion I have, or not. That's fine. I'll vote for my principle, and you can vote for yours.
D895n9o33436N42 6y ago
> My fear of the decline of traditional marriage? The only marriage you have the right to be concerned about is your own, if any. If you don’t like gay marriage, don’t get gay married. It’s that simple. The whole “traditional marriage” mindset stems from religion. When forced upon others by law it’s just another way to limit individual freedoms. It’s disgusting and has to stop.
- nske 6y ago
  I totally agree that personal concerns/fears/moral compasses should not justify restrictions for the others. Sadly I can't find a single society that hasn't compromised on this painfully reasonable approach at the alter of what's popular. Things related to substances, sex acts, pornography, religion, obscenity, gambling, even vaping seem to be common victims nowadays. And when there is some progress in something, it seems that it's not for the right reason (that simply there is no rational basis to restrict some freedom for some arbitrary/subjective concept of "the greater good"), but for the reason that the people that are negatively affected by it became numerous and loud enough to not ignore.
- FeepingCreature 6y ago
  Sorry, now you're telling me what I'm allowed to fear? Is this still about freedom? It just seems like you're doubling down on a bad idea. People have a right to not be made afraid - but people don't have a right to be afraid except if it's a valid fear? I much prefer my position that freedom and fear do not intersect.
  - nske 6y ago
    I might be failing to comprehend something, but I don't think you and D895n9o33436N42 necessarily disagree.
    - FeepingCreature 6y ago
      "The only marriage you have the right to be concerned about is your own, if any." => "You do not have the right to fear the decline of traditional marriage." Particularly relevant if you think, for instance, the gay agenda would be corrosive to your own marriage, due to what I am told is widespread sublimated homosexuality, or the dating life of your children, due to similar reasons. Regardless, I believe telling people that their fear is invalid doesn't tend to be a crowd-pleaser. Instead, I take the more extreme but also I think more defensibly liberal position that their fear is irrelevant, because reducing fear is not a legitimate policy goal of a well-functioning state. A state should reduce the referent of a fear, if such a referent exists. A state should not engage in sociology - it should not strive to shape the emotions of its citizenry. Such an endeavour is corrosive to the control mechanism of democratic feedback, because it decouples citizens' reaction from reality. "Any proxy measure that becomes a policy target ceases to be a good proxy measure."
arp242 6y ago
The difference is that fear of being kicked in the face is real and tangible (and something that actually happens), whereas fear from the "gay agenda" and "breakdown of society" is unproven at best. You can't just say "I fear it" and then treat all positions of "fear" as equal, because they're not.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > You can't just say "I fear it" and then treat all positions of "fear" as equal, because they're not. Why not? Or, more precisely, who judges what's "real and tangible" and what actually happens and what's "unproven at best"? Can you say "Kick Jeff Bezos in the face"? If Jeff Bezos hasn't been kicked in the face, it doesn't actually happen (or hasn't happen yet, much like "the breakdown of society" or "alien invasion triggered by homosexuality" or whatever someone might believe). Okay, you say, but that's one person, we're talking about groups here. Can you say "Kick North Sentinel Islanders in the face"? Next up: how large has the group have to be to be protected, and how large is too large ("Kick humans in the face?"), and how often does it need to happen (in total, or relative to the size of the group?), and how long will it be effective? And how bad must the theoretical effects be? You'll end up with plenty of definitions and rules, and, I believe, will decide on a case-by-case basis in the end, mostly guided by personal sympathy.
- FeepingCreature 6y ago
  Once you judge fear by an objective standard, you can just target your policy at the objective state instead. If fear is valid because people are being kicked in the face, we are reduced to the "people should not be kicked in the face" consensus that I also agree with. Then why involve fear at all? If a person is unexpectedly kicked in the face, is it any better?
mensetmanusman 6y ago
This is actually an interesting argument. Because there are people who perpetually fear irrational things, we have to weigh that fear differently or discount it all together since post-enlightenment modern humans can’t agree that there is any irrational act.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

claudiawerner 6y ago

>Everybody has the right to be safe, but nobody has the right to feel safe. When stated this way, at least so directly, it's not surprising to me that more people aren't right-libertarians. Of course, when you have hard and fast principles, and trade only in 'thick' concepts, then you can get exploitable concepts (as you rightly point out), but we have institutions for dealing with that - the legislature and the judiciary, and there need not be a law that applies (practically speaking) in every circumstance. In society, we don't have to always be on a slippery slope. Here's a good paper on the vacuity of the pure harm principle, as you seem to espouse, in lawmaking: https://digital.sandiego.edu/lwps_public/art17/ https://digital.sandiego.edu/lwps_public/art17/ >Fear, as opposed to outcomes, does not need to be rational or grounded in reality. Once you acknowledge a right to be free from fear, you are able to justify any tradeoff. I say - no! The core question is whose reality? That of the victim or the perpetrator? However, if you'd like to talk about reality, it's not at all difficult to imagine psychological harms or even PTSD triggered by something as 'unreal' as fear, which has very real outcomes. Every industrialized country in the world has some legislation against, for example, sending threatening letters, despite the fact that their only outcome is 'fear'. This is usually known as a law against assault. The dichotomy between 'mental harms' and 'physical harms' with regard to the law (and 1A jurisprudence) is on extremely shaky metaphysical grounds[0]: >An immunization I choose to have may (momentarily) hurt me physically, but it does not constitute a harm if I have chosen to be immunized. And defamatory statements that damage my reputation may harm me even if they cause me no physical or even psychological injury (as in the case in which I don't find out about them). [0] http://susanbrison.com/files/B.16.-speech_harm_and_the_mindbody_problem_in_first_amendment_jurisprudence.pdf http://susanbrison.com/files/B.16.-speech_harm_and_the_mindb...

ggrrhh_ta 6y ago
I don't know if the person that wrote the parent comment has read "On Liberty" - a chapter on "Liberty of Thought and Discussion" makes the point of unfettered freedom of speech and goes into depth into it (thus somehow contradicting himself on the harm principle, but solving the contradiction by elevating the liberty of opinion though and expression). Also, regarding the harm principle (or self-harm), Stuart Mill had to deal with his own contradictions to defend the principle of right to inflict self-harm and at the same time defend his position against slavery. What I want to mean, but I can't devote to much time to, is that 'freedom' is a topic that is really difficult, full of struggles, and also, that it has been known to be difficult to tackle since antiquity and has produced an enormous corpus of interesting literature.
- FeepingCreature 6y ago
  I haven't, but I'm not afraid to put forth a strong position. That way if I'm wrong, I will find out quickly. :) That said, it just seemed to me that the article fell into a typical mistake early on, of confusing the map and the territory- fear and harm- and from there weakening its own position by requiring the addition of special case rules and self-contradiction: fear of facepunching, but not fear of the gay - what makes one valid and the other invalid? And if it's real plausibility, why not just direct the right at the real thing that makes it plausible, and thus turn the fear into a justified expectation open to empirical argumentation? It seemed like the argument would vanish down a rabbit hole for little benefit.
  - claudiawerner 6y ago
    >weakening its own position by requiring the addition of special case rules and self-contradiction: fear of facepunching, but not fear of the gay - what makes one valid and the other invalid? You're asking this question with some knowledge that there is some difference in the minds of people between the two matters. Therefore, we can draw a difference, we just may not have a philosophical grounding to express the difference rigorously. I can see how that's a problem, but it does not stop consideration of the principles. Even if the difference is arbitrary, we can't escape arbitrary reasoning in our moral and legal systems. The difference from my perspective is that I'd be more inclined to protest a law criminalizing gay people for (using your example) having sex in private than I would be someone arguing in a public forum that Jews should be punched in the face. Is my decision arbitrary? Maybe. Does it rely on a judiciary and legislature that agrees with my ad-hoc principle in order not to run away with it? Yes. That's not necessarily a problem. It's not much to ask people to think beyond pure abstraction of high-minded principles. You (or some other citizen) may disagree with me and come to the opposite conclusion I have, or not. That's fine. I'll vote for my principle, and you can vote for yours.

D895n9o33436N42 6y ago

> My fear of the decline of traditional marriage? The only marriage you have the right to be concerned about is your own, if any. If you don’t like gay marriage, don’t get gay married. It’s that simple. The whole “traditional marriage” mindset stems from religion. When forced upon others by law it’s just another way to limit individual freedoms. It’s disgusting and has to stop.

nske 6y ago
I totally agree that personal concerns/fears/moral compasses should not justify restrictions for the others. Sadly I can't find a single society that hasn't compromised on this painfully reasonable approach at the alter of what's popular. Things related to substances, sex acts, pornography, religion, obscenity, gambling, even vaping seem to be common victims nowadays. And when there is some progress in something, it seems that it's not for the right reason (that simply there is no rational basis to restrict some freedom for some arbitrary/subjective concept of "the greater good"), but for the reason that the people that are negatively affected by it became numerous and loud enough to not ignore.
FeepingCreature 6y ago
Sorry, now you're telling me what I'm allowed to fear? Is this still about freedom? It just seems like you're doubling down on a bad idea. People have a right to not be made afraid - but people don't have a right to be afraid except if it's a valid fear? I much prefer my position that freedom and fear do not intersect.
- nske 6y ago
  I might be failing to comprehend something, but I don't think you and D895n9o33436N42 necessarily disagree.
  - FeepingCreature 6y ago
    "The only marriage you have the right to be concerned about is your own, if any." => "You do not have the right to fear the decline of traditional marriage." Particularly relevant if you think, for instance, the gay agenda would be corrosive to your own marriage, due to what I am told is widespread sublimated homosexuality, or the dating life of your children, due to similar reasons. Regardless, I believe telling people that their fear is invalid doesn't tend to be a crowd-pleaser. Instead, I take the more extreme but also I think more defensibly liberal position that their fear is irrelevant, because reducing fear is not a legitimate policy goal of a well-functioning state. A state should reduce the referent of a fear, if such a referent exists. A state should not engage in sociology - it should not strive to shape the emotions of its citizenry. Such an endeavour is corrosive to the control mechanism of democratic feedback, because it decouples citizens' reaction from reality. "Any proxy measure that becomes a policy target ceases to be a good proxy measure."

arp242 6y ago

The difference is that fear of being kicked in the face is real and tangible (and something that actually happens), whereas fear from the "gay agenda" and "breakdown of society" is unproven at best. You can't just say "I fear it" and then treat all positions of "fear" as equal, because they're not.

luckylion 6y ago
> You can't just say "I fear it" and then treat all positions of "fear" as equal, because they're not. Why not? Or, more precisely, who judges what's "real and tangible" and what actually happens and what's "unproven at best"? Can you say "Kick Jeff Bezos in the face"? If Jeff Bezos hasn't been kicked in the face, it doesn't actually happen (or hasn't happen yet, much like "the breakdown of society" or "alien invasion triggered by homosexuality" or whatever someone might believe). Okay, you say, but that's one person, we're talking about groups here. Can you say "Kick North Sentinel Islanders in the face"? Next up: how large has the group have to be to be protected, and how large is too large ("Kick humans in the face?"), and how often does it need to happen (in total, or relative to the size of the group?), and how long will it be effective? And how bad must the theoretical effects be? You'll end up with plenty of definitions and rules, and, I believe, will decide on a case-by-case basis in the end, mostly guided by personal sympathy.
FeepingCreature 6y ago
Once you judge fear by an objective standard, you can just target your policy at the objective state instead. If fear is valid because people are being kicked in the face, we are reduced to the "people should not be kicked in the face" consensus that I also agree with. Then why involve fear at all? If a person is unexpectedly kicked in the face, is it any better?

mensetmanusman 6y ago

This is actually an interesting argument. Because there are people who perpetually fear irrational things, we have to weigh that fear differently or discount it all together since post-enlightenment modern humans can’t agree that there is any irrational act.