I reject treating human life, or preservation of the human life, as a “terminal goal” that outweighs the “intermediate goal” of human freedom.
Hmm… not a viewpoint that I share, but one that I empathise with easily. I approve of freedom because it allows people to make the choices that make them happy, and because choice itself makes them happy. So freedom is valuable to me because it leads to happiness.
I can see where you’re coming from though. I suppose we can just accept that our utility functions are different but not contradictory, and move on.
In some sense, they are contradictory. Or at least mutually opposed.
That is, if you and I uncovered the Visitors’ plan to forcibly prevent humans from engaging in any activity that lowers our expected lifespans, you would (I infer) endorse that plan, and I might not. Depending on the situation, I might even act to disrupt that plan, and you might act to stop me.
Of course, that’s not going to happen. But you might vote and donate money to support criminalizing unhealthy practices (because doing so buys life at the cost of mere freedom) while I vote/donate to support legalizing some of them (because sometimes I value freedom more than life).
In any case, I’m happy to move on in a pragmatic sense, but I wanted to be clear that there really is a point of pragmatic opposition here; this isn’t an entirely academic disagreement.
Hmm… not a viewpoint that I share, but one that I empathise with easily. I approve of freedom because it allows people to make the choices that make them happy, and because choice itself makes them happy. So freedom is valuable to me because it leads to happiness.
I can see where you’re coming from though. I suppose we can just accept that our utility functions are different but not contradictory, and move on.
In some sense, they are contradictory. Or at least mutually opposed.
That is, if you and I uncovered the Visitors’ plan to forcibly prevent humans from engaging in any activity that lowers our expected lifespans, you would (I infer) endorse that plan, and I might not. Depending on the situation, I might even act to disrupt that plan, and you might act to stop me.
Of course, that’s not going to happen. But you might vote and donate money to support criminalizing unhealthy practices (because doing so buys life at the cost of mere freedom) while I vote/donate to support legalizing some of them (because sometimes I value freedom more than life).
In any case, I’m happy to move on in a pragmatic sense, but I wanted to be clear that there really is a point of pragmatic opposition here; this isn’t an entirely academic disagreement.
Agreed.