rainbow walking

Hi Bagong,


Yes, I probably worded it too strongly. I have no background in philosophy so I'm having trouble expressing acurately what I'm trying to say, but my basic point is that the FWD wants us to accept that free agency is in principle more important than eliminating suffering. Although this *may* be true, it is far too controversial to just be thrown in as an unargued premise.

rw: I agree, it should be supported with convincing argumentation. From a non-theistic perspective, I would have to wonder if any outside action, (say from an intervening deity), to eliminate suffering, that had the residual effect of eliminating a range of choices, wouldn't create another set of problems that would engender suffering from another direction?

For instance, from a non-theistic perspective I see freewill as necessary to self determination. So any restriction of freewill could be concieved as a limitation of ones ability to self determine, such that this limitation may engender its own form of suffering.

For instance, when the parents of a musically gifted child coerce the child to express his gift classically, when all the child wants to do with his talent is to express it via rock music. The parents motivation is based on fear and concern for the child because of all the potential hazards inherent in the rock scene such as drug addiction. So the child experiences a form of mental anguish at having a range of choices restricted by the coercion.



Of course; a sunny day is enjoyable and being struck by lightening is painful eventhough they are caused by impersonal metereological conditions, for example.

rw: I thought joy was the moral equivalent of being a good thing? And physical pain can be classified as suffering which is equated with evil. It goes to show, however, that we do assign normative values even to indifferent natural phenomena. Personally I think that suffering associated with natural phenomena is a whole nuther argument, since it doesn't entail moral agency as a direct participant, other than the erroneous classification of the event as good or evil.


Incidentally, I apologize for that rather long initial post. From a second reading I can see where it could be construed as an attempt to hijack your OP. I'm thinking of submitting it as a separate topic in a new thread in order to avoid this charge.