From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Mon Mar 24 2003 - 17:37:16 MST
Greg Jordan wrote:
>
> On 21 Mar 2003, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
>
>
>>### I think that many of us would agree on a more rigorous division -
>>roughly, "violence" non-consensually ends life, or causes severe and
>>non-consensual physical suffering. There is a bit of a gray area
>>regarding extreme mental suffering but for the most part it is not a
>>major source of misunderstanding. Therefore, money motivating a hitman
>>is violence, money moving a baker is not.
>
>
> I wasn't bringing in the issues of consent (or intention or will) because
> I believe the way the mind forms consent is vulnerable to forces just like
> everything else, and of course consenting actions can exert force.
But the issue of consent is utterly essential to the discussion
as it is essential to any notion of freedom vs coercion.
>
> Does a suicide bomber consent to committing suicide?
Yes. If he didn't it wouldn't be a "suicide".
>Does he consent to
> adopting the suicide-bomber-philosophy?
He consents in many places along the way that leads to a
conclusion that his life is of less value than what he thinks
this bit of violence will accomplish.
> Does he consent to being
> coincidentally exposed to the suicide-bomber-philosophy?
That would be silly. No one has full consent over what memes
they will encounter. That does not mean they are powerless to
choose which memes they will carry in the sense of acting on
them vs which ones they will oppose. There is really no such
separate thing as a suicide-bomber-philosophy or a
suicide-bomber-meme.
> Does he consent
> to living in circumstances that favor the adoption of the
> suicide-bomber-philosophy? AS you can see, the further you back up the
> analysis, the more "consent" disappears in a cloud of smoke.
>
Not in the least. This analysis is empty as it does not
consider what consent is and is not and what it can and cannot
do. Saying it cannot do everything and thus disappears is invalid.
> The same goes for economic activities: does a person consent to buying a
> product he chooses to buy?
Yes.
> Does he consent to only two products of the
> sort he wants being available?
His power of consent does not determine how many competitors are
in a particular field directly or how many products of the
kind he wants are currently being offered except indirectly in
that the fact of his ability to choose (consent) makes
competition possible. Again, such overarching consent as to
self-determine the number of things that can be chosen from is
not in the least necessary for consent to be real.
> Does he consent to only one product being
> sold practically near to him?
Same answer as above and also irrelevant in first-world
communities where an abundance of product choices are generally
at hand.
> Does he consent to receiving marketing
> influences?
Yes, to some degree. There is a continuing battle to widen the
degree of choice here. Also, marketing does not overrule consent.
> Does he consent to acquiring the characteristics that make the
> marketing effective?
Marketing can only influence choices to some degree. It is a
technique of persuasion and not coercion. The targets of the
marketing still choose.
The deeper argument that consent is meaningless unless one can
chose (consent to) one's own nature is empty and devoid of value.
Does he consent to being born with that
> characteristic?
>
Same answer.
> In other words, I think "free will" should enter the analysis only as what
> it is, a kind of mental construct to deal with the fact that human beings
> cannot quickly (in realtime) analyze all the forces operating upon them
> and all the inner processes and external processes affecting the ongoing
> exercise of their personality. The mind's self-mental model is crude, and
> contains this "ghost in the machine" conceit.
>
I see. I was not aware I was speaking with an automaton. I
will choose to stop doing so now. :-)
Seriously, questions of freedom vs. coercion can only be asked
and answered in terms of what *is* including the nature of human
beings. It cannot be meaningfully discussed in terms of some
imaginary possibility of real "consent" to choose everything
including the nature of and contents of reality down to any
desired level.
What would you substitute for economic consent/choice which you
regard as coercion? The State choosing for us?
- samantha
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