Summary: Is freedom valuable because it lets us pursue utility, or is utility good because free people would pursue it? I argue the latter, grounding morality in freedom rather than utility.

First, valuing utility above all else can lead to morally perverse outcomes, as many hypotheticals have shown. These thought experiments can be satisfactorily resolved by valuing freedom instead. Second, utility arises as part of an amoral biological process of evolutionary adaptation. Something amoral cannot create something moral. Third, since utility is subjective, its utility is shaped by our freedom. How we choose to experience something determines its value to us. Freedom therefore grounds utility.

> valuing utility above all else can lead to morally perverse outcomes, as many hypotheticals have shown.

Does the real world show it, or just made up utility monsters?

I'm quite confused on what the basis of the word "freedom" means in the context of this argument, as it can be broad. Is it freedom from financial obligations required in most of our lives? Is it freedom to express thought without consequence?

Yes, for example, utopians and fundamentalists have justified their brutal actions for the sake of the future well-being they were seeking to create. What're a few murders compared to the ideal communist state or an eternity in heaven?

I would say an oscillation between the two allows the DNA better chances of survival in different and changing environments.

Pure Utilitarianism could lead to living like an ant hill, or it could be the best route in survival situations.

Egalitarianism allows some to pursue activities that may allows new expressions or innovations. But it can also lead to decadence where no one undertakes the undesirable tasks and wastes resources on trivialities.

Valuing freedom above all else can also lead to morally repulsive outcomes such as one’s freedom to explore their love of killing. There are some insightful points made by this author but I think I am left with more confusion about which value trumps the other and am not convinced either way.

> Valuing freedom above all else can also lead to morally repulsive outcomes such as one’s freedom to explore their love of killing.

The common argument against this is that your freedom to punch the air end where my face begins. A society that would allow such actions, e.g. one to pursue their love of killing, would not truly be a free society at all.

I should have linked this article in the post, but I address it here.

Basically, since freedom is the foundation of morality, and others have freedom, the only way to create a moral system is through a social contract. The contract respects the freedom of others as it would include principles that cannot be reasonably rejected by free people.

So one's freedom to kill isn't moral, not because of the utility consequences, but because it doesn't respect another freedom by failing to abide by the social contract.

I talk about that here. When I say freedom, I mean only the experience of freedom.

As if people haven't committed crimes in the name of so called freedom?

Also, you never defined or detailed at all what you mean by freedom. Freedom for who?.... freedom to do what? Maybe you should be free to "kill the monk".

Is utility truly always the ultimate moral good (as you say in the essay)?

Edit: an even better question might be: is a society that organizes itself and its notion of the good around ends or outcomes a free society? Is a teleological moral demand sustaining of freedom?

I discuss it here, but what I mean by freedom is only the subjective experience of freedom. Someone can kill to maximize utility, which according to utilitarians is good. But we know its morally wrong.

Someone can kill in the name of freedom, yet except in very narrow cases (self-defense, defense of others), that person would be wrong according to my view since they are failing to respect another's freedom.

It feels circular to me / tautology. It took coming from an amoral system to get to a moral one too. So that can’t derive out otherwise. We came to a realization this certain broad stroking ideal value of freedom, but then must, as libertarian seem to not understand, hedge back from the externalities. Where freedom typically leads to amoral harms to others even when reasonably considerate. All actions have equal or greater reactions.

The social contract, when ideally exhibited, leaves people that generally believe the same thing together to individually not conflict most all the time. Manifesting an almost self deontology of reciprocal means. Allowing for the feel of un-governance / those imaginary lines that binds us. The individual is relied upon to make these moral decisions. But not all play by the rules, and most will be swayed by perverse incentives or otherwise bend sentient desires over group conformity and well being. We are rooted in our biological nature here despite the myth of modern liberalism played out (not a personally value claim). Selfish desires conflict with morality. It’s the urges we have versus the story we tell ourselves to feel okay about ourselves.

Freedom isn’t free right? So we have to manage and mitigate the cost of it by seeing the outweighed utility values or else freedom wouldn’t be a good approach. At the end of the day… It ends up always being a utilitarian and possible virtue ethic preposition. These degrees of freedom so to speak shape utility just much as utility shapes freedom.

So it comes back around that we created freedom out of the amoral but now we have to refocus this circular process to affirm the ideal. So then the distinction here doesn’t really shake out for me much different between utility and freedom. It just feels like explaining why we should put the cart in front of the horse. Not that this can’t have value in evaluation and perspective.

I think the question still stands. The link is also vague and mostly assuming your conclusion from the start.

If you don't mean anything more specific than the subjective experience of freedom, it is a problem for your position, since it isn't clear why the freedom not to be killed is more important than the freedom to kill others.

Fair, I address that here. Let me know of any insufficiencies and I will address them in future posts.

> If the skeptic says his X is valuable, then according to reason, X is valuable among others.

Right but the equality here wouldn't tell us killing the monk is wrong. It seems like it could be morally neutral by your account.

This is a problem in not describing the kind of freedom you have in mind. It doesn't tell us how much weight to give positive versus negative rights.

> your freedom to punch the air end where my face begins

That standard falls apart when you realize that very few actions (certainly none of the ones we care about) have no effect on others. Whether it is talking with someone, playing multiplayer games, or even buying groceries at the store -> all of those can have meaningful effects (positive and negative) on others.

Saying that you are free to do things that have no effect on anything or anyone is irrelevant, since no one cares about those actions. In most cases, freedom refers to the right to do things that might be harmful/objectionable to someone else.

I will get into rights in a future article, however, so long as someone has freedom, they are a member of the moral universe. Other members cannot deny their freedom.

Reason requires valuing anothers freedom. Since there is no reason from which to deny the monk's freedom, killing him would be morally wrong.

You're arbitrarily giving preference to one freedom. You could just as well say since they both have equal right to freedom, the monk cannot deny his killers will to do what he wants.

and business leaders in the US used their freedom to lobby for war in the cases of both Vietnam and Iraq ie they used their freedom to kill millions for a paycheck funded by the people.

or the freedom US carbide used when it killed 10,000 people in Bhopal, India? they had the freedom to not use safety equipment.

hell Bezos and Musk are currently using their freedom to completely undermine the US government and factually the US has not been democratic since the mid-2000s, numerous studies have concluded that the people have effectively no say over policy of any kind and that implemented policy is almost always wanted by and often written by business.

all freedom leads to mass oppression.

finally why is murder worse then not murder? what makes stopping people killing others with force better then letting them kill each other?

ie it would have been moral for the Indian government to kill the regional head of US-carbide in order to stop them using their freedom to kill thousands.

What the f is freedom ? And what the bigger f is utility ?

>Simply, freedom is the power to reflect on our desires and change them based on abstract principles—including morals.

With this, the framing of this argument Freedom vs Utility is very difficult to wrap my head around or make sense. Utility focuses on material conditions and the improvement of such for reasons pertaining to quality of life and survival, whereas the freedom in this context does not contradict or contest that. If anything, it seems to be in support of utility over freedom, since people are moved towards values and principles because of their material conditions. With this in mind, ultimately, utility is what drives many in the pursuit of their "freedom".

Yes people freely move towards utility. This is why I argue freedom grounds the value of utility, since free people would pursue utility. I also wouldn't say people are pursuing freedom. They already have it, and are exercising it when they choose to improve their conditions.

You can think of the question as being "should people be free to increase their utility or should people be forced to increase their utility?" The former grounds ethics on freedom whereas the latter grounds it on welfare.

Badly paraphrased Locke.

not really trying to roast or anything, but you conflate heavily between freedom, autonomy, agency, etc. philosophers (at least in the analytic tradition) tend to be very careful in how they use terms. and your article is a prime example of highly confused uses of jargon — it’s not really just a matter of semantics.

It could be argued that freedom is an illusion and that just like every perceived choice we make is based on our perception of inputs or stimulus. The past has shaped our current reactions based on the same thing. Freedom is not a choice but a pre-determined outcome. Every individual experiences this in their own way regardless of the political system in power. Half of a democratic society lives in a communist state because of how the voting system works. If you're preferred party looses, you just have to live with that as best you can. Even those who voted for the winning party experience tyranny because the promises made during an election more often than not are not actioned. I'm not saying communism is better. But Democratic nations definitely need to evolve towards a better system.

i'm aware, although many of these definitions can be convoluted. I use Gerald Dworkin's
definition here but what I mean by freedom is only consciousness/the experience of freedom.

Badly paraphrased Kant*

My guy, I don’t think egalitarianism is mutually exclusive with utilitarianism, they aren’t even in the same axis or field. Not is it what leads to decadence. And from a utilitarian perspective, egalitarianism is pretty useful.

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Are you arguing for positive or negative liberty? The right to do versus the right to not be done upon? Or a mixture of the two?

if freedom is the basis of morality, then the interactions between the monk and others would be governed by the principles developed in a social contract (this is because the contract is reason-based and is approved by free parties, as discussed here).

Principles against murder would be included, so valuing freedom would forbid killing the monk.

I'll be discussing that (rights) in future posts, what I mean by liberty is here which is just consciousness/the experience of freedom

So your definition of freedom (or liberty) is: "the power to reflect on our desires and change them based on abstract principles—including morals"

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I think the issue here is the definition for freedom is strange. It's not at all what the term means in ordinary language. So I'm not sure it's the best word to use if you're trying to communicate what you're saying to any audience.

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As you say, someone can't be held morally accountable for not doing something that is impossible (e.g. going back in time and killing Hitler). However, let me present a hypothetical: imagine you are in the wreckage of a destroyed building. Underneath a metal beam there is a man suffocating (from the weight of the beam). You are unable to lift it as you are not strong enough. So, given what you have said the person would not be held morally accountable.

But, if you had stayed more physically active throughout your life, you would have been able to lift the beam. So though in the moment it was impossible, if you had been stronger (a real possibility) you would have been able to save the man's life. Would you say under your normative theory that people have an obligation to maximize (or at least increase) their own ability (by ability I mean your power to exert your will upon the world, e.g. by increasing physical strength)? If not, people could simply be lazy or reduce their abilities in order to reduce their moral obligation.

With social contract theory you're conceding that your argument for freedom being the foundation of morality relies on restrictions on freedom to get off the ground at all...

Step 1) freedom, step 2) reason, step 3) social contract. The article is arguing that freedom, not utility, is step 1.

There wouldn't be a moral duty to be in top physical health. Nor is there a moral duty to become a doctor to save the man. Nor a moral duty to also become an architect to prevent buildings from being destroyed. And so on. You can create infinite duties from this scenario. And no such duty would be created in the social contract. Therefore, those duties are not moral duties.

I've even questioned the duty to rescue (when rescuing harms others) here. An unlimited duty to rescue wouldn't be accepted in the social contract, since the responsibilities of free parties create acceptable stopping points of duties.

If you have a certain definition of freedom in mind, I'd be happy to hear and use it in future posts.

But you only mean "freedom" in that humans are smart enough to make choices. In your sense It's just a prerequisite for anything we do. Not something especially related to ethics at all.

Any person, regardless of profession or walk of life, can be physically fit (except in cases of certain disability, in which it would be impossible to be physically fit). Additionally, maximizing your own ability can just mean maximizing your ability in your walk of life (similar to Kant, advancing one's own skills and abilities).

In a world without this duty, people would be fine to do nothing at all. We would not want to live in a world where people don't maximize their ability. We want competent doctors and architects, and we want physically strong healthy people in general. Society without these would collapse.

I think a key issue with Scanlon's dilemmas is they ignore what the people losing TV actually want. Go, survey them if possible. Would they want the man to die so they can watch a bit more TV? I think you'll find a resounding no, as very few people would be that selfish. Why, in any case, would we be morally obligated to do something that no one wants, kills a person, and barely benefits anyone else? A utilitarian would not want this, as a utilitarian understands that a greater benefit and well-being would come from a society in which people aren't routinely sacrificed for minor pleasures.

I find the idea that principles often conflict within your theory a failure of the theory itself. All theories being subjective, I would much rather follow a theory that gives consistent advice on all topics rather than one that in a simple situation like the trolley problem says, "do whatever you want". I do not want to live in a world with such a vacuous ethical system. A normative theory tells you what you ought to do. If it can't do that, it's not exactly normative theory. Especially in situations of life or death. I mean no offence, but if an ethical theory cannot tell me whether to save a life, or take one, then I am not interested.

Of course ethics are subjective. There are not ethical objects to be found in the world, they're just rules or ideals that humans create founded upon arbitrary points. I find the glorification of "freedom" to be as arbitrary as the glorification of "utility" or "virtue". It doesn't matter what any of these things are, as what is has no affect on moral theories. It is the is-ought problem. You can't derive ought from is, and so it doesn't matter how "fact-based" or anything else freedom is, it's no more valid than utility or virtue.

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I think you should just use a separate word for freedom, as freedom already has a definition in ordinary language. Giving it a new one is, plainly speaking, just confusing.

But then both utility and (the experience of) freedom are subjective. The most important difference in your reasoning seems to be that utility is individual, while your construct of freedom takes others into account. So, swapping utility for welfare with a sufficient 'welfare punishment' for crimes against others, would lead to the same outcomes: Killing is bad, don't hurt the utility of others, and do what you like otherwise.

But then both utility and (the experience of) freedom are subjective. The most important difference in your reasoning seems to be that utility is individual, while your construct of freedom takes others into account. So, swapping utility for welfare with a sufficient 'welfare punishment' for crimes against others, would lead to the same outcomes: Killing is bad, don't hurt the utility of others, and do what you like otherwise.

I agree, it depends on the goal pursued by utilitarianism, the goal can be to reach the highest level of egalitarianism.

That's, like, "watermelons vs. the color red" - what are you even talking about?

An utility function is little more than a mathematical abstraction that captures already existing preferences. Saying someone "values utility" is tautological. Arguably, being consequentialist is tautological. Perhaps confusingly, "utilitarianism" usually means "you should value other people's values equally", sometimes without the "equally".

Many people have a strong preference for freedom. That's just a fact, something that has to be incorporated whenever you try to calculate someone's preferences/utility function correctly. Keeping these ideas in mind, your post makes little sense.

>Second, utility arises as part of an amoral biological process of evolutionary adaptation. Something amoral cannot create something moral.

That makes "moral" a completely useless word, then. It can't refer to anything, since the planet was 100% amoral at some point in the past.

This post deals with meta-ethics, on what grounds morality itself. I don't agree that its obviously utility to the point of tautology. I make that case herein my "utility coach" thought experiment. There I argue that freedom's value exists beyond utility.

I also address the basis for morality here. Happy to hear your thoughts so I can address them in future posts.

I argue that there are objective duties and beyond that, there is subjective meaning (post coming, and I'd like your thoughts on it). I'll be making one on freedom as well, where I believe that there are two relevant definitions that need some explaining.

I don't mean to glorify freedom, but to find a proper foundation for ethics. Freedom, I argue, happens to fit the bill. (wait till I write my stuff on reason for glorification of concepts, which has the authority to restrict freedom).

I agree that the is-ought divide cannot be bridged, and I'll try to clarify this view further.

Philosophers have been using words like autonomy, agency, etc. However, I think freedom gets the point across better, despite its baggage.

I'm not following. If the experience of freedom is the foundation of morality, does it mean that the most moral thing to do would be to create and put all humans into Matrix where each person was given as much freedom as possible in their own private reality?

So what makes one social contract better than another? A bunch of slave-keeping Southerners have a social contract where their freedom is important, but the slaves' freedom isn't. And if you say a contract that includes more people who have freedom is better, then does that directly make factory farming wrong, because the billions of cows, pigs, etc. should have freedom too? Or is there a reason to exclude animals?

Yeah but the argument gets framed that way.

A ranked-choice multiparty system would surely be more utilitarian— and I’d think we’d all be freer from political extremism. (Especially if you’re gay, trans, first-generation American, Jewish, etc.)

In the same vein, I’d think a utilitarian would argue that a murderer or tyrant isn’t really practicing utilitarianism.

I’m not sure why the choice is framed that way. What about the idea that utility is good because it allows people to exercise more freedom? A utilitarian society would mean people have basic stability and therefore can pursue their own goals without worrying about the risk of losing it all and being discarded.

no thanks, the idea of freedom is used to justify all sorts of suffering just as much. i dont get why people want to reduce morality to some oversimplified handful of principles. i dont think they ever fully capture people's ideas of morality

By objective duties do you mean actually objective (as in, within the fabric of the universe or reality, something totally independent of the observer) as that is what I find objective to mean. Anything else is subjective. If you don't think the is-ought problem can be bridged, I'm confused how you argue the existence of objective duties (and thus an objective morality, if I understand you correctly).

I do agree freedom is a decent word for the concept your describing, but is there nothing else that can be used (e.g. mental freedom, desire freedom/freedom of desires, moral freedom)? I think these would help distinguish it from the regular use of freedom, because you may get a lot of flack from ordinary language philosophers for this usage. I don't think it makes your actual argument weaker, but I do think it weakens your ability to communicate it effectively.

I agree that there is subjective meaning, if what you mean by that is something like this: purpose, or meaning within the world is an arbitrary/human concept, and thus can be nothing else than subjective.

I apologize for using the term glorification, as I don't think you're glorifying freedom any more than utilitarian's glorify utility or virtue ethicists glorify virtues. Maybe "moralize" is a better word, but the "moralization" of some concept is integral to any normative theory. In any case, it isn't an issue, but I was just trying to show that freedom is no more special than utility or virtue in regards to the creation of an ethical theory.

I can't comment. The moderator blocked my last response and may even block this one. Not a believer in free speech it seems.

What I mean by objective duties is that there are moral rules that could not be reasonably rejected and would therefore be a part of the social contract (restrictions on murder, slavery, discrimination etc.). This is in some sense metaphysical and some sense dependent on human nature.

The is-ought problem can't be bridged, however the mere pursuit of normativity is enough for reason to bind an agent's freedom and place them under the moral law. And this moral law is objective. Yet this is the whole mission of my substack, so I'll have much more to say about this.

All free humans would be included in the social contract, and would never agree to the slave owners terms, making their laws unjust. The actual social contract would exclude slavery.

Whether animals are included in our moral universe depends on whether they have a conscious (free) experience.

What I mean is that our freedom is the basis of our moral universe. It determines who is part of that universe and its rules. And its binary (or based on a threshold), whether you are subject to moral rules depend on whether you are free. And moral rules must be created based on what free people would agree to.

This is obviously a very controversial topic and I'll be discussing it much more on my substack. If there are any issues that should be addressed, please let me know so I can write about them.

This appears to be more of a descriptive view, whereas I'm focusing on the normative.

If its just about DNA, you can justify a patriarchal military state that can produce more citizens and conquer more territory. It may be effective at its goal, but its not moral. Morality, meanwhile, would be based on the principles free people would agree to in a social contract.

The term has a lot of baggage, but it doesn't lead to the conclusion many think it does. Later on in my substack, I'll be making the case for a liberal welfare state with freedom as the foundation.

A Patriarchy military State in modern day would run into the problem of blowing up the very resources it's fighting for.

What is Morality other than a survival mechanism?

Social Contract works great, but unforseen(or ignored) consequences eventually force us to slide down Maslow's Pyramid and resort to force.

Plus, I would argue, that due to humans being Pack Mammals, most will naturally leave the decision making(essentially participation) to delegation during times of plenty, only to be left with poor planning and grift when times change to bad.

>A Patriarchy military State in modern day would run into the problem of blowing up the very resources it's fighting for.

So if we had enough resources, it would become moral?

Because morality is grounded on freedom, it would be what free people would reasonably agree to. A survival mechanism is amoral; any actions can be justified to survive.

The only way we can judge what is called "sliding down" is by having a certain standard to fall from. The standard is the social contract, its the moral law whether or not its obeyed.

I agree that the social contract will be delegated and I will discuss this more on my substack (I talk about it a bit here)