Actually, before I started this thread I had thought that this was an entirely original concept, but now obviously common sense has kicked in and I can see now that other people would have pondering what I’m pondering. There Pinky and the Brain…
I wouldn’t say that my ideas were anarchist though, would you? And have you read Proudhon’s works? Would you recommend them?
But your free will has been stolen, don’t you see? If someone much stronger than you wants to attack you then you have no way of stopping it, even if you want it to be stopped. That is losing free will. Even if you could run away you are being forced to perform that action. You may choose to run rather than get beaten but it was not a free choice. If your boss forces you to decide x or y, by removing all other options he has forced you to do what he wants. He has prevented you from doing what you wanted to do. If you do what you wanted to do, and he fires you he has “stolen” your ability to provide for yourself. That is grounds for unfair dismissal. Free will is the ability to, within the confines of the law, do whatever you so wish. Taking away any decision on your part is taking taking away your free will. If you are in a burning building and your only choices are be burned alive or jumping to your death out of a window, you may choose either but you would want the choice to live which is rightfully yours. But the fire has prevented you from having that choice and you are now made to die against your will. This is loss of free will.
Yes but, line cutting is a thousand million degrees below assault. You still have the choice to move ahead of the line cutter, but I’d to see you stop a fist coming your way in an attack. Yes they have affected your life but the effect was minimal. Yes, according to the “rules” she should be punished. That’s why people invented curse words. But as for criminally punished, well perhaps an amendment is required. But on my next post because I’m too tired to think of the correct wording.
Yes, and yes. Not that I agree with Proudhoun, but his writings are relavent to your thesis. Although, he said “All property is Robbery”. A trivial distinction.
If you are really interested in developing your theory I would suggest you read Marx, Engels, and (believe it or not) David Hume. They all had much to say on this subject. I am not saying that I agree with them, just that they have addressed the subject you seem to be concerned with. I am not saying that you should change your mind to conform with their thoughts, just that by understanding what they said may help you develope your own ideas. You know, that bit about standing on the shoulders of giants?
To paraphrase Inigo Montoya: Free will? You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Free will is not the ability to do anything at anytime. It is the ability to control your own actions. There are many things that can take away your free will, but your boss telling you to do a task or else be fired isn’t one of them. A threat does not take away your free will, but it is a criminal act. They are two separate and distinct concepts.
People around you are constantly limiting your choices. If someone takes a parking spot in front of my house I am forced to park elsewhere, following your description that means that they have stolen my free will. This simply does not mesh with what the vast majority of the world believes. I want to park in front of my house, you have denied me that choice, therefore you have stolen my free will. Sorry, but that doesn’t pass muster.
I’d love a job where I can do anything I want and the boss can’t limit my choices. But it’s not likely to happen anytime soon. If my boss wants me to take an assignment and I don’t, guess who is going to win? There’s no unfair dismissal (at least not in a employment-at-will state) here, it’s part of the description of the employer/employee relationship.
At some point things rise from suggestion, to pressure, to coercion, to threat. We, as society, have decided that somethings are criminal, such as physical threats. Others, such as emotional pressure from a loved one, are not. Some coercion is allowed (take this assignment or be fired) and some is not (sleep with me or be fired). Unless you are equating all of the above I think your thesis fails.
You’re throwing my argument out of proportion, Telemark.
I admit that I chose my words wrong at that moment. Free will is rather the ability to control you own actions, I agree with that, but the ability to do whatever, whenever (in the confines of the law) is a part of controlling your actions and therefore a part of free will. It is not all of free will, as I implied, but a significant part.
Okay, so by your definition if at any point I have lost control of my actions I am without free will.
Reducing options is a part of life and there is little that can be done about that but there is reducing your options down, and then there is reducing them down to 1 or 2. If someone parks in front of your house, you can park in any number of other different places, you have been inconvenienced but by your definition you still can control where to park, if you park at all. Now if your boss gives you the ultimatum, do X or I fire you, then, unless of course X should be done, he has coerced you to do as he says. In either case the end result is to his benefit. Yes, you can make either choice but how can you define that as controlling your actions? It is your will, but it is not your free will.
If, of course X is a function of your job that should be performed, then your boss is in the right. If you worked on a checkout and you refused to sell meat because you are vegetarian and believe that it is wrong, should your loss of free decision making enable you to get away with it. I think no, because your employer would suffer greater loss financially than you would from a sense of freedom.
Now I’m a bit lost. You started this thread by attempting to define what was legal and illegal by using taking or loss. Now you’ve switch to “free will” and are using what the law allows to define it. I think you’ve switched the argument on me.
Not a complete definition but fair.
Now you are changing your original premis. Instead of loss being the defining criteria for criminal activity, now you are putting conditions and thresholds on it. Suppose there is only one parking spot left at the mall. I thought your thesis was that any loss is criminal. Now you’ve proposed some sort of rules and regulations to determine what is or isn’t too much. Sounds like laws to me.
So what? Who ever said you had a right to work the way you wanted to work? It’s your boss’ job to determine what should or should not be done. All of your work is to his benefit, and to yours since persumably you are getting paid. Again, you seem to be defining free will as the ability to make any choice you want. It never has. It is part of the human condition to have your choices limited, your boss, your family, your neighbors, strangers on the street all limit your choices. Are you proposing to legislate every action in the workplace?
In all the states in the US that I’ve worked most employers have the right to fire you for whatever reason they want, as long as it doesn’t violate certain protected classes. Federally protected classes include race, religion, age, and disability, some states and localities provide more protections. (My knowledge of employment law is woefully inadequate. I hope I’m not too far off the mark.)
If your boss fires you for being Catholic, his actions may be a violation of law. If your boss fires you for being lefthanded, you have little recourse. Society has decided that one action is criminal, the other is not. Same action, same result, both restrict your choices and/or free will. One’s legal the other isn’t.
My point remains with define legality by the “taking” of something. It just that it has been dragged into defining free will. Your examples about being threatened required me to define the loss as free will, which can in some cases be considered a major loss. Until now the debate has drifted to trying to define free will, which you have your part in doing.
I said from the beginning when I set out the rules that a crime should be determined by the overall loss to all parties, with it siding on the side who most benefits. There will be losses but every loss cannot be accounted for. I never said it could. This is real life. I would like to levitiate 10 feet off of the ground but physics takes away that “right”. Should that be criminal? No. Why? Because if you removed the laws of gravity for one person, too many other people are adversely affected. If there are no parking spots in the mall your right to park there becomes insignificant to the hundreds of others who exercised their own rights to park there.
You’re throwing my argument out of proportion again! I said:
If it within your job description, or if it is not but creates an overall benefit it should be done. If your boss tells you to smuggle out office supplies for him or he’ll fire you then his overall gain not only risks your job, but takes from the company you work for. You should not have to do this. If you are pregnant and the boss wants you to rearrange the furniture in his offices, the harm you could cause to yourself is greater than the happiness your boss will recieve.
So you don’t think it is unfair dismissal if your boss fires you for being a leftie. I do (but then read my sig line). If he has the rights to do so, it is because you were fully aware or at least had the ability to become fully aware that this was the case. You, with your free will, chose to limit your rights within your employment and that makes it legal.
I agree limited choices are a part of life, but limiting the choices down to one or two is a serious infringement on your ability to function. I call it a loss of free will but whatever name it goes by it is a loss on your part, it is a loss to the side that would benefit most from it and therefore it should be a crime.
You are defining legality by examining each situation and determining who has a greater “loss”. This means that every interaction in society will be open to interpretation as to how much loss is acceptable and who is affected more.
This means that no action could be defined as illegal until you set it in context. Perhaps it would be legal for me to steal things from an extremely rich person since my choices are limited and they wouldn’t even notice the loss? This seems to be the logical extention of your argument.
Coercing someone to act illegally to keep their job isn’t the issue here. It’s pretty clear that that is not acceptable in society. Beyond that, though, the employer pretty much can require the employee to perform whatever actions the employer desires. I have no problems with firing someone because they are lefthanded, IMO employers should have a great deal of flexibility in assembling their workforce. Sure it sucks to be fired for something like that, but under current law you have no right not to be let go.
Bottom line is that I don’t see why you make the distinction between limiting choice and limiting choice to one or two options. It seems like you are trying to legislate fairness, not justice. Society shouldn’t be set up to make things fair, or even to level the playing field, just to make sure that the rules are being followed. Once the rules are agreed on, things flow from there. Sounds to me like we’re just disagreeing on the rules.
How do you think the law was created? People didn’t just wake up one day and go, “Damn it, I can’t kill people anymore.”. Determining the severity of a crime exists today through the use of juries. I’m not saying every action should be judged instantly because laws can be created, repealed etc. I’m not even trying to create laws from my ideas. I’m just trying to justify my belief that what should be considered a crime can be shown to be the purposeful taking from one party by another.
Stole what exactly? And for what purpose? If I steal a loaf of bread I could be put away under the same laws as if I stole a television. It doesn’t happen much but it could. That is the point. Read the “rules” again:
Stealing something that a jury could consider valuable to the “victim” is a crime. If that something could give a greater benefit to the “criminal” then by 2) leniancy should be shown.
If you think that such a regardless attitude towards employees should be legal than you are a jerk, in fact you’d be more than a jerk but this isn’t a pitting. How can you even think that it is right to fire someone when it is not based on their work abilities? I shudder to think that people could get away with that.
Because when your choices are limited to one or two options it is, in all but a few cases, illegal. Fair enough there are some events in your life where you will be legally forced to have only one choice of action. But you know that that action is the only one that would benefit those who need benefitting. And what the hell is wrong with society being fair? Can’t you handle people having the same priveleges as you? No system can be 100% fair but then just “going with the flow” like you suggest just doesn’t cut it when there are still problems with the modern legal system.
