I’m just a little curious as to what people feel is a bigger crime: murder, or taking away one’s free will?
I mean, which is a worse situation: For one to go out, find a homeless person and murder them, or to take said homeless person, capture them, and in essence, enslave them (through conditioning, tortue, whatever) so that they no longer had any will but that of their oppressor?
Sure, it’s one thing to say “well, you can rescue an enslaved person, but the dead person’s dead,” yet at the same time, once rescued, the enslaved person may just find someone else to oppress them for that new found need in their life to have it governed. Once their free will is taken away, what if they can’t survive alone, and thus require that their lives be ruled from then on out.
Extreme situation, yes, I know, but it’s just a far out example to help stress my point. So, which is more important…staying alive, or maintaining one’s free will?
I think we should let fate decide…
If you murder someone, aren’t you also depriving them of their free will? Or are there a lot of corpses lying around thinking to themselves, “Well, I could get up and go to the pub, but the weather looks nasty… I think I’ll just lie here and decompose”?
See, that’s a bit I couldn’t quite figure out how to put into words. I mean, once the person’s dead, the external world pretty much has no meaning to them, because, well…they’re dead. hence, the object of free will is null and void. Sure, if they were alive, they could then express and use their free will, but being dead, they don’t, so who’s to say what they’ve been deprived of in this sense seeing as how they’re dead (see, that’s why I didn’t try to bring it up earlier…but it is another point).
Basically, a dead person wouldn’t contemplate going to the pub because they’d have no desire to go to the pub, and thus, any choice to go would be mute. Once they’re dead, their decision making days are over. Once enslaved, though, the slave’s decision making days are over as well. The difference is, one’s alive, and one is not. So, which is a better situation to be in?
Rural Arkansas, no doubt about it…
I think you already answered your own question. Dead is dead. Free will can be restored.
Your assumption that someone who loses their free will will never be able to survive without a ‘master’ is flawed; ask any freed POW. Maybe not all ex-slaves can adjust to life after slavery, but I bet the percent that can is higher than the percent of dead people who can adjust to life after death. Barring reincarnation.