From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Fri May 14 2004 - 23:56:23 MDT
On May 13, 2004, at 3:09 PM, Pablo Stafforini wrote:
> At t1 Gambler wants to gamble; at t77, though, he wants to pay his
> bills. It is simply naïve to say that Gambler must be allowed to gamble
> because that's what he wants, for he also wants to pay his bills. As
> long as you make the individual the fundamental unit of normative
> assessment, you'll have these problems, since individuals are entities
> that exist over time (immortality may actually make matters more
> complicated, but that's another story).
>
Isn't this a claim that others get the make the decisions for the
individual, "for his own good" as it were? Is it necessary to point
out the tyranny that such do-good intentions can lead to and
historically have led to? If the desire is to consider the full
context then the costs of overriding individual choices, no matter how
irrational, must also be included. Those costs also include the
loss of learning opportunities for the individual decision maker.
- samantha
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