Historic Quotations Post II:
In terms of a defense of democracy and its virtues, I can think of no greater summation than the Four Freedoms speech made by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in January of 1941:
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It doesn't come up because you haven't ventured to defend your views save in the most conclusory fashion. I'd much rather prefer to address the argument you're holding in reserve, but I can't do that if all you say is, "Well, maybe one reason that I don't accept your account is that you're wrong..."
In that I have examined, and come to a conclusion? Accurate. In that I've "already assumed you're wrong?" No. You've made an argument, one that doesn't match up with what's understood. You don't like the answer, so we're back to armchair psychology.
This particular comment relates to a schematic of an argument that appears to be implicit in the way you've read and responded to a remark I've made upthread. I think it would be more productive to address the accuracy of that schematic rather than to accuse me here of engaging in "armchair psychology." There's really nothing here that qualifies as anything other than rational disputation.
Or, conversely, that I'm correct and that the idea of "freedom" you speak of is not freedom at all, but is something that some consider freedom even as it creates further contraints upon the person in question.
In that case, you're stuck on the first horn: you need to explain why your notion of freedom as a "multiplicity of theoretically available options" is preferable to this "something that some consider freedom." As a bonus, it might be helpful to explain why people seem so frequently to be mistaken about what it means to be free.
There may be benefits to limiting freedoms - that it's given as acceptable that reducing choice is okay, however, is where the problems ultimately lie. But, seeing how my notion is "critically undeveloped," what do I know, right?
So when is it "okay" to "reduce choice?" Never? Sometimes? If sometimes, when? If never, why not?
When and why is "greater choice" to be preferred to what I've called "practical freedom?" Always, just because? Always, because "practical freedom" is a non-entity? (If it's a non-entity, why isn't it worth countenance?) Usually, because it results in greater "practical freedom?" Typically, but only if it increases rather than decreases "practical freedom?"
The fact that I don't know, from your comments, how you'd respond to the above questions except to suppose that you'd take a maximization of choice and theoretically available options - "freedom," on your account - to be intrinsically superior to any alternative despite its benefits, and that you'd further take this position to be intuitively obvious and not amenable to rational defense - this underlies my assertion that your notion is "critically undeveloped." It can't seem to answer the most basic questions presented to it, and you don't seem to be doing anything here to demonstrate otherwise.
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