Think about rationality for a second. A poor person rationalizes stealing from the rich, to feed the poor. Good triumphs over evil? Once you accept the objective evilness of stealing, then your sense of freedom must obey this possibility. Your sense of freedom changes. There can never be a “good” form of stealing. But then, is there an “evil” form of stealing?
Why not steal, just because you want to and no other reasons or rationalizing is needed?
Well put.
It seems that you are just getting started.
I’m tempted to say that such a post has so many logical errors, that I can’t count them, but let’s see if I can…
1) “If you accept good and evil as choices…”
“Good and evil” are NOT “choices”. The choices are whether to adhere to one or the other concern.
2) “…and then reject morality,…”.
Rejecting morality merely means that you hold to no rules, regardless of the consequences. But morality is based upon the consequences, so you are saying merely to ignore the consequences.
3) “…then you see the world in a whole new light, from a whole new lens.”
You perceive the world differently, which doesn’t mean that it actually is different. You have merely fooled yourself in a different direction, perhaps better, perhaps worse.
4) “Freedom and morality are opposite virtues.”
Neither Freedom nor Morality are virtues, certainly not opposite virtues. Freedom is the ability to act without obstruction. Morality is the Choice not to abuse that ability. Having the freedom is important even if one chooses to not act upon it. If everyone has the freedom, those in need can act upon it while others do not. Remove the freedom, and no one can act upon it whether they have the need or not and they are moral or not.
5) “A person cannot be both good and free, or evil and free, at the same time.”
So if someone is free to steal, it is impossible for them to be good and not steal? You are saying that having a choice is bad.
6) “Freedom can only be achieved by accepting good and evil as viable life choices, and then acting with this knowledge in mind.”
I have to presume that you mean, “freedom can only be achieved by freely choosing to act in a good way or a bad way.” In this presumption, you are, as stated prior, ignoring the consequences that take away your ability to act at all. You are saying that ignoring your future is the only freedom. That is like a scientist saying that ignoring the experimental results is the only freedom for science. Do you seriously think that Science would survive at all (much less be free) if the results of experiments were simply ignored?
7) “Good does not take precedence over evil. Evil does not take precedence over good.”
Doesn’t that depend on who (or what) it is that is setting the “precedence”? As well as how you are defining “good” and “evil”.
8.) " The two are balanced."
By whom? Who says? Balanced in what way? They certainly don’t produce the same results. And they certainly are not equal.
9) “The resistance I see from you people, is a bias toward good and away from evil.”
That is what defines “good” from “evil”… what people are biased (for valid reasons) for or against.
10) “This proves to me that you people define good as “freedom”.”
Yeah well, it seems that you are promoting how freedom should be sought by ignoring good and evil. But now you seem to be saying that freedom should not be seen as good. But of course if one ignores good and evil, they must ignore what you just said concerning the good of freedom. So why are you saying anything at all about freedom being anything?
If freedom is not to be seen as good, then just accept not being free.
But doesn’t that put you right back where you started?
If seeking good, being moral, is taking away your freedom, but freedom is not good, then it seems that you shouldn’t care if you are enslaved or imprisoned as these are good things.
I think sanity has something to do with it.
The problem here, James, is simple. I know for an absolutely certain 100% fact that freedom is grounded in the immaterial world, the mind, the brain, and not in the material world. You can tie up and chain up a person’s body, yes. But this does not tie up and chain up his mind. Freedom begins in the mental world, not the physical world. You are arguing the opposite, from the opposite point of view.
You subjectively, falsely believe that freedom is grounded in the material world, in the body first, and the mind second. You believe that if you imprison somebody, that you have deprived them of their freedom. This is why we’re not seeing eye to eye on this topic. Attempt to empathize with me, here, see things from my point of view and perspective. Will you do this for me, James, as a personal favor?
Not really.
I would argue that the mind and material are connected.
Your mind can be destroyed or merely irritated into oblivion with chemicals/medicines/diseases.
Your mind is only free of your body’s discomforts when the brain is healthy (which means you don’t live in the West).
But you are presuming that freedom is defined merely by the choices you WANT to make.
That isn’t what freedom is. Freedom is the ability to make alternate choices even from those you choose or want.
The reason it is important is so as to allow the individual to choose his path rather than a generalized law requiring everyone down the same path… no choices… socialist tyranny.
I already knew exactly what you were talking about… been there, done that,… got the bruises and bloody Tee shirt.
Now you do me a favor and consider the definitions of the words you are using, specifically “free”. It involves both physical and mental concerns. But those concerns are not actually independent despite fantasies and high hopes to the contrary.
The bold black are physical.
The bold blue are mental.
The bold purple is both.
I didn’t say anything about choices you “want” to make…
You said that you could choose anything to not desire by saying that being imprisoned didn’t matter, “freedom of the mind”.
The problem is that you do not have control over your desires and thus don’t have control over your mental or physical imprisonment.
To gain control over your desires requires that you do what works and don’t do what doesn’t - “morality”.
At that point, you THEN have freedom to choose many OTHER desires because you then have some control over them.
Let’s assume that it were physically possible for a human being to have complete control over all of his desires.
Now start at the OP again, and let me know what you think, based on this presumption.
No, but if I find them horrible, forcing myself to do them - in the name of freedom or some other idea - would not make me any freer.
I didn’t say anything about morals, I said horrible things. Horrible to me.
I would have to override my desire to do things I find horrible to do. To do that does not make me free.
I do agree with the first thing you say in the OP. Morals reduce freedom. But it is not just morals that lead me to not do certain things. Desire to do some other thing, dislike of certain actions or experiences.
I don’t want to rape anyone. Not because it is immoral, whatever that means, but because I don’t want to. It is not guilt keeping me from doing it. If I were to force myself, in the name of freedom, to rape, I would not be more free.
What if your desires are actually your morals?
And what if you actually could acquire complete control over your desires?
If making a choice, and thereby limiting yourself from actualizing it’s opposite means you’re not free then how did you make the choice in the first place? “Accepting the objective…” is what I’m referring to.
Then wouldn’t you be ‘limiting’ your freedom? You’re now equating freedom with choice and ‘freedom’ [b][i]is[/b][/i] a matter of being able to choose. You’re free to choose whatever you want to do (if you live in a State that allows such freedom.) But ‘choice’ carries with it the reality of consequence. To choose to make a moral decision may limit your ‘freedom,’ but it also limits the consequences of that choice.
Morality is the codification of cultural definitions of what’s best for that particular culture and what’s detrimental to that culture. Suppose you’re a Muslim woman born into a strict conservative tribe and you choose to go grocery shopping without covering your body and without a male family escort? You may be intellectually ‘free’ to make that decision, but you don’t. Why? Because to do so would be to brand you as a heretic and most possibly get you death.
So I think your forum title needs to be reversed to say, “Morality is Anti-freedom.” 
I could be a Buddhist, sure. But why should I want to be my own internal fascist? Forever split against myself. Prisoner and guard in one. And how is such and internal split free? Then you have the mental, conscious, wordy little mind, thinking it knows best controlling emotions and intuition and desires, cut off from all their useful information and, well, freedom.
I don’t need to structure myself like a prison.
And if you cannot tell the different between your morals and your desires, then you are really cut off from your desires, confusing ideas in the mind with them. Mind you, many people are that cut off, but teaching them to control their emotions and desires even more will only make them more cut off and confused. This has been done in so many ways throughout history, both in various religions and also in various philosophies. It is of no interest to me.
I would rather be a single entity choosing from the whole me. That is freedom or nothing is.
Smears, actions automatically limit freedom, yes. Let’s assume that complete or absolute freedom is the consideration, planning, plotting, and then choosing of a course of action.
Moreno, liz, try to put choice before morality. You make a choice, and then people ascribe morality to these choices after they are already made and committed to. You are both putting morality before choice, hence why you say Morality is antifreedom. Focus on the primacy of freedom and choice, before morality.
You are free before you are moral. This is why freedom is antimoral.
I was born before I was moral. Is being born antimoral?
Sorry, I thought I had explained that freedom comes first. If freedom means you can do as you please, you have that freedom–you may do as you please. It’s only after the choice is made that morality enters into it.
I just don’t understand how freedom is antimoral. But that may be because I don’t define freedom as the go-ahead to do as one pleases within society. Then the question changes again and becomes “Is society, and social mores, anti-freedom?” It’s in that sense that I put morality before freedom. In action, freedom to choose may come first. If, however, language shapes how we view our world, freedom and morality have the same weight. There is no freedom without morality and there’s no morality without freedom. 
If humans could have that condition, you would never have heard of anything called “morals”.
But the problem in the OP doesn’t change. Your degree of freedom depends upon the choices that you made prior. If your mind is totally independent of your body, you could easily choose to not want to do anything, but that doesn’t change your freedom. That would only change how free you felt when you tried to do nothing.
You are free to choose to be moral are not you are deciding not to take these immoral actions and are thus exercising your freedom.
I don’t know how many times this has been said, nor by how many people. We either misunderstand Atthet or there’s a bit of trolling going on. No matter, it’s very boring. I’m outta here. Zip
The answer is clear. Most people put morality before freedom, and believe that morality causes freedom. I reverse this. I see this in reverse, backward, compared to others. I see that freedom is before morality. And it is not until you begin with freedom, that morality can make any kind of common sense. Morality is a limit on freedom. Therefore, freedom is antimoral.
I’m not putting morality before choice. But I do what I want and some things I do not choose to do. I feel no attraction to raping a child to death through the eye socket, an scenario that was part of a thread here a few months back. Choosing to do this, despite my revulsion, even if I could get away with it, would not make me more free. Note: nothing in this where I am asserting I shouldn’t do it or it is immoral to do it. Since I have said this a few times and it still gets called a morality, I think you think we are really tabula rasa creatures with morality lopped on top of this potentially doing anything entity. But tabular rasa theories of the mind have not held up to science. We have proclivities, even if we have no morals. And there is no reason to compel ourselves to do things we do not want to do in the name of freedom. If you are lucky you’ll end up like Raskolnikov. If you are unlikely nothing will stop you and you will basically rape yourself and lose your life, all in the name of being free.
You haven’t responded to what I said about splitting yourself up into the one who values freedom and controls emotions and desire in freedom’s name, leaving you jailer and jailed.