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contractualist OP t1_ix4nepl wrote

Reply to comment by Clementea in Two Concepts of Freedom (Actual Freedom and Conscious Freedom) by contractualist

Actual freedom is a descriptive fact. It's only the experience of free will (what we mean by free will), or our actual selves. While actual freedom sets the boundaries of our moral community (members must be free and moral rules are limited to those we can freely obey) our actual free selves aren't parties to the social contract.

Conscious freedom (or as philosophers may call it, autonomy) is acting in accordance with our higher order principles. For social contract purposes, this means that our conscious selves would create universal moral rules based on the principles of freedom and reason. Our consciously free selves create and consent to the social contract.

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Clementea t1_ix4wvrx wrote

> It's only the experience of free will (what we mean by free will)

Ugh...Why are you saying what's inside the () as the same thing as you previously said?

> While actual freedom sets the boundaries of our moral community (members must be free and moral rules are limited to those we can freely obey)

What does that even mean? How does freedom sets boundaries of moral community? And how does what is inside the bracket even explains it? Yes Moral Rules are limited to those we can freely obey, even if that is not always the case. But how does it sets boundaries of moral community, how does freedom sets it.

You have the freedom to set boundaries, doesn't mean freedom itself sets it. How does that make sense?

> Conscious freedom (or as philosophers may call it, autonomy) is acting in accordance with our higher order principles. For social contract purposes, this means that our conscious selves would create universal moral rules based on the principles of freedom and reason. Our consciously free selves create and consent to the social contract.

Hence our conscious selves creates boundaries...Which we have the freedom to create.

I am not saying you can't differentiate them, it's just seemingly pointless to do so. And what you said here doesn't seems to actually support your point from my view.

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contractualist OP t1_ix7ynr8 wrote

>the experience of free will (what we mean by free will)

This is controversial to some. Yet what I argue what we mean when we say free will is our phenomenological experience of free will, rather than an objective free will. This is why I separate the two.

And whether a being is free determines whether they are a member of a moral community, bound to moral law. I discuss it here. This is what I mean by freedom setting the boundaries.

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