Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

In reply to Michael Young. I don’t follow you. My point is that Pettit’s view ends up re-describing imperialism as interference rather than domination. Suppose A is the imperialist regime, and B the less developed, less rule-governed societ…

In other words, we evaded the risks of nuclear war by losing the conventional war. I guess this is preferable to winning the conventional war at the cost of weathering a nuclear war. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/09/us/politics/biden-nuclear-russia-u…

Imperialism is a type of domination, not just a type of interference. This is so, I think, because the people who would be denied self-government are strongly (and rationally) committed to the idea of governing themselves. If this were not the case &#8…

“Can Pettit allow that non-interference (or perhaps non-interference in important or non-trivial activities) has *some* value (in all cases, including your constructed case)?”  That I don’t know. He might grant that it has value, but …

His view is this: Freedom is non-domination. Hence to the extent that you are dominated, you are unfree. There are cases in which a person is interfered-with but not dominated. In these cases, non-dominative interference does not diminish freedom (at …

In reply to Irfan Khawaja. Your case is designed so that having a general policy of allowing marriage across ethnic or sectarian lines is swamped, on obviously consequentialist grounds, by increased risk of civil war and bloodshed (setting aside questi…

In reply to Michael Young. “Why couldn’t he hold that, in such a case, marrying who one likes to is important enough that it should not be prohibited (some at least small hit to non-domination-type freedom being appropriate)?“ The direct an…

In reply to Michael Young. Why couldn’t Pettit hold that Romeo and Juliet suffer (some degree of) diminished non-interference freedom (in being prohibited from marrying), but (some degree of) greater non-domination freedom (in living under the necessa…

I worry about getting tangled-up in the conceptual-bookkeeping issue of what the relevant concept of freedom means (or how the relevant term is used). Why couldn’t Pettit hold that Romeo and Juliet suffer (some degree of) diminished non-interfere…