| | Jordan wrote, "[T]here's a traditional assumption that more choices (i.e., greater freedom) always leads to greater happiness. The reference suggests that sometimes fewer choices (i.e., less freedom) sometimes leads to greater happiness. The paper is in no way suggesting that greater happiness results in less freedom or that less happiness results in greater freedom, if that's what you were suggesting with the 'inverse-correlation with freedom' that you didn't see."
The concept of freedom that Objectivists and libertarians endorse is ~the principle~ of freedom of action or of freedom of choice. In other words, by "freedom," we mean the right to act on our own judgment - to control our own lives and property. That kind of freedom can only be violated by coercion. And no one can consent to coercion, because if a person consents to take an action, then by that very fact, he or she is not being coerced.
Suppose, then, that a person decided that "less freedom" made him happier. How would he act on that decision? Well, he could make an agreement with someone to restrict his freedom. Let's say that he agreed to be admitted to a facility in which he was not allowed to drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes . Observe that in making such an agreement, he would be consenting to the restriction, in which case, it wouldn't constitute a restriction on his ~freedom of choice~, because he would have chosen it. So, I don't really see a conflict between a right to freedom of choice and a right to the pursuit of happiness. A right to freedom of choice ~implies~ a right to the pursuit of happiness.
- Bill
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