No doubt this is true. However, remaining in that oppressive society is still a choice, no matter how you put it. Other options always exist.

My choices at the point of a gun are also considerably constrained by unpleasant external circumstances, but they are still mine to make.

“I’m not at all sure that choice or freedom are in any way inherent, particularly given how constrained people seem to have felt throughout history.”

And wouldn’t that go splendidly hand in hand with your earlier statement that the concept of liberty, of being free to choose, is a late development

Hence, for most history (though prehistory may be a different matter) the vast masses of people have simply been, to various degrees, unaware of their essential liberty, with only the occasional candle in the dark flaming up at times.

Believing yourself to be a mere cog in the wheel of divine creation, unable to make meaningful decisions because your fate is momentarily influenced and ultimately pre-determined by the deities and other external forces ruling all creation? The rise of rationality did away with all that claptrap.

“Choice can be taken away entirely if the ability to act is taken away (the bound prisoner)”

Yep, that might be the only workable objection to the question of choice. It would have to be a straightjacket, though – otherwise suicide might be a very rational choice indeed.

Ok, well, hm. Choice is a very complex and problematic thing. For example, many women (to a far greater degree than is commonly acknowledged) feel their choices are intensely constrained by the opinions of their social network. For all humans, the reluctance to die strongly informs how choices are made. I’m not at all sure that choice or freedom are in any way inherent, particularly given how constrained people seem to have felt throughout history.

Neither choice nor self-preservation are absolute values from my perspective. Choice can be taken away entirely if the ability to act is taken away (the bound prisoner) and self-preservation can be overcome for any number of reasons.

There are extensive philosophical arguments which have convinced me that within the human domain, only awareness is fundamental. Everything else seems to be conditional on external circumstances.

Freedom is not all that problematic, though. It follows from (per the title of one of Friedman’s books) being free to choose one’s action at each moment. That freedom doesn’t imply in any way that the external world will cooperate with you, however. The universe is indifferent and the world is unjust, but you are still free to choose.

As the natural rights article I pointed to, above, says, a defense of “I had no choice. It was him or me.” is always a lie, as there is always a choice. It’s just that sometimes the choice is deeply unpleasant.

This is a key take-away from, for instance, Atlas Shrugged: you are free to choose even should you find yourself at the point of a gun. Sometimes, in choosing life you will have chosen less freedom; and sometimes in choosing freedom, you know that you will lose your life.

It’s still a choice, and it’s still yours. No one can take the *choice* away from you, hence no one can take your freedom away from you – only you yourself can allow your freedom to be curtailed or eroded, whether implicitly or explicitly.

This, to me, is the very basis of libertarianism, and is much more justifiable than the concept of an arbitrary list of natural rights which, in actuality, can’t even find actual basis in nature.

From this essential freedom, other rights can be derived into a self-selected system. Libertarianism thus proceeds to derive property rights as a key ingredient. There may exist many such self-consistent systems, though – again, it’s down to our own choice.

If freedom can be discovered, what else is out there?

BTW, my perspective on natural rights is very much captured in the following article:

http://www.spectacle.org/0400/natural.html

That is, no such rights exist a priori, but we can self-select into a system of rights of our devising. (Not unlike one’s choice of fundamental axioms for understanding reality, that is, the single required leap of faith for the existence of an objective, scientific universe, versus e.g. a subjective one in another tradition.)

That is, we can be sure of very few things, but among them are: we think, we exist, and we are free; our existence we will lose at an arbitrary time due to factors largely out of our control, but our freedom is lost only if we choose to lose it (sometimes at the cost of our existence).

This is why individual freedom as *the* one and only fundamental axiom of political philosophy works for me. To quote from the above article:

“I prefer this freedom, which seems to me simple and clear: we are all at a table together, deciding which rules to adopt, free from any vague constraints, half-remembered myths, anonymous patriarchal texts and murky concepts of nature. If I propose something you do not like, tell me why it is not practical, or harms somebody, or is counter to some other useful rule; but don’t tell me it offends the universe.”

And, thank you very much for sticking to your guns on this one, Arto. I wouldn’t be learning nearly so much about what I believe without somebody capable and willing to put in the time to articulate and maintain their perspective.

Cheers!

“where a diabetic in a financial crisis can be legitimately allowed to die and not have somebody held responsible.”

You can come up with as many theoretical examples as you want. The problem is that these arguments are rather like the Christian fundamentalist claiming that without heavenly-inspired law, people would be free to rape, murder and pillage.

The law is one thing (and should be free of loopholes), and the reality of human altruism is something else. There is a critical difference between “must” and “ought to”.

“PS: if killing in self defense is still murder, then stealing in self preservation is still stealing. Reasonable?”

Killing in self-defense is not murder, it’s manslaughter (see the definition of ‘murder’ in my first reply). Stealing in self-preservation is, of course, still stealing.