Thursday, October 12

Liberty and heaven

It's been a while I know, but you can let your breath go and read on, I'm still in blogland.

Today in my philosophy tutorial we were discussing John S. Mill and his theories on the rights and liberties that we hold according to his utilitarian principles. We started discussing true events that have happened and what right does anyone else have to interfer with someone's liberty to, say... harm themselves, take drugs or commit adultery if no one ever finds out. Interesting stuff huh!

In my opinion utilitarianism is a flawed theory, because of the stock standard arguments against it such as the unpredictability of the future and the difficulty in measuring 'happiness'. I do think he has a point on liberty though - If I had no liberty I would not be me, I would have no personality, expression and I would be a controlled robot. Which brings me to thinking about this gift from our creator of choice (liberty to choose) and this is what has caused so much mess on our planet. To think that if we had no choice we would be living in some paradise but the at the same time it would be unenjoyable because we would not have the option of leaving the paradise. If this is the case then I start thinking - what's heaven going to be like?? If it's "paradise" there and we are made perfect then does this mean that our freedom to choose has been removed?? Or is it because we become all-knowing that we in no way want to choose the 'wrong' action? If we can still choose and we choose 'wrong' then do we fall from heaven into some hell or is there imperfection in heaven still?

Woooa, when I started writing I hadn't thought of all those questions! Tell me what you think about my ponderings...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i was gonna say this anyway, when i notice mum just mentioned kinda the same thing...
anyway the thing that got me thinking in the first place was reading this: http://www.hedweb.com/hedab.htm
its pretty far out, but certainly interesting to think about. basically explores a theoretical futuristic heaven on earth type scenario from a utilitarian ethic.