Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful
by WalterBright on Friday November 26, 2021 @04:46AM
(#29348782)
I never said compassion was unhelpful. If compassion helps an addict choose to stop using, great! But it's still, in the end, the addict's choice.
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| on HN ]
You could choose compassion but instead you choose judgment.
Re:Underrated Reasons to Be Thankful
by WalterBright on Friday November 26, 2021 @01:32PM
(#29352729)
Asserting that people have agency over their lives empowers them. That does not preclude compassion for the state they're in. Not at all.
> But it's still, in the end, the addict's choice.
It seems to me your language above suffers from a false dichotomy.
One might start with a binary question such as "Do we have free will or not?".
However, a better question is "Under what conditions and to what extent are we conscious of our choices, rational in how we evaluate them, and informed enough to predict how they will play out?"