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I wonder if it would be possible to describe freedom's in the language of set theory so that the goal is to optimize the cardinality of the set of freedoms. Basically we want as many freedom except that some freedom's inherently take away freedoms of others. So is there some maximum point? Anyone can help me either formulate this question or know some stuff on it? Or maybe why this philosophically is good etc?

My motivation comes from homeless people being arrested essentially for being homeless, to me it would seem a blatent violation of human rights (and yet I find no court cases arguing that which is sad how disjoint common thought is from big time "law"). Anyways I digress, the motivation was that here, we have two body's the bum and the star citizen who does not wish to see somone sleeping in park, so it can be free for every one to use. The star citizen's right to a park with no bums sleeping seems to remove too much right of the bum. Basically the star citizen can't have that right because it limits the bums rights too strictly. So maybe we need to quantify rights somehow to work out how some rights infringe on others?

marshal craft
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    Also as a disclaimer I'm not promoting homelessness to anyone as it is a serous issue and as such just considering the rights thing and not philosophy of homelessness. – marshal craft Jan 14 '18 at 19:09
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    "The liberty of one citizen ends where the liberty of another citizen begins" was proclaimed as a fundamental principle by the French revolutionary convent, and balancing rights and freedoms is a constant concern in crafting legislation, see e.g. Balancing Conflicting Rights. However, different freedoms differ in quality and their value is incomparable across people so the task is much more complex than a quantitative optimization problem. – Conifold Jan 14 '18 at 20:12
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    Well I can see how one can argue at the weighting of the freedoms. Like I would like to see that the bum's right to take up space is not infringed upon by another's right to not see a hobo sleeping. So here we seek to not infringe any right but I wonder if there isn't some logical asymmetry in this? Seems just begging that this is not a maximized point. – marshal craft Jan 14 '18 at 21:13
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    Also I could only imagine, being told I couldn't do something because some crazy differential equation, which is only partially solved with a taylor series, perhaps even incorrectly by inexperienced person; would be difficult to accept for most people. So I honestly hope law wouldn't turn to this, but just considering is interesting? Even more interesting is that seemingly Christian or God fearing people can perhaps answer these questions with out use of mathematics but by morals and compassion for others, all the while maximizing their own freedom unexpedently. – marshal craft Jan 14 '18 at 21:17

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I think, it'll be good for you to read more about cooperative game theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_game_theory

If everybody (theoritically) announced in advance their goals, their life style and so on .. , it would be actually possible (might take long to be calculated for a big population) to know, which people should have freedom and which people, when having freedom, make the global payoff (let's say happiness) less.

Hayyan Helal
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  • Economist here: "cooperative game theory" is not the really the study of how we cooperate. Instead it describes only the outcomes that result when the players come together in different combinations. Cooperative game theory describes the outcomes that result when the players come together in different combinations. For this reason, it's sometimes also referred to as 'combinatorial' game theory. – pafnuti Jan 15 '18 at 22:51
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    "so that the goal is to optimize the cardinality of the set of freedoms". He asked for it. – Hayyan Helal Jan 15 '18 at 23:02
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You could look at Badious political theory which is informed by axiomatic set theory:

But what distinguishes Badious thought in this context, and also secures it's relevance to concerns historically typical to analytical philosophy, is his provocative and rigorous use of mathematical formalism ... [He] applies the apparatus of set theory to model both the 'ontological' structure of existing and knowable entities and situations, and structurally transformative 'events' theorising along the way the procedure of 'fidelity' that draw out the situational consequences of an event.

Mozibur Ullah
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