Free Agency: Good.

My Opinion Editorial paper will be on the subject of Free Agency and the need for caution when applying our moral values to others.

Each one of us is raised in a unique moral context. Through our own experiences, a little bit of pre-programming through our genes, and some input from parents and other respected figures, we develop our own set of values and principles. Some of these values we feel very strongly and very clearly about, others we may struggle to define or to reconcile. Some of us may have a complex and comprehensive framework of those actions (or inactions) which are right and wrong, while others still wing it through life with only a loose set of morals, encompassing little more than "the big things" like murder or major theft.

Everyone has an opinion, most feel pretty adamantly that theirs is right, my concern is that we, the community of BYU, will become comfortable in our shared values to the extent that we may charge forward into the world armed with these values and offended that every person we come into contact with does not see things the way we do. Worse, we may seek through our political institutions to impose those values on others. My objective is to point out why we should consider this morally wrong. I guess in a sense the question I'm answering is as much "what is bad" as it is "what is good". If we believe that free agency and the freedom to choose is important, and essential to learning and to defining ourselves, then we should seek to allow others that freedom, even where they may violate our own sense of right and wrong.

Taken at face value this should be a very easy position to defend, but looking closer, it's not hard to find where my audience may take issue with my position: what happens if this "free agency" allows things like recreational drug use, gambling, prostitution or discrimination? Luckily, my audience is primarily LDS and what group has stronger feelings about free agency? Even using the word "free agency" rather than free will or some other term will tap into my audience's pathos. Because my argument is primarily about what is good from a moral standpoint, the primary means of defending it will need to be an appeal to emotion and morality. I will use logic to make sure that those feelings and morals are applied consistently without any irrational exceptions.

This argument is also to some degree about what we should do and not do. We shouldn't limit others from doing things we disagree with when those things don't harm others and we should respect peoples right to make choices. We should tolerate differences even if we don't accept them or endorse them. If we feel that our morals are truly superior, we should use persuasion and incentive rather than force to encourage others to behave as we believe to be right.

I intend to draw on values that we all agree on to establish values that we really all SHOULD agree on already.