Suppose you wander into the desert and get lost. Suppose you're on the verge of dying from thirst when another person shows up. He says "I'll take you back to civilization, but only if you agree to be my slave forever".
You're not any worse off than if the slaver didn't exist, because you can always choose to reject the slaver's offer. Nobody is forcing you to do anything. Yet I think that most people would consider that a very unconvincing argument for permitting slavery: that a would-be slaver would simply not show up if slavery were illegal.
Arguing in favor of free will, you could say that all other things being the same, a world where you get lost in the desert and the slaver shows up is no worse than one where you get lost in the desert and nobody shows up.
Arguments in favor of control thus rely on all else not being the same, that making something illegal changes the wider society, not just any single individual's ability to do that thing.
Suppose you wander into the desert and get lost. Suppose you're on the verge of dying from thirst when another person shows up. He says "I'll take you back to civilization, but only if you agree to be my slave forever".
You're not any worse off than if the slaver didn't exist, because you can always choose to reject the slaver's offer. Nobody is forcing you to do anything. Yet I think that most people would consider that a very unconvincing argument for permitting slavery: that a would-be slaver would simply not show up if slavery were illegal.
Arguing in favor of free will, you could say that all other things being the same, a world where you get lost in the desert and the slaver shows up is no worse than one where you get lost in the desert and nobody shows up.
Arguments in favor of control thus rely on all else not being the same, that making something illegal changes the wider society, not just any single individual's ability to do that thing.