Thread: If ignorance is bliss, would depriving knowledge be a moral solution?

Originally Posted by Laughing Man

Well if we're talking about the Matrix example, all the people who woke up from the Matrix were given a choice to wake up through the selection of pills. So the movie already answered your example.

But was it the right thing to offer this choice, if it only makes the recievers of these pills unhappy? What makes freedom an implicitly better thing in this case?

Originally Posted by Lseadragon

But was it the right thing to offer this choice, if it only makes the recievers of these pills unhappy? What makes freedom an implicitly better thing in this case?

Unhappy after the fact? Yes, it is the right thing to do because one cannot know the reaction of another after they made a choice. By making the choice an individual is attesting that they prefer one state of being over another. In the cause of the pill scene in Matrix, when Neo takes the red pill he is in fact stating that he desires to know the truth (state of being) about the Matrix rather then not knowing the truth about the Matrix ( the blue pill ). The consequences of this action are unknown to Neo, they can be speculated upon but never truly known, but regret over his choice is useless since he chose to do it in the first place.