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. As Berlin puts it, if I have a wounded leg ‘there are two methods of freeing myself from pain. One is to heal the wound. But if the cure is too difficult or uncertain, there is another method. I can get rid of the wound by cutting off my leg’ (1969, pp. 135–36). This is the strategy of liberation adopted by ascetics, stoics and Buddhist sages. It involves a ‘retreat into an inner citadel’ — a soul or a purely noumenal self Refer

I would like to know, what exactly could be the problem in one wanting to cut off one's leg, or reject the thing that causes pain in itself to gain freedom?

Reine Abstraktion
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  • Not about legs, but one of the core teaching of [Buddhism](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/buddha/#CoreTeac) is the "path to the cessation of suffering". – Mauro ALLEGRANZA Jun 29 '23 at 13:53
  • You've got a leg less with all the problems that this entails. Also Berlin was wrong with regards to medicine as you can have phantom pain, so that not only do you still have leg pain, there's no leg left to scratch to make it go away. To a degree that is taking the analogy too serious, but on the other hand it could actually be a theoretical problem that the source of the problem is not where you expect it to be and thus that the remedy that you seek is insufficient and might even be harmful. – haxor789 Jun 29 '23 at 14:00
  • See also [Stoic ethics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism#Ethics): "The foundation of Stoic ethics is that good lies in the state of the soul itself; in wisdom and self-control. One must therefore strive to be free of the passions." – Mauro ALLEGRANZA Jun 29 '23 at 14:27
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    "Ascetics, stoics, and Buddhist sages" - This SEP passage is based around a misunderstanding of Buddhism. Buddhism is to be contrasted with asceticism, not lumped together with it; Buddhism is the "middle way" in between asceticism and secular living. Buddhists do not advocate abandoning the material world. They advocate living in the world but learning not to get upset by what happens. The same is true of stoics. – causative Jun 29 '23 at 14:33
  • That tactic is only rational if the wound left by cutting your leg off (and the suffering caused by not having two legs) is less bad that the wound you've already got. Which will seldom be the case. Berlin must have meant this as an argument against asceticism. Applying this to all desires is even more problematic, because the pain of giving up the desire may or may not be commensurable with the pain of having the desire. I'm not at all sure how this would apply to stoicism or Buddhism. Both of them have deeper arguments than this one can addresses - ataraxia in one case, karma in the other. – Ludwig V Jun 29 '23 at 19:55

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Is it though? Buddhism is about non-dualism:

"When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and Heaven and Earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinions for, or against, anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind."

-from the Hsinhsinming poem, by the 3rd Patriarch of Zen

The Buddhist pursuit is not of numbness, but of equanimity - like the Stoics. That is, of keeping the choice of which thoughts and reactions to follow, rather than just being swept along.

There are philosophies that specifically rail against such distancing and calm dispassion.

Nietzsche would have no truck with it, for leading towards the timid dull world of the 'Last Man', which he thought we need to avoid by embracing exerience including suffering for the sake of art and originality and firing up our sense of purpose.

Sartre's picture of 'Bad-Faith' also relates I think, with the idea that we choose to ignore our true freedom for the sake of easy answers: 'I had to do X because -' based on a machinery for being dishonest, when we never have to do a thing, we just like easy options and comfortable justifications.

They say freedom cannot be given, it must be taken. Cutting or not cutting the leg, niether can give you freedom. Only you, acting with the dictates of your conscience, can do that.

Wisdom as the skill of integrating our desires, and cultivating autonomy, so we can approach dilemmas with self-knowledge, discussed here: Wisdom and John Vervaeke's awakening from the meaning crises?

CriglCragl
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