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Originally Posted by Jan-Poo
As for what concerns the slavery argument, what you are saying is irrelevant for the discussion at hand. The fact that one might consider himself free because of ignorance is not relevant for the purpose of determining whether it is possible to consider him objectively free or not.
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It's entirely relevant because objective freedom may exist, but if it does, absolutely no agent is free. You're not, I'm not, nobody is. We have physical, biological, social, and circumstantial limitations on what we can do. I would
like to travel to an alien planet. No one is
preventing me from taking steps to do so. However, I physically
can't do it. I am not absolutely free.
Competence is itself defined as "a particular or adequate amount of skill." As with the grade example, how much proficiency is "adequate" is subjective so long as it is non-zero. If Battler displays more than zero competence (and he does), the only fair assessment of his insufficiency Beatrice can make is
her own personal subjective one. Battler is not competent enough
for Beatrice. He is not objectively and absolutely not competent. In fact, he is exceptionally competent to solve certain types of mysteries, as he suggests answers that have actually appeared in other such mysteries.
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Your logic assumes that only binary conditions can objectively defined as such. But you are forgetting that as well as there are conventions about definitions there are conventions about tresholds above and under which those definitions apply.
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"Convention" has no place in red truth assuming fact statements made in red are supposed to be axiomatically true.
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The concept of incompetence isn't as well as defined as the concept of freedom, but I believe there is a treshold under which everyone or at least a good majority would agree that you can talk about incompetence.
That would still be a convention. But ANY definition is a convention.
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But the red truth does not deal in conventions. It deals in absolutes. That's what you yourself were trying to argue. At best, the sole authority on which convention is right within the story world is the author him or herself. But Beatrice-the-character is not Ryukishi-the-author. She's not even Beatrice-the-author.
Beatrice-the-character can
only speak of a non-absolute.