# TCS and Coercion

**URL:** https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/tcs-and-coercion/403
**Category:** Unbounded
**Tags:** taking-children-seriously
**Created:** [November 7, 2021, 1:58am UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/tcs-and-coercion/403 "2021-11-07T01:58:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 6

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### Author: ![lmf](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/user_avatar/discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/lmf/32/1302_2.png) [@lmf](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/lmf)
#### Post date: [November 7, 2021, 4:37am UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/tcs-and-coercion/403/6 "2021-11-07T04:37:34Z")

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> [@Applying Yes or No Philosophy](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/applying-yes-or-no-philosophy/377/17):
>
> People suffer when there is a clash of ideas, e.g. they want to not feel the pain but do feel it.

> [@Elliot](#):
>
> Suffering/coercion can also be viewed in terms of preferences. It involves
> 
> 1. X.
> 2. I prefer not-X.
> 
> This is a clash of ideas. X is either an idea, or a thing in reality that I have an idea about. I have an idea like e.g. “Reality is X way.” And my preference is also an idea.
> 
> If no preference you have is violated, then you have no reason to suffer.

As written, this is a necessary but not sufficient condition for suffering: I don’t feel suffering when thinking about _all_ the ways in which reality differs from my wishes. E.g. I wish I could magically flap my arms and fly like a bird on demand, but this doesn’t cause me to suffer.

My guess was that somehow this wish that I could fly isn’t _active_, but from the definition of active that you gave it’s not clear why this can’t be the case: It seems like I can load my desire to fly like a bird into the front of my mind.

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