I have been having an interesting debate over on my friend Christopher's blog http://networdblog.blogspot.com/ But since I do not want to hijack his blog I had hoped to move the debate over here.
The debate has taken several turns and I expect it to continue but right now we are discussing the idea of taxes and the IRS. The crux of the debate appears to me to be the idea that what the IRS does, since if you do not pay tax's you get arrested. Me opponent feels that the threat of arrest means that you are being forced to pay these and therefor it is an immoral and criminal action on their part.
My basic position and one I am trying to flesh out is the feeling that since I receive services in return for the money I pay in tax's it is not theft. If I did not receive services in return for the tax's I pay then yes I would feel that it was theft. I suppose if their was a way to not pay tax's and in some way opt out of receiving these services then I might be inclined to consider the possibility. But for me part of living in a society is paying for and receiving these services, that is part of being in a society.
I would love for any and all of you to come and join in the debate, and once we solve this issue :) perhaps we will move to an easy one like why we should continue to fund the United Nations.
72 comments:
Hi Lance - I'd be glad to continue the debate we've been having (=
Incidentally, the money the IRS gathers from us is used to pay the interest on the money loaned to the State by the Fed. Monies for services arise from other sources of income.
"...My basic position and one I am trying to flesh out is the feeling that since I receive services in return for the money I pay in tax's it is not theft. If I did not receive services in return for the tax's I pay then yes I would feel that it was theft..."
The concept of theft is simple: the involuntary transfer of property (often under force or threat of force.) When the transfer of property is voluntary there can be no theft. The issue is, while services are offered by the State (and paid for by taxes) those services are not optional - you have no choice but to accept them, and on the terms the State dictates. This is similar to how organized crime works - "Your business will be protected from harm if you pay our insurance." To consider this voluntary is to remove all definition from the word.
Paying for services is most certainly a moral thing to do. To not pay for services falls into the category of theft. The question is, are there ways for this to occur voluntarily, without force, threat of force.
My question is simple: if the State does not operate by looting citizens, why are not taxes voluntary? Why is it that you cannot simply say, "I wish to purchase those services from someone else - thank you." Why is it that not only are you obligated to pay for those services, but the services themselves are restricted to State agencies, restricted by force or threat of force?
I can even grant that you may wish the State to supply the services it offers, and appreciate the idea of having the cost of them deducted from your earnings without your having to earmark it for the payment. But what about someone who does not appreciate this? What if someone else believes that a private party could provide the service in a preferable way to the State monopoly? Is it now moral to force that person to pay against their will, simply because you prefer the way the State does it?
"...I suppose if their was a way to not pay tax's and in some way opt out of receiving these services then I might be inclined to consider the possibility. But for me part of living in a society is paying for and receiving these services, that is part of being in a society..."
Part of living in society most certainly is paying for and receiving services. But the State is not the only agency that can offer services. Being a member of society does not infer that the State must therefore have a monopoly on services rendered - the conclusion does not derive from the argument.
My argument is one from morality. Everyone needs some service or another at some point in their life. This does not therefore infer that you must pay for them or be imprisoned or killed. A more moral way for this to work would be to allow competition into the arena: allow more than one agency to offer the service. People would be free (operative word for America) to choice what they felt was the best service for themselves. Some might appreciate the services the State offers - but others may appreciate the offerings of someone else.
Hey David, thanks for coming over and I hope we can continue the even-handed tone of the discussion that we have had thus far.
I am understanding what you are saying about people needing to have the choice to get services from another agency as opposed to being forced to only get them from one source. But I just do not see it as a moral issue. It is just the way it is. If there comes a time when such competition is in place like take for instance the difference between the US Postal service and UPS or some of the other freight companies and I was forced to pay money each month for other people shipping things next day that would bother me. Maybe I am just confused and my brain is not sharp enough to understand the nuances of your argument. It just is what it is, had their been a system in place to allow for the choice initially then I would be inclined to accept your argument. But until their is a change in policy or better yet until the Republic of Cascadia is formed these things will not change. I do not see it as they are taking money from me. I see it as paying part of my cost of living in society of being part of the Social Contract. If I want to move out into the mountains and remove myself from the grid, then I will do so. But since I value and enjoy what being part of society gives me, I do not have a problem paying my or in some cases more then my fair share. That, for me, seems the moral thing to do.
I am understanding what you are saying about people needing to have the choice to get services from another agency as opposed to being forced to only get them from one source. But I just do not see it as a moral issue. It is just the way it is.
Place yourself in the year 1810. Slavery 'is just the way it is'. Is it therefore not immoral? People have been murdering and stealing from one another for at least a few years. These things 'just are.' Does this change their moral implications?
Morality is a measure of the actions of rational beings. How we treat one another falls into that category. Would you consider using force to make your neighbor change his taste in music? Even if quite tempting, isn't this an immoral act? If the use of force is immoral in this particular, why is it not immoral in the very similar instance of forcing a person to use a service they do not want?
It just is what it is, had their been a system in place to allow for the choice initially then I would be inclined to accept your argument.
This particular argument (that we must live the way we are because the way we want to live was not in existence prior to now) excludes all forms of change - even change for the better!
But until their is a change in policy or better yet until the Republic of Cascadia is formed these things will not change.
Your previous sentence at least seems to negate the idea of a 'Republic of Cascadia'. An additional note: I can think of an instance in u.S. history where a new republic was attempted, and crushed - at the expense of many lives.
I do not see it as they are taking money from me.
Try not paying it.
I see it as paying part of my cost of living in society of being part of the Social Contract. If I want to move out into the mountains and remove myself from the grid, then I will do so.
Even in the mountains you are still required to pay for services you cannot use: if you are found you are billed for them.
But since I value and enjoy what being part of society gives me, I do not have a problem paying my or in some cases more then my fair share. That, for me, seems the moral thing to do.
As I pointed out in my previous post, if you are happy with the situation as it pertains to you, I have no problem with it. But how does that excuse the treatment of others who are NOT happy with the situation? Also, I agree with you, the moral thing to do is pay for services. To refuse to pay for services rendered or requested is a form of theft. The immorality of which I speak has nothing to do with that.
I look forward to more!
Collecting government revenues through taxation, tariffs, and fees is neither moral nor immoral. Morality (or more properly ethics) is what humans do with life and what they have, the items are amoral - that is, lacking moral character. There is nothing ethical about an apple, it just is. If you throw an apple at someone and hurt them without cause, then you've done something immoral, not the apple.
Taxation is neither moral nor immoral; it simply is. What the government does with the taxes, why they tax, and how they gather them is the way we determine the morality or ethics of the issue.
Should the government raise funds to carry out their proper, legal, and just duties? Absolutely. Can taxation be one of those manners? Sure. The question is now much and what manner of taxation.
Collecting government revenues through taxation, tariffs, and fees is neither moral nor immoral. Morality (or more properly ethics) is what humans do with life and what they have, the items are amoral - that is, lacking moral character.
Christopher! You are making a HUGE error here! You are confusing an action with an item! Taxation is not an item, MONEY is. Money is amoral, Both how it is collected and how it is used fall into the arena of ethical consideration.
Taxation is the process (action) of collecting money (items) for State operation. (Note the suffix '-ation' added to the noun 'tax', creating a VERB, which is an ACTION.) Taxation does not exist outside of human action: there are no taxations lying on the ground in nature. Because it is a purely human action, it can be judged under all principles of ethics, which deal with what humans do with life and their possessions.
Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I will assume you are trying either to defend the State, or automatically disagreeing with me, which are both fall in line with in your character. Hence, I assume that you did not really consider your first sentence:
Collecting government revenues through taxation, tariffs, and fees is neither moral nor immoral.
That sentence , simplified, is: "...The activity of gathering items for the use of the State is amoral..."
- - - (That is, unless you are using some really twisted definitions of commonly understood words. In that case, I would really appreciate your definitions, since I cannot conduct a meaningful conversation without your meanings: specifically, what do you mean by 'collecting' and 'through' since both, in my mind, indicate humans doing something with what they have (your exact words: Morality (or more properly ethics) is what humans do with life and what they have, the items are amoral - that is, lacking moral character.) I take it 'collecting' is an item and therefore amoral!) - - -
I have yet to see a collecting hanging from a tree anywhere.
There is nothing ethical about an apple, it just is. If you throw an apple at someone and hurt them without cause, then you've done something immoral, not the apple.
There in nothing ethical about a dollar. It just is. And yet if it is someone's property, then you most certainly must answer ethical questions about how you gain possession of it.
Taxation is neither moral nor immoral; it simply is. What the government does with the taxes, why they tax, and how they gather them is the way we determine the morality or ethics of the issue.
Again, I strongly disagree. I will never give a specific group of humanity some special dispensation to do what God forbids the rest of us to do, unless God himself grants that dispensation. Taxation, by definition is a human activity of appropriating funds in order to fund specified operations. Since it is a human ACTIVITY, it falls, even under your definition of morality into the category of something that can be done right or wrong.
Should the government raise funds to carry out their proper, legal, and just duties? Absolutely.
I could not agree more.
Can taxation be one of those manners? Sure. The question is how much and what manner of taxation.
Those are not my questions, and telling me what question I am asking disrespects me. My question involves the morality of the method of funding the State.
But, isn't the confusion about how we are defining these words part of the discussion. What I think of as fees and a normal part of living in a society. David, you think of as Tax's and an immoral part of society that should be done away with. I could be mistaken but the confusion that is being generated by the multiple definitions of the same terms is probably not helping any of us.
But, isn't the confusion about how we are defining these words part of the discussion. What I think of as fees and a normal part of living in a society. David, you think of as Tax's and an immoral part of society that should be done away with. I could be mistaken but the confusion that is being generated by the multiple definitions of the same terms is probably not helping any of us.
I'm sorry but redefining the word Taxation as something that is not a rational action (hence free from moral consideration) is outside the bounds of credulity. It's a verb - an action word. Moreover, it is a description of a transference of property. As such, it most certainly falls under moral examination.
No, I do not think of taxes as an immoral part of society. I think the way they are collected is immoral.
As I have stated numerous times, I believe fees are a VALID and normal part of living in society. Likewise, I believe that NOT paying for a service rendered is immoral.
Be glad to add my definitions though:
Tax = synonym for a fee used to fund State activity.
Taxation = the collection of tax.
You cannot attach morality to the term tax without further definition. But you can most certainly investigate the morality involved in collection of tax.
I don't care if they are done away with or not, as long as people are not coerced into paying them.
Ok so you are ok with Tax's or fees your problem is that you feel people are being coerced into paying them. I guess my question is how do you honestly think fees and tax's would be collected if their wasn't a form of punishment for those who refuse to pay yet still continue to receive those services? Sure, the idea of voluntary pay is nice but I know from experience that voluntary fees do not work, just look at local parks that have fee booths but no attendant. Isn't the threat of punishment what makes laws work in a society because people can't be trusted to do the right thing?
"...you are ok with Tax's or fees your problem is that you feel people are being coerced into paying them. I guess my question is how do you honestly think fees and tax's would be collected if their wasn't a form of punishment for those who refuse to pay yet still continue to receive those services?
I believe that anyone who receives a service and yet refuses to pay for it is liable for what they have used. Only a fool would continue to provide a service to someone they know is not going to pay for it. This has no bearing on my argument. This is not regarding people who refuse to pay for services rendered.
"...Sure, the idea of voluntary pay is nice but I know from experience that voluntary fees do not work, just look at local parks that have fee booths but no attendant..."
How many restaurants can you eat at for free? How many times can you repeat this action before you can no longer eat at that establishment? How many months can you get 'free' cable before the cable company cuts you off? Those services are completely voluntary, and are removed if you do not pay for them. The system works quite well, and has throughout history, so I see this objection as irrelevant.
In essence, the question 'Why are not taxes voluntary?' points out a single important point: if taxes were voluntary, not everyone would pay them. And this points out the fact that in order for the State (as it now operates) to maintain its monopoly over services, it must do the following: It must make people use its services, and it must make them pay for the services they have no choice but to use.
If you did the same thing, you would be imprisoned on charges of organized crime.
Isn't the threat of punishment what makes laws work in a society because people can't be trusted to do the right thing?
No, what makes laws work is enforcement of the punishment. Threat does nothing unless it is carried out. Not only this, but the only thing most laws do is create compliance in the populace, which should not be confused with doing the right thing.
I take it as a given that people cannot be trusted to do the right thing. So do most people who hold my viewpoints. People can also be trusted to do things which in their own opinion, are to their best interest. On top of this, it remains to be seen that paying for the State to do things that the private sector can do is somehow 'the right thing to do.'
So to recap: the issue is not with people refusing to pay for services rendered. The issue has to do with any entity creating a monopoly on a service, and then using the threat of violence to collect fees to operate the service.
Again, I ask, if there is any way that a service can be provided that does not require a person being coerced into using it, is it not more moral to make that choice?
"Again, I ask, if there is any way that a service can be provided that does not require a person being coerced into using it, is it not more moral to make that choice?"
I simply do not see it as coercion, just like I do not see it as coercion to drive the speed limit, or to not steal or to not act violently against others. I also think that to compare being taxed to slavery is a specious argument at best. Enslaving others is a moral wrong, paying taxs or fees to fund the services that being part of a society gives you is not a moral position.
I simply do not see it as coercion, just like I do not see it as coercion to drive the speed limit, or to not steal or to not act violently against others.
Coercion can be defined as the threat of, or use of force, to make a person act in a particular way. Driving the speed limit is simply the act of driving a vehicle at the maximum specified speed. No coercion is involved, unless you consider pressing the accelerator to be a form of force. Moreover, not stealing is the exact opposite of coercion, as is not acting violently against others.
I am really confused as to how you could somehow work the term 'coercion' into those sentences at all! Driving the speed limit is coercion? Not stealing is coercion? Perhaps your earlier comment about definitions is more true than I have originally thought!
I also think that to compare being taxed to slavery is a specious argument at best.
I disagree that the argument is specious, although as far as I am aware I have not brought the idea of slavery into the argument at all.
Enslaving others is a moral wrong, paying taxs or fees to fund the services that being part of a society gives you is not a moral position.
Enslaving people is most certainly a wrong. And I can show that being forced to pay for services that an agency provides, instead of being given a choice of vendors for the same service is most certainly a form of slavery. It involves the concept of property ownership.
The major problem that hinders any conversation here is the refusal to see that ALL action between human beings has moral connections:
You claim that paying taxes to fund services is not a moral position. It seems that you have not thought that through!
Would you say that paying taxes is the right thing to do? If you do, then you have made a value statement - indicating that it is most certainly a moral position!
Lance--I think I can translate a little for you.
You write: "I simply do not see it as coercion, just like I do not see it as coercion to drive the speed limit, or to not steal or to not act violently against others. I also think that to compare being taxed to slavery is a specious argument at best. Enslaving others is a moral wrong, paying taxs or fees to fund the services that being part of a society gives you is not a moral position."
I'd like to translate and say--well is that what you really mean? I think when you make this statement, you want us to make assumptions, but you don't state what the assumptions are that you want us to make. Rather than stating what you think or mean, it's vague. If you do not think it is coercion to drive the speed limit, does that mean you think you are free to drive any speed you choose? If you do not think you are coerced to "not steal", does that mean you are free TO steal? And comparing slavery to taxes--you say that enslaving others IS a moral wrong...so what is slavery? Is that white people forcing black people to do all the work while they gain the profit from the work? What is it??
All I'm saying is let's not just throw out a vague statement. Let's be super clear. So in that line of thought, can you clarify what you mean by coercion, stealing, violence and slavery?
I don't want to get all sidetracked here but maybe a clarifying sentence or two would be helpful. I would be more than happy to tell you what my definitions are just so we can all state what we are talking about rather than hoping that those who are reading along with make assumptions.
"Place yourself in the year 1810. Slavery 'is just the way it is'. Is it therefore not immoral? People have been murdering and stealing from one another for at least a few years. These things 'just are.' Does this change their moral implications?"
There, is where you mentioned slavery in the context of the world being just the way it is and whether or not it is moral.
"And I can show that being forced to pay for services that an agency provides, instead of being given a choice of vendors for the same service is most certainly a form of slavery. It involves the concept of property ownership."
Well, I guess, go ahead and show me because I do not buy it. I find libertarians just older anarchists and the concept just doesn't work for me.
There, is where you mentioned slavery in the context of the world being just the way it is and whether or not it is moral.
My argument there was to show that just because a given institution 'is' does not mean that there are not alternatives, nor that because something 'exists' it is therefore somehow amoral. I made no mention, nor inference that there was a connection between slavery and the collection of taxes. In fact, you understood that, because you point out the reason I used it in your sentence. If you look at the paragraph mentioned, you will see no connection to taxation, other than in reference to the existence of it as an institution. I did not infer that it was slavery in any way - or; the mention of the word slavery in a paragraph is not inference that it is part of an entirely different proof
"And I can show that being forced to pay for services that an agency provides, instead of being given a choice of vendors for the same service is most certainly a form of slavery. It involves the concept of property ownership."
Well, I guess, go ahead and show me because I do not buy it. I find libertarians just older anarchists and the concept just doesn't work for me.
I am not sure how you could see libertarians as old anarchists. Some are very young. But I also see that you do not understand what libertarianism is, so I can understand the confusion. At the current juncture, I don't see a discussion of slavery as relevant to the discussion. THe concept of property certainly is, though.
You inferred somehow that the idea of driving the speed limit is a form of coercion. The only connection I could see, using your sentence, was the notion of applying force to the accelerator.
But the entire point was irrelevant. My argument is that the method of funding State operations is immoral, involving the involuntary transfer of property. My argument is that there are moral ways for agencies to fund their services that do not involve the threat of or use of force to pay for them. My argument involves the idea that any service is improved when there is no monopoly of service - when there is competition between vendors. Hence my question, why cannot tax be voluntary? So far I have received no real answer to that question.
Instead, you offer objections to things I never said: for example, charging that I think it is immoral that people be required to pay for services rendered. At some point I hope that the exact things I am saying will be understood!
As for the 'anarchist' comment above - I am most certainly an anarchist, but by that I mean the real definition of the word, not the popular emotive conception of it. I believe the State is an immoral institution and I believe that government is an absolute necessity, by virtue of human rationality.
Not to be to metaphysical,but here goes, but isn't really the choice to pay or not pay a tax make it voluntary? My mother-in-law works for the Oregon Revenue and people choose to not pay their taxes all the time and often do not jail time and actually end up paying less then was charged in the first place. So philosophically it is a choice to pay or not pay. Their is always a choice.
Not to be to metaphysical,but here goes, but isn't really the choice to pay or not pay a tax make it voluntary? My mother-in-law works for the Oregon Revenue and people choose to not pay their taxes all the time and often do not jail time and actually end up paying less then was charged in the first place. So philosophically it is a choice to pay or not pay. Their is always a choice.
I wouldn't say that is as metaphysical as much as it is sophistry. When you are held up by a burglar in a dark alley, you are free: you can give him the money or suffer the consequences. Your choice makes the exchange purely voluntary. You are left with a dilemma: does your voluntarily giving, or not giving the thief the money therefore make his action morally good? Or are his actions judged on an entirely different criteria?
The fact that some people get by with not paying some taxes does not change the fact that the method of collection is immoral - even if it is imperfectly carried out.
My argument is that an exchange to be voluntary must be free of coercion on either side of the exchange. Of course, the idea of holding a gun to someone's head and saying 'take my money, fool' is sort of a silly idea......
There are some criteria that must be filled in order for agency services to be freely chosen and used, and that is the subject of other debates. This particular argument (at least from what I understand) is over the idea that people are obligated to pay for services that are thrust upon them, whether they are needed or not, and whether those services can be better supplied from other sources or not; but most importantly, over the means of payment collection: choose to give us money or be killed.
As I've pointed out before, if YOU went around and sold people services in this manner, and collected fees in this manner, you would be jailed.
I neglected a further comment on your last post - you mentioned people not paying their taxes. This is an equally immoral activity. There are two main reasons for this, as far as I am concerned:
1) They have received a service for which compensation is owed. There are no free rides.
2) I am a Christian. Scripture obligates us to pay our taxes and to disobey Scripture is also immoral.
The old adage, 2 wrongs don't make a right fits nicely here.
"1) They have received a service for which compensation is owed. There are no free rides."
I agree
"2) I am a Christian. Scripture obligates us to pay our taxes and to disobey Scripture is also immoral."
I agree with this as well.
But it seems to me more and more that the disagreement that is coming into play as to the viewing of the collecting of Taxes as being an immoral act or not the collecting but the threat of punishment if you choose to not pay said taxes. Am I correct in my understanding of that?
But it seems to me more and more that the disagreement that is coming into play as to the viewing of the collecting of Taxes as being an immoral act or not the collecting but the threat of punishment if you choose to not pay said taxes. Am I correct in my understanding of that?
I am not sure. I don't think so, but your paragraph is really indirect and obscure.
There are several objections I have: one is that the State is limited, by virtue of its very nature, to a single way of handling those who disobey it. As George Washington put it: “Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. Government is force; like fire it is a dangerous servant -- and a fearful master.” Its method of operation is to force people to do what it wants. In that case, I would agree with your objection (if I am reading it correctly).
My main objection, however, is to the method of running a business wherein an agency sets up a service, disallows any and all competition, and then demands that you use the service, whether you need it or not. Payment AFTER the fact is not in question: you used the service. Any business has the right to remuneration if their service has been used. That is one of the concepts of justice.
My argument includes the idea that there are alternatives to all State services. These alternatives do not fall into the category of 'You will use our service and pay us for it' I believe these options are moral. Note, for the sake of argument I am temporarily willing to grant some services that people have been ingrained to believe are necessary - police, roads, etc.
An example of what I mean in concrete terms:
Suppose the State determines that people are not being fed properly, and that the price fixing and market collusion between service providers is such that it needs to be State run. Hence, the government sets up grocery stores and abolishes all forms of private grocers. These stores sell State approved foods. Moreover, citizens have a required shopping list - a predetermined set of foods that they must purchase each week. In this way, everyone gets a good, healthy (PC) diet, and there is no price gouging in the market. Furthermore, since the store overhead and staff are tax funded (that is, money is deducted from your check to pay their salaries) this means that the problems of people not being able to afford food have ended. Poverty is conquered and public health is restored.
Herein lies the problem, as I see it: you have just ended the ability of the market to provide food that people actually want. The market cannot correct for price fluctuations, nor can the market punish bad business. Moreover, another liberty has been removed from the citizens. On top of this, the concept of personal responsibility for bad actions and choices has been effectively eroded still further. One more step toward a dehumanization of the populace has occurred. People can simply let State officials plan their diets.
Oh, people will argue - but the choice is entirely voluntary! You don't have to eat the food you buy! This again is a sophistry on the term voluntary.
Or suppose that one day you wake up and there's a gallon of milk on your doorstep. You leave it, thinking it is a mistake, but the next day there is another. Mystified, you pick up the milk and take it in. Every day there is a gallon of milk on your doorstep. At the end of the week you receive a bill for the milk. A call to the delivery company and you ask about it.
You are told that this is a new service being provided for you. Being a moral person, you decide that since you used the milk, you will pay for it.
"But," you object, "I do not need this service, so please don't deliver more."
"Ah," you are told, "This is part of the social contract - you cannot reject this service. From now on we will deliver milk and you will pay for it."
These may seem like extreme cases - but I do not think so: consider public schooling, social security, the Fed, the FDA, etc: is this not exactly what has happened?
In essence the concept of taxation is the idea that a group of persons who wield power determine what you are going to spend money on and then demand you do it. To refuse can result in death. If you did this what would you call it?
It is to this I object and wish to change.
All, I can say is that we fundamentally see things differently. I feel that because I as a youngster received the benefit of public schools and parks and rec programs. It is right and correct for me to pay for them now, regardless of whether or not I use them, so that other members of society can have the opportunity to use or not use them as they see fit. It just does not bother me and I do not feel forced to do it. I believe that fundamentally we are on opposite sides of the fence on this. Much like we are going to be if/as we move to discuss the funding of the United Nations.
I believe the differences in the way that you and I see the world are going to make it impossible for us to reach a common ground.
I feel that because I as a youngster received the benefit of public schools and parks and rec programs. It is right and correct for me to pay for them now, regardless of whether or not I use them, so that other members of society can have the opportunity to use or not use them as they see fit. It just does not bother me and I do not feel forced to do it. I believe that fundamentally we are on opposite sides of the fence on this.
I'm really tying to see how we differ here, but it is extremely difficult. That could be because this seems to be another rather vague paragraph - and I usually try to only work with exact data people present - I try never to assume a meaning that may not be there. I will try though: I don't see any difference between us here at all. I agree with you that you are not bothered and do not feel forced to do it.
But what fence are you referring to? Is it the fact that I have a differing opinion about people who ARE bothered by it and yet are still required to pay anyway?
If this is so, then what we disagree on is the fact that you seem to require everyone to have your opinion, while I believe in liberty - even if someone disagrees.
I believe the differences in the way that you and I see the world are going to make it impossible for us to reach a common ground.
Here I agree:
I believe with all of my being that that it is illegitimate to engage in aggression against nonaggressors.
It is obvious that you do not. You believe I should be forced to pay for services I do not want, or think are immoral. I am not aggressing against you or anyone else, yet you insist that I be forced to pay for these services, and you tell me I am to think that I am not being forced - because the services exist and I am paying for them! It seems that you believe that since I am handing money over to those who tell me to do so that there is therefore no reason to oppose the system.
We disagree in that I believe my property does not belong to the someone else (the State.) (Actually, I cannot define something as mine if it belongs to someone else, except through a system of usufruct.) My money is my property.
So we truly do not have a platform on which to engage meaningful conversation.
I do believe you have missed my argument though - whether purposefully or not, so please allow me to try to explain in a different tact.
If you don't believe that the requirement that you pay for a service - whether you use it or not - is wrong, that is both fine and dandy - more power to you! It's your money, and you should be free to do with it what you wish.
However, what about those of us who do NOT see it as the right thing to do. Why should I be forced to act along with you, at gunpoint, if necessary?
Schools are a perfect example. I see no value in government schooling that I do not also get from private schooling. In fact, I see a great deal LESS value - almost to the point of it being non-existent. However, I am not obliged to pay for private schooling. I can do so if I wish. And since the money I make is my property, until I give it to someone else, I believe I should be free to do with it what I want (see Acts 5:3-4 for my basis there.)
The State makes no such distinction about their schools. I must donate to them, even if I loathe what they teach, even if I see them as detrimental to society, even if I do not attend! Somehow I am to instead think (contrary to all information I have) that they benefit society and therefore I am to justify involuntarily funding them. In other words, I am to stop thinking and simply do whatever those in power tell me to do.
I also note that we disagree on another point: I do NOT believe the end EVER justifies the means. So what if State schools benefit society? That does not and never will justify the use of force to make ME pay for them!
I have no problem with the State forming schools, etc. But here is the crux of our disagreement. I think that if the State wished to form a school it needs to do so exactly how the private sector does: buy the property, hire teachers, buy curriculum materials and other overhead - and charge the students and parents USING the school for the costs involved. Moreover, if you feel that this school is benefiting society, you should be free to donate any amount of money you want to it. But what could EVER justify YOU forcing ME to pay for it if I do not want to?
I for one am more than willing to donate my own money for a project I believe is worth it, but I believe with all my heart that it is entirely immoral for me to donate someone else's money for the same project - unless they want to! Its too bad you would force me to fund what you determine is beneficial, rather than leaving me free to handle my property as I see honorable and right.
Well, I appear to disagree with you on all points but one: I agree we have no point of common ground! Oh well - at least I believe you should be free to have your viewpoint!
I am not forcing you to do anything. You. could, if you so choose to remove yourself from the grid, to go underground so to speak. Then, yes, if discovered you might have to face some consequences. But, you, are free to make the decision to pay or not pay. Much, like, I am free to agree or disagree with your opinion. You are free to have your viewpoint.
You are also free to choose to misunderstand what I meant by the commonly use term different sides of the fence. In this case "The Fence" is our differing ideas about taxes and taxation.
You, it seems to me, like to fall back on the brilliance of logic to explain why you have "chosen" to not understand or I suspect refuse to understand my position. While, I in all honesty see yours as one of selfishness. I have never claimed to be a theologian but I do not feel that being both a Christian and a Libertarian is really two things that go together.
I await with anticipation your I am sure much thought out and intricately worded response, that I will do my best to understand.
Correction--"While, I in all honesty see yours as one of selfishness. I have never claimed to be a theologian but I do not feel that being both a Christian and a Libertarian is really two things that go together."
Should read I feel that being a Christian and a Libertarian are two philosophies that do not work together.
I am not forcing you to do anything. You. could, if you so choose to remove yourself from the grid, to go underground so to speak. Then, yes, if discovered you might have to face some consequences. But, you, are free to make the decision to pay or not pay. Much, like, I am free to agree or disagree with your opinion. You are free to have your viewpoint.
Again, I would like to point the fact that I could avoid payment does not negate the idea that the WAY payments are collected are immoral. I am not talking about avoiding payment, or running away. I am talking about finding a working solution that respects the value and opinion of everyone involved, rather than the opinions of a single side.
My argument is and has always been: there are ways of creating the SAME agencies and funding those agencies that can satisfy the demands of BOTH sides of the debate AND provide benefits for society.
Why is this WRONG?
The fact that you automatically discount, marginalize, or prefer not to consider this infers that you have no problem with aggressing against non-aggressors - using force to make them behave.
The issue is not, and has never been one of NOT PAYING. The issue is the method of property transference.
I understand the objection that it really isn't you doing the forcing - its someone else (a government official) - but who puts them there in the first place? Moreover, if it were any bother to you at all that there might be people who do NOT want the services they are made to support, you would try to find ways to change the situation. Refusing to consider any alternatives, instead demanding that these people think as you do, has implications about your view of their value.
You, it seems to me, like to fall back on the brilliance of logic to explain why you have "chosen" to not understand or I suspect refuse to understand my position.
The opposite of logic is illogic - irrationality. I choose not to resort to irrationality to respond in any debate. I rely on clear thought and language. Logic is the simplest means of conveying truth. In fact, its also the ONLY way....
However, I believe I understand your position quite clearly: you are not bothered by paying taxes.
You conclude that because you do not believe this is wrong, all other human beings ought not either (and you accuse me of selfishness!)
But you do not understand (or refuse to recognize) my position!
If someone thinks something is wrong, why should they be forced to do it anyway? How do you stand on the abortion debate?
I hold strongly that if someone thinks it is wrong they should NOT be forced to pay for it. Your position must either necessarily trap you into saying that they must be forced to pay, because some people don't mind it, or else you reveal that your view of taxes only relates to your own opinions of what are necessary services (and again, you accuse me of selfishness!)
This is especially important especially if there are alternatives that can satisfy BOTH sides of the debate. That is - unless (as I am beginning to suspect) in order to satisfy your side of the debate, you should be free to force people (by proxy, of course- wouldn't want to get your hands dirty) to do what YOU think is best for them.
While, I in all honesty see yours as one of selfishness.
All humans are ego-centered - you cannot change that fact - no matter how Marxist you wish to turn. Even salvation is ego-centered: I don't wish to die unsaved! Save 'me'! Everything you do has your best interests in mind - else Scripture would not tell you to love others as you love yourself. It would most likely say something like, 'Love others as you love others,' or 'Love yourself as you love others.'
I feel that being a Christian and a Libertarian are two philosophies that do not work together.
And I believe that if you think about it long enough, you will come to realize that libertarian is entirely compatible with Christianity. Political theory is limited to the relationship between living humans (a horizontal plane) while theology rightfully covers both the vertical (God to man) and horizontal (man to man). Libertarianism is the description of the horizontal, it never touches the vertical.
The essence of libertarianism (note the used of the small 'l') is one thing only: It is morally wrong for a person or group of persons to use fraud or initiate force against another person or group of persons.
(I have to ask why that is so repugnant!)
Anyone who rationally attempts to apply that principle to ALL areas of their life involving people or property is a "libertarian" (you could use any other synonym there.) How does that, in ANY way, contradict Christianity?
Christianity, in its economic summation is: "Treat others as you would have them treat you." In essence that is a colloquial version of the libertarian proposition. If you were to write that in propositional form, you would derive the libertarian axiom.
So HOW do they negate one another?
Lance,
No offense but I feel that your issue is whether you can think independently with enough common sense outside your education.
Taxation has always been a dangerous apparatus of the State. Throughout history almost all revolutions are associated with periods of high tax rate. Imagine that you are forced to pay 99% of your income as tax and left starving to death. Then you can argue better whether taxation is immoral or not.
The problem with Nation/State is it rarely voluntarily relinquishes its power or shrinks in size. The situation gets gradually worse until a revolution is unavoidable.
Rather than wiggling around defending the moral ground of current method of taxation, I think it is much more fruitful to explore why voluntary taxation would not work. It seems to me that quite many charities work well. I don't see any particular issue inherently preventing such a model to work. If tax is constitutionally made voluntary for the first time in history, I think we can hold it morally as attractive as charity donations.
The issues are, the government must be capable of balancing budget, accumulate reserve and actively shrinking its operations during times of reduced donations. Yes it should be prepared to shrink to very minimal existence. Thus many important services such as water/energy/transportation should be privatized and built with redundancy/competition.
On the other hand, Henry George had argued long time ago of a tax system with only land tax. There are other approaches to compromise between private property rights and the coersion aspect of taxation. For example, instead of land tax, to impose only natural resource/pollution taxation.
No offense but I feel that your issue is whether you can think independently with enough common sense outside your education.
None taken - I would say 'better than most,' which is why people get bothered by libertarian thought - it is independent of 'conventional' wisdom. Also - to what education do you refer?
Taxation has always been a dangerous apparatus of the State. Throughout history almost all revolutions are associated with periods of high tax rate. Imagine that you are forced to pay 99% of your income as tax and left starving to death. Then you can argue better whether taxation is immoral or not.
So...morality of taxation is dependent on the percentage of tax, rather than the method itself....And I thought it was specifically dependent on Gods laws (for Christians) and natural law (for many others)! Maybe theft is also lined up in degrees: if you steal more of a person's money from their wallet you have been more evil...stealing only a little is not very evil? Personally I argue that any form of compulsory transference of property against the will of the original owner is immoral, because God makes no distinction when He says 'Do not steal.' He did not say "Do not steal (very much.)'
Rather than wiggling around defending the moral ground of current method of taxation, I think it is much more fruitful to explore why voluntary taxation would not work.
Voluntary taxation would not work because tax is compulsory - there's no such thing as voluntary compulsion...Fees, membership dues, and income from direct sales of goods are what works.
It seems to me that quite many charities work well. I don't see any particular issue inherently preventing such a model to work. If tax is constitutionally made voluntary for the first time in history, I think we can hold it morally as attractive as charity donations.
I can name one issue that would prevent it from working: those in power who are loathe to give up the money shower they have found in politics.
However, isn't that almost EXACTLY my point? Has it not been all the way through this debate?
One retraction: I am going to go back on a definition I made: I tried a definition of taxation that was an effort to appease people who could not countenance the thought of anything their government doing as actually immoral. I called taxation a "collection of money for the state." But I am going to hold to my original definition (the one I've used for years):
The Encyclopedia Britannica defines taxation as "that part of the revenues of a state which is obtained by the compulsory dues and charges upon its subjects." That is about as concise and accurate as a definition can be; it leaves no room for argument as to what taxation is. In that statement of fact the word "compulsory" looms large, simply because of its ethical content.
You can see how that definition fits (not!) with the idea of voluntary tax. Anyway - back to you:
The issues are, the government must be capable of balancing budget, accumulate reserve and actively shrinking its operations during times of reduced donations. Yes it should be prepared to shrink to very minimal existence. Thus many important services such as water/energy/transportation should be privatized and built with redundancy/competition.
So how do we differ in any way on this issue? This is what I've been saying all along. You claimed we were on opposite sides of the fence!
"...On the other hand, Henry George had argued long time ago of a tax system with only land tax. There are other approaches to compromise between private property rights and the coersion aspect of taxation. For example, instead of land tax, to impose only natural resource/pollution taxation..."
There are hundreds of ideas that have been suggested. I would argue against a land tax because of my notion of ownership and property rights. Since you agree with me on this, shouldn't we aim this discussion at the IRS, since that is the reason we started it?
One thing on sort of the same track but more or less just included for reference:
An essay that I think is very good.
David,
I honestly do not see my willingness to submit to the law as a reflection of my desire to force my will on others through violence.
I would be willing to concede that part of my problem is that it seems impossible at this time to switch to an all volunteer tax system and because of that I am getting hung up in the logistics of the situation as opposed to the common sense of it. I know that doesn't excuse me. It is just the reality of where my head is at.
I will most likely have more on this as my head processes it through the day.
I honestly do not see my willingness to submit to the law as a reflection of my desire to force my will on others through violence.
Neither do I. Where I see the issue develop is in the idea that since you don't see it as a wrong, there is no reason why others who do should not just shut up and put up. A question that can be asked: do you believe it is ever right to make others sacrifice their values for your benefit? If you answer 'no' then ask yourself 'what are you doing about it?' If you answer 'yes' then at least at those times you are willing to force them to change.
(Note, I am not talking about allowing people who's 'values' include true crimes (murder or theft) - which are an initiation of aggression. In that instance, any force involved is in response to an already initiated action...)
I would be willing to concede that part of my problem is that it seems impossible at this time to switch to an all volunteer tax system and because of that I am getting hung up in the logistics of the situation as opposed to the common sense of it. I know that doesn't excuse me. It is just the reality of where my head is at.
Like you, I'd like to see things improve - and get stuck on how that could ever happen. You are absolutely right - at this point it is impossible to switch to a market system of government - there is way too much at stake for those in positions of power to simply give up all they've worked us for.
But I do believe there is a solution, and I have thought so for a long time.
I do not advocate violent revolution. I believe that is wrong. As a libertarian, I have no problem with the citizens of the nation defending themselves if some megalomaniac official decides he needs to inflict troops on his own people (I know a lot of soldiers who would simply defend America rather that the State.)
However, we live in a society where we are still free to vote. We can make sure that EVERY person we vote for has the same moral convictions. The idea of voting for the lesser of two evils should never be a Christian (or libertarian) activity. Elections are not a horse race - you don't need to pick the winner (although the analogy is sound: people generally believe the person they are picking is the one that is going to redistribute wealth in their general direction, hence picking the winner pays off.)
If a moral candidate is not running, it is better to abstain from voting than to vote in someone to perpetuate the system. Its tedious, but possible, to research the inclinations of anyone running for office. One of the things I loved about the Libertarian Party (one of very few these days)was the notion of NOTA - if None Of The Above wins, there is no one in the office for this term.
On top of that, the other thing I do is always try to improve my ability to state my position clearly, and to never pass up an opportunity to get someone to think about it. Causes a lot of stress at times (=
I will most likely have more on this as my head processes it through the day.
I'd really appreciate that! I could use all the ideas anyone has.
Well this has been an interesting thread Lance... began to come apart a little towards the end, but good all the same. As usually happens when reading a libertarians comments, I often find myself in close sympathy (I also ref'd, with qualification, the Income Tax document by Chodorov in one of my postsNat'l Mugged by a Statis Day)... but with a feeling that something seems just a bit off, and then it becomes clear as definitions become better defined and positions more clearly resolved.
The libertarian considers this a worthwhile starting point,"It is morally wrong for a person or group of persons to use fraud or initiate force against another person or group of persons.", and this as the method of achieving it, "I am most certainly an anarchist, but by that I mean the real definition of the word, not the popular emotive conception of it.", but what it will achieve is anarchy in its true sense, a mid step towards total despotism. Anarchy is nothing but the complete dissolution of one form of order, on the way towards another form being imposed.
Gov't is the institution possessing a monopoly on the use of physical force in society. As Washington said, a dangerous servant and a fearful master. The problem with Libertarianism, is that it attempts to take liberty as a primary, as a point from which to start from in structuring society... and usually then adds on that Rationality is a biggee as well. Which (unless this is meant to be parsed further) leads to contradictory statements such as "I believe the State is an immoral institution and I believe that government is an absolute necessity, by virtue of human rationality."
But liberty is far from a primary, it is at best a second or third level issue. The proper point to start from, is the nature of Man, and the source of all of our rights, and why they should not be abridged, is found in the same source.
As a rational creature possessing free will whose survival depends upon the concerted exercise of both in accordance with reality, we depend upon our ability to apply our reason to our environment, in order to obtain or create the material required for our survival.
That is the source of our lives, and respecting the requirement of all men to do so, is the source of prosperity of our progression from and through groups, clans, tribes, societies and states. All we are, have, and can be, flows from our recognition of our right to the property we create - physically, and on through the more abstracted forms which more advanced forms of society makes possible - with a 'Capitalist' society being the current high point.
The development and advancement of society requires the formation and adherence to objective law, in order to protect and preserve our Rights (which all begin and fall with Property Rights) both against theft and as a source of resolving disagreements among people in society. As I noted in one of my posts Liberal Fascism: The Spiral of Knowledge and the Flattened Worldview of the Left pt. 3
Madison, in his essay on property, described what he called the
“larger and juster meaning” of the term Property. It embraces… every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right…. A man has property in his opinions and the free communication of them. He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practices dictated by them. He has property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person. He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them. In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.”
They didn’t espouse those rights to property just in order to gain and keep ‘things’, but because for the first time in Human History, they understood that your ability to live Your life, to have an unbreached soul, depended upon your ability to make the choices necessary for a worthy and virtuous life, and those choices depended upon these rights being recognized and upheld.
The Founders did not think of property as simple things, but as extensions of the soul into the world, and to interfere between owner and property, to interfere with the owners choice to do with his property as he would, was to perpetrate something akin to an unholy act, certainly unjust, and in no wise lawful. Locke also argued that if a ruler violates any of his subjects’ property rights he is “at war” with them, and therefore the ruler may be disobeyed.
Objective Law cannot be a product of competition, it must be solid and incontrovertible, and a common resort for resolving disputes for all members of society, and for enforcing proper law. Competition among such an entity would be nothing other than a competition among gangs, which in fact was the societal structure of competing Clans, and the clan warfare of their feuds, which Gov't first emerged from (IMHO, Aeschylus's Oresteia gives a fantastic dramatization of this progression from primitive blood feuds (Furies) into that of Law (via Athena and Apollo) in society).
If you want to know the true meaning of Anarchy, rather than 'popular emotive conception' or rationalized idealizations of it, Thucydides has a few good examples for you.
Gov't must exist, and it must uphold Property Rights in order to uphold any Individual Rights at all – those are preconditions for any discussion of Liberty – trying to put Liberty first, will only bury it in a bloodied grave.
If I can make an analogy here, we are at best at the level of 'Epicycles' in astronomy - flawed, based in flawed assumptions, but functional to a point and allows us to predict the motions of Mars and navigate better than having no theory for the motion of Mars. Until we grasp the deeper principles of Physics and planetary motion, we'll go no further, and attempting to leap to a GPS form of navigation (voluntary tax) prior to admitting that the earth revolves around the sun, to say nothing of Industrial technology, is irrational).
Ideally, yes, Taxation should be a voluntary operation. Prior to that, however, we need to have a Rational society. We can argue about which comes first, but the Voluntary Tax Egg ain't gonna come out of the irrational societies chicken. Until we first surpass the level attained by the Founders, and which we have precipitously fallen away from, that ain't gonna happen. As Lance is probably painfully aware of, I've noted often that President Madison once vetoed an attempt by congress to rob the people of $15,000 in order to aid refugees, saying words to the effect of 'I cannot find that line in the Constitution which permits congress to take the property of one group of people for the benefit of another'. He would have had apoplexy over our current situation.
If we ever do again become a society that respects Individual Rights, it will only be because we respect Property Rights. If that comes to pass, then one option might be through a voluntary sales tax - to be applied to purchases, in order to benefit from civil court disputes, and without which, buyer beware.
Prior to that point, we've got the world we've got, and cases can be made for Property tax - most property benefits directly from the existence of a well functioning Gov't of objective laws(Henry Georges ideas, btw, were based upon such radically flawed philosophical ideas, as to not be worth serious discussion - I'd add 'IMHO', but it obviously doesn't apply) . Sales tax, for the same reasons, isn't beyond argument either.
The key here, now, at our time and level of accomplishment, is that Taxation be only for providing those services proper to Gov't. Providing for the defense of Individual Rights and protection of Property Rights, through the establishment and enforcement of Objective law against all enemies, foreign and domestic - and not a damn penny for other corrupt pursuits. 'education' - out!, 'health care' - out!, 'wetlands protection' - out!... you get the idea.
There should also be a distinction made between Federal, State, County and community Gov't. The prior examples of Speed Limits and so forth, are more the area of community regulations, which are made and passed at the community level, and where anybody can have a direct voice in the process face to face before aldermen, mayor and citizen. Participation in, and consent, actual or defacto, has a huge bearing upon whether a law or regulation is Just, and was the chief factor in the original source of Colonists revolt against "Taxation without representation!", and very little to do with the amount or form of the tax.
The Income Tax is not only a direct theft from the people, but one that does reduce the normal citizen to that of slave, since it assumes to congress not only the right to the citizens income, but the right to that income prior to their receiving it! It reduces everyone to dependents upon the whims of congress to their lives, property and liberty – of which they can retain whatever it has no interest in. Together with the 17th amendment, which reduced the structure of the Senate to nothing but an extended term congressmen (done of course to do away with campaign finance corruption), they have done more to damage our nation, than any other structural development - only made possible by the corruption of Education into public education.
Well... this has gone on too long... three long even... sorry Lance, but you summoned the long winded one!
The libertarian considers this a worthwhile starting point,"It is morally wrong for a person or group of persons to use fraud or initiate force against another person or group of persons."
It is used as a starting point because every form of thought has to have a starting point. As I state in my blog, it is not necessarily an axiom (there being prior propositions) but it can function as one in reference to how we act toward one another. I have found no better....
"...and this as the method of achieving it, "I am most certainly an anarchist, but by that I mean the real definition of the word, not the popular emotive conception of it.", but what it will achieve is anarchy in its true sense, a mid step towards total despotism. Anarchy is nothing but the complete dissolution of one form of order, on the way towards another form being imposed..."
Anarchy (as I define it, is the absence of the State - or what you define as government here:
Gov't is the institution possessing a monopoly on the use of physical force in society.
(This is a variation of Rothbard's (or Oppenheimer's?) definition of the State, isn't it?)
Would it be better if I used the term 'market anarchist,' which is a closer definition?
The problem with Libertarianism, is that it attempts to take liberty as a primary, as a point from which to start from in structuring society... and usually then adds on that Rationality is a biggee as well.
It uses liberty as a political starting point, and leaves people with questions of metaphysics and epistemology the liberty to be discussed without fear of violence.
But liberty is far from a primary, it is at best a second or third level issue. The proper point to start from, is the nature of Man, and the source of all of our rights, and why they should not be abridged, is found in the same source.
It is, and I have very strong views of epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. But politics is not a primary philosophical school - it is secondary (falling under ethics.) Hence, trying to make political theory primary puts the cart before the horse. There is no disagreement that there are prior philosophical pursuits. Your freedom to pursue those pursuits is in part dependent upon a lack of violence against you if someone disagrees with you.
Libertarianism is a political theory, not a metaphysical one. The axiom of Libertarianism is chosen because political theory should not try to answer theological or metaphysical questions: it deals with the relationship between persons whose theological views may differ. It makes no attempts to judge which religious view is correct. It is an attempt to find a way for all of these views to exist in a way that does not include violence toward one another. Simply saying 'libertarianism' (I do not use the capital 'L') is flawed because it does not start with a concept of the nature of man is, in my opinion, a straw man argument, because it already assumes what it considers universal ideas involving the nature of man: it is wrong to rape, murder, steal, etc. To oppose these ideas raises questions about the opposition's view of the worth of persons.
Which (unless this is meant to be parsed further) leads to contradictory statements such as "I believe the State is an immoral institution and I believe that government is an absolute necessity, by virtue of human rationality."
Of COURSE it is to be parsed further! Hence the altern in the second phrase. 'Government' is the management of resources. The 'State' is that institution possessing a monopoly on the use of physical force in a given geophysical area. 'Government' is a necessary consequence of the rational use of property (either good or bad management.) I make a very strong distinction between the two.
...respecting the requirement of all men to do so, is the source of prosperity of our progression from and through groups, clans, tribes, societies and states. All we are, have, and can be, flows from our recognition of our right to the property we create - physically, and on through the more abstracted forms which more advanced forms of society makes possible - with a 'Capitalist' society being the current high point.
While we may disagree in theory (I am not a proponent of any form of Progressivism) I would say that the idea that it is wrong to initiate force or fraud against another describes exactly what you have laid out in that paragraph!
The development and advancement of society requires the formation and adherence to objective law, in order to protect and preserve our Rights (which all begin and fall with Property Rights) both against theft and as a source of resolving disagreements among people in society.
No disagreement there. I would simply oppose a market approach to a State approach as the form of government.
If you want to know the true meaning of Anarchy, rather than 'popular emotive conception' or rationalized idealizations of it, Thucydides has a few good examples for you.
Gov't must exist, and it must uphold Property Rights in order to uphold any Individual Rights at all – those are preconditions for any discussion of Liberty – trying to put Liberty first, will only bury it in a bloodied grave.
Government must exist, in part because it is an effect of rational action. That equate to saying truth must exist. However, I do not blur the lines between a legitimized use of force (arbitrarily applied at best) and the ability and necessity to manage resources. There is never a reason to initiate force against another to uphold property rights! The initiation of force is a direct negation of those property rights. Hence, to say that it is morally wrong to initiate force is exactly the understanding required to operate in this context.
You cannot (and I am unable to emphasize that strongly enough) uphold property rights and at the same time consider liberty second of all. To uphold property rights IS to uphold liberty. One does not follow the other, they are synonymous.
However, this does raise an interesting question: are people resources to be used by those in power? If so, how does this relate to the idea of property?
"...Until we grasp the deeper principles of Physics and planetary motion, we'll go no further, and attempting to leap to a GPS form of navigation (voluntary tax) prior to admitting that the earth revolves around the sun, to say nothing of Industrial technology, is irrational)...:
I would counter that all science is arbitrary and utilitarian - a method of measuring in order to create and understand, and nothing more. It is always false because it is based upon induction, rather than inference, but (usually) works for what we need to get done. However: it is no more irrational to say it is wrong to initiate violence than it is to say it is wrong to lie. Both concepts have been around for thousands of years. We don't have to wait for them to be discovered.
Ideally, yes, Taxation should be a voluntary operation.
Again, have to point out that taxation, by definition, is compulsory funding. Nothing can be compulsory and voluntary at the same time (without sophistry.)
...If we ever do again become a society that respects Individual Rights, it will only be because we respect Property Rights. If that comes to pass, then one option might be through a voluntary sales tax - to be applied to purchases, in order to benefit from civil court disputes, and without which, buyer beware..."
Note: a sales tax is not voluntary. Purchasing food may be - but if it comes to paying the tax or starving to death, the question of morality again arises...
The respect of property rights infers that it is wrong to take or damage someone else's property without their permission (application of libertarian principle.) Most of us learned that when we were young. Might I also point out that we have never been a society that respected property rights - consider the treatment of the indigenous peoples here, or the blacks. How about how the railroads (with the exception of the Great Northern) were built...We've just been a little better than some others.
My argument here would be that libertarianism IS a furthering in the idea of property rights, and to dismiss it would be paramount to dismissing Galileo because at some point we might have a Newton.
Prior to that point, we've got the world we've got, and cases can be made for Property tax - most property benefits directly from the existence of a well functioning Gov't of objective laws(Henry Georges ideas, btw, were based upon such radically flawed philosophical ideas, as to not be worth serious discussion - I'd add 'IMHO', but it obviously doesn't apply) . Sales tax, for the same reasons, isn't beyond argument either.
I don't consider 'this is what we have' to be a good argument against a consistent pursuit of something better. And theory precedes action. (The ivory tower is necessary, if somewhat irritating.) In this vein, I'd point out that any form of tax applied to a good dismisses entirely the idea of property ownership - if you have to pay 'rent' for your property, it is owned by someone else. If you can be removed from your property for not giving the State money, the State owns that property, not you.
The key here, now, at our time and level of accomplishment, is that Taxation be only for providing those services proper to Gov't... you get the idea...."
I agree - which was why I made the statement that I am willing (for the time being) to 'allow' for services people are convinced must be supplied by the State. I believe that as people begin to breath some free air, they will want more (especially when they find out that society runs a great deal better when they are part of it.)
There should also be a distinction made between Federal, State, County and community Gov't.
Yes! The closer a form of government is to the people it affects, the more responsible it is required to act.
Participation in, and consent, actual or defacto, has a huge bearing upon whether a law or regulation is Just, and was the chief factor in the original source of Colonists revolt against "Taxation without representation!", and very little to do with the amount or form of the tax.
We will probably remain in disagreement here, because I see morality (including the concept of Justice) as excluded from participation and consent. Just because a majority decide that a minority must be eradicated (and then participate in the eradication) in no way makes this action Just. I do agree that the idea of the amount or form of tax was an issue for the Colonists. I do not think the concepts of property rights had developed far enough by then.
The Income Tax is not only a direct theft from the people, but one that does reduce the normal citizen to that of slave, since it assumes to congress not only the right to the citizens income, but the right to that income prior to their receiving it! It reduces everyone to dependents upon the whims of congress to their lives, property and liberty – of which they can retain whatever it has no interest in. Together with the 17th amendment, which reduced the structure of the Senate to nothing but an extended term congressmen (done of course to do away with campaign finance corruption), they have done more to damage our nation, than any other structural development - only made possible by the corruption of Education into public education.
WELL SAID!
"shaoyu said..."
Well! That certainly clears up a really confusing point for me! For some reason (prolly my cut & paste method of typing posts) I missed the actual author and thought it was Lance asking the questions!
Sorry to everyone about a really bizarre turn there (slinks sheepishly into a corner....)
Well... first off, sorry for the disjointedness of my previous comment... one shouldn't try to deal with Sql replication and taxation without representation at the same time. Let me make a couple quick (my version) comments on some of your (David Taylor) highlights, though I probably won't be able to follow up them on before tomorrow.
"Anarchy (as I define it, is the absence of the State - or what you define as government here: Gov't is the institution possessing a monopoly on the use of physical force in society. (This is a variation of Rothbard's (or Oppenheimer's?) definition of the State, isn't it?)"
Actually of Ayn Rand's, whom I think Rothbard swiped his versions from.
"Would it be better if I used the term 'market anarchist,' which is a closer definition?"
Not from my point of view. Gov't is the ultimate wielder of power in a society, and any attempt to operate it under any form of 'market competition', or through formal private agreements (which could not survive their first fundamental disagreement) is a recipe for nothing other than gang warfare.
"It uses liberty as a political starting point, and leaves people with questions of metaphysics and epistemology the liberty to be discussed without fear of violence."
A political starting point can't be arrived at without developing through, and relying upon, that which you seek to set aside.
"It is, and I have very strong views of epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. But politics is not a primary philosophical school - it is secondary (falling under ethics.) Hence, trying to make political theory primary puts the cart before the horse."
Exactly... but just saying that, doesn't exempt you from the consequences of doing that, which is just what you are saying. Politics cannot be divorced from Philosophy. It is dependent upon the axioms, metaphysics and ethics of its parent, Philosophy. Any attempt to operate it as a separate discipline, will only result in incoherence, such as anarcho-whicheverism.
"Your freedom to pursue those pursuits is in part dependent upon a lack of violence against you if someone disagrees with you."
Which is entirely dependent upon those things libertarianism attempts to evade.
"Again, have to point out that taxation, by definition, is compulsory funding. Nothing can be compulsory and voluntary at the same time (without sophistry.)... Note: a sales tax is not voluntary."
What I meant by a ‘Sales Tax’, was something that would be more of a voluntary Tax Stamp, where the Best Buy clerk now asks "Would you like a warranty with that?" they would then also ask "Would you like to purchase the ability to sue with that?" (Note: Glib tongue bitten in cheek here)
Interesting points you've made, which I do want to respond to further... but... gotta go to a High School football game (go Spartans!).
Actually of Ayn Rand's, whom I think Rothbard swiped his versions from."
She got hers from Oppenhiemer, which is why I included that name :D Irrelevant, for our purposes - it is a good definition.
"Would it be better if I used the term 'market anarchist,' which is a closer definition?"
Not from my point of view. Gov't is the ultimate wielder of power in a society, and any attempt to operate it under any form of 'market competition', or through formal private agreements (which could not survive their first fundamental disagreement) is a recipe for nothing other than gang warfare.
That is the subject of a big debate, but I will point out that the market is entirely dependent upon voluntary transaction, and the idea of market anarchy is that all services rendered by the 'government' are done so on an equal level with the rest of society: you can purchase water from the State, or from a private vendor. Your choice - there can be no monopoly of service, because the coercive mechanism of the State has been removed. The entire structure is then controlled by competition, which results in better service by process of eliminating the stuff people hate. By remove the compulsory portion of government participation in society, I hold then that market anarchy is operating correctly. In a market anarchy, the market is the ultimate wielder of power - but that needs to be defined, because the term power, in this instance, does not include the idea of force, whereas in the State, it does.
I wrote: "It (libertarianism) uses liberty as a political starting point, and leaves people with questions of metaphysics and epistemology the liberty to be discussed without fear of violence."
A political starting point can't be arrived at without developing through, and relying upon, that which you seek to set aside.
I have never tried to set those ideas aside. The ideas have been developed - they have been in place for centuries. Most people already think it is wrong to take a gun, put it to someone's head, and steal their wallet. Trying to reinvent the wheel to fit a new religion still results in the same result: theft is wrong. The question of libertarianism is: how do I treat other people in a way that is consistent with my belief that theft is wrong - regardless of how I derived the notion that it is wrong!
I wrote: "It is, and I have very strong views of epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. But politics is not a primary philosophical school - it is secondary (falling under ethics.) Hence, trying to make political theory primary puts the cart before the horse."
Exactly... but just saying that, doesn't exempt you from the consequences of doing that, which is just what you are saying. Politics cannot be divorced from Philosophy. It is dependent upon the axioms, metaphysics and ethics of its parent, Philosophy. Any attempt to operate it as a separate discipline, will only result in incoherence, such as anarcho-whicheverism.
I am not aware (although I am also not omniscient) of any libertarian trying to operate political theory without it's parent (not Philosophy - but Ethics, a branch of philosophy.) One must understand at least some ethics before understanding politix.
There is no need to argue that Objectivism is the only means of obtaining a form of ethical understanding. Other philosophical views do as well. I would like to point out something here, if I may. I am a Christian, therefore my ethical ideas are based upon Scriptural data. Your ideas are based upon a different set of data. But we both hold the same thing to be true: theft (killing, rape) is wrong! There is no need for me to change my derivation to fit yours, nor yours to fit mine - even if we would both like that. The concept of libertarianism builds upon our already derived notions, it does not try to create new ones, nor make people join any one particular world view over another.
Or,
There is no need to proselytize in order to derive.
Which is entirely dependent upon those things libertarianism attempts to evade.
For example, how libertarians evade the proposition "Theft is a moral wrong," and like that?
What I meant by a ‘Sales Tax’, was something that would be more of a voluntary Tax Stamp, where the Best Buy clerk now asks "Would you like a warranty with that?" they would then also ask "Would you like to purchase the ability to sue with that?" (Note: Glib tongue bitten in cheek here)
LOL!!!! I love it!
Just to let you know, that is entirely within the realm of market anarchy (lack of State coercion in the purchase and operation of services.)
Thanks, both Van and David, great stuff guys. All of this helps me to formulate my opinion as to the morality of taxes and the agency tasked to collect them. I am still leaning away from placing a moral value on what I view as a thing without morality.
But, this does make me wonder, what would America have been like had the "founding fathers" been Libertarians?
You know, Lance - I don't think the thought that has developed into the minarchist/anarchist views Van and I hold had been studied enough for the Founders to come up with. For one thing, the concept of property rights was not fully developed. I think the development of Marxism helped there, because it gave a foundation by which one could study the opposite ideas.
The ideas that developed into our theories have been around for some time - my particular view is that it is several thousand years old, but that it was sort of placed 'on hold' for a few centuries - until at least the era of the Magna Carta.
But the real stuff didn't happen until the early 1500s and has carried on pretty steadily until the present day. Contrary to what Van has been arguing, libertarian thought has been the end result, not the start, of a long process of ethical and metaphyscial study.
Anyway, its a pleasure developing ideas farther.
Oh! And I wanted also to add that (at least from my viewpoint) it isn't that YOU don't think compulsory service and funding is a moral issue - its the fact that OTHER people DO.
Is it right to force people who DO find something morally wrong (not uncomfortable, or boring, or unlovely, but immoral) to do that thing anyway?
That is why I bring up the abortion issue as an example. There are people who believe the procedure is immoral. Should they be forced to fund it anyway?
Is it ever right to require someone to sacrifice their values for your benefit?
Later - - -
"Is it ever right to require someone to sacrifice their values for your benefit?"
Well, How much am I benefited and are they native Oregonians?
LOL!!! :D
David said "She got hers from Oppenhiemer, which is why I included that name :D Irrelevant, for our purposes - it is a good definition."
ehh... I'm not that familiar with Oppenheimer, but doesn't seem to me the way he would define it... but I could certainly be wrong (any online citation available?).
"...and the idea of market anarchy..."
Maybe you can explain this usage for me, it is something that has always bugged me about libertarians usage of anarchy almost as an equivocation for freedom - why? It reminds me of kids saying things like "That's Bad ASS!" just to make a verbal impression... am I missing something? Using words as meaning something,
""Anarchy - 1 a: absence of government b: a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority c: a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government
2 a: absence or denial of any authority or established order b: absence of order""
anarchy is in no way the same thing as companies and individuals making independent decisions based upon their own reasoning's in a free market - why use it in that way?
"you can purchase water from the State, or from a private vendor. Your choice - there can be no monopoly of service,"
This is an area we probably agree on, that the Gov't has no business being involved with any public utilities, services, power, water, mail, etc. In my view, Gov't should be concerned with law enforcement and resolving civil disputes within the framework of objective law, and protecting our basic rights from all enemies foreign and domestic. Period. And Lance, you made a comment earlier on about the U.S. Mail and UPS/FedEx co-existing just fine... not so, a few years back the Post Office tried to muscle out UPS from its turf for doing its work faster and cheaper,
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa047.html
"The Postal Service also harasses its legal competition with creative interpretations of the Private Express Statutes, the laws defining the monopoly. Throughout the 1970s, U.S.P.S. attempted to charge the United Parcel Service because advertising material was included in parcels UPS delivered. After U.S.P.S. began its own Express Service, it considered outlawing all other special delivery services and tried to intimidate its competitors. In New York, U.S.P.S. tore open 40 Federal Express invoices prior to their delivery to the customer. Postal inspectors visited Federal Express customers and warned them that they were committing a federal crime by using the private service. Then, a week or two later, postal marketing agents tried to sign up frightened mailers for U.S.P.S.'s own so-called Express Service.[65] Since the U.S.P.S. Express Service does not deliver to many locations in the United States, postal agents often tried to hijack customers they could not serve.".
Not to mention that the Post Office, though still losing in any competition with FedEx or UPS, is able, even though it restricts them from carrying letters "unless extremely urgent", but through its monopoly powers, it also sets the rates of its competitors (must be at least twice the applicable first-class rate)!
"You know, Lance - I don't think the thought that has developed into the minarchist/anarchist views Van and I hold had been studied enough for the Founders to come up with. For one thing, the concept of property rights was not fully developed. I think the development of Marxism helped there, because it gave a foundation by which one could study the opposite ideas."
On the whole, the Founders had a very good understanding of the various attempts at governing applied throughout history, including the ineffectiveness of weak government which they experienced in the Confederacy, so much so that they called the Federal Convention in the first place - to fix it, though quickly grasped it as being beyond fixing.
And in what way do you think the concept of property rights were not fully developed? Though I disagree with the how they looked at the source of Rights, Locke's idea that we had Property IN our Rights, rather than as their being a necessary extension of the nature of being human), they had a very deep understanding of the nature of our rights, and that all our other rights flowed from property rights. Here's an excerpt from Madison's essay on Property Rights,
In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces every thing to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to every one else the like advantage.
In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandize, or money is called his property.
In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.
He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them.
He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person.
He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them.
In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.
Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.
...
Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.
If you aren't familiar with the ideas the Founders were influenced by, and how they applied and argued them, this site (which the above is from) is awesome. It goes through the Constitution, line by line, with links to works and passages, ranging from Aristotle to Blackstone and forwards to the Federalist & Anti-Federalist papers, and on to how they were applied afterwards in such as Joseph Story's commentaries on the Constitution. The page on the Preamble alone has been known to keep a geek like me occupied for hours.
And I disagree with you on Marxism - a knowledge of Cyanide does little to enhance the understanding of good nutrition.
The ideas that developed into our theories have been around for some time - my particular view is that it is several thousand years old, but that it was sort of placed 'on hold' for a few centuries - until at least the era of the Magna Carta.
But the real stuff didn't happen until the early 1500s and has carried on pretty steadily until the present day. "
In my post Liberal Fascism: The Spiral of Knowledge and the Flattened Worldview of the Left pt. 3, I spent a fair amount of space tracing the core ideas up from Henry VIII. Some of the original compacts, such as Connecticut's (which I note) came very close to an 'anarcho' schema... time however, proved them inadequate to the needs of the people. For all the notions of 'Social Contracts', and the idiocies of critics trying to cast them as literal representations (wasn't Oppenheimer one of those?), instead of theoretical estimations of how a civilized people would create a society, if one could be started with civilized people at the get go, the American settlements proved them out in fact, and in very many differing flavors.
"Contrary to what Van has been arguing, libertarian thought has been the end result, not the start, of a long process of ethical and metaphyscial study."
Not quite sure what you mean here... I don't see libertarian as the starting point of anything... other than a naïve (sorry, can't think of another word) attempt at a type of utopianism. There will always be people who attempt to abuse power - that will not be educated out of us, or civilized out of us, and the idea that merely arranging to have no sources of power by doing away with the structure of a state through competing agreements and notions of 'live and let live' is... well... that's still the only word I can come up with, naïve.
Hold your friends close, and your enemies closer.
A Gov't kept to only dealing within its proper realm - the one separation the Founders missed, was the crack in its structure, a separation between 'Bank' and State, is the one change that may still be possible... unlikely, but possible. With gov't given no power over the economy, it would have little interest from the economy - why bribe a politician that can do nothing for you or to your competitors? Perhaps naïve also, but ... there you go.
Ok, time to break. Sheesh... haven't even gotten to the good stuff yet. Having a ball though.
(I should probably touch on this one first though,
"There is no need to argue that Objectivism is the only means of obtaining a form of ethical understanding. Other philosophical views do as well... I am a Christian, therefore my ethical ideas are based upon Scriptural data. Your ideas are based upon a different set of data... There is no need to proselytize in order to derive."
Although few religious people would consider me religious, I've found the Objectivist position on the matter to be substantively lacking in depth on the matter of religion, rather flat and naive itself there... with a poetic perspective, I've found no problem working through scripture to arrive at the same principles... and a much deeper grasp of them, which is to say that although I still support the metaphysical and epistemological principles of Objectivism, they would take a gander at my first lack of dismissiveness towards religion, and shun me.)
ehh... I'm not that familiar with Oppenheimer, but doesn't seem to me the way he would define it... but I could certainly be wrong (any online citation available?).
Not sure about online citations (didn't really look - I just got this from a Rothbard article I had saved):
"The State (New York: Vanguard Press, 1926) pp. 24–27:
There are two fundamentally opposed means whereby man, requiring sustenance, is impelled to obtain the necessary means for satisfying his desires. These are work and robbery, one's own labor and the forcible appropriation of the labor of others. . . . I propose in the following discussion to call one's own labor and the equivalent exchange of one's own labor for the labor of others, the "economic means" for the satisfaction of need while the unrequited appropriation of the labor of others will be called the "political means". . . . The State is an organization of the political means. No State, therefore, can come into being until the economic means has created a definite number of objects for the satisfaction of needs, which objects may be taken away or appropriated by warlike robbery."
"...and the idea of market anarchy..."
Maybe you can explain this usage for me...anarchy is in no way the same thing as companies and individuals making independent decisions based upon their own reasoning's in a free market - why use it in that way?
Greek word (anarkhos) - means "without a ruler." Although there are certainly 'rulers' in the market - cost of production, customer desire, etc. - the term 'market anarchy' is used to describe a market condition without State regulation.
"...the Gov't has no business being involved with any public utilities, services, power, water, mail, etc.
That is true, and in the context of the issue we are discussing, I think we should concentrate more on how this can be done than on who used the correct propositions to arrive at the conclusion.. The one thing I find unfortunate about the Post Office is that the Constitution provides for it. For that matter, I would not touch it unless it were removed by amendment.
In my view, Gov't should be concerned with law enforcement and resolving civil disputes within the framework of objective law, and protecting our basic rights from all enemies foreign and domestic. Period.
Like I said before, I am willing to forgo discussion of services that some people cannot conceive of as being available without State compulsion and monopoly. I think there is enough mess out there without trying to go into it yet. Some things become more apparent over time.
On the whole, the Founders had a very good understanding of the various attempts at governing applied throughout history, including the ineffectiveness of weak government which they experienced in the Confederacy, so much so that they called the Federal Convention in the first place - to fix it, though quickly grasped it as being beyond fixing.
We will certainly disagree here! I saw the Articles of confederation far superior to the 'correction.' I do agree, however, that the founders understood governing theories - far better than many people nowadays. This does not negate my charge that the concept of property rights had been developed as much as it has now.
And in what way do you think the concept of property rights were not fully developed? Though I disagree with the how they looked at the source of Rights, Locke's idea that we had Property IN our Rights, rather than as their being a necessary extension of the nature of being human), they had a very deep understanding of the nature of our rights, and that all our other rights flowed from property rights.
A look at the founder's views of slavery and the property of the indigenous peoples shows that it was still in development.
And I disagree with you on Marxism - a knowledge of Cyanide does little to enhance the understanding of good nutrition.
Marxism is a bad economic theory, not a denial (which would fit the analogy of poison.) It is also an attempt to refute the errors it thought it had found in capitalism. Because this occurred, opponents of Marx were able to strengthen their views, refute errors that had not been addressed, and find means to improve. ANY time someone disagrees with you is an opportunity to improve, refine and correct.
...I don't see libertarian as the starting point of anything... other than a naïve (sorry, can't think of another word) attempt at a type of utopianism. There will always be people who attempt to abuse power - that will not be educated out of us, or civilized out of us, and the idea that merely arranging to have no sources of power by doing away with the structure of a state through competing agreements and notions of 'live and let live' is... well... that's still the only word I can come up with, naïve.
Labeling libertarianism as 'utopian' is an indicator of a lack of understanding of the theory. I doubt any libertarian (worth anything, anyway) would think that evil could be 'educated' out of people. I certainly do not. Libertarianism is a denial of utopianism, stating that it cannot occur, and showing why in literally thousands of pages of writing. It still seems to me that you view libertarianism as trying to establish ethical theory by stating political idioms. I deny that.
However, I am most certainly willing to address the issue of 'live and let live.' The libertarian position is that is it wrong to initiate force against or defraud another person. Since you find this naïve I have to ask, at what point is it ever morally right to initiate force against another person? At what point is it ever right to defraud another person? If you agree that the initiation of force is always wrong, or that fraud is always wrong, then you fall into the naïve category as much as I - with the exception that you may decide these are nice guidelines, but not required in 'real life.' I do not. I hold these principles to be universally true and applicable to all interaction.
"...Although few religious people would consider me religious, I've found the Objectivist position on the matter to be substantively lacking in depth on the matter of religion, rather flat and naive itself there... with a poetic perspective, I've found no problem working through scripture to arrive at the same principles... and a much deeper grasp of them, which is to say that although I still support the metaphysical and epistemological principles of Objectivism, they would take a gander at my first lack of dismissiveness towards religion, and shun me.).."
That is why I believe that to argue over which set of propositions is the right one used to arrive at the identical conclusions we both hold is a waste of time. We have gotten to the point - what do we do now? (Personally, I find Objectivism to be irrational and also that it falls into the category of a religion. But I've done that debate before, and it is fruitless.)
An article about the charge of utopianism.
"at what point is it ever morally right to initiate force against another person"
I would have to say it is morally right to initiate force when that person is acting out against others outside the bounds of the societal construct.
A pet peeve of mine is smoking and the fact that I can get lung cancer without actually smoking so in that instance a ban on smoking does not bother me because I see second hand smoke as a initiator of force against my lungs.
Lance said "A pet peeve of mine is smoking and the fact that I can get lung cancer without actually smoking so in that instance a ban on smoking does not bother me because I see second hand smoke as a initiator of force against my lungs."
As usual, it depends upon property rights. Are you talking about when you go to a bar or restauraunt? The only person who has the right to say whether or not someone lights up a cigarette, is the person who owns the bar or restauraunt. If you don't like it, you don't go there. Same applies to airplanes, stores, etc. If you don't own it, have the courage of your convictions for the flawed 2nd hand smoke studies, and get yourself gone.
However, that does lead into a possible alternative though, that of something such as a factory which heavily and verifiably polutes the air or water supply, making more than reasonable impact on not only the surrounding property owners, but upon those passing through the surrounding areas, and having a reasonable right to expect to inhale polution free air, see through polution free views, and drink polution free water, where that 'polution free' can be shown to rise above a reasonable nuissance or health factor.
In those cases passing the reasonable expectations test, suit could be brought based upon the property rights of those having property in the surrounding areas, or by the Gov't, on behalf of the publics interest in common areas, and use force to shut down operations, if not complied with in a satisfactory fashion.
I would have to say it is morally right to initiate force when that person is acting out against others outside the bounds of the societal construct.
Since I do not know which social construct is being addressed (society, Germany, 1939?) I'd say that you are missing the importance of the term INITIATION of force. If a person is acting out against others they have already initiated force. Of course, this also depends on what you mean is 'acting out against others: wearing white after labor day? calling a car an 'auto'? or is this more along the lines of shooting out windows downtown?
For you to initiate force would be for you to start the fight, to start the robbery, to start the rape, start the shooting, looting, pillaging, punching, etc...
Again, I ask the question, is it ever right to initiate force?
A pet peeve of mine is smoking and the fact that I can get lung cancer without actually smoking so in that instance a ban on smoking does not bother me because I see second hand smoke as a initiator of force against my lungs.
Van points out ways this can be done without the use of force: polluting the air a person uses is an invasion of property rights. It is an initiation of force. But the ban on smoking is much worse. Banning smoking ion an establishment does not violate your rights at all.
You can simply not frequent that establishment.
How hard is that? Those who do use it do so fully understanding the consequences.
"Van points out ways this can be done without the use of force: polluting the air a person uses is an invasion of property rights. It is an initiation of force. But the ban on smoking is much worse. Banning smoking ion an establishment does not violate your rights at all.
You can simply not frequent that establishment.
How hard is that? Those who do use it do so fully understanding the consequences."
That is true, and I do choose to not frequent those establishments. But my problem comes in when I am sitting on my front porch and a smoker walks by. Or I am out in a public commons or the fact that smoke much like wild animals does not honor property lines.
I am not advocating the government ban smoking all together. But for me it makes me ask, I know this is a side issue, but why are some things that kill people illegal and other things are not? Is it all about the economics of the items? That was one of the things we talked about today in school was that for Americans it always seems to come back to the economics of the situation.
"...Is it all about the economics of the items? That was one of the things we talked about today in school was that for Americans it always seems to come back to the economics of the situation.
Depends on the definition of economics - my description of economics would be the study of how people achieve their goals. America's economics tends toward market capitalism, so it is natural that people would see things in terms of units of exchange.
t why are some things that kill people illegal and other things are not?
Most likely no one lobbying for the punishment to be applied to those. Given a society that gladly gives itself up for 'security,' I'm pretty sure there will be more and more that becomes illegal.
I liked it better when I was a kid- never wore a helmet and rode my bike everywhere. Shot stuff without a license!
David, I'm not seeing Rand's 'govt' quote in that quote, or a direct resemblance between that and "Gov't is the institution possessing a monopoly on the use of physical force in society"... I suppose it could be derived from it, but it could from many other sources as well, but Rand laid her premises out pretty thoroughly and derived that from them, I'll go on chalking it up to her. Surely she had influences, from Aristotle to Von Mises (I think she came upon him early on, but I'm not positive), but I don't see a direct lifting of the phrase. However, I suppose it's pretty unimportant for our purposes.
"Greek word (anarkhos) - means "without a ruler.""
Heh, yeah thanks for that, but not particularly illuminating. Greco/Roman history has been a favorite area of study for me for twenty years or so now... your usage of it still makes no sense.
"Although there are certainly 'rulers' in the market - cost of production, customer desire, etc"
Factors, influences and demands are not rulers, neither are any other form of market forces or market dominance properly referred to as 'rulers', and the next step of relating Economic power as being in any way comparable to political power, is not only inappropriate, but is one of the key equivocations political hacks use to try and push for regulations, by trying to say ridiculous things like "Microsoft has an 'unfair advantage' in the market, and therefore must be hobbled and regulate to make it safe for competition".
"the term 'market anarchy' is used to describe a market condition without State regulation."
So... every market condition prior to its being regulated in the early 20th or earlier, was in a state of market anarchy? B.S. The word 'anarchy' is inappropriate, inapplicable, counter productive, and just plain makes no sense whatsoever. It is not synonymous with Freedom, liberty, competition or a free market.
If you can use 'anarchy' is such an inappropriate and heavily stretched fashion, you've no grounds for complaining about myself or others using the word utopia to the libertarians belief in being able to create competing and non-warring, non-political, economic communities, is ... bizzare. And the Rothbard article, typical of most libertarian polemic, completely dodges the point it denies. It did not state why Libertarianism is not utopian, and the reasons why it shouldn't be considered so, it only said "Nyah-ah!" and spun around and declared that those who have fanciful ideas of constitutional gov't, to be the ones who are utopian, and sought out keywords to equivocate upon 'competition', etc. Pretty lame stuff. Got any better?
Reminds me of why libertarians are often called hippies who lean to the right. Come to think of it, your picture...
(sorry, couldn't resist)
I'm going to guess we won't agree on that, and move on.
"We will certainly disagree here! I saw the Articles of confederation far superior to the 'correction.'"
Kind of guessed that would be coming. So... passing by the easy pickings of things like Shay's rebellion, and the several occasions where the confederated states came close to conflict, even with real fears of war, over things like fishing rights and settlers, and its infamous inability to meet financial obligations, or make or keep other agreements... what was it that convinces you that the articles of confederation were a superior form of governance, despite the judgment of those who were actually living under it who chose to replace it?
"This does not negate my charge that the concept of property rights had been developed as much as it has now...A look at the founder's views of slavery...shows that it was still in development"
The fact that they could not manage to find no way around to ending a centuries old practice (in America, throughout all of time for the rest of the world), is no reflection upon their understanding of either property, property rights or of Humanity in general. It was because they, and their descendents DID understand them, that the agitation for, and eventual ending of slavery did occur, and is also a rather shallow criticism and example of critical understanding of the issue - IMHO.
"Marxism is a bad economic theory, not a denial (which would fit the analogy of poison.) It is also an attempt to refute the errors it thought it had found in capitalism. Because this occurred, opponents of Marx were able to strengthen their views, refute errors that had not been addressed, and find means to improve."
Marxism is a sloppy, self refuting conglomeration of hackneyed Hegelianism utopianism and raw appeals to power. It contributes, and has contributed, nothing but death and destruction to human history, it did nothing but dilute or destroy economic and philosophic understanding wherever it was peddled. It did nothing to strengthen understanding of free market economics, or refute any errors in how it may have been practiced. I'll stop there, before I go on to say what I really think about it.
"ANY time someone disagrees with you is an opportunity to improve, refine and correct."
False. There is such a thing as stupid questions, stupid assertions, stupid theories and even anti-thought which only hinders and disintegrates in the attempt to reply to it. There is an opportunity for me to increase my understanding of economics and philosophy when faced with intelligent opposition, and even with intelligent though flawed support - there is no such opportunity for improvement when presented with ignorant, stupid or thuggish assertions. Filet Mignon laced with poison, is not considered partially nutritious, it is an anti-value. The poison analogy stands.
"Labeling libertarianism as 'utopian' is an indicator of a lack of understanding of the theory."
I first heard of Libertarianism through Robert Ringers books (Remember him? I actually knew his millionaire mentor who lived in an underground house), and made my way through much of the literature, before coming to the conclusion I still have. I understand the theory, and find it flawed, inadequate as a political system and shallow in its grasp of the principles of law and of economics.
"It still seems to me that you view libertarianism as trying to establish ethical theory by stating political idioms. I deny that."
It seems to me that you think that ethics can be divorced from political 'idioms' or theories, or economics. It cannot.
"The libertarian position is that is it wrong to initiate force against or defraud another person."
From one private person (actual or corporate) towards another, agreed.
"Since you find this naïve"
I don't.
"I have to ask, at what point is it ever morally right to initiate force against another person? At what point is it ever right to defraud another person?"
There is no point where one person (etc) is right to initiate force against another, and defrauding is just an indirect form of doing the same.
"If you agree that the initiation of force is always wrong, or that fraud is always wrong, then you fall into the naïve category as much as I - with the exception that you may decide these are nice guidelines, but not required in 'real life.' I do not. I hold these principles to be universally true and applicable to all interaction."
Here is where you, and libertarians in general, typically go off into the weeds, in a similar fashion, by the way, to how leftists do as well - an inappropriate use of principle, regardless of context. I call it 100 percentile-ism, a non-contextual attempt to apply principles as if they are categorical imperatives that apply in any and every possible situation - it's done with the intent, I think, of demonstrating your full conviction behind the principle, but in fact, by attempting to apply it regardless of context, it guts the principle of everything which gives it its meaning. Just as "Thou shalt not kill" (not a correct translation of the original Hebrew btw) doesn't apply in every situation, there are situations where you absolutely should and must kill, in self defense, or if it is the only way to stop an imminent murder, in short, the context matters.
As Aristotle said, man is by nature a political animal. A man lives in society with others, and if that society is structured with Just laws protecting property, speech and providing objective law, that society has a right to expect reasonable level of participation and support from the citizens living within it. The person that lives under in a society, participates in and benefits from its laws and state of order, and refuses to pay just taxes to support that society, that person has themselves initiated the use of force against the state, in the form of defrauding it of its services without paying taxes.
In a free society, whether at the level of town, county, state or nation, a person has the right to leave (and in this way, the states were individually designed to compete for citizens, within the federal constitution) that polis they don't support.
A free society that has not yet attained either the general understanding, or the caliber of citizenry able to devise a system of voluntary financial support of their gov't - which would still be called taxation - cannot for that reason either refuse, or morally denounce (not the same as trying to bring about a change for the better), their current gov't's for using more typical, and egregious, forms of taxation.
In that context, the more immoral action is to denounce or refuse to pay taxes proper to support a legitimate gov't.
This is not any form of relativism or 'nice guidelines' - principles are absolute, within the proper context, changing the context, changes the proper application of that principle.
Typically, I've found, that libertarians attempt to hold liberty as a primary starting point (almost seems as if they don't have a hierarchical understanding of Values, Law, Principles, etc - am I wrong?), and have little or no ability to apply context, which is how you end up as holding up liberty as coming not only prior, but above, the rule of law, to the point that they take Law as being little more than a choice between subdivision or organizational rules. It is not. Law, Just, objective law, comes prior to Liberty, and Liberty cannot come before, or exist without, the existence and enforcement of Law, and that cannot exist or stand without the State.
"That is why I believe that to argue over which set of propositions is the right one used to arrive at the identical conclusions we both hold is a waste of time."
The reason why, again comes back to context. If a person has stated the same words that I have, but with a very different understanding of the meaning behind those words, we most definitely have not arrived at identical conclusions, and to attempt to proceed from that point as if we were working for the same goal, would be folly and a total waste of time.
"what do we do now?"
Spend whatever amount of time each feels is worthwhile for the situation, in discussing the matter, and moving on when it appears to be no longer fruitful.
"Personally, I find Objectivism to be irrational and also that it falls into the category of a religion."
Knowing what I do of the philosophy itself, that is asinine - though I wouldn't deny that many of those who call themselves objectivists, are rather bizarre, and even fanatical. I think that is not atypical of any philosophical movement though.
If you have some criticism of the axioms, epistemology, ideas on concept formation, etc, I'd be very much interested in discussing that; if you're talking about the rhetoric and little 'p' political application, yep, probably no point.
Well I hate to leave it at that point, but since I'm starting to sleep type, I'd better.
Lance said "...Is it all about the economics of the items? That was one of the things we talked about today in school was that for Americans it always seems to come back to the economics of the situation."
David said "Depends on the definition of economics - my description of economics would be the study of how people achieve their goals. America's economics tends toward market capitalism, so it is natural that people would see things in terms of units of exchange."
Well... it does partly depend on what your definition of economics is... and incidentally "how people achieve their goals" doesn't strike me as a very good one, that more belongs to ethical values and how to achieve them,
I like the definition of economics which Thomas Sowell prefers (I forget the name of the guy he got it from... British I think) "The study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses".
But what it really depends upon, is Property. Take a look at the essay of Madison's I linked to above... all of your political rights in society find their root in Property Rights, and all are undermined and violated, when your property rights are weakened.
Property Rights not only provide a way to convert physical assets into financial assets, but they are central to the development of proper objective Law and Order. A society which respects your property, respects your right to live your life as you see fit, as long as you don't forcibly infringe upon others right to do the same. Look around the world... the pestholes are the ones which have no respect for property rights, and consequently have little or no economic system at all, largely operating on the barter level. The society which begins to try to separate your property from your Rights, is one where all other Rights soon change from an area you can expect to be free from forcible interference from society & gov't, to a laundry list of things you've been granted the temporary ability to have and do... with multiple caveats.
Americans always comes back to the economics of the situation, because to most Americans, though few have a deeper understanding of the matter, most immediately recognize, sadly 'feel' is probably the more accurate term now, that an attempt to take their Money and/or limit their right to acquire and use things, is in someway an attack on their freedom to live their lives - and they are right.
"why are some things that kill people illegal and other things are not?"
Because the Progressives haven't yet succeeded in imposing their ideal of how you should live your life as they see fit, upon our society yet... but they're working on it. And remember, both Teddy Roosevelt (rep) and Woodrow Wilson (dem) were progressives, and they still exist in both parties.
"...Although there are certainly 'rulers' in the market - cost of production, customer desire, etc..."
Factors, influences and demands are not rulers, neither are any other form of market forces or market dominance properly referred to as 'rulers', and the next step of relating Economic power as being in any way comparable to political power, is not only inappropriate, but is one of the key equivocations political hacks use to try and push for regulations, by trying to say ridiculous things like "Microsoft has an 'unfair advantage' in the market, and therefore must be hobbled and regulate to make it safe for competition".
I used the term 'rulers' set aside in single quotes to emphasize that it was a highly manipulated term. My use of the term market anarchy illustrates a market that operates in the real world, in real time, in spite of political pressure. The 'rulers' of which I speak are the elements of reality that control the market. I argue that political power, realized in the form of a State, is not necessary in the market: the term 'market anarchy' is used to describe a market condition without State regulation. The market can operate without an institution possessing a monopoly on the use of force dictating its operation. Nor is it able to, even if it tries. No state involvement in the market = market anarchy.
So... every market condition prior to its being regulated in the early 20th or earlier, was in a state of market anarchy?
Sure - if you say so. Obviously, there were no the institutions possessing a monopoly on the use of physical force in society before the 20th century! Where did I get the idea there were? Silly me!
B.S. The word 'anarchy' is inappropriate, inapplicable, counter productive, and just plain makes no sense whatsoever. It is not synonymous with Freedom, liberty, competition or a free market.
Labeling, marginalizing, and the refusal to consider a differing viewpoint is not very flattering. I would argue most strongly that the absence of an institution possessing a monopoly on the use of force within a geographical area most certainly is companion to liberty, and that the use of force in a market HAMPERS and does not encourage competition. A market without natural competition is not a free market. Your objections seem to reveal an underlying love of force and control over people that belie the words you offer! Inconsistencies always bother me, for some reason.
If you can use 'anarchy' is such an inappropriate and heavily stretched fashion, you've no grounds for complaining about myself or others using the word utopia to the libertarians belief in being able to create competing and non-warring, non-political, economic communities, is ... bizzare.
I know of no libertarian who has come up with the idea of non-warring or non-political economic communities. Why do you suppose libertarians support the right to bear arms? Style? Good taste? Conversation? It is bizarre to think of a utopia where the citizens are armed to defend themselves.
I first heard of Libertarianism through Robert Ringers books, and made my way through much of the literature, before coming to the conclusion I still have. I understand the theory, and find it flawed, inadequate as a political system and shallow in its grasp of the principles of law and of economics.
Sorry, I cannot reject Mises, Hoppe and Hayek. I may disagree with them on certain issues, but on others they are strong. Of course, I also reject Objectivism, which leaves me unrestrained from certain dogma.
"..It seems to me that you think that ethics can be divorced from political 'idioms' or theories, or economics. It cannot."
So, if I say it is 'wrong' to initiate force, I have somehow divorced ethics from politics? Politics is a subset of ethics, not the other way around. You have to have a developed ethical theory before you can make political statements. Any attempt to do otherwise is to argue from the consequent.
"The libertarian position is that is it wrong to initiate force against or defraud another person." - - - From one private person (actual or corporate) towards another, agreed.
In public, however, you argue that initiation of force is right? I reject collectivism in all forms, hence I cannot accept the principle that if enough people want to do something it becomes right.
Or...does your inclusion of the term 'corporate' include the idea of State officials?
Your argument in effect states that a person sitting in a crowded bar who decides to and then rapes the next woman that walks through the door is wrong, but if everyone in the bar decides to and then carries through, it is right.
Here is where you, and libertarians in general, typically go off into the weeds, in a similar fashion, by the way, to how leftists do as well - an inappropriate use of principle, regardless of context. I call it 100 percentile-ism, a non-contextual attempt to apply principles as if they are categorical imperatives that apply in any and every possible situation - it's done with the intent, I think, of demonstrating your full conviction behind the principle, but in fact, by attempting to apply it regardless of context, it guts the principle of everything which gives it its meaning. Just as "Thou shalt not kill" (not a correct translation of the original Hebrew btw) doesn't apply in every situation, there are situations where you absolutely should and must kill, in self defense, or if it is the only way to stop an imminent murder, in short, the context matters.
The problem of that old A=A thing! I hold that logic is primary. A is always (universally) not not-A.
I have to ask this: at what point is there ever an initiation of force (starting the fight) that is done in self defense? In my book, by definition self defense is defensive! That means someone must have already initiated force against me! I am defending, not offending!
I can understand your confusion, however. You miss the importance of the term 'initiate.' Many people do. The libertarian phrase is NOT 'It is wrong to use force against someone.' The phrase is 'it is wrong to INITIATE force against someone. This is an imperative that can most certainly be applied universally in any and every possible situation. The principle of not STARTING aggression does NOT gut the principle of meaning. I reject situational ethics in toto. You are right, the biblical command to not murder does not negate the possibility of killing. But you have completely missed the point. In your examples: "there are situations where you absolutely should and must kill, in self defense, or if it is the only way to stop an imminent murder" you have failed to note that I am not INITIATING the force - the person against which I am defending myself has already done so!
The person that lives under in a society, participates in and benefits from its laws and state of order, and refuses to pay just taxes to support that society, that person has themselves initiated the use of force against the state, in the form of defrauding it of its services without paying taxes.
In that context, the more immoral action is to denounce or refuse to pay taxes proper to support a legitimate gov't.
I have already stated that principle clearly elsewhere, including giving an additional reason why it is right to pay your taxes.
Typically, I've found, that libertarians attempt to hold liberty as a primary starting point (almost seems as if they don't have a hierarchical understanding of Values, Law, Principles, etc - am I wrong?),
Yes. Check Mises.
...and have little or no ability to apply context, which is how you end up as holding up liberty as coming not only prior, but above, the rule of law, to the point that they take Law as being little more than a choice between subdivision or organizational rules.
As I pointed out before, there is no context (situation) where the initiation of force is right. Use of force can be right, but the context involves 'who started it?' Situational ethics involves falsehood from the inception, and building a method of ethics on a false initial premise results in false conclusions.
Also, incorrect on Law - Mises was very strong on the origin of law.
Law, Just, objective law, comes prior to Liberty, and Liberty cannot come before, or exist without, the existence and enforcement of Law, and that cannot exist or stand without the State.
I disagree, but I also understand that for persons immersed in dependence on a State, it is very difficult to see alternatives, which is why I have stated several times that I am temporarily willing to allow for services that some people cannot conceive of without State compulsion. These things existed before the State existed and will exist after it departs.
If a person has stated the same words that I have, but with a very different understanding of the meaning behind those words, we most definitely have not arrived at identical conclusions, and to attempt to proceed from that point as if we were working for the same goal, would be folly and a total waste of time.
So if I were to use a particular set of propositions and arrive at the conclusion 'therefore a spaniel is a dog' and you use a different set of propositions and arrive at the conclusion, 'therefore a spaniel is a dog' we cannot discuss brands of dog food?
Well... it does partly depend on what your definition of economics is... and incidentally "how people achieve their goals" doesn't strike me as a very good one
Just to point out, I used a description, not a definition.
David said "Sure - if you say so. Obviously, there were no the institutions possessing a monopoly on the use of physical force in society before the 20th century! "
Ohh Kkkk... I think the light is finally coming on for me, you're not describing particular markets which are free from their own alphabet regulatory agency as operating in 'market anarchy', you're talking about markets operating within a ...um...not sure how to say this... a State in a state of (somehow peaceful and lawful) anarchy... do I have that right here? That's quite a bit different from what I thought you were describing and I was responding to.
But then again, these seem to contradict that, and put me back into a state of confusion about your state of anarchy,
"No state involvement in the market = market anarchy." and "The market can operate without an institution possessing a monopoly on the use of force dictating its operation."
can your 'market anarchy' exist within a traditional state (or our original confederacy), or is that only possible in your idealized (not meant dismissively, just in distinction from the traditional understanding of an anarchy) anarchy?
"Labeling, marginalizing, and the refusal to consider a differing viewpoint is not very flattering."
True, so cut it out. I don't deny a certain... obnoxiousness at times, but nothing which would be considered out of line between two people talking things over over a beer... sometimes getting loud, but always civil. I'm disagreeing with your positions, and I'm giving the reasons for my disagreement. Expand, restate, specify where I need to do the same or decline to pursue it further, but cut the the dancing.
"Your objections seem to reveal an underlying love of force and control over people that belie the words you offer! Inconsistencies always bother me, for some reason."
WTF?!!! (ironic parody intentional, and unworthy of anything further)
"Your argument in effect states that a person sitting in a crowded bar who decides to and then rapes the next woman that walks through the door is wrong, but if everyone in the bar decides to and then carries through, it is right."
That's not only sophomoric but offensive, also unworthy of any further response.
"I can understand your confusion, however. You miss the importance of the term 'initiate.' Many people do."
Oh... puh-leaze.
I said 'Typically, I've found, that libertarians attempt to hold liberty as a primary starting point (almost seems as if they don't have a hierarchical understanding of Values, Law, Principles, etc - am I wrong?)'
You replied "Yes. Check Mises."
I checked Mises. Long ago. Have read much of Mises. It's been awhile, but I don't recall him falling under the same umbrella as you. I resubmit the question. Answer it yourself please. Nothing you've said conveys the impression that you grasp any hierarchy in values, you seem to place "No initiation of force" in the center of the very flat table of assorted positions.
I said:'Law, Just, objective law, comes prior to Liberty, and Liberty cannot come before, or exist without, the existence and enforcement of Law, and that cannot exist or stand without the State. '
you replied,
"I disagree, but I also understand that for persons immersed in dependence on a State, it is very difficult to see alternatives, which is why I have stated several times that I am temporarily willing to allow for services that some people cannot conceive of without State compulsion. These things existed before the State existed and will exist after it departs."
Oh... your condescension from your position flat on your philosophical back, is at turns amusing and annoying. Liberty is NOT the same thing as existing unrestrained in a state of nature. Liberty is the result of the assurance of their Individual Rights being recognized, secured and defended. The savage may be unrestrained, but he is most certainly not in a state of Liberty.
"So if I were to use a particular set of propositions and arrive at the conclusion 'therefore a spaniel is a dog' and you use a different set of propositions and arrive at the conclusion, 'therefore a spaniel is a dog' we cannot discuss brands of dog food? "
Sadam claimed to have been democratically elected; Castro, China, the USSR and ahmadinnerjacket in Iran make and have made similar claims and statements. Do you suppose they had the same ideas of democratic elections in mind that the typical American does? Would you consider it productive for them all to get together to discuss get out the vote drives?
"A market without natural competition is not a free market."
Do you intend to mean that if there is no competition (not due to any form of force), there is no free market? If there happens to be a small town, and only one... I dunno... barbershop present in the town... you don't mean to say that that is not a free market, do you( if that's not your intent, you don't need to explain further, I know the free market reasoning, just want to make sure I'm not missing something major here)?
Ok, this seems to be the point upon which we are two people separated by a common language,
"I would argue most strongly that the absence of an institution possessing a monopoly on the use of force within a geographical area most certainly is companion to liberty, and that the use of force in a market HAMPERS and does not encourage competition."
Ok, let me see if I can make a greatest hits bullet-point summation,
Reason is mans method of survival
1- Man must be free to use his mind, in order to live and survive as a Man
2- Man must have a Right to the Property of his thought and choices
3- Man must respect others right to think for themselves, to act in accordance with their judgment (without infringing on others rights) and to keep the property of their thoughts and choices as well
4- Men can honestly disagree, misunderstand and in many innocent ways through various circumstances, come into conflict and disagreement about what is rightfully the property of themselves or another persons
5- To prevent violent clashes escalating from these conflicts, to say nothing of criminally initiated conflicts, there must be an agreement to yield the use of force to the arbitration of objective Law, and the enforcement of its findings and rules to a 'group' (I'll defer the contentious word of 'State' to later)
6- Circumstances, environment, technology and population can and will require changes in community laws - the process must be open to the input of all those recognized as legal citizens, either directly, or through chosen representatives who are authorized to act in their name, to keep the laws objective and applicable and applied fairly and to act as a clearinghouse for public documentation (deeds, etc)
7- The group charged with upholding these laws and responsibilities will require an income to support them in their duties
8- Anyone in the jurisdiction of the communities laws, must agree to abide by those laws, and 'contribute' participate in the even distribution of the fees necessary for its support
9- Failure to abide or 'contribute' would put you afoul of the law, and subject to penalty, refusal to comply with the penalties would escalate the nature of the penalty.
10- The boundaries of this community must be clearly defined, in order to not cross-jurisdiction with other communities
11- In addition to the previous, there would exist in the community, in their body of laws, a code of well defined activities which would be considered criminal, activities which in one way or another involved the actual or implied (fraud) initiation of force against others
12- The guiding and limiting control over the creation of laws in the community, would be a simple document describing the core Rights (such as our Bill of Rights) of a citizen of the community, such as Life, Property, Speech, etc, which are necessary in the Pursuit of Happiness, which are not to be abridged by the 'group' through law or the judgments and actions of its deputies.
13- Is there anything so far, that you disagree with?
a- In this community, anybody will be able to engage in the business of their choice, and other than criminal activity or negligence, would operate as they see fit, and the buyer beware.
b- I contend, that the 'group' of this community, must be under One hierarchical structure, such as township, city, county, state, nation, and must have a clearly defined set of laws and jurisdictions, in order to operate properly and lawfully, maintain the peace and by doing so, foster prosperity.
c- I also contend, that competing 'groups', and differing interpretations and loyalties amongst its individuals, would inevitably come into conflict, and without recourse to a higher mutual authority, that conflict would unavoidably come into physical conflict.
Where here, am I going wrong or missing something?
P.S. I am very interested in understanding how you see your ideas as working - I don't see it working, but if you can show me where I'm wrong, I'll be thankful for putting a major error behind me. I don't see that as likely, but I've been wrong before.
But then again, these seem to contradict that, and put me back into a state of confusion about your state of anarchy,"No state involvement in the market = market anarchy." and "The market can operate without an institution possessing a monopoly on the use of force dictating its operation."
One is a definition, the other a description. One defines the role of the state in the market (not well, it is too succinct: it would be better to say, 'In a market anarchy, the state is equal to all other members.' Of course this is fatal to a State, but I just can't bring myself to care. Bad business practices should fail. The other term simply declares that the coercive mechanism of the state is not necessary in business transactions.
"...can your 'market anarchy' exist within a traditional state (or our original confederacy), or is that only possible in your idealized (not meant dismissively, just in distinction from the traditional understanding of an anarchy) anarchy?..."
Certainly not what we have now: we have the FDA, FCC, BATF, etc involved in market planning and operation. Those would need to vanish for a market anarchy. Would have been somewhat easier in a confederation of State but there were presuppositions in effect then that also affected a free market.
I wrote: "Your argument in effect states that a person sitting in a crowded bar who decides to and then rapes the next woman that walks through the door is wrong, but if everyone in the bar decides to and then carries through, it is right."
That's not only sophomoric but offensive, also unworthy of any further response.
If you have studied any logic, you would recognize that as a normal tool of rational inquiry - even has a fancy name. In essence I use the method to show the full logical outcome of any set or statements. In this instance, if the group is what decides the morality of an action, then any action is possible, if the group leans in that direction. Call it democracy, if you like. Regardless, any social contract can be drawn up and adhered to by a group. My argument is (and has always been) that there is a prior ethical standard - a set of universal imperatives - that declare some things wrong, some things neutral, and some things good. It is from that ethical backing that I then derive the operating mandate for my life - what is commonly called 'the libertarian axiom' (Like I've stated before, it is not an axiom, bus can function as one in terms of discussion.)
__________
I can understand your confusion, however. You miss the importance of the term 'initiate.' Many people do.
Oh... puh-leaze.
Direct quote: "...Here is where you, and libertarians in general, typically go off into the weeds, in a similar fashion, by the way, to how leftists do as well - an inappropriate use of principle, regardless of context..."
(Note, that principle being 'it is wrong to INITIATE force.')
I call it 100 percentile-ism, a non-contextual attempt to apply principles as if they are categorical imperatives that apply in any and every possible situation - it's done with the intent, I think, of demonstrating your full conviction behind the principle,...
Note: when I make the statement, 'it is wrong to INITIATE force,' your response is to tell me that I am attempting to apply this 100% of the time, without regard to context. You give examples of the 'context' a few words later.
...but in fact, by attempting to apply it regardless of context, it guts the principle of everything which gives it its meaning.
By believing that it is ALWAYS wrong to START force against someone, you reason that I have derived the statement of all meaning. In order to repair this, I assume I must change it to 'It is usually wrong to INITIATE force against someone, but there are exceptions,' and by doing so I now have given it meaning. Seems to me the new version would become meaningless relativistic drivel!
Just as "Thou shalt not kill" (not a correct translation of the original Hebrew btw) doesn't apply in every situation, there are situations where you absolutely should and must kill, in self defense, or if it is the only way to stop an imminent murder, in short, the context matters..."
In other words, when I say 'the initiation of force is wrong, you reply - "...there are times when force is necessary - for example, in self defense, or to stop an imminent murder..." That statement had no bearing whatsoever on mine. When I say it is wrong to start a violent act, you say it is sometimes necessary to respond to violent acts. The issue falls on missing the term 'initiate.' Hence my comment. If you had taken what I was saying with any consideration, the statement of yours I just quoted would never have been made.
________
Liberty is NOT the same thing as existing unrestrained in a state of nature.
Nor have I ever made such a claim. Assigning such a position to a person and then arguing against it has a particular colloquial title.
Liberty is the result of the assurance of their Individual Rights being recognized, secured and defended.
I would say that liberty is the result of restraint on the use of unnecessary force. I suppose that is what you mean by assurance, although I tend to take that as an emotional response.
a- In this community, anybody will be able to engage in the business of their choice, and other than criminal activity or negligence, would operate as they see fit, and the buyer beware.
b- I contend, that the 'group' of this community, must be under One hierarchical structure, such as township, city, county, state, nation, and must have a clearly defined set of laws and jurisdictions, in order to operate properly and lawfully, maintain the peace and by doing so, foster prosperity.
c- I also contend, that competing 'groups', and differing interpretations and loyalties amongst its individuals, would inevitably come into conflict, and without recourse to a higher mutual authority, that conflict would unavoidably come into physical conflict.
Where here, am I going wrong or missing something?
No. This is a standard libertarian alignment of social organization, so I see no real problems. See this PDF (*sigh*) for one particular way to actualize this. Another way is found here. That latter one is my one of my main influences.
"...it would be better to say, 'In a market anarchy, the state is equal to all other members.' Of course this is fatal to a State, but I just can't bring myself to care. Bad business practices should fail."
Ooh... Hell Yeah!
(ahem... excuse me)
"The other term simply declares that the coercive mechanism of the state is not necessary in business transactions."
I don't disagree with that in any way shape or form.
"If you have studied any logic, you would recognize that as a normal tool "
Ok, how about we drop the assumed sniff. I've studied logic. I can see you're an intelligent guy, please grant me the same. I've studied Aristotelian logic, Kantian logic (corruption of logic), and Mill's logic (ill logic), I'm hardly a master, but I've got a decent grasp of it. My reaction wasn't over whether or not that was a valid use of logic, my reaction was whether or not it had any application to what I've said. I've made pretty damn clear that a persons rights are paramount, and not open to majority decisions of any kind, there's no room for the polis voting to have Socrates drink the hemlock... bringing an example of rape in, was unnecessarily sensational.
"Certainly not what we have now: we have the FDA, FCC, BATF, etc involved in market planning and operation. "
Are you somehow under the impression that I support or sympathize with any form of Gov't regulation of business? Or of private life and private activities, for that matter? If so, please unburden yourself. I am unalterably opposed to them all. I do not believe that the Gov't has any business setting rules for surgeon general statements on cigarettes (or having a surgeon general for that matter), for regulating securities trading, establishing the FED, setting driving or drinking ages, ensuring 'level playing fields' among software mfg's, funding a mapping the human genome, licensing Dr's or any of the rest of the progressive agenda.
The duties of the Gov't, in my view, are highly delimited, and restricted to, as I've said, providing for Objective law and law enforcement, civil arbitration of legal disputes, upholding and defending our Individual Rights against all enemies foreign and domestic. I do not see how anything less would provide a workable framework for a healthy functioning society... and neither does anything more, as we're experiencing for ourselves.
"Those would need to vanish for a market anarchy. Would have been somewhat easier in a confederation of State but there were presuppositions in effect then that also affected a free market."
Sorry for being dense here, but I still don't quite get how anarchy applies here more than just having a plain free market. Prior to the 20th century, most businesses were unregulated (transportation being one glaring exception to that).
"You miss the importance of the term 'initiate.' Many people do."
Ok, a small come clean moment, my "puh-leze" moment was a reaction to the 'initiate' concept being said to me, when I've had to make, clarify and explain the finer points of that to others more times than I can count. I've never had it turned on me before... and my head nearly exploded.
"When I say it is wrong to start a violent act, you say it is sometimes necessary to respond to violent acts. The issue falls on missing the term 'initiate.' Hence my comment. If you had taken what I was saying with any consideration, the statement of yours I just quoted would never have been made."
Hmm... I'm going to have to concede that. I had the taxation issue in mind, more than your statement itself, and responded inappropriately. Too much time spent dealing with trolls. Sorry.
Now, moving away from your non-axiom axiom, Categorical Imperatives mean the utter destruction of Principles. One of Kant's examples of how they should be applied, was that "Never Lie", which he supported as a categorical imperative, meant that if a maniac were to come to the door with the intent of murdering someone in your home, and asks you if they are home, it was your moral duty to answer "yes they are". That achieves the utter and complete destruction of not only principles, but morality as well. It discards the long chain of concepts that lead to the 'Lie' and 'honesty' and 'morality', and just chucks them out the window. That's how I approached your 'axiom', and though I see now you say you call it an axiom only as emphasis, not as if it is a true axiom, that wasn't how I first understood you as using it. I'll admit there are very few instances where, with the 'initiation of force' clearly in mind, where an example could be put forth, and those would be reduced to issues of mental health, or types of eviction, and even those could ultimately be shown to be that those engaged in a form of initiating force. I suspect we'll still run afoul of this when it comes to taxation, but we'll see.
"Liberty is NOT the same thing as existing unrestrained in a state of nature.
Nor have I ever made such a claim. Assigning such a position to a person and then arguing against it has a particular colloquial title."
I'm still having difficulty not equating anarchy with a near state of nature. Let me sweep the straw out of the way here...
"'Liberty is the result of the assurance of their Individual Rights being recognized, secured and defended.'
I would say that liberty is the result of restraint on the use of unnecessary force. I suppose that is what you mean by assurance, although I tend to take that as an emotional response. "
Oh... you are pushing my buttons. No, not an emotional response, I'm using the word 'Assurance' in the sense of something that inspires or tends to inspire confidence towards an easy freedom from self-doubt or uncertainty... meaning that a person is able to enjoy the state of Liberty, when they live in a society which they have grounds to believe that their property and their rights are secure from arbitrary attacks, and have reason to expect they are operating within a lawful and orderly civil society.
Oops... this,
""...it would be better to say, 'In a market anarchy, the state is equal to all other members.' Of course this is fatal to a State, but I just can't bring myself to care. Bad business practices should fail."
Ooh... Hell Yeah!
(ahem... excuse me)"
should have been,
Bad business practices should fail."
Ooh... Hell Yeah!
(ahem... excuse me)"
The first portion,
"""...it would be better to say, 'In a market anarchy, the state is equal to all other members.'"
As the repository and defender of Law, I don't see how it can be equal to other members. 'It' the institution, not of course it's members, who are of course citizens with no more priveledged rights than any other citizen.
Uh-oh... sleep typing again... g'night.
"...My reaction wasn't over whether or not that was a valid use of logic, my reaction was whether or not it had any application to what I've said. I've made pretty damn clear that a persons rights are paramount, and not open to majority decisions of any kind, there's no room for the polis voting to have Socrates drink the hemlock..."
Then we should have no problem in applying the concept of the paramount rights of the individual (I hope that is what you are saying) to the ethical problems a coercive mechanism such as the State provides.
Are you somehow under the impression that I support or sympathize with any form of Gov't regulation of business? Or of private life and private activities, for that matter?
In a way, I would say yes, based upon lack of further information. But I am also willing to suspend all judgment till later. It's just that I am so skeptical! The inclusion of both business and private activities (in my mind) incorporate all of society, so I naturally conclude that if you feel the need for the need for a State to be involved somewhere, I fall into the habit of concluding that there has to be some sort of 'regulation' by the State somewhere. Of course, I see any and all services provided as being marketable products.
The duties of the Gov't, in my view, are highly delimited, and restricted to, as I've said, providing for Objective law and law enforcement, civil arbitration of legal disputes, upholding and defending our Individual Rights against all enemies foreign and domestic. I do not see how anything less would provide a workable framework for a healthy functioning society... and neither does anything more, as we're experiencing for ourselves..."
Hmm... I'm going to have to concede that. I had the taxation issue in mind, more than your statement itself, and responded inappropriately. Too much time spent dealing with trolls. Sorry.
I am sorry too - I got a little frustrated - I try to use words very carefully, and it seemed (to me) that my entire premise had been discounted 'out of hand'! Apologies for sharp words or sarcasm!
Now, moving away from your non-axiom axiom, Categorical Imperatives mean the utter destruction of Principles.
I disagree. Kant was wrong due to the fact that his starting point was in error (his epistemology was incorrect.) But my ethical viewpoint has the same conclusions. It is always wrong to lie, regardless of the outcome. You may choose to lie, but that does not make it right. The fact that it is wrong is the principle. The fact that people tend to lie can not negate this, nor can the fact that evil may result as the result of dong something right negate it. Colloquially, the end never justifies the means. Epistemologically, this is because God declares it wrong. Without that declaration, I would argue that it would simply be a grey area.
One of Kant's examples of how they should be applied, was that "Never Lie", which he supported as a categorical imperative, meant that if a maniac were to come to the door with the intent of murdering someone in your home, and asks you if they are home, it was your moral duty to answer "yes they are". That achieves the utter and complete destruction of not only principles, but morality as well.
Here is where I disagree: lying is wrong. Murder is wrong. Both are wrong. You can lie to avoid the consequence of the telling the truth but it remains wrong. You can also say, 'Yes, they are home - here are 15-20 bullets...oh - you are allergic to lead?" You could say 'I do not believe that does not concern you.' You could shut the door. There are many things you can say that do not include lies, which is a misrepresentation of the truth. Is it true that the people of which he inquires are home? TO lie would be to say they are not. You are not constrained to lie to avoid trouble, but this does not mean you are not free to do so!
One place where Kant was wrong (he simplified the concept to the point of silliness) is the idea that you are constrained to answer every question. Why?
It discards the long chain of concepts that lead to the 'Lie' and 'honesty' and 'morality', and just chucks them out the window.
From my particular point of view, honesty means telling the truth. The definition is quite simple. Morality is a question of right and wrong. I don't see Kant throwing those out the window.
That's how I approached your 'axiom', and though I see now you say you call it an axiom only as emphasis, not as if it is a true axiom, that wasn't how I first understood you as using it. I'll admit there are very few instances where, with the 'initiation of force' clearly in mind, where an example could be put forth, and those would be reduced to issues of mental health, or types of eviction, and even those could ultimately be shown to be that those engaged in a form of initiating force.
Yeah! (=
...'Liberty is the result of the assurance of their Individual Rights being recognized, secured and defended.'
I would say that liberty is the result of restraint on the use of unnecessary force. I suppose that is what you mean by assurance, although I tend to take that as an emotional response. "...
No, not an emotional response, I'm using the word 'Assurance' in the sense of something that inspires or tends to inspire confidence towards an easy freedom from self-doubt or uncertainty... meaning that a person is able to enjoy the state of Liberty, when they live in a society which they have grounds to believe that their property and their rights are secure from arbitrary attacks, and have reason to expect they are operating within a lawful and orderly civil society.
Still take that as emotive content as opposed to action. I have no problem with that! I simply hold that emotions are responses to rational data, and do not provide truth. One could feel inspired to enjoy freedom and end up dead. But if the forces which would end that freedom are restrained from being able to harm that person, the assurance is based in reality.
David said "I disagree. Kant was wrong due to the fact that his starting point was in error (his epistemology was incorrect.) But my ethical viewpoint has the same conclusions. It is always wrong to lie, regardless of the outcome. "
This is indeed the point I've always diverged from Libertarians with, and I don't have much time at the moment, but I think maybe you'll at least nibble at what I'm going to say here. It's something which the essay on property by Madison that I linked to above shows a grasping towards, which many Libertarians still are yet to see; in our example of the maniac at the door, he is attempting to obtain a value, the truth, by means of force, which he has no right, to. He is initiating force in an attempt to obtain from the person answering the door, what he has no property right to.
Yes Kant's epistemology is, to put it charitably, wrong, however I think you need to look at why it, and the rest of his philosophy is so wrong. Kant's explanation was that he 'found it necessary to destroy knowledge in order to preserve faith'. Religion is not a detailed street level map of how to get from here to there, it isn't concerned with turning right at the 7-11 and go two blocks to Bob's house, it is concerned with giving the tools to find your way in any city, state or sea - it provides the ability to find true north and to divine the difference between up and down. When it is taken literally, it nearly always squishes the fullest meaning and understanding from the scripture, leaving the two-dimensional image only. Picture the difference between an actual globe and a Mercator map - you wind up with Greenland looking larger than all of north america, literalist fundamentalism does the same to the ethical wisdom of religion... sure you can still find your way with it, but all is distorted and out of perspective. Kant's philosophy did this and more to philosophy, precisely because he tried to create a situation where religion could coexist with philosophy on the same grounds... and he only succeeded in, nearly, destroying both.
One small example, Ecclesiastes 7:4 "The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth."... this is not a description of real estate, it must be read poetically to gain the value from it, going around looking for the house at #1 Mirth St, would make you the fool. Religion is all encompassing, because it poetically grasps all from the top of the philosophical pyramid, and any single line in it can be mined for volumes of exposition for that very reason. "house of mirth" is the very tippy top tip of a huge pyramid of thought and understanding, is is not the ground level paving stone.
This is what I mean by needing to have a hierarchical structure to philosophy, and missing that, only error will follow.
I'll leave off there with Religion, and not attempt to 'explain' it, but the philosophical starting point, is existence, the ethical starting point is Life, not just any life, but your life, and the wide angle perspective is 'The Good Life' the broad and deep concept of Happiness. Without going through my 14 points above, that which is of value to you, is of value to you, only becomes a value to you, through Reason applied to reality, and abstracted into conceptual meaning, and upwards still further into philosophy and ethics and the property & materials necessary for doing so.
Reducing the deeply hierarchical structure of Ethics to a flattened imperative, as are Kant's categorical imperatives, is the very same thing as just mentioned, and it destroys ethics completely. If you're faced with such a major contradiction, as choosing between telling the truth and giving your daughter over to a maniac, then you can be pretty well assured that there is a flaw in your premises.
The flaw here is that the principle of ethical honesty is in anyway at jeopardy in this situation. The proper basis for human interaction, for Reason, is through reason, not force. The maniac at the door is attempting to exact information, property, from you BY FORCE, information which he neither has a right to, nor a capacity for. If you withheld car keys from a drunken teenager planning on driving your daughter home via a winding mountain road, your withholding the keys from him would not be called theft, but acting responsibly If a maniac was demanding that you sell him a gun so that he could kill your daughter, you would have no ethical quandary over refusing to sell it to him, and it would in no way damage your position as a responsible merchant and purveyor of property. If the criminal then says 'give me that gun I see behind the counter, or I'll kill you', your reputation as a merchant would be in no way damaged by refusing to hand over your property.
If a maniac at the door demands any property from you, whether it be weapons, car keys or information, which he has neither a right to, nor the capacity for handling responsibly, you are well within your rights to refuse it to him, and in fact it would be immoral to do otherwise.
More later (Lance, thanks for letting us crash in your living room... sorry about the mess)
Premise 1: It is always wrong to lie, regardless of the outcome.
Premise 2: The fact that something is immoral does not remove the ability to take that particular action.
Proposition: It is wrong to lie.
Fundamental: Propositions are either true or false.
Example being analyzed:
A stranger shows up at your door and asks if your daughter is there. He states his intention is to harm her.
This is indeed the point I've always diverged from Libertarians with...[snip]...It's something which the essay on property by Madison that I linked to above shows a grasping towards, which many Libertarians still are yet to see; in our example of the maniac at the door, he is attempting to obtain a value, the truth, by means of force, which he has no right, to. He is initiating force in an attempt to obtain from the person answering the door, what he has no property right to.
First, I'd argue that Madison's comments in no way contradict or minimize that I am trying to say. But I will leave it at that, since the argument can progress without an analysis of Madison's theology.
Second, the maniac is not trying to obtain the truth by force: he is asking a question. A question is never an initiation of force. It is a form of statement, an inquiry. He is, however, initiating force against your daughter. His intention is to do harm.
When someone asks you a question, you are obligated (by nature of reality) to answer. In the example we are using, you have many choices. You could:
1) Say nothing.
2) Say nothing and close the door.
3) Lie about your daughter.
4) Tell the truth about your daughter.
5) Insert many other options here.
The fact that you take some form of action is simply a fact of reality.
...Kant's epistemology is...wrong, however I think you need to look at why it, and the rest of his philosophy is so wrong.
I assume this means I need to see why you believe it is wrong. I have a rather different (although similar reason.)
Kant's explanation was that he 'found it necessary to destroy knowledge in order to preserve faith'. Religion is not a detailed street level map of how to get from here to there, it isn't concerned with turning right at the 7-11 and go two blocks to Bob's house, it is concerned with giving the tools to find your way in any city, state or sea - it provides the ability to find true north and to divine the difference between up and down. When it is taken literally, it nearly always squishes the fullest meaning and understanding from the scripture, leaving the two-dimensional image only. Picture the difference between an actual globe and a Mercator map - you wind up with Greenland looking larger than all of north america, literalist fundamentalism does the same to the ethical wisdom of religion... sure you can still find your way with it, but all is distorted and out of perspective. Kant's philosophy did this and more to philosophy, precisely because he tried to create a situation where religion could coexist with philosophy on the same grounds... and he only succeeded in, nearly, destroying both.
You make some claims here that I cannot simply accept without rational proof. Just as a note in passing: whether a map lookdistorted or not does not negate two facts: first, and location on either form of map delineated by a grid can be found in reality, and two, a map is not reality.
Philosophy and theology can most certainly exist on the same grounds! If they contradict, there is a problem with one of the two!
Another major point is that ALL knowledge is propositional. Someone may speak in metaphor, but unless you can glean the meanings (propositions) from the poem spoken, it is a meaningless collection of syllables. In order to 'find true north' you must rationally extract the buried meaning behind the metaphor - misunderstand and you head south.
This is a fundamental difference in epistemology, however, and one that I believe is entirely irreconcilable.
Your next comment illustrates it:
One small example, Ecclesiastes 7:4 "The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth."... this is not a description of real estate, it must be read poetically to gain the value from it, going around looking for the house at #1 Mirth St, would make you the fool. Religion is all encompassing, because it poetically grasps all from the top of the philosophical pyramid, and any single line in it can be mined for volumes of exposition for that very reason. "house of mirth" is the very tippy top tip of a huge pyramid of thought and understanding, is is not the ground level paving stone.
I will not speak for any religious view but my own. Delegating the Christian Scriptures to the generalization
that it must be read poetically discounts any propositions found in it. Propositions are never poetic, at least in any definition I can think of. (You may be able to state one in rhyme.) An example: "Obed is David's grandfather." (Ruth 4:22). The passage in Ecclesiastes is a metaphor, but the fact that Scripture uses metaphor does not infer that all Scripture is therefore metaphor.
The fact that Scripture can be 'mined' for volumes of exposition has a limit: from my point of view, Scripture is true (a function of logic) - which means that contradiction (by virtue of the nature of logic) cannot exist in what is mined, else you are making an error.
I'll leave off there with Religion, and not attempt to 'explain' it, but the philosophical starting point, is existence, the ethical starting point is Life, not just any life, but your life, and the wide angle perspective is 'The Good Life' the broad and deep concept of Happiness. Without going through my 14 points above, that which is of value to you, is of value to you, only becomes a value to you, through Reason applied to reality, and abstracted into conceptual meaning, and upwards still further into philosophy and ethics and the property & materials necessary for doing so.
Here we disagree. I do not hold that life is the starting point of ethics. Not my life, nor anyone else's. Ethics is a set of comparisons by which I make judgments about how I live. (The term 'the good life' is so vague that it is virtually meaningless.) Who defines it - each person?
What if the maniac in our example finds rape to be 'the good life' - it's his life, is it not? How can I set any ethical standard upon him, if the criteria is 'not just any life, but your life' - and he holds to that as a truth? Have you not just excused his behavior in an effort to keep from flattening ethics into a set of universals?
God's decree (reflecting His nature) is the starting point. We learn what is right and wrong from what God says. These statements are not metaphor, they are propositional.
I also do not agree that the starting point of philosophy is existence, I believe that it is rationality.
Reducing the deeply hierarchical structure of Ethics to a flattened imperative, as are Kant's categorical imperatives, is the very same thing as just mentioned, and it destroys ethics completely. If you're faced with
such a major contradiction, as choosing between telling the truth and giving your daughter over to a maniac,
There is no contradiction here (unless the definition of contradiction has changed.) If I am asked 'Is your daughter home?' (assuming that she IS home) the only contradiction is to make a declaration that negates the truth. 'No!' You are very aware of the conditions that must be present for a contradiction to be in effect: a set of two propositions must negate one another. 'My daughter is home,' and 'My daughter is your possession' do not negate one another!
then you can be pretty well assured that there is a flaw in your premises.
The only flaw in any premise I see here is the fact that you think these things contradict.
From where I stand, there can be two contradictions:
1) 'My daughter is home,' and 'My daughter is not home.'
2) 'My daughter is your possession' and 'My daughter is not your possession'
The flaw here is that the principle of ethical honesty is in anyway at jeopardy in this situation.
What exactly is ethical honesty? Does it differ from other forms of honesty?
The proper basis for human interaction, for Reason, is through reason, not force. The maniac at the door is attempting to exact information, property, from you BY FORCE, information which he neither has a right to, nor a capacity for.
Unless I misread the example we are using, I would say that this is also not quite true:
1) the maniac is not attempting to extract information by force. He is asking if my daughter is home.
2) I have no idea if he has a capacity for the information - I do not have that much information.
3) But I do agree that he does not have a right to the information. And as such, I believe there are many responses that you can give him.
He most certainly initiating force against my daughter, and I - and my daughter - are most certainly free to respond as strongly as possible. Hence, my premise that you offer him bullets as part of your answer. But you are incorporating too much into a single syllogism (creating a complex question.)
If a maniac at the door demands any property from you, whether it be weapons, car keys or information, which he has neither a right to, nor the capacity for handling responsibly, you are well within your rights to refuse it to him, and in fact it would be immoral to do otherwise.
I could not agree more. Where we disagree is not in the fact that the maniac is acting immorally. The issue is over the fact that a lie is immoral. It is a question of whether the proposition: 'It is wrong to lie' is true or false.
Moreover it is not a question of you lying or not. That is an action you take. The fact that you may do so to save your daughter's life does not negate the premise that it is a wrong. Ethical questions are involved in every decision you make, to some degree.
Situations do not change ethical standards.
Van Said: "One small example, Ecclesiastes 7:4 "The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth."... this is not a description of real estate, it must be read poetically to gain the value from it, going around looking for the house at #1 Mirth St, would make you the fool. Religion is all encompassing, because it poetically grasps all from the top of the philosophical pyramid, and any single line in it can be mined for volumes of exposition for that very reason. "house of mirth" is the very tippy top tip of a huge pyramid of thought and understanding, is is not the ground level paving stone."
You are correct Van, the way you worded this is nicely put as well.
David said: "I will not speak for any religious view but my own. Delegating the Christian Scriptures to the generalization
that it must be read poetically discounts any propositions found in it. Propositions are never poetic, at least in any definition I can think of. (You may be able to state one in rhyme.) An example: "Obed is David's grandfather." (Ruth 4:22). The passage in Ecclesiastes is a metaphor, but the fact that Scripture uses metaphor does not infer that all Scripture is therefore metaphor.
The fact that Scripture can be 'mined' for volumes of exposition has a limit: from my point of view, Scripture is true (a function of logic) - which means that contradiction (by virtue of the nature of logic) cannot exist in what is mined, else you are making an error."
David, I like your use of Logic. But, I often see problems when people fall back on logic for defense of certain things. My biggest problem with Logic is that it can be used as a tool to make the variances of language say things that in reality are not true. But with Logic, they must be. I will give two examples and feel free the both of you to chew them up and spit them out.
Example 1:
For this exercise lets say that B stands for the time you are going to get out of bed tomorrow which will be exactly seven minutes after you wake up.
“1. Yesterday God infallibly believed B. (Supposition of infallible foreknowledge)
2. In is now necessary that yesterday God believe B. (Principle of Necessity of the Past.)
3. Necessarily, if yesterday God believed B, then B. (Definition of infallibility.)
4. So it is now necessary that B. (2-3, Transfer of Necessity Principle.)
5. If it is now necessary that B, then you cannot do otherwise then get out of bed tomorrow exactly seven minutes after you wake up. (Definition of necessary.)
6. Therefore, you cannot do otherwise than get out of bed tomorrow exactly seven minutes after you wake up. (4-5, modus ponens.)
7. If you cannot do otherwise when you do an act, you do not do it freely.
(Principle if Alternate Possibilities)
8. Therefore, when you get out of bed tomorrow, you will not do it freely.
(6-7, modus ponens)” (Oxford, 46-47)
Pretty simple Logic proof that shows that we do not have free will.
Now don't misunderstand me, I like Logic and I find aspects of it very interesting. But, I feel that it is just to easy to misuse a tool like Logic to say things that are just not true and that makes it suspect. In fact given enough time and the use of a few of my books I can find a good Logic proof that an arrow does not actually move through the air. But that is another issue.
David said "Premise 1: It is always wrong to lie, regardless of the outcome."
Well, I believe that is fundamentally wrong in it's structure, assumptions and intent.
I think your working out the logic of your argument is fine, but is based upon a deeper flawed premise - that a Lie is nothing more than the misreporting of factual data.
And I think your premises are the wrong ones to work from. The contradiction I was speaking of, was that of two higher level values apparently in opposition to each other. If the premises you use to determine whether or not to tell the 'truth', mean that Honesty, Integrity and Truth are in apparent opposition to one of your supreme values, in our examples case, the daughter's life... then something has gone amiss in your premises. You need to ask yourself "Integrity ... to what?" Honesty, Integrity and Truth are of the highest values. Your daughters life is of the highest value. If maintaining one value means the destruction of the other value, somewhere you've got a contradiction in your premises, and that means an error.
I submit, that that error lies in where you have placed the source and allegiance of your honesty, integrity and Truth. Honesty to... what... a factual identification of things as they are? That the factual identification of things as they are is to be more highly valued, that you should spit out a GPS location of your daughter's position to a maniac, because... it is factual? Or you should say noting at all and rouse his suspicions to barge into your home and kill your daughter? That you should try to overpower him, who may be much more powerful than you, at the risk of both you and your daughters life?
Not buying it. But that is the unavoidable result of placing your Values in a flat and lifeless robotic response, in what amounts to Duty (hello Mr. Kant), as opposed to that which makes anything of value possible to be Valued. To say something is of value, presupposes the question: of value to whom, and for what. That whom and what, are your life, and for the purpose of living a life worth living.
"What if the maniac in our example finds rape to be 'the good life' - it's his life, is it not? How can I set any ethical standard upon him, if the criteria is 'not just any life, but your life' - and he holds to that as a truth? Have you not just excused his behavior in an effort to keep from flattening ethics into a set of universals?"
No.
Reason is our tool of survival, if you don't reason at all, you die. If you reason poorly, you live at best, less well than you could. To live a Reasoning life, requires that, in your relation with other men, that you forgo the initiation of force, since force negates reason. Forcing someone to do as you say, means forcing them to act contrary to their own reason, their own tool of survival, against their own life. Civilization proper, requires the need to recognize that each person must be free to live by the light of their own reason, which means the rejection of initiating force in your relations with other men.
That puts Rape out of the question. Robbery out of the question. If your life is your value, then your reason should be employed towards living your life as best as you reasonably can. Through a long chain of inference and deduction, lessons of life, history, religion, culture, that's going to mean living a virtuous life. A life of toys and thrills, can, with way more html that I can put in a comment, be shown to be a life unreasonable, empty, wasted. A life lived for breathing and eating only, again, can be shown to be empty and in the end, utterly worthless. There are many celebrity suicides we could point to for instances.
Life, your life, is enhanced, deepened, given more worth, depth and value, the deeper your conceptual understanding of not only the world, but yourself and your relations with those you love, is enhanced - they make your life worth living, and are, to a reasonable man, among your highest values. The more satisfying something is, the less it consists of the physical, perceptual pleasure, and the more it has of the conceptual pleasures, and they necessarily become more and more deeply integrated and intertwined, the more long range their scope and perspective.
That is what you give your honesty, integrity and Truth to. And the more you do, the more you will find that life, your life, is dependent upon, and enhanced through, your honest relations and love towards your friends, family, community... and the highest and furthest conceptual reach, your religion and God.
The reasoning Man, will also discover, that their own life, and the value they hold in it, may in many cases, not be worth living, if it meant abandoning those and that which gives meaning to your life. Most any Parent, Policemen or Soldier could tell you all about that. Preserving that which makes your life Valuable, could in some instances, mean giving up your own life.
That structure requires the deepest commitment to honesty and integrity and Truth, within, and for, those values. That is a critically important point.
Some unreasoning person, criminal or maniac, who has no concept of Truth as being other than a mere dutiful reporting of fact, has no claim upon you for anything whatsoever, and has no place in that integrated structure of truth, and I think Love, which is your life, and they have no claim upon you or your values, simply by demanding that you explain how to destroy all that is of value to you and makes life worth living.
Attempting to obtain information from you in order to destroy that which you value, an action in which you would in no way endorse or allow, is an implied fraud, and an initiation of force.
The madman, attempting to obtain what they have no right to, your daughters life, in order to destroy it, is an implied initiation of force.
We do not call someone who mistakenly passes incorrect information a liar. Lying, is purposefully conveying a misrepresentation of reality to someone who has a right to expect the full truth from you. I reject the idea that Truth is nothing more than a set of factual data. We are not robots. We are not rodents. Truth to a Human Being, is a deeply conceptual structure, and itself requires an ethical understanding which is only possible through a highly developed set of concepts and values. If a person has no right to claim the information from you, you are under no obligation to give it to him, and THAT is not lying, any more than shooting a burglar about to stab your wife would be murder, and it would be in no way unethical to do so. Conveying factually incorrect information to someone with no right to the Truth, is not Lying, it is not going against your deepest values of your life: honesty and integrity and truth, it is upholding them.
"Philosophy and theology can most certainly exist on the same grounds! If they contradict, there is a problem with one of the two!"
I do not mean to say they cannot exist on the same grounds, only that they often require us to use different tools and methods of operation. Philosophy starts from the ground up and out, Religion works from the whole, inwards.
I look at it as Philosophy being geologic, working from the surface, attempting to discover the hidden nature at the center of the earth, and explain the movement of the continental crusts and so on. Religion is the Astronomical, the BIG picture, the entirety of the One Cosmos, from which we can work our way in towards our centers. The first deals with rocks and measurements, the other with light years and gravity.
A metaphor, not an argument - best I can do in a paragraph, I only mean that while they are not in opposition, we should not attempt to use them, or prove them, in the same fashion.
Philosophy works from the particulars towards generalizations, abstractions. The bullet points I mentioned above, are unavoidably rationalistic and deductive (being bullet points), but a blog comment doesn't permit much more; but they are a thumbnail sketch of how I establish that life, your life, is the purpose of your life, that Reason is your tool. Philosophy takes those particulars common to all, and abstracts them upward into the principles that a life lived Reasonably, in accordance with reality, without initiating force against others, will demand that life be lived ethically - and that is the route that can lead to Happiness.
"I also do not agree that the starting point of philosophy is existence, I believe that it is rationality. "
Having Rationality as a starting point, as if it could be a starting point, is the error Descartes made with his revival of the Cogito.
Using "I think, therefore I am", puts you prior to, and above, existence, and not only existence in the world, but such Cartesian Doubt is what has led to the dissolving of Religion that has been born out since then, it puts you above and prior to existence, and as Post-Modernism has inevitably followed from it, it puts the individual person above God as well.
To attempt to say that "I think, therefore I am", conveniently skips over the fact that you are using words, concepts and thoughts which were not born fully developed into your skull. A child can learn to read, and puzzle out the pronunciation of 'Politics', but saying the word, will not reveal its meaning to him. Reading the definition in Webster's will provide some words, but still no true understanding of the term. There are layers and layers of meaning that must be acquired and integrated, before that word will be understood, not just mouthed.
There are three philosophic axioms which you cannot escape using, and cannot not use in any attempt to explain or prove them, hence they cannot be proved, for any attempt at proving them would be circular. They are axioms, and they precede Descartes cogito, and his doubt, and anything else we might wish to try to declare.
Existence - existence exists.
Identity - What exists, exists as something, and is not at the same time and context another thing.
Consciousness - the faculty which grasps existence through that which it exists as, and in doing so, we become conscious that we are conscious.
There are years worth of flat, perceptual level identifications, that must be made, before a child is able to develop the rudimentary conceptual structure necessary to conceptually grasp that words mean something, and if you've had kids, you probably noticed some of those moments when they come to recognize that, and even thrill to that. There are many more years worth of conceptual construction that must be engaged in, before they learn to speak, and even more before a person develops the Human grasp of existence, our Conceptual method of understanding the world, and how to use Reason to navigate it. Before we are able to understand the word Politics, or come to the point of being able to ponder the proposition "I think, therefore I am"... that conceptual development must take place, and if we aren't careful, that Cartesian proposition can disintegrate our minds ability to grasp any of it.
Look around you at the modern world, that is the cancer that has been moving through it.
You and I know that this comment is far from enough to prove what I'm saying. I've written several series of posts on the subject (particularly Reasons of Reason and What are Words for), and I've still not covered it... but I hope you'll consider it. Give it some thought, see where it leads.
This I very much believe, and I don't say it lightly, it's been twenty years in development for me, the Cogito, and its implications, and similar positions and developments through Hume, Rousseau, Godwin, Kant, Hegel, Marx... they are destructive to Reason, destructive to Religion, and destructive to Philosophy as such.
You had a lot of very good points, and I barely scratched the surface here... but I'm so far past my bedtime it ain't funny, g'night.
VAN!!!! Curse you!! Stop making me think!! Just stop it!!
Hi Lance:
David, I like your use of Logic. But, I often see problems when people fall back on logic for defense of certain things. My biggest problem with Logic is that it can be used as a tool to make the variances of language say things that in reality are not true. But with Logic, they must be. I will give two examples and feel free the both of you to chew them up and spit them out.
7. If you cannot do otherwise when you do an act, you do not do it freely.
(Principle if Alternate Possibilities)
8. Therefore, when you get out of bed tomorrow, you will not do it freely.
(6-7, modus ponens)” (Oxford, 46-47),,,
Pretty simple Logic proof that shows that we do not have free will.
Lance, I am not sure how using logic demonstrates that it can be misused. While I agree that it can be used as a tool for harm, that is not a flaw in logic itself, but in it's misuse. The very notions of sophistry and equivocation are logical errors, not flaws of logic.
In any use of logic, there comes a point where those in discussion where the exact definitions of the subject and predicate of any proposition must be understood. If someone is playing with a different definition in either portion, it is only a problem as long as the misunderstanding continues...
Now don't misunderstand me, I like Logic and I find aspects of it very interesting. But, I feel that it is just to easy to misuse a tool like Logic to say things that are just not true and that makes it suspect. In fact given enough time and the use of a few of my books I can find a good Logic proof that an arrow does not actually move through the air. But that is another issue.
I can only raise one question here. What is the alternative to using logic? Not using logic?
Hi David,
"I can only raise one question here. What is the alternative to using logic? Not using logic?"
That is a good question. I do not think that not using logic is the answer, though in the case of the Federal Bailout it appears to me that Congress did just that, I guess my concern is when logic is being used as wordplay tool to say things that are just not true. I am not sure how to counter such a thing. Or perhaps I am just to sensitive to it's perceived use.
Well, I believe that is fundamentally wrong in it's structure, assumptions and intent. I think your working out the logic of your argument is fine, but is based upon a deeper flawed premise - that a Lie is nothing more than the misreporting of factual data.
My definition of a lie is the statement of a contradiction of truth. I have never predicated the term as a misrepresentation of factual data. That is one form of lying, but not the definition.
The contradiction I was speaking of, was that of two higher level values apparently in opposition to each other
Again, this is no contradiction. It may be irritating, or confusing, but no contradiction. The definition of a contradiction does not include the idea of APPARENT opposition. It involves the notion of ACTUAL opposition.
If the premises you use to determine whether or not to tell the 'truth', mean that Honesty, Integrity and Truth are in apparent opposition to one of your supreme values, in our examples case, the daughter's life... then something has gone amiss in your premises. You need to ask yourself "Integrity ... to what?" Honesty, Integrity and Truth are of the highest values. Your daughters life is of the highest value. If maintaining one value means the destruction of the other value, somewhere you've got a contradiction in your premises, and that means an error.
I submit again that you have not read my comments and are arguing against a straw man.
I stated quite clearly that to lie is wrong. I stated quite clearly that the intended force against my daughter is also wrong. I made no comparisons as to which was the worse evil; from a human point of view, I submit that the second is the worse evil. Moreover, I have not related that you somehow have no choice but to tell the truth, as though there is some sort of compulsive necessity to mouth only words that do not contradict reality. I simply stated that lying is wrong. You are free to do so, and in the circumstance you may believe that lying might avoid harm. Whether this is true or not will become readily apparent quite quickly. It does not change the fact that in considering the lie as a rational action, it is a moral wrong. You are still free to do so. You are no less human for lying. You may even save your daughter's life. This does not negate my premise.
I submit, that that error lies in where you have placed the source and allegiance of your honesty, integrity and Truth. Honesty to... what... a factual identification of things as they are? That the factual identification of things as they are is to be more highly valued, that you should spit out a GPS location of your daughter's position to a maniac, because... it is factual? Or you should say noting at all and rouse his suspicions to barge into your home and kill your daughter?
My allegiance is to God, the source of my honesty and integrity arise from my being created in His likeness. Because I define lying as a contracting of the truth, I also define it as a rape of the character of God. God is the source of all truth - truth is the content of God's mind. Lying is the contradiction of God's knowledge. I may do so, in fact I have in the past and will in the future. Moreover, the intent to harm my daughter is also a rape of the character of God; she was created in his image as well. I hold that BOTH are wrong. Proper moral behavior manifests itself in doing the right thing. It is not possible for any human being to do so all the time, but the fact that we are unable to do does not negate this fact.
That you should try to overpower him, who may be much more powerful than you, at the risk of both you and your daughters life?
You are already at risk, in this instance, and it is possible that no statement you make will change that.
Not buying it. But that is the unavoidable result of placing your Values in a flat and lifeless robotic response, in what amounts to Duty (hello Mr. Kant), as opposed to that which makes anything of value possible to be Valued. To say something is of value, presupposes the question: of value to whom, and for what. That whom and what, are your life, and for the purpose of living a life worth living.
Again, I point out that I answer to God for every action I do, not just some of them, not just more noticeable. Nor does God make the claim anywhere that the end ever justifies the means, that we are free to break his decree so that good may come of it. You are right, this points to duty, but not because Duty exists, nor to Duty for its own sake. It does so, because the Creator has declared it to be so.
"What if the maniac in our xample finds rape to be 'the good life' - it's his life, is it not? How can I set any ethical standard upon him, if the criteria is 'not just any life, but your life' - and he holds to that as a truth? Have you not just excused his behavior in an effort to keep from flattening ethics into a set of universals?"
No.
Reason is our tool of survival, if you don't reason at all, you die. If you reason poorly, you live at best, less well than you could. To live a Reasoning life, requires that, in your relation with other men, that you forgo the initiation of force, since force negates reason. Forcing someone to do as you say, means forcing them to act contrary to their own reason, their own tool of survival, against their own life. Civilization proper, requires the need to recognize that each person must be free to live by the light of their own reason, which means the rejection of initiating force in your relations with other men.
Here's a partial quote of your words:
"...the ethical starting point is Life, not just any life, but your life, and the wide angle perspective is 'The Good Life' the broad and deep concept of Happiness...[snip]...that which is of value to you, is of value to you, only becomes a value to you, through Reason applied to reality, and abstracted into conceptual meaning, and upwards still further into philosophy and ethics and the property & materials necessary for doing so..."
1) The starting point is the life of a particular individual. (I am assuming you weren't specifically specifying 'me (David)' as the 'your life' in the example.)
2) The wide angle perspective is 'The Good Life' - which is inferred to be the concept of Happiness.
I assume here that this means the starting point of ethics, in its broadest application, is the happiness of the individual.
3) That which is of value to me only becomes a value to me though 'Reason' applied to reality.
4) This is abstracted into concepts, and then into philosophy (I note that the beginning of Philosophy comes after the use of 'Reason' in this paragraph) and so on into the property and materials necessary for 'doing so' which, at this point, I assume is a reference to #2 (the achievement of 'The Good Life.')
Using this set of statements, we can look at your proof that my statement is wrong:
Reason is our tool of survival, if you don't reason at all, you die.
Probably true, at least without the medical intervention of someone else.
...If you reason poorly, you live at best, less well than you could.. .
Without further definition, I assume this means that if you do not consider the consequences of your actions carefully enough (or, on a lesser plane - consider the means you use to achieve your goal well enough) you will not achieve the 'Happiness' you could otherwise find.
So far, no real trouble with your argument.
To live a Reasoning life, requires that, in your relation with other men, that you forgo the initiation of force, since force negates reason.
Here things really fall apart. You make what I can only see as an unfounded statement: "Force negates reason." Issues I have with this:
1) I can only assume that the 'Reasoning' life is somehow different from the 'reasoning' life. It may be that this is a life that is reserved for those with 'the secret knowledge' or 'the chosen' - there is no real reason given for making a special case out of the term. Hence I find that the entire premise is very difficult to follow - there is at least one, if not more, missing propositions.
2) The idea that force negates reason (as opposed to force negating 'Reason'?) is, in my mind, completely false. Reason is the use of thought to arrive at conclusions. One has to plan a crime very carefully in order for it to work out to ones benefit. In this case, careful reasoning is more likely to effect success in the use of force than lack of planning.
Given this I do not see how my original comment is in any way wrong. Since:
1) the starting point for ethics is not just any life, but my life,
2) the goal of ethics is my happiness ('the Good Life')
3) the way that I achieve happiness is through the use of reason.
then:
1) What I view as happiness is the goal toward which I aim my efforts (it is MY life, not yours, that is the starting point for MY ethics) - - and you do not define what makes me happy - - Do you?
2) I must use reason to achieve this happiness. Since reason is the application of thought toward the achievement of a goal (I have no idea what this mysterious 'R'eason is - it must be something different (more of that special knowledge?) I must apply reason to achieve my happiness.
3) Since I find theft to be an effective means to achieve MY happiness, I am therefore free to use it.
I find nothing that negates this in anything you have written - unless the mysterious capitalized words hold very special meanings which you intend for our later enlightenment.
If your life is your value, then your reason should be employed towards living your life as best as you reasonably can.
Agreed, although the use of the term 'should' is highly suspect. Why should I?
Through a long chain of inference and deduction, lessons of life, history, religion, culture, that's going to mean living a virtuous life. A life of toys and thrills, can, with way more html that I can put in a comment, be shown to be a life unreasonable, empty, wasted. A life lived for breathing and eating only, again, can be shown to be empty and in the end, utterly worthless.
This is a value judgment that you are making based upon YOUR ethical standard - and yet you were very clear that the standard of ethics is not just any life, but your life. I'm afraid to ask.... Is the life which is to be the starting point for ethics literally your life? If so, then I can see how you can make value judgments about things such as: "...A life of toys and thrills, can be shown to be a life unreasonable, empty, wasted..."
While that may be so, it does not negate the idea that the person whose life, not just any life, but (their?) life, is the starting point for their ethics - upon which they make decisions (i.e., use reason) to pursue 'the Good Life' (which, to them IS toys and thrills).
There are many celebrity suicides we could point to for instances.
Perhaps the 'Good Life' needs to be defined better so that these people will have a different idea of what happiness is! Who should we choose to pick what defines 'The Good Life' - and can we make everyone agree?
Life, your life, is enhanced, deepened, given more worth, depth and value, the deeper your conceptual understanding of not only the world, but yourself and your relations with those you love, is enhanced - they make your life worth living, and are, to a reasonable man, among your highest values. The more satisfying something is, the less it consists of the physical, perceptual pleasure, and the more it has of the conceptual pleasures, and they necessarily become more and more deeply integrated and intertwined, the more long range their scope and perspective.
I wold argue that this is entirely subjective. YOU think these things are so. This does not infer:
1) that they are
2) that others agree with you.
That structure requires the deepest commitment to honesty and integrity and Truth, within, and for, those values. That is a critically important point.
The deepest commitment to honesty, integrity and 'T'ruth would most certainly involve the idea of not negating it (lying), otherwise you just aren't all that committed to it - it simply becomes useful at times. This in no way infers that you are not able to lie when you find it 'necessary.' I am simply arguing that lying is a wrong, as cheating, killing, etc. As for a critically important point - its hard to tell what the point is. It's so buried in poetics and embellished rhetoric that you need to spend hours deciphering to get to the heart of the issue - and even then its impossible to tell if you actually got the point being declared.
Some unreasoning person, criminal or maniac, who has no concept of Truth as being other than a mere dutiful reporting of fact, has no claim upon you for anything whatsoever, and has no place in that integrated structure of truth, and I think Love, which is your life, and they have no claim upon you or your values, simply by demanding that you explain how to destroy all that is of value to you and makes life worth living.
Nor was this claim made. The claim was that the action itself - lying - is a wrong. There is no need to give the madman ANY answer, and if you have a very strong moral conscience, it might be better for you to chose not to answer rather than cause yourself other troubles.
The madman, attempting to obtain what they have no right to, your daughters life, in order to destroy it, is an implied initiation of force.
This is quite true, it has never been denied. As I wrote before, the issue is not whether a lie may save your daughter's life or not (it may) but whether the innate nature of lying is morally right or not. I deny and always
will, that ANY situation (barring one - God making a new decree)that lying is a moral good. It is not a question of whether or not you NEED to lie, or do not NEED to lie, or whether or not you WILL lie, but over the nature of the action itself, considered as an action.
I submit that your reasoning for why we should live a virtuous life no more proves that we should than that we should live an immoral life.
I propose the same for your reasoning. I cannot accept the idea that your opinion of what we should do somehow makes things ethical.
My reasoning for why we should live a virtuous life? Depending on your standing before God, you do so either because it honors the Creator, (conversely this means avoiding the immoral,) or because you hope it will save you in the afterlife.
"I also do not agree that the starting point of philosophy is existence, I believe that it is rationality. "
Having Rationality as a starting point, as if it could be a starting point, is the error Descartes made with his revival of the Cogito.
My argument is that unless you can think, philosophy is impossible. Bacteria exist. They do not do Philosophy. In order to examine meaning, one must be able to think. Existence is necessary, but philosophy begins after thought begins, not before.
To attempt to say that "I think, therefore I am", conveniently skips over the fact that you are using words, concepts and thoughts which were not born fully developed into your skull.
This negates the idea that children are born already able to think and are instead merely incapably of verbal communication.
A child can learn to read, and puzzle out the pronunciation of 'Politics', but saying the word, will not reveal its meaning to him. Reading the definition in Webster's will provide some words, but still no true understanding of the term. There are layers and layers of meaning that must be acquired and integrated, before that word will be understood, not just mouthed.
This proves both of our points, negating neither. Unless you exist you cannot think. True. But unless you can think, you cannot do philosophy. I am not making the ridiculous claim that thought precedes existence (I wouldn't be much of a thinker if that were my mode). I would also point out that Descarte was not trying to create existence from thought, he was trying to show that he must exist. He is thinking, isn't he? That would not occur unless he existed. Hence, the idea of thought proves the fact of existence - which must 'exist' - tautological as that is.
There are years worth of flat, perceptual level identifications, that must be made, before a child is able to develop the rudimentary conceptual structure necessary to conceptually grasp that words mean something, and if you've had kids, you probably noticed some of those moments when they come to recognize that, and even thrill to that.
I've had....some....kids...
Just to let you know, I reject Tabula Rasa, and all forms of empiricism. Not that this necessarily has any bearing on our discussion - it merely gives you an idea of where I am.
There are many more years worth of conceptual construction that must be engaged in, before they learn to speak, and even more before a person develops the Human grasp of existence, our Conceptual method of understanding the world, and how to use Reason to navigate it. Before we are able to understand the word Politics, or come to the point of being able to ponder the proposition "I think, therefore I am"... that conceptual development must take place, and if we aren't careful, that Cartesian proposition can disintegrate our minds ability to grasp any of it.
Hence, rationality precedes - in fact, is necessary - for philosophy. Philosophy, (NOT THOUGHT) finds its start in being able to use reason to examine thought.
Oh Man! Are you ever going to make me work for it! Come a long way from the IRS, eh?
I'll have to take this up tomorrow, no way I can do this again tonight and being the longwinded one I am, I seriously doubt that I'm going to meet all your arguments to either of our satisfactions, but I'll give it a shot tomorrow. May require standalone posts on my site, but we'll see. And yeah, sorry for the creative capitalizations, old bad habit, I'll see what I can do.
Lance said "VAN!!!! Curse you!! Stop making me think!! Just stop it!! "
pshaw... yeah right! Just trying to give some of what I'm getting!
Let me just point out a couple key points for now, to be followed up on later,
"I assume here that this means the starting point of ethics, in its broadest application, is the happiness of the individual."
nnnot quite, close, but no, it's a small miss, but quickly brings all else down in crashing ruins of subjectivism.
"Here things really fall apart. You make what I can only see as an unfounded statement: "Force negates reason."
I strongly disagree, and will clarify later.
"Just to let you know, I reject Tabula Rasa, and all forms of empiricism. Not that this necessarily has any bearing on our discussion - it merely gives you an idea of where I am."
I support Tabula Rasa and am not an empiricist. Yeah, obviously needs clarifying.
"Who should we choose to pick what defines 'The Good Life' - and can we make everyone agree?"
No one, and never.
"I wold argue that this is entirely subjective. YOU think these things are so. "
Nothing subjective, all objective.
"1) What I view as happiness is the goal toward which I aim my efforts (it is MY life, not yours, that is the starting point for MY ethics) - - and you do not define what makes me happy - - Do you?
2) I must use reason to achieve this happiness. Since reason is the application of thought toward the achievement of a goal (I have no idea what this mysterious 'R'eason is - it must be something different (more of that special knowledge?) I must apply reason to achieve my happiness.
3) Since I find theft to be an effective means to achieve MY happiness, I am therefore free to use it. "
The mistaken starting point of ethics leads into a wider and necessary context being droped in these three points, and hence the crashing ruins.
Back tomorrow.
David and Van, I just want to tell you both that. While I know we have drifted away from the IRS. I really am enjoying the intelligent conversation and the polite nature of it. I also am enjoying the subject matter.
I do have a question for David on the subject of lying. In the Bible when it tells of people lying for different reasons. Once I believe it was to save some lives. Are those all just completley wrong? Am I right in understanding that for you intent and results do not matter that for you an untruth is wrong at all times and in all situations?
David said "I assume here that this means the starting point of ethics, in its broadest application, is the happiness of the individual.""
No, this is just a high fallutin recasting of hedonism, that the good is that which is pleasurable - also a consequence of taking consciousness as the starting point, instead of existence. More following.
I'd said:
"To live a Reasoning life, requires that, in your relation with other men, that you forgo the initiation of force, since force negates reason."
And you replied:
"Here things really fall apart. You make what I can only see as an unfounded statement: "Force negates reason." Issues I have with this..."
Ok, let me partially address these two with the following.
Reason is your tool for making choices in the pursuit of a goal, whether that goal be how to kill a bear, or how best to represent God touching Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, it is in essentials the same. When someone forces you to choose other than what you see as your best choice, not through persuasion, but through force - they have removed you from your actions. The choices you are making are no longer yours, you are not reasoning.
Reasoning effectively, requires respecting reality as it is. As Bacon put it, "Nature to be commanded, must be obeyed". You are free to choose to hunt Bear with a fishing rod, reasoning that 'since your trusty rod has helped you catch food in the past, it'll do just fine for bear hunting too', but that would not be reasoning rationally it would not reflect an accurate assessment or expectation of reality. It would however, still be the product of your irrational reasoning. Not so of someone under force.
You defined Reason as "Reason is the use of thought to arrive at conclusions", what is thought? Is it like a good thick branch you find lying around that you can use to whack passing rabbits? That definition seems to me to beg the question. So here I'd better state more clearly what I mean by Reason. To start, I think that any definition of Reason, must be applicable to any functioning human being, whether it be an infant (which I suspect applies pre and post birth), a savage, a college professor, a parent, a businessman, or any other.
Reason is the process of purposefully focusing your attention and imagination towards the achievement of a goal, using the current input of your senses, and the past experiences derived from them, in order to achieve that goal. That leaves 'purposefully' open to the same charge though. Gimme a moment.
The goal could be, in the case of our infant, a wordless 'wtf?' to the sounds, pressures and temperatures around them or 'would it be possible to blend iron and tin in order to create a stronger metal?' or "...Tell me Menon, what do you say the nature of Virtue is?' or 'what does 2 + 2 equal?'
Your reasoning, to be of value, must be in accordance with what you know of reality (a fishing rod is great for fishing, not so much for bear hunting), and it must adhere to reality and what you know of it. In order to survive, you must use reason. If you were faced with a table of food, dishes of delicacies with glass lids over them, if you didn't reason that you had to remove the lid in order to get at the food and eat, you would starve. You laugh, but a cow doesn't do this when snow covers the grass, it will stand there and starve (or so I'm told), not knowing, or able to know, to brush away the snow to get to the food.
Back to purposefully. Before you removed that lid, you would need to reason your way through a couple of choices first.
1)I'm hungry, do I want that food? Yep.
2)Choose to use your knowledge of how some objects rest upon other objects to figure out how you might get to the food,
3)Choose to, and follow through with, taking the action of reaching out and removing the lid to reach the food,
4)Choose to, and follow through with, taking the action of eating the food
Each of those steps involves your making a choice. Each choice must obey nature in order to benefit from it (if you pressed down on the lid, instead of lifting up, no yum-yums). To purposefully do anything, you must actively take the mental steps necessary to initiate the process of reasoning, and unless you meet a minimal adherence to reality, you will fail in carrying out your goal of eating the food. If you decided that you really really want the food and really really don't want to move, you'd prefer that the food come to you at your wish, wishing really really hard won't feed you, and you'll starve.
In this context, 'purposefully' requires choosing and acting. We may become accustomed to making such choices as reaching out and removing the glass lid and serving up a meal almost absentmindedly, but they are not automatic, and you are always free to choose to choose, or evade that need, and just stare at the lidded food, hoping it will come to you - or hoping that destroying the mechanisms of a free market won't destroy your ability to benefit from one. You must of your own self, your own free will, choose, and act (mentally or physically).
With that in mind, in order to survive, you must reason out what you need to do to survive. Your success and increasing prosperity depend upon the degree to which your reasoning respects reality, of the facts as you know them AND of how they actually are. You may be taught that it is a fact that chanting particular magic words will cause woodland fairies to bring cooked moose burgers to you, but believing it will not make it so.
The more your grasp of the 'facts as you know them' agree with the facts as they in reality are, the more successful and prosperous you have the possibility of becoming. Your success and prosperity is limited by the degree of disagreement between the facts as you know them, and the facts as they in reality are. Both in terms of woodland faeries, and of yourself and your society.
For society to progress beyond cavemen, an essentially human version of a lions den (or so we presume), there are several discoveries about their environment, themselves and their society that must be discovered, and respected. I hope you'll allow me to spare us the anthropological studies, and only state that bridging the gulf from hunter gatherers to agricultural societies, required paying attention to the fact that seeds can be sown, tended and reaped, if certain agriculturally correct steps for doing so were followed and applied to the land at hand. Those practices required and built upon a much deeper and conceptually long range knowledge and understanding of nature and society, than the flatter conceptual/perceptual knowledge that is required to follow a herd from one place to the next. I assume it is also a fair statement to make that farming practices also tend to foster divisions of labor in a society and trade among individuals.
In such a society, there must be respect the fact that it is wrong to take from someone what does not belong to them (stealing all of a farmers wheat leaves no farmer to steal from next year). In such a society where people are worthy of trusting to exchange value for value, they will be able to progress beyond the barter system into an economic currency based system, using some vehicle of currency, whether it be attractive seashells or gold coins, to foster the ease of trading goods - this can only be done when enough conceptual understanding of rules and behavior, of trusting that agreements will be met and not broken through forcibly absconding with your value - that enough trust is established that the currency you accepted in lieu of your bushels of wheat, can later be exchanged for other foods, goods and/or services you might need at a later date.
What every society above the cave stage infers from this, to varying degrees, is that 'thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet' (not intending that as some determinist explanation of religion, just noting the need for the conviction); the reason why, is because to become more human than animal - civilized - requires that the individuals in a society respect that what another individual in society produces, what they earn, what they create, is at least in some measure, securely theirs. There is a rather sizable chain of reasoning involved there, of people choosing to ponder, choose and act. The chain is wholly dependent upon the trust that others involved will follow through and not forcibly seize your goods in the end, playing you for a sucker.
In whatever society has risen above the level of linguistically enhanced lions dens, you will find an increase of the understanding that men are free to use their reason to obtain for themselves and their families the goods they require and desire. In some, the difference may be barely detectable, in others they may be well understood and specifically codified, but the degree to which the benefits of reason can be forcibly taken away, whether by communal pot or feudal king, that places a governor upon how far that society can and will rise. Short of preying upon the fruits of neighboring societies, they will not 'succeed' as a society, and the moment that a predatory societies prey discovers how to defend against them, that society will fail.
What chiefly has distinguished the West from other cultures, and enabled us to rise above them, has been the development of a systematic process to be followed when reasoning, through the use of logic; verifying that both the process and the results of reasoning, are in agreement with reality, and that THAT is of more importance, than who has been doing the reasoning. It don't matter if you're the big man on campus, if you say you can conjure moose burgers by the light of the full moon, people aren't going to listen any further to you. It also is what gives rise to verifiable terms such as Rational and Irrational, meaning that it is more important that the results of reasoning be demonstratably true, than who it was that did the reasoning. That involves not only the choices necessary for raw reasoning, as mentioned with the covered food, but the further choices necessary to apply logic while reasoning, and afterwards in the process of verifying that your results agree with reality.
When force enters this process, it prevents you from making the choices you would have otherwise have made, force causes you to do what you would not choose to do of your own free will. To force someone to take an action against their will, is to impose your choices, your decisions, your thought, for theirs... and at the cost, I might add, of no longer being able to benefit from the first hand knowledge and experience of the full range of facts of reality available to the person being enforced upon, meaning that the choice you are imposing, will be more equal to the thoughts that a dullard would make, than an alert and aware human being paying attention to not only his present needs but his future goals as well; it is no longer making full use of his knowledge and abilities as he would have done so on his own, and the results will only amount to what such inferior minds would be able to produce.
Force is stupifying. To rephrase it, Reason involves self directed free will acting across a span of time for a given purpose, utilizing the input of the senses as well as remembered experiences, in order to achieve new results. Force divorces choice, free will, from your experience, imagination and purposeful goals, and a rational application of them - it destroys reason.
To say that
"2) The idea that force negates reason (as opposed to force negating 'Reason'?) is, in my mind, completely false. Reason is the use of thought to arrive at conclusions. One has to plan a crime very carefully in order for it to work out to ones benefit. In this case, careful reasoning is more likely to effect success in the use of force than lack of planning."
A person may use the superficial operations of reason to plan a crime, but it is irrational from its very start and on through its goals. Rational reasoning cannot operate insulated from the rest of your life and experience of reality - not and still have any claim to rationality. See Lances 'proof' of the non-existence of free will above (I assume mockingly). Logic, to be valid, must agree not only internally, but must integrate externally with reality as well, or else it loses its claim to rationality.
You can declare that you are planning to steal some good, but a good can only be called such, because it serves some purpose in your life and is in rational accordance with reality. Your reasoning, to be valid, must stand up to that chain of detection from the hierarchical tip, to the perceptual reality, in order to be valid. Merely declaring that "It will serve my happiness to take your money", does not make that a valid, rational chain of reasoning. Such as:
- Man must reason to live, his life being the purpose of reasoning,
- The property acquired through his reasoning is necessary to sustain his life,
- To force him to take actions against his choice, against his will, is to prevent his reasoning and diminishes his life,
- For reasoning to produce reliable results, it must respect reality,
- In dealings and exchanges with other people, it is necessary for both parties to be honest,
- If a person doesn't reason, or doesn't reason well, they will not prosper,
- A man has a right to the property he creates,
- For any person to be secure in their possessions all must respect the right of others to do the same,
- To reason well, requires that man be free to reason and act in a manner of his best judgment,
- Force negates that process, force negates choice, force causes someone to act against their interests and judgment, force destroys reasoning.
- Therefore I'll just take what I want through force.
That isn't a supportable conclusion - people can and do make it, as did the congress last week to the tune of $700 billion (to start), but it is not reasonably defensible, and it is not rational.
Again,
- Mans tool of survival is his mind acting through the faculty of reason,
to produce and acquire that which is needed to survive and improve the conditions of his life,
- Reason operates through the operation of choices made to achieve a goal, by using the input of his senses and his past experiences to imagine and achieve a solution to his current goal.
- If man does not choose to reason and act, he will die.
- If man is not able to keep the products of his actions, he will die.
- Man cannot live safely and peaceably in society with other men, without their mutually respecting their need to reason, act and retain the results of those actions.
- Man has the potential to improve his skills, abilities and his confidence in being able to achieve what he needs to survive and improve the conditions of his life and increased wealth, through the careful application of reasoning to reality.
- Friendships, family, relations and community are maintained and enhanced through honest and fair interactions (again, the results of reasoning) with others who choose to interact with you.
- Exerting force to attain the affections, company or possessions of others, will produce unpleasant, unhappy, violent and destructive results.
- Happiness is a result of a life lived, at minimum, in accordance with this (not a definition or explanation of happiness or ethics, just a placeholder for what I've yet to deliver)
Men who force others to provide for them, not only relegate themselves to feeding off of the produce of their preys diminished intelligence, but they abdicate their own reasoning for the damaged conclusions of another. They also declare that no one, including themselves, have a right to their property, and must then live in constant suspicion or fear of someone else taking that which they have themselves taken. They are mentally impaired, and spiritually diminished - they are less than whole men, their intellectual and character integrity is shattered.
They may achieve some physical pleasures and comforts, but with such internal conflicts and opposition to their own nature, they will not achieve any measure of happiness.
Ok, that's only Force destroys Reason. This still leaves undealt with the questions of what Happiness is (Ooh! What luck! The purpose of life answered in a blog comment!), and the basis of ethics, Existence as the starting point for philosophy, the nature of experience, tabula rasa, etc.
David said "2) The wide angle perspective is 'The Good Life' - which is inferred to be the concept of Happiness.
I assume here that this means the starting point of ethics, in its broadest application, is the happiness of the individual."
No, I don't think so... there is a difference between value and purpose, your life is your ultimate value against which all others are measured, and Happiness is the purpose of your actions, it is served only by rationally achieving rational goals. Happiness is a desirable result, the purpose, a goal we aim towards via other actions. As Aristotle pointed out, we do other things in order to reach happiness, it is that for which all other things are done. And though all your other actions may be done for the purpose of achieving it, but all the actions you take cannot each be as able as any other, to lead you to happiness. There are very thieving, murdering drug addicts we would describe as having lived a happy life. It is aimed towards because it is the natural direction for, and a result of, and only attainable by, a rationally reasoning life – and the depth or intensity of happiness experienced, is varied by the depth and rational agreement of your knowledge, actions and character.
In my view, the fundamental requirement for Happiness is a person having non-contradictory values, principles and actions. We experience Happiness to the extent that our principles and actions agree; when they produce the results we seek, then pleasure is added to the experience of Happiness - which is desirable, but is not synonymous with or a requirement of, Happiness.
I disagree with Aristotle on this point (always a perilous thing to do), who seemed to hold that a life couldn’t be judged as having achieved Happiness, since it could always be beset with disaster at the end, but I don't agree. Pleasure and pleasurable and satisfactory circumstances, while desirable, are fleeting and dependent upon physical circumstances, they are unworthy of discrediting the highest of conceptual attainments and achievements. Although it takes a rare person indeed, meaning someone who does maintain such internal integrity, a person could experience Happiness even in the most dire of circumstances. As sages and saints have shown, a person can be calm, content, happy, even in the midst of turmoil, because they have achieved inner calm, understanding, peace, which I would attribute to a deep and thorough non-contradictory conceptual integrity (which is not meant in any way to preempt or substitute for either having made peace with, love of, or knowing God, but I'm not going to try and 'explain' that, though I would say that the results or physical manifestations of such an attainment, would be examinable in evidence as what I am describing) - that you have deep inter-supporting values, and have lived up to them.
The person who acquires vast amounts of wealth, while behaving and believing that it is proper to steal what you need, using whatever force is necessary as needed, cannot avoid not only a gnawing suspicion of all those around him, but he also cannot successfully bury the realization that he is only capable of taking what others produce - that he isn't capable of creating what he needs to live - without someone to be a parasite upon, he's finished. That mind and soul will be a turbulent pit of anxiety - it is incapable of experiencing Happiness, let alone confidence or any sense of peace and satisfaction whatsoever. Such a creature can experience pleasure, but it will require a steady stream of pleasures, ever varying, and at ever increasing doses of perceptual zing, and I don’t think it would even register upon the Happiness scale. Personally, I call that a tortuous state of failure... but to each their own.
There is little difference, other than in degree, between such a tyrant, and the man who poses as a faithful, loving husband, who in actuality is a scheming philanderer. That schism between values, actions and self knowledge, will not allow Happiness to be experienced to any appreciable degree.
A reasoning life (I'll assume that implies western style rationality from here out), must be, from its highest abstractions, traceable down to correspondence with reality - if you can't trace even the highest abstraction, from its tip, back down to its roots at the level of your perceptions and allegiance to reality, then you either don't know it, or it isn't true. To the extent you cannot do so, will leave gaps of uncertainty and unease, they unavoidably bubble up into your state of mind, in one way or another, which is why psychologists have a job (not that they’re able to do their job, but it’s why they have one).
"Gnothi Seauton", Know thy self, and "The unexamined life is not worth living" go together in many important ways, and we forget it at our peril.
An ethical life is built up, perceptual brick by perceptual brick, into conceptual columns, propositional walls and principled ceilings and flying buttresses, only through an allegiance to reality through the life you live.
Happiness is the purpose of your actions, and it is served by using your ability to reason towards achieving rational goals. The degree to which your convictions and actions do not contradict themselves or reality, is the degree to which you may be able to achieve Happiness. The person who achieves that level of integrity, and also manages to attain some degree of material success, would add pleasurable circumstances to their inner state, and have what we commonly refer to as a truly Happy life.
Now keep in mind, when I say 'reasoning', I mean a rational process, respecting reality and compatible with your other guiding values and principles, all of which are traceable back to reality and your experience of it. I won't try to go over how our knowledge and concepts are created through experience, I've devoted several posts to that, and couldn’t possibly condense it satisfactorily here, and for my purposes here, I think I've said enough.
(David, you said you are not an empiricist... are you saying you believe in innate ideas? I won't venture further along that path, until I hear from you first.)
I said I'm not an empiricist, which does, or did mean, all knowledge is derived from experience, but I find it is lacking in so far as how concepts are created, and ends in the 'problem of universals'. You may disagree with Ayn Rand's political and religious views, but her ideas on concept formation, the unit perspective and the conceptual common denominator, I think answer the problem and do away with it as an issue, which is why I am still epistemologically an Objectivist, not because of the conclusions they reach, but from the foundation they begin with.
Empiricism, while it does mean in its Aristotelian sense, that we are born tabula rasa and that all knowledge comes in through, and is derived from experience, it also is usually tinged with a nominalist bent, which I reject. Empiricism tends to have a quantifying mania about it, with a reactionary view towards Qualities, and that concepts are mere convenient namespaces for apparently similar quanta, having no actual identity which we grasp conceptually. There's a reason that empiricists such as Hume, etc, slid so quickly into skepticism (which IMHO, Kantianism is just an elaborate fig leaf over), and was followed quickly by the ultimate dissolution of philosophy into pragmatism.
Another problem, empiricism holds (I forgot which page I lifted this from) "'Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu" Latin phrase meaning "Nothing is in the understanding that was not earlier in the senses.' Hence, the central doctrine of the empiricism of Gassendi, Locke, and Mill.",
, is that it leaves out who and what the understanding is understood by. The processor. Us. I. Reason is not a product of sense perception, the sense perceptions only provide the materials it reasons with. Attention, is not a product of the senses, it is the awareness directed over a sustained period. Awareness is not a product of the senses - it requires sensory input to have something to be aware of, but that is not the same thing. Through conscious awareness, we select what is to be the object of our attention, but consciousness is not us, it is what WE use to engage awareness. WE are, and we are not reducible to the substance of sensory input or synaptic algorithms. I don't believe that we, the "I" is merely the echoing process of perceptions perceiving themselves. It is a root, beneath which we cannot successfully look under.
But it is not possible to say that "I", the "Soul", or "Consciousness" is a proper starting point for philosophy, nor its tool, rationality nor reason. Because without something to be conscious of, there would be nothing to be conscious of - there would be no reasoning, no rationality, know nothing.
That brings us around to Existence being the proper root of Philosophy, rather than rationality, or consciousness.
Existence comes first, nothing else follows without it.
And what exists, exists as something, it has Identity.
Consciousness would be unable to be conscious of anything, or any thing, without them.
Existence comes first, but nothing can be thought, said or done, without all three being referenced, either explicitly or implicitly; they are Axioms of a triune nature, with Existence being the primary.
Further, "I think therefore I am" is also not a proper or valid primary, because in reversing the order of conception (that man gains knowledge primarily by looking outwards at reality), that man gains knowledge primarily by looking inwards into consciousness, that philosophically ends up being stated as ‘existence is a product of consciousness’ ("reality is negotiable" isn't descended from Aristotelianism!), and that knowledge is to be found by looking inwards, towards the self.
Look how quickly the arts and sciences, under the influence of what followed from Descartes, led to self absorbed neurotics as depicted by Goethe in "The sorrows of young Werther", the Romantic movement, let alone totalitarian megalomaniacs like Hitler, Stalin and Mao. They are the direct result of an inverted philosophy, that puts consciousness above existence, and they didn't descend the philosophical ladder from Aristotle and Locke, but from Descartes, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Peirce & Dewey.
Ok, gotta go.
"...I do have a question for David on the subject of lying. In the Bible when it tells of people lying for different reasons. Once I believe it was to save some lives. Are those all just completley wrong? Am I right in understanding that for you intent and results do not matter that for you an untruth is wrong at all times and in all situations?..."
Sorry I've been absent for a while - been a little busy (homeschooling, work, etc...)
The Bible records many instances where people did something wrong, and yet good came of it. This does not change the moral nature of the individual act. This is because sin is sin by definition, not by intent.
Like I've stated many times, I do not believe the end ever justifies the means. This does not mean that the end may be some sort of good. It just means that there is an external, objective means of determining morality, and each action can be considered on its own.
Yes, lying is wrong at all times. Can a good thing result from a lie? Certainly. But in the end, every one will face God with that lie on their record.
When we lie, we believe we have all of the facts of the future in our possession: we believe that the outcome of our choice of statements will occur because of its use. I posit that while we may have an idea of what may transpire, this is not always a given. To act morally may sometimes seem counterintuitive - and may not even result in the event we want to have happen. Regardless, to act morally is noted by God.
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