Libertarianism in practice

[RCSaunders]

Do you see where this is going? It's proceeding towards a society where the affluent class is closed to the poorer class for ever and ever.

What's wrong with that?

Do you really see human beings in terms of, "classes?"

Do you see yourself as member of some class?

[By the way. You do not really have to answer either of those questions. It's not a test or argument, just an attempt to provide a different perspective. If nothing was done for the poorest class, and they all died, wouldn't that end what you consider a problem?]

[henry quirk]

Do you see where this is going? It's proceeding towards a society where the affluent class is closed to the poorer class for ever and ever.

What's wrong with that?

Do you really see human beings in terms of, "classes?"

Do you see yourself as member of some class?

[By the way. You do not really have to answer either of those questions. It's not a test or argument, just an attempt to provide a different perspective. If nothing was done for the poorest class, and they all died, wouldn't that end what you consider a problem?]

that's the thing: they don't have to, and probably won't die

if the problem makers and inflators just left them alone: 90% of the poor's problems would disappear (which, of course, means all those makers and inflaters, in the guise of solvers, would be out of a job)

[Belinda]

Do you see where this is going? It's proceeding towards a society where the affluent class is closed to the poorer class for ever and ever.

What's wrong with that?

Do you really see human beings in terms of, "classes?"

Do you see yourself as member of some class?

[By the way. You do not really have to answer either of those questions. It's not a test or argument, just an attempt to provide a different perspective. If nothing was done for the poorest class, and they all died, wouldn't that end what you consider a problem?]

Social class is a useful heuristic. My social class has varied during the course of my life.

Apart from the sadness of all those helpless people dying, there is great loss to any society's prosperity when any demographic group is liquidated, and this applies to whether the social class is Jews, Roma, very intelligent people, poor people, negroes, Asians, Roman Catholics, Protestants, Scottish crofters, so-called 'witches', amputees, Downs syndrome people, Aspergers people, original inhabitants, homosexual people, people who suffer from hallucinations, deaf people, musicians, people who block armoured tanks with their own bodies, etc etc

[RCSaunders]

Social class is a useful heuristic.

Social classes are useful for only one thing: promoting irrational prejudices and social/political agendas.

To identify one's self or others by means of social classes erases one's unique individual identity as a human being. No one is who or what they are because of some irrelevant physiological or biological characteristic. To classify or categorize people is tantamount to a caste system or the worst of racism.

[Skepdick]

Social classes are useful for only one thing: promoting irrational prejudices and social/political agendas.
...

Ahh well, it was Christmas and I was feeling all charitable and I was going to spend my time donating money to the less fortunate, and volunteering my time at soup kitchen and children hospitals.

I thought I could use my power and good fortune to improve (as best as I know how) the lives of those who are less fortunate than me but THEN! You opened my eyes.

There is no difference between me and the less fortunate! All classes are made up.
Pat yourself on the back for ruining an unexpected surprise for people who are having the worst time of their lives.

P.S you are a moron.

[Belinda]

Social class is a useful heuristic.

Social classes are useful for only one thing: promoting irrational prejudices and social/political agendas.

To identify one's self or others by means of social classes erases one's unique individual identity as a human being. No one is who or what they are because of some irrelevant physiological or biological characteristic. To classify or categorize people is tantamount to a caste system or the worst of racism.

Sure! All the patients on my ward get blood pressure reducing drugs whether or not they are classified as hypertensive and even when they have just fainted from hypotension.

[FlashDangerpants]

I don't actually agree that a chicken needs to be a person for it to be immoral to fuck a chicken.

Okay. Then why might it be immoral to have congress with a chicken?

I think it's disgusting, whacky, and I'll have no truck with a chicken lover but I don't think chicken-love is immoral ('course, there are strict vegans [or is it vegetarians?] who think my enjoyin' a bucket of the Colonel's is disgusting, whacky, and who'll have no truck with me [and I'm sure some even think chicken-eating is immoral]).

The exact specific chain of causes that makes it immoral is an in-house debate for you moral realists.

For the rest of us it is sufficient that everyone agrees that sexual abuse of power is immoral, and that fucking barnyard critters is indeed such an abuse. We aren't prisoners of any "simple" principle that resticts to an approved list of rights and wrongs that can never ever change.

I am however curious what makes you so sure you could assemble a functional society of people who assent that chickens can be fucked without recrimination because they aren't people.

Oh, I don't think I'd have to. Beastiality may not be immoral, but most folks think it's disgusting and whacky and won't have truck with a chicken lover. Chicken Joe, for example, has tons of sex with his flock, privately, behind close doors. No one knows about it. Most think Joe is an okay guy. It gets out, though, and suddenly no one, or nearly no one will transact with him.

Shunning can work, and it cuts deep when it does.

Shunning only works in little villages where everyone knows everybody else. Nobody except (poosibly?) you thinks that the minarchism you describe can work on a larger scale than such a village. Stuff like this is why.

My point was that the unpacking of these laws stops being clear and obvious as soon as any details have to be considered.

I disagree. Determinin' if the crank maker is in violation, is about application of the 3, not a flaw in the 3. And I, as I say, let my own prejudice skew my view. Like chicken lovers , I find crank-makers digusting, I'd have no truck with 'em, but, within the context of the 3, they aren't immoral.

This works fine as long as there is only one person in the world who believes in these 3. If I believed in them, I would believe the chicken had some claim to her rear end though. I wouldn't believe that a 6 week old cluster of cells had any particular claims unless left for a few more months to develop into an actual person.

Are there any other persons who believe in your 3? Do you actually agree with them over very much stuff?

a lot of people having to tolerate acts they find deeply and offensively immoral

Only for as long as the shunned can bear bein' shunned.

A society is shared ideas, notions, feelings, reasons, both formal and informal morals, and more. In the particular version I'm writin' about, the 3 -- as philosophical/moral undergirding, as foundation for a legal system -- is silent on odd, peculiar, or disgusting habits and behaviors. It's also silent on people's responses to those odd, peculiar, or disgusting habits and behaviors (outside of prohibiting violations of life, liberty, and property).

Joe, you've done nuthin' with your chicken-lovin' to deprive me of life, liberty, or property, so I ain't gonna deprive you of yours, but I ain't got to associate with you, transact with you, think kindly of you, or lift a finger to help you in any way.

I live in a city of about 7 million people. It's quite possible that everyone else on my street is already shunning me, I wouldn't know. I also couldn't pick any of them out of a lineup and I don't know any of their names.

[henry quirk]

it is sufficient that everyone agrees that sexual abuse of power is immoral

As a moral realist I say sexual abuse of power against a person is immoral becuz the person is his own and ought not be used by another as though he were not his own.

(this, of course, brings us back to the question: what is a person?)

(and: is chicken-eatin' immoral?)

We aren't prisoners of any "simple" principle that resticts to an approved list of rights and wrongs that can never ever change.

Of course not. We're the inheritors and beneficiaries of a reality pertaining to ourselves (a ma belongs to himself). Recognizing this reality delineates between what is and isn't permissible between us. We're not prisoners to it. we're freed by it.

Are there any other persons who believe in your 3?

I know everyone does (includin' you). It's easy enough to test: ask folks...

Do you belong to yourself?

Is your life, liberty, and property yours?

If someone takes your life, your liberty, your property, treating what's yours as their own, have they wronged you? Should they be penalized for that wrong?

Anyone who sez no to any is lyin' or crazy.

Here's let's try it now...

Flash, do you belong to yourself?

Flash, is your life, liberty, and property yours?

Flash, if someone takes your life, your liberty, your property, treating what's yours as their own, have they wronged you? Should they be penalized for that wrong?

It's quite possible that everyone else on my street is already shunning me

Are any refusin' to sell to you or buy from you?

[FlashDangerpants]

it is sufficient that everyone agrees that sexual abuse of power is immoral

As a moral realist I say sexual abuse of power against a person is immoral becuz the person is his own and ought not be used by another as though he were not his own.

But you've done nothing to explain why it must be the case that orality only applies to relations between persons. All you have ever done is just insist on that without any form of explanation other than your three magic rules. By any normal reckoning, a chicken is not a person, fucking it is still a bad thing and one of the reasons is that it is not nice for the chicken, even if the chicken is not a person.

(this, of course, brings us back to the question: what is a person?)

(and: is chicken-eatin' immoral?)

The question of what is a person doesn't have any impact on somebody whose moral landscape is not artifically restricted to the discussion of persons and nothing else.

It's pretty much a given that future generations will regard our current treatment of animals as barbaric, just as we regard our ancestors' slave trading, the Roman gladiatorial games, or all the people who visited the beheadings in the French revolution for a fun day out for all the family as barbarism. Today, most of us don't really agree, but these things change.

That's why moral realism fails. It is always an attempt by some guy to make his opinion last forever.

We aren't prisoners of any "simple" principle that resticts to an approved list of rights and wrongs that can never ever change.

Of course not. We're the inheritors and beneficiaries of a reality pertaining to ourselves (a ma belongs to himself). Recognizing this reality delineates between what is and isn't permissible between us. We're not prisoners to it. we're freed by it.

Technically moral realism means that a body supposes that there are some knowable (provable) facts of the moral matter. It's relatively hardcore though to argue that most of the facts are unknowable. Is this hardcore version of moral realism actually the one you espouse or it does it look that way by accident right now because you hadn't really thought about it very much?

Are there any other persons who believe in your 3?

I know everyone does (includin' you). It's easy enough to test: ask folks...

Do you belong to yourself?

Well have you actually tried that one?

Few if any here seems to really go for it, and that's because property is a subject-predicate relationship with one entity owning and onother being owned. I am me, I own these trousers.

Is your life, liberty, and property yours?

If someone takes your life, your liberty, your property, treating what's yours as their own, have they wronged you? Should they be penalized for that wrong?

Anyone who sez no to any is lyin' or crazy.

But nobody needs your 3 for any of those.

Here's let's try it now...

Flash, do you belong to yourself?

Flash, is your life, liberty, and property yours?

Flash, if someone takes your life, your liberty, your property, treating what's yours as their own, have they wronged you? Should they be penalized for that wrong?

The first question is nonsensical.
Sure, except two of those things are abstracts and the concept of taking them away doesn't apply in the same way as it does to actual stuff.
Well we already agree murdering me is bad, without the 3. Stealing is wrong and nobody needs your 3 for that.

It's quite possible that everyone else on my street is already shunning me

Are any refusin' to sell to you or buy from you?

I wouldn't know, I don't do anything with anyone on my street who doesn't live in my house.

Now then. This shunning thing only works in little villages, so are you saying that your society only works in a little village? Is it the case for instance that your big country covering everything west of the Mississsisisissspppi as far as Galveston or something is more a loose confederation of many small communities than the current standard for a country?

[henry quirk]

By any normal reckoning, a chicken is not a person, fucking it is still a bad thing and one of the reasons is that it is not nice for the chicken, even if the chicken is not a person.

Of course it's a bad thing (and loppin' its head off, defeatherin' it, and fryin' it ain't good for it either) but why is it immoral (to love it, to eat it)? See, I'm havin' a hard time understandin' how you, a moral anti-realist, define morality. Is it just whatever you think is wrong? If so, that ain't morality as I reckon it, that's just preference and opinion.

Me? I say morality is based on a fact about man, a fact not shared by chickens, and so is confined to man (a person) which, of course, brings us right back around to the question: what is a person?

we already agree murdering me is bad

But I can say why it's wrong, immoral; I don't think you can.

[FlashDangerpants]

By any normal reckoning, a chicken is not a person, fucking it is still a bad thing and one of the reasons is that it is not nice for the chicken, even if the chicken is not a person.

Of course it's a bad thing (and loppin' its head off, defeatherin' it, and fryin' it ain't good for it either) but why is it immoral (to love it, to eat it)? See, I'm havin' a hard time understandin' how you, a moral anti-realist, define morality. Is it just whatever you think is wrong? If so, that ain't morality as I reckon it, that's just preference and opinion.

Me? I say morality is based on a fact about man, a fact not shared by chickens, and so is confined to man (a person) which, of course, brings us right back around to the question: what is a person?

we already agree murdering me is bad

But I can say why it's wrong, immoral; I don't think you can.

I feel I have mentioned this a fair few times to be honest. The fundamental difference between your position and mine is that I believe all moral statements require persuasion. That's it, you have to persuade people that they would be more X if they saw things the way you do. Where X might be consistent with other moral beliefs they hold, or it might be nicer, or merciful, or fair. If a moral belief is held be all, what's the difference between that and custom?

Moral realism involves looking at something beyond mere humanity to find a truth that is part of the universe.

If you find yourself reasoning from this that I am some amoral creature with no sense of right and wrong (which is what Skepdick and Mannie like to try), this is erroneous.

There's a thing called a tautology that I want you to understand. A tautologous fact is something like "all bachelors are unmarried men". It's true by definition because a bachelor is an unmarried man, and all men are either married or unmarried. The thing about tautologies is that they are not in need of proof or discovery. I have seen about 800 attempts on this forum to prove moral fact by proving the tautology that wrongful killings are wrong.

[henry quirk]

I believe all moral statements require persuasion.

I think...

...morality is all about the rightness or wrongness of a man's intent, his choices, his actions and conduct, as he interacts with, or impinges on, another. Seems to me, the validity of a morality rests solely with how well the assessment of wrongness or rightness agrees with reality, or with statements about reality.

So, a moral fact is a true statement; one that aligns with the reality of a man (not his personality, or opinion, or whims, but what is fundamental to him, ownness).

No one needs to be persuaded; they only need to recognize the fact and the moral fact which -- unless they're deficient -- they do.

Moral realism involves looking at something beyond mere humanity to find a truth that is part of the universe.

Yes, realism involves what is real, here and there and everywhere.

If you find yourself reasoning from this that I am some amoral creature with no sense of right and wrong (which is what Skepdick and Mannie like to try), this is erroneous.

Not at all. You are creature with reason, conscience, and free will. By definition you're moral. But you say you're not a moral realist (which, really, you are) and so I call you what? Moral anti-realist or amoralist (which are the only titles, along with subjectivist, available). But, again, you are moral, and you are a moral realist, just like everyone.

It's no different, to me, than watchin' determinists deny free will even as they persist in livin' as, thinkin' as, actin' as, free wills.

What they, or you, believe about free will, or moral fact -- nonsense! -- changes nuthin' about the reality of free will, or moral fact.

[FlashDangerpants]

I believe all moral statements require persuasion.

I think...

...morality is all about the rightness or wrongness of a man's intent, his choices, his actions and conduct, as he interacts with, or impinges on, another. Seems to me, the validity of a morality rests solely with how well the assessment of wrongness or rightness agrees with reality, or with statements about reality.

So, a moral fact is a true statement; one that aligns with the reality of a man (not his personality, or opinion, or whims, but what is fundamental to him, ownness).

No one needs to be persuaded; they only need to recognize the fact and the moral fact which -- unless they're deficient -- they do.

In that case you are deficient for not recognising that it is morally wrong to fuck a chicken.
But what you merely think is neither here nor there, facts are demonstrated or they aren't fact.

Moral realism involves looking at something beyond mere humanity to find a truth that is part of the universe.

Yes, realism involves what is real, here and there and everywhere.

But when you write "I say morality is based on a fact about man, a fact not shared by chickens, and so is confined to man (a person)" I say that's bullshit. So why is it just something you say rather than something you can actually prove?

If you find yourself reasoning from this that I am some amoral creature with no sense of right and wrong (which is what Skepdick and Mannie like to try), this is erroneous.

Not at all. You are creature with reason, conscience, and free will. By definition you're moral. But you say you're not a moral realist (which, really, you are) and so I call you what? Moral anti-realist or amoralist (which are the only titles, along with subjectivist, available). But, again, you are moral, and you are a moral realist, just like everyone.

It's no different, to me, than watchin' determinists deny free will even as they persist in livin' as, thinkin' as, actin' as, free wills.

What they, or you, believe about free will, or moral fact -- nonsense! -- changes nuthin' about the reality of free will, or moral fact.

You are wrong, I am definitely a moral antirealist. Just as I am a fashion antirealist, and a custom antirealist.

You argument there amounts to supposing that if I wear a shirt, and I like the shirt I am wearing, I must secretly believe that the universe thinks it is a good shirt. I do not.

Likewise I don't think we should allow the children of poor people to have shitty schools just because their parents can't afford to send them to good ones. It doesn't matter if you agree with that statement, or if you can derive it from your 3 lines, there is nothing out there that proves me right or wrong, moral statements aren't true and false in that sense, so if I want your assent, I have to persuade you. Nothing you say to counter me that is based on your right not to be taxed because you think you have some self-belongness and nobody should ever deprive you of your precious stuff can make any difference because it's not very persuasive.

[Belinda]

By any normal reckoning, a chicken is not a person, fucking it is still a bad thing and one of the reasons is that it is not nice for the chicken, even if the chicken is not a person.

Of course it's a bad thing (and loppin' its head off, defeatherin' it, and fryin' it ain't good for it either) but why is it immoral (to love it, to eat it)? See, I'm havin' a hard time understandin' how you, a moral anti-realist, define morality. Is it just whatever you think is wrong? If so, that ain't morality as I reckon it, that's just preference and opinion.

Me? I say morality is based on a fact about man, a fact not shared by chickens, and so is confined to man (a person) which, of course, brings us right back around to the question: what is a person?

we already agree murdering me is bad

But I can say why it's wrong, immoral; I don't think you can.

Humans' rights and animals' rights are made by people but not by other animals or God.

Christian morality has , as a matter of historical fact, greatly influenced the cause of animals' rights. Christian morality can, and does, encompass scientific facts . Everybody now knows other animals are sentient.

[henry quirk]

I am definitely a moral antirealist

Well, that's what you call yourself, yeah. It may even be what you believe about yourself. But as I say: you persist in livin' as, thinkin' as, actin' as, a moral realist.

We clever things, we pretend moral reality, agency, and experiencing the world directly are old hat, out-moded; we say we live in a rudderless, amoral, universe; we say man is just determined meat; we say the world, as we know it, is just a model we build in our heads; but each and every one of us lives as, thinks as, acts as, moral realists, free wills, and direct realists.

-----

Everybody now knows other animals are sentient.

Is that our standard, then? It feels, so it ought be accorded the lofty status of person?