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jrodefeld posted:There is another thing I'd like to say about deontological ethics versus utilitarianism and consequentialism. Show me this universal, logical moral standard, please. Demonstrate to me that it exists. Show me an atom of ethics, a molecule of morality, then I'll accept that your premise holds even a drop of water. What you fail to understand is that no deontological moral standard can be universal, because it's a product of human culture and biases! An ISIS imam can "prove", deontologically, that holding yezidi women in rape-camps and trading them as sex-slaves is perfectly moral, just as I can "prove", deontologically, that it's a hideously evil and immoral thing to do. How the hell are we supposed to take you seriously? edit: I mean, for gently caress's sake, using your own stated basic premise for Libertarian thought, I 'proved' that collective action is superior to individual action and that collective action was always preferable to individual action, therefore communism. If that didn't show you how worthless deontology is as a guide to morality then I really don't know what else I can do. You can justify anything through "pure logic", as long as you choose the proper axioms to build on. TLM3101 fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Nov 19, 2014 |
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Nov 19, 2014 03:59
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Heavy neutrino posted:He doesn't have time to think about Caros, he's too busy thinking of the 20 paragraphs he'll write about a completely different topic instead of responding to Caros' post. He never intends to actually respond, just throw more ripped off Von Mises word salad.
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Nov 19, 2014 04:00
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Who What Now posted:In a truly free market the rich would simply hire people with guns to come and force people to do business with them on pain of death. We know this would happen because the greatest example of a free market is the illegal drug trade and it is filled with gangs and mafias. How can you ignore reality like this? This is the most ridiculous example I've ever heard. The drug trade is so violent because no State monopolized police services will protect the property rights of those who are engaged in that market. In every example where drugs are legalized, you see this crime rate diminish rapidly as more legitimate businesses replace the black market. In a free market, the law would exist to arbitrate disputes and protect private property rights. The security of both the dealer and the client will be protected and thus conflict free trade can occur.
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Nov 19, 2014 04:10
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I'm going to try my hand at a rebuttal without reading Caros and the others, since it lets me exercise my debating muscles. Short version: stop assuming your own conclusions.jrodefeld posted:I want to speak about the minimum wage issue a bit more, but first I have a real simple question I'd like you all to answer. From someone else needing what you're offering more than you need what they're offering. Next! (Seriously, are you straight up denying the existence of leverage?) Alternatively, from the powerful one sticking a gun in your face and making you do what they want. None of your precious principles apply if someone doesn't give a poo poo about them, since you've destroyed any means of enforcement. jrodefeld posted:The reason I want to ask this is that one of the major justifications for the State and democracy to most left progressives is that we need some collective entity to provide a bulwark against private "economic power" that, absent such intervention, will abuse people and cause great harm. When pressed, most left liberals will gladly concede that private economic power has always colluded with State power and either established or created some sort of government which it then uses to its advantage. But there is still this notion that in a freed market, as described by libertarians and laissez faire liberals, would "empower" private economic interests and they would somehow take advantage of everyone else, that they could or would maintain huge amounts of private wealth while allowing little to nothing for everyone else. Wait, so private economic power created states? So you agree that economic power can exist without a state, yes? It would have to have, in order to create them. So if you've already conceded the argument you're trying to combat, what the hell is the point of any of this? jrodefeld posted:This makes no sense for a few reasons. Let us first stipulate that we had either a night watchman State that protected private property and arbitrated disputes but little else or a decentralized confederacy of local authorities that did the same thing. Basically a radical separation of business and State. Oh, so you can just wave your hand and perfectly separate political power from economic power, just like that. Neat! I do the same thing, but with fully functioning states instead. There! Corporate influence solved, rationale for abolishing the state completely excised. Man, a priori stipulations are awesome! jrodefeld posted:What I don't understand is how you think that a private businessman has "economic power"? In the voluntary market economy, aren't the relative wealth and profits of the businessman tied to the value they provide for others? Isn't that necessarily implied by the fact that transactions must be made without coercion? Except you just added that "fact" out of nowhere. It does not follow at all that a small state will result in no coercion. Our argument is exactly that: the powerful will coerce and exploit the weak without a strong state to keep them in line. Why shouldn't they? There's nobody there to stop them. jrodefeld posted:You could retort that businessmen will voluntarily collude to keep prices high, to monopolize markets and leave people no other choice but to trade with them. "A necessitous man is not free" kind of an argument, where you claim that decisions made under conditions of desperation are not truly "free", non-coercive decisions. The rich hire their own mercenaries and thugs and become warlords / feudal lords, paving the way for the eventual reestablishment of a state. Or they get loving murdered and whoever murdered them gets to be the feudal lord. Y'know, the thing that happens every time the state that supposedly enables them crumbles. Also, just because there are more poor than rich doesn't mean they can make their own markets. The people who own the land and the means of production will be the rich ones, so the poor won't have their own means of production to build a market around. They have to do business with the rich, or die. That's what we're talking about by economic power. Unless, of course, the poor use their superior numbers to start guillotining some folks, but that would be ~*aggression*~ and utterly immoral under your belief system. That's why we see Ancaps as advocating for unlimited power to the richest: coercion by the rich (do what I say or starve) is completely moral, but attempts by the poor to remedy that (free us or die) are evil. jrodefeld posted:Under the stated conditions of private property freed markets, I cannot see how I could ever be made to trade with a business if I didn't want to. Where exactly does "economic power" come into the equation? With multitudes of choices available to the consumer, why would they voluntarily be taken advantage of by a 1% that is unable to use coercion against them? Your stipulations are completely idiotic. If my friends and I own all of the useful land, yeah, you're pretty much forced to do business with us. There would be no choices, because power gains more power until a monopoly is formed, unless you stop it. And that's not even getting into the territory you've arbitrarily declared to be off limits. "Assuming the rich don't do the very things they would do to get an unfair advantage, how would they get an unfair advantage?" isn't an argument. Just off the top of my head, here are some ways the rich can exploit the poor without a state to intervene. They could buy up all of the arable land and demand compliance in exchange for access to food. They could corner the market on other staples and inelastic goods like medicine. They could coopt the local minarchist whatever-the-gently caress-you're-calling-courts and distort justice into their favor. They could use their resources to hire strongmen and commit unspeakable violence against the noncompliant. They could foster an authoritarian outlook of ingroups and outgroups and get the former to do their bidding to spite the latter. And on and on. All this has happened before, and all this will happen again. Let me give you a statist argument using the same logic you're using: assuming that taxation and law enforcement aren't violence, in what way is the state committing violence against you? Is that a reasonable question worth answering from an Ancap point of view, or do you find it staggeringly idiotic?
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Nov 19, 2014 04:12
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jrodefeld posted:
No it wouldn't!
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Nov 19, 2014 04:13
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jrodefeld posted:This is the most ridiculous example I've ever heard. The drug trade is so violent because no State monopolized police services will protect the property rights of those who are engaged in that market. In every example where drugs are legalized, you see this crime rate diminish rapidly as more legitimate businesses replace the black market. Where is this law enforcement going to come from. You said that the police would be privatized, and there would be competition. So, where is the law enforcement coming from?
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Nov 19, 2014 04:16
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jrodefeld posted:In a free market, the law would exist to arbitrate disputes and protect private property rights. I, El Chapo, do not consent to create joinder with you. And although I have undoubtedly aggressed against you, my neighbors on all sides for hundreds of miles around have not, and you would not DARE trespass on their property or through their airspace in order to exact vengeance! VVVV Because barriers to enter markets exist, as has been noted a few million times you thick gently caress VVVVV Muscle Tracer fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Nov 19, 2014 |
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Nov 19, 2014 04:20
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Heavy neutrino posted:Like Cemetry Gator stated, the reason why the working people would keep "trading" with the wealthy is that essential services controlled by the wealthy can't be reproduced without immense resources. The wealthy are in a position of extreme (insurmountable) advantage against working people by the fact of their wealth itself. And why would they not be incentivized to treat their customers well, pay a reasonable wage and so forth if others can continually enter the market and undercut their market share? Yes, not everyone will have the resources necessary to compete in every sector of the economy, but enough will that it would be very harmful to the bottom line of a company to continually abuse their customers, to pollute and harm people. Maybe individual workers don't have the resources to compete on their own, but they could pool their resources together and create alternatives for people who don't want to deal with large businesses. See this bad behavior on the part of the "rich" is really only sustainable through the threat of coercion and initiatory violence.
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Nov 19, 2014 04:22
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jrodefeld posted:And why would they not be incentivized to treat their customers well, pay a reasonable wage and so forth if others can continually enter the market and undercut their market share? How will others be able to enter the market?
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Nov 19, 2014 04:24
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Who What Now posted:First find one person who has claimed what you say we have claimed. Caros said he is a utilitarian. All your arguments, whether you know it or not, are utilitarian. I have met resistance even talking about ethics and principles because you handwave them away simply saying "that society is impossible" or "look at these statistics about nationalized healthcare". Those arguments are utilitarian. Therefore you should have to defend that position.
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Nov 19, 2014 04:26
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jrodefeld posted:enough will that it would be very harmful to the bottom line of a company to continually abuse their customers, to pollute and harm people. Recent surveys suggest otherwise - that a company's profit margin is wholly unrelated to the degree to which its customers are satisfied with it. Further, you've yet to demonstrate how a libertarian society will incentivize anyone to enter the market to compete with an abusive company to begin with, given the massively multiplied drawbacks of any financial risk to an individual.
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Nov 19, 2014 04:27
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StandardVC10 posted:Recent surveys suggest otherwise - that a company's profit margin is wholly unrelated to the degree to which its customers are satisfied with it. Further, you've yet to demonstrate how a libertarian society will incentivize anyone to enter the market to compete with an abusive company to begin with, given the massively multiplied drawbacks of any financial risk to an individual. Seriously, Comcast and EA are the tops in their market. They also consistently get poor reviews.
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Nov 19, 2014 04:28
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jrodefeld posted:Caros said he is a utilitarian. All your arguments, whether you know it or not, are utilitarian. I have met resistance even talking about ethics and principles because you handwave them away simply saying "that society is impossible" or "look at these statistics about nationalized healthcare". Those arguments are utilitarian. Therefore you should have to defend that position. I didn't realize that providing incontrovertible factual evidence fell under "handwaving"? What would you consider a solid argument, if those based both on reason alone and those based on fact are insufficient?
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Nov 19, 2014 04:29
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Muscle Tracer posted:I didn't realize that providing incontrovertible factual evidence fell under "handwaving"? Libertarians don't have to provide evidence. Not having to base anything they say on fact is key to their faith 
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Nov 19, 2014 04:30
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CommieGIR posted:Seriously, Comcast and EA are the tops in their market. I am sure jrodefield would say this is irrelevant because neither has a majority therefore the invisible hand doesn't favor them. 
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Nov 19, 2014 04:30
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Nintendo Kid posted:I am sure jrodefield would say this is irrelevant because neither has a majority therefore the invisible hand doesn't favor them. Surely a free market would oust these ruffians.
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Nov 19, 2014 04:31
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jrodefeld posted:This is the most ridiculous example I've ever heard. The drug trade is so violent because no State monopolized police services will protect the property rights of those who are engaged in that market. In every example where drugs are legalized, you see this crime rate diminish rapidly as more legitimate businesses replace the black market. What law? Where would this law be derived from, or what would it be enforced by?
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Nov 19, 2014 04:33
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Seriously gently caress off to Somalia jrodefeld. You say you would rather live in a moral society even if it was inconvenient so get packing.
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Nov 19, 2014 04:34
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Juffo-Wup posted:These are seriously like the most naive possible responses to consequentialism. I mean seriously? "You don't REALLY know what consequences your action will have" is the sort of bullshit my students come up with when they clearly haven't done the reading. You have no familiarity with contemporary metaethics; I recommend you do not center your arguments on that field. Yes, I suppose being a condescending rear end while refusing to actually refute my arguments or share any of your infinite wisdom in the area of ethics is one way to respond to my post, but it is hardly the most productive. Believe me, there are PLENTY of more critiques of consequentialism and utilitarianism that I could add but there is enough to spark some sort of a debate. You might have far more expertise in this field than I do and if so, I would be overjoyed if you would share some of your knowledge and educate me on the subject.
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Nov 19, 2014 04:35
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jrodefeld posted:Caros said he is a utilitarian. All your arguments, whether you know it or not, are utilitarian. I have met resistance even talking about ethics and principles because you handwave them away simply saying "that society is impossible" or "look at these statistics about nationalized healthcare". Those arguments are utilitarian. Therefore you should have to defend that position. Yes, I said that I identify as a Utilitarian. No, I did not claim the things you attempt to say that I have claimed. Thank you in advance for not putting words into my mouth anymore.  jrodefeld posted:Yes, I suppose being a condescending rear end while refusing to actually refute my arguments or share any of your infinite wisdom in the area of ethics is one way to respond to my post, but it is hardly the most productive. So how about you use those arguments instead of the weaksauce that you've thrown at us. Two people have given pretty substantial rundowns just liked you'd asked for, how about you address those? Seriously dude, you've sparked the debate, we've given counter-arguments. Address those rather than complaining about tone. Hell, I'd rather you reply to Nolaner than to me in fact since he did a better job on many points this time than I did (though I did well too.) Caros fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Nov 19, 2014 |
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Nov 19, 2014 04:42
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jrodefeld posted:Yes, I suppose being a condescending rear end while refusing to actually refute my arguments or share any of your infinite wisdom in the area of ethics is one way to respond to my post, but it is hardly the most productive. gently caress off to Somalia, what are you waiting for? Why are you benefiting from all this immorality, gently caress off already.
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Nov 19, 2014 05:13
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jrodefeld posted:And why would they not be incentivized to treat their customers well, pay a reasonable wage and so forth if others can continually enter the market and undercut their market share? Yes, not everyone will have the resources necessary to compete in every sector of the economy, but enough will that it would be very harmful to the bottom line of a company to continually abuse their customers, to pollute and harm people. Maybe individual workers don't have the resources to compete on their own, but they could pool their resources together and create alternatives for people who don't want to deal with large businesses. Serious questions: how much do you think it costs to create a second, parallel telecommunications network? How high do you think the predictable reward is, considering that the incumbent company can very easily ease its policies until you go bankrupt? You're a market wizard apparently, so try to figure this one out. edit: also are you posting from Somalia yet or were you just lying about wanting to live in a free society, regardless of the costs? Heavy neutrino fucked around with this message at 05:23 on Nov 19, 2014 |
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Nov 19, 2014 05:17
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jrodefeld posted:Believe me, there are PLENTY of more critiques of consequentialism and utilitarianism that I could add but there is enough to spark some sort of a debate. God forbid a debate should happen in D&D.
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Nov 19, 2014 05:23
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SedanChair posted:gently caress off to Somalia, what are you waiting for? Why are you benefiting from all this immorality, gently caress off already. It's rude the denigrate the various states within Somalia like this to be honest. Why not Bi'r Tawīl? That's a real honest no government no coercion zone.
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Nov 19, 2014 05:25
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Nintendo Kid posted:It's rude the denigrate the various states within Somalia like this to be honest. Why not Bi'r Tawīl? That's a real honest no government no coercion zone. Aren't they a monarchy now  ?
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Nov 19, 2014 05:33
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Nintendo Kid posted:It's rude the denigrate the various states within Somalia like this to be honest. Why not Bi'r Tawīl? That's a real honest no government no coercion zone. Thanks to this thread I have learned that there is a small triangle of land between Egypt and Sudan that belongs to nobody. I didn't think that poo poo even still happened in the 21st century 
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Nov 19, 2014 05:34
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Raskolnikov38 posted:Aren't they a monarchy now But are they a ~*benevolent monarchy*~? If not, Jrod won't want anything to do with them.
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Nov 19, 2014 05:37
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DarklyDreaming posted:Thanks to this thread I have learned that there is a small triangle of land between Egypt and Sudan that belongs to nobody. I didn't think that poo poo even still happened in the 21st century Always important to remember that it only belongs to nobody because whoever calls it loses a much larger piece of land that actually has water.
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Nov 19, 2014 05:38
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DarklyDreaming posted:Thanks to this thread I have learned that there is a small triangle of land between Egypt and Sudan that belongs to nobody. I didn't think that poo poo even still happened in the 21st century Yeah, The More You Know. So JRodefeld, why have you not moved to Bi'r Tawīl? It is completely free of any government interference. For that matter, why have you not simply gone to somewhere like Abu Dhabi, where government interference is so much less. It is more free there after all. I know its unfair to say this, since costs associated with moving are a real thing, but cost not being an issue, assuming someone gave you enough to cover every moving expense, would you move to Bi'r Tawil? Because I suspect not.
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Nov 19, 2014 05:40
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Captain_Maclaine posted:But are they a ~*benevolent monarchy*~? If not, Jrod won't want anything to do with them. Well how benevolent can a nine year old be?
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Nov 19, 2014 05:40
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I'm feeling nostalgic for undergrad ethics, so jrod: since you're hung up on deontic ethics, how are you determining which rules are the right rules?
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Nov 19, 2014 05:47
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Pope Guilty posted:I'm feeling nostalgic for undergrad ethics, so jrod: since you're hung up on deontic ethics, how are you determining which rules are the right rules? Well the right rules are the ones that are right, because if they weren't right, then they wouldn't be the right rules now would they? 
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Nov 19, 2014 05:48
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Captain_Maclaine posted:Well the right rules are the ones that are right, because if they weren't right, then they wouldn't be the right rules now would they? Oh yeah, just like that.
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Nov 19, 2014 05:50
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Pope Guilty posted:I'm feeling nostalgic for undergrad ethics, so jrod: since you're hung up on deontic ethics, how are you determining which rules are the right rules? Its the ones which he has logically determined. Duh. That I think is the most frustrating part of his whole thing to me. As another poster pointed out, you can logically determine pretty much anything from the right starting point, keeping in mind enough assumptions. Jrodefeld is working from the assumption that the Non-Aggression principle is key, and that means all his conclusions will only work if you accept that. I could build a logical foundation for why cannibalism is moral using the exact same method, so long as I started from the "People are yummy" Principle.
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Nov 19, 2014 05:51
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Well, "people are yummy" is at least more coherent with regards to what follows than "humans act."
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Nov 19, 2014 05:53
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jrodefeld posted:Yes, I suppose being a condescending rear end while refusing to actually refute my arguments or share any of your infinite wisdom in the area of ethics is one way to respond to my post, but it is hardly the most productive. Here are the most common ones for your perusal: Utility-Monster objection If one being experiences pleasure to a vastly greater degree than any others then it follows that we ought to direct all available resources to pleasing it. This is counter-intuitive. Integrity objection Utilitarian considerations might sometimes turn out to require us to do things that run contrary to our own deeply held moral beliefs. (See Bernard Williams' 'George the Chemist' example) Aggregation objection If the way we judge utility is by adding together all the utilities of all the relevant parties, we might end up with what Parfit calls the Repugnant Conclusion: We should increase the world population as much as possible, to the point where everyone's life is only barely worth living. Rights violation objection (Here's the one you should care about most): It might turn out, in certain situations, that we could make a lot of people very happy, but we'd have to torture someone. (See various Jack Bauer/Terrorist/bomb situations, or LeGuin's very good The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas). Part of the issue is that you don't really seem to be a deontologist, because you aren't really in the business of listing people's duties. You seem more interested in listing their rights, so you owe more to the intellectual tradition of Aquinas than of Kant. Here's the challenge that you have to overcome: Anyone can construct an internally coherent theory of ethics by enumerating a bunch of rights that people have. People keep challenging you when you start talking about metaethics because their (legitimate) reaction to talk of rights is "okay, sure, but where do they come from?" In other words, why this particular list of rights, rather than a different one? Aquinas grounded his theory in the teleology inherent in thinking that God created the world. You're probably going to start talking about fundamental property rights or the NAP or that ridiculous argument from argument thing, which to this croud doesn't sound all that different. You're not going to win any converts on that front. The reason I responded to you with derision is because you were (/are) feigning expertise in a field where you clearly haven't engaged with even the foundational texts of the discipline, which strikes me as the height of intellectual hubris. Oh well. You don't need to respond to this; I don't mind much either way.
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Nov 19, 2014 05:53
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In fact you should read The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas(pdf) right now, because it's great and so is Ursula LeGuin.
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Nov 19, 2014 05:55
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Why have you been beaten to the punch by this statist jrodefeld Abingdon man claims African land to make good on promise to daughter quote:In June, he took the 14-hour caravan journey through the desert, in time to plant the flag of the Heaton kingdom — blue with the seal and stars representing members of the family — in Bir Tawil soil. Look! He's going to (maybe) poison the locals with handouts and dependency! You have to do something about this!
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Nov 19, 2014 06:04
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SedanChair posted:Why have you been beaten to the punch by this statist jrodefeld Strangely enough, this is a monarchy I can get behind.
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Nov 19, 2014 06:08
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:Strangely enough, this is a monarchy I can get behind. Of course you can, its benevolent.
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Nov 19, 2014 06:12
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