[Previous post in the series: "Induction of Objectivity (Ayn Rand)"]
The aim of this essay is to reduce the principle that “the initiation of physical force is evil.”
(This issue has important connections to individual rights, but for now we’ll focus on the moral aspect of physical force, not what a government should do about it, and not what people should do about it (namely, retaliate against it and banish it from their relationships with others).)
“Force,” in this context, means the initiation of physical force, not “gravitational” force or persuasive force. The guiding concrete should be: “do as I say, or I’ll bash your skull in.” It’s a human violation of your choice or desire through physical, not psychological means. Persuasion can be subtle, or lead to debatable issues, but physical force is not debatable, and it’s available to the senses, like a punch or kidnapping someone.
The dictionary definition: “strength or power exerted upon an object.” For “coerce,” we have: “to compel by physical strength or intimidation, without regard for individual desire or volition.” There’s one example of an indirect form of force that we’ll allow in this reduction and induction, and that’s fraud: you deceive a person by making him do something for you but refuse to give him what you agreed to give him as compensation, in effect doing the same thing that could normally only be accomplished through physical force.
It would be a rationalist way of thinking to say:
“There are only two paths for dealing with people: reason or force, persuasion or coercion. Reason is good, therefore force must be bad, evil.”
What about evil people who do neither? Evil people who use neither reason nor force to settle disputes or handle problems? An example would be someone using malicious lies and rumors to ruin another person’s reputation: that wouldn’t be force, but isn’t using reason either; rather, it's an irrational, emotionalist sort of manipulation of other people. Or the Critique of Pure Reason, which isn’t force, but isn’t reason either: rather, it plays on people’s poor understanding of their own philosophical concepts, and tricks them into conclusions that they had never intended to reach. Rand states on many occasions that there are two basic ways, two ways in essence, to deal with people, implying that there are other, derivative ways (like through an emotional tantrum), precisely to include cases like the above.
If someone were to progress in this rationalist way, they would reach the point that reason and force are antagonists, and then they would become stuck in issues like this:
Let’s say that a person won’t listen to reason, and someone forces him “in the name of reason”? Like the (long since repealed) 18th Amendment, which prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcohol: there were temperance societies and Progressive advocates who argued that alcohol destroys families and leads to various immoral behaviors, and industrial factory owners supported prohibition because it gave them more efficient, sober workers to perform jobs for them. If the people were reasonable, these people believed, then they would just give up alcohol on their own, but they won’t, so we need the government to force them to do the rational thing. So here, we seem to have force being the means to the victory of reason, to reason and morality prevailing over ignorance, indifference, and immorality. (Prohibition, back in those times, was known as “The Noble Experiment.”) It’s harder to see how force and reason can be opposites, with cases like this.
Or, how about this rationalist argument: “Well, we still have free will while under force. If we have free will, then we can choose what to do with our mind, including thinking, right? Therefore, we still must be able to think under force, and therefore Rand has to be wrong when she says that force destroys reason and thought.”
These are two rationalist arguments, with opposite conclusions.
As opposed to rationalists, let’s discuss what concretes or examples we’ll need to understand what force is. This topic is one of the easiest of the principles induced thus far, because force is perceivable. Unlike the other principles, where there are potentially countless kinds of justice or reason being used as a tool of survival, there are really only three kinds of the initiation of physical force:
1. The first is crime: robbery, assault, rape, murder, kidnapping, etc., or the threat of any of these.
2. Government: it has a monopoly on force in a given area, and its history of warped political priorities (like communism's abolishment of property and enslavement of its people) has made it the most plentiful source of examples for the topic of “force.”
3. Non-prosecutable crime: these cases have no proof of contract and/or no way to show damages. These are often judgment calls that parents have the right to make with minors, but that entities like the government do not have the right to make. An example would a parent promising to get her kid a toy after he finished cleaning his room, and reneges on the promise after he finishes—this wastes the kid’s time and effort, going against his choice and his motivation through physical means (by not taking the physical actions necessary to give the kid a toy).
The conclusion we want to reach in order to see how the initiation of physical force is evil is the principle that "force is anti-mind," it destroys the cognitive processes of reason as such, and this is the ultimate Objectivist reason for the initiation of physical force being evil.
In order to reach that, you’d have to know that force attacks particular conclusions that you hold, conclusions that you worked hard mentally to reach and grasp. Once you knew this, then you could later understand how force does something more expansive to the cognitive faculty as such. Force isn’t just against the body, you learn, but impacts the mind, wreaks havoc upon it, and from that you could reach the next level and claim that force is against the whole mind.
The next step is to figure out something about your conclusions, namely, what are they, and how do you reach them. If you just told someone, “force attacks your conclusions,” most people wouldn’t understand that, because force doesn’t directly assault a conclusion or idea that you have. Rather, force attacks conclusions indirectly by clashing with people’s desires, force makes you do something that you don’t want to do. This is our direct evidence of force from reality, and the end of the reduction.
[Next post: "Induction of 'the Initiation of Physical Force is Evil'"]
The aim of this essay is to reduce the principle that “the initiation of physical force is evil.”
(This issue has important connections to individual rights, but for now we’ll focus on the moral aspect of physical force, not what a government should do about it, and not what people should do about it (namely, retaliate against it and banish it from their relationships with others).)
“Force,” in this context, means the initiation of physical force, not “gravitational” force or persuasive force. The guiding concrete should be: “do as I say, or I’ll bash your skull in.” It’s a human violation of your choice or desire through physical, not psychological means. Persuasion can be subtle, or lead to debatable issues, but physical force is not debatable, and it’s available to the senses, like a punch or kidnapping someone.
The dictionary definition: “strength or power exerted upon an object.” For “coerce,” we have: “to compel by physical strength or intimidation, without regard for individual desire or volition.” There’s one example of an indirect form of force that we’ll allow in this reduction and induction, and that’s fraud: you deceive a person by making him do something for you but refuse to give him what you agreed to give him as compensation, in effect doing the same thing that could normally only be accomplished through physical force.
It would be a rationalist way of thinking to say:
“There are only two paths for dealing with people: reason or force, persuasion or coercion. Reason is good, therefore force must be bad, evil.”
What about evil people who do neither? Evil people who use neither reason nor force to settle disputes or handle problems? An example would be someone using malicious lies and rumors to ruin another person’s reputation: that wouldn’t be force, but isn’t using reason either; rather, it's an irrational, emotionalist sort of manipulation of other people. Or the Critique of Pure Reason, which isn’t force, but isn’t reason either: rather, it plays on people’s poor understanding of their own philosophical concepts, and tricks them into conclusions that they had never intended to reach. Rand states on many occasions that there are two basic ways, two ways in essence, to deal with people, implying that there are other, derivative ways (like through an emotional tantrum), precisely to include cases like the above.
If someone were to progress in this rationalist way, they would reach the point that reason and force are antagonists, and then they would become stuck in issues like this:
Let’s say that a person won’t listen to reason, and someone forces him “in the name of reason”? Like the (long since repealed) 18th Amendment, which prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcohol: there were temperance societies and Progressive advocates who argued that alcohol destroys families and leads to various immoral behaviors, and industrial factory owners supported prohibition because it gave them more efficient, sober workers to perform jobs for them. If the people were reasonable, these people believed, then they would just give up alcohol on their own, but they won’t, so we need the government to force them to do the rational thing. So here, we seem to have force being the means to the victory of reason, to reason and morality prevailing over ignorance, indifference, and immorality. (Prohibition, back in those times, was known as “The Noble Experiment.”) It’s harder to see how force and reason can be opposites, with cases like this.
Or, how about this rationalist argument: “Well, we still have free will while under force. If we have free will, then we can choose what to do with our mind, including thinking, right? Therefore, we still must be able to think under force, and therefore Rand has to be wrong when she says that force destroys reason and thought.”
These are two rationalist arguments, with opposite conclusions.
As opposed to rationalists, let’s discuss what concretes or examples we’ll need to understand what force is. This topic is one of the easiest of the principles induced thus far, because force is perceivable. Unlike the other principles, where there are potentially countless kinds of justice or reason being used as a tool of survival, there are really only three kinds of the initiation of physical force:
1. The first is crime: robbery, assault, rape, murder, kidnapping, etc., or the threat of any of these.
2. Government: it has a monopoly on force in a given area, and its history of warped political priorities (like communism's abolishment of property and enslavement of its people) has made it the most plentiful source of examples for the topic of “force.”
3. Non-prosecutable crime: these cases have no proof of contract and/or no way to show damages. These are often judgment calls that parents have the right to make with minors, but that entities like the government do not have the right to make. An example would a parent promising to get her kid a toy after he finished cleaning his room, and reneges on the promise after he finishes—this wastes the kid’s time and effort, going against his choice and his motivation through physical means (by not taking the physical actions necessary to give the kid a toy).
The conclusion we want to reach in order to see how the initiation of physical force is evil is the principle that "force is anti-mind," it destroys the cognitive processes of reason as such, and this is the ultimate Objectivist reason for the initiation of physical force being evil.
In order to reach that, you’d have to know that force attacks particular conclusions that you hold, conclusions that you worked hard mentally to reach and grasp. Once you knew this, then you could later understand how force does something more expansive to the cognitive faculty as such. Force isn’t just against the body, you learn, but impacts the mind, wreaks havoc upon it, and from that you could reach the next level and claim that force is against the whole mind.
The next step is to figure out something about your conclusions, namely, what are they, and how do you reach them. If you just told someone, “force attacks your conclusions,” most people wouldn’t understand that, because force doesn’t directly assault a conclusion or idea that you have. Rather, force attacks conclusions indirectly by clashing with people’s desires, force makes you do something that you don’t want to do. This is our direct evidence of force from reality, and the end of the reduction.
[Next post: "Induction of 'the Initiation of Physical Force is Evil'"]
There is an obvious weakness to your argument. Tax is to my best judgement superior to any other way or financing the government (laws are often the most efficient way to overcome prisoners dilemmas, it also seems perfectly just, everyone benefit from security and stability thus everyone should pay) thus I support the use of force against you if your desire is to freeload. I don't see how your argument cope with this, why would I regard something I believe is beneficial to me and my fellow citizens as evil?
ReplyDelete"I don't see how your argument cope with this, why would I regard something I believe is beneficial to me and my fellow citizens as evil?"
ReplyDeleteMy induction of this principle will only appeal to a certain kind of person: a person that doesn't regard other people as a means to *his* own benefit or ends.
I could say a lot of things about force: that if left unchecked, it leaves its victim mentally crippled and unable to think and live in the world, it bypasses the victim's knowledge and makes him do what he doesn't desire to do, and that it's a negation of a person's selfish values and of their pursuit. But none of those points will probably matter to someone who thinks that the ends justify the means, that the initiation of physical force is morally justified if it achieves the ends that *you* think are beneficial, or what the majority of citizens believe to be desirable.
In that respect, you're no different from a common bully or a wife-beater or a thief: they all hold some view of what's right for them, and they'll achieve their values and desires by initiating force against their innocent victims. And that your goal is allegedly for a good cause doesn't change my evaluation of your force: a thief could use the stolen goods or money to feed starving kids, but that doesn't justify his use of force, either.
In all likelihood, you won't accept my conclusion about force until you decide that it isn't proper to force people to do the rational thing, or what's in their best interest, or what's in the interest of society, or whatever. One way to rid yourself of that kind of view is to turn the tables: for you to value and desire something, and then for someone else to have the government outlaw it because of some beneficial effects it will allegedly have in society at large. Like your example of taxes, your opposition pointed to something that he (or they) viewed to be good, to be enforced even if it clashes with your desires--will you regard this as beneficial to you, too? Or would you regard this initiation of force to be evil, and if so, why does force become good only when it's instigated for your benefit, but evil when it opposes your values? If you can figure out what's wrong with this picture, you'll be on your way to accepting Rand's political principle: "No man—or group or society or government—has the right to assume the role of a criminal and initiate the use of physical compulsion against any man."
( http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/physical_force.html )
I've offered some suggestions, but ultimately, the only way to cope with my argument is to engage in the inductions I reached on my blog: the role of reason in human survival, the principle of egoism, and the relation of force to selfish values and reason, and to put them all together. No matter who's carrying out the force or for what purpose, it is evil because it negates the victim's desires and values, the conclusions necessary to evaluate things, and ultimately it paralyzes the mind, making the mind unable to carry out any cognitive thought. If you believe that things like force-induced mental paralysis on an innocent victim isn't evil, then there's nothing I can really do about that.
“My induction of this principle will only appeal to a certain kind of person: a person that doesn't regard other people as a means to *his* own benefit or ends.”
ReplyDeleteEveryone is subjected to the same rule, and the rule (by overcoming coordination problems that are present in all human associations whether they are voluntary or involuntary) raise the quality of the civilization. By any descent human moral standard this ought to be embraced.
I'm all for respecting the individual and his autonomy, but there are also objective standards for whether it is a human tragedy to be forced to pay for the very civilization that you use to pursue your own goals, and this standards clearly indicates that there is absolutely no reason to feel sorry for those overruled. Humans generally prefer wealth to misery and a government that do not recognize this fails to live up to it's proper role to provide the best soil for human flourishing.
“In all likelihood, you won't accept my conclusion about force until you decide that it isn't proper to force people to do the rational thing, or what's in their best interest, or what's in the interest of society, or whatever.”
All human associations use rules in some instances the enforce behaviour. I'm forced to pay my rent every month otherwise I will be thrown out of my apartment. Why is there such a rule? The reason is that the rule stabilizes a situation that would otherwise be a prisoners dilemma and that would almost certainly deteriorate to no ones benefit. There are perfectly transparent reasons for why there is a need for rules in some situations. Society as a whole is no different, you are born into the society and therefore there simply cannot be any explicit agreement like a voluntary contract, but that doesn't mean that there aren't perfectly valid reasons for the rules you are born under. To tax people in order to pay for security and stability which you cannot fail to benefit from is a rule with a perfectly legit justification, thus there is no ground to object to it, and there is no reason to feel sorry for those who disagree. If this is the case and you agree with the rule because you accept the reasons for it, how could it "paralyze your mind" while a rule that you explicitly agree upon in a contract can not. It makes no sense, since you evaluate the rules in the exact same manner.
"By any descent human moral standard this ought to be embraced."
ReplyDeleteI reject any "moral standard" that upholds the sort of civilization that wants to initiate force for "my" or "society's" good. Both that moral standard and that society become immoral in my view.
Initiating physical force as some cure-all for the problems of civilization is only a can of worms--and will lead to more problems, far different from the ones that the initial use of force was supposed to solve, and far worse. You keep referring to "rules," but when it comes to the initiation of physical force, some rules are meant to be broken.
"I'm all for respecting the individual and his autonomy, but there are also objective standards for whether it is a human tragedy to be forced to pay for the very civilization that you use to pursue your own goals, and this standards clearly indicates that there is absolutely no reason to feel sorry for those overruled."
You're contradicting yourself. You can't be for "respecting the individual and his autonomy" while simultaneously upholding the initiation of physical force against innocent people for their alleged good, the good of society. Force is the very thing that negates a person's autonomy. It's like you're saying that you're "all for free speech" and then the next second you're calling for government censorship. Saying that it's for a good cause or for society doesn't stop something from being a contradiction. Either you are for the autonomy of the individual *and* against the initiation of physical force, or you're not, but you can't have it both ways; logically, you can't be both a defender of individual freedom and government initiatory force for our own good.
You also mentioned "objective standards"--well, which "standards" are you referring to? Who do the standards apply to? What facts about the world led to the construction of these standards? Maybe if you discussed these, we could get somewhere in this back-and-forth of ours. Just to let you know, I think the idea that there's standards for determining when the initiation of physical force is justified is philosophically and morally indefensible, and no one has ever made such a defense.
There's nothing that we owe to "civilization" or "society," despite what you've been seeming to imply. People live their own lives, and choose their obligations--we don't become obligated to society for merely being born here or coming to this one. So I reject that line of thinking that this idea of obligation is what underpins the advocacy of taxation as justified, simply because it supposedly gives us stability and security.
"Humans generally prefer wealth to misery and a government that do not recognize this fails to live up to it's proper role to provide the best soil for human flourishing."
The purpose of a proper government is to protect the rights of its citizens, to serve as an agent of retaliatory force--nothing more, nothing less. It shouldn't exist to make sure we're all happy, healthy, flourishing human beings--that's a problem that we have to address on our own, in our private daily lives, and the government should stay out of it. It shouldn't copy the history of all the rest of the world's (and history's) poor excuses for governments by initiating force against its own citizens, by carrying out the very thing it was supposed to protect its people from.
"I'm forced to pay my rent every month otherwise I will be thrown out of my apartment."
That isn't "force." You signed a contract or some kind of agreement, so if you don't honor it and try to stay in the apartment, then *you're* the one initiating force, not your landlord or whoever owns the entire apartment building(s).
You signed it and if you reneged on its terms but continued to stay and use appliances without contractual consent, it would be a "breach of contract," and technically, a kind of fraud. Contractually agreeing to pay rent, and then failing to do so while physically staying in and using the place, is initiating force. It's not like everyone else is capable of initiating force except you.
ReplyDelete"To tax people in order to pay for security and stability which you cannot fail to benefit from is a rule with a perfectly legit justification, thus there is no ground to object to it, and there is no reason to feel sorry for those who disagree."
Taxation doesn't have "legit justification"--it's a blatant violation of the right to property. The very statement of property rights would outlaw forced taxation, if any politician would care to connect the dots. (A right to property is a right to use and disposal, so long as you don't violate anyone else's rights, and that means deciding voluntarily what you do with your income, not the government deciding where a share of it goes for your own good.) Our current tax system is just as indefensible as slavery, prohibition, drafting people into the service, and countless other government actions that have occurred in human history--they are violations of the individual rights of people.
It can't be justified by saying that it secures good things for people in society, like "security" or "stability." On what moral base does the "public good," or the good of civilization or whatever become a moral standard to live by or make decisions from? If it's altruism, well then, what justifies the moral code of altruism? Not even Auguste Comte, the coiner of the term "altruism" and the builder of the philosophy of "other-ism" could give it a rational defense--so then what is yours, if you agree with it? What are your moral beliefs, and what are they based on? If you don't have a basis, then you can't defend why security and the good of civilization and all that is something we should be striving for, and our discussion comes to a close.
"If this is the case and you agree with the rule because you accept the reasons for it, how could it 'paralyze your mind' while a rule that you explicitly agree upon in a contract can not."
One of the points of my induction (not this essay, the other one, "Induction of 'the initiation of physical force is evil") was that your motivation, agreement, disagreement, desire, etc. *don't matter* in relation to the force. Once the money's taxed, the situation is out of your control, and in the control of the government--your mind is no longer the only thing in the picture, so it doesn't matter if you're supportive of taxation or not. You're not in any position to do anything with the money anymore, and any conclusions you reached about the money that was taxed is now invalid, even if you needed the money. In regard to the taxes, the person's sovereignty has been violated by the government, and there is nothing for the average citizen to do in regard to them, but to hope that they get some of it back from tax returns. *This* is where the issue of mental paralysis comes in, because there's nothing to *think* about regarding this as well--most people simply accept taxation as a way of life, do their tax forms when it's that time of year, and don't give it much more thought. You can think about a lot of things in relation to the money that didn't go towards taxes, but hardly anyone is inclined to think about what happens to their tax money, and that's because it's taken with or without their choice, and so it bypasses their conclusions as well.
You could be in complete agreement with some brutal government that *you* should be tortured, but your mind will still become paralyzed to the extent that they do torture you, because paralysis is out of your control in the case of physical force.
ReplyDeleteThe initiation of physical force is evil *because* of the paralysis it places on the mind of the innocent. It doesn't cease being evil because some poor soul is complacent with its use, or advocates it because of the alleged good effects it has, all the while ignoring the bad effects it carries along with it. The ends do not justify the means.
"You're contradicting yourself."
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm not an extremist. I like speedy cars, but I wouldn't want a rocket car, I would consider it sensible to balance speed against other valuable parameters. What you call a contradiction I would call a balance. You could just as well say that the extreme becomes a contradiction because it forfeits other things of value.
"That isn't "force." You signed a contract or some kind of agreement[...]"
That's true, but the interesting part is _why_ the contract enforce certain rules. The obvious reason why your rental contract enforces payment is that this counter the disintegrational force of a prisoners dilemma. The contract for your apartment could theoretically stipulate: "pay what you feel is appropriate". However, such contracts are unheard of on the free market and that tells us something about the deteriorating forces present in voluntary associations and that makes certain types of rules necessary. Those forces are present in the society as a whole as well and this provide a technical justification for the superiority of tax over voluntary alternatives; you want to finance the operation of government with an equivalent to a "pay what you feel is appropriate but receive all benefits whether you pay or not"-contract. I think that we have all reasons in the world to consider that a rather naive idea. Voluntary system are also much more prone to corruption since funding might be conditioned on special favours.
From a moral standpoints the system I propose seems acceptable from any number of ethical perspectives. The utilitarian would point to the fact that it produces a superior soil for individual human endeavours, the egoist would conclude the same thing; why endure misery in a sub par system, what good does that do to me? The laws are symmetrical; the bully wouldn't accept to change place with his victim, while tax is a rule subjected equally to all: everyone benefits - everyone pays.
Given this, that we accept tax on those practical and moral grounds, let's take a closer look at your claim that it paralyses the mind by turning the whole thing around. Suppose that the government is voluntarily underfunded with the implicated corruption and lack of order which frustrates peoples dreams and plans. This system would obviously not be aligned with the desires of the population. Furthermore, force would be used to cement this system by preventing the people from instituting a better order. Why would this massive frustration of desire by the use of force not paralyse the mind? I suppose you would say that the force used to cement the bad system is just protection of individual rights and therefore it cannot paralyse peoples mind, but isn't that a bit magical, the fact of the matter is that the bad system is the system that rob people on their dreams, and force is used to prohibit a better system, thus it seems odd that the paralysis if the minds should follow the borders of individual rights rather than individual desires. That's why I think your argument doesn't work, and besides that, it seems rather dubious anyway, if we already live under a system that paralyses our minds, shouldn't we notice?
"Well, I'm not an extremist."
ReplyDeleteWell, I *am*. I'm learning about these principles, and what will happen in reality if those principles are enacted. I've learned the reasons why initiating physical force is evil, and no side considerations or purported benefits (like "security," or "civilization") will ever convince me that initiated force is sometimes okay or justified.
I also learned that initiated force, unopposed, tends to increase in intensity and spread into all available areas, and that's exactly what happened in the history of this country, and really in all countries. There isn't just initiated force in the tax system, but in our welfare system, the draft, discrimination laws, laws against business trusts, drug laws, health care, the housing market, and the list goes on.
Which brings me to your next point:
"What you call a contradiction I would call a balance. You could just as well say that the extreme becomes a contradiction because it forfeits other things of value."
"Forfeiting" other things isn't the same thing as a contradiction. "Contradiction" is a term with a very specific meaning.
And if you call that a "balance," would you now argue that you can "balance" good with evil? Can we balance the just with the unjust? Is this appropriate? Or is it the case that we should be consistently good and just when it is in our power, and not relinquish our view of the good to gain "balance." "Balance" isn't an unlimited virtue, to be sought at any cost.
And I don't give up things of value by objecting to the forced tax system we live under. Force negates the conclusions of the mind, including the victim's value-judgments that have some relationship to the force being initiated. If a person gains the "value" of security at the cost of his political freedom, then how is he in a position to decide that security is a "value" or not--and what other values will he lose when the "balance" shifts to even less political freedom in favor of more "security"?
Here's the essence of what's wrong with your approach to this: there are two contradictory principles being discussed here. One is respecting the individual and his autonomy. The other is initiating physical force against someone. These two contradict each other directly, and one needs to only contrast, say, asking a smart kid for help on a homework assignment, and a bully beating on the kid to force him to do his homework for him.
If a person advocated complete, universal initiation of physical force against others, he would be (rightly) seen as a sociopath and lunatic, like Stalin, Hitler, and Mao. The principle, in complete practice, would lead to the entire annihilation of the human species. No rational person would accept that principle in total, so what you're doing is you're advocating it piecemeal, just a little bit, so that you can pass yourself off as advocating both respect for, and initiating force against, people. As you said, we need "balance," right?
If someone accepted your logic, then the only approach that would seemingly make sense would be to go case-by-case, issue-by-issue, and determine when it is and isn't appropriate to initiate force to get some supposed benefit, and when it's appropriate to instead respect the individual's autonomy.
But that's not how the human mind should work. We're not newborns--we're adults who already possess a vast range of concepts and integrations, and we need to apply them to this issue of whether we should respect individuals as a principle, or initiate force against them; you have to decide which one you are for, when you're faced with two directly contradictory claims.
[con't]
[con't]
ReplyDeleteThat's why I can conclude that since initiating physical force is evil, it should be *barred* in all ways, shapes and forms, whether it's a thief wanting to benefit from taking other people's productive achievements, or it's someone like you advocating forced taxation to supposedly benefit everyone in society. Benefits and values are not simply static qualities of the world--they depend on the context of the person, and the judgment of his mind, not simply *your* judgment that something is a benefit for him.
"However, such contracts are unheard of on the free market and that tells us something about the deteriorating forces present in voluntary associations and that makes certain types of rules necessary."
The reason is two-fold: one is that people renege on their obligations, and the contract is the proof to a court that the person owes payment to the landlord for the services he offered him. The second is that economic facts about building maintenance, construction, advertizing, etc. incur costs, and the owners of the apartment complex needs to set an objective amount of money that the person agrees to pay for staying there, which will go towards these costs (and towards the livelihoods of the owners, landlords, etc.).
"Paying what you feel" is not a superior or desirable standard to decide to pay things, because it isn't rational--what you feel doesn't dictate what it right, or true.
"Those forces are present in the society as a whole as well and this provide a technical justification for the superiority of tax over voluntary alternatives..."
I could just as well say that bananas exist in America all over, and this justifies that you eat one particular kind of banana or that this kind of banana is superior to apples. It's a non sequitur. If you are going to say that forced taxation is superior to voluntary alternatives, you'll need economic and moral arguments, not a loose induction about the way that the country is now.
"From a moral standpoints the system I propose seems acceptable from any number of ethical perspectives."
That's another non sequitur. Not all ethical perspectives are true. Simply citing them doesn't advance your argument. You need to defend one moral view in particular, and put it together with your claims.
"the egoist would conclude the same thing; why endure misery in a sub par system, what good does that do to me? "
Seeing as I am an egoist, I'll tell you what I would actually conclude: force opposes *my selfish values*, so it is evil, and I am completely against it. I choose and work to achieve my values, so I don't advocate initiating force on people to get things that I desire. I put my values and life in jeopardy when and if I choose to initiate force against others, and so it's against my interests, and I won't take any part in it.
"Suppose that the government is voluntarily underfunded with the implicated corruption and lack of order which frustrates peoples dreams and plans."
I refuse to. The example is blatantly skewed in favor of your argument, and it wouldn't change anything in this discussion. (For instance, who said that a voluntary system had to lack order, or that voluntary systems face more corruption than forced system. Incidentally, I think the opposite is the truth in regard to corruption--corrupt people use their political power over force-heavy countries to spread the corruption on hapless citizens.) I could sketch the perfect voluntary system, and it wouldn't matter, because you think that force is necessary for certain things in a civilized world, whereas I think that initiating force is characteristic of being uncivilized.
I think it is important to note that we look at things from different frameworks and reach overlapping but still distinct conclusions. While I regard your bully examples as instance of unethical behavior, I also recognize the perfectly legit distinction between this situation and the situation where someone is born into a civilization where uniform, symmetrical rules for transparent reasons produce a superior civilization; your framework doesn't uphold this distinction and treat both situations as tragedies. My point is, it's trivial to construct an ethical framework that rules out bullying but embrace good rules for society and there is certainly no inherent contradiction to be found here.
ReplyDelete"And if you call that a "balance," would you now argue that you can "balance" good with evil"
To connect to my earlier example, we can balance speed against comfort and price, that is, we balance goods. The rocket car may simply not be the optimal choice for our purposes, the focus on one parameter only may actually be self defeating. Personal autonomy is good. Social order is good. The latter may require all encompassing laws that in some sense diminish the first, however, what you get in return is a superior soil for your personal endeavors, thus the trade off is a good one, and there is simply no reason why a self interested person could not recognize this and embrace it. Also, a very high degree of social order may very well be a requirement for any meaningful personal autonomy.
As you can see, I simply do not subscribe to your analytical framework that regards the theoretical construct of "initiation of force" as the only valid parameter, among other things because it´s a way to broad and blunt construct and it fail to uphold important distinctions utterly relevant for human wellbeing.
Think about it, If the egoist doesn't believe that your system works, which he has very solid historical and technical reasons for doing, where does that leave Rands position?
Why should the egoist endure misery in order to be consistent with a particular theoretical framework, when he can endure well being together with his fellow humans by being consistent with a different theoretical framework?
"Seeing as I am an egoist, I'll tell you what I would actually conclude: force opposes *my selfish values*, so it is evil, and I am completely against it."
ReplyDeleteA sub par system that knowingly neglect to enforce rules that raise the quality of the civilization is in blatant opposition to my, and most of my fellow humans, selfish values. And the force used to uphold this sub par system massively negates the conclusions and value judgments of the citizens. I mean, humans will always be interested in their own wellbeing, force used to uphold bad systems will always be more oppressive than force used to uphold good systems even if the latter according to libertarians use initiation of force.
"I choose and work to achieve my values, so I don't advocate initiating force on people to get things that I desire."
The point with public goods is that you as an individual do not control the outcome, while at the same time your own wellbeing is extremely dependent upon it; you are dependent on social order, but you alone can not control it. Your contribution will always be very, very tiny, and you always have the possibility to free ride unless the globally optimal rule is enforced. This turns the situation into a prisoners dilemma which markets simply cannot handle unless they have the possibility to exclusion. However, you cannot exclude someone from the society. A basic truth is: Allow for freeloading and the market will go wrong. This is exactly the reason why every voluntary association enforce financing; society as a whole is no different.
"The example is blatantly skewed in favor of your argument, and it wouldn't change anything in this discussion."
Why doesn't outcome play any role in you analysis? If your life is the ultimate value this suggests that outcome is of supreme importance. In the end, your system is a mere speculation with the technical and historical facts against it. It's not clear to me why this is of no importance to a self interested person.
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