05-01-2003 21:41									#211
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quote: Originally posted by MRT144 Worse than slavery? you mean like selling them into a family of clowns?

I think it means prostitution, but I could be wrong.

	06-01-2003 01:09									#212
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Ted - What's wrong? Can't debate the issue at hand so you change the subject? Where did I say opium could not be hazardous? Oh yeah, I didn't. Ben Franklin used opium, do you think he would have been party to government bans on the drug? I have Iranian friends in LA who smoke opium and shared it with me a few times. My experience, and what I saw from them doesn't come close to what you've posted. As my friend explained it, they used it occasionally to relax after a hard day's work. I can quote government officials who claimed pot turns people into psychotic murderers, big deal. Many Chinese miners in Gold Rush California used opium and they were quite happy to let the white miners who were boozing it up believe the opium gave the whites an advantage over the Chinese.

quote: You are the first person I've ever heard mention this Chinese slave state.

Well, live and learn. You're the first person I've ever seen argue that Chinese emporers didn't enslave people. That is your position, true?

quote: Secondly, that's a flawed argument. Normally people into vices or doing illegal things of course aren't going to complain about it! Duh! "Hey! I'm doing something illegal! **** this, we need to stop my actions!"

Gee whiz, I merely pointed out who was doing the complaining and who wasn't. You cite a bureaucrat serving a dictator, will you now repeat what Goebels said about Jews and what Stalin said about Ukrainian farmers?

quote: Thirdly, I can guarantee you that there was a large chunk of the population complaining about it. Just as today we have a large portion of the population in the US that complain about drug use.

And you think Chinese peasants had the emporer's ear? Did they get to vote for emporer?

quote: Go outside and do an informal survey and see what people say about it.

Why? The opinions of people who've been brainwashed by decades of propaganda aren't valid. Two centuries ago that informal survey might have returned as an endorsement of slavery.

	06-01-2003 03:19									#213
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quote: Originally posted by Ted Striker I think it actually says that on the job description. Now please show me proof that people that disobeyed were killed.

That's pretty much how it was. The system was so arbitrary that officials could have peasants killed on a whim.

	06-01-2003 03:37									#214
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quote: Originally posted by David Floyd Well, we can talk about degrees of right and wrong, or we can talk about right and wrong. We can both agree that murder is wrong, I assume. Since murder is wrong, you are in the wrong if you murder one person or ten people, so I'm not sure I see the relevance of debating whether one is worse than the other?

All you need to accept my argument is that the phrase, "lesser of two evils", makes sense. If you want to say that it is senseless then you owe some explanation.

quote: OK, but when you put yourself into a situation it ceases to be an impartial view.

In no way does the moral point of view ever cease to be impartial for Libertarians because it is for them by definition impartial. All "impartial" means in this context is that it is wrong for me to assign additional weight to the preservation of my rights over anyone else's.

quote: You are never responsible for the actions of others, but rather for your own action. Thus, if someone commits an immoral act such as murder, you aren't morally responsible for that act - the person who committed it is.

This isn't always true; there are counterexamples: e.g. I misinform someone who then does something bad; or I place someone under duress.

I didn't say that you were blameworthy or punishable in the strict sense. My claim is very simple; it is this: if Libertarians think that Liberty is a good thing, and those who value a thing in this way think that there should be more of it rather than less, it therefore seems contradictory that they would settle for less liberty.

In a nutshell your position is that you value liberty but don't mind seeing less of it in the world than there might otherwise have been. That seems a bizarre position to hold. What it I said that I thought suffering was a terrible thing and refused to inflict it in war which then ended up causing more suffering? It's the same thing.

quote: If the only way to stop someone from killing five people is to kill one innocent person (and I struggle to see the real world application of even this example, which is more realistic than your original one), you can look at it two ways.

It is fine as a real world example in any case where the rights of the few come into conflict with the rights of the many. Here's a good example: I am a bomber pilot during a war whose mission is to bomb a plant that contributes to the making nuclear weapons for the enemy. The product of the plant can also be given civilian uses but it is clear that it is being used to supply the military. Our side has very good reason to believe that if the enemy acquires nuclear weapons he will use them to obliterate New York, causing massive casualties. It so happens that the enemy has situated his plant in a civilian area so that civilian casualties cannot be avoided (a few hundred or so).

According to you we would refrain from bombing and let New York be obliterated.

quote: First, your way: Murder is bad, and more murder is worse. Thus, five murders are worse than one murder. If I can stop five murders by committing one myself, then I acted morally and properly.

Yes you did; you made the best of a bad situation.

quote: But that thought process does not take into account the idea of personal accountability. You cannot control what someone else does - only they can. This leads to thought process number two: Murder is bad, no matter how many people are killed. Therefore, I should not commit murder. Because I should not commit murder, it is not OK for me to murder one person to stop someone else from murdering five people.

Yes you cannot control what other people do and when they do bad things like put a weapons plant in a civilian area or ask you to kill one to save five, you have to face a choice between two bads. You have a seeming choice between two values:

(1) that I never commit murder.

and

(2) that there be as few murders as possible, preferably none.

The situations described bring these principles into conflict; so one of them has to go. I say it is (1) that must go because you can't provide me a reason to believe that a murder committed by you is worse ceterus paribus from the moral point of view, than a murder committed by someone else. Is the point of morality to bolster your conscience, or is it to lower the amount of evil in the world?

quote: But even that does not leave you without options. Assuming you KNOW that five murders are going to take place, you have the option to alert the police, alert the victims, or be there yourself to try to defend the people being murdered. You also have the option to do nothing, although I would think that any decent person would choose to try to stop the murder in a moral way.

If that was possible in my case you would be right, but in my case it isn't. What you are doing is changing the example; this misses the point of the example. If you want to avoid my conclusion you have to show me that such conflicts of principle CAN NEVER HAPPEN, EVER. You need to show me that it there will never, ever arise a case in which there will be rights conflicts like the ones I described. The bombing case is quite plausible given recent events, I think you owe an answer.

quote: The key, though, is that you are not committing an immoral act yourself - immoral acts do not balance themselves out, and there is no such thing as "net morality", ie, the immorality of killing one person is more than offset by the morality of saving five. That just doesn't wash, at least not with me.

Why not? Again, how many more deaths than one will it take for you to admit that it would be worse?

quote: But as I pointed out above, even this example is contrived, and has little bearing on reality. Come up with a more realistic example (I could, but why should I - it's your argument), and we'll talk about that.

The basic principle has much bearing on reality - sometimes rights claims conflict. Use the bomb example if you like.

quote: Then I hope the above convinced you.

A vain hope it seems.

quote: It is? Granted, it's a TAD more plausible than yours (given that what few smithies exist in the world today do not stockpile modern weapons), but it still isn't very likely.

The existence of smithies isn't relevant to the point of the example which is that principles like (1) and (2) above conflict in many situations.

quote: That's correct. I have an obligation to act morally, and killing innocent people is NOT acting morally.

Again - if you could choose between acting morally and having a morally worse overall situation and acting imorally and making things better, it seems perverse not to do the latter or you seem to have no unselfish reason for behaving morally in the first place.

quote: I wasn't aware my conscience was killing anyone - I thought it was the guy who pulled the trigger.

But you can make a difference to the outcome - that's all that matters.

quote: That's blatantly false. If, in our outlandishly contrived scenario, I walked down the street, randomly shot someone, and claimed (rightly or wrongly) that by doing so I saved five people, I would be laughed out of court and thrown in prison. And rightly so.

But that isn't the case you described. If you went to court having actually saved five people by killing one, or being in a situation that you reasonably believed that you would save five people, you would not be found guilty.

quote: Again, you are oversimplifying the situation. I am not responsible for the deaths of five, but I am responsible if I kill one person.

I don't think it is that clear. It doesn't matter to me anyway, all that I am claiming is that in these situations you can make a difference to the outcome.

quote: I would think that's obvious, but if you need to ask why murder is wrong, this discussion is pointless.

Not really: working out why you think murder is wrong would tell me why you think it is OK to countenance five instead of one. Here's two options:

(1) Is it bad because of the murderer's action?

or

(2) Is it bad because of the result?

It seems that 2 is correct because it is bad that people die even when no one is responsible for it - murder is bad because it causes people to die, dying is not bad becase it is caused by murderers.


That's enough for now. This is the core of the dispute - the rest just follows if the premise is acknowledged.

quote: And, to change the subject a bit, may I ask what your experience is in either Libertarianism or political philosophy in general?

You can ask, but I ain't telling - yet. Let's say I'd be willing to wager that it's more than you and I'm certain it's more than Berzerker.

	06-01-2003 03:47									#215
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Berzerker et al. are absolutely correct. It was the moralism of the Chinese bureaucracy and to a lesser extent aristocracy that opposed the opium trade, not the peasantry. And yes, the Emperor, the bureaucracy, and the aristocracy, had total control of the peasantry, who had few legal protections.

The British East India Company had done plenty of atrocious things in its day, but running the opium trade, while certainly wrong, wasn't something the Chinese gov't should have forcefully put an end to. Opium smoking was a symptom of the Chinese emperor's lecherous policies against the peasantry. At a time when peasants were facing hard times, as the rural population exploded and individual peasants had less and less land, the Chinese emperor continued demanding harsh taxes from them, causing their land to be consolidated by the untaxed aristocracy. Opium smoking was only a natural response to this poverty and suffering, so blaming the Brits for the opium smoking when other competetitors would be just as happy to supply the drug, instead of the Chinese gov't is hardly accurate.

	06-01-2003 04:14									#216
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Berzerker

I'm not going to bother to respond to most of your comments because they are assertions rather than arguments - they have no inferential structure. One or two of them don't make grammatical sense either. Thankfully for the Libertarian side David Lloyd understands how to debate the point - I disagree with him, but it's self evident that he understands how to argue.

I'd like to point out that your eschewal of any example that does not describe something that actually happened would prohibit us from making informed hypotheses on missions to mars and nuclear holocaust among countless others.

It seems that you aren't familiar with thought experiments and in particular their use in philosophy and political science. This leads me to think that you have never done these things at a university or anywhere else (though that is not required to understand them). For God's sake Libertarian thinkers use them. The most famous Libertarian argument ever, Robert Nozick's "Wilt Chamberlain" argument is a good example.

Come on, Berzerker, you are being thrashed on all sides. It would be good manners to admit it.

quote: "Optimum results" are in the eye of the beholder and used as an excuse by one group of people to trample others. The "Invisible Hand" deals with economics and how an economy based on freedom and the multitude of decisions consumers and producers make every day is a better system than controlled economies where a group of elites try to make all those decisions for everyone (I believe).

The point of "prisoner's dilemma" situations is to show the sort of case in which the "invisible hand" fails.

A good way to identify such cases is to look at the various fines and punishments that are imposed to dissuade people from littering and polluting and stealing books. These are the cases in which social sanctions by and large fail.

Here's an example: companies that pollute in order to lower costs.

I own a company in a Libertarian society I am confronted with the following decision matrix.

(1) I pollute, no one else pollutes. Result: everyone else goes out of business.

(2) I don't pollute, everyone else else pollutes. Result: I go out of busniess.

(3) Everyone pollutes: result: everyone still in business; pollution unbearable.

(4) No one pollutes: result: everyone still in business.

Self interested rationality requires that I pollute. So will everyone else. You might want to say that everyone will force us not to pollute by social sanctions - this will encourage secret polluting. Besides the notion of social sanctions will bring its own prisoner's dilemma as the companies will attempt to buy off the boycotters.

The boycotter's dilemma:

(1) I don't boycott, everyone else boycotts. Result for me: I am bought off, pollution is lowered.

(2) I boycott, no one else does. Result for me: pollution stays the same.

(3) Everyone boycotts. Result for me: pollution is lowered.

(4) No one boycotts; Result for me: I am bought off pollution stays the same.

1 is best for me and 2 is worst. But since 1 is better than 3 and 4 is better than 2 everyone has an incentive not to boycott even though 3 is the best overall situation for everyone (even though it is second best for us individually).

This is why we need a state to step in and impose regulations and fines. If we don't free rider problems will lead to a life which is "nasty, brutish and short".

	06-01-2003 05:37									#217
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Ramo -

quote: Opium smoking was a symptom of the Chinese emperor's lecherous policies against the peasantry. At a time when peasants were facing hard times, as the rural population exploded and individual peasants had less and less land, the Chinese emperor continued demanding harsh taxes from them, causing their land to be consolidated by the untaxed aristocracy.

Yup, and we know what happened in the 1850's, the Taiping Rebellion. Hardly a bunch of happy campers in China under the emperors.

Agathon - The first part of your post was nothing more than chest thumping after the opponent who decked you has walked away. Round 2?

quote: The point of "prisoner's dilemma" situations is to show the sort of case in which the "invisible hand" fails.

Hmm...I thought it was your proof that libertarian principles are contradictory. Wasn't that your original claim?

quote: A good way to identify such cases is to look at the various fines and punishments that are imposed to dissuade people from littering and polluting and stealing books. These are the cases in which social sanctions by and large fail.

They aren't social sanctions, they are government sanctions. Are you equating the two?

quote: Here's an example: companies that pollute in order to lower costs. I own a company in a Libertarian society I am confronted with the following decision matrix. (1) I pollute, no one else pollutes. Result: everyone else goes out of business. (2) I don't pollute, everyone else else pollutes. Result: I go out of busniess. (3) Everyone pollutes: result: everyone still in business; pollution unbearable. (4) No one pollutes: result: everyone still in business. Self interested rationality requires that I pollute.

Why would unrestrained pollution be legal in a libertarian system? Where in the LP platform did you see a clause for legalising all pollution?

quote: You might want to say that everyone will force us not to pollute by social sanctions - this will encourage secret polluting.

Not social sanctions, judicial sanctions. No libertarian would argue for a right to pollute.

quote: Besides the notion of social sanctions will bring its own prisoner's dilemma as the companies will attempt to buy off the boycotters.

Do I have the right to dump my trash on your lawn? Frankly, your claim about knowing what libertarianism is about is dubious given the "PD's" you are coming up with.

quote: The boycotter's dilemma: (1) I don't boycott, everyone else boycotts. Result for me: I am bought off, pollution is lowered. (2) I boycott, no one else does. Result for me: pollution stays the same. (3) Everyone boycotts. Result for me: pollution is lowered. (4) No one boycotts; Result for me: I am bought off pollution stays the same.

Boycotting polluters? Try suing them for property damage instead, sheesh. Boycotts are my primary solution to free riders, not polluters.

quote: This is why we need a state to step in and impose regulations and fines.

No kidding, but I'd send some of these flagrant polluters to prison, not hand them a fine they can pass along to consumers.

quote: If we don't free rider problems will lead to a life which is "nasty, brutish and short".

Free rider "problems" are related to people who don't pay taxes for services they receive like police/military, not polluters. Your insults are hilarious. You are amazingly ignorant of libertarianism given all your name dropping. First you claim stolen library books is proof that libertarianism is contradictory, now it's polluters. I thought you were going to come up with a legal behavior/PD to prove libertarianism is contradictory.

quote: If we don't free rider problems will lead to a life which is "nasty, brutish and short".

This deserves another response. If some guy in the woods living off his land doesn't pay a tax to support the police, how does that make life "nasty, brutish and short" for all the people who are supporting the police?
And you complain about assertions?

	06-01-2003 05:47									#218
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quote: you change the subject?

I like your style Berzerker.

1) Change subject, whine to opponent to prove changed subject
2) Blame opponent for changing subject and then call him a hypocrite

quote: Ben Franklin used opium

As did alot of people in the early 19th century. As I pointed out several times, it wasn't just the Chinese that recognized the danger, it was most every major country in the world. Later in the 19th Century, most countries recognized the dangers of Opium in the smoked form and either regulated it or banned it. And again, George Washington owned slaves. Does that make it right though?

quote: I have Iranian friends in LA who smoke opium

We are talking about 19th Century China, not your Iranian friends. I have current Iranian friends in LA and I don't know any that smoke Opium. My experience is different from yours. So should we take a limited personal experience and create a blanket experience out of it?

-->Yet we have countless historical documents referring to the Opium problem as a menace to China. Now tell me, did all of these writers come to these conclusions independently of the Emperor?

quote: You cite a bureaucrat serving a dictator,

Wrong. I cited every single government in charge from 1729 through 2002. All of them are wrong? Every last one of them? Not only that, major governments around the world recognizing the dangers of opium and enacting law and regulation to deal with the problem. Are all of these world governments doing so against the will of the people?

Certainly the Emperor was no angel, however your attempt to frame the government as oppressive and therefore throw out anything it did as valid, fails, since we have other governments where terrible things (like slavery in the US, native explotaition in the British Empire) are going on at the same time. So does that also invalidate anything the US or Britain did?

quote: Why? The opinions of people who've been brainwashed by decades of propaganda aren't valid.

Nice dodge. Or maybe they have come to conclusions themselves through their own experiences?


But again, speaking of hypocrits, you pointed out to us that even though corporations did things like child labor, they still did more good than not by employing people. How come they get a break but the Emperor does not?

You still haven't supplied any numbers regarding 19th century American drug usage by the way. And haven't explained to me how government intervention caused the Dust Bowl either. But speaking of changing the subject.

Ramo,

Are modern anti-drug policies the product specifically of the government and not the people?

Secondly, the equivalent of what the East India tea company was doing, was basically, if McDonald's decided to sell crack to China. McDonald's sends over a tanker full of crack, and sometimes they even do this under protection of the US Navy! Not only that, when the Chinese confront the tankers in the harbor, and ask McDonald's to empty their stores of crack, the US Navy refuses to allow them to do so.

That is gunboat diplomacy! You guys are completely ignoring the Western rape of China!

	06-01-2003 05:54									#219
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Might I also add that 2 of the 3 Taiping Rebellions were by Muslims.

The Taiping army also fanatically opposed Confucianism, the cornerstone of Chinese society. Sounds like an army of the people right. Leader Hong Xiuquan was a Christian who believed he was the younger son of Jesus and had a vision (from a mental illness) to lead his people against the establishment. Also China had been weakened by natural disaster and western influence.

Certainly there was abuse in China, and the Emperor was on his way out. But way to sum up a complex event by blaming it on one person.

Last edited by Ted Striker on 06-01-2003 at 06:31

	06-01-2003 06:32									#220
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Ted -

quote: I like your style Berzerker. 1) Change subject, whine to opponent to prove changed subject 2) Blame opponent for changing subject and then call him a hypocrite

First, where in that post did I call you a hypocrite? Is that why you don't use quotes? Second, you did change the subject, we were talking about the validity of the emperor's motives for wanting opium banned. You seem to think it's because he was such a caring person and I think it's because he didn't want the people under his thumb slacking off. Now you want to debate whether or not opium can be harmful. That's changing the subject...

quote: We are talking about 19th Century China, not your Iranian friends. I have current Iranian friends in LA and I don't know any that smoke Opium. My experience is different from yours. So should we take a limited personal experience and create a blanket experience out of it?

You and your friends have no experience with it, my friends and I do. So I'll take what we know rather than what you don't know.

quote: Wrong. I cited every single government in charge from 1729 through 2002.

I was talking about the bureaucrat you quoted. So you want to quote other Chinese bureaucrats doing the bidding of the dictators they served, whoopie.

quote: All of them are wrong? Every last one of them?

Immoral, and pawns of dictators who helped enslave millions.

quote: Not only that, major governments around the world recognizing the dangers of opium and enacting law and regulation to deal with the problem.

Some did, so what? Some of those major governments committed atrocities, why are they now the source of morality?

quote: Nice dodge.

Do you deny the American people have been subjected to decades of propaganda about drugs? If you pay any attention to politics, you'd see that whatever the media/government reports on becomes a priority for Americans. If the media starts reporting carjackings, then carjackings become the big scare for the moment until the media/government scares people with some other crisis.

quote: Or maybe they have come to conclusions themselves through their own experiences?

You and your friends in LA have no experience.

quote: But again, speaking of hypocrits, you pointed out to us that even though corporations did things like child labor, they still did more good than not by employing people. How come they get a break but the Emperor does not?

Spare me your accusations, I never mentioned corporations deserving a pass for everything or anything because they employed people. That's your BS. No wonder you don't use quotes.

quote: You still haven't supplied any numbers regarding 19th century drug usage by the way.

And I won't a$$hole. That's what you get for complaining about me asking Strangelove for a link and then telling me to look up links to support your arguments. NO LINK FOR YOU! COME BACK...1 YEAR!

	06-01-2003 06:42									#221
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quote: Might I also add that 2 of the 3 Taiping Rebellions were by Muslims.

And the one from 1851-1864 was led by a Chinese man who mixed protestantism with another belief system, so what? There weren't Chinese muslims?

quote: The Taiping army also fanatically opposed Confucianism, the cornerstone of Chinese society.

So? They wanted to abolish slavery too, but you seem to think there wasn't any, correct? If Confucianism was so great when it was the cornerstone of a dictatorship practicing slavery and God knows what else, then it should have been overthrown.

quote: Sounds like an army of the people right.

Who said it was? But they sure had plenty of support from those beloved peasants under the emperor.

quote: Leader Hong Xiuquan was a Christian who believed he was the younger son of Jesus and had a vision (from a mental illness) to lead his people against the establishment. Also China had been weakened by natural disaster and western influence.

Yeah, everything but those beloved emperors.

quote: Certainly there was abuse in China, and the Emperor was on his way out. But way to sum up a complex event by blaming it on one person.

Quite an understatement. Can you believe this guy, Ramo?

	06-01-2003 06:55									#222
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quote: You seem to think it's because he was such a caring person I think it's because he didn't want the people under his thumb slacking off.

Caring may or may not have anything to do with it. Even the most cold rulers also understand practicality. "Slacking off?" So you understand and acknowledge one of the damages that occurs when a couple of million people get strung out. Excellent work, you're learning.

quote: You and your friends have no experience with it, my friends and I do. So I'll take what we know rather than what you don't know.

quote: You and your friends in LA have no experience.

Or maybe they understand the dangers of using a destructive drug by witnessing its effects firsthand. That's pretty solid knowledge I'd say. I've seen firsthand so many people **** up their lives permanently from drug use.

Legalization would lead to the situation Doc mentioned, which is exactly what happened in China. I can't wait to see an entire drug market backed by corporations like McDonalds or Pepsi! (No doubt you have already mentioned the example of Coca-cola, which had cocaine removed from it).

quote: Immoral, and pawns of dictators who helped enslave millions.

So, every single government that has come through, even though several of them ideaologically are natural enemies, have, through an experienced judgement, come up with a conclusion that opium usage should be banned in China, and that doesn't mean anything to you?

The fact that most major nations on earth got together and decided that Opium usage was destructive, their judgement means nothing to you? Every last one of them are making these decisions why?

quote: Do you deny the American people have been subjected to decades of propaganda about drugs?

By the same token, I seem to recall the American people being subjected to propaganda from the tobacco and alchohol industry. Sure, the government runs anti-drug ads. And I support them. My anti-drug bias comes not from those ads but by witnessing people **** up their lives.

Doc has better experience than all of us, seeing people come in through the ER, but that's another story and I won't speak for him, just relaying what I remember him saying.

quote: That's what you get for complaining about me asking Strangelove for a link and then telling me to look up links to support your arguments.

Link?

I never complained about you asking Doc for anything by the way. But speaking of quotes.


19th century American drug use numbers please

	06-01-2003 07:00									#223
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quote: Originally posted by Berzerker And the one from 1851-1864 was led by a Chinese man who mixed protestantism with another belief system, so what? There weren't Chinese muslims? So? They wanted to abolish slavery too, but you seem to think there wasn't any, correct? If Confucianism was so great when it was the cornerstone of a dictatorship practicing slavery and God knows what else, then it should have been overthrown. Who said it was? But they sure had plenty of support from those beloved peasants under the emperor. Yeah, everything but those beloved emperors.

The point here is that you are pinning the rebellions singly on the oppression of one person, and it's just not that simple. The reason I mention the Muslims, and the religious groups, is that a big part of their problem with the establishment was an ideaological and religious difference.

Also I bring up again Western merchant armies that were all exploiting the system along with some natural disasters that weakend the country and left it open for rebellion.

One of the reasons the rebellion failed is because they attacked Confucianism heavily, which was a cornerstone of Chinese society.

	06-01-2003 07:07									#224
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quote: Originally posted by Ted Striker 19th century American drug use numbers please

Coke used to have coke in it if that will give you an idea of the numbers.

Now for a libertarian question that has been on my mind for sometime now, "Would thalidomide have been banned in a libertarian state in an action similar to what the FDA took?"

	06-01-2003 08:04									#225
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"You're not qualified to tell us about morality."
-Berzerker, to Speer

I've found a new sig!

Agathon - good question to ask, but you don't need to brag about how good you are. Just type, and people will pick up on your style.

"Is the point of morality to bolster your conscience, or is it to lower the amount of evil in the world?"

Referring to your moral problem where one has a choice of killing one person in order to save the life of five, I will choose neither.

"Most people believe in God, that effects how they behave."
-Berzerker.

Even if I choose the moral equivalency test of killing one person, I have still done wrong. Indeed, allowing five people to be killed is worse than shooting one person, but neither is a positive contribution. You are still one person short of where you started.

There is only one 'positive' solution and that is to offer oneself up for the five hostages, ie, trade my life for theirs. This way, five still live, and I am not responsible for the deaths of any other person.

The point of morality is not to 'remove evil,' but to produce virtue. If I offer myself to switch places and this is refused, then I have done my duty. Nothing more can be asked.

	06-01-2003 08:11									#226
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

quote: Originally posted by obiwan18 There is only one 'positive' solution and that is to offer oneself up for the five hostages, ie, trade my life for theirs. This way, five still live, and I am not responsible for the deaths of any other person. The point of morality is not to 'remove evil,' but to produce virtue. If I offer myself to switch places and this is refused, then I have done my duty. Nothing more can be asked.

Got to disagree.

Self sacrifice is not positive and is in many ways the moral equivalent to suicide. It is just as evil as the act of murder.

By allowing yourself to be murdered you have eliminated your future ability to do good. By eliminating a murderer you have eliminated his threat and ability to do evil in the future.

	06-01-2003 08:35									#227
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quote: Agathon - The first part of your post was nothing more than chest thumping after the opponent who decked you has walked away. Round 2?

You are making me laugh...

quote: Hmm...I thought it was your proof that libertarian principles are contradictory. Wasn't that your original claim?

I made two claims - both about Libertarianism when applied to the real world. Hence two posts. I see you had no decent response to the first.

quote: They aren't social sanctions, they are government sanctions. Are you equating the two?

No - the reason we have these sanctions is because the social sanctions are simply not sufficient to stop free riding behaviour. This is especially true in large urban environments where I don't see the same people every day. Prove that social sanctions are enough - I suppose you think these fines and rules exist because of the whim of government, when they are clearly designed to bolster your beloved social sanctions.

quote: Why would unrestrained pollution be legal in a libertarian system? Where in the LP platform did you see a clause for legalising all pollution?

Air pollution (which is what I was really talking about) is notoriously difficult to quantify and is thus a prime candidate for market failure. Trying to build a compensation model for air pollution so company X pays Y dollars to each person would be too unwieldy. Pollution is thus a "tragedy of the commons" (something which Libertarians are just as vulnerable to as those they criticise). I don't say that pollution is on the LP platform; just that it is a consequence of lassez faire policy.

quote: Not social sanctions, judicial sanctions. No libertarian would argue for a right to pollute.

But how are we going to sort out who's air pollution has affected whom? It would be too unwieldy and inefficient not to say pretty much impossible to monitor how much company X has affected my life in order to pay me compensation.

quote: Do I have the right to dump my trash on your lawn? Frankly, your claim about knowing what libertarianism is about is dubious given the "PD's" you are coming up with.

Excuse me, who owns the air?

quote: Boycotting polluters? Try suing them for property damage instead, sheesh. Boycotts are my primary solution to free riders, not polluters.

Again - can you imagine the logistical nightmare in prosecuting this case against all the polluters?

quote: No kidding, but I'd send some of these flagrant polluters to prison, not hand them a fine they can pass along to consumers.

That is, without doubt, the only reasonable suggestion you have made in the whole thread.

quote: Free rider "problems" are related to people who don't pay taxes for services they receive like police/military, not polluters.

You are talking about something else. In my discussion "free riders" are those who attempt to take advantage of PD situations. I'm not one of those stupid people who thinks that every expression has one use and one only.

quote: Your insults are hilarious. You are amazingly ignorant of libertarianism given all your name dropping. First you claim stolen library books is proof that libertarianism is contradictory, now it's polluters. I thought you were going to come up with a legal behavior/PD to prove libertarianism is contradictory.

Well we all know what thought thought.

You really ought to read more carefully. Stealing library books was an example of PD situation - to introduce the notion for interested readers (it happens to be my stock example). Are you disagreeing that it is, or not. It seems plainly a PD situation to me. Why would I have bothered talking about private policing next if your interpretation is true.

Look - all of this is beside the point anyway.

The general argument is this: Libertarian theory requires that we substitute voluntary exchange for coerced taxation. My argument is that this creates a prisoner's dilemma situation because it is not in the rational interest of each person to contribute, but to hope that everyone else does. For everyone to agree to pay for, say, an army, we all have to trust each other to pay, since the army will confer benefits onto non-payers as well.

You have then said that social sanctions would ensure everyone pays. The problem is that they don't seem to be very effective at compelling people to make unselfish choices right this moment, which is why we have government and instutionally backed sanctions. Look at the amount of petty tax avoidance that goes on - it's a reasonable assumption to think that it would get worse if taxation was completely voluntary. Why would I pay if I can't be certain that everyone else is going to pay? I don't want to end up paying for everyone else. As long as I can't trust them it is in my interest to withhold payment.

Even if social sanctions were more effective than they are (and I suggest you look at the amount of litter on any city street to see how effective they really are) the rational thing to do would be to join a clique of other non-payers to trade with. The problem is that almost everyone will try do this - so the tax take will take a huge dip (Of course there will always be some community minded people who will do the decent thing, but unselfish people are a small minority as the fall of the Soviet Union proved).

Look here's pretty much why Libertarianism won't work. In every election campaign I have ever witnessed the voters are all enthusiastic to increase public spending but opposed to tax increases. That's because they are all hoping to free ride (they want someone else to pay the extra tax). You are trying, just as the communists did, to base a whole social and political system, to in effect gamble with civilisation, by hoping that the vast majority of human beings are deep down decent and unselfish people.

So you prove to me that social sanctions will work and not be beset with free riders, despite the evidence of everyday life where such sanctions have proved ineffective.

quote: This deserves another response. If some guy in the woods living off his land doesn't pay a tax to support the police, how does that make life "nasty, brutish and short" for all the people who are supporting the police?

And what does a man living alone in the woods have to do with the problems faced by most of us, who by economic necessity, have to live in large communities?

BTW it's a quote from Hobbes - whose ideas I have borrowed from quite heavily in this thread.

	06-01-2003 08:35									#228
	Put an end to popups!

"Self sacrifice is not positive and is in many ways the moral equivalent to suicide. It is just as evil as the act of murder."

Agreed, Ogie. Self-sacrifice is not 'positive' in that we still end up one person short. But it is far from suicide. Suicide is taking one's own life, not giving up one's life for someone else.

As for who deals with the murderer, if he kills me, he loses his hostage and can be dealt with through non-lethal methods.

I don't know how long I have to live. I have to do the best with the time I have, and I can't keep worrying about the good that I can do in the future.

	06-01-2003 08:40									#229
	Remove this text

quote: Originally posted by obiwan18 Referring to your moral problem where one has a choice of killing one person in order to save the life of five, I will choose neither.

The problem is in this case not choosing ensures the death of the five.

Someone says to you, "Obiwan18, unless you shoot this man, I'm going to shoot these other five men."

If you say I choose neither, it's still choosing not to shoot since the only logically possible way a person able to can avoid choosing shooting is by choosing not to shoot.

bummer, eh?

	06-01-2003 08:47									#230
	Increase Your PM Length

quote: Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe

Great name!

I love Slap Shot (I have my own copy).

But why would anyone choose the name of a child molesting hockey goon with a bad afro?



Favourite pieces of dialogue from Slap Shot: "I'm going to go right out there and wiggle it at 'em"

"they brought their F***** toys!"

"get off the ice Dunlop, ya old fart!"

	06-01-2003 10:57									#231
	Increase Your PM Length

quote: Are modern anti-drug policies the product specifically of the government and not the people?

Depends on what you mean by anti-drug policies. If they are involuntary and enforced by the state, they are by definition specifically of the government. If they are voluntary, they are by definition specifically of the people.

quote: Secondly, the equivalent of what the East India tea company was doing, was basically, if McDonald's decided to sell crack to China. McDonald's sends over a tanker full of crack, and sometimes they even do this under protection of the US Navy! Not only that, when the Chinese confront the tankers in the harbor, and ask McDonald's to empty their stores of crack, the US Navy refuses to allow them to do so.

I don't like crack traffickers, and I don't think we should spend so much money to defend crack traffickers' merchandise, but other than that, I see no problem with the situation. McDonalds should be free to sell crack, and the Chinese should be free to buy crack if they choose.

Of course, I do see problems if the US gov't attacks or enforces economic sanctions on China in response, as the Brits did, or as we did to Thailand when they didn't like American companies trafficking our extremely dangerous and adictive drug of choice, tobacco, in '89.

quote: That is gunboat diplomacy! You guys are completely ignoring the Western rape of China!

The gunboat diplomacy/Western rape aspect of the Opium Wars was when western states forced China to accept one-sided trade agreements, thus enabling Western businesses to thrive while China became an economic backwater.

quote: Might I also add that 2 of the 3 Taiping Rebellions were by Muslims. The Taiping army also fanatically opposed Confucianism, the cornerstone of Chinese society. Sounds like an army of the people right. Leader Hong Xiuquan was a Christian who believed he was the younger son of Jesus and had a vision (from a mental illness) to lead his people against the establishment.

Yes, sometimes revolutions require revolutionary ideas to set them off. Is this supposed to be suprising?

Did you know Lenin actually wasn't an Orthodox Christian?

quote: Also China had been weakened by natural disaster and western influence. Certainly there was abuse in China, and the Emperor was on his way out. But way to sum up a complex event by blaming it on one person.

It wasn't a single complex event, it was a long history of complex events. But all of them boiled down to the impoverishment of the Chinese people. And the Emperor and other elements of state were the main causes of poverty. Even if famine, mostly due to natural disaster and Western influence, exacerbated the situation, it was ultimately the harsh taxes on the peasantry that took away relative peasant prosperity permanently (as the peasants were robbed of their land by the aristocracy, they had to collectively continue bearing the same burden of Imperial taxes in addition to paying their landlords, causing the cycle to repeat until they had no land left).

Note that the series of peasant rebellions started well prior to the major famines in China. There was a widespread peasant rebellion in 1774 comparable to the Taiping rebellion, and the peasant rebellions continued up to 1850. In fact, in order to secure his regime from this instability, the Emperor in 1772 started burning literature that might've made not so loyal remarks regarding the Manchu regime.

	06-01-2003 11:17									#232
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Agathon, I think you have proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that Libertarianism is irrational if one assumes that man is inherently selfish. I have tended to be Libertarian myself. I will reassess.

	06-01-2003 11:23									#233
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

quote: Originally posted by Ramo Depends on what you mean by anti-drug policies. If they are involuntary and enforced by the state, they are by definition specifically of the government. If they are voluntary, they are by definition specifically of the people.

In our own case, we are a representative government of the people. Recent attempts at legalizing marijuana, for example, were shot down by the people. The Libertarian though would probably disagree and say something along the lines of freedom, liberty, etc. I believe we are representative of the people while the Libertarian does not. But I believe the people of this country have made their decision.

quote: McDonalds should be free to sell crack, and the Chinese should be free to buy crack if they choose.

Well I guess that is the heart of the matter then. The whole free markets debate. Personally I would see that as one of the most outrageous and destructive ideas I've heard.

I believe we have the right to ban and control things that will damage our society as a whole.

quote: The gunboat diplomacy/Western rape aspect of the Opium Wars was when western states forced China to accept one-sided trade agreements, thus enabling Western businesses to thrive while China became an economic backwater.

I agree with this, but with the addendum, that the Opium deals were part of those agreements, and Opium was often lumped together with what we would considered "normal" goods.

That's why the Chinese had some much trouble and why it led to confrontation, because the boats they went after had other things on them in addition to the Opium on board.

quote: Yes, sometimes revolutions require revolutionary ideas to set them off. Is this supposed to be suprising? It wasn't a single complex event, it was a long history of complex events. But all of them boiled down to the impoverishment of the Chinese people. And the Emperor and other elements of state were the main causes of poverty. Even if famine, mostly due to natural disaster and Western influence, exacerbated the situation, it was ultimately the harsh taxes on the peasantry that took away relative peasant prosperity permanently (as the peasants were robbed of their land by the aristocracy, they had to collectively continue bearing the same burden of Imperial taxes in addition to paying their landlords, causing the cycle to repeat until they had no land left).

I agree, as I've said, the Emperor was not an angel (though remember we are judging him by 2003 standards, and during this same time in America, we practiced institutionalized slavery) and was on his way out. However, the point I was trying to make was this particular revolution failed because more people side with the Emperor than against him. The specific error by the revolutionary armies was to attack Confucianism, which was an attack on the average Chinese. Later, chegitz's people, many inspired by the Taiping Rebellion, succeeded in taking over the country.

Western influence and meddling only made the situation much worse and difficult to deal with. What happened in the 19th century still greatly affects Chinese policy to this day. Christians, for example, are treated with suspicion. Personally I don't blame them.

I just don't see how having a nation with 2 million addicts strung out is a good thing.

	06-01-2003 11:30									#234
	Inflate your Upload Space

If the person is talking to me, I should at least be able to offer the switch. Your thought experiment as worded does not preclude this possibility

If he rejects my proposal 5 people die, and there is nothing I can do about that. However, now the shooter not only shot his hostages, but refused a face-saving compromise.

This is still better than shooting the hostage-taker in that he now has an option he did not have before, a way out. I can't bring him back if I shoot him.

It still sucks if he refuses. I can't think of anyway to prevent 5 people from dying in this situation.

	06-01-2003 11:32									#235
	Suffering from ads?

One final thing, is that Opium abuse was across all classes, not just poor peasants.

	06-01-2003 12:04									#236
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"I'm not going to bother to respond to most of your comments because they are assertions rather than arguments - they have no inferential structure"

thats what i was trying to say bezerker, you myopic topekan

	06-01-2003 12:45									#237
	Full PM-box? Change here!

quote: Originally posted by Ned Agathon, I think you have proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that Libertarianism is irrational if one assumes that man is inherently selfish. I have tended to be Libertarian myself. I will reassess.

Wow, this is the first ideology shift I have ever witnessed here at Apolyton. Kudos for the open mind Ned.

	06-01-2003 13:06									#238
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

quote: All you need to accept my argument is that the phrase, "lesser of two evils", makes sense. If you want to say that it is senseless then you owe some explanation.

All right, I understand the concept of "lesser of two evils". And when one is deciding something relevant to themselves only, I agree with its application.

However, in our example, my decision affects other people, in fact, other innocent people. If I can save five innocent people by murdering one innocent person, I wouldn't do it - murder is wrong. Look at it like this (and I'll get to your war example in a minute, let's finish up this example).

Let's say a would-be killer calls you up. You are 100% certain of the fact that he is a killer, and the fact that he will kill. Let's say he gives you an ultimatum - he says that he has five innocent hostages, and that he will kill them unless you pick up a handgun, walk out to the park, and shoot someone at random. What would your response be to that ultimatum?

Here's what I would do. I would know that I am not responsible for his actions. I would further know that if I don't kill the one innocent person, I will not be held legally responsible. I also know that if I agree, and kill an innocent person, I WILL be held legally accountable.

Therefore, I don't kill anyone. If the killer ends up killing the five people, that is a terrible tragedy, but EVEN THOUGH he gave me a chance to prevent it, I am not morally responsible for the deaths of those five people. Only the trigger man is (or, I suppose, the person who ordered it, etc. - we're both intelligent enough to know what I mean, so let's leave it at that). Objectively speaking, five deaths are indeed worse than one death, and if I can prevent those deaths - ANY of them - in a moral way, I should.

I have no way to act morally and at the same time prevent the deaths of five people. However, I DO have a way to act morally and prevent the deaths of one person. Therefore, I am morally obligated to prevent that one person from being murdered, and that's exactly what I would do.

quote: All "impartial" means in this context is that it is wrong for me to assign additional weight to the preservation of my rights over anyone else's.

I understand what you're saying, but we aren't talking about preserving my rights over those of anyone else, we are talking about me making a decision about whether or not to murder someone.

quote: This isn't always true; there are counterexamples: e.g. I misinform someone who then does something bad; or I place someone under duress.

Granted.

quote: My claim is very simple; it is this: if Libertarians think that Liberty is a good thing, and those who value a thing in this way think that there should be more of it rather than less, it therefore seems contradictory that they would settle for less liberty.

If you knew as much about Libertarianism as you purport to know, you would know that Libertarians (and especially Objectivists) don't believe in the concepts of societal rights, the common good, etc. Likewise, we don't believe in a concept of "net morality" or "net liberty". We simply believe that the rights of individuals should be respected, and that we should do nothing to violate those rights. If someone else infringes upon a person's liberty, then that person should certainly be punished or restrained in some way, but I myself cannot infringe upon the liberty of another in the pursuit of some "common good" that I don't even believe in.

quote: In a nutshell your position is that you value liberty but don't mind seeing less of it in the world than there might otherwise have been.

That's not my position at all. My position is more of something like this: I value liberty, and as such I will not knowingly violate the liberty of any individual, even if it means someone else violates the liberty of other individuals. [b]I cannot control the actions of others, only my own, and I have an obligation to behave morally]/b]. That is the crux of my position, with regards to that example.

quote: Here's a good example: I am a bomber pilot during a war whose mission is to bomb a plant that contributes to the making nuclear weapons for the enemy. The product of the plant can also be given civilian uses but it is clear that it is being used to supply the military. Our side has very good reason to believe that if the enemy acquires nuclear weapons he will use them to obliterate New York, causing massive casualties. It so happens that the enemy has situated his plant in a civilian area so that civilian casualties cannot be avoided (a few hundred or so). According to you we would refrain from bombing and let New York be obliterated.

There's another mistake. War is not that simple. Every major war the United States has ever fought has been, in some way, the result of the United States behaving immorally or wrongly in its foreign policy.

I can give examples and explain myself if you like, but the point is that if the United States did not behave so aggressively, and if it did not piss people off, then we wouldn't be at war - wars don't just come out of nowhere.

quote: Yes you did; you made the best of a bad situation.

Wrong. I committed murder, which is by definition unjustified. If you want to justify killing an innocent person, you're not going to be able to use the word "murder", because murder is NEVER justified. But killing an innocent person IS murder, so I'm not quite sure how you can reconcile that.

quote: Yes you cannot control what other people do and when they do bad things like put a weapons plant in a civilian area or ask you to kill one to save five, you have to face a choice between two bads.

No, all that is is an attempt by someone else to shift responsibility for their actions onto you. Since they are responsible for their own actions, and you for yours, if they kill the five people and claim you could have stopped it by committing murder, they are full of ****. If you committed murder, you would have been just as in the wrong as they are.

quote: The situations described bring these principles into conflict

There is no conflict. If I desire no/few murders, I must not commit murder. If someone else commits murder, they should be punished in some form as to discourage murder. We should not ENCOURAGE murder by murdering one to save five - that will only result in more murders, in the long run, because it opens the door to any psycopath who can kidnap people.

quote: Is the point of morality to bolster your conscience, or is it to lower the amount of evil in the world?

I'm sorry, you are incorrect again. If I murder someone, the "amount of evil in the world", even as you define it, by definition increases, because murder is an evil act. If someone else murders five people, the "amount of evil in the world" also goes up. But those are two separate acts, and by not murdering anyone, I am doing my part to keep down the "evil rate", if you want to think of it in those terms.

quote: If that was possible in my case you would be right, but in my case it isn't.

True, you can set up any contrived, outlandish scenario that you want.

quote: The bombing case is quite plausible given recent events, I think you owe an answer.

See above.

quote: Again, how many more deaths than one will it take for you to admit that it would be worse?

I've already granted that, objectively speaking, five deaths are "worse" than just one. But that doesn't give me the right to commit murder.

quote: But you can make a difference to the outcome - that's all that matters.

Wrong. I can't make a difference to the outcome. Only the person holding the innocent people hostage can make the difference, by either murdering them or not. He can base his decisions on what I do or don't do, if he wants, but that doesn't mean anyone is responsible but him. I've also pointed out that if I go ahead and kill the one person, and use your justification to escape punishment, it'll just happen again and again. Sure, lot's of single people will die to "prevent" five others from being killed, but once we hit the sixth person who is killed, doesn't that, by your logic, outweigh the five at once? And, also according to your logic, if I had simply "allowed" the five to die the first time, the situation probably would not have arisen again, and thus there would be a greater "level of morality" in the world.

Using your logic, you're wrong. Using my logic, you're also wrong. Conclusion: Killing one person to save five is NOT moral.

quote: If you went to court having actually saved five people by killing one, or being in a situation that you reasonably believed that you would save five people, you would not be found guilty.

Uh, yes I would, or at least I damn well should be.

quote: I don't think it is that clear.

How is it not clear that only the "trigger man" bears final responsibility for someone's death?

quote: It seems that 2 is correct because it is bad that people die even when no one is responsible for it

I'm not sure I'd say that. Death is a fact of life. It can be tragic, and it can also be a good thing for the person. If one has a disease, or is in a lot of pain, sometimes death is preferable. But don't try to morally equate death with murder.

quote: You can ask, but I ain't telling - yet.

OK. I was just curious. Personally, I've had one undergrad level political philosophy course, and done a lot of independent thinking.

quote: Let's say I'd be willing to wager that it's more than you and I'm certain it's more than Berzerker.

As for me, I'm certain you have. As for Berzerker, I have no idea.

	06-01-2003 13:14									#239
	Put an end to popups!

quote: The problem is in this case not choosing ensures the death of the five.

Wrong. The death of five is ensured by the person who pulls the trigger. Again, don't try to shift responsibility onto me for the actions of others.

And by the way, in a Libertarian society, the government would not need very much income in order to pay for its very limited functions. The problem is to find a way to provide this limited source of income WITHOUT involuntary taxation.

In some cases, user fees will suffice. National lotteries and various other contests can make up some of the difference. I wouldn't have a major problem with government run casinos (at least none that I can think of off the top of my head).

The point is, there are various and plenty non-coercive methods to fund a government, PROVIDING that government is acting in a very limited capacity, thus requiring little income.

	06-01-2003 13:30									#240
	Full PM-box? Change here!

quote: Originally posted by David Floyd My position is more of something like this: I value liberty, and as such I will not knowingly violate the liberty of any individual, even if it means someone else violates the liberty of other individuals. I cannot control the actions of others, only my own, and I have an obligation to behave morally.

The above illustrates a flaw in Libertarianism. It assumes that lack of action against the immoral is moral.