Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Criptfeind]

Accidentally coinciding with morality is not moral at all.

The only morality is your morality.

[scriver]

Accidentally coinciding with morality is not moral at all.

The only morality is your morality.

Irrelevant, we are not discussing any one's own morality here, it's a general statement regardless of what morality you believe in.

[LordBucket]

You blatantly ignore the more obvious laws concerning major crimes. Why? Why
do you keep talking about taxes, but never mention murder? Why ignore rape
and assault but make all a fuss over traffic fines? Do you imagine that in
a libertarian society there would be no murder, no rape or violence?

These issues have been discussed several times already. Here is one example:

"To the people who say that "oh, but without laws and police we'd have crime" I respond that yes, that might be true...but even with laws and police you still have crime anyway. But, by having police you also create police brutality. With no police there is no police brutality. You can make drugs illegal, but even so there are still people who take drugs. But by making them illegal, you also create crime syndicates that engage in drug wars with each other.

When people say that "libertarian society does not solve X" that's often true. But your socety does not solve these problems either. And in the process, it tends to create new problems that didn't exist before."

Why do you keep talking about taxes, but never mention murder?

Murder has specifically been discussed repeatedly in this thread.

Do you have a question about murder?

how would you suggest taking care of those "crimes"

Response to a crime having been committed would be for the people in such a society to choose for themselves. I am not ensdorsing a particular view on punitive reaction. However, the most obvious answers would be:

1) For individuals to announce intent to respond to force with force.

Regarding this I refer you to what was said here:

"You are not safe from the things you fear libertarianism "will bring" simply because you have these rules and laws. Rules and laws are simply a smokescreen behind which those with power can hide to simplify their use of power by deluding you into a sense of safety.

If a man with the power to harm you chooses to harm you, a law stating that he can't will not stop him. In fact, laws don't state that you "can't" do things. There is no law that says you "can't" murder people, and even if there were it would be meaningless. There are only laws saying that if you murder someone, other people have agreed to do something to you in return. "Law" is a way of legitimizing mob rule. It's a way of doing exactly the same thing, but feeling good about it by exteriorizing the decision process.

I assert that exteriorizing responsibility for choice and the consequences of choice is not beneficial to a conscious entity."

2) For individuals to refuse to respond with force to force.

Again, I'm not endorsing any particular answer at this point. The purpose of this thread was never to discuss punitive or reactionary policy. The purpose of this thread was to discuss libertarianism, and the idea of basing a society off of the valuation of individual liberty.

Like I said back on page 2:

"Problems generally have more than one solution. To questions like "in a libertarian society how would X be handled" I offer the general answer of "well, how do we want to handle it?"

Libertarianism is a philosophy, from which methods and solutions can be derived. It's not a specific set of methods or solutions. So any question of "in a libertarian society, how would X be handled" is somewhat missing the point. I can give you answers to questions like these, but the answers that I give are not the only answers."

TL;DR:

 * It's silly to reject A because it doesn't solve X while fully endorsing B, when B also doesn't solve X.

[Bauglir]

A thing can exist in varying degrees of solved. It's not actually binary.

[LordBucket]

If you disagree with the system, how would you propose to handle crimes
(I'm even ready to let you use the world without laws )?
Simple question. I'll even provide possible answers:

You don't.
You the victim(s) handle it how he or she see fit.
An eye for an eye...
You let someone else decide/judge. Who?
By consensus. Between who and who?

Yes. Those are the possible answers. And in a society based on personal choice, individuals would choose.

[Criptfeind]

A thing can exist in varying degrees of solved. It's not actually binary.

LordBucket. This has been said to you like ten times now in varying ways. Why do you keep ignoring it?

Accidentally coinciding with morality is not moral at all.

The only morality is your morality.

Irrelevant, we are not discussing any one's own morality here, it's a general statement regardless of what morality you believe in.

My morality is doing good things. For her statement to be right my morality must be wrong.

[Glowcat]

I'm not exactly sure why we're upholding this system of force that is apparently completely divorced from morality, then...

As people attempt to change the laws to match their own morality or ethics, I'm not seeing how you can say "we" are upholding an immoral system. The existence of varying standpoints on value/morality/ethics also answers why force would (eventually) become necessary: for when conflicts occur. Different stances don't always lead to conflict but not all morality regards usage of force, or forcing moral behavior onto others, with contempt.

Edit: And of course, I forgot a possible answer: there would be no such crime in a libertarian society

Absolutely no force is actually closer to Anarchism than Libertarianism. By that I mean the real thing, not the version most self-labeled Anarchists support. Libertarians typically see the conflict between State and Individual as an infringement upon rights but also recognize that infringement can come from elsewhere too, and therefore prefer the State to only protect essential freedoms. What 'essential freedom' entails is a fuzzy area which leads to much disagreement. Certainly Libertarian Minarchists have a much lower tolerance level of government interference than the more moderate forms of Libertarian who recognize that infringement can extend beyond immediate bodily harm or theft/damage of property. Of course everything beyond that line is considered undue force / oppression.

The below:

* Taxes
 * Traffic fines
 * Compulsory school attendance
 * Imprisonment for failing to comply with any of the above
 * Agressive military acts upon foreign nations

Is commonly where the line is drawn. Most Libertarians find the above to be undue infringement upon an individual's liberty and therefore oppose such when they appear as laws.

[LordBucket]

LordBucket. This has been said to you like ten times
now in varying ways. Why do you keep ignoring it?

It's a statement. I'm answering questions.

[Criptfeind]

Do you believe that right and wrong are binary? In the form that shooting one person and shooting eight people are exactly as wrong? Y/N?

[Bauglir]

I will say that I consider myself libertarian in principle, it's just that I don't see government or even power as a concept as inherently problematic. Only the abuse thereof. Neither is inherently good, either, so don't get me wrong there. Given modern culture, I'd be happy to agree that the abuses (while worth fighting for being abuses) are acceptable costs for the value they provide, and I believe government can be used as a tool to guide humans toward a culture where government is no longer necessary.

It'll still likely be an efficient form of organization, but really, who can say what the best system for a utopia is? They all work in such an environment. So maybe they'd fade away as useless vestiges of the past, or remain as benign instruments for use by people wise enough to refrain from abusing them, but it doesn't really matter.

[LordBucket]

Do you believe that right and wrong are binary?

Define "right" and "wrong."

In the form that shooting one person and
shooting eight people are exactly as wrong? Y/N?

Shooting eight people against their will would presumably violate more free will than shooting one person against their will.

However, there is a question of personal responsibility. For example, let's consider the following thought experiment: let's imagine that someone kidnapped you and nine other people, tied you all up...then put a knife in your hand and told you that if you didn't stab one person to death, he would shoot the other eight.

Personally, I would not.

This decision might result in more "net" free will being violated. However, the violation would be performed by somebody who wasn't me. I am not responsible for the choices of others. I am responsible for my choices.

[Criptfeind]

Do you believe that right and wrong are binary?

Define "right" and "wrong."

No.

Let me put it another way. Do you belive the police in say... The united states prevent zero crime?

[scriver]

My morality is doing good things. For her statement to be right my morality must be wrong.

Nah, not at all. Vec simply said a law coinciding with a person's morality does not make the law moral, hence law is only moral to said person if it is based on the person's morality. That different people have different moralities is not relevant to her statement.

However, there is a question of personal responsibility. For example, let's consider the following thought experiment: let's imagine that someone kidnapped you and nine other people, tied you all up...then put a knife in your hand and told you that if you didn't stab one person to death, he would shoot the other eight.

Personally, I would not.

This decision might result in more "net" free will being violated. However, the violation would be performed by somebody who wasn't me. I am not responsible for others. I am responsible for myself.

Wrong. He has already made his choice, and made that choice clear to you. It is your choice that can save the others. Inaction makes you equally responsible for their deaths as action would have made you for the one person's. You can't cherry pick the consequences of what you do or do not do.

[Nivim]

 This thread got nasty fast; I expected it to end with my last post, Scriver's after, and the silly bit about vegetables. To call back to that page...

Could you tell me, as another sovereign entity, how I reject a piece of metal traveling towards my head faster than I can see?

Similarly, a society based on the valuation of individual choice is also reasonable. That you or I might be unable to use magic superpowers to deflect shrapnel doesn't make it invalid.

Actually...that's the point I was making. I thought I had clearly implied earlier (with some detailing in the spoiler) that the system you described could only support itself from collapse if everyone involved with it strongly held the values of which you spoke. However, being as that is so nearly impossible, I had tried to get the version of the system from you that dealt with the issue, but then you made it clear that the system explicitly didn't deal with it...leaving us with a system that could only possibly work if reality itself followed it too; id est one requiring a way for me to simply reject harm, like from a bullet, at will.
 I can tell you have this thing really deeply in your mind and you see good in it, but it sounds like you lack any way to export that good. Even your last couple posts seem to be causing a lot more trouble than they help, kinda like they say government does. Maybe going and sleeping or getting a snack would help, if applicable?

Predit: I think Glowcat describes the first part of my post better with the second part of his post.

Predit2:

[...]and I believe government can be used as a tool to guide humans toward a culture where government is no longer necessary.

It'll still likely be an efficient form of organization, but really, who can say what the best system for a utopia is? They all work in such an environment. So maybe they'd fade away as useless vestiges of the past, or remain as benign instruments for use by people wise enough to refrain from abusing them, but it doesn't really matter.

Ah, yeah. This is that thing that I was making circles around eariler, and the first part is what I failed to keep going with; using the current government as a tool-- as a cacoon-- for another better government later that will lead to another government, and so on and so forth until we finally have something kinda resembling utopia (which will still have problems, but they wont be because of pointless, organizational waste).

Predit3: Is Scriver's description really what you meant Vector? I was confused about that too.

[Vector]

Yeah, he's right.  That's what I mean by systems of law being totally divorced from morality.  They're not the pejorative terms of "immoral" or "amoral," necessarily, but they are by necessity extramoral.