I have told you I am explicitly not talking about legality. I am talking explicitly about your (brother’s keeper) morality.
You’re a third party. How do you determine what is and is not mutual between two consenting parties? What standard? By what authority?
This stuff is so funny. Carson was just as elusive as you are being when I tried to pin him down on the same thing. I’m not at all surprised you have decided to twist my argument rather than try to defend your own. Telling.
I am not sure what you are asking, but I will try to answer it: as my user info says, I am supporting ancapism, but only to some extent. It has flaws, this one especially (ethical exploitation) we are talking about now. I doubt there is some utopic unifying philosophy that can satisfy everybody in all ways, or that can solve all possible problems/dillemas . Also, I am still learning, so maybe in the future I will change my mind and fully embrace one or another anarcho-philosphy, but again, I don’t believe in “strict/absolute” borders, just necessity of objectivity and consistency. I also dislike when ancapists reduce everything into mere economical or propertarian terms and think they have found a perfect solution. I am not a leftist either (just for the record). But BP already explained that in his posts and various videos on YouTube (that sadly got deleted by FE) and I believe we both share similar views (at least on this particaul issue). Actually it was his arguments which convinced me.
I agree completly, but you still don’t seem to get my point.
About the “position of power thing”, I definitely think that in the drowning scenario, the non-drowning person is situationally in a position of power. It’s not political power, but it is a position of power relationally, in the sense that their decision can significantly effect the life of someone else - and in this case, their decision equates to life or death for someone else. The fact that it’s a position of power becomes even more clear when we add that they are making demands of servitude from someone else based on the fact that the other person is in a vulnerable position. I don’t see how we can look at such a scenario and not see that there is an obvious power dynamic that can be taken advantage of.
Likewise, in my original bottle-of-water scenario, the non-dehydrating person is in a position of power in that they possess something that is instrumental towards saving the other person’s life; the power to withhold that, their decision to share it or not, determines someone else’s fate. Are they Hitler? No. But there obviously is a power dynamic that they can use to gain as much as they can from someone else, while that someone else is essentially helpless. I would say that someone who knowingly, willing tries to gain something in such a way from someone in a vulnerable position, to make a power play, is basically engaged in exploitation.
This is essentially what I understand “exploitation” to mean, no LTV necessary. It has to do with the power dynamics of particular situations, basically taking advantage of other people’s lack of options and unfortunate circumstances to either control them are gain as much as one can from them. And absolute land property rights (potentially) justifies exploitation because a chunk of land functions as an unlimited sphere of power in which one can control others (do whatever I tell you to do within these lines, or be forced outside of these lines).
I’m confused how you can agree completely, and still disagree.
And I am not saying you would or anyone in his right mind would do that. At least on this forum. What I am saying is that it is quite arbitrary. Especially it is noticeable in the drowning man example, that’s why I am trying to defend B’s position. One doesn’t have to use force to be ethicaly wrong. I think I am the only one in this thread who believes in objective morality so I now understand why it’s hard for you to walk in my shoes. I am not propagating using violence against A if he doesn’t help B, I am merely observing people’s actions and try to understand intentions. Why human act the way it acts?
I agreed with what he said. But he didn’t said much about my position and criticism.
You seem to have a bad case of context-missing/context-dropping. You’re blatantly “talking about legality” by interpreting my ethical position as implying something legal/political, I.E. when you cry “statism”. This is pretty simple stuff.
As I have clarified, I’m speaking precisely in terms of the values of one party - for my purposes, their evaluation that “I got screwed over” or “I got taken advantage of, but I had little choice”. What does your vulgar analysis say in response to one of the parties themselves claiming exploitation? It seems like it can only dismiss it out of hand by defining it out of existence a priori by appealing to nothing more than the mere fact that they made a choice at all, while the conditions under which or the context in which the choice was made is the relevant factor I’m bringing into it (while I side with the values of one party).
I think the funny part is how people can construe siding with one party as being 3rd party imposition, while 3rd party imposition of course carries with it connotations of physically forcing people to act in certain ways, which is of course a misrepresentation of what anyone here is advocating. But if “3rd party imposition” does basically amount to “making a judgement of relations between other people”, I have to protest that treating this as an inherent sin is ridiculous. Making such judgements is simply what one does when applying interpersonal ethics. Perhaps “value-free economics” isn’t supposed to make such judgements, but economics doesn’t have a monopoly on social philosophy and science. If you wish to use “economics” as effectively a ban on interpersonal ethics, as if subjective value theory automatically negates any external judgement, that’s a huge categorical error.
The point is that your own argument attempting to counter my own is based on bait-and-switch, red herrings and non-sequitors. I can’t possibly “defend my argument” when you don’t address it to begin with, instead opting for off-the-cuff accusation-making.
That’s it. Couldn’t articulate more clearly (even if english were my native language, haha)
Esuric I think your missing the point .
What part of “I am explcitly not talking about legality” do you not understand? I wrote very clearly that your morality is used as a justification for statism. I never implied anything legally, one way or another. Statism is ad hoc and arbitrary, clinging to any irrational justification like your brother’s keeper morality when convenient.
How is my analysis vulgar? You are the one claiming that one party bears complete reponsibility for the outcome of a transaction, the psychological valuation, past, present and future of the other party. How is this even workable, let alone reasonable? That is the question being put to you. What do you do when both parties claim exploitation, as they both surely can? How do you resolve this? Who is right, who is wrong?
If anyone’s analysis here is vulgar re:voluntarism, it is yours. You are the one who claims that voluntary action is not voluntary if someone regrets it later. It’s not only unjust to the party being accussed of exploitation, it is potentially very dangerous (VULGAR) when put into action in society. And we have numerous examples of how exploitation theory damages society, creating victims where there are none, by recognizing victimization that never occurred.
I have clearly laid out my argument. You refuse to defend yours. I can repost all of the questions I have asked you that you have not directly answered so you can have another try at it.
We’ve done this dance several times, I’ve done it with Wombatron and Carson. People with your exploitation perspective have never been able to explain how exploitation can be established.
Yes, and/or that portion of ethics that doesn’t have to do with physical aggression.
See above.
This is how this reads to me:
So we start with the presumption that what’s going on is bad, and then call it exploitation to show that it is bad.
Maybe I just don’t “get the context” of the situation.
What you seem to be missing is that, yes, while “nature” may be the cause of the person’s unfortunate circumstances, one is taking advantage of someone else’s unfortunate circumstances to control them and get them to do something they obviously do not want to do. They most certainly are being made into a victim by the way the power dynamics are being used. At best, it’s one step removed from rape, and if the person resists after being saved, it is rape. The rational-self-interest/mutual-exchange model simply doesn’t apply to these kind of things.
A psychologically mistreats his girlfriend B but never beats her or threatens it.I’d hardly say that’s mutual.You don’t need to be an LL to see that.I’ve always though this way.By saying it’s mutual your essentially saying it’s moral which doesn’t make much sense.
I don’t see how that circular argument can be implied from what is written. I simply defined what I mean by exploitation. It wasn’t an argument for why exploitation is bad, but what it is for my purposes.
Maybe she likes being mistreated. Perhaps you’re not familiar with the BD/SM scene. Would you argue that alternative sexual lifestyles and relationships are not mutual? How would you determine what is and is not?
You’re stuck with BP and others with this argument, because you’re saying that YOU the 3rd party can void any exchange or interaction. Or you’re saying, that one party can always void a transaction by claiming exploitation. Which almost works, except which party gets to claim this? What if they both do?
Can you answer those two questions?
The symptomatic problem I see with many libertarians is that they have tunnel vision for only physical force and obvious coercion. Everything outside of that range is then defined a priori as inherently mutually beneficial and you’re not allowed to make judgements about it because economics-says-so. This often ends up forming into what I find to be a strange dualism in which, on one hand, a certain narrow set of principles are treated in an absolute and universalist manner, while on the other hand, everything else is treated as individually-subjective preferences. Obviously, I don’t think this is coherant.
Where I get stuck here is the “lack of options” and “unfortunate circumstances” part. Don’t those things necessarily imply subjective value judgements to begin with? My problem is that judgement has already been made out of the circumstances, and that the circumstances are “bad”. This would imply that wether something is exploitation or not is subjective.
Is it possible that there are situations where one person can gain plenty from another through some kind of exchange and it isn’t exploitative?
Yes. I only get interested in discussions regarding morality/ethics because I find the attempt to create an objective theory of it to be interesting.
Otherwise, I believe that what is “bad” or “good” is entirely subjective. I haven’t been convinced of the usefulness or validity of any “objective” theories of what is good or bad.