So let’s say a country has slavery (I mean real slavery, not the left’s “slavery” of sweatshops), and the slaves produce almost all the goods for export from that country. Is it moral to buy the goods made from slave labor?
Edit: Here is a clearer presentation of the problem-- If it is immoral/unethical for B to coerce A into producing cotton, is it immoral/unethical for C to purchase cotton from B if B coerced A into producing the cotton? (C knows that B coerced A into producing the cotton.)
There is no objectively justifying human action.
Is it consistent with X’s subjective opinion of his view of morals? Maybe. Maybe not.
Subjectivism and moral relativity are both cop outs of a response.
Do you mean according to the NAP?
I don’t think it would be,but libertarian ethics / the NAP isn’t really my thing.
One might make a utilitarian type case that some money going into a system is better than no money going into a system. once again though, not really my thing
I’m interested in any ideas from any ethical/moral viewpoint from any branch of libertarianism. Yes, that includes a lot which is what I’m going for.
These kinds of questions aren’t my thing either, but I’d like to see what other people had to say.
Subjectivism regarding morals is a brute fact. Call it a “cop out” if you like, simply because the facts end an otherwise “fun” debate (read: willfully blind circle jerk).
Of course, I could be wrong. I’m just going for truth, so I’m not really interested in whether people feel the truth is a cop out compared to a fun lie.
@OP: I think it’s immoral in the sense of human decency - every decent person should refuse to buy from this country. However, I think that the market will always chase the lowest price, regardless of what is decent, and people will purchase from this country anyway. The key is to locate who has the power to alter the state of affairs - a point that is commonly neglected in most public policy debate. The buyers are not the ones with the power to alter the state of affairs, each buyer represents a tiny fraction of the slave-country’s revenues. Rather, it is the political establishment of the slave-country itself.
Finally, it is crucial to note that this is a wholly fabricated concern. The closest thing to an actual slave-country on the planet today is North Korea. The economic consequences of running a national slave-colony are utterly predictable and, of course, empirically demonstrated in NK. In other words, rampant abuse leads to economic stagnation which leads to market marginalization, not market dominance.
Clayton -
Sat. 12/07/14 14:36 EDT
.post #219
[url=Buying goods from slave labor]
This question confuses me. What do you mean by “real slavery”? Is that the situation in which a worker isn’t allowed to keep 100% of his income? Or is it something “more” than that?
At what point does being forcefully deprived of one’s income, on a regular, institutional basis, become “real” slavery?
Subjectivism regarding morals is a brute fact. Call it a “cop out” if you like, simply because the facts end an otherwise “fun” debate (read: willfully blind circle jerk).
While I agree with you more than disagree with you on your view of ethics (i am a moral nihilist / amoral / noncognative / refuse normatives/ etc)), it’ defeats the purpose of a thread like this to go “meta” on the topic. It’s best just to enter “meta” threads about morality than more specific focuses,as it will end up confusing too much / straying off topic.
In this case, the OP was probably already under the assumption of morals or an existing liberarian framwork of morality for example
What do you mean by “real slavery”?
You really have no clue what he was getting at? I did. In the traditions of slavery outside of leftism (wage slavery, and other stupid categories) under what customs were cultures and law calling people slaves? Get that general picture in your head, and use that.
I can see what this aiming at. Suppose there is one nation employing slave labor for making a specific product. And suppose they export this to world market outcompeting any other supplier based on price. Should imports of this specific product be allowed or should they be regulated in some way. Now assume that we decided it should be prohibited. How would a libertarian society prevent trade with that slave employing nation?
(and yes, no cop outs please)
I wasn’t wanting to talk about economic consequences. I was wanting to get to the ethics of the situation. If we accept something like the NAP, then no one has the right to coerce somebody else into producing something for them (slavery).
But what about when somebody else has a slave who produces goods and then wants to sell you the goods their slave coercibly produced? That’s what I’m getting at. Is right to engage in trade where the goods were produced by slave labor?
SirTenenbaum,
Rothbard wrote an article, Living in a State-Run World. While it may not answer your question exactly, I think it will certainly point you in a direction that will help you answer it.
Sat. 12/07/14 16:08 EDT
.post #220
[url=Buying goods from slave labor - #9 by vive_la_insurrection]
After doing so, I can see no meaningful difference, vis-à-vis the question, between that picture, and our current reality, hence my (unanswered) question “At what point does being forcefully deprived of one’s income, on a regular, institutional basis, become “real” slavery?”
Either one answers the question by providing some point, or one answers the question by saying “There is no point, it’s all ‘real’ slavery.”
In the first case, it’s incumbent on the questioner to explain
How and why the two categories of slavery (i.e. “real” and “other”) created by this point are meaningfully different, and more specifically,
Why the question is only asked with respect to one category, and not the other.
In the second case, one realizes that all productive labor, since it is taxed, is slave labor, and the question can be simplified to:
“Is it moral to buy goods?”
IF people accept the NAP > THEN nobody will coerce. In this case rights are utterly irrelevant.
IF one person doesn’t accept the NAP > THEN, in this case, what gives you the right to act upon him as though he has accepted it?
The problem isn’t in justifying rights according to the NAP, the problem is in justifying retaliation against people who don’t accept it.
I’m talking about slavery similar to what there was in the southern states of the United States before the Civil War where some people were other people’s property and worked on plantations and produced cotton because they were forced to by their owners–there was no voluntary choice on the part of the slaves.
The difference is that slaves (in my forming of the question) are forced to produce goods (think slaves in the southern U.S. or in Brazil). Governments taxing us is a form of coercion where we choose what we want to produce, and the government comfiscates a part of it.
If it is immoral/unethical for B to coerce A into producing the cotton, is it moral/ethical for C to purchase cotton from B if B coerced A into producing the cotton? (C knows that B coerced A into producing the cotton.)
(If you reject morals, ethics, etc. then you don’t need to worry about jumping in).
My point is that libertarians apply ‘subjectivism’ to anything and everything. You call it a fact. Yes, it is a fact in real world economic sense. One cannot have any intellectual discourse with a libertarians just say “oh, subjectivism. case closed” in every instance.
Morality? “Subjectivism.”
Justice? “Subjectivism. Duh, idiot”
Market? “Subjectivism. Whatever, fuck you!”
{Inset normative inquiry} “Subjectivism.”
It is starting to be a less and less applicable answer to social inquiry.
I also fail to recognize how libertarians can just say “subjectivism” and think that this is the answer that people are wanting elaborated upon. People should just know any question they pose on these borads will draw out “subjectivism” as a response to everything. It is a cop out because it fails to ever reveal anything deeper about culture. But, I suppose the whole concept of culture is negated with the claim of subjectivism, huh?
The circle jerk is the group douche bags that think they can apply “subjectivism” in every thread and think they are helping further intellectual discourse.
This is why I don’t like nihilists as well. They are moral-less and have the potential for infinite selfishness in my mind. Why bother with logic and emotion if it is a priori or subjective?
I don’t buy this either since “subjectivism!” denies meaningful group discussion of relativistic norms. They do exist. No matter where they come from. Every culture currently has them and has always had them. Denying them is antisocial and almost childish. Denying them is a why of writing off everyone else’s thoughts or feelings as irrelevant. But, wait, you have feelings as well (as a relativist/nihilist, etc.). Where can “respect” even come from?
If it is immoral/unethical for B to coerce A into producing the cotton, is it moral/ethical for C to purchase cotton from B if B coerced A into producing the cotton? (C knows that B coerced A into producing the cotton.)
If it is immoral for gravity to shoot paper airplanes from the carpet, is it immoral to fly on those airplanes? (The flying spaghetti monster knows my radio is a space station.)
Oh wait, if the premise is unfounded the whole debate is pointless…
A collection of non sequiturs, none of which address my criticism of your blanket use of subjectivism as the negation of all social inquiriy.
Ah, but you explain nothing.
Once again the ‘subjective intellect’ shines its bald head.
I mean, c’mon, hashem (Rothbard avatar) how can you even truly justify NAP?
The necessity of social ethics (individual morality) is what predicates the NAP as a legitimate social institution. Subjective morality and/or ethics precede and defeat the function of NAP.
Rothbard’s NAP is based on property rights, not morality or ethics. So, if we set property rights aside, can we justify NAP on ethical or moral foundations if we are accounting for subjective preferences?
I don’t think we can in a uniform manner.
The burden to explain the absurd is on the guy bringing it up. I’m not an absolute subjectivist, I’ve never even been accused of subjectivism, but I prefer to at least start with reality. That said I’ll check out your post above.