“Is moral cowardice criminal?”
Depends on the law!
“Gene Callahan sounds as if he thought that trying to avoid moral culpability is sometimes immoral.”
No, choosing the easy way out because you want to feel pure can be immoral, though.
“No appeal to the quantity of Indians and the “intrinsic value” of their lives lets you wash your hands of the legal responsibility of the murder of innocent Siberians.”
Yes, axiomatic libertarians have, in fact, rendered themselves moral nincompoops.
Mr. Callahan,
Is there any way in which one can call something “cowardly” which is not simply an expression of one’s own personal value judgments?
Let’s say it is an asteroid, and it is going to strike India, killing hundreds of millions. You have the authority to give a command that will divert the asteroid northward, into a remote part of Siberia, where it will kill a few hundred people. It would be morally depraved not to give the command, and yet you suggest that one’s “wishes” not to “initiate force” should trump the chance to save hundreds of millions of people.
Hahah, the asteroid joke 
Consider this:
Siberia has 500 people and India has 501. Now what? Utilitarianism again or something different, maybe, no-action? What is the “right number” or limit (to be precise), to kill one group of people instead of another? You see, playing with numbers very interesting in such scenarios because it usually shows a contradicion in one’s morality.
Maybe it’s ok so kill Siberian people if India has 510 people? Or 1000? Where is that limit?
P.S.
Mr. Callahan,
Is there any way in which one can call something “cowardly” which is not simply an expression of one’s own personal value judgments?
oh, QFT.
No, Mr. Olevetto, he was speaking of Rothbard. He inserted that into the 1966 version of HA in his shock at what Rothbard and his cohorts were doing with his ideas.
Can you cite this?
Here’s what I am talking about from the 1963 4th edition pg. 148-149 (172 of 930 in the PDF):
Of course, there will always be individuals and groups of individuals whose intellect is so narrow that they cannot grasp the benefits which social cooperation brings them. There are others whose moral strength and will power are so weak that they cannot resist the temptation to strive for an ephemeral advantage by actions detrimental to the smooth functioning of the social system. For the adjustment of the individual to the requirements of social cooperation demands sacrifices. These are, it is true, only temporary and apparent sacrifices as they are more than compensated for by the incomparably greater advantages which living within society provides. However, at the instant, in the very act of renouncing an expected enjoyment, they are painful, and it is not for everybody to realize their later benefits and to behave accordingly. Anarchism believes that education could make all people comprehend what their own interests require them to do; rightly instructed they would of their own accord always comply with the rules of conduct indispensable for the preservation of society. The anarchists contend that a social order in which nobody enjoys privileges at the expense of his fellow-citizens could exist without any compulsion and coercion for the prevention of action detrimental to society. Such an ideal society could do without state and government, i.e., without a police force, the social apparatus of coercion and compulsion.
The anarchists overlook the undeniable fact that some people are either too narrow-minded or too weak to adjust themselves spontaneously to the conditions of social life. Even if we admit that every sane adult is endowed with the faculty of realizing the good of social cooperation and of acting accordingly, there still remains the problem of the infants, the aged, and the insane. We may agree that he who acts antisocially should be considered mentally sick and in need of care. But as long as not all are cured, and as long as there are infants and the senile, some provision must be taken lest they jeopardize society. An anarchistic society would be exposed to the mercy of every individual. Society cannot exist if the majority is not ready to hinder, by the application or threat of violent action, minorities from destroying the social order. This power is vested in the state or government.
State or government is the social apparatus of compulsion and coercion. It has the monopoly of violent action. No individual is free to use violence or the threat of violence if the government has not accorded this right to him. The state is essentially an institution for the preservation of peaceful interhuman relations. However, for the preservation of peace it must be prepared to crush the onslaughts of peace-breakers.
I fail to see how this relates to Rothbardian ethics. We don’t advocate a lack of police forces, just that they are private. The same passage of the scholar’s edition (remake of 1st edition) seems the same. I have no clue what you are talking about him adding.
edit: Also on Hoppe’s refutation of utilitarian ethics see pg. 11 of this PDF.
You can have all the “sessions of moral philosophizing” you want. What they can’t do is tell you what you should do in a particular situation.
There is no “contradiction” in holding that something that, as a general rule is wrong, may be right in some situations. It is only if one thinks the
general rule is an “axiom” from which one can “deduce” an action that there would be a contradiction involved.
Man, rationalism sure makes people irrational!
There is so much I could say in response to this its hard to know where to start. I’ll content myself with..
Given that you think its possible to know what you should do in a particular situation, what is the mechanism by which this knowledge becomes known to you?
(p.s. I am glad to note that despite your claiming that moral philosophers with a rationalist bent are far removed from your notions of morality (ungrounded as they are by such trivialities as reasons and principles) and that this is in someway a bad thing, presumably because it might lead to disconcerting statements about the smashed heads of babies, you yourself are quite capable of making disconcerting statements involving the smashed heads of babies. It seems we are all in it together.))
The idea that value judgments are “purely personal” was the worse idea Mises ever had. There is no such thing as the “purely personal” or “purely subjective.”
“Maybe it’s ok so kill Siberian people if India has 510 people? Or 1000? Where is that limit?”
There is no “limit” or “roght number”. One must use one’s best moral judgment. There certainly is no “rule” that deductively yields the right answer to every practical moral dilemma.
“Given that you think its possible to know what you should do in a particular situation, what is the mechanism by which this knowledge becomes known to you?”
One’s intelligence and experience?
Your PS is so childish I’m not going to bother responding.
are there right answers that could be known but no rigourous methodology that is known which can make them known ? or what is this methodology?. it seems ‘immoral’ of you not to share it…
we are just talking about how things ‘seem’ or so it seems.
seems!
Your PS is so childish I’m not going to bother responding.
I’m sorry, I am not aware of any pre-teens that might have written what I wrote. Perhaps you know a different class of child.
The idea that value judgments are “purely personal” was the worse idea Mises ever had. There is no such thing as the “purely personal” or “purely subjective.”
Mr. Callahan,
I’d be interested to hear a substantiation of this claim. Thanks.
"I’m sorry, I am not aware of any pre-teens that might have written what I wrote. "
I stand corrected. I ought to have said “infantile.”
Well, Grayson, suggest something that is “purely subjective” – values certainly are not, since a value always points at something outside the subject.
“are there right answers that could be known but no rigourous methodology that is known which can make them known ?”
I think you mean “method” not “methodology.” But in any case, of course there is no “rigorous” method that makes practical truths known, if by that you mean makes them capable of deductive certainty. You might read Aristotle on theoria versus phronesis, or consider whether there is a “rigorous method” for deciding what is the right thing is to say in a conversation, or the right brush stroke to make in a painting, or the right ingredient to add to a dish.
So then why is it moral cowardice to exercise best judgment to refrain from interfering?
Et tu?
The idea that value judgments are “purely personal” was the worse idea Mises ever had. There is no such thing as the “purely personal” or “purely subjective.”
–
Well, Grayson, suggest something that is “purely subjective” – values certainly are not, since a value always points at something outside the subject.
I think this is wrong even though I see what you are saying. This is something I’m working on right now (sorry I’m slow Lilburne). People confuse the psychological episode of valuation with the social acts of informing, such as of one’s preferences, or commanding, or enacting, as in stipulation, issuance, or Bestimmungen (legally issued norms). Only the social acts have objectual correlates and an other-directedness (fremdpersonal).
What would it even mean for valuation to not be “purely personal”, some sort of “hive mind” experience?
Mises never claimed that values do not point at something outside the subject. That is not the meaning of “subjective value” as he used it.
I’m still not clear how calling something cowardly can be anything more than an expression of one’s own value judgments: value judgments which can neither be verified nor refuted, and thus are of no use in questions of truth and falsity.