That should get you lynched now.
The neo-victorianians…lynching? How unbecoming! [:P]
The latter.
Value is subjective.
Perhaps but women bringing a baby to term and giving birth, as well as lactating are still material facts of existence. As others have stated, the nuclear family has a role as a petit division of labour. I think a lot of people online have a tainted view based upon western culture, which is not exactly the ideal everyone in the world aims for. Certainly the nuclear and extended family have an important cultural and economic role in Asia.
I’m not sure where the argument lies. I am a great cook and handy with a needle and thread. But there are roles like child birthing that men are not capable of. And while we have less hard physical labour than before, men are still built to handle the rough stuff. Actually, Block has an interesting theory on that. That males are basically the cannon fodder (used for dangerous tasks), and females are the more valuable sex because of their unique role in procreation.
I’m a big family person. I love family, extended thus included. My son is glued to his mother, my wife. He’s only two. When she’s not around he’s all about me, but when she’s around he nearly forgets I exist [:P]. I don’t know maybe it’s my personality she’s very nurturing and I tend to not be compared to her. Sometimes though, more recently, he’s been veering towards me, maybe he’s getting older, or maybe I don’t smell as bad…[:O]
Preference chatter passes the time…[B]
Biology plays a role at times, males are different than females and the science of it can be fun. Lifting heavy objects may injure the female reproductive organs, as I’ve heard, so I do that stuff. I pick the weeds in the garden and she cans them. I’d rather do the former, she the latter. Is it because of male or female biological restrictions of course not. Families are awesome though. I love 'em.
Ok then we agree. What else is new? [:P]
True, just desserts is receiving what we think we earn and the working towards such goals. So it being subjective isn’t a conflict.
Obviously only women can give birth. I conceded this earlier. However after birth there is formula or perhaps we can have the rubber boob like meet the Fockers.
I think it is a disguise for chauvinism. In Asia it is exactly that. In China, Confucius traditional is utiziled for sons to obey fathers, wives to obey husbands and men to obey the king. It is made to include individuals in aggrandizing the social hierarchy established by the state apparatus.
That is a biological role. Not a necessary a social one.
Men can be ‘femine’, perhaps you have heard of ‘metrosexuals’?
Men too are necessary for procreation and women can be used for dangerous tasks.
Perhaps. My father was one of 7 kids. I have about 20 cousins between both sides. My grandparents helped raise me while my parents worked. My parents helped maintain my grandparents when they got old. I was expected during summer vacations to take my grandfather for walks. I support my parents now when I can and when they need it. As they get older, I will expect to help them further. My sister keeps me on speed dial if she needs help. Is it because I am male? or because I am a useful fellow? She’s quite the feminist, but more than happy to let me lift the heavy stuff or pay a bill.
I don’t think familial relations are as simple or outmoded as some might believe.
I’m talking about socio-biology. Biology has an important role in determining social relationships.
Sure. But I am talking about the physical build of men, is generally more inclined to handle hard labour. Their disposition may vary, but that was never the question (in my mind)
True, but men’s role in procreation can take one minute, for women, it is a major commitment in time and change in lifestyle. Block reasons that a species that allowed women to do the more dangerous roles may risk the continuity of the species. One man can father hundreds of children, but each woman can only have a limited # of children. Women are the rarer sex in the procreation game.
I agree with your argument. But it has nothing to do with flourishing.
I think a colder climate has, in the past, produced a greater positive eugenic effect than a warmer climate. Human being’s ancestors who have inhabited colder climates are generally more intelligent. This is basically just the theory of evolution applied to human beings.
Bringing to the table doesn’t just mean money.
In any organization there are decision-makers and decision-followers.
Again, organization.
Actually, it would only really work if the advantages are mutually recognized. And it has nothing to do with who’s better. Most of your post has been strawmans and non-sequiturs.
When I look around, I see a world full of problems. Divorce rates are over 50% in Canada. There’s a reason why tradition became the norm. It withstood the test of time and proved its superior form. I think that if people are going to be successful in raising a family nowadays, they have to be very careful and think things through. Marriage is somewhat like a business partnership and one must make sure they find someone who they are compatible with. Also, one should keep in mind that people change. My arguments are just rough ideas. I’m fairly open minded. I just have a strong conservative prejudice.
I’ll have to work on that. I certainly don’t want to come across that way. It’s not how I come across in private conversations. Can you elaborate a little more? It’s hard to tell on the web what others think because you can’t really see an emotional response, just what they type and what they don’t.
Going straight to IQ test results for blacks, bringing up eugenics. Hoppeans have a hammer, and tend to see every discussion as a nail. I quite like it myself, I don’t suffer from Hoppephobia.
To varying degrees, consciously so or not. It’s in the nature of being an Aristotelian I think. Rasmussen, Den Uyl, and Veatch are generally right-libertarian minarchists I think though. Sciabarra is harder to categorize. Being a thick libertarian does not entail paternalism. Anyone making this charge should read Long and R&DU and my own work. Even Aristotle recognized the epistemic difficulties in judging virtue or vice in someone else and libertarians are more pluralistic and cautious than he was. Human flourishing is not one and the same for everyone (there are both universal and particular aspects), nor are the virtues rigid deontological rules that require the same of everyone regardless of who they are and their specific circumstances.
I disagree with radical feminist ideas that there exists no hardwired differences in intelligence and motivation between men and women and that pornography causes men to treat women like sex objects.
I don’t know if there’s disagreement between myself and Wombatron on this, but… I recommend reading chapters 6 & 7 of my dissertation on this score. The problem is that politics plays an important role in Aristotle’s ethical and political thought and it isn’t entirely statist. In fact, in those chapters I argue that the state is antithetical to the essential means and purpose of politics: discourse and deliberation between equals (in authority, a la Locke) in joint pursuit of well-being. This requires liberty and precludes the state. Plato, Aristotle and subsequent thinkers were wrong to identify the state with politics. Accepting the state introduces tension into Aristotle’s conception of politics and ensures that the means (discourse and deliberation) and the goal (well-being) will be corrupted and undermined. Anarchists want to do away with politics in the statist sense altogether, but I don’t see why we should give up that term “politics” while opposing the state. For more information, see my dissertation chapters.
There is an alternative to viewing vices and crimes as two entirely separate and mutually exclusive categories, on the one hand, and any vices being fair game for criminalization, on the other. In fact, it’s impossible to take the former view coherently. Surely, murder and theft are vices - among the most socially destructive kind. Standard libertarian rights-based reasoning tells us which vices can be legitimately prohibited and which can’t - those that can are the ones that involve the threat or use of initiatory physical force (aka aggression, i.e, those that violate the rights to life, liberty and property).
I’m in complete agreement. I was trying to point out some of the universal aspects.
And as far as the “arbitrary personal preference” argument against left-libertarianism goes (and thick libertarianism in general), I think that this is at least the start of an answer to it:
Hi Geoffrey,
I’ve read all of chapter 7, save the last 6 pages (I need to get to bed). It was exceedingly interesting! What you have done in synthesizing basic Aristotelean political theory with liberal political theory is the same kind of thing that I would like to work toward in synthesizing David Hume’s philosophy of mind with libertarian moral theory. My first attempt at this is here.
Although I agree with a great deal of what you said, it’s probably more fruitful to raise points on which I disagree. I will introduce two such points now, and try to flesh them out tomorrow (again, the bed factor).
I am doubtful whether the modern eudaimonist’s conception of eudaimonia is actually present in Aristotle’s writings. I suspect he meant it as the ultimate end of any given action or artifice, and that different actions/artifices will have different eudaimonias. I don’t think he meant it as a general well-being, as most scholars do. This suspicion stems from a different interpretation of certain passages that I have.
And I think that what you call politics, as something that doesn’t necessarily involve the state, concerns what Aristotle calls a “koinônia” (community or partnership). I believe “state” (or at least “city-state”) is a near-exact English translation of polis. So I don’t think it is quite right to say that Aristotle was wrong to identify the state with politics, any more than saying the state should not be associated with “the science of statecraft”. Again, this difference stems from a different interpretation of a certain passage, the text of which I will try to analyze tomorrow.
It was a highly stimulating chapter, and I look forward to reading the last 6 pages.
Best Regards,
Lilburne
I thought the issue was cultural & social preferences being attached to libertarianism by individuals & in the process, possibly distorting libertarianism (neolibertarianism, paleo-cons, left-libertaians, right-libertarians / Hoppeans, etc.), not about whether or not the “link” between leftism & libertarianism is arbitrary or not.
Even if it were, the ending line “…seems pretty unimaginative to me” is a polite ad-hominem & doesn’t really amount to a good argument, imo.
The occurrence of one seeing patterns where one wishes to see patterns comes to mind here, a little.
@ Wombie
Help! Gravity won’t let me flourish.
Yeah, but after all, I’d bet a big deal that they could bench press more than you.
Fool she is exploiting you for your labor! [:P] I jest. I think she keeps you around because of a conceptulization of brother. You are, perhaps, her psychologicalist, her mentor, advisor etc. Obviously there are few in this group who deny you are an intelligent individual. That to can be a factor. However, I think, and this is pure speculation, that the last reason for calling you is simply because you have a distinct set of sexual organs.
Because I deny the nuclear family doesn’t mean I deny family itself.
Perhaps a more elaborated example will make me see what you are saying.
Strength is now anarchonistic. It matters not how strong you are in the coming technological age…but how smart you are. Also I would like to highlight the growing obesity problem in western nations making hard labor more difficult to assert.
But yet, to my knowledge, there are more women in the world. Perhaps we can find some middle ground over this specific argument because I do see your point about women not being able to constantly produce children. Perhaps you are a fan of Futurama, but there is a character on there nameZapp Brannigan who makes a funny quote:
‘Hmm, 198 billion babies in a few weeks. We’ll need an army of super virile men scoring round the clock! Kif, clear my schedule!’