Let us suppose that a great philosopher, having contemplated the vicissitudes of life, were to deem it best to sequester his children, from birth to death, on a private island—and never mention the vale of tears beyond the shore.
Would this action be morally legitimate?
Sure, why not?
Hahah, this wouldn’t be one of those “this happened to a friend of mine…” situations, would it?
Only if it doesn’t violate the children’s will.
Would that beg the question as to whether it’s ethical or not to withhold all information about the outside world from the child, though?
Are people obligated to share their knowledge with other people?
Ah, I see. No, I don’t believe so.
I’m surprised to see so little objection to my philosopher’s island, which I conceived as a synecdoche for the closed society, i.e., for any social order wherein certain arguments or ideas are withheld or suppressed. Perhaps a more egregious example will elicit some controversy.
Let us suppose that the Marquis de Sade, having contemplated his wild sadistic lusts, were to deem it best to sequester his children, from birth to death, in a windowless dungeon, and represent this dismal abode to them as a sort of otherworldly hell, in which they obtain their meals only by consenting to endure frightful tortures.
Would this action be morally legitimate?
Tortures? Of course not. Even keeping them in a dungeon will be a problem, because they can see the door, etc. - and presumably the Marquis himself coming and going - so how can he keep them unaware that there is something outside the room? The island is a bit different - if space aliens came and dropped off their children on Earth, with no way to get off the planet, would that be wrong? It’s only a difference in scale, AFAICS.
I’d argue that it’s immoral but it doesn’t violate anybody’s rights, the island that is.
Paul,
I’m envisioning the Marquis as a Wizard-of-Oz character who employs his supernatural powers, as it were, to appear out of nowhere in a puff of smoke, etc., so that his children receive no intimation that egress is even conceivable, let alone a right that they might exercise.
Here is the problem: If we admit that we might justly use force in order to inform the children of their true condition, we must necessarily adopt a more limited interpretation of property rights. What precisely are those limits? Are they philosophically acceptable to this forum?
Nobody has admitted that.
This is just a question of how much latitude parents have in raising their children.
So, let’s call the Marquis “God”, and the dungeon “Earth” (or, if you prefer, “Universe”)…and where’s the problem?
Force against whom? Talking to them is not force; getting access may require trespass. And the Marquis may believe that he is informing them of their true condition (compare religious people today who indoctrinate their children with rampant nonsense in the belief that it’s “The Truth” - would you advocate the use of force to “deprogram” them? If they’re not holding the children against their will…even if you think their will would be different if they had better knowledge…)
No, we don’t. All he is doing is impeding the children from leaving. There are no “limitations” to speak of, as it is perfectly consistent with a propertarian ethic that the children have the right to leave.
-Jon
As I said, my thought experiments ultimately address the nature and reality of individual choice and consent in a closed (but not coercive) society. For example, consider the situation of a woman raised in a theocratic Islamic community, the social contract of which proscribes all discussion of unorthodox social views. Were she to consider the arguments for women’s rights, were she to see how women live in more liberal communities, she would undoubtedly break the rusty chains of traditional female subservience and leave. But she is deliberately kept ignorant, powerless and miserable.
You’d have to violently invade his property, which we may presume he would defend by force, in order to enter the dungeon and deliver your message. Do I support the use of force to open up closed societies? I’m not sure. It certainly seems like the humane thing to do in this particular case.
Jon,
Seeing that the children may leave at any time merely by asking to do so, how can we possibly say that the Marquis “imped[es them] from leaving?” On the contrary, the children imprison themselves by means of their own cosmological theories.
Then there is no “problem”.
-Jon
Indefinitely sheltering these children from the hell of the outside world would not create any sort of utopia or extremely desirable society. It would take much more than pure isolationism because you would run the risk of having equal hells produced in this new society.
It would be the duty of those who maintained this isolation to educate these children of the hells the outside world has to offer, though not in contrast to the society at hand. Doing so, would, in theory, prevent future occurrences of the evils on the outside world from infecting future generations.
No matter how much control one would have at the beginning of such an experiment, it would eventually be relinquished upon death. Usually, the case goes, that the subsequent generations fallow in great contrast to the ideologies of their fathers. Case and point: The United Sates of America.
In truth though, you cannot ever have pure isolation. The horizon will always be a place man would want to go, and there will always be another horizon.