The dungeon is only problematic if extreme human suffering makes you uncomfortable.
You’ll have to advance some argument to the effect that what is going on is not really consentual if you want to justify forceful intervention (by which I certainly do not mean the government), or perhaps somehow demonstrate the Marquis is failing to live up to his duties as their custodian, and thus he may be forcefully deprived of the children. But you said the children “imprison themselves”. Do you not really mean what you say then?
-Jon
Jon,
As I’ve explained, the children are unaware of the very existence of an outside world. It would therefore never occur to them that they might ask to be released, just as it would never occur to me that I might ask my wine glass to beam me into the fifth dimension. It is their ignorance, and only their ignorance, that prevents them from leaving the dungeon.
And what do you think should happen to the Marquis de Sade?
-Jon
A comprehensive theory of property rights would seemingly leave us with no recourse, while a more limited one might justify our intervention in any number of ways, e.g., by requiring the property owner to facilitate communication between the world at large and any person inhabiting his property.
Now tell me, where do you intend to draw the arbitrary line that defines when the property owner has fulfilled this.
This whole topic is absurd, the children in the dungeon would ask what was beyond the walls, and if the father lied I’d argue that it would be fraud.
No, it’s also their lack of curiosity. Just because he said it’s hell outside doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t question him and want to find out for themselves, just as in the island scenario, they might be curious to know what exists beyond the island.
Mr. Stratton,
If you don’t care for implausible thought experiments, then why don’t you respond to my Islam/women example above?
macsnafu,
They actually believe that the world ends at the dungeon wall, to be precise. From what source would they obtain the idea that there might be something beyond? But all this is beside the point: a thought experiment need not be plausible, but merely possible.
Many Islamic societies do have restrictions that prevent Islamic women from breaking from their subservient roles, or at least, they lack the legal protection to do so. Men are not punished in Islamic nations for raping or killing women who violate the long-held traditions. Thus, your analogy does not fit.
If it were merely uncoercive ostracism these women faced, then it would be more like your analogies.
Thus, there is no justification for intervening where coercion is not being used. And even in situations where coercion is being used, as it surely is in Islamic nations, there remains the question of why any particular government, such as the United States, has an obligation to intervene, and not simply private individuals or organizations such as Amnesty International.
This is most likely where the real concerns about intervention lie.
That won’t do. If you do want to tackle this, you’ll have to show that the children somehow are not really consenting. Failing that, the Marquis is well within his rights.
-Jon
macsnafu,
I was referring to a hypothetical Islamic society based on voluntary cooperation; those who violate its social contract are simply expelled, and must take residence elsewhere. But despite the formally consensual character of such a society, a girl raised within it will be denied the information she needs in order to weigh the laws and customs of her place of birth against those of the other places wherein she might freely choose to reside.
Voluntary cooperation or social contract. Pick one!
scineram,
I think our problem here is terminological, not substantive. I’m picturing a monarchical Imam who leases territory to those who sign a literal “social contract.” It has nothing to do with Plato’s Republic or political theory.
I just think they’re not really relevant when most people on these forums are believers in natural rights. It’s as Rothbard says in his chapter on life boat situations in TeoL
As for the Islam example, in those situations a considerable amount of physical coercion is used anyway, so it doesn’t matter.
“Denied the information she needs”, in this case, refers to the idea that other people have the knowledge she needs and are simply not communicating it to her. But even if they did communicate it to her, they would certainly do so within their own biases, and hardly objectively. And that’s assuming that they have sufficient information to tell her–their own information may be sketchy and incomplete.
Last but not least, while some people have more information than others, we ALL lack omniscience and therefore may not have “all the information we need” to make the best, most objective decisions. So what?
I fail to see any justification for coercive intervention in consensual situations, but I do see the danger of arrogance: that those who wish to interfere think that they do indeed know enough to provide a truly objective source of information, when such is difficult or even impossible to find. Who knows best?
macsnafu,
By ‘information,’ I mean the full panoply of personal experiences, high-artistic works, political and social writings, pop-cultural products, etc., out of which we fashion our knowledge about the world, imperfect and conjectural though it may be. It is this everyday raw material, taken for granted in a modern society, which is inaccessible to an isolated illiterate woman whose universe is circumscribed by the shoddy walls of her husband’s house. She has no need to embark on some perilous philosophical quest for ‘objective knowledge’ in order to renovate her world view: merely watching a few Hollywood movies or visiting New York would more than suffice.
No, because it wouldn’t be treating the children as ends. At least he had good intentions.
BTW, I hate hypothetical situations with philosophers as they usually turn out to be hypothetically shitty philosophers. Does anyone remember the Ruritania/utilitarian debacle?
That’s certainly so if we consider the torture example, but you are on shakier grounds to claim this with the initial philosopher hypothetical. However, the Kantian might go the route that the philosopher denies their rationality by believing they would choose the wrong option, given the information. This would be similar to Kant’s argument regarding the inquiring murderer, lying to him would imply that you believed the murderer was not sufficiently rational to make the right choice. As something of a Kantian myself, I would say that this is the moral argument against the hypotheticals presented by ultramontaigne.
That said, I do not believe that this should be illegal to do, nor that it would be legitimate to “rescue” the children. This is something that could be dealt with by restrictive convenants and ostracism, I think.
This forum tries to make a distinct between morality and legality.
Locking your children in a room is different from raising them on an island. It is assumed that the children would not be permitted to leave the room, which is imprisonment.
But lets say you raise them on an island, and fail to tell them that there is more land beyond the ocean. So long as you don’t prevent them from building a boat to leave the island you are not imprisoning them.