Circumcision is truly undefendable. That said, so are a lot of other cultural practices. I suppose it may be inevitable that there will always be a certain level of undefendable practices in human society, no matter how liberal it becomes.
Clayton -
Actually Merlin, Block is an atheist.
Apparently his audience, for the larger part, isn’t.
Babies don’t have the abilities to make choices. Families are not states. Parents do it for health reasons. They aren’t amputating the baby or torturing them. They are just taking care of their babies. At that point parental responsibility takes over non existent personal choice. It’s not a big deal.
I’d love to see how this would work anarcho-capitalism, how would private law stop parents from getting their kids circumcised.
Of course outside of such a young age to make such decisions is different.
It’s not worth insulting someone over..
So mutilation now is called “taking care”? Gimme a break. It is not like nothing is lost… baby loses hundreds of thousands nerve endings which are meant for pleasure. I suggest you read more about scientific arguments against this religious ritual. It is NOT about medicine, it simply a cultural thing, which now became pseudo-scientific myth about “health”. It’s cop-out.
Just because baby can not make choice there is no reason to mutilate him. He has ability to make choice, and that ability appears when he is old enough to understand the consequences of such “surgery”. Why don’t people mutilate grown-ups? Well, because they know they won’t agree with this horrible thing and nope, I am not over reacting. This is horrible religious ritual and this should be pointed out everytime. There is no excuse for that.
My suggestion stands, if parents want to cut their children penis, let child to grow up and choose himself. It is not vaccination. It is not amputation of a body part that suffers from some disease, it is cutting healthy body part for the sake of perpetuating pseudo-scientific (and religious) myth about some health which is non-existant.
Let the kid choose himself when he is 14 or 16.
I’d love to see how this would work anarcho-capitalism, how would private law stop parents from getting their kids circumcised.
Well, it may not prevent it but that is not the case. It’s about what is true and what is not.
“As long as the other guy cannot disagree, Molineux notwithstanding, the baby is more akin to ‘homesteadable’ property than to a person.”
Hey liberty Student.There’s your reprehensible quote you were looking for.
Hey liberty Student.There’s your reprehensible quote you were looking for.
Bring it on
I’d be curious to see the correlation of opinion between abortion and circumcision rights. If it has no rights then neither should be deemed inappropriate, if it has rights then perhaps both should be against the law.
“The solution to this is to be found in the fact that there’s no such thing as objective morality. No one has an inherent “right” to be or not to be circumcised.”
Rights and morality are two separate things. Rights come from an enforcement agency which can enforce some particular thing; it is a matter regardless of metaphysics.
Morality on the other hand cannot be denied, in my opinion, without contradicting itself. The fact that you have said that it is ‘wrong’ to step in as a moral philosopher to stop something like this, is proof of your own expectations about morality. You are saying it is wrong to do something if there is no object that physically says yes/no (ignoring that you’ve confused ‘object’ with ‘objective’ which are a bit different in philosophy). Not that you’ve successfully denied ‘objective ethics’. On the flip side, you’ve implied that it is morally correct to follow things which can be considered ‘objective’. Only deferring morality to that which can be made physical. Which we can take from the fact that you suggest that morality would be followable if it were objective; in some scenario where it is.
On top of this, it seems you’ve said that it is a duty – and thus a ‘moral’ action – to do what is in the interest of the market. The market not being an object either but an abstract concept. The market also tends to rely on notions about moral versus non moral action, as to differentiate the market transactions from unacceptable types of transactions like robbery or theft or central planning.
I’m curious about the notion ‘it’s no big deal’. Which tends to mean that it is no big deal to do it. Not that it is no big deal to argue against it.
If it is no big deal, then how can it be so sacred and important to do? It seems to me if people think it is moral to do and imperative for safety, then it should be a big deal.
I think that action which is no big deal should always be universalized. For instance, if it is no big deal to kill someone. It should also be no big deal if the killer is detained or killed or whatever. But we do think it is a big deal to kill someone. And a big deal to kill or detain the killer. That is, it is the morality of killing is a legitimate concern. And the methods of obtaining safety from and justice against killers is also legitimate concern.
On the same token, if the parent should be able to mutilate the body of a child given some whim, the ‘market’, religious tradition, or medical reason. It should be at the same time moral for another adult to mutilate this parent if it is in the interest of their whim, the market ‘demand’, the religious majority, or for some medical emergency. Since the morality in the case of ‘parents rights’ is deferred to these methodologies ‘outside themselves’ (that is not only them speaking, but their duty or morality they must follow). The thing outside the parent must be what makes it moral. And hence it should be valid for adults as well as children. And valid regardless of what anyone at all can ever decide for themselves. But we know this is impossible and absurd.
False analogy. Aborting fetus is not the same as mutilating breathing living human, that is already born and has all “rights” so to speak.
P.S. John Ess, great posts. I also wanted to point that thing about morality.
False analogy eh? What exactly happens as one passes through the birth canal that allows one to have rights?
he is no longer an invader of woman’s body and can live by itself, basically? Of course, I am not advocating here late abortions (like 7 and more months, you know what I mean). But then again, if fetus dies after woman falls from the stairs, could she be charged of accidental murder then?
Also there has to be a clear distinction when a human becomes human. I choose using birth as this distinction. It’s most scientific.
I don’t think it would. Real customary law has tended to work around or even enforce cultural practices, however anti-liberal they may be. Circumcision is certainly illiberal and Block is out to lunch on this. But I have a hunch that even in a strong private-property legal order, Jews (just like all other cultural groups) would tend to congregate together and form their own legal sub-systems.
I think Rothbard and Hoppe are right that the more rational the property laws, the more rational law itself will be, which will tend to economically punish individuals and societies which engage in illiberal practices of any kind. But people derive satisfaction from superstitious beliefs and associating with others who share the same superstitions (how else can you explain voluntary religious offerings?), which means that illiberal practices will persist because that’s what people are willing to pay for. If you have to accept a lower standard of living in order to continue participating in illiberal practice X, and it’s worth it to you, and lots of other people feel the same way you do about illiberal practice X, then sub-communities that practice X will persist no matter how rational the legal order is and no matter how strongly property rights are enforced.
Clayton -
What are peoples emotion levels like reading threads like this? http://forums.momaha.com/index.php?topic=885.0
Those fire-breathing horn crowned evil mothers!
That is a perfect summary of the exact opposite of Rothbard’s wriiten opinion on the matter. Here’s a direct quote:
Offtopic… but are siamese twins separate entities (-y) or not?
Indeed. 2 week ban, Diogenes.
I wasn’t participating in this thread. I have no idea what you are referring to.