You shouldn’t cringe.[:P] There is nothing incomprehensible about a “universal subjective value”. Happiness is one such value (and the only one, in fact).
I’m not sure if the second statement is supposed to restate the first or if you mean to suggest that it is implied by the first. They mean different things. Neither implies the other. And neither imply that utilitarianism is false.
(1) There is no universal definition of happiness.
Ok, but utilitarianism is not a theory about definitions or words and it isn’t affected by facts about what definitions are or aren’t. The word might not have existed at all and utilitarianism would still be true.
(2) It is different for each actor, at any given time.
So you are saying that one thing, happiness, is experienced differently at different times by different people. That means you believe that one feeling can be shared even though it is felt differently by each person. Hot pans are painful for both of us even though they entail different, subjective perceptions. Sex is pleasurable even though we experience it differently. Goods make us happy even though we do not enjoy them the same way. Though we have different pyschological experiences, the same feelings are nontheless brought about. “Happiness” might describe a feeling that is manifested in an infinite number of ways and is unique in each person (just as pain is), but it is nonetheless the feeling that is the intrinsic, universal end to all voluntary human action, just as pain is the universal end to the handling of all hot pans (joking).
It makes sense to ask, “Why buy a Plasma?” or “Why have sex?”… but it makes no sense to ask, “Why be happy?”
Well I don’t really have to get involved in philosophy here. I can convince you that you should endorse capitalism on utilitarian grounds without convincing you that philosophical utilitarianism is true. All I need to do is (1) establish that you want to maximize happiness in the world and (2) prove to you that free markets maximize happiness and that (3) endorsing capitalism will make it more likely. From this it follows that: if you want to maximize happiness then you should endorse capitalism. This is a utilitarian-like argument that is essentially no more philosophical than a doctor’s prescription.
no its not still an ethical problem, its maybe an aesthetic problem if its any kind of problem
and whilst this may or may not be ‘nice’; it is legitimate.
it is morally permissable behaviour.
no thats exactly the wrong point, because that following that point leads to confusion, and ultimately the performance of evil.
its limited to property rights and physical coercion because thats all that morality concerns. if your ‘political philosophy’ considers other things, then its added in extra-moral features. and if it ever puts those features ahead of the moral ones, its likely immoral.
no, it does not. politics and morality arent about ‘well-being’ they are about property and justice.
No it isn’t. There is nothing that anyone needs that is in such short supply that one person can control it.
I can’t do what I want. I can only perform voluntarily. If I own the property, then I can use it how I wish. You do not own it, and thus do not have a say in how it is used. Even if that makes you feel bad. Unless you want to argue that private ownership of property does not exist.
Libertarianism is based on “do no harm”. You have arbitrarily created a positive notion of what harm is.
If you wake up, and feel bad, that is a problem according to you.
If you go to your job, and it’s not fun, that is a problem according to you.
If you are single, and no one loves you, that is a problem according to you.
These are backwards arguments. Your premise leads to arguments like “if there is only one woman around, and she won’t satisfy your sexual urges, then she is negatively impacting you”.
Your programming is too deep and without a capacity for rational argument, we’re both just wasting time.
Blackmail is still an initiation of force. Like libel, slander, character assassination. etc; it still causes harm to a person and violates their right of privacy.
none of the negative terms you qouted are initiations of force and none of them are morally impermissable behaviours.
lets focus on blackmail.
you say its initiation of force. what physical property is invaded/vandalased/damaged or destroyed when I give you a choice to pay me to keep my photos of you secret, or, not pay me and my then distributing my pictures ?
Both, individual liberty is more beneficial to the general welfare than not having liberty at all (I speak for I not We)
This is also the excuse (NOT JUSTIFICATION) of the use of force by the mob, because other random criminals wil victimize you if you do not pay protection, why does it sound like a crime when I use “mob” and not when I use “government”?
This is incorrect, a government is a system in which some people tell other people what to do, generally under threat of violence, a country is just a land mass…
You have no individual right to be in the specific club, therefore it is voluntary that you pay membership and the consequence of not is removal from the club…
Coercion is forced compliance to rights violation, usually by means of rights violations
Example : Your money or your life is coercion
Needs are not rights
The issue is moral, that regulation is a rights violation on someone, stabbing your right eye to make your left eye see better makes as much sense…
Tell them to prove the government had issued a contract to every citizen, that each citizen read and agreed to the terms by signature, then delivered the contract to the government, that is the ONLY way government can have legitimacy…
Blitzkrieg, everything you say is against private property rights. When you ask if government is categorically illegit, what you are really asking is if violating private property rights doesn’t lead to better consequences for the community. Of course, government is ALWAYS illegit, because it is a coercive monopoly on the use of force, and given that, on almost everything else. Therefore, is another social class. What you are questioning is if we should really enforce private property rights (as we, libertarians, conclude) or if we should adopt another political system, which avoids certain people from being “coerced” by this property-enforcement policies. Again, it’s all about property rights. I believe, that the only satisfactory way to get rid of this questions is not by proposing any type of government whatsoever, but to define the concept of property. You may go to any branch of anarcho-socialism (that is, no private property rights, “economic egalitarianism”, direct democracy, cooperatives), and its bad consequences (limited individual liberty, property/possession problems, the “mob rule”, economic calculation/planning).
That David Friedman’s article is a nice reductio ad absurdum-style refutation attempt of natural rights. Hoppe has a word on that, it’s the chronological concept of property. Taking Friedman’s example, the airplane pilot would have to get the permission of all the inhabitants of the houses below his route, if he established his route after the inhabitants started residing there.
No, the pilot would not need permission. A lack of chronology isn’t the only defect in Friedman’s theory of property.
Traveling over a person’s property is not traveling through a person’s property. A pilot no more needs permission to travel over property than a driver needs permission to travel next to property.
The sky is a seperate unit of property from land. A land homestead does not include the sky above it.
First, theres no force at all. Spreading information is a social action, not an anti-social action.
Second, people don’t have the right to not be talked about. And “harming” a person’s reputation does not harm their person, nor does it harm anything they own. Your reputation is nothing more than what other people think of you. You don’t own your reputation because you don’t own other people’s thoughts.
Rothbard gives an example somewhere of an airport homesteading a certain amount, say 50 dB, of “noise generation easement rights” over an area of previously unowned land. Those who build a neighborhood within this soundscape are required to allow the overhead airplane traffic. If the airport grows to where it starts emitting 75 dB of noise over this neighborhood, the emission of this additional 25 dB of noise pollution would be considered an act of aggression. Terminology like “working the land” are clearly outmoded when trying to get a grasp on a proper approach to determining property rights in our modern era. Likewise, the ancient common law approach of cuius est solum eius est usque ad coelum et ad infernos, or “for whoever owns the soil, it is theirs up to heaven and down to hell”, isn’t compatible with a rational approach to arbitration of property rights today. Just saying one way or another that the landholder has a say in the airplane travel is insufficient.
There is no morality to utilitarianism. To quote the old idiom ‘greatest good for the greatest amount’. I really don’t see utilitarianism as proposing anything beyond the arbitary majority of an given issue.
I just posted on a similar issue. At first I seemed sorry I didn’t search the forums further (though 2 days ago I couldn’t find a suitable answer), but my approach is different.
If I recall correctly, your point was that flying over a certain area created a risk of falling out of the sky. If a person is entitled to prevent a gun from being pointed at them due to the risk of property invasion then they are also entitled to prevent planes from flying over for the same reason. You were attempting to a show defect in the natural rights theory of property.
I expanded that analogy by including a car driving next to the property. There is also a risk that the car could drive off the road and into the property.
True, a property owner can respond to any action that involves risk of damage to property, but another important aspect of natural rights theory of property is proportionality. The property owner is limited to actions that are in proportion with the actual threat. In the case of an airplane or car traveling near their property, that risk approaches zero.
If for some reason the risk is higher, you live near an overpass that cars are known to drive off perhaps, you can sue the road owner to “make safe” the road.
I’d love to discuss your rifle stealing self defense scenario with you, if you have the time. I think you would enjoy the Libertarian solution.
I just don’t get the utilitarian argument of the rifle stealing defense scenario. I think that stealing is ALWAYS bad, it just doesn’t matter what consequences it has. If you ask what would I do in that scenario, I’d steal the gun, and shoot the maniac, and then accept the consequences anyway. If the victim (the guy who I stole the gun from) is a rational guy, he won’t sue me.
Or in other words, you think it is morally right to violate rights under those circumstances? If not, why would you do it?
Your “accept the consequences” suggests to me that you think it’s all right to take someone else’s property as long as you are willing to pay a fine for doing so. Do you approve of the same principle in the context of eminent domain? The government takes your property and then pays you what purports to be a fair price for it. Is the only think wrong that they may pay less than the land is actually worth?