If law was objective (like it is supposed to be) we would not have 90% of the law we have in the United States…
If war was objective it would be defensive, the United States was in no defensive military action since the war of 1812, which was won by local militia, not federal regulars
Natural Law covers all the law you need for human interaction, so yes you can allow people what they have the right to do, be free
Protectionism closes more market opportunity than it saves
Even by your logic I don’t see how this follows. If reason is to be the binding force, in a sense, why would reason suggest that whatever someone thinks they should do is what they should do? Certainly, it seems reasonable to say that whatever something thinks they should do, they will do, but I fail to see why they should be presumed to always be right about what they should do. The evidence that there was sufficient reason to attack should not be the fact that someone thought there was. If that’s the case, you aren’t just denying morality, but truth as well.
You’ve tried, and you haven’t convinced me. Perhaps I could try and fail to convince you to want vanilla ice cream. If I fail, I’ll walk away. If you fail, you’ll pull a gun on me and make me pay for what you want anyway. In what sense is law and war objective if there is morality? What objective reality do they stand for? Now, you don’t want to let everyone go around doing whatever they think is right in matters of war - but your first paragraph in the same post claimed that there was nothing wrong with the Jews going to war with Amalek because they thought it was right. So which is it - should people be permitted to go around doing what they think is right in matters of war, or not? Or is it that you posit some difference between an individual and a group such as “the Jews.” In that case, what reality does the group have other than as a collection of individuals?
How do armies protect markets? First, do you mean what is often meant by this - protecting certain market outcomes by benefiting specific businesses (sparing them the costs of security) at the expense of others, or do you mean protecting the existence of the market? If the latter, I don’t see it. I’d agree if it were a private army, but if not, you’ve rather introduced into the economy an entity which can demand its funds and behave violently when it feels the need without censure. This is a quite ineffective way to protect markets.
Ok, but I don’t think it’s wrong to say that markets are similar to the far extreme of representational democracy, which does not have the properties you mention. The problem is that saying this rather than “markets are democratic” does not support the claims that the OP wants to have follow from them.
I had this thought, a while ago and it is brilliant…
When this test fails is it going to be like the open declaration of the failure of “capitalism” in the United States? More than likely the reasoning behind the failure will be the government reactions to the success of a society that proves they are not only unnecessary but also deleterious…
For the record, Hume also thought that people he never met did not exist…
Markets are a panarchy, that is they are what each individual consumer decides they are, this is the subjectivity of markets, all market interactions are based on subjective individual valuations, not majority groupthink.
Look man, if someone has the means to do something and really thinks it’s necessary, then they will do it. I don’t care if it’s right or wrong that’s how things work. There’s a saying about war: “war is not about who is right but about who is left.” I guarantee you if Hitler had won WW2, there would be books talking about how he was the good guy. Guaranteed.
People ARE permitted to go around and do whatever they want. The only way to moderate this fact is by giving people a reason NOT to go around doing whatever they want. This is best instituted by means of armies and police (who are really just an army concerned with internal enforcement)
In other words, if I want you to want a military AND I can pull on a gun on you and force you AND you can’t do anything about it, then that’s what will happen. Whether it’s right or wrong becomes irrelevant.
Yes, protecting the existence of the market. Militaries can operate on a whim, it’s true. But they won’t. Because it’s not in their interest to do so. If it were, the US army would have already turned on the US civilian population. Feed them well and treat them with respect and they’ll leave you alone. Like wasps.
No, if it fails then the flaws in the reasoning will be exposed. At which point, you guys will have to go back to the drawing board. I’ll tell you what though, you better be careful because when Communist China failed under the Great Leap Forward, people pretty much took that as proof that communism can’t work. Just don’t fail. Or try not to.
Points 1 and 2 are essentially identical, and consist of reiterating your point that might makes…might. It can’t be that might makes right, because you think right is irrelevant. Very well. If a person does not want to recognize the moral categories, I can’t make you, and it follows logically that you have little else besides aesthetics or whatever to go on once you say that. Your points here, though, are quite different from your points in the posts I responded to.
Point 3 - What is like wasps? When you go on a picnic, you tolerate the existence of wasps because you can’t help it. You don’t decide that it’s not really a picnic without wasps and ensure their presence. You’d be just as happy not feeding parasites, so this comparison doesn’t do much for your case. This does nothing to explain why it protects the existence of the market to have a class of non-market actors who eat at the expense of everyone else.
I’m not saying anything about right. I’m saying possible, doable, executable, conceivable. Without the means to accomplish, no amount of talking and philosophizing can make it so. Might is the measure of what can be made to happen. Just because things happen doesn’t make them right and just because things don’t happen doesn’t make them wrong. But if something happened, it’s reasonable to assume that someone had the ability to make it happen and if something didn’t happen, it’s fair to assume that either someone didn’t have the means or the desire or both. So..might doesn’t make right. Might makes possible.
I understand that you think this is what is a decisive point. What I don’t understand is why you think that. If two people try to kill each other, and one is stronger, better armed, or whatever, then he’ll kill the other. It doesn’t follow that it’s not wrong for him to do so (depending on the situation.) This is not a brilliant discovery that generations of moral philosophers have somehow missed, although I’m aware that amoralists present it as such.
Yes, those are reasonable statements. I also thought that they were reasonable when I made them a couple posts ago. It is not true, though, that you’re saying nothing about right. You’re saying something about it - namely, that being right doesn’t matter, or that nothing is right or wrong, or so forth. There is a thick body of work in ethics, and I tire greatly of people who want to wish away that work without thought by saying “well, the fact that it’s wrong to do something doesn’t stop you from doing it.” This is a strawman - there is not a single moral philosopher in history who thought morality had this ability. Great, you’ve established that something is doable. Why does that mean that you should do it?
This is a decisive point because right and wrong have nothing to with whether I can kill you or not. Or whether you can kill me. So your subjective laws don’t seem to apply to objective reality.
Someone will do whatever they want if they think it’s in their interest and if they think they can get away with it. It’s our job to make sure that they don’t feel like it’s in their interest or that they can get away with it. How do you convince someone of this? By telling them about morals?
And the sleeping pill works because of its dormitive virtue. Right and wrong have nothing to do with your physical abilities because that’s not what they’re about. I’m not going to have a conversation about it if you’re going to repeat a point that has been answered ad infinitum (even if I should…)
Is it your contention that no one has been convinced to do or not do an action by moral considerations? Mother Teresa could have decided one morning to start torturing the lepers who came to her, and she could have gotten away with it. Why didn’t she?
You’re not going to have a conversation with me about this because you realize that unless I sanction your game by admitting the relevance of morality in human affairs that you don’t really have an argument.
In other words, your game is like Jiu Jitsu that starts on knees. You might be really good at it, but unless I choose to start a fight on my knees instead of on my feet, you can’t use your game against me. You’re asking everyone to start on their knees. This is not realistic.
Ok, my last answer to this post was not very good. The fact is, though, yes, people are persuaded at times by reference to morality. As troubling as it might be to you, a lot of people have consciences and desire to do what is right and good, and invest time and energy in finding out what that is. So yes, you might well convince someone not to do something by showing them that it is immoral. Not always, not everyone, and not every action, but believe it or not, people care about what is right. However, convincing someone to do or not to do something is not the point of morality - morality is not instrumental. People, the point is, are not machines, and self-interest can cover a great variety of ground. It cannot be constricted to mean “gets stuff for me.”