Tribal membership ? What’s that ? A new credit card or something ?
Look, you can’t enter a discussion about morality, defend a whole class of actions as completely permissible, condemn entire groups of people as universally unworthy of moral consideration, and then retreat to a position of pure relativism. It simply prohibits you from consistently saying pretty much everything you’ve said so far in this thread.
So long as I don’t claim anything to be unpermissible, I’ve remained perfectly consistent in logic.
War on primitives is not unpermissible so long as their social practices make them violent. Coercion of children is not unpermissible so long as children have not learned proper social behavior.
Wait, what? Permissible by what standard?
I said not unpermissible. By what standard would it be unpermissible?
Well “not impermissible” (unpermissible is not a word) means either “permissible” or “morally indeterminate”. If you mean the latter, then your earlier comments defending the use of force against non-market communities are completely unfounded. If you mean the former, then you need to tell us what standard you’re using.
I did not defend the use of force against primitives. I merely pointed out that no objection could be raised against it, and clearly stated the moral ambiguity of extermination policies.
To claim that something is permissible means to claim the right to judge what others may or may not do. That right must be justified. I do not make any such claim on others. If you claim that you have the right to stop others from using force against primitives, then you need to justify your right.
The only grounds you’ve offered for saying that we can’t object to the use of force against “primatives” is that there is no universal moral standard on which any objection can be founded. But then you say, “If you claim that you have the right to stop others from using force against primatives, then you need to justify your right.” By your own argument, there is no universal moral standard by which it could be said that I need to justify using force against those who use force against “primatives”, and therefore no objection can be raised to my actions.
If an objection can be raised against my use of force against the aggressors, then that same objection would seem to have to apply to the aggressors’ actions.
You are again confusing right and morality.
Who are the aggressors?
I am not confusing right and morality. The terminology of “having a right” to interfere is yours. But the notion of a “right” is a normative one, and necessarily presupposes some moral foundation. But you have denied that any such moral foundation exists. So you’re working with a stolen concept; you have “no right” to the terminology of rights. Let me try to lay this out for you:
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If no impartial objection can be raised to the use of force against “primatives”, it must be the case that either the force can be impartially justified, or no impartial justification is necessary for that force.
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If relativism is true, then the force cannot be justified impartially.
(Your premise) 3. Relativism is true.
Therefore, the force cannot be justified impartially. Therefore, if no impartial objection can be raised to the use of force against the “primatives”, it must be the case that no impartial justification is necessary for the force.
- If relativism is true, then an impartial judge cannot make reference to the moral character of an action to differentiate it from another similar action.
Therefore, an impartial judge cannot make reference to the moral character of an action to differentiate it from another similar action.
(Formal premise) 5. There is no substantive difference between the use of force against “primatives” and the use of force against the invaders which does not make reference to the moral character of the relevant actions.
(Formal premise) 6. There can be no moral distinction made between two cases which are substantively identical.
Therefore, to an impartial judge, there can be no moral distinction made between the use of force against “primatives” and the use of force against the invaders.
I have no idea what you are talking about anymore. Primitives wouldn’t make an appeal to an impartial judge because they are primitives. You are the one making the appeal to an impartial judge in order to stop the use of force. What is your right in this case? And why are you writing “primatives” in quotes?
Why would I need to have a right to do anything to anyone if there’s no coherent way to launch an objection to me doing it? As long as my own value system tells me that what I’m doing is okay, wouldn’t that be enough?
And I’m writing “primative” in scare quotes because it’s an unbelievably offensive term.
So long as you don’t get involved into a conflict with someone else that requires third-party arbitration, which is what I presume you intend to do to people whom you consider to be violating primitives’ rights. Then you will need to appeal to universal principles of justice, not morality.
To people who can neither read nor write and certainly not use the Internet?
And on what grounds do I need to appeal to these principles?
This is absolute nonsense. By libertarian theory of aquisition, the whole European vs. Native thing is a mixed bag. It is patently absurd to say that the land as a whole uniformly “belongs” to either side. Saying that none of the natives own the land in the first place is also absurd. According to homesteading theory, to an extent they did. To an extent, there was legitimate homesteading by colonizers. And to an extent, the colonizers engaged in land theft. It’s a mixed bag, and you’re engaging in a ridiculous revision here to justify land theft, which is totally incompatible with any libertarian theory of aquisition. All you have to offer is a ridiculous cultural elitism as a justification for brutalizing other human beings.
The very simple point, Stranger, is that a human being is a human being. Either there are “human rights” or there aren’t. Noone claimed “equality” in terms of merit in any other sense, just the fundamental attributes of a human being. You’re essentially argueing that these human beings are “subhuman”, when they quite clearly have the fundamental features of a human being. One can debate the relative merits of different human beings, but this would not take away the fundamental humanity of anyone in question. The fact that you may find a particular group of human beings “inferior” does not mean that they cease to actually be human beings and have no rights. You’re simply trying to justify an extreme elitism as an excuse for not aknowledging the rights of certain groups you dislike or find “inferior”. As such, you have stepped outside of the bounds of libertarianism and well into the realm of authoritarian conservatism.
In order to validate to an impartial judge your use of force against the party you claim is in the wrong. Since this party has done nothing to you, I don’t see what you could possibly fault them with.
Didn’t you learn in school that you are not supposed to use the word you are defining in its own definition?
A is A.
Why should I have to validate my actions to an impartial judge?