02
Mar
2016
Callahan vs. Murphy: Only One Will Stand
I am happy to die on this hill: If you take my worldview to the extreme, then people really do have rights and if, for some crazy reason, most Earthlings refused to contribute to a project to stop a killer asteroid, then it would be immoral to take their money against their will.
Gene Callahan thinks that I’m very wrong. He also thinks that it would be moral to use coercion to make people polite; you don’t have a right to use insulting language, for example. The only reason we might not want the State to prevent people from saying offensive things is that it would produce worse results than the offensive speech.
(Go ahead and click the link. You think surely I’m misrepresenting Gene. Nope.)
Utilitarianism leads to very dark places.
Callahan’s view is that people really have rights too. He doesn’t think that those rights are all equal though. Some rights are more important than others. When a conflict arises we might have to choose one right over the other.
If I think your index finger is more important than your pinky finger am I denying you really do have fingers?
It is a distortion to say he thinks your are “very wrong” to say “people really do have rights”.
“you don’t have a right to use insulting language, for example.”
That’s a pretty damn low bar. If he thinks we should live in a system where I can be thrown in prison for saying “damn low bar” I don’t want my kids around Gene.
BTW still haven’t heard your rebuttal to McCloskey on Coase. Thanks!
Didn’t address her on Coase. I addressed your false claim about economists not reading his article.
See, that’s the problem, troll. The argument that they haven’t read the whole article (I said the part that most economists are familiar with comes from a part of the article) hinges on McCloskey’s point! If people read the rest of the article they’d be more likely to come to the conclusion McCloskey does. I’ve actually taken courses that teach “The Coase Theorem” so I know what parts of the article are covered.
The evidence that they haven’t read it, or at least haven’t read it as carefully as others, is that their interpretation of it is so silly.
Now, stop being intentionally obtuse and dispute McCloskey. I swear you trolls are so damned lazy, Ken B.
And since you won’t dispute anything I said about the dominance of the Pigovian view, despite the devastating critiques by Demsetz and Coase, I take it that you’re admitting I’m right. You picked one little comment because you’re unable to dispute the substance of my claim. Too bad, Ken B.
‘If he thinks we should live in a system where I can be thrown in prison for saying “damn low bar” I don’t want my kids around Gene.’
Yeah, except I quite explicitly said such things shouldn’t be illegal!
BS, Gene. I’m just taking your argument to its logical conclusion.
I am NOT a utilitarian!
Remember when Gene was smart?!
So you live on a planet and an alien space craft stops by and says “everyone has to provide $1 to us or we blow the planet up”
Everyone gives up $1 apart from one person who hates the world and wants it to end, but happens to leave a pile of 1 million dollar bill unguarded on his front lawn with a sign that says “Do not take under ANY circumstances”
Just to be clear: Do you think it would be immoral to take a dollar bill from his lawn ? Would you go ahead and do so anyway ?
It may be a distortion to call it a distortion, rather than a difference in perspective.
For example, would you find solace as a Japanese-American in 1941 in my telling you that your right to liberty still existed, just that it was merely being prioritized below my right to security for the next couple of years?
Meant as a response to Craw, above.
My version of the asteroid problem assumed that stopping it only requires you to steal a nickle from someone who is its rightful owner. Do you still maintain that you shouldn’t? Is your moral system a lexicographic order, where any violation of rights however small trumps any utility gain, however large?
It is a point of positive economic theory that a common scale for comparing the two things does not exist. You cannot say that the utility gain exceeds his loss of a nickel. You cannot say it because the sentence is nonsensical.
If all values are subjective then one can believe that any loss to Joe Biden outweighs any gain to the rest of the universe because only Joe Biden matters. (I believe one person does think that.)
And DF did not ask about a common scale; he asked if in your (presumable Murphy’s) mind one “trumps” the other. That’s doesn’t rely on a common scale, that’s a value judgment. Value judgments can be made on lots of bases, not just maximizing some imagined utlity function. If I had a chance to stop a thief stealing the cudgel your were beating a child with or a rapist assaulting a woman, because they are happening now, I know which I would choose, and my decision does not involve measuring equity on a common scale.
Pushes the issue to the next step: If my personal preference order is for worlds where the person loses a nickel to have their life saved over worlds where their property rights are respected, why should my preference order be government policy?
To put it another way, on what scale do you prioritize yours and David’s and Gene’s preference order over Bob’s?
Moving the goalposts. The point is, I can do it, I do NOT have to use a common utility scale to make judgments.
DF has neatly characterized Bob’s rule — lexicographic order. Now the rest of us can discuss if we agree with that rule.
Not at all. Whether the government ought to steal to prevent asteroids was the goalpost to begin with. It was David who chose to go for the first down first, not me.
What we are debating is your claim he made a meaningless interpersonal utility comparison.
Debate implies I’m going to comply with your attempt to distract from the question that actually matters. I refuse.
If you have a preference for worlds where people’s “rights are respected,” why should your preference order be government policy? Other people prefer a world where their rights are trampled.
Government policy shouldn’t be based on my preference order or yours. It should be based on deontological rules.
“Government policy shouldn’t be based on my preference order or yours. It should be based on deontological rules.”
Your supposed ‘deontological rules’ could equally be described as merely your personal preference. If there is no deeper moral foundation for your rules then they are entirely arbitrary. The moral justification for ignoring your rules is the survival of billions of humans. The moral justification for your rules seems to be simply “I’ve decided this stuff is mine so there’.
Yeah it’s just my preference that people should not be able to steal from one another! Silly me, what was I think, I thought it was, you know, just a fact of the matter as to what morality is.
Your moral justification for ignoring the rules, not “my” rules, is that your preference is for a particular outcome. It doesn’t matter that the outcome is, in your wild imagination “the survival of billions of humans” for you it is about being able to justify anything you want to do.
That’s not how morality works, thank god, but unfortunately there are a lot of people like you with the power to pretend otherwise.
Andrew_FL
“Yeah it’s just my preference that people should not be able to steal from one another! Silly me”
Again, you really don’t seem to know what begging the question means.
By saying that something is ‘stealing’ you are saying that it is morally wrong.
But the question here is about what is morally wrong or right.
Gene is saying it’s morally right to take or claim ownership over object A because of moral justification X.
Therefore taking or claiming ownership over object A is not stealing, because taking it or claiming ownership over it is morally right, and as such it morally belongs to the person taking it or claiming ownership over it.
In other words, the moral, rightful owner of the thing is the person taking it or claiming ownership over it because of moral justification X.
Your response is “But that’s wrong because it’s morally wrong!”
You use circular reasoning, instead of presenting an actual argument.
But this sort of thing is common among people who take their assumptions for granted and never try to think critically about them.
“the survival of billions of humans” for you it is about being able to justify anything you want to do.”
No, in this case it is about justifying a particular type of action, not any action. It simply serves as a way to question your beliefs, which you never question hence the habitual circular reasoning.
If I can simplify it for you:
you are saying: “I’m the rightful owner of this thing because (insert arbitrary ‘deontological rule’ here), and Gene is saying, “No, this other person is the rightful owner of this thing because of billions of human lives”.
Holy crap you really don’t know what theft is.
why don’t you define theft for me seeing as I don’t seem to be able to get through the rigid ideological blinders which are appaerently stopping you from thinking.
And, of course, Andrew’s formulation completely begs the question, because my contention is that there is no such right as “the right to condemn all humanity to certain death,” and that taking the nickel is NOT stealing.
I’m begging the question because I think redefining property rights as rights to condemn others to death and then denying they exist is a totally permissible argumentative technique. Riiiight.
maybe you don’t know what begging the question means.
By describing it as ‘stealing’ you are assuming it is morally wrong. And then arguing that what Gene advocates is morally wrong because ‘stealing’ (i.e. a morally wrong action) is morally wrong. You’re using circular reasoning (‘begging the question’).
What Gene is actually disagreeing with is your concept of what is morally wrong. Unlike you, he provides an actual justification for his belief (human lives) whereas you provide none at all.
No, I’m saying it’s theft because it is.
You and Gene don’t get to redefine what theft is and what property is whenever human lives are at stake.
“No, I’m saying it’s theft because it is.
You and Gene don’t get to redefine what theft is”
Ok, why don’t you define theft for us. Then we can take it from there.
I’ll give you a hint, the definition of theft contains no provision about “billions of human lives.”
Other than that you’re beyond help and beneath contempt.
What counts as theft depends on what counts as ownership. Despite what Rothbardians say, ownership is a set of social conventions.
“I’ll give you a hint, the definition of theft contains no provision about “billions of human lives.””
So give me your definition of theft, and we”ll see if there’s still some functioning grey matter left inside that skull of yours.
You’re unwilling to accept any definition that doesn’t let you get your way, but I am the one who deserves to be accused of lacking a functioning brain.
A common thief like you is beneath contempt. I’m not going to continue to engage you joe. Why don’t you and your buddy here high five yourselves over how common thieves “won the argument” by continually spewing nonsense.
“Despite what Rothbardians say, ownership is a set of social conventions.”
That statement is internally inconsistent.
You have to already have ownership over something in order to have a say about it.
So, the concept of “social conventions”, confused as it is, must first concede individual property rights before it can “work”.
I’m not obligated to accept your contention. Which is not a contention, it’s framing.
“If all values are subjective then one can believe that any loss to Joe Biden outweighs any gain to the rest of the universe because only Joe Biden matters. (I believe one person does think that.)”
Category error: Economic values (valuations about utility) are subjective. Moral values have to do with what people *should* do, regardless of their economic valuations.
Andrew_FL is right: David’s statement about utility gain exceeding loss is nonsensical because economic utility is subjectively assessed.
Morality, however, is not.
This issue will not be settled by arguing about economic theory, but about religion.
Sorry for the buzz kill, folks.
You don’t need to steal a nickle, it would be yours after you drop a boulder on his head to deal with the free rider problem.
Hi David,
I don’t have a great answer for your hypothetical, since–by construction–it is a really hard case. I still think it’s theft, but I am very open to the idea that it’s OK to steal in this case. Just like in general lying is immoral, and you are still lying when you tell the Nazis there is nobody hiding in the basement, but most people think it’s OK to lie in a situation like that. However, even in that type of case, I am really squeamish about saying it’s OK to lie.
Are you changing your mind from your original comments then? “if, for some crazy reason, most Earthlings refused to contribute to a project to stop a killer asteroid, then it would be immoral to take their money against their will.”
Bharat no. It’s a matter of scope. I can definitely say, “It is immoral to have a Ministry of Propaganda to lie to the public to whip up enthusiasm to fight the Nazis,” but I’m not so sure it is immoral to lie to the storm troopers at your door if you’re hiding people in your basement.
So by the same token, even in the implausible scenario of a killer asteroid that scientists have detected and we have a short window to build the defense, it is far more likely that just a decent fraction of humanity will need to fund it, rather than we are exactly one nickel short and nobody else can chip in, except this misanthrope down the street.
And in saying this you are not committing yourself to the notion that there is a common utility scale on which everyone can be compared, are you?
If a nickel per person is all that is needed, given that the global population is around $6 billion and that a nickel is 5 cents, you are estimating the cost of deflecting the asteroid at $300 million.
That sounds like the kind of amount that you could easily generate through voluntary contributions from the smartest and best informed people on the planet, the very people who are also likely to be among the wealthiest and with more resources to offer to save their own lives.
So I am unable to comprehend why the plan to steal a nickel per person enters the picture in the first place. Aren’t you consciously or subconsciously ruling out the possibility of voluntary action by a sufficient number of people and then relying on such lack of voluntary contributions to present stealing as the only choice?
I am therefore unable to view your version of the asteroid story as a good enough challenge to the voluntaryist position. Do clarify.
Oops…… Global population is 6 billion
David,
Consider the following two statements:
(a) It is morally wrong to coercively take someone else’s property in any circumstance.
(b) The right thing to do in your hypothetical is to coercively take the person’s nickel.
Is it possible that the correct answer is the one that is consistent with both statements? Does saving the world suddenly mean that stealing isn’t unethical? Even though we can justify our actions, that doesn’t suddenly mean that we’ve done something totally ethical.
In the real world, ethics aren’t binary. Sometimes our best course of action still involves an immoral act. I take this as an important lesson in humility. We should never be blind to the fact that we stole the nickel, even though we stopped the asteroid. We should pay the person his/her nickel back, with interest and apologize. Then we should thank that person for his/her understanding and ask how we can make it up.
Isn’t that the correct answer?
The simple statement, like (a), comes with the possibility of caveats we haven’t thought of yet. The asteroid is a case we hadn’t thought of when we made the simple statement. We can never know everything that can happen, our simple statements cannot be immune to reconsideration or elaboration.
But my point is that a single off-setting good thing, no matter how large, doesn’t magically turn an immoral act into a moral one. You might have a good reason to do something immoral, but that doesn’t mean that suddenly the immoral thing is moral.
The problem with Gene Callahan (heh, well, one of the problems) is that he thinks that taking something by force isn’t theft if he feels entitled to shame the owner of the nickel into ponying up. This proves that he isn’t a utilitarian. In fact, it almost seems to indicate that he’s an egotist, if not a hedonist.
But note that my objection isn’t that Callahan’s hypotheticals lead to the wrong answer or that his philosophy is off-course. My objection is that his reasoning is carefully crafted to change immoral things into moral ones through magical thinking, rather than simply acknowledging that theft is theft but human survival is a little better than obtuse moral consistency.
Sorry, I meant EGOIST, not “egotist.”
“My version of the asteroid problem assumed that stopping it only requires you to steal a nickle from someone who is its rightful owner. Do you still maintain that you shouldn’t?”
Why does nobody address the obvious answer: you *should*, but at the same time you should later be punished for violation of property, in proportion.
Exactly! I’ve been looking for this response! I was going to make it myself if no one yet had.
It reminds me of Proverbs 6:30-31
Men do not despise a thief if he steals
To satisfy himself when he is starving;
But when he is found, he must repay sevenfold;
Even if he must give all the substance of his house.
That is a good practical approach. But the question isn’t seeking a practical solution to this pressing issue. It is an attempt to clarify people’s moral reasoning.
It is also unsatisfactory in another way, due to “proportion”. That gets us back into others deciding who is entitled to what. If Bob, who was coerced, demands the deaths of all those who filched his wrench, who decides what is proportionate? And if we can decide that post facto, why not ex ante? Austrians should logically reject proportion.
“It is also unsatisfactory in another way, due to “proportion”. That gets us back into others deciding who is entitled to what.”
Wait, what?! The whole point of the discussion is that Gene thinks others get to decide it’s OK to steal a nickel from others.
“Others deciding” doesn’t only begin to be a problem *after* the wealth has already been stolen.
Now, if *God* is saying it’s OK to take a nickel from others, then that’s at least workable (if difficult to prove), but that’s the case, then you’ve solved the punishment problem as well – God decides that, too.
I see Friedman’s situation as analogous to any case where you, to save others, must sacrifice yourself. There is a dog that will kill a child. You know that, if you save the child, you will be bitten by the dog. Tough luck. Sometimes doing the moral thing has a cost. It’s just the way life is.
Now, Friedman’s case is arguably the same: to save someone, you have to pay a cost (refund the misantrope for the violation of his property). There’s nothing puzzling about it. Why does everyone assume the moral thing should be *costless*?
Now, to get to proportion: the misantrope cannot argue that an appropriate compensation for his loss of a nickel would be to kill everybody on earth, because that’s what would have happened if the nickel had not been stolen in the first place. Because he would not have a right to kill everyone in the first place.
At the same time, if the misantrope had successfully defended his nickel, and therefore caused the end of humanity, he would not have committed a violation of rights.
All perfectly reasonable. All quite wrong from a Rothbardian perspective. A Rothbardian will tell you that what that nickel/wrench/whatever was worth to me at the time you took it is not something you get to judge. Only I do: all value is subjective, and what is ownership if not the unilateral right to decide. Perhaps it was worth more to me than your life when you took it, but now means little.
So while the rest of us can think your answer a good one, and if in the long run I suffer the nickel loss not Bob and that’s ok, Rothbardians do not.
by the way, I found out my answer to the puzzle is exactly Walter Block’s answer. Walter Block is generally a rothbardian, but not on this issue (and a few others), as you say.
“A Rothbardian will tell you that what that nickel/wrench/whatever was worth to me at the time you took it is not something you get to judge. Only I do: all value is subjective, and what is ownership if not the unilateral right to decide [whether or not you get to keep your nickel/wrench/whatever].”
There, I fixed it for you.
Craw, you’re smuggling in your own value system.
One that requires a moral law giver, I would add.
Which is fine; You just have to justify it.
Otherwise, your appeal is to no authority at all, and therefore has no moral weight.
You don’t need to use force against people to acquire the resources you would need to build the thing to stop the asteroid.
If we need metal, we get people to go and mine the metal. If some right-wing ‘libertarian’ psychopath objects to us taking the metal, we politely tell him to go away.
It’s the enforcement of private property claims which requires force against other people, not the taking of resources in itself.
And money is irrelevant. Money is a token and always has been. We don’t need money to blow up an asteroid, we need resources, technology, people. I couldn’t care less whether you’re willing to surrender the pointless nickle in your pocket. You can’t blow up an asteroid with little coins, pieces of paper and plastic cards.
But anyway. Your argument is that it is moral to use violence to enforce your ownership claims over needed resources, even if those resources are needed to save humanity or avoid mass death. Apparently you believe you are entitled to do this because you are ‘the rightful owner’. The obvious answer is that actually, no, you aren’t the ‘rightful owner’. You lost any claim to that title when you decided that there was something ‘rightful’ about condemning millions of humans to die.
Anyway, it’s just words. Your (absurd, pathetic) claims of ‘rightful ownership’ are merely the assertion of your (perverse, idiotic) beliefs or delusions, backed by force. We’re stronger so F@ck your stupid beliefs.
I suspect you are probably hoarding some resources that others deem could help save lives. We’ll stop by your house in the morning with guns drawn to acquire the resources you absurdly, pathetically claim you are the rightful owner of. We need to take your bank account, TV, and X-Box in order to sell it and buy food for starving kids.
Starving kids are certainly entitled to simply take whatever they need to stay alive, anyone who says otherwise is a psychopath. And yes we should do whatever we can to stop kids dying from starvation. But seeing that you’re no advocatig abolishing the existing system of property, it’s completely arbitrary to take my things in order to then sell them to buy food. Why not just take the food directly?
“Why not just take the food directly?”
We’ll do that too, but you have more stuff than you need. So we’re going to give your TV to poor farmers in third world countries who keep having their food stolen from them.
“Starving kids are certainly entitled to simply take whatever they need to stay alive”
They can’t travel that far, so we’ll do it on their behalf. I sure hope you don’t resist when we show up at your door. People might think you’re a “psychopath.”
You should stop using the words ‘steal’ or ‘stolen’ for a while as it seems to shut down any ability you might have to think rationally.
By saying that something is ‘stealing’ you’re simply asserting that it is morally wrong.
Uniquely among anyone who seriously thinks about issues of morality, right-wing ‘libertarians’ seem to think that you can win an argument about morality by simply stating that something is morality wrong, twice.
So for example you say: ‘that’s morally wrong because it’s stealing!’. But all you’re actually doing is saying “that’s morally wrong because it’s morally wrong!”.
Right-wing ‘libertarians’ are some of the only people I’ve encountered who genuinely believe that you can win arguments and prove your case by using circular reasoning in this way.
I see you’ve debated Austrians before. They do this all the time. They do another trick: they redefine emotive words. good examples are aggressor violence. If an old man stumbles and falls onto Bob’s lawn and Bob shoots him then they say
1) the old man was the aggressor
2) Bob was not violent
3) if the old man swats Bob’s gun hand before he shoots that’s violence.
that should have been “morally wrong, twice”.
We shall dispossess you of the physical goods that you currently control, and give it to the impoverished farmer who was dispossessed without compensation of the crops he physically labored to grow and of which he considered himself to have ownership.
Not only do I ask that you not resist, I further request that you not label such action as “theft” or “stealing.”
We shall dispossess you of the physical goods that you currently control, and give it to the impoverished farmer who was dispossessed without compensation of the crops he physically labored to grow and of which he considered himself to have ownership.
Not only do I request that you not resist, I further request that you not label such action as “theft” or “stealing.”
Brian,
Brian, from what you’ve said, you don’t want to change anything in the existing system, you just want to take goods from me so you can sell them to buy food. As I said, that’s arbitrary. You’ve given no reason or justification for why you want the particular goods in my possession.
If your argument is that food owners or producers should be compensated, then why should I be the only one who loses goods? Again, it’s arbitrary.
You said in your previous comment that it was wrong for children to take food in the possession of poor farmers, implying that their poverty made it especially wrong. So then, doesn’t it make sense that the cost should be distributed according to ability to pay, given the existence of the enforced unequal property system?
“with guns drawn”
The whole system of property is backed by force, by ‘men with guns’.
“And money is irrelevant. Money is a token and always has been. We don’t need money to blow up an asteroid, we need resources, technology, people.”
It’s interesting you should say that, because the Austrian position is that those resources are what the real economy consists of.
Where we would say you err is in your position on money, which, from a certain perspective, is not wrong.
We say that the resources of which you speak *become* the money because they are widely traded.
So, we just think money is what you call the most widely traded commodity – “commodity” being something that has an actual use-value.
If you haven’t seen the following video, I think you’d enjoy it:
Smashing Myths and Restoring Sound Money | Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAzExlEsIKk
Your Tom Woods video is ridiculous.
He posits a completely imaginary story about the origins of money without providing a shred of evidence.
He asserts that his made-up story must be true because money could not possibly have come into existence in any other way. That’s obviously false. Money can easily come into existence as a form of credit or debt, perhaps represented by tokens, or as a more formal, organized system of obligations enforced by an authority.
Woods says that it’s not possible for a state to issue paper money with value unless it previously represented a bartered commodity. That’s also false. A state merely has to say that it recognizes the paper as a valid form of payment for both private and public debts, including taxes, whilst controlling the overall supply of the paper, and the paper will circulate in the market. As the legal creator and enforcer of private property laws, state decisions about what is recognized as legally valid payment for private debts is of central importance. And through tax obligations it can directly demand payment to itself in whatever medium it requires, thereby giving a basic value to the money tokens it issues.
“A state merely has to say that it recognizes the paper as a valid form of payment for both private and public debts, including taxes, whilst controlling the overall supply of the paper, and the paper will circulate in the market.”
No. If the state really recognized the paper as a valid form of payment, they could just print all they want and leave the rest of us alone.
Therefore, the paper must already be circulating as a substitute for money in order to get the value that allows it to be used for taxes.
“Woods says that it’s not possible for a state to issue paper money with value unless it previously represented a bartered commodity.”
By the way, congratulations on realizing that this is, in fact, Woods’s argument.
There are many Austrians who somehow believe that bitcoins can satisfy the Regression Theorem.
So you have this Earth shattering event coming up and you cannot find one nickel of your own money to contribute? You tried standing on a street corner but no one would donate one nickel to your end of the world scenario, you tried one of those Kick Starters but zilch… this should be perhaps a hint or something.
So now, by using robbery to obtain the same nickel by force of arms, this idea somehow gains legitimacy…. hmmm nooooo. Sorry to explain, but it’s still a bad idea.
Hard cases make bad law. Fortunately for us, Gene’s hypothetical is such a case.
Not my hypothetical! But the general situation is hardly unlikely in practice: the Vikings are about to land and rape all of the women and kill or enslave the men. However, if we seize your castle, we can defend ourselves.
Your lifeboat situations are very interesting, except that I am not sure if lifeboat situations are the proper way to decide on important ethical questions. And it’s not that they can’t even be tackled.
In this case, you have put the people outside the castle in a life or death situation and hence put them along with another person on a lifeboat that can carry only one person at a time. The decision for the person is
1. Face the marauding Viking hordes
2. Face the wrath of the lord of the castle and any future legal action he may undertake against you for trespass
There is no moral question here as you have thrown morality out through the window.
“There is no moral question here as you have thrown morality out through the window.”
Obviously not. The moral question is whether you’re morally justifiied in seizing the castle.
You assume that only the lord is morally entitled to the castle – no one else – and that therefore anyone else seizing the castle must be violating moral rights.
So basically you just engaged in circular reasoning. You assumed that your moral theory was correct in order to prove your moral theory.
“… the Vikings are about to land and rape all of the women and kill or enslave the men.”
Probably not a good idea to outlaw crossbows and personal tanks, then.
Or quarantine. We might not just seize and burn your property but seize and restrain you! And once again, if you are infectious you have an obligation to mitigate the danger to others.
Or suicide bombers. I have little compunction about seizing your bomb and destroying it.
Or …
Or amending the Constitution to prevent you from consuming alcohol because you *might* cause problems.
Or …
Ironic. You want to abolish the constitution and its bill of rights entirely, no? Murphy certainly does. Justice as a market commodity.
*You’re* the one talking about making it a law to outlaw bombs because someone *might* use it in a suicide bombing.
The point about the Constitution was to show that just because people *might* do something isn’t a reason to violate their rights.
The Prohibition Era made Mafias more powerful, and made us less safe.
The cure was worse than the problem, as the Founders also noted.
It must be confusing to both worship the state (constitution, founders, etc) whilst also claiming to hate it.
Nice one, Gene. I see that you are the guy whose cheese slips off his cracker in the shelter episode of The Twilight Zone.
That was truly a classic thread. Lots of disagreement, and very different reasons behind the disagreement, which also created unusual alliances. I even
My reasoning there was largely informed by having recently read Gary Drescher’s Good and Real
Oops, forgot to finish that — “I even agreed Daniel_Kuehn for once!”
I browsed that thread and found this excchange
Murphy: I understand that DeLong, Silas, DK, and others think it is moral to steal a little bit of money from 6 billion people, in order to blow up an asteroid.
Gene: No, Bob, you don’t understand at all. We (at least me, and I suspect others) DO NOT REGARD THIS AS THEFT. That is because this is something people would have an obligation to contribute to, and to compel someone to fulfill their obligations is just
http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2011/02/murphy-vs.-famous-keynesian.html#comment-12315
I don’t see anything in this new thread to rebut that. There were also hypotheticals about torturing babies and so on, and in each case Gene drew the distinction between enforcing an obligation and an immoral act.
Gene wins, of course.
Also see this summary: http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2011/02/murphy-vs.-famous-keynesian.html#comment-12390
(Everything below this line is Bob’s words.)
(1) DeLong, Silas, Daniel Kuehn, and Gene all think it would morally permissible for the government to tax people to stop the asteroid, if it seemed private-sector solutions wouldn’t work.
(2) Silas and Bob agree that such taxation would be theft. Gene doesn’t, and I bet DeLong doesn’t. Not sure about DK.
(3) Bob says there is nothing crazy about having side constraints on behavior, which do not owe their sole justification to considerations of expediency. Kuehn disagrees; he is so sure that morality is nothing but rules for happier life, that he doesn’t seem to realize that is an assumption on his part. DeLong disagrees insofar as we take his views at face value, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he were more respectful of pacifists (the way Gene was), even though his official position should classify pacifists as insane too. Silas says it’s possible to make a coherent argument for side constraints that occasionally lead to the end of the world, it’s just that Bob hasn’t made such a case.
“We DO NOT REGARD THIS AS THEFT. That is because this is something people would have an obligation to contribute to, and to compel someone to fulfill their obligations is just.”
An obligation as determined by whom?
A thief.
See, that’s changing the subject when refuted. Murphy made a claim about what Gene thought. Gene explained why the claim is wrong. Whether Gene’s ideas are correct or not is irrelevant to the fact Murphy misunderstood and misstated them.
Nope.
What Murphy said was “it would be immoral to take their money against their will,” while Gene denies this. That is completely true.
Since you’re defending Gene’s position that taking their money against their will is not theft, but fulfillment of obligation, please let us know who decides that this was their obligation.
More games. I am pointing out that Bob misunderstood and misrepresented Gene. He did.
And you changed the wording. Here’s the quote from Murphy that shows his misunderstanding.
” I understand that DeLong, Silas, DK, and others think it is moral to steal a little bit of money …” Steal not take. They are not saying stealing is OK, they are saying this case isn’t stealing.
I didn’t change anything. I quoted directly from Bob’s post above. I see now that you are quoting his comment from the previous thread. So on the narrow point, you are correct.
The actual dispute is whether or not taking people’s money without their consent is, by definition, theft (and therefore wrong) or whether someone can declare it an obligation and take their money. Do you care to weigh in on the substantive question?
Gene Callahan egotistical? Never!
😉
“What Murphy said was it would be immoral to take their money against their will,” while Gene denies this. That is completely true.”
Not exactly. What Gene is saying is that, morally, it isn’t their money any more. It rightfully belongs to someone else.
Now you say that Gene is just deciding that this is the case. But the same thing could be said about the other person – they are just asserting that the money rightfully belongs to them.
The point is you can’t tell who the moral, or rightful owner of a thing is by just looking at who the current possessor happens to be.
“The point is you can’t tell who the moral, or rightful owner of a thing is by just looking at who the current possessor happens to be.”
Understood. Which is why I then posited the question: who decides and how (i.e., on what basis). We know Murphy’s rubric. I have yet to hear the specifics from Gene/Craw/Joe.
“… and to compel someone to fulfill their obligations is just”
Actually, it’s only just when he to whom the obligation is owed compels the one who owes him.
Unless the one who is owed has specifically delegated his authority to another, no one else is allowed to compel repayment.
Sincere question, not intended to be a gotcha:
From a NAP perspective is in permissible to shove someone out of the way of an oncoming car?
It seems an analogous case to me. You’re talking about using violent force to save someone from an oncoming collision. The asteroid just has greater kinetic energy and will therefore hit a lot harder.
Ah, then again what do I know, I’m supporting SMOD for President. We should subsidize the asteroid apocalypse at this point.
I think that raises more questions than answers.
According to NAP, is it permissible to create a “hostile workplace environment” if it prevents a mass shooting?
Game saves lives, folks.
It’s permissible for the property owner to make the workplace he owns as hostile as he wishes, for any reason or even no reason. It’s also permissible for an employee who doesn’t like that to quit.
If it’s an employee creating a hostile work environment, it’s permissible for him to be fired!
guest I generally enjoy your comments so maybe I’m just being stupid but I’m not seeing the connection to my question. I mean my question wasn’t intended to be an answer, it was asking for one.
You’re not being stupid. Just humorless – which is arguably worse.
😀
Well, it doesn’t happen often, but I’ve been outmatched in humor. I’d tip my hat to you sir, if I wore one.
Does the person consent to being pushed if you asked them?
I was gonna say “there wouldn’t be time” but…
Then I realized that’s the difference from the asteroid.
Good catch!
Oh yeah, huh?
Because writing tax-victimization into law is also time consuming.
So just offer the service of being pushed out of the way of moving cars / asteroids, and those who consent will pay for their own protection.
At the risk of coming across as humorless yet again, if an asteroid came without sufficient warning to put together the financing for anti-asteroid measures, there wouldn’t be time for the anti-asteroid measures themselves, either.
*That* time I was being serious, so no harm no foul.
First, If you get to stipulate that there’s not enough time to put together the anti-asteroid measures, then I get to stipulate that there’s not enough time to push someone out of the way of the car.
😀
Second, isn’t the point of the discussion to justify or condemn taxation? That implies that the problem was already thought up and a solusion already found.
Fair enough on the first point.
On the second point, I’ve concluded the cases aren’t as similar as I thought. That I should be permitted to push someone out of the way of an oncoming car does not mean I am permitted to tax him to blow up an asteroid. The cases only appear similar if you don’t stop to think about it a little more carefully.
Gene says; “coercing someone to prevent them from acting immorally is moral.”
Forcing people to not prevent the annihilation of humanity is the ultimate prevention of immorality.
That Gene is wrong is clear right when he talks of “collective action problems”. There is no such thing as “collective action”. Only individuals act. Collectives do not even exist except as concepts in our mind. That which does not exist cannot engage in purposeful behaviour, i.e., act. Hence there are no such things as “collective action problems”.
Thanks, Bala, for illustrating my point that many libertarians simply do not comprehend collective action problems!
On the same basis Bala denies there is such a thing as group sex.
Each individual is having sex with each other individual.
Methodological Individualism holds for orgies, as well.
You just didn’t get the joke. Of course each person is having sex individually. But Bala’s argument, the way he applied it to collective action would carry through if he applied it the same way to group sex. “Groups don’t have sex!!!” As in “Collectives don’t act!!!”
My point, and Gene’s, is that Bala clearly does understand what the phrase collective action problem means.
And not always with each other individual; never heard of a spit-roast?
🙂
Wait just a moment while I look that one up …
Oh, well, that makes sense.
😀
Look, if all you mean is herd mentality as a force multiplier for whatever project is being undertaken by the herd, all that really means is that a bunch of individuals happen to have the same goal.
Like when multiple customers frequent Walmart instead of the mom & pop store.
People aren’t hive-minded.
Oh, Gene! What you think is a lack of comprehension is actually an argument that denies the very existence of the “problem”. You have basically assumed “collective action” into existence and have created a lifeboat situation to justify an anti-ethical theory. This is of course apart from the unjustified presumptions you make in just formulating your non-problem.
In simple terms, Gene, you just reified the zero.
‘What you think is a lack of comprehension is actually an argument that denies the very existence of the “problem”.’
Yup: And the only reason someone would deny the existence of the problem is that they don’t understand what the words mean! For instance, invoking “only individuals act” as a rebuttal shows you don’t have a clue what these words mean, since MI is completely irrelevant to this issue. (Many people [all intelligent people?] who are MIs recognize the existence of collective action problems.)
Oh! Is that so? Maybe it has more to do with the fact that you have no clue how destructive the statement “Only individuals act” is to the ridiculous notion of collective action problems.
A quick hint: the prisoner’s dilemma is a collective action problem. And the existence of PDs has *nothing* to do with whether “collectives really exist” or “only individuals act”!
Aaahhh! The PD!!! That interesting hypothetical that revolves around an individual threatened by a gun that he can see pointed at him and another gun that he cannot see but is also pointed at him. How cute! How appropriate to the analysis of human action in the real world where man has choices that he voluntarily chooses from based on his valuations.
I am not surprised that you fail to see how the gun makes the PD irrelevant to the study of human action, individual or coordinated with others.
Bala, consider the following situation: There is a 40 hour maximum workweek law, but the majority of workers want to have a 35 hour work week. Since each individual doesn’t want to appear lazy, every person chooses not to ask for or move to a 35 hour work week. The end result is that no one has a 35 hour work week. Is the existence of this situation impossible according to you?
Yes. It is logically impossible because when I understand preference as that which is demonstrated in concrete human action, given that a 35 hour and 40 hour week are both options available and that these people chose the 40 hour work week, it is contradictory to the action axiom to claim that these people preferred a 35 hour work week to a 40 hour work week. You might be mixing up stated and demonstrated preference.
Further, you are ignoring the path to the 40 hour work week. A 40 maximum hour work week law makes logical sense only if people were working more on average and law makers autocratically felt the need to cap it. That means more than 40 hours, not less, seems to be the likely preferred length of the work week prior to the lawmaking. If the prior path was below 40, a 40 hour maximum work week length would be superfluous.
Are you arguing that demonstrated preference is the only type of preference that exists? For example, let’s say I am offered a choice between vanilla and chocolate ice cream. If I choose chocolate because it’s cheaper, is there no sense in which I can say I actually like vanilla ice cream better than chocolate?
Let me restate the original argument now. If I choose to have a 40 hour work week rather than a 35 hour work week because almost everyone else has a 40 hour work week, is there no sense in which I can say I prefer a 35 hour work week to a 40 hour one?
Do you see how this is akin to saying “if a particular factor was removed, my demonstrated preference would be diffferent”?
“There is a 40 hour maximum workweek law, but the majority of workers want to have a 35 hour work week.”
You don’t need a law to force a 40 hour work week, if the majority really want it.
The 40 hour work week is designed to *prevent* working more than 40 hours for the same pay.
It doesn’t *force* you to work 40 hours.
guest, that’s a little off-topic but I’ll address it anyway. The only reason I mentioned the 40-hour maximum work law was because of its effect in creating a standard of 40 hour work weeks. If you want, you can simply replace that part of my original question by stating that society has a standard of 40 hour work weeks despite the majority of individuals desiring to work at 35 hour work weeks. The only reason no individual moves is because everyone else is working 40 hours, and each person doesn’t want to appear lazy.
So when you say
“You don’t need a law to force a 40 hour work week, if the majority really want it.”
That’s exactly what’s in dispute.
Even more amusingly, the Tragedy of the Commons is a collective action problem, and property rights are a solution to it!
It’s called the Tragedy of the Commons precisely because it is *thought* to be a problem with “too many legitimate owners” (my words).
In fact, though, there can only logically be a single owner for anything.
Those of us who don’t see commons’s as collectively owned still use the term “Tragedy of the Commons” for convenience.
The solution to the Tragedy of the So-Called Commons – if you prefer – is property rights.
“In fact, though, there can only logically be a single owner for anything.”
That’s a very strange assertion, especially given the fact that there are many existing examples of shared ownership.
What you appear to be doing is defining ‘ownership’ in a very odd, eccentric way, and then declaring that logically, according to your definition of ‘ownership’, there can only be a single owner of anything.
We can all define words to mean whatever we want, and then make an argument in which our conclusion follows ‘logically’ from our definitions. For example I could define ‘ownership’ as being a particular mating ritual performed by frogs. Then I could claim that ‘logically’ only frogs are able to own anything. Unlike you, however, I wouldn’t believe that I was actually saying anything of use or intellectual value.
Just to be clear, I completely own the statement: “The only reason we might not want the State to prevent people from saying offensive things is that it would produce worse results than the offensive speech.”
Bob, you are not misrepresenting me at all!
Thanks Gene. Can you also clarify whether you think people have rights? For example, if I don’t have the right to say something that is objectively offensive, I think in most people’s political frameworks that’s equivalent to saying I don’t have the right to free speech.
To be sure, lots of people would say, “You have a right to free speech, but that doesn’t include yelling ‘fire!’ in a crowded theater,” but I don’t know too many people who would say, “You have the right to free speech, unless you are impolite.”
Are you just tweaking the limitations on rights, or do you think it’s unnecessary baggage to say people have rights to do such and such?
The ones who have read the case in question should be including the word falsely in that sentence.
I worry there are a lot of people who don’t seem to understand you are in fact allowed to yell fire if the theatre if the theatre is, you know, on fire.
I’m sorry for the irrelevant rant but this misquote is kind of a pet peeve of mine
Sure. But no right to do wrong!
Using my analogy above, in your view I am not only permitted to push the guy out of the way of the oncoming car, I am morally obligated to shove him out of the way.
I mean, I’d do it. But uh, no, I’m not.
How you determine what are “worse results” in this scenario ?
Using your judgment?
Whose judgement? In other words who is the “you” behind the “your”?
Right. Obviously, Hitler thought free markets would produce worse results than totalitarianism.
OK, in my judgement the following statement are all true:
– I find language in support of anarcho-capitalism offensive
– I think its OK for the state to take action against the use of offensive language as long as the benefits of doing so outweighs the costs
– The benefits of having anyone who spouts anarcho-capitalism locked up in jail outweighs the costs.
– All vocal anarcho-capitalists should be jailed !
In my judgment, anyone who makes the statements above should be jailed.
So I guess we’ll either vote on it or go to war (or both!)
The difference is that my judgement is based on a vision I got from God while I was suffering from a migraine last month – so my judgement trumps yours !
Nearly 60% of Americans now support my judgment. You’re on the wrong side of history!
Regarding the deadly asteroid scenario, what never gets explained is this:
If it is stipulated that each individual needs to chip in $10 to “save the planet”, and there is one individual who refused to chip in, there arises the question of why the money would even be needed. For what will the money be used for? To purchase something right? Well, why isn’t the producer/seller of that something working for free or giving away that wealth to save the planet? To stipulate that the money from the one individual is needed to save the world, is to equivalently stipulate that the seller otherwise refuses to give away their goods unless they are paid that money. So is the problem really the person who refuses to pay, or is the problem the person who refuses to sell?
Even if we change the scenario and say that each individual has to contribute $10 of real wealth, then what could the average person give that would save the world from the asteroid? I have $10 worth of canned corn in my basement, will that do? What do I have that would be needed to stop the asteroid?
The actual problem with these ethical dilemmas is not that they represent challenges to our deep seated convictions such as NAP, but rather that they are scenarios of hypothetical worlds that have different laws and different logics, where the laws of that hypothetical universe include such laws that scratching someone’s finger somehow had the power to change the course of the planet’s survival. It isn’t this reality. It is a magical land.
If an asteroid were in fact hurdling towards the Earth, then how on Earth can every last individual even be in a position to contribute to the means of stopping it? Stopping the asteroid will have to be done by specific individuals. And, the required resoures will be owned or at least possessed by specific individuals. Even if everyone tried, not everyone could contribute. So a more realistic scenario would have to be advanced. The question might become “If person A had possession of the real good, the use of which was indispensable to stopping the asteroid, then would it be ethical for B who had knowledge of how to stop the asteroid, to steal it from A?”
Ultimately, this class of questioning reduces to the following:
“Is it ethical for A to aggress against B, so as to prolong the life of A, as well the asker of this question, for another day?”
Good analysis, but there is an additional consideration in that A’s theft of B also prolongs B’s life.
But you’re right that the scenario comes down to basically magic, designed only to undermine poorly specified ethical claims. It’s not as if an ethical claim can be so perfectly articulated in human language that it is impervious to story problems specifically designed to sabotage that articulation. In the end, it’s really just a word game, not a true analysis of human ethics.
“If one is morally certain that a collective action problem exists but can be solved if someone is granted the power to enforce a solution, is it moral to enforce that solution?”
A critical word here is “granted”. Granted by whom and to whom? If A grants the power to B, B wouldn’t be enforcing it on A who has already acquiesced. The question is actually about enforcing it on C who never granted B the power. Gene is just conveniently assuming that granting of power in.
This “problem” can and would be solved with good contract drafting just like with fractional reserve banking and notes. Everyone is going to need to use the private roads and private courts, right? Put a provision in road use contacts and police/courts contracts requiring contribution towards general emergencies. Put a provision in the courts contract which indicates that their judges have special skills and insight and that it is likely that they will not enforce NAP principles strictly if that would lead to an absurd result or the enforcement of a harmless de minimis violation.
Bob Murphy:
“if, for some crazy reason, most Earthlings refused to contribute to a project to stop a killer asteroid, then it would be immoral to take their money against their will.”
Sounds like majority mob rule. What you’re saying is if the majority decide they have certain ‘rights’, no matter how crazy, they are morally entitled to enforce those supposed rights against the minority, even if that results in the minority dying a horrible death that they never agreed to.
Lack of Aggregate Demand = If one or two people don’t buy what they don’t want, it’s not a problem, but if *everyone* only buys what *they* want, then the economy tanks.
– LK (rough paraphrase)
Murphy may be right on Rothbardian grounds but he is wrong on Christian grounds. God created nature so that man could use its resources for his own development; therefore, it is necessary to establish the best method to administer those resources, which await their transformation through work so that they can meet the needs of man. The system that makes those resources most plentiful for the enjoyment of the greatest number of men is private property. This can only be proven on utilitarian grounds and not on axiomatic grounds. Aquinas, for example, argues that private property is necessary to human life for three reasons. First, because man cares more for what is his own than what is common to many. This is evident because under common property man would avoid work and leave it to others to take care of the common property. Second, because human affairs are more orderly if each person takes care of some particular thing himself and because there would be confusion if everyone had to look after everything. Third, because a more peaceful state of affairs is produced when each person is content with his own, and that is the reason we see more quarrels when there is no division in property. But this right to private property is SUBORDINATED to the principles human dignity and right to life (both concepts derived because man’s end, according to Aquinas, by reason of his intellect, is to know God; therefore, we can conclude that the human person has a special, unique and special value in all of creation.) So in extreme situations in which death is imminent, the right to private property is NOT ABSOLUTE and it can be violated without the action constituting a violation of someone’s private property right and without it constituting theft. Therefore, Gene is correct.
“Murphy may be right on Rothbardian grounds but he is wrong on Christian grounds. …”
“… But this right to private property is SUBORDINATED to the principles human dignity and right to life …”
*That* would be the argument that needs to be made. That someone else has the authority to designate or redistribute private property.
“The system that makes those resources most plentiful for the enjoyment of the greatest number of men is private property. This can only be proven on utilitarian grounds and not on axiomatic grounds.”
I disagree that it can only be proven on utilitarian grounds.
First of all, your standard of “greatest number of men” falls short. The moment you say that a single person’s rights can be ignored if it results in the benefit of the “greatest number of men”, you can justify all the horrors of Communism.
If I, as an individual, am not benefitting with the “greatest number of men” under a common property society, then I’m not really part of that society. I don’t have the same benefits as others.
And the *reason* man cares more for what is his own than what is common to many is not because he’s fallen and is just not good enough to attain to the high moral standard of brotherly love, but because common property makes no logical sense and to attempt to order society under common property is to fight against reality.
Mises called it the Socialist calculation problem:
Calculation and Socialism | Joseph T. Salerno
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KseRuyAjlHY