Potpourri
==> In case you didn’t have the stomach to investigate, at least check out these excerpts from the Senate torture report. If you just watched Fox News, you would think they poured some water on Bin Laden’s head. But no, their methods included prisoners losing an eye and literally freezing to death, and the interrogators told one guy they would hurt his kids and abuse his mother.
==> I will be answering this Objectivist critique of an-capism.
==> Rachel Mills has launched a new podcast. The first episode features Judge Napolitano and Maggie McNeill.
==> A profile of Mark Spitznagel (author of the Dao of Capital).
==> What we know for sure is that a cop plants his foot squarely on this guy’s head as he smacks him with a flashlight. (The guy claims he had asked the cop to move his car since it was blocking traffic, and then mouthed off when the cop ignored him initially.) The superior from the department tells the news crew afterward that regardless of what happened, if the “suspect had complied with the officer’s directives” from the get-go then he wouldn’t be sitting there talking with the news reporter.
==> Peter St. Onge on the regression theorem and Bitcoin.
==> After reading this Menzie Chin blog post on why we can’t trust Republicans to tell CBO to model tax effects decades into the future because of all the uncertainties and danger of the concept being applied inconsistently to achieve political ends, I made the following hilarious Tweet that perhaps 3 people understood:
A fun game: Take progressives' critiques of Republicans on CBO and replace "dynamic tax scoring" with "large feedbacks in climate models."
— Robert P. Murphy (@BobMurphyEcon) December 13, 2014
And the cop won’t be punished at all for it. The saddest part is there are a lot of sociopaths out there who excuse this crap no matter what.
Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department and the Sacramento Police are out of control as are the Cal Expo Police (I think they are a state agency). A couple of years ago a cow got loose at the fair in Sacramento and was chased by law enforcement in a squad car firing at the cow from a moving vehicle on the crowded fairgrounds. They shot the animal 11 times the cow eventually dying from blood loss. Not only are they nuts, but they are bad shots.
http://www.news10.net/news/article/88143/0/Escaped-cow-shot-11-times-killed-at-Cal-Expo-fairgrounds
This year at the California Fairs the Racing Police, yes racing police, made a strong presence known standing all day by the winner’s circle sporting their badges and weapons. I asked the officer who he was and he told me about the dangerous life he lives in retirement from another force working as a race track officer. According to him, his life and the dangers he faced were only marginally surpassed by maybe a Navy Seal.
Good grief. Garbage collectors have more dangerous jobs than these fools.
From “The Onion”
How Police Are Revamping Their Tactics
Improved training to ensure that combat-ready assault rifles are not misused in the course of community policing
Armored vehicles to be decorated with murals celebrating the communities in which they are deployed
Switching to new all-organic tear gas blend
New funding for outreach programs to encourage better relationships between officers and their fathers
Officers to de-escalate tense situations by drawing progressively smaller firearms
iPads somehow incorporated
Disgraced law enforcement officials to be given even smaller desks than normal
Cops encouraged to report the misdeeds of their fellow officers, thereby sabotaging their own careers
Ensure this can all legally be thrown out the window if a cop feels threatened
http://www.theonion.com/articles/how-police-are-revamping-their-tactics,37671/
They also say Obama is insisting on cameras on all turrets of police vehicles:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/obama-calls-for-turretmounted-video-cameras-on-all,37586/
It appears the only difference between Bush-era American and Syrian Government policies towards terrorist suspects was that the Syrian Government arrested and released more people.
As you mentioned, I didn’t have the stomach to investigate this, Dr. Murphy, but with ‘rectal feeding’ all the rage, it turns out you don’t need one!
Also, on ancapism, I agree with Curtis Yarvin:
Hoppe:”But this leaves the question open whether or not a state is necessary, i.e., if there exists an alternative to both, monarchy and democracy. History again cannot provide an answer to this question.”
Yarvin: “History also cannot provide an answer to the question of whether there are any blue dragons on Neptune – only that none, so far, have been observed.
It can also tell us that our species has been operating on the basis of geographic monopolies of sovereignty for roughly the last 56 million years, ie, since the first tree-rat pissed on the first tree-branch. Perhaps we could hire some chimpanzees to experiment with multiple, overlapping protection agencies, and get back to us on that. Or we could hire the blue dragons from Neptune.”
unqualified-reservations .blogspot.com/2010/02/from-mises-to-carlyle-my-sick-journey.html
Considering my greater understanding of the extent of the failure of pure theory, I have become more empirical in my approach to economics and politics over the past few years.
I still think the best defenses of ancapism come from Roderick Long from the 1990s.
freenation .org/a/
Also, in case you guys haven’t heard, Tyler Cowen sent me more than a thousand visitors by linking to me in a post of his.
Finally, comment published. Bob, does the system show me sending this comment three or so times?
You should also look into the work of Gerard Casey.
My comments keep disappearing!
Shepard Smith says on Fox News: “WE ARE AMERICA. WE DO NOT ******* TORTURE!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzfQuIgpW6o
Are you suggesting Smith was making a false claim? He was not. He was not making a factual statement at all. He was stating what he thought should be a principle, we do not torture even if it helps. That is why the first part of his comment was, shouting, “I don’t care if it helped!” Smith’s outburst was a strong condemnation of using torture and an exhortation against its future use.
I am serious about my question. I want to assess your credibility.
I think he was suggesting that you click on the link. I don’t know why you are suggesting Bob suggested something he didn’t suggest but I suggest you asses your own credibility
oh, syntax games. You may consider misrepresentation fair, I do not. Roddis has no reason to provide the link unless he thinks it reflects discredit on hi opponents.
But he can speak for himself, and chooses not to.
But you need to watch O’Reilly to get the actual no-spin truth:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EjAokPAY0jY/VIvBKef3tzI/AAAAAAAAAQE/2C0IXonwdv0/s1600/1211140838%2Bcopy.jpg
Sure, “we” might not have been a torture nation, but the Bush administration was surely a torture administration.
For the record, I’m being facetious. O’Reilly’s nightly dishonesty is beyond words.
http://tinyurl.com/m2j57gv
Under AnCap, criminals can just be evicted. Or never allowed inside the neighborhood in the first place due to efficient vetting.
FYI, regarding the Objectivist article, I am “M. DeMan” in the comments section.
“I will be answering this Objectivist critique of an-capism.”
If your answer includes a distinction between government and the state, then I’m all for it. If not, then I guess that I’ll just have to read it (your response) and make my decision then.
In any case, I still wish you luck; I know that you wouldn’t do anything that I *would* do.
From the bitcoin article:
“First, benefits provided by a money needn’t be non-monetary.”
This distinction between “non-monetary” and “monetary” benefits is not only unnecessary, but non-existent.
ALL trades occur because of some perceived anticipation of relief of some felt uneasiness (the Action Axiom, applied to trading).
The use of money doesn’t accomplish anything more than barter, except that it does it indirectly and more efficiently; If everyone could get everything they wanted through bartering, there’d be no need for an intermediary good, and therefore no need for money. Thus, the purpose of money is to enable a Double-Coincidence of Wants *FOR* the goods and services that are sold and bought with it.
If there is no view toward completing a transaction (money representing an incomplete tranaction, since its purpose is to buy some other good), then either the money is being valued for its own sake (meaning it’s being valued for it’s use-value), or the holder mistakenly believes it to have a use-value when it doesn’t.
This is the link to use-value I keep referring to. Only to the extent that the holder is correct about this link (which is, indeed, subjective) can the intermediary good be called “money”.
The holder can be incorrect about the link to use-value for two reasons: 1) either others’ subjective value for the intermediary good has changed, or 2) the holder has been mislead about the link between the money and its use-value.
The Austrian Business Cycle is caused by reason #2 – without a theory which holds that money has a current link to use-value, you cannot have an Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle, and there can be no such things as “Cantillon Effects”. ABCT makes no sense without this link.
Both paper and bitcoins cause the business cycle (and it’s not a benefit that new blockchains can be created at will; We criticize the government and the FED for similar reasons).
Just because people BELIEVE they are on economically more sound footing with more printed money doesn’t make it so. The purpose of money being to enable the trading of goods against goods among increasingly more people, what makes money “money” is its link to use-value, since use-value is the means by which Acting Man satisfies his preferences.
If money has no link to use-value, then Acting Man has no basis on which to act. When people act to acquire paper or bitcoins, they are either knowingly or unknowingly relying on another sucker perpetuating a Ponzi scheme. The “value” being acted upon is others’ gullibility.
Your last two sentences came out of nowhere and do not follow from what you wrote prior.
I say that Acting Man has no basis on which to act on paper or bitcoins.
My last two sentences anticipate the objection: “Then why do people trade in paper and bitcoins, at all.”
Sorry for the confusion.
That is what I mean. Out of nowhere you say that man who treats paper or bitcoins as an object of action, have no basis for doing so.
What do you define then as a “basis” of economic action?
I hope it will be subjectively determined. I hope it will not discriminate against anything because of its physical chemistry.
“Out of nowhere you say that man who treats paper or bitcoins as an object of action, have no basis for doing so.”
So, the last THREE sentences, you meant.
It’s easier to see what I’m gettting at when I argue from Handfuls of Dirt: Everyone can tell that in order to use handfuls of dirt as money, you’d have to assign value to them arbitrarily – thus defeating the purpose of having money.
The only reason people trade in paper and bitcoins, today, is because they really do think these things convey information about subjective use-value for the goods and services which are sold and bought with them.
But, again, if arbitrarily valued things convey subjective value to you, then simply decide to arbitrarily value handfuls of dirt so that I can make a killing.
The trading of bitcoins happens due to a Ponzi-scheme-like delusion. The fact that Ponzi victims are losing money doesn’t change the fact that they keep investing in it; Fraud is a catalyst of action, too.
I’m saying that with both paper and bitcoins, people aren’t noticing their wealth being destroyed (Cantillon Effects).
It is not enough that people voluntarily use an intermediary good for that thing to be money; It must also serve the purpose of intermediary goods, which is to enable a double-coincidence-of-wants *FOR* the goods and services that are sold and bought with it.
Calculations made with money are only as good as the money’s link to use-value.
Printing money (or generating bitcoins) out of thin air doesn’t create wealth, no matter how willing people are to accept them – even if they know it was printed out of thin air.
“What do you define then as a “basis” of economic action?”
Yes, the basis for action is subjective, but it is NOT arbitrary.
(I didn’t understand what was meant by “discriminate” based on “physical chemistry”.)
“I say that Acting Man has no basis on which to act on paper or bitcoins.” The only basis he needs is a belief that the action will alleviate his unease. There is no requirement for this belief to be reasonable. However, people often find that the desired outcome does follow – other people will accept the bits of paper in exchange for goods.
“The only basis he needs is a belief that the action will alleviate his unease. There is no requirement for this belief to be reasonable.”
Right, else no one would play the lottery.
So the question is, are people in way a part of a lottery if the use BitCoins or not?
Skylien,
Yes, this is my point.
What the bitcoin adherents have to answer is: If the value of bitcoins is based on people’s arbitrary value of it, why should I expect it to be a useful measure of economic value when there’s nothing stopping someone from just as arbitrarily valuing it vastly lower or higher, tomorrow?
With commodities, there’s an actual – albeit subjective – use-value to someone that you can look at and say:
“I can see what he’s trying to do, and based on the amount of time that’s going to take, I believe I can make a profit off of supplying the means for him to satisfy his preferences.”
THAT’S economic calculation.
Assigning arbitrary values to things tells me nothing about the economy, except maybe the gullibility of others. This is how Ponzi schemes work.
guest:
“It’s easier to see what I’m gettting at when I argue from Handfuls of Dirt: Everyone can tell that in order to use handfuls of dirt as money, you’d have to assign value to them arbitrarily – thus defeating the purpose of having money.”
But if people did value dirt as money, then the purpose of money would still be thought of by those using dirt as money.
I think you are conflating your own value judgments, or the judgments of most people, as something to be judged by your values presented as being objective.
“The only reason people trade in paper and bitcoins, today, is because they really do think these things convey information about subjective use-value for the goods and services which are sold and bought with them.”
Right, but that is all there is for any money.
“But, again, if arbitrarily valued things convey subjective value to you, then simply decide to arbitrarily value handfuls of dirt so that I can make a killing.”
Why do you keep using the phrase “arbitrary”? If people are valuing X, then it is not arbitrary. People have a reason to value X.
“The trading of bitcoins happens due to a Ponzi-scheme-like delusion. The fact that Ponzi victims are losing money doesn’t change the fact that they keep investing in it; Fraud is a catalyst of action, too.
I’m saying that with both paper and bitcoins, people aren’t noticing their wealth being destroyed (Cantillon Effects).”
No, it is not an illusion. What you just described is applicable to any money whatever.
What Fraud are you talking about? Disagreeing with your valuation?
Bitcoins are not a Ponzi scheme, because it does not have any of the criteria that a Ponzi scheme requires.
“It is not enough that people voluntarily use an intermediary good for that thing to be money; It must also serve the purpose of intermediary goods, which is to enable a double-coincidence-of-wants *FOR* the goods and services that are sold and bought with it.”
That is true for Bitcoins. People are accepting Bitcoins for the purposes of buying goods and services.
“Calculations made with money are only as good as the money’s link to use-value.”
Bitcoins are useful.
“Printing money (or generating bitcoins) out of thin air doesn’t create wealth, no matter how willing people are to accept them – even if they know it was printed out of thin air.”
Bitcoins are not made out of thin air. Neither is paper.
“Yes, the basis for action is subjective, but it is NOT arbitrary.”
Then why did you claim above that valuations of Bitcoins, which are a basis of economic action, are “arbitrary”?
“(I didn’t understand what was meant by “discriminate” based on “physical chemistry”.)”
I mean you are making judgments of Bitcoins as arbitrary versus non-arbitrary, fraud versus non-fraud, etc, based on its physical makeup, and physical makeup is an object’s physical properties, also known as its chemical composition.
You are claiming Bitcoins are a Ponzi scheme because they aren’t made up of a physical matter that YOU believe must be present, such as so many protons per atomic nucleus, i.e. gold.
“No, it is not an illusion. What you just described is applicable to any money whatever.
“What Fraud are you talking about? Disagreeing with your valuation?”
On what basis do you poo-poo the Fed, then? Aren’t you just disagreeing with the value entrepreneurs place on paper that’s being inflated without their knowledge?
Why aren’t the Keynsians right to blame them for “growing too fast”?
The reason is because they were mislead as to the value being carried by the paper.
This is the same thing that’s happening with bitcoins, but you don’t see it because the number of patterns that the Bitcoin system will recognize is limited [but not really; that’s another discussion, though].
Who care’s if the unit of money is limited if there’s no link to use-value?; The money isn’t communicating any information, except for maybe information about the gullibility of others.
[Aside: We can’t speak of “distortions” of prices, or “malinvestments” unless prices are “supposed to be X” in some sense. Prices are supposed to reflect subjective value, but this can only happen when the money is, itself, something that is subjectively valued: a commodity.]
“I think you are conflating your own value judgments, or the judgments of most people, as something to be judged by your values presented as being objective.”
No, I’m saying that the use-value of bitcoins [zero] doesn’t justify the bitcoin-adherent’s OWN subjective valuing of it.
He is deluding himself.
If you don’t think so, then you cannot logically believe in the concept of fraud.
In the case of fraud, YOU ARE VOLUNTARILY CHOOSING to believe X about something that you are being mislead about; And for all of your voluntary action, that “something” you believe “X” about is communicating FALSE INFORMATION.
This is what’s happening with bitcoins. They are communicating false information.
Fraud creates action, because all that is necessary for Acting Man to act is for him to BELIEVE that pursuing some means will result in a better state for himself.
To the extent that one is wrong about the subjective value that is being communicated by a medium of exchange, that medium IS NOT MONEY.
[b]itcoins have NEVER had a use-value [and never will, patterns being mental constructs imposed onto things], and so ALL of the action that results from the use of bitcoins is based on fraud, and is a bubble.
If they can’t trust their own beliefs, are they supposed to trust you instead?
Regarding the horrors of torture, Rothbardians have a terrible skeleton in their own closet, since in Rothbard’s anarcho-capitalist paradise:
“We may qualify this discussion in one important sense: police may use such coercive methods provided that the suspect turns out to be guilty, and provided that the police are treated as themselves criminal if the suspect is not proven guilty. For, in that case, the rule of no force against non-criminals would still apply. Suppose, for example, that police beat and torture a suspected murderer to find information (not to wring a confession, since obviously a coerced confession could never be considered valid). If the suspect turns out to be guilty, then the police should be exonerated, for then they have only ladled out to the murderer a parcel of what he deserves in return; “
Rothbard, M. N. 1998. The Ethics of Liberty, New York University Press, New York, N.Y. and London. pp. 82-83.
Right on this blog, you have “Major_freedom,” who advocates “revenge torture”.
Seems to me like you should be having deep soul searching about how debased Rothbard’s ideology is too and how it produces people like M_F when you look at and (rightly) condemn) the outrageous abuses of the US government,
LK refresh my memory: The last time you brought this up, and a dozen people tried to get you to acknowledge the enormous difference between what the CIA did and what Rothbard is proposing, did you say, “Yes I know but Rothbard is still bad,” or did you not even acknowledge the enormous difference between what the CIA did and what Rothbard is proposing?
“The last time you brought this up, and a dozen people tried to get you to acknowledge the enormous difference between what the CIA did and what Rothbard is proposing, “
The “enormous difference”? What was that?
That in the one case a government did it and in the other private protection agencies would do it? That is not an “enormous difference”. If private police torture included suspects “losing an eye and literally freezing to death”, then it would be just as despicable.
It is only, I suspect, because you have an irrational hatred for government that makes you think that there is “enormous difference” here.
Also, just look at “guest” frankly acknowledge that he also supports “revenge torture”.
I’m going to go ahead and call it in favor of the Austrians on the following issues:
1) the morality of revenge torture (in spite of Rothbard’s particular nuance; which is immoral, in my view), and
2) the non-money-ness of bitcoins (in spite of the view of many otherwise solid Austrians, to the contrary).
So LK is not in favor of torture, but is in favor of the state robbing people with the threat of imprisonment.
How droll.
This is the usual prevarication. LK believes taxes are rightly owed. (LK could consistently assert then he believes the tax evader is the “aggressor” and that he is following the NAP. ) You are using loaded terms to deflect attention from the real issue, viz whether taxes are rightly owed. If they are then their collection is not robbery.
Why is someone losing an eye and freezing to death a “despicable” way to treat someone who took another’s eye and froze them to death?
I would not think it morally “despicable” or “base” if I was treated the same way I treated others.
You keep merely asserting torturing torturers is morally wrong. As if it is not to be even questioned. As if you don’t even need to explain how or why you arrived at such a conclusion.
There is nothing morally wrong with using any force, deadly or prolonged violence, against someone to stop them from killing innocent people. What I argue is base and despicable is to allow a person to murder innocent human beings, and advocating against stopping that person from murder, is implicitly advocating FOR murder, and in ancap ethics, that is ethically wrong.
You have not provided any explanation for what principles are involved when I declare my antagonism against someone torturing me, if I tortured them first.
The only principle I can think of that you would be using, that would be a reason why I would be against someone torturing me even if I first tortured that person, would be that torture is not wrong because it is unjust, but because there is something absolutely wrong with torture beyond justice, which if course means that standard you are using, is HIGHER than justice to the individual.
Of course, I know what that standard is, given everything you have written over the years. Your standard is not individual justice, and hence not individual liberty or prosperity. Rather, your standard is (your necessarily unique ideal vision of) Humanity.
Humanity is the standard for you under which individual justice and liberty must be sacrificed. You believe that the concept of Humanity is sacred, that empirical human individuals must never despoil lest they violate that sacred duty towards (again, your unique ideal vision of) Humanity.
It is why States are necessary in your mind. A grand, heady concept such as (your unique thought of) Humanity must have human actors “representing” that grand role which of course the empirical human individual is not suited to perform. There must be a sacred rite of passage taking place over which (your unique vision of) Humanity must be judge and adjudicator.
This is why you don’t question the moral validity of Statesmenship. That rite of passage, IS moving towards the standard of ideal life for empirical individuals. Even if empirical human individuals are sacrificed in this rite of passage that determines “Humanity’s representatives”, then to you this means those who were sacrificed are violating the sacredness of Humanity and MUST be sacrificed. If those who would be sacrificed fight for their life to any degree necessary to achieve individual justice, then you would consider that fight a crime that violates the sacredness of Humanity. These individuals must be at least imprisoned (which I regard as a form of torture), and they must learn how to think of Humanity as their duty as well, and if that doesn’t work, if they still fight, then it is death to them. But do not torture the killed! You must not anger the God of Humanity! Then you will move away from Him instead of towards Him.
I reject your God, LK. Humanity is the destroyer of individual freedom and prosperity.
So, Bob Murphy, one important purpose of your post above was to condemn the evils of torture.
Now you have a fellow Rothbardian advocating torture and even “revenge torture” right here on your blog. It appears that “guest” also advocates “revenge torture”.
And you seriously think that Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism is the most moral and just system humanity could ever have? That it is all about non violence and non-aggression?
Just read M_F’s words and behold the morally debased, grotesque depths to which a human being can be reduced by taking Rothbard’s philosophy seriously.
M_F apparently thinks that — like Rothbard — that police beating and torturing “a suspected murderer to find information” is moral — so he doesn’t really even object to torture per se, just to a *government* doing it.
Private protection agency police torture is just fine, in M_F’s world.
You did not explain your premises. Again.
You did not explain why torturing torturers is morally wrong. Again.
I am not a Rothbardian, BTW. Not all of us consider ourselves a member of a personality cult, Lord Keynes.
I already explained months ago why in the system of ethics to which I adhere — consequentialist ethics — torture is wrong:
http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2014/06/persuasion-is-more-powerful-than-violence.html#comment-632478
Maybe you forgot, or more likely you’re just pretending that I never provided the moral justification for why torture is wrong, with your usual dishonest, trolling comments.
I already responded to that comment. I argued you either did not even address the ethics, or where you got close to doing so you but condemned any and all punishment.
I am asking you to explain why it is MORALLY wrong to torture torturers.
That does not mean torturing innocent people. That means torturing people who have themselves tortured.
You did not answer that question. You continue to evade it, and use enflammatory rhetoric to cover up for that absence.
You write this drivel even though the comment I directed you to is specifically in the context of why it would be wrong to torture people who have tortured other people “unjustly” (in the context of Rothbard views).
I hold that minimising suffering is a fundamental ethical aim. People — even criminals — should have the consequentialist right to not be subject to cruel and unusual punishment or treatment, especially that could result in severe bodily injury, in a society that wants to minimise suffering.
A powerful secondary argument in support of this is that human criminal justice systems can make mistakes and people found guilty of crimes can be found innocent later.
And thirdly it could easily lead to serious abuses, such as tortured confessions.
LK,
You said: “I hold that minimising suffering is a fundamental ethical aim”.
You did say it is “a” not the ONLY aim, so I am just curious would you be ok if someone killed person A to take his organs to save the lives of person B C and D who are all sick and suffering terribly?
No. Because murder is also wrong, for consequentialist ethical reasons. A world that countenanced such things would not be a world that minimised suffering for as many people as possible
I´m not sure I really understand your argument.
If you have to kill one person (it doesnt have to be in a cruel way, you could just give him poison – btw im not advocating that im just trying to understand your argument)
to save the lives of 5 or 10 people isn`t suffering minimised? I mean one person dies instead of ten and that one person doesnt even die a painful death but those ten sick people would die in horrible pain.
Oh and lets imagine that the one person has no family or friends who would be sad about his death but those ten who could be saved, have all children. ( i admit very unlikely scenario)
What am i missing??
I mean i agree with you of course that murder is always wrong, i just dont understand how u get there from your aim to minimize suffering .
I have another question, maybe your respons to that will clear things up for me.
Let´s imagine that a 10 year old boy has lung cancer and you could save him by taking half a lung from an 80 year old man, who could still live with half a lung.
Would that minimise suffering?
LK,
You write drivel about Rothbard’s views as if doing so addresses MY argument.
I ask once again, why is it morally wrong for a person to act on torturing someone who themselves actually tortured?
Continued evasions of this basic question, and continued nonsense regarding Rothbard’s writings, will only continue to be evidence you are either unable or unwilling to answer it.
You write that your standard of ethics is “minimizing Human suffering.”
Yes, that much is clear. In order to attribute suffering and pleasure to “Humanity”, rather than real world empirical individuals, you advocate introducing the suffering of, and destroying the pleasure of, real world empirical individuals.
Empirical individuals are sacrificed in your cult of Humanity. Empirical human individuals are made to suffer, and individuals are encouraged and permitted to inflict suffering on other empirical individuals, all so that you can have your thought increasing the pleasure and decreasing the suffering of your God “Humanity”.
Torturing torturers would anger your God “Humanity.”
I do not believe in your God.
Do you honestly believe that you are doing anything other than just transposing everything from traditional deity religions, to “Humanity”? That instead of sacrificing empirical individuals for the sake of Yahweh or Allah, that you want something different by advocating for the sacrifice of empirical individuals for the sake of Humanity?
You mention that a “powerful secondary argument” is that humans make mistakes. Well that “powerful argument” could then be applied to your own claim that torturing torturers is morally wrong. But you just know in your gut that you have been able to transcend making errors, whereas everyone else suffers from mistake making.
At any rate, that particular argument has nothing to do with what I am saying. I am only saying that it is morally right for a person to torture a person who introduced torture in reality against someone else.
Finally, you are not yet intellectually mature enough to understand the following, but I will write it anyway in case you come back to it:
Problems of individual suffering are not solved by addressing the pain itself and using force to treat the symptoms. I am a rational animal. Minimizing my suffering only occurs by addressing my rational faculty. I do not intend to “minimize human suffering”, but it just so happens that what I advocate succeeds in accomplishing the goal of minimizing individuals torturing other individuals. My motivation is individual justice, and yet it reduces torture more so than your means of worshiping Humanity and sacrificing individuals.
If you knew that I am “legally” able to and willing to torture you, if you should ever torture me, then the incentive for you to torture me, despite your prattling on about your cult of Humanity, would be almost non-existent.
And for my part, because I am against torturing you if you did not torture me, then guess what? There would be no torture. My solution is the best solution to minimizing torture.
You don’t understand that physical force is minimized when any individual is legally permitted to use any level of force consistent with the initiations of it.
The best way to make violence no longer a problem of individual life, is for the individual to be subject to the same violence should he ever introduce that level of it.
You don’t understand this, and your solution exacerbates individual suffering, because you are falsely attributing pleasure and pain to an abstract concept “Humanity”, rather than real world empirical individuals.
any:
Just to give you a heads up, and I will certainly encourage you to come to your own conclusions, but I will say that LK only uses consequentialism as a rhetorical device to make his non consequentialist beliefs more acceptable, given that he has gone on record many times as saying non-consequentialist ethics are in some way flawed.
So he is going to find an excuse to explain why your hypotheticals are flawed or incomplete or not accurate descriptions of what he has claimed so far, even though they satisfy the criterion of “reducing human suffering”.
He has to deal with the implicit advocacy of sacrificing empirical individuals such as your hypothetical 80 year old, and the person being killed to stop some cause not that person from causing the deaths of the 5 or 10 people.
Perhaps if you explain the hypothetically sacrificed as advocates of anarcho-capitalism, then it will be easier for LK to deal with his beliefs. For then the sacrificed become imagined as those who should be sacrificed.
So you’ll see an awkward combination of moral absolutes (which he favors) even if those absolutes imply failing to reduce, or increase, “human suffering”, and moral non-absolutes (also which he favors), depending on what best suits his interests.
“A world that countenanced such things would not be a world that minimised suffering for as many people as possible”
You aren’t aware of every individual’s suffering, so you lack the knowledge you would need to know how well you were doing.
UNLESS, of course, you have some a priori knowledge about the nature of humanity you’d like to share with us.
It is important to separate the practical from the theoretical.
We could say it was wrong to torture someone who had tortured – and only because he had tortured – because avoidable infliction of pain is wrong if our aim is to minimise suffering.
I think LK would agree, but MF would not.
We could then go into a debate about whether torturing torturers would have consequent benefits. That is a separate argument from whether we should torture torturers for only that reason.
Harold, I do not hold morality and practicality as opposites. It would be absurd to claim that what is moral should be independent from what is possible.
I just reject LK’s suggestion that making mistakes in a particular action, say torturing someone you made a mistake in believing tortured you, to be a sufficient enough practical consideration to reject the moral claim that it is moral to torture someone who tortured you.
Yes, this means I run the positive risk of someone misidentifying me as an initiator of torture, and they will believe it is justified to torture me.
Am I supposed to believe I’ll feel safer if torture were illegal for everyone? I would not. If I lived in a world where anyone who dares initiating torture against others runs the risk of having it legal for them to be tortured back, then the incentive to torture is at its minimum. I would feel safest.
Murderers would have to live in a world where their own killing is legal.
Thieves would have to live in a world where their victims or anyone who protects them taking from them against their will is legal.
Rapists, well, you get the picture.
Imagine visiting a previously closed society that has recently been “opened” to the world’s public. Imagine most of the people there believe it is legal and practise that legality to use ANY level of force concomitant with the level of force you might consider initiating, if you were so inclined.
The question is, would you have more of an incentive to commit violent crimes there, or less of an incentive? I don’t know about you, but I would treat random strangers like they’re my best friends. The respect people would likely have for each other there would be utopian.
Frightened, irrational, child-like adults who can’t handle the thought of other individuals having absolute domination over their own persons and property, would likely consider such a society a totalitarian nightmare. But that would only be exactly to the extent that they themselves have totalitarian inclinations towards their fellow human beings 🙂
I never suggested morality and practicality were opposites.
Country Farmer below linked to an article that you described as good. In it Heumer talks about why thought experiments are useful: “Briefly, the reason is that hypothetical thought experiments provide a means for conceptual controls that often cannot be reproduced in reality.”
So my thought experiment above isolates the torture from the consequences as a control.
I was trying to get away from some of LK’s arguments – such as mistakes – to get at the basis for the morality. I think mistakes may be a very good reason for banning torture, but not the reason why it is wrong.
I understand that you think it OK to torture torturers. I too think that there may be situations where torture is moral. I do not think it would be moral to torture a torturer in the absence of other gains. As far as I can make out, you think that it would be moral to do so.
You also think that as a result there would generally be good outcomes. However, it is not the outcomes that make the torture moral. Is that right? I am not totally sure of your position. Or do you believe that it is only the outcomes such as a safer world that make it moral? It is an important distinction.
Whilst I think it is possible that torture could be moral, in practice I favor banning it, because I believe a moratorium would result in less harm.
Harold:
Thought experiments being useful because they often cannot be reproduced in the real world, and thought experiments about impractical moral theories, I regard as distinct.
For example, a moral theory that requires at the very minimum laws that we might call “heavily hampered capitalism” might be a useful thought experiment for people living in North Korea, even though they would not yet be reproducible there. But would it be reasonable to insist that the moral theory which requires at least heavily hampered capitalism in order for people to have degrees of choice, is impractical and at odds with what is possible? I would say no. I can know heavily hampered capitalism is not impossible by realizing that is what is taking place here.
Regarding the outcomes, one of the most powerful arguments in favor of a priori derived ethics is that not only are the foundations good, but they always seem to have good outcomes.
One can assert the reasonableness and validity of a moral theory by grounding it on rationalism, on self-reflective logic, as the reason why one regards it as valid and worth practicing, but still let the consequentialists know that the moral theory has good outcomes.
I do not speak of the future outcomes as the reason why I say individual private property rights is the best moral theory regarding property, for example. I make the argument that there are good outcomes because I think it is also true from a consequentialist perspective. I say it to a consequentialist because that is what they often say is NOT true about a priori based ethics.
You argued that an absolute banning of torture would result in less harm. I have two questions. First, why do you think that? I proposed the question of what if revenge torture were legal, and a person was considering torturing someone else.
Second, what would the incentive be to torture others in a society where most people regard revenge torture as morally just? Would it be higher or lower as compared to a society in which revenge torture is regarded by most people as not morally just?
I submit that it would be far, far, FAR less, but I am open to read counterarguments.
The reason I think it is so much less is twofold. On the one hand, the physical response driven incentive I think is a very affectual. On the other hand, which I think is most important of all, is how people must philosophically view each other when they regard revenge torture as just. Each individual would have to be considered an absolute ultimate end in themselves. Whatever violence you inflict on another, the worse a person treats another, the worse of a treatment they get back.
I think the way humans would regard themselves, as total ends in themselves, as subject to no aggressive domination whatsoever by anyone, would itself be a fruitful intellectual ground that makes other social progress possible, in the sciences for example.
“One can assert the reasonableness and validity of a moral theory by grounding it on rationalism, on self-reflective logic, as the reason why one regards it as valid and worth practicing, but still let the consequentialists know that the moral theory has good outcomes.”
So the good outcomes are incidental when deciding what is good. It would be good even if the outcomes were bad, because the origin of the morality does not consider outcomes. However, I think you argue that if the moral theory is properly based, it is impossible for the outcomes to be bad.
“First, why do you think that?” From where we are now, I believe a ban reduces the quantity of torture. It is a different question whether it would be possible to have a society where encouraging some torture results in less torture. That society is very far from the one we are at now. I am not convinced that validating torture would reduce its incidence in any society, but I am open to argument.
“On the one hand, the physical response driven incentive I think is a very affectual.” I am sorry I don’t know what you mean here.
“On the other hand, which I think is most important of all, is how people must philosophically view each other when they regard revenge torture as just. Each individual would have to be considered an absolute ultimate end in themselves.”
(Good to see that even on an economics blog you have restricted yourself to only two hands.)
I don’t think so. That may be one way to view individuals, but not the only one. I may think torture is just because an eye for en eye is just, or because God says so. A very quick look at the world makes it clear that it is utopian to think that everyone will agree about this sort of thing. Fine if we want to talk about theoretical worlds, but not much use for policy.
“Whatever violence you inflict on another, the worse a person treats another, the worse of a treatment they get back.” Again, fine in some theoretical world where you are punished for all your transgressions. Some ways to torture someone and not get tortured back is to not get caught, or to define what you are doing as not torture, or to justify the torture by convincing people the victim was himself a torturer.
In the moral torture world, assuming we had unanimity, everyone would agree that torture could be a good thing. They would consider a positive good to inflict torture on someone that was themselves a torturer, if the victim had not done so himself. This removes one mechanism by which torture is reduced – that people believe it is wrong and so refrain from doing it. I believe that would lead some people to inflict torture on others that were not themselves torturers. They may convince themselves that another was deserving of torture, or that they would not get caught, or that they could convince others the torture was justified. For now it does not matter how often – I believe that it would happen sometimes, and thus there would be some torture that would not happen in the world where torture was considered immoral.
In the world where torture is not considered moral, we also get torture. (Although if we had unanimity here, there would not be much of it either). Some of this would not happen in the world where torture was considered moral.
Since torture can occur in both worlds, allowing torture could result in more torture; we cannot be certain about the outcome.
Since there is the possibility of more torture, we cannot say that the moral theory must lead to positive outcome.
Harold:
“So the good outcomes are incidental when deciding what is good. It would be good even if the outcomes were bad, because the origin of the morality does not consider outcomes. However, I think you argue that if the moral theory is properly based, it is impossible for the outcomes to be bad.”
Precisely. The outcomes are not what verifies or assures us that, say, private property rights grounded a priori, are valid. It constrains possible outcomes to a finite set, the content of which is fully determined by individual using their own persons and property. Whatever happens, is neither “good” nor “bad” from a priori grounds, because a priori logic is value free. It tells us what is. From a consequentialist perspective, the “good” and the “bad” is fully dependent on what we want to accomplish that is necessarily a value judgment.
LK would say the outcomes of absolute individual private property rights are “bad” because it will not result in the values he seeks, which is social domination of an elite group of people over everyone else. That goal may very well be accompanied by other goals, such as “helping the poor and preventing starvation”. But when one person uses another person as a means, that means is also an end. In my view the only end that matters is what the individual decides for themselves, and that requires an abolition of aggression against one’s body and one’s property. Let individuals decide for themselves how much to help the more impoverished, and whether to give at all.
“First, why do you think that?” “From where we are now, I believe a ban reduces the quantity of torture.”
Why? Suppose there exists criminals who will want to flout the universal ban.
“It is a different question whether it would be possible to have a society where encouraging some torture results in less torture. That society is very far from the one we are at now. I am not convinced that validating torture would reduce its incidence in any society, but I am open to argument.”
Why would there be relatively more torture? I am open to an argument on that.
“On the one hand, the physical response driven incentive I think is a very affectual.”
“I am sorry I don’t know what you mean here.”
I mean the direct physical threat of being tortured should a person ever dare initiate torture against someone else.
I see ethics as two dimensional. From without, and from within. Ultimately it has to come from within.
“On the other hand, which I think is most important of all, is how people must philosophically view each other when they regard revenge torture as just. Each individual would have to be considered an absolute ultimate end in themselves.”
“(Good to see that even on an economics blog you have restricted yourself to only two hands.)”
Not sure I understand.
“I don’t think so. That may be one way to view individuals, but not the only one. I may think torture is just because an eye for en eye is just, or because God says so.”
I mean the former. Sorry, I did not intend to say that revenge torture is the basis or reason, but is just a part of eye for an eye which itself part of the reason.
“A very quick look at the world makes it clear that it is utopian to think that everyone will agree about this sort of thing.”
I don’t see how agreement is even necessary for a moral theory to be sound. The mere existence of criminals is not sufficient grounds for anything. Agreement and disagreement are just descriptions that compare one person’s state of mind with other people’s state of mind. Or rather, one person’s thoughts with another person’s thoughts. One or both people can be incorrect from a Rationalist perspective.
Agreements may make life easier, but agreement qua agreement is not a necessary component for making a thought a valid one. It is possible, and history is rife with examples, where a thought initially or subsequently has much disagreement, before eventually becoming generally agreed upon. Narcotics and the “drug war”, specifically pot, are a most recent example.
“Fine if we want to talk about theoretical worlds, but not much use for policy.”
Why should I care about status quo government policy if I want to know what’s moral and immoral?
“Whatever violence you inflict on another, the worse a person treats another, the worse of a treatment they get back.”
“Again, fine in some theoretical world where you are punished for all your transgressions.”
Why would it not be still “fine” if correct punishments are not 100% perfect?
I am not claiming that eye for an eye ethics will in fact be perfectly practised. I don’t see how imperfections concerning empirical judgments is grounds to dismiss or reject any moral theory.
“Some ways to torture someone and not get tortured back is to not get caught, or to define what you are doing as not torture…”
But that is true now, today, anyway. Torture is officially banned in this country, and “not getting caught” would still be a motivator for those who want to initiate torture against others.
What I am also saying is that given this is the case, given that there are criminals who would want to “get away with” initiating torture, they would know that there is no law standing in the way of being tortured back.
Banning torture universally by law is ultimately a law that says those who break laws against it, cannot legally be tortured back. It is not a law any different from universal bana on torture except for that legal revenge aspect. It does not “make it easier” for those wanting to initiate torture against others. There is still a universal ban against initiating torture.
“…or to justify the torture by convincing people the victim was himself a torturer.”
This is perhaps the biggest potential weakness in eye for eye ethics. It is possible for people who want to initiate torture against others, to lie about others doing so, and then using eye for eye principles to justify their own initiating of torture that others falsely believe is revenge.
That will likely occur to some positive extent. But even so, that person who lies and misleads would run the risk of being tortured themselves if they ever get caught in the lie.
Lying is an incentive when the punishment is less than the gain made through the lies. A universal ban against revenge torture increases the incentive for lying about torture. The CIA agents, and “healthcare” workers working for the CIA are faced with incentive to lie in order to torture, and to torture others, in part because they themselves are immune from torture.
When I consider people initiating torture against others in the present world, I learn that the people who do the most initiating of torturing, are those who are most immune from revenge torture. Those who are shielded by the “world’s police”, the “do folders” who preach about civil rights the loudest.
It is in that environment that criminals thrive. We are essentially “ruled” by criminals. They find that they can do the most damage worldwide and “get away with it” the easiest when they act in an environment of laws that make eye for an eye the least tolerated, legally speaking.
Imagine the CIA torturers, who tortured thousands of innocent people, being subject to revenge torture if they’re wrong. I think they would be much more sure of the other’s guilt before laying a finger on them.
I look at the worst cases of torture around the world, and find they are almost always perpetrated by those in government, in countries that make revenge torture illegal.
I do not think that is a coincidence.
“In the moral torture world, assuming we had unanimity, everyone would agree that torture could be a good thing. They would consider a positive good to inflict torture on someone that was themselves a torturer, if the victim had not done so himself. This removes one mechanism by which torture is reduced – that people believe it is wrong and so refrain from doing it. I believe that would lead some people to inflict torture on others that were not themselves torturers. They may convince themselves that another was deserving of torture, or that they would not get caught, or that they could convince others the torture was justified. For now it does not matter how often – I believe that it would happen sometimes, and thus there would be some torture that would not happen in the world where torture was considered immoral.”
But at what cost though? How do you know that a universal ban on revenge torture, enforced by government, will reduce torture per se? Identifying instances where some innocent people might end up being tortured cannot be the sole premise to conclude torture as such will decline. You have to take into account all the incentives.
“In the world where torture is not considered moral, we also get torture. (Although if we had unanimity here, there would not be much of it either). Some of this would not happen in the world where torture was considered moral.
Since torture can occur in both worlds, allowing torture could result in more torture; we cannot be certain about the outcome.”
Then why demand that we live under only one of those world’s laws?
“Since there is the possibility of more torture, we cannot say that the moral theory must lead to positive outcome.”
I think the possibility of less torture is greater than the possibility of more torture, because anyone who wants to initiate torture would be faced with legal revenge torture, and because it would be part of a greater system of laws that treat the individual as an absolute end in themselves, of which any aggression whatsoever by anyone, badge wearing or not, would be generally considered criminal.
I guess the main question for you, is how you come to the conclusion that the incentive to lie about others initiating torture, would outweigh the disincentive to torture derived from legal revenge torture.
You can answer this by considering thought experiments. Given a person is considering liying about another torturing someone, in order to get what they want which is to get away with initiating torture against that person, would the incentive to initiate torture if revenge torture were legal, be greater or smaller?
Re two handed – I was conflating Truman’s one handed economist and Churchill’s quote “If you put two economists in a room, you get two opinions, unless one of them is Lord Keynes, in which case you get three opinions.”
“It tells us what is” but not what we ought to do.
“From a consequentialist perspective, the “good” and the “bad” is fully dependent on what we want to accomplish that is necessarily a value judgment.”
“In my view the only end that matters is what the individual decides for themselves” That sure sounds like a value. Are you not equally value driven?
“I don’t see how agreement is even necessary for a moral theory to be sound”
True, but it is relevant if we are talking about outcomes. If a moral theory results in suffering to no purpose, one may be justified in rejecting that moral theory.
“But at what cost though? How do you know that a universal ban on revenge torture, enforced by government, will reduce torture per se?” How do you know the opposite is true? It seems to me that we neither know for sure. There are effects in both systems that tend to increase and decrease torture. We don’t know for sure the relative magnitude of these.
“Given a person is considering liying about another torturing someone, in order to get what they want which is to get away with initiating torture against that person, would the incentive to initiate torture if revenge torture were legal, be greater or smaller?”
I think it would be smaller, but this just says that torture can be a dis-incentive, which we already know. On its own this does not tell us whether torture incidence would be lower or higher. Consider another thought experiment. Is it more likely that someone would want to torture someone in the first place if they grew up in a world where they had been taught torture was a good thing in some circumstances, or that torture was always bad?
I know you haven’t though this through enough because you’re using phrases like “grotesque” to cover up that void. You only want me to feel guilty for not feeling any sacred duty to your Humanity God.
Do you honestly believe I am going to even bat an eye at a statist calling me any names? It is only reinforcing to my ideas. You are encouraging me by calling me names.
To everyone else, notice how LK is appealing to Murphy for guidance on this. Murphy is a pious gentleman, and that is what LK seeks to exploit and have his own piousness validated.
I am not “appealing to Murphy for guidance”. I already explained months ago why I condemn torture and gave my ethical arguments, under the ethical system to which I adhere.
I am, however, fascinated to see if Murphy is comfortable with fellow Rothbardians like you advocating revenge torture on his blog, and whether he will comment on this and the issue of Rothbard’s advocacy of torture.
You’re seeking validation from Murphy, LK.
As for your ethical arguments, I already responded to that comment you made,
I am asking you for an ethical justification, specifically, against torturing torturers, which you did not explain. What you did say either does not even address the ethics, or attempts to do so but inadvertantly condemned any and all laws and punishment.
No, he is accusing Murphy of double standards.
“Bob Murphy is personally responsible for everything Murray Rothbard has ever said. Either you agree completely with Murray Rothbard on everything he has ever said or you are not a Rothbardian libertarian.”
-LK
“Bob Murphy is personally responsible for everything Murray Rothbard has ever said. …. -LK
A lie.
LK do you endorse everything that every Keynesian on Earth currently endorses?
LK since torture is in the news (which is abhorrent), this is a good time to discuss that Rothbard passage. I’ll do it in a post.
I do not see a defence of revenge torture in that comment. At most I see a defence of instrumental torture.
LK,
“That in the one case a government did it and in the other private protection agencies would do it?”
The only reason why you want to convince (Murphy, I think) that the only difference is who does it, is because the question of who is the very question that derives from your worldview that consists of special privilege as a defining feature.
In your ideal world, only some individuals, who have shown their devotion and feelings of sacred duty towards “Humanity”, have this special privilege to be able to do what nobody else is to do, which is create and enforce laws. The obvious contradiction in this belief you want to pretend can be overcome by majority vote. You want to believe that if enough empirical human individuals believe in it, then the contradiction has been ethically overcome in the sense of compassion and empathy for other humans who disagree with you about their own lives, and empirical human individuals can be absorbed into the Church of Humanity without conflict. For the rest who do not believe, who are Humanity’s atheists, we are viewed as criminals, as outcasts, not because we will not seek to introduce violence against others who don’t believe in our ideal vision of Humanity, but because we don’t believe in your God and dare act against what you believe is our sacred duty to obey.
Of course empirically this always turns out in the form of a privileged elite who can initiate force against others if others act in their own interests rather than in the interests of Humanity. I must be forced into your ideal abstract vision that sacrifices my empirical self.
You are to a much more significant degree than libertarians, a self-imposed passive by-product of the empirical world you grew up in. You do not want to question and change what libertarians question and want to change. Ergo the mantras “the Real World” that you demand I make myself passive towards. Of course what you really mean is that you believe I should be made to feel guilty for wanting to disobey the rules of your Church.
The empirical world can be, and always has been, made to change. Passive data collection is your chosen role in the Church. Well, I am here to change those rules you have set for me without even asking me.
So do I, but not on mere suspicion.
Lord Keynes, as a Keynesian you would say that I understand what must logically be conceded to Keynesianism in order to hold that bitcoins are money, right? I just want my fellow Austrians to read that coming from you.
What? That you think the reality of Bitcoin as money violates Mises’ regression theorem?
Yes. My position is that in order for one to hold that bitcoins are money, they must logically abandon the Regression Theorem.
Admirably honest of you.
Thank you for both your assistance and your compliment.
Not so admirably false.
LK,
You have yet to show any moral flaw in advocating torture against those who initiated torture.
You call that “debased”, and yet you advocate for men with badges to initiate violence against others to enforce a territorial monopoly.
Why is torturing torturers “base” while initiating violence that is in the same spectrum as torture, not base?
At least the violence I advocate is against those who themselves intitiate it.
Your morality is debased, not mine.
In fact, I have already showed why — in consequentialist ethics — torture is morally wrong and should be condemned and outlawed.
(i) torture could easily lead to serious abuses, such as tortured confessions
(ii) even the original argument that it is some reliable way to extract information is flawed and contradicted by empirical evidence
(iii) people — even criminals — should have the right, as can be easily defended even in consequentialist ethics, to not be subject to cruel and unusual punishment or treatment, especially that could result in severe bodily injury, in a society that wants to minimise suffering.
(iv) Justice does not entail the eye for an eye principle, but measured punishment as humane as possible, given that human criminal justice systems can make mistakes and people found guilty of crimes can be found innocent later.
http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2014/06/persuasion-is-more-powerful-than-violence.html#comment-632478.
Your system of ethics also dictates that people be held at gunpoint and forced to turnover their money or be thrown in a cage for whatever purpose “society” (whoever the hell that is) deems appropriate.
But yeah, you clearly have the moral high ground here, LK.
What makes you think morality actually exists? Have you given moral nihilism any thought?
You mean I ought to flout other people’s moral codes?
No, it is not obligatory to flout other people’s moral codes, but you can if you want.
You mean I ought to think it is not obligatory to flout other people’s moral codes, but I can do so if I want?
You can think it is obligatory or not obligatory if you want. There is no ‘ought to’ in there.
So if I thought I ought to think moral nihilism is flawed, then I cannot be wrong in thinking that?
LK,
I have already addressed that comment, which you linked to.
I am asking you for an ethical justification, specifically, against torturing torturers, which you did not explain. What you did say either does not even address the ethics, or attempts to do so but inadvertantly condemned any and all laws and punishment.
“(i) torture could easily lead to serious abuses, such as tortured confessions”
Abuses by who? Those who are in the state, who have the privilege that it is illegal to torture them under any circumstance, including them torturing others. THAT is the source of moral hazard and abuse. Even if a state law on paper says torture is absolutely immoral, there is “abuse” in using torture because the statesmen claim and enforce that it is illegal to torture the torturers.
Now consider the incentives to the CIA if the law is that one can torture another who introduces torture. The “abuse” would be reduced because the incentive to torture is then faced with the payback of torture.
So my solution achieves the problem of torture against individuals as such. By viewing torture as something punishable by torture, the incentive for anyone to torture is minimized.
“(ii) even the original argument that it is some reliable way to extract information is flawed and contradicted by empirical evidence”
Torture by statesmen shielded from torture as punishment, would of course result in a lower correlation between torture and true guilt confessions, compared to not being shielded and where one can only torture another who introduced torture against another. The state has tortured hundreds if not thousands of innocent people. Of course there will be a low correlation between torture and true confessions! It is physically impossible to extract true confessions from people who have not done what the torturers are claiming they did!
All of this is not inconsistent with anything I wrote.
“(iii) people — even criminals — should have the right, as can be easily defended even in consequentialist ethics, to not be subject to cruel and unusual punishment or treatment, especially that could result in severe bodily injury, in a society that wants to minimise suffering.”
Society does not want anything. Only real world empirical individuals have wants.
Why should a torturer be immune from torture? Why should a person who tortured someone else, not be subjected to the same torture? You keep merely asserting it is wrong, without explaining why. Everything you are saying is not answering this question.
“(iv) Justice does not entail the eye for an eye principle but measured punishment as humane as possible, given that human criminal justice systems can make mistakes and people found guilty of crimes can be found innocent later.”
So logically that argument implies that it would be moral for one individual to torture another if the circumstance is that one is not making a mistake about whether someone else tortured them!
If you still don’t think torturing torturers is moral in a particular case where one is not mistaken, but correct about who tortured them, then clearly your “given” about statesmen making a mistake is not even one of your premises for why torturing torturers is morally wrong.
LK, suppose I told you this:
“If you should ever actually in fact torture me, I will respond with the same torture against you.”
Please explain how this would not only fail to minimize human suffering, but increase human suffering, given that you are faced with that incentive.
This supposes what it sets out to prove. If we suppose that police have such techniques as to always extract pure and true information from a captive, and never make the victim blurt out whatever the aggressor wants to hear in the hope of making the pain stop, then those police would be doing a marvellous job.
In practice, this never happens, no interrogator can guarantee truth, and pretty much universally the only results you get from torture are forced confessions. Even the idea “if the suspect turns out to be guilty” supposes that some final accurate judgement is available for reference, but we don’t have access to such a thing. At best we have the judgement of people. Recently it seems to be getting worse, by the way, police are less and less interested in being seekers of truth and more interested in power, authority, and maintaining the status quo. If they have any opportunity to beat confessions out of captives, they will use it for sure.
Rothbard is wrong here, not that his logic is flawed but his concepts are not applicable to any real world situation.
1. I would agree and say that it is probably near impossible to determine regularly if the torture actually produced information that justified the torture and/or information that could not be obtained otherwise. Even with “private” AnCap enforcement, I think there would be a tendency to torture first and make up an excuse later. Keep that genie in the bottle even if it can be shown that torture might save lives via rescues here and there.
2. However, if all members of private community A expressly agree to the Rothbardian scheme, community B cannot initiate force against community A for that reason. But community B can still ostracize community A as a sanction.
Professor Huemer has a good critique of objectivism: http://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/rand.htm
That is a good article.
Another one that you might find interesting:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/1970/01/roy-a-childs-jr/objectivism-and-the-state-an-open-letter-to-ayn-rand/
Objectivists: The free market works! (Except for security and investigatory and criminal taking services. And maybe roads and mail delivery. )
This is a huge blindspot for them.
The blindspot is derived from a false conflation between defensive use of force, and aggressive use of force.
When the context is anarchy, force becomes aggressive only.
When the context is government, force becomes protective only.
At one of their blogs I asked (paraphrasing from memory) “What if you came upon a city where these things are private and worked well enough that the residents were content and had no wish to change. Would you force them to do things your way?”
No responses. Of course that could have just been because the blog post I was commenting on dropped down the page and folks lost interest. But maybe not.