greekredemption

Never more so than in the sorry case of Atheism+

edit: not worth it, move along!

The reputation system seems to have worked, as I don't bother to offer contrary views any more. There's no point as nobody sees the post. So... well done, Internet voting system.

If the monkey defends its property, then yes, it can be said to 'own' property.

Lately I've been listening to some podcasts by Alonzo Fyfe. His ideas on desire utilitarianism are pretty fascinating.

For the UK (according to stats contained in http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140206164733/http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/statistics/personal-incomes/tables3-11_3-15a.pdf): Total taxation on income (including self-employment, PAYE employment, pensions and investments) Men: £108 billion Women: £43.6 billion This is just a quick extract, I'm sure there are many caveats and other interesting things to bear in mind.

Could you elaborate on this? Or will you let your statement rest on its brevity?

"Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law."

Could you please elaborate on this?

Does the print version of the Grauniad contain all CiF articles? I thought CiF was for online content.

CiF is known for publishing pretty mediocre stuff, which mostly has a left-wing slant but all sorts of stuff can be found on there.Evidently articles like that bring in the traffic, at least. Also I don't think CiF is printed.

Poorly written for sure, but what purpose would complaining to the editor serve?

This is an interesting point, as in many ways species of ape, bird, cetecean and elephants are able to demonstrate intelligence - in both the emotional and problem solving context - at least as well as young humans. It seems to me as if the definition of self-ownership to relate only to homo sapiens is basically speciesist (to borrow from Peter Singer). I think the main point is that we are defining when a creature reaches 'personhood'.

Right, but labmath said: "To say it it applies universally regardless of the actors brings it into the same realm as something like gravity" In that gravity applies whether humans exist or not. The same cannot be said of morality. This has implications for the definition of a 'universal principle'. For instance, professionalteabagger seems to be having trouble accepting that gravity - applying, as you point out, to all matter in the universe - is a universal principle that exists regardless of actors, is different from a moral universal principle, which is dependent on the existence of actors. It would seem that should they not accept the 'universal principle' it is by definition not universal... in the same way, paradoxically, that if some matter did not obey gravity, gravity would not be universal either.

This is unsatisfactory. The corrolary of this is that morality exists without humans.

This is a very good question. Will anybody answer?

I think Hume had a good answer to this question. He's talking about miracles, but it could equally apply here: From http://www3.nd.edu/~brettler/Hume.pdf

Could we say then that he has no choice but to steal?

Therefore you are more likely to convince a statist.

Coercion and taxes are necessary but not sufficient to conclude 'socialism'.

Not exactly the same. Your understanding of 'own' allows the logic to appear similar.

I think lux means the assertion of a right to property is in itself conducive to violence. Which does seem to be the case; the only distinction between property and non-property is the self-proclaimed owner's willingness to use violence to demarcate his property. If a person claims ownership, and you have chosen not to participate, according to liberal theory the property owner has every right to violently expel you from his property.

And a starving man has to steal.

The most recent thread on this subject, which is still going in fact: http://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/39113-definition-of-free-will/

Philosophy needn't be that. FDR philosophy (and science, as you point out) is like that. But not all philosophy is. Well some theories reject empiricism entirely, for instance. They may even question the role of 'truth'. And so on. This isn't to say they are correct or deserving of equal consideration. It may even be, as you suggest, that Stefan Molyneux has solved all the old ethical questions and therefore the UPB methodology should be considered foundational to all further research. But this does not stop there being other ideas out there.