DoubtingThomas

Personally, I would stick with "stealing cannot in-fact help the poor, but does victimize them and create a culture of entitlement and servitude to political masters." The problem with such hypotheticals, and especially in this case, is that they're engineered specifically to get a utilitarian response. It would be like asking a statist if it was ok to abolish government in order to save the world. Despite the fact some would agree that would indeed save the world, it's not a helpful or instructive way to convey the validity or invalidity of statism at any level. You're simply asking someone if they value the lives of everyone on earth more than than whatever issue is being questioned.

In most cases the "greater good," is a puppet used to represent the interest of a few (with political power), so outside the once-a-millenia scenario you can safely conclude that calculus for a "greater good," translates into "central planning and misery." If people are still so irrational that central planning and coercion are still so popoular there's no point in wondering what it would be like in a stateless society because: it wouldn't be a stateless society if there were central planners funded by coercion.

I hesitate to consider what Che there has to say about libertarians.

Elaborate? I would assume he is alluding to the fact they spend most of their stolen money on war and lining the pockets of their immoral cohorts. So by comparison just dumping the money into a hole would be huge net gain.

I would argue the "steal a penny," hypothetical is preposterous on the ground that, if the world were to be saved by a penny, people would be showering you with pennies. Theft implies that someone isn't going to give you a penny. If the world is at risk, it's rediculous to assume that -nobody- will give you a penny. I think it comes around as the same kind of trap as "what if voluntaryism created mass misery for everyone?" Implicit in the question/hypothetical is that the debate has been decided against you. It doesn't supply a critique of anything. It simply asserts you are wrong and asks you to show you are willing to waffle on your logical principles with someone who has no such principles. So while I agree that shifting the focus to utilitarian consideration wasn't ideal, I think it was an attempt to give an obvoius utilitarian an answer he understood than a compromise of principle. I felt the same way about the water in the desert and flagpole situation. So what if the circumstances were impossibly dire and the person who would have died now owes someone a lot of his wealth? My first response would be, "well, he isn't dead." While I do agree that nobody would take seriously the contract of "all your stuff for this bottle of water," (or broken window) if you look at it from the point of view of: this person is going to die and they have a way out because of the other person or their property, then some kind of conditional response to that repreive doesn't seem so immoral. It may have been sheer circumstance rather than a sought voluntary exchange, but why in the world is it unjust for someone to want -some- compensation for their water or their window? I don't see any moral hazards there. Hopefully it wasn't just me being incredibly annoyed at the endless concern-trolling. I must give Stef all due credit for keeping his cool and staying mostly on point.

Ultimately I would have to say that it's his life to live and if he feels compellled to sit in jail as a martyr instead of hosting a rather obscure talk-show then that's his choice. We can roll the utilitarian dice all we want and talk about what's best for "the movement," but I think that's silly.

Firstly, thanks for that information. Second, I tend to follow the same logic you are presenting here.

I'd like to see some statistical evidence for vegetarian/vegan health and longevity.

On a similar vein, I highly reccomend Tom DiLorenzo's "The Real Lincoln." If you want a raw Rothbardian look at one of the most despotic US leaders to date, it's a real page-turner.

"If you love America, you throw money in its hole." Priceless. []

That's the hang-up I was referring to. Adjectives describe nouns. They are not adverbs, which would be appropriate for UPB which requires a verb. I know we can imply that an adjective modifier can be a stand-in for an infinite number of verb/adverb combinations, but I think that's rather unempirical given that infinity is not a number and we are implicity excluding extraordinary circumstances when we make blanket statements about an infinite number of possible actions. I would agree that obedience in that case would be qualified in those terms. My point was to say that in the literal sense you could use the word "obedient," and still come out with a virtuous action. So I think in the sense that we don't need to restrict our verbiage and/or explain rote definitions ad nauseum the approach of isolated action evaulation is preferable to extrapolating over myriad/infinite circumstances. Again, this is the crux of my argument. I think the concept of evaluating things in aggregate and under an infinite number of circumstances is going to lead to wide-spread exclusion of otherwise neutral variables. It does seem like a successful application of that test would lead to axiomatic virtues, but yes I would say that instance evaluation of UPB is enough and in-fact the best we can hope to rationally judge. When I show up to work late it's preferable for me to be self-explaintory in the cirumstance of my arrival. Being late without an explanation would get me fired, so I don't see that as an aesthetic because my job depends on my punctuality. If I did this when the roads were clogged and everyone was late, it would be superfluous, probably an annoyance. So it's not under every circumstance that I am late which I am acting virtuously to explain myself. It could also be that my boss expects an explanation even when I am early, or that he/she does not want an explanation in either event. So without consideration of the other person who recieves the action of my excuse, there is not a concrete conclusion as to whether or not I am acting virtuously. Now, it may well be that I'm scratching at the edges of UPB and more/most adverbs apply in a more universal way, but I would like to think that UPB is something we can readily use on every adverb and action.

Can you clarify which hypothetical we're talking about, because, at least in my mind, we've melded two of the scenarios in the discussion. In general I would say that UPB doesn't make logical sense without an action in which to provide context. In essence "universalized," classical virtues would be nothing more than adjectives we'd run through an infinite process of eliminiation scenarios to check for virtue. I don't agree with obedience not being a virtue under any circumstance. If I am working with fellow engineers who know a particular subsystem far better than I do, I am going to check their work, but will largely act in obedience to their authority on the subject because I have but one lifetime to expend learning things and the division of labor is preferable to me attempting to subsume both their level of expertise and my own in another subset of material. You might argue that is a spurious usage of the word, but literally speaking I think it is valid to say we are obedient to one another when we argue for our superior grasp of our own area of expertise. I think any additional criteria is unnecessary when we only consider that which has been acted upon for an incidental UPB evaluation. To perform that evaluation is to decide whether or not the act could be considered generally good or admirable.

The heat energy has the location and shape of the matter which is accellerated and producing thermal energy. It can be located and measured precisely.

Yes that would be correct. As I understand APA it's a means to better undertsand virtue, but that it can often rely on specific abilities, traits, circumstances and primarily an empathic understanding of oneself and those around you. That's my understanding as well. So I think we agree that, since we stepped out of an actionable UPB scenario we no longer have a basis to say the act was virtuous or not. I want to say that validates the neutrality statement I made earlier, but honestly i'm now a little confused as to where we departed from UPB in our hypotheticals.

Just to be clear, none of what I said has anything to do with UPB. They only relate to APA. Well if we're dealing with APA rather than UBP we're automatically outside the realm of the absolute, at least as I understand it.