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.

I would tend to agree. Most home-schoolers are relgious and have no interest in empiricism. That said, disallowing homeschooling in order to curb religious indoctorination would be a net-negative since it would also eliminate every secular homeschooler too.

I'm inclined to think that's a valid analogy, but I don't think that we have to presume a profesisonal level of risk asessment in order to have someone make a UPB action either way. To the best of my knowledge a young and inexperienced investor may see their only shot at getting into the business being a very risky investment. Similarly, for the would-be hero, there's the chance they think the loss of this person's life is a more significant impact on their family than their own, odd as that might sound. There are calculations of risk that cannot be quantified too. Perhaps they genuinely feel empathy for a stranger and it warps their risk calculation? I think we should be careful assigning so much value to what few variables we can present as well known to the actor as opposed to that which are likely being considered at the spur of the moment, when the decision to help is made. Perhaps we need a bit more detail in our scenario to flesh this out?

I anticipated that response, but I didn't go into enough detail to allay the concern, so point well taken. I'll have to think about this over lunch.

Then you won't mind holding your hand over this fire for the next 10 minutes. After all, while the plasma matter of the flame that you see exists, the heat energy does not. That about sums my opinion aswell.

This is a good point Robin, which perhaps points to some of the subjectivity around the topic. Courage in a situation in which you faced retribution in the past, but now are able to carefully assess the situation rationally, is I think an act of personal virtue. Courage diving into a burning car might well be an act of stupidity. I don't think so. Consider the situation of the venture capitalist. They're asessing a situation with far too many variables to accurately calculate their risks. Of course they do try to make a best-guess at it, but they know it's a gamble. If we define "courage," as overcoming anxiety related to uncertainty then the venture capitalist is "courageous," in his investment with a no-name firm. We don't say that they're stupid for putting half a million dollars into a random start-up so why would we say that a person who could potentially reap the gratitude of a person who's life was saved from certain-death is similarly making a malinvestment of his person? Not that I think it's always an act of virtue to go marching into burning buildings in the hopes of rescuing a greatful victim, but if we can't percieve that extreme risks can create positive outcomes we're essentially framing all investment as a folly.

She complained that her kids were being brats and he responded with "Look in the mirror." I don't see any world in which that is "offering empathy," at least not to her. Offering empathy would probably start with something like "So you're feeling frustrated by your kids? Tell me more about that." I'm not saying empathizing with her comment was the only approach one could take. But it certainly isn't the approach he took. I agree. There is no telling if she would have been so defensive anyway, but that start to the conversation certainly didn't help. Of course, the more frank bits of the converstaion will come up eventually and that's unavoidable, but cutting to that chase so soon invites them to completely shut you out. I've had similar conversations with my brother and his wife in the past, and I usually kept it in the realm of asking them to vent their frustrations for a long while. Only after they really trusted me to hear thier version of events did I go and talk to their two girls about what was happening. We are all extremely close (I actually loathe the concept of facebook friendship, but that's another story) so I think the amount of time it took me to get them all together to talk about each other's means of improving was telling. I can't honestly see anything less than a BEST friend or close/trusted family member getting somewhere with this. The level of trust and empathy required to have someone keep their defense mechanisms in check is very high. I was chewed out a few times for overstepping and, as I said, I took a much more circuitous rout toward the tough questions.

I would say it was a "classical virtue," because those dictating what was vitrue at that point in time where the ruling class who wanted to see obedience and courage among the followers to save state interests. I don't see any reason to suppose it an evil or a non-virtue to act without regard to one's anxieties for another person. It's a risk asessment like any other, it just has higher stakes. If you were to suppose the actor as being aware of the outcome with certainty then you could say tha they were being suicidal, but nobody has that knoweldge. Again, in terms of classical virtues, I think they're all nonsense since none of them are testable/actionable verb/adverb. In terms of UPB; however, I think it is possible to say that one who acts with "courage," can be virtuous just as well as someone who does not act in such a manner can be virtuous. Summarily I would say that "courage," is optional. It's like trying to say that risky investments are good or bad. Risky investments are high risk, high reward. If someone wants to risk their life savings on a gamble, good for them. I wouldn't think that to be prudent, but I recognize self-ownership and their right to make that bet. They're aware of the consequences either way. To insist that any unnecessary risk is a moral hazard would be to undermine investment without a degree of certainty that none of us can obtain.

Except the fact that both actions can be virtuous does not make it subjective. I was careful to explain why the mother mouning the loss of her son in the car fire would NOT be correct in saying the runner's inaction was evil or not virtuous because a rational UPB examination of his actions objectively shows that he was virtuous to consider his own life. Similarly the family of the man who was concerned about his rescue attempt of a stranger in a car crash is going to have a hard time with a rational UPB asessment of their own situation since they will likely not account for the life of the man in the car. Still, that does not make the would-be hero's action non-virtuous. So you have two actions, both of which are objectively virtuous. That does not make virtue itself subjective. Rather it reenforces the point that actions are what render objective virtue. When two truths are not mutually exclusive, there is nothing untrue about the statement that both are objective facts. In this case, UPB clearly states that these two actions are both virtuous and not mutually exclusive. While your love is a subjective response, it is not toward arbitrary values because love is a response to objective virtues. You can be mistaken about a virtuous action because of incomplete information, duress, or bias, but you aren't ever going to be in a situation where you are loving someone for the opposite of an objective virtue.

I would say they were both acting virtuously because neither of them could be judged as evil for not risking their own life to save someone else. You could say that the runner wasn't "heroic," for example, but I don't think you could say that anyone who isn't readily laying down their own life for anyone else is doing something wrong unless they had contractually obligated themselves to protect that other person with their own life. Now from the point of view of the relative of the burning car victim, the runner could be viewed as not being virtuous, but that would simply be their own emotional reaction and not a rational judgement of virtue. I look at that case in the same way I view the captive with stockholme syndrome. They are seeing, in this case, evil where there is none because they are so emotionally invested in the victim that they didn't bother to consider the risk of death to the man who fled. So yes, I would say that from the UPB point of view these are both virtuous actions.

While I do agree there are voices in the mainstream that lament the inefficiency of the state, I don't know that any of them are genuine. The reality is that nobody who believes in shrinking the size and scope of the state is going to be widely circulated. For every FDR and other voluntary outlet there are a million or more propaganda sites with more viewers/readers/listeners. To be critical of waste is one thing, but to be critical of the machine producing all the waste is quite another. Until I hear liberals question the efficacy of the welfare state and conservatives prod the pentagon over their gargantuan budget, I think it's safe to assume the public at large are not going to readily accept any argument that hinges on downsizing government in-general.