ThomasTheIdealist

Coercion is doing something that influences someone else without their consent. Children cannot consent and therefore parenting is coercive. Of course, "children" is a bit vague. When you mention children asking you questions, it's clear that they're capable of consenting to some things, but they're ultimately very captive and restricted. Where would you say my definition of coercion differs from yours?

If I see a large rock in a forest, why would I ask "why is this here? What is its purpose?" That's only something I ask if there are signs that the rock has been carved or positioned unnaturally, presumably by some external entity. So the questions you ask presuppose some design, and so of course a supernatural creator would be an answer to that. But it's a huge leap, like me assuming any old rock on the ground was explicitly placed there by someone for some special reason. Nope, it's likely just there... for no purpose whatsoever. But I'm free to pick it up and give it purpose.

Then explain how you can voluntarily impart something on a party incapable of voluntarily accepting it. It's one-sided, it's coercion. You force a child to learn things by teaching them. They are not capable of understanding the consequences enough to decide for themselves if they want to learn/do something. They are also a captive audience to their parents, they hardly have an option to not be taught things. Using your logic, if I teach a child by example to perform sexual favors for people, I have not forced them to do anything. So by logical extension, you accept a child's ability to give sexual consent. If not, please explain why this is coercion and it's not coercion to teach them any other previously mentioned thing.

Please, tell me the purpose of parenting if not that. You first force your value of life, health, well-being (to varying degrees), then education, language, fashion, and everything under the sun. Most parents don't permit their child to assert their own values for the entire first few years of their life. And only after that do they force their value of independence, to whatever degree. Even if you neglect your child, you're forcing some value on them. If nobody forced these things on children, they would die. That's why parenting is a necessary violation of the NAP.

Is it really appropriate to be such an overly-sensitive douchebag when commenting here? I'm not asserting an assessment of course, just asking, completely independent of context. There's a decent wikipedia summary of most of the inaccuracies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anachronisms_in_the_Book_of_Mormon Geneticists have also seen no evidence of the Americans being genetically linked to Israel as the Book of Mormon suggests: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetics_and_the_Book_of_Mormon#The_genetic_challenge

OP said "I hope we can respectful and have an intelligent discussion." That's a pretty standard issue remark when speaking with people who oppose you. Considering that disrespect is off-the-wall sensitive.

As I see it, he would be at the mercy of private law and judicial arbitration. Such enclosings would likely not be supported anywhere and therefore the precedent against it would be expressed in the laws of any decentralized legal mechanism. Yes. This is unfortunately a deviation from the topic, but all contracts are essentially a forfeiture of your future liberty (ideally in exchange for some other freedom). Like a type of slavery:

Yes, although that's very honest. Just get over it and discuss the topic at hand. Everything you've said thus far is an off-topic distraction.

There is no evidence to demonstrate that anything has any inherent rightness or wrongness to it (which is what moral realism claims). I'm not sure what other argument you're seeking. I would agree that universal preferences (however few there may be) could be reasonably considered moral/immoral, but not due to any attribute of the action itself. I think you've misunderstood. It's the reason for the preference for truth that would be arbitrary, not the level/quantity of truth preferred. However, I don't think I ever said my preference for truth was arbitrary, so I'm not sure it's worth responding more than this. In fact, I never said the word "arbitrary" anywhere. My preference for truth is based on life experience, and is therefore not arbitrary. And in the case of speaking with the police, I would definitely not have a preference for being truthful lol, which is distinct from having a preference for the truth. The second question assumes an answer to the first. I wouldn't exactly say I'm a hedonist, but I do gauge my decisions based on how things will effect me, and I consider that to be the only real important factor to consider, "moral values" merely being an egoistic extension of things I consider beneficial to myself. Well, I want you to agree with me because it benefits me to have like-minded people in the world in the sense that people will eventually cease to levy harms on me as society does today in the form of governments and other coercive entities. No, but you certainly can't use that to assert the validity of A. You said: If you actually did consistently care about logic and science then you would act morally because "thou shall act morally" is an axiomatic proposition This is like me saying that if you really care about science and logic, you would do A, because A = A. And then I can substitute just about anything as A. This is not sound logic, just circular reasoning.

Haha, I'm relatively new here. But you and others so far have demonstrated that this forum is full of overly sensitive individuals who are very vocal with nitpicking and complaining. One of my very first posts had people complaining about "manipulative language" and how I was insensitive to victims of abuse... maybe like college campuses we should start a safe-space board here. Don't want to trigger anyone. I am a former Mormon who also served a mission. Well, technically still a member, but I will likely never participate again. I agree that misinformation on Mormons is rampant, and people like to put a lot of emphasis on likely flaws of Joseph Smith as if that influences the validity of his claims in any way. I can agree that Mormonism is a slightly more sensible form of Christianity in terms of their beliefs, but it ultimately faces the same problems as all other supernatural and mystical claims. Beyond the wishful thinking of an afterlife, which is a natural consequence of our evolutionary innate fear of death, I see no reason to believe in one god over another. And my inclination to think there exists some creator is mostly unfounded, likely another innate intuition which has led all human societies historically to invent some creator entity (or entities). As we understand more about the physical universe, the less need we have to rationalize mystical claims as a substitute for understanding. Mormons also essentially question the omnipotence of God, making note of certain "eternal laws" that even God must follow, which is why God had to essentially "put up" with the Fall of Adam, the crucifixion/atonement of Christ, and all other elements of the "Plan of Salvation". This actually makes a lot more sense to me than absolutely omnipotence (which is a self-defeating idea in many ways), but I still never understood why "faith" is considered some godly eternal principle which we are on Earth to experience and improve upon. Faith is literally living your life following unverified claims. People often like to claim that they've experienced such strong "Spiritual feelings" that they have extreme certainly of the validity of certain things. It was the feeding of these delusions that I had the biggest problem with. I can respect people casually thinking some god exists (like thinking alien life exist is fine), and I think Christ was a noble person in many ways, but I don't see it as noble or respectable to completely immerse yourself into this unfounded idea.

No, I just prefer to adhere to truth. This is not normative, it's distinct from the ethical ought as commonly used in philosophy. If you don't like truth, I don't think you're immoral. Though I certainly wouldn't want to live around you. I don't see why. I could be a hedonist and say that my experience has shown that truth gives me the most long-term physical pleasure. Not true. If you also want to adhere to truth -- and I argue that objective morality has not been proven to be true -- why would you not care about this? I'm convincing others to do what they want consistently. If they reject common science and reason, then I agree they won't care much about my arguments, but most people don't reject those things, they just mistakenly reason, as you do, that objective morality is consistent with logic. I agree, but "you ought to be moral" is an axiom because it's a tautology. If morality is either unknown or not real, it's a pointless sentiment. And that's exactly what nihilists argue.

I don't think any moral nihilist would say this exactly. In this context, an "ought" is normative, implying some accepted moral value. No nihilist would claim it's immoral to claim that morality is objective, which is what the normative claim would entail. However, if you use "ought" like "should" or some non-normative variation, then the advice is valid if the person you're speaking with has some agreed premise/goal. People here have been conflating the normative with the descriptive. Saying "if you want to stay dry in the rain, you ought to use an umbrella" is not an ethical "ought" and is irrelevant in this context. It is not implying that it's unethical to get wet if you don't want to be and therefore you have a moral imperative to keep yourself dry. So a nihilist would merely say that you shouldn't claim objective morality if you want to be consistent and abide by commonly accepted criteria of logic and science (or general metaphysical stuff). But like advising them to use an umbrella to stay dry, it's not some moral claim.

If more people agreed with Peter Singer's position on infanticide, this wouldn't be as difficult to decide because euthanasia could be an option in the case of disability after birth. From my perspective, you seem to be stressing more over the potential gamble/loss than any philosophical dilemma, so I don't think I can help much. Forcing your values on another person is what parenting is all about. If the child is born, this won't be the only decision he makes for the kid. I would commit suicide under many conditions, including probably the one you described, and I would see no problem making that decision for a fetus/baby I made. In general, our aversion to death is evolutionary and I have a hard time rationalizing the merits of life over death beyond instinctual reactions.

The point is nihilistic, but it's not implying that language has no meaning, but rather that it has no objective meaning and is therefore not useful to invoke as if it were a natural fact or as some indisputable logical axiom. As said near the end: So it's a matter of accepting the subjectivity and asserting your preference as opposed to indirectly asserting your logical infallibility (because the axiom involved is fallible) with the NAP / Voluntaryism. Like moral values, language has widely accepted definitions, which is how we're communicating effectively now. But if you or I disagree on some word's specific definition, neither of can assert that the other is objectively wrong.

Well sure, you could lie about a lot of things. But why should I have to spell out the basics of aggression for you? Didn't you just say this discussion was beyond me if I couldn't understand what murder was or wasn't? Yet you have no need to understand aggression, it's up to me to make arguments supporting it, you need not making any argument regarding murder... I can spell it out if you need the elaboration: Aggression is the initiation of violence. This include compelling someone to do something against their will. Parents force their children to do stuff against their will on a regular basis, and is indeed a central purpose of parenting, therefore parenting is aggression. Aggression also includes the threat of violence against people. When you stake a claim on some land by whatever means (initial acquisition of property), you are threatening anyone who would choose to use that land (e.g. trespass, theft, etc.), therefore you're aggressing by claiming that land. True, but you're moving the goalpost in the comparison. I'm not talking about the metaphysical reality (or lack thereof) of abstract concepts. I'm talking about inherent moral attributes I fail to see figuratively, not relating to the literal physical sense of sight. So you must be switching to a legal definition instead of the moral one, because it's certainly considered murder to someone (namely someone who doesn't like it). When people are asked if a killing is justified or if it's murder, they assert their preference, whether they like or dislike the killing for any reason. It morally becomes murder if they don't like it. Legally speaking, the definition of murder is some sort of conglomerate of this preference found in society. Almost the same. Changing the work "is" to "cannot be" makes it equally pointless. Murder by definition isn't preferred. So you're merely arguing that something which isn't preferred cannot be universally preferred. There is no conclusion to be drawn from it. It's just a tautology that something not preferable is not preferable, universally or otherwise. Yeah, though I wasn't quite going there, not yet anyways lol. This explains is fairly well I think: http://individualistwill.com/everything-is-aggression/

Huh? Why must all statements be arguments? Some have to be assertions. Both parenting and initial acquisition of property are aggressions. That's pretty basic, been supported by people like David Friedman for decades. No more than I see in any other higher assembly of molecule/organisms. I know the difference. Murder is killing that people don't want. Not sure what gave you the impression that I didn't know. But being that that's the definition of murder, it's completely pointless to say "murder is universally not preferred" it doesn't advance ethics in the least.

I think the NAP is a good guideline for legislation, but not so much for ethics. Though not terrible. I mean, isn't parenting aggression? And isn't the initial acquisition of property (or the defense thereof) aggression? There seem to be so many caveats and built-in premises that the NAP is just rhetoric at this point. And when it comes to the examples of theft, rape, and murder for UPB, they're fundamentally disingenuous at proving their point. All three of those words imply immorality/criminality, it's a part of the term. So to saying "murder is universally not preferable" is not terribly insightful since if killing people were considered useful, it wouldn't be called murder. If you reduce the terms down to merely the act, they would be (1) taking someone's property, (2) having sex without consent, and (3) killing someone. None of those are universal when stripped of the inherently immoral terminology.

I think they're completely distinct. And it's because of this that I have a hard time justifying external property using "self-ownership" as an axiom. When I take "ownership" of my body/actions, I'm not making a legal property claim. It's ironic that self-ownership advocates here and abroad are against intellectual property while also claiming that I "own" the words coming out of my mouth because I made them. This is conflating ownership as a property claim and ownership as an abstract relationship. For example, when I say "my mother" I'm describing a relationship relative to myself and not my ownership over my mother. So when you modified something external using actions that your body puts into motion, at best you can say you should be accountable for that action just like you're accountable for other words and things you do. I'm not sure how you can deduce a property claim from the action. Just because you're the consciousness that can best control the body you seem to inhabit, doesn't mean you have a property claim over it, and that certainly doesn't imply that everything you touch (loosely speaking) is your property. Is there something I'm misunderstanding about self-ownership?

No, common levels of verbal abuse and neglect have little effect too from what I understand. Good 20 minute TED talk: Article with relevant information: http://quillette.com/2015/12/01/why-parenting-may-not-matter-and-why-most-social-science-research-is-probably-wrong/ Some studies in the references section of that article. From that article: The study of the above is found here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21898451 From what I've read, the top contributing favors to cognitive and behavioral development seem to be genetic, immediate social group/peers, and (some like Charles Murray conclude) religiosity. Hopefully you'll see from the links above that it's not founded. And my statement about me not being spanked was purely preemptive, since I've been criticized before for trying to justify something that either I do, or something that was done to me. I have no dog in the fight, it doesn't bother me if spanking does or doesn't have a strong effect on children, my behavior wouldn't only change if spanking was found to be positive (which I've seen nothing showing this). On the other hand, people who are involved in spanking (having been spanked or otherwise) are more likely to have some bias they want to support.

I care. I like how the discussion has turned to debating moral realism. I have heard very little to convince me that morality is more than preference, even if some of those preferences are nearly universal among human beings. The original question of "why be moral?" perhaps begs the questions, making it only a question to be considered by those that accept moral premises, people who probably wouldn't ask the question anyways. Though I'm an expressivist of sorts, so I see the question as something like "why be something you want to be?" And when phrased more clearly like that, the answer is not difficult, novel, or even worth discussing.

Molyneux spoke with Charles Murray who discussed the genetic component of child development, and others such as Steven Pinker have talked about it at length. There seems to be a need of extreme revision to the original hysteria against spanking. Studies are increasingly showing how parenting style has very little effect on children's development and traits. And most studies thrown around here (or by Molyneux) put emphasis on causality while ignoring potential reverse causality (e.g. people spank because they and their kids have lower IQs, they don't have lowers IQs because of the spanking). Molyneux still tries to cling to his conclusions by associating spanking with other substantial traumas (e.g. starvation, routinely locking a child in a closet of days, etc.) which have shown to be a significant environmental influence. But do studies confirm this similarity? And for what it's worth, I've never been spanked nor am I an aggressive person who will likely ever spank children myself. I think spanking is strange and ineffective, but I'm skeptical of the trauma and negative social effects associated with it.

While I agree that he's a terrible libertarian, I don't agree that everything you used as counter-examples. Now, I don't follow Beck very much, so my impressions very well could be inaccurate. For starters, I'm not convinced that he supports financial aid to Israel, but he does indeed seem to be in support of taxes in general. However it's unfortunately very common for "libertarians" to fail to completely understand that taxation is theft. Even Ron Paul isn't against taxation, but you can't claim he isn't a libertarian. But as far as Israel goes, I think Glenn Beck wants the US and citizens to support Israel in a more political/diplomatic sense, instead of financial: I'm not sure where exactly Beck differs from Ron Paul on foreign policy, but Glenn Beck is a non-interventionist, evidently. Getting one of your quotes in context: http://www.glennbeck.com/2011/12/13/ron-paul-over-newt-gingrich/ “I disagree vehemently with Ron Paul’s foreign policy. I think his foreign policy is a danger to the country, a danger to Israel. I absolutely agree with that. But I agree with Ron Paul economically,” Glenn said. As for Paul’s non-interventionist foreign policy, Glenn said that people who want to help countries like Israel can continue to do so as individuals. He stressed “we are not our government.” In my view, it appears that Beck is against the notion of treating all foreign countries equally instead of showing some sort of political favoritism toward countries that share our (rather "his") values. And in regards to the portion of the video where he bashed on Ron Paul supporters, I looked it up and I share his view, and it's definitely not an neo-conservative one: http://www.examiner.com/article/glenn-beck-ron-paul-people-i-have-had-it-up-to-here He was speaking to all the fanatics who were advocating voting for Ron Paul as a write-in even though he wasn't running. Additionally, he was likely against voting for Gary Johnson. There is nothing anti-libertarian about being pragmatic. Despite being an idealist, I also encouraged people to vote for Romney if they lived in a swing state. I don't live in a swing state, so I voted for Gary Johnson. It was no secret that the actual race was only between Romney and Obama, and it is therefore logical, and consistent with libertarian views, to vote for the one which is the closest to libertarian. While many think it is important to "make a point" by sacrificing actual results, I don't. Anyhow, my conclusion is that Glenn Beck is about as libertarian as Ron Paul. They both are statists to an extent, but at least they're helping support positions that move the country in the right direction.