labmath2

I am not sure what you mean by this.

I am not sure i agree with your arguments. I think there are those who do things that they know are wrong, but do it anyways because of what they gain from it. But these people have a culture where they were physically punished as kids and "they turned out alright." They also believe in things like spare the rod and spoil the child. To them its not the outcome that they justify, but the act itself. The argument that Stefan has no choice implies he cannot do otherwise. I am not sure in what sense you mean he has no choice, but he still certainly get to decide if he files taxes. By your logic, it would seem Socrates could not choose to tell the truth and those who went against the church knowing full well they would be executed could not choose to do so. They did choose to do so, so unless you have a threat to life exception to being moral, i disagree that Stefan does not have a choice.

If you are involved in something that you consider to be immoral, are you obligated to stop or if you know someone that is, are you obligated to cut ties with them or even take action against them? I know people that use physical force to discipline their children. I could report them to the authorities, but i cannot be sure the kids would be better off in a foster home. I cannot force them to negotiate with their kids. I do not want to cut ties with them because they can assist me in different ways and i do not believe they are immoral as much as i believe they are misguided. By maintaining my relationship with them, i can make little progress over time that may help the kid out instead of just leaving him to his violent parents. While i understand this will sound like an excuse, I am sure even Stefan pays his taxes even though he believes it is theft because to refuse to do so will likely result in worse outcome. Does that mean we can concede where we believe more harm will be done by acting in the moral way? This would not be as much a problem for if i did not consider the fact that if enough people independently make this kind of concession, it can lead to wide-scale immoral behavior that ends up harming a lot more people. Does that mean i am obligated to act?

The property right argument is an incomplete one by any standard in my opinion. If it is the case that i can homestead, what conditions are necessary for me to do that? Can i cut down a tree in a forest and afterwards lay claim to the whole forest because i mixed in my labor with it? I think we can all agree being the first to fish in a lake does not make you the owner of the lake, but why should you own a land simply because you planted and harvested from it first? If it is the case that i own myself (the self as property and owner), can i sell myself or am i a special case of property that cannot be bargained with? Do i own my offspring as they are the product of my work? While this is an extreme case, albeit possible, what happens when all land has been homesteaded? Would that not mean i cannot decide whether i pay rent or not, but can only decide who i pay rent to? I think the idea of self autonomy and occupancy and use solve some of these problems, but in doing so create others.

I saw this video on youtube and i think he makes an interesting argument, i wonder what you guys think.

I find his article a compelling case for anyone who is on the fence to join the libertarian movement. I think he expressed a concern on most unsure libertarians minds about whether libertarians have actually taken their arguments to its worst conclusion.Here he shows in fact they have considered the worst case, which is freedom to be unkind. How would you convince the Americans in the early 1800s to free their slaves in a society where slavery was accepted short of using force? Would they not have a right to own slaves since the slave group was considered subhuman and to require them to relinquish their slaves was a violation of property rights? It is such considerations that makes many of us on the fence wonder if libertarians have really done what JT did in his article.

As far as UPB goes, i am convinced we could know if a behavior is universally preferable (preferable-more desirable or suitable), but wouldn't we still have to ask everyone (everyone alive) to know if any behavior is in fact universally preferable? As for NAP, now i know it follows from self-ownership, so thanks for that input.

I certainly agree with most of Stefan's philosophical arguments, but i am struggling to agree with the concept of Universally Preferable Behavior (UPB). To make the statement, "There is no UPB," does not seem to violate UPB because it does not make a claim of behavior, but a claim of preference which is in itself not behavior. To know if there is in fact an instance of UPB, we would have to check every instance of the behavior and see that everyone prefers the same thing. I think George Boole's denial of existential import of universals is based on fairly good reasoning (we cannot know universals because we cannot check every instance of something). Of course, by definition some things are universals. For example, a fish is something that lives in water. My second concern is with the presentation of the non-aggression principle. The NAP is by any account a good rule for any society to follow, but without the assumption in which to base it, it is a prescription without a foundation. Maybe it has foundation, but i am not familiar with the foundation of the argument in the philosophical form. What i mean by its foundation is that philosophers have to site their assumption for proposing an ought statement. Take for example Thomas Hobbes, his philosophy is based on the state of nature (life without government). What is the assumption when we use the NAP?