vforvoluntary Posted January 4, 2016 Posted January 4, 2016 Some of Stefan's methods of argumentation are unique amongst libertarians but also come under fire a lot for allegedly being fallacious because of how unconventional they seem to be amongst philosophers. One of the arguments in Stefan Molyneux's video entitled Social Contract: Defined and Destroyed in Under 5 Minutes was that if A is good then anti-A must be evil. I was skimming through the comments and found a number of objections to this line of reasoning. One of the objections used was that not having a social contract is not necessarily anti social contract or opposite to social contract. Another objection denied his premise all together and used an analogy involving triangles in an attempt to reveal the fallacies in his line of reasoning. He said "So if A is x then by definition not-A is not-x >All husbands are males. Therefore, all bachelors are not male. >All triangles are shapes. Therefore, anything that isn't a triangle isn't a shape." ... and he goes on. I'm curious to see your reactions to this type of rebuttal.
dsayers Posted January 5, 2016 Posted January 5, 2016 Husbands, males, bachelors, triangles, and shapes are not behaviors that are binding upon others. In terms of morality, the (lack of) presence of consent is what matters. Rape and love making are mechanically identical. What makes them moral opposites is that the presence of consent is opposite. "Contract" denotes consent, whereas "social contract" dispenses with consent. Revealing the invalidity of "social contract." 3
Will Torbald Posted January 5, 2016 Posted January 5, 2016 Not-A is anti A in the sense that if you insert it as an instruction it achieves the nullification of A. If you have a robot with the instruction "walk" it will walk. If while it's walking you insert the command "not walk" it will stop walking, thus working as an anti-walk. Morality is about behaviors, not noun-things.
Recommended Posts