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RE: AnCap NAP Ethics is Morally Bankrupt & Based on Arbitrary Aggression Against Non-Aggressors

in #anarchism7 years ago

You said: “To use the libertarian NAP, the principle implies that aggression (the initiation of using force upon another, without consent) causes the most harm, ergo to reduce harm to everyone, aggression must not be permissible.”

I reject that assertion. Sometimes suffering caused by natural causes (e.g. starvation) can be reduced by “aggression” (e.g. stealing food); in which case a rigid application of NAP would lead to an overall increase in suffering.

You said: “By conflating morality, your own internal subjective code of conduct, with ethics (an external & objective code of conduct), you are able to claim all immoral acts (to you) are inherently unethical. This makes your subjective interpretation the only one that can be applied, at least for you.”

The distinction between ethics and morality that you make is semantics. But, I believe my writings on ethics, which I linked before, explain sufficiently why such a distinction is unnecessary. Morality, our personal principles for distinguishing right from wrong, is inherent in human nature, and since they are inherent in human nature they are shared by all humans. Ethics, the theory of right conduct, is rooted in natural law, and consequently the line between morality and ethics is blurred. I am willing to make the distinction, but it is a distinction without a difference within the framework of my theory of ethics. Also, you seem to be blurring the line between ethics and politics.

You said: “To make a single, subjectively derived ethical standard apply willingly across all individuals, in all societies, would be a computational explosion problem…. Do you honestly think a single solution, which is not innately and infinitely flexible (like anarchy), will objectively work when you are multiplying the combination factor by by 70 million?”

I don't suppose to make a single standard apply. Each community would be allowed to set rules as they see fit. Furthermore, you ought to stop to consider the possibility that anarchism will not maximize human wellbeing. Suppose that anarchism leads to chaos, doesn't establish security and stability like it is supposed to, and suppose that there is some flaw in anarchism (which you are unaware of), which guarantees that anarchism always leads to instability and lack of security in persons and property for the majority of the populace. If that is the case, then a flawed singular solution, though imperfect, would actually be relatively better than anarchism in practice.

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So you think impact of natural causes for harm outweigh the aggressive ones? I say "Justify this belief."

You are making a claim that aggression is somehow less impactful to societal wellbeing than natural issues. Crimes with actual victims, war, terrorism, restrictions on trading, the massive amounts of corporate defrauding of entire nations - these are all things that happen because of aggression. They have a far more debilitating effects on societies than the risks of starvation do today.

Your solution is focusing on issues that are less damaging to society, ones that actively cause less harm and can be mitigated privately with ease. To fix these things, you are proposing a state is necessary, and that state is guaranteed to commit aggression at some point to enforce its subjective value judgements on everyone.

In other words, I know your solution won't work because it doesn't care about what causes the most harm to society, and it doesn't actually have a principle to judge those actions from. It is purely subjective, and purely subjective systems do not work to improve things. Every single "Marxist socialist" state has proved this, and every mixed economy shows that it is horrifically inefficient compared with privately designed solutions.

As for your "anarchy could descend into chaos!" argument, sure its possible, but the probability of such an occurrence is far less likely than a state causing actual chaos through war and economic manipulations. This is again because of the mathematical factors I mentioned earlier, something which you seem to have completely ignored.

Regarding Ethics and Morality, you may consider it to be a "semantic distinction" but it is critical. A subjective morality cannot be objectively applied to society and be expected to work well for anyone save the one who created that standard. You must have an objective metric to measure against for ethics to work. Consent is this measure for a vast majority of people, so consent should be considered that which is ethical, and any other subjective value judgement can be considered morality based.

In addition, the means by which ethics are generated are not rooted in any specific philosophy, particularly not natural law. To make this claim is a misunderstanding of how ethics work. The fact you are not distinguishing between subjective moral judgements and ethical principles is why I am saying you are attempting to apply an ethical standard that cannot function.

If each community can decide its laws, and not have them overruled by some other authoritarian group, then its effectively a voluntary anarchistic solution in any case. The democratic confederalism you described, however, does not appear to be this. It appears to be yet another rehashing of the great american experiment, which has now shown no matter how small the government you start with, it eventually will attempt to become an empire.