Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[GE Morton]

I know what prevarication means. So do you, apparently, since you constantly prevaricate. One example is your link defining public and private goods, from the dubiously entitled "Library of Economics and Liberty". Less biased websites offer less biased definitions. Here's one: https://theinvestorsbook.com/public-goo ... goods.html

According to this website, public goods include those provided by the government -- which would include both defense and medicare.

Egads. "Dubiously entitled"? Are these sources also "dubiously entitled"?:

"In economics, a public good (also referred to as a social good or collective good)[1] is a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics)

"Public goods. Also called collective goods. These are a very special class of goods which cannot practically be withheld from one individual consumer without withholding them from all (the 'nonexcludability criterion') and for which the marginal cost of an additional person consuming them, once they have been produced, is zero (the 'nonrivalrous consumption' criterion)."
http://webhome.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/public_goods.phtml

"Public good, in economics, a product or service that is non-excludable and nondepletable (or “non-rivalrous”). A good is non-excludable if one cannot exclude individuals from enjoying its benefits when the good is provided. A good is nondepletable if one individual’s enjoyment of the good does not diminish the amount of the good available to others."
https://www.britannica.com/topic/public-good-economics

No, all goods and services provided by government are "public goods," correctly defined. And you should have read a little further in your own source --- it goes on to state that public goods are those which are non-excludable and non-rivalrous. The authors of your source are misleading their readers by asserting that public goods are any goods provided to the public by governments, when many of the latter do not satisfy the criteria they acknowledge to be defining.

YOu prevaricate because the distinction between public and private goods is NOT clearly delineated . . .

It is as clear as anything can be, despite careless use of the term by some pundits.

The public good of clean rivers is compromised when homeless people camp along the river and use it as a sewer. But what else can they do? They don't have any proper bathroom facilities.

I agree. The homeless camping ground I mentioned would solve that problem.

Defense may or may not be a "public good". How much good did our Afghani excursion do us? How about Viet Nam?

Defense is a public good. Wars launched to attain political objectives are not defense.

[Leontiskos]

Everyone agrees that it is fair to pay for what one receives, and thus taxes are fundamentally fair. Arguments about progressive versus flat tax rates are often also arguments over what is fair and just.

But when you say that everyone should get a house you are no longer appealing to fairness or justice. In that case you are instead establishing a principle based on need or charity.

I don't see that a line is crossed. It's all about deciding what is fair. It seems you have no problem paying taxes to fund a fire station. In a sense, this could be said to be unfair to someone who prefers to keep the tax money and take the risk of losing their house in a fire.

I’ve claimed that you are misunderstanding the fundamental distinction between justice and charity and conflating the two. Justice regards relations between persons. If someone harms another then justice establishes a debt. If someone receives benefits without paying taxes then an injustice is occurring. The kind of harm that justice is concerned with is interpersonal harm.

Your new claim is that it is unfair that someone could lose their house to a fire. Perhaps, but this is very much a subjective question. It is not a matter of justice unless the fire was arson. When you say it is unfair you are attempting to claim that it is unjust, for you are trying to respond to my justice/charity distinction. But this is an equivocation. It is not unjust, for it does not concern relations with other human beings. The clearer description would be to call it unfortunate. Your basic argument is that we ought to collectively pay to reverse or prevent unfortunate events. That is, we ought to be forced to enter into insurance policies. Again, this claim is based on charity, not justice.

Insurance policies are rather straightforward. One can enter into an agreement whereby one pays to insure themselves against some risk. The mechanism is called “risk distribution,” and risk is distributed between all of the different participants.

Someone who has entered into an insurance contract is protected against the specified unfortunate events, and this is based on justice. If I have fire insurance then I am able to make claims in justice when my house catches on fire. This is because the insurance contract establishes an interpersonal relation between the insurance company and myself, so if my house catches on fire the insurance company will owe me certain things based on our contract. If I didn’t buy fire insurance then none of this is true, for mother nature does not owe me anything.

Your claim that some forms of insurance should be obligatory is not a justice claim. There is nothing in the nature of insurance that makes it obligatory. I have no obligations to other persons which would force me to enter into an insurance contract. Indeed, insurance is an intrinsically cooperative endeavor, so it doesn’t even make sense to say that it is obligatory.

Of course there is a tribal mentality whereby one helps others who have encountered misfortune, and this is based on charity, but also perhaps on the implicit assumption of reciprocation. I don’t have any problem with charity, but it is different from justice.

But, we decide that the risk of fire is rather random.

Some people decide that, and if they think it is a significant risk they will buy fire insurance.

It could happen to anyone, so we should protect everyone.

First, this isn’t an argument. Second, you say, “we should protect.” An insurance policy is just us protecting ourselves. There isn’t a money tree that protects everyone. You have surely been equivocating between an insurance policy and forced charity. An insurance policy has an established funding mechanism. Forced charity is premised on the hope that the people you are taking from have enough money to pay. Insurance policies do not involve coercion (theft), but forced charity does. Forcing people to enter into an insurance contract, on the other hand, is a slightly different from of coercion, but is coercion nonetheless.

When someone is homeless, though, you (evidently) presume that this is a reflection of poor character and that they are a victim of their own laziness.

“Evidently”? What evidence do you have for this? Why do you feel the need to erect strawmen? Why not just read the words I write and respond to them? Why impute all these bad motives?

I’m sure you know that conservatives are more charitable than liberals. I myself have done quite a bit of volunteer work in three major U.S. cities regarding homelessness and housing projects. These assumptions of yours are not only strange, but also false.

I know I am drifting around a bit, but this is a complex issue. It is not a simple thing to make the case that it is just or fair to provide housing for people. You have to step back and examine the world from a different perspective to see that it could or should be so. In other words, your logic is sound, but it means nothing unless I accept the implicit assertions that underlie it. If I make a different assertion at the bottom of the pyramid, as I did above, then the logic that stacks on that assertion leads to different conclusions about what is fair.

No, you’re merely claiming that unfortunate things are unfair and therefore should be paid for. Whether or not a natural disaster can be called unfair, it certainly isn’t unjust. Again, such claims are not justice claims and are not as strong as justice claims, and this needs to be recognized. If the house was destroyed because of arson then there is a justice claim. If not, there is not. Conflating justice and charity is simply a logical error (as is conflating justice and forced entry into an insurance contract).

We have the means...

This is proof that your arguments are not appeals to justice, but to something else like charity. That “we have the means” has no bearing on justice and injustice.

If you think it is unfortunate that Joe’s house has burned down then by all means donate or start a GoFundMe. You will probably get a lot of help, and the majority will come from conservatives. But don’t force people to pay for the house. There’s nothing right about that.

[Belindi]

Leontiskos wrote in reply to Chewy Brian:

If you think it is unfortunate that Joe’s house has burned down then by all means donate or start a GoFundMe. You will probably get a lot of help, and the majority will come from conservatives. But don’t force people to pay for the house. There’s nothing right about that.

Joe is a person in a society of persons. In societies there is not only effort to repair damage but also planning to repair inevitable future damage. What makes it possible to do both is taxation to fill a fund for repairing or preventing damage.

[chewybrian]

I’ve claimed that you are misunderstanding the fundamental distinction between justice and charity and conflating the two. Justice regards relations between persons. If someone harms another then justice establishes a debt. If someone receives benefits without paying taxes then an injustice is occurring. The kind of harm that justice is concerned with is interpersonal harm.

If justice is all that matters, then give everyone reparations to account for all the past injustices: the slavery, indentured servitude, slave wages, discrimination, denying rights to women, to different races or people with different religious or sexual preferences, the redlining and gerrymandering... Just fix all that and THEN you can apply your ideas of "justice" to future transactions.

Even if you could do all that, I still think it is a crap society that does not enshrine safeguards for its citizens. In the U.S., people live in constant fear that they will get sick or lose their job and lose everything through no fault of their own. The ones who are honest with themselves realize that these things can happen to anyone. I don't think it qualifies as "charity" to offer healthcare to everyone. Call it unjust if you want. I think it is the right thing to do, and I would want it to be done whether I thought I benefitted or not. I think everyone would benefit from living in a kinder society where people were not on the brink of disaster all the time.

[mystery]

Objectively another way to do this is if most ppl will live below the status they can afford and save something and even invest. Like the ants and the grasshopper story. So many are one week or one month from bankruptcy but living at the max luxury they can afford on credit.

anyone can do it but most will not. it is a very peaceful feeling to be able to choose every day what to do vs being required to do something so as to meet obligations or payments on credit. I could have made that choice at a much younger age, but I did not because it was important to "look" like something I was not. Only mental health or choice can put such a person to be homeless.

perhaps advertising the value of self-sufficiency instead of how cool we will be with the next gadget or the home with space we never use. why a family of four needs more than one bathroom... I understand that it is nice to have, but on credit?? If any problem with income can be homeless if the home is on credit. This all cycles back to that same old root cause stuff that is so annoying...

the greed that leads to money lending that leads to financial instability is part of the issue. This is done so that we/some can artificially increase status and rise in social standing. Therefore attracting more attention and interest from the opposite sex for men and jealousy of other women for women.

[Steve3007]

I know from previous conversations with them that GE Morton's views are (what I consider to be) extreme Libertarian and Terrapin Station's are a mix of Minarchist Libertarian and Socialist. So it's interesting to see those two interacting in the early pages of this topic. When they talk, they always seem to me to disagree more than I'd expect them to. I'd expect them to have at least some common ground, but I've never seen any evidence of it. Anyway that conversation seemed to dissolve quite quickly into conversations with others. I'm going to go back to the OP because I'd find it too difficult to dive in anywhere else.


In principle, the issue of living without having to have a formal claim (ownership or renting) over the land/building on/in which we live could be solved if the amount of usable land divided by the number of people was effectively infinite. In those circumstances we don't need the concepts of the husbandry of land and resources that tends to come with the abstract concept of ownership of that land. For a lot of human history, in a lot of cases, that's how it has seemed. We could just keep expanding into terra incognita. But, the earth being finite but unbounded, we ended up coming back to where we started. It didn't happen as quickly as Columbus, for one, thought it would, but it happened eventually.

The nomadic lifestyles that the human race evolved to adopt as we explored our planet still live on in the traditions of various groups, but as the global population increased they came more and more into conflict with the settled lifestyles, and the concept of land ownership, that first started to evolve with the invention of agriculture. So, to answer one of the questions in the OP:

So, could you practically live without owning or renting property?

It's increasingly difficult to do that, but it wouldn't be impossible. But the concept of husbandry would have to be successfully detached from the concept of ownership. Ownership tends to encourage husbandry because the owner knows that there is a high probability that they and their family/tribe will, due to the ownership, reap the rewards of the husbandry. So the land ownership concept is useful for that purpose. A sustainable system of people living on land to which they have no ownership or rental claim, in a crowded world (i.e. a world in which we can't just endlessly move on to virgin territory), would require either a deeply embedded tradition or an effectively enforced system of laws, causing people to look after the land that they're temporarily occupying. I've gathered from my limited knowledge of anthropological history that this kind of deeply embedded tradition has existed in some human communities in the past. But in modern societies it seems more likely that if it was going to be achieved at all, it would have to be by a system of laws, devised by a government and enforced by a judiciary and police. So there would have to be a system whereby large tracts of land are legally protected from any ownership claims and which anybody can use for any purpose, so long as they leave them as they find them. An extension of the national park concept.

[Steve3007]

My own anecdotal experience of travelers (modern inheritors of that nomadic tradition), and the experiences of most people I know, is that the tradition of respecting the land may well have existed in the past but doesn't seem to exist much now. i.e. they leave a horrible mess of rubbish and human waste behind them and the cost of cleaning it up has to be borne by others. That breeds resentment and wariness of them. So if the traveler tradition was going to be sustained, and maybe even welcomed by non-travelers, in a modern society of formal laws and limited available public land, some system of legal incentives would have to be in place. It's easy to see that devolving into something which would really just amount to charging the travelers rent.

[Steve3007]

On the question in the topic's title:

Is being homeless a crime / should it be?

No, it's not a crime, but, other things being equal, it's more difficult to be homeless and be non-criminal than it is to live in your own home and be non-criminal. As a general rule, in liberal (as opposed to totalitarian) societies, it's possible to live more or less as you please so long as you don't harm others, but in practice, the further your lifestyle deviates from the average for that society, the harder your life is. That's a simple consequence of the general principle of economy of scale. Same as the reason why your shoes will tend to be more expensive if your shoe size deviates significantly from the average.

[Sculptor1]

On the question in the topic's title:

Is being homeless a crime / should it be?

No, it's not a crime, but, other things being equal, it's more difficult to be homeless and be non-criminal than it is to live in your own home and be non-criminal. As a general rule, in liberal (as opposed to totalitarian) societies, it's possible to live more or less as you please so long as you don't harm others, but in practice, the further your lifestyle deviates from the average for that society, the harder your life is. That's a simple consequence of the general principle of economy of scale. Same as the reason why your shoes will tend to be more expensive if your shoe size deviates significantly from the average.

You know homelessness is not a choice???

[Pattern-chaser]

So, could you practically live without owning or renting property?

It's increasingly difficult to do that, but it wouldn't be impossible. But the concept of husbandry would have to be successfully detached from the concept of ownership. Ownership tends to encourage husbandry because the owner knows that there is a high probability that they and their family/tribe will, due to the ownership, reap the rewards of the husbandry. So the land ownership concept is useful for that purpose. A sustainable system of people living on land to which they have no ownership or rental claim, in a crowded world (i.e. a world in which we can't just endlessly move on to virgin territory), would require either a deeply embedded tradition or an effectively enforced system of laws, causing people to look after the land that they're temporarily occupying. I've gathered from my limited knowledge of anthropological history that this kind of deeply embedded tradition has existed in some human communities in the past. But in modern societies it seems more likely that if it was going to be achieved at all, it would have to be by a system of laws, devised by a government and enforced by a judiciary and police. So there would have to be a system whereby large tracts of land are legally protected from any ownership claims and which anybody can use for any purpose, so long as they leave them as they find them. An extension of the national park concept.

Surely it would be very easy to live on land which one does not own? The only stumbling block is the strange concept of ownership that we humans impose onto the situation. Any piece of land, however small, hosts billions and billions of living organisms that live on this land. That most of them are too small for human eyes to see is beside the point. Where is the logic in one species declaring its ownership of the land where so many other creatures live, and always have lived?

Indigenous Americans were apparently appalled at the very concept of owning land, when rapacious European invaders explained it to them. Now it's the emperor's new clothes. We have all become so used to the concept of ownership that it doesn't seem strange, but it should. Just think how vile it is to display a tortured corpse in public, in front of children, etc, etc. And yet, the crucified Christ is a common image, considered to be positive and friendly. We become inured to some very perverse things. Ownership might be one of them.

[chewybrian]

So, could you practically live without owning or renting property?

It's increasingly difficult to do that, but it wouldn't be impossible. But the concept of husbandry would have to be successfully detached from the concept of ownership. Ownership tends to encourage husbandry because the owner knows that there is a high probability that they and their family/tribe will, due to the ownership, reap the rewards of the husbandry. So the land ownership concept is useful for that purpose. A sustainable system of people living on land to which they have no ownership or rental claim, in a crowded world (i.e. a world in which we can't just endlessly move on to virgin territory), would require either a deeply embedded tradition or an effectively enforced system of laws, causing people to look after the land that they're temporarily occupying. I've gathered from my limited knowledge of anthropological history that this kind of deeply embedded tradition has existed in some human communities in the past. But in modern societies it seems more likely that if it was going to be achieved at all, it would have to be by a system of laws, devised by a government and enforced by a judiciary and police. So there would have to be a system whereby large tracts of land are legally protected from any ownership claims and which anybody can use for any purpose, so long as they leave them as they find them. An extension of the national park concept.

Surely it would be very easy to live on land which one does not own? The only stumbling block is the strange concept of ownership that we humans impose onto the situation. Any piece of land, however small, hosts billions and billions of living organisms that live on this land. That most of them are too small for human eyes to see is beside the point. Where is the logic in one species declaring its ownership of the land where so many other creatures live, and always have lived?

Indigenous Americans were apparently appalled at the very concept of owning land, when rapacious European invaders explained it to them. Now it's the emperor's new clothes. We have all become so used to the concept of ownership that it doesn't seem strange, but it should. Just think how vile it is to display a tortured corpse in public, in front of children, etc, etc. And yet, the crucified Christ is a common image, considered to be positive and friendly. We become inured to some very perverse things. Ownership might be one of them.

It's amazing how many self-declared would-be philosophers in this thread cannot unlock the 'normal' and try to be objective. They can't even imagine a world without the ownership of property. Yet, there is nothing inherently crazy or unworkable about structuring a world on that basis. To engage in philosophy, you have to at least be able to roll ideas like that around in your head, but it seems like it is too uncomfortable for some of us.

It's easy to lay down a bedrock assumption of how the world "should" be, and then stack logic upon it. It's evidently not so easy to think about whether there is any reason to accept the assumption as a foundation, whether others have accepted it or not. The golden rule, or Kant's categorical imperative, if you like, is about as close as you can get to an objective basis for morality. People will still argue about that one, though, or its implications. In reality, there is no objective basis for morality or for rights. Rather than laying down unfounded and extreme ideas as the suspect concrete foundations of rights, we need to work to compromise and do the best we can for the most people possible. Simple ideas will not lead us to better ways of dealing with such complex issues, and certainly will not help us to build a kinder world. Simple ideas with no provision for compromise are the foundation for war, not peace.

[Steve3007]

Surely it would be very easy to live on land which one does not own?

If the land is available and if nobody throws you off it, yes. The reason I said it was increasingly difficult is that the land is not available.

Where is the logic in one species declaring its ownership of the land where so many other creatures live, and always have lived?

As I said, one of the main rationales for the concept of ownership of land is the encouragement of responsible husbandry.

[Steve3007]

Of course land ownership, like all legal and ethical ideas, is an abstract concept that exists in the minds of humans. But in societies with finite land it's surely fairly obvious why it's a useful concept and why it tends to be groups such as native Americans and Aboriginal Australians (small number of people; large amount of land) who have historically not had much use for the concept. If I own a piece of land it simply means that if I'm doing something like growing my crops on it, if someone else wants to grow their crops and decides to kick me off it, I can call on some other people to try to stop them doing that. That means I have more confidence that if I, for example, rotate my crops each year so that the soil stays fertile, I and my family will see the benefit from that. So I have more incentive to do it. So it's more likely to get done.

Any piece of land, however small, hosts billions and billions of living organisms that live on this land. That most of them are too small for human eyes to see is beside the point. Where is the logic in one species declaring its ownership of the land where so many other creatures live, and always have lived?

I don't see why you talk about what other creatures do before asking for a reason for what humans do. What's the connection? Other creatures also don't use fire to cook food, live in houses and wear clothes. But that's irrelevant to the good reasons why we do those things isn't it?

[Steve3007]

They can't even imagine a world without the ownership of property.

I haven't followed this topic in detail. Just looked at your OP and some of the arguments made in the first few posts after that. (As I said earlier, I was interested in the short argument between GE Morton and TS). Is there a specific person who has shown that they can't imagine a world without the ownership of property?

[chewybrian]

They can't even imagine a world without the ownership of property.

I haven't followed this topic in detail. Just looked at your OP and some of the arguments made in the first few posts after that. (As I said earlier, I was interested in the short argument between GE Morton and TS). Is there a specific person who has shown that they can't imagine a world without the ownership of property?

GE has an entire philosophy of eternal, perfect property rights being the only path to justice. He conveniently ignores all the injustice that came along with gathering up ownership to begin with. Since it is impossible to undo those injustices and prevent future injustices, I say it is reasonable (just, if you like) to add some extra burdens to the people enjoying the property rights, and to meet some of the basic needs of the folks who don't enjoy the luxury of property ownership. He says my ideas amount to slavery.

However, the people in the societies that do just what I suggest report to be the happiest in the world, as I noted earlier. Actual socialists, not socialist in name only, enjoy their "slavery" more than we enjoy our "freedom".