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[Good_Egg]

As a friendly request, I ask that you please do avoid using the word "judgment" alone when discussing anything with me. Instead, use either the phrase "moral judgement" or "amoral judgement", so that I know what you mean.

Hi Scott,

I will do what I can to try to ensure mutual understanding.

One of the difficulties is that - as far as I can tell - we have different understandings of morality. The "moral" that you reject is not exactly the "moral" that I affirm.
Your notion of morality seems to equate to

...what's one's own religious or superstitious beliefs about it happen to be.

Which I identify with morality based on custom or on religious revelation. What I argue for is morality based on natural rights.

However, having said that, it should be possible to say something about consensuality without going too far into competing notions of morality.

You appear to be arguing that consensuality is a matter of observable fact which does not require any moral judgment (of either type).

I've put forward two separate challenges to that notion.

The first is about duress, about actions that are coerced by threat. I suggest that there are stronger threats and weaker threats - a whole spectrum from lethal violence to mere disapproval. I'm saying that logically - in order to classify actions as consensual/nonconsensual - one has to draw a line somewhere on that spectrum, a line between persuasion and coercion. Between the sort of threat that leaves you with "effectively no choice" so you do what you do not consent to do, and the sort of threat that leaves you with choices, however unpleasant.

That's a judgment. Not necessarily a moral judgment. If you are drafting a law against rape, you may choose whatever boundary you will, without logical contradiction. You might, for example, create a separate offence called something like "obtaining sexual favours by threat" and reserve "rape" for cases where one party is forced.

The second challenge is about who has to consent for an action to be deemed consensual. Whose will matters ? Again it is a judgment, with no logical necessity for any particular answer. If the law of your culture is that rape is a crime against the woman's father - that in order for the act to not be legally counted as rape her father has to consent but she doesn't - there's nothing logically wrong with that.

If we are saying that consensuality is a matter of law, then the government can pass a law saying that all lawful payments are deemed to be consensual. So the answer to the OP is that tax is consensual if the law says so.

If we're talking ethics, rather than law, then we cannot rely on the legal judgments (as to what constitutes consent and who can consent in any given situation) in any particular jurisdiction in defining consensuality. To say that marital rape, for example, is wrong (according to some particular code of ethics) because it is nonconsensual is to assign the right of consent to both of the two physical participants. And that is a nontrivial moral judgment.

(A strict utilitarian might deny both participants the right of consent, saying that both should participate if and only if this leads to a better outcome).

To give another example, one could believe it is extremely immoral for a conniving sadistic lesbian to seduce a married woman into cheating on her husband, but that doesn't make it coercive or non-consensual. It doesn't make it rape.

What makes it legally rape is what the law of the land says. What makes it morally rape in your eyes is what your code of morals says.

You seem to be asserting that you can somehow judge it to be not-rape without reference to any moral or legal code. I read such an assertion as being about "natural rights". If you mean something different, are you able to spell out what it is that you mean and how it is different?

Happy to engage with your examples, one at a time, and hoping you'll get around to returning the courtesy...

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Hi, Good_Egg,

Thank you for your most recent reply.

Your notion of morality seems to equate to

whatever one's own religious or superstitious beliefs about it happen to be.

Which I identify with morality based on custom or on religious revelation. What I argue for is morality based on natural rights.

As the terms are most commonly used to my understanding, I would include "morality based on natural rights" (and generally the notion of "natural rights" itself) within the category to which I was referring when I said "religious or superstitious beliefs".

In other words, the belief that there are some kind of "natural rights", especially with some corresponding "morality" and/or "moral law" that depends on them, is a religious and/or superstitious thing in which I don't believe and more importantly that I believe has absolutely nothing at all to do with consent and consensuality.

Whether or not sex between two people in consensual or not has absolutely nothing to do with whether some magic or superstitious "moral law" has been violated (i.e. whether or not some kind of sinful/immoral thing has occurred or not).

If we are saying that consensuality is a matter of law,

We're not.

If we're talking ethics, rather than law,

We're not.

Not necessarily a moral judgment.

Exactly.

To avoid confusion, when communicating with me, I politely ask you to avoid using the equivocal word "judgement" to refer to something that is not specifically a "moral judgement", as otherwise I won't know if you are talking about a moral judgement or an amoral judgement.

Instead, to help avoid misunderstandings, strawmans, and fallacies of equivocation, please use a word like "objective observation" or "subjective preference".

The second challenge is about who has to consent for an action to be deemed consensual. Whose will matters ?

Define "matters".

If it has anything to with morality or moral judgements (or any religious or superstitious beliefs), then I absolutely disagree with and reject your second challenge.

To give another example, one could believe it is extremely immoral for a conniving sadistic lesbian to seduce a married woman into cheating on her husband, but that doesn't make it coercive or non-consensual. It doesn't make it rape.

What makes it legally rape is what the law of the land says. What makes it morally rape in your eyes is what your code of morals says.

I am not talking about what makes it legally rape, and I am not talking about what makes it morally rape.

I am talking about what makes it rape (i.e. non-consensual sex), alegally and amorally speaking.

It would be similar to talking about what makes a person short versus tall, or a ball round versus not round, or a colored ball blue versus not blue. It's a descriptive statement about objective fact, not a prescriptive moral judgement or religious/superstitious discussion. It has absolutely nothing to do with morality.

Some balls are more obviously and agreeably blue, round, and short than others. It's quite possible that two people can disagree about whether a certain object is blue or not and whether it is round or not. That might draw the line between blue and not blue slightly differently, but that does not at all mean the drawing of the line between blue and not blue or round and not round has anything at all to do with morality, religion, or some other prescriptive superstition. Blueness and roundness is still purely amoral and descriptive.

You seem to be asserting that you can somehow [claim sex between two people is consensual (or not)] without reference to any moral or legal code.

Yes, exactly.

You seem to be asserting that you can somehow [claim sex between two people is consensual (or not)] without reference to any moral or legal code.

I read such an assertion as being about "natural rights".

Define "natural rights", as you use the term.

As I understand the term "natural rights" as it's typically used by others in my anecdotal experience, it is yet another way to reference some superstitious and/or religious belief in which I don't believe (i.e. some kind of superstitious "moral law" or such that defines what is immoral/sinful versus morally good and not sinful). If it's anything like that, then no I absolutely do not believe in that at all and do not think it has anything to do with what makes sex consensual or not.


Thank you,
Scott

[Good_Egg]

I am not talking about what makes it legally rape, and I am not talking about what makes it morally rape.

I am talking about what makes it rape (i.e. non-consensual sex), alegally and amorally speaking.

It would be similar to talking about what makes a person short versus tall, or a ball round versus not round, or a colored ball blue versus not blue. It's a descriptive statement about objective fact, not a prescriptive moral judgement or religious/superstitious discussion. It has absolutely nothing to do with morality.

You seem to be asserting that you can somehow [claim sex between two people is consensual (or not)] without reference to any moral or legal code.

Yes, exactly.

That doesn't make sense. Blueness and roundness are descriptive, are without inherent value. To say that an act is rape is prescriptive, is to say that it is legally or morally wrong. That a right is violated.

"Rape" is the name of a crime, like "exceeding the speed limit". You can of course nonjudgmentally observe that somebody is exceeding what you know the speed limit to be. But the speed limit has no objective existence prior to the law that creates it.

Prior to any law and prior to any moral intuition, you might nonjudgmentally observe that Alice did not give any indication of wanting to have sex with Bernard. But to say that she did not consent is to say more than that she didn't say yes. It is to say also that she had the right to say no. Which you cannot say prior to law and prior to an apprehension of natural law.

Otherwise you're reducing the notion of consent to "saying yes to". To wanting something and expressing that want.

Other people do things that I don't express a want that they should do. All the time. If I read a newspaper, I can say that I didn't want that to happen multiple times on every page.

But if I have a right to have something not happen and it happens, that's much more serious. And not the same thing.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Here is an Instagram Reel showing how statists view Prima Nocta.

Somehow, they think it's not rape, but consensual.

Same goes for what most of us call "legal marital rape". The statists claim it's consensual because it's legal.

[Good_Egg]

Somehow, they think it's not rape, but consensual.

Same goes for what most of us call "legal marital rape". The statists claim it's consensual because it's legal.

Hi Scott,

I assume you typed "marital" ? "Martial rape" would be soldiers pillaging a conquered city... The AI in the spellchecker isn't up to human level yet..

Agree with you that the statists are wrong. (Good word despite the spellchecker trying to change it to "statistics").

But they have at least grasped something. That it's only really meaningful to talk of consent where there is a right of consent (or a wrong of non-consent). They just mis-identify moral right with legal right.

Would you say that the sun rose non-consensually this morning ?

[Lagayascienza]

Either a person agrees to sex or they don't. If they don't, and if sex is forced on them without consent, then it's rape. And, in my book, it's rape whatever the any law or religion might say about it.

The question of whether taxation by non-local governments is consensual is probably hobbled by the fact that very few people who don't like paying tax will have thought much about what it would mean for national governments to be unable to collect sufficient revenue for essential services.

Of course, we could argue endlessly about what is essential but, at a bare minimum, I'd say that emergency services, the armed forces, health, education, social security, and an efficient bureaucracy are all essential services without which a modern fully functional democracy could not exist. And a modern, fully functional democracy is the only sort of system I'd want to live under. So I’m ok with paying my taxes.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Of course, we could argue endlessly about what is essential

Hi, Lagayscienza,

This topic is not about whether or not taxes are essential.

This topic is not about whether non-consensual non-defensive violence (e.g. violent robbery) is essential.

This topic is solely about whether they are consensual.

If you want to discuss whether violent robbery (e.g. taxes) is essential or necessary, please do feel free to make a new forum topic to discuss that question.


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

That it's only really meaningful to talk of consent where there is a right of consent (or a wrong of non-consent). They just mis-identify moral right with legal right.

Hi, Good_Egg,

The above sentences are incoherent to me, namely because I don't believe in any kind of "moral right", whatever that would even mean. For more on that, please see:

Topics about the dangerous superstition of 'shoulds' and 'oughts' and other resentful, moralizing judgementalism


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

[LuckyR]

Say that a town has several restaurants. One of them is a traditional restaurant where customers select food, consume it and pay the cashier and if they don't pay the security guard detains them and hands them over to the police. Is the restaurant practicing "violence"? Would it matter if there was no security guard and the dine'ndasher ran out the door? Are the customers "consenting" to be charged when they choose and eat the food? Would there be a difference if instead of a cashier, there was a coffee can with a sign telling customers to leave the cash they owed in the can?

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Do you think Martin Luther King consented to being in jail?

Do you think the jailing of Martin Luther King was consensual?

I believe that members of the jurisdiction of the police have "given" group consent to the police/prosecutors fulfilling their job responsibilities by using those identical services each and every day. So in a word: yes.

Surprising.

Say that a town has several restaurants. One of them is a traditional restaurant where customers select food, consume it and pay the cashier and if they don't pay the security guard detains them and hands them over to the police. Is the restaurant practicing "violence"? Would it matter if there was no security guard and the dine'ndasher ran out the door? Are the customers "consenting" to be charged when they choose and eat the food? Would there be a difference if instead of a cashier, there was a coffee can with a sign telling customers to leave the cash they owed in the can?

Hi, LuckyR,

If the jailing of Martin Luther King was consensual, then it follows that taxes presumably are too. So I won't discuss or debate the issue of taxation with someone who believes the jailing of Martin Luther King was consensual. Accordingly, since you believe the jailing of Martin Luther King was consensual, let's instead discuss that at:

Did Martin Luther King consent to being arrested and jailed?


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

[Sy Borg]

I'm a bit confused by this issue. When we are born, we are signed up to a social contract whether we like it or not. If you attempt to decline, there will be punishment. Taxes are inherently non-consensual, and yes, one ends up paying for a lot of stuff one doesn't use and it is often distributed to shysters and thieves, large and small. All societies are inherently coercive, some more than others.

One can only hope that some of the tax money goes to general infrastructure and to help those who are genuinely in need. It's possibly a naive hope at a time when most money comes, not from tax, but is magicked up by the banks, and attributed as a debt for everyone.

As a general principle, the less one has to do with governments and their associated o̶l̶i̶g̶a̶r̶c̶h̶s̶ corporations, the better one's life is. I render unto Caesar his taxes and the remainder goes to family.

[Lagayascienza]

Of course, we could argue endlessly about what is essential

Hi, Lagayscienza,

This topic is not about whether or not taxes are essential.

This topic is not about whether non-consensual non-defensive violence (e.g. violent robbery) is essential.

This topic is solely about whether they are consensual.

If you want to discuss whether violent robbery (e.g. taxes) is essential or necessary, please do feel free to make a new forum topic to discuss that question.


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

I see what you mean, Scott. I'll try to reformulate my response so that I clearly address the issue of whether non-local taxation is consenusal or non-consensual.

It is true that we are not born agreeing to be taxed by the national government. At birth we are in no position to consent to anything. But, as we grow into adulthood and think about the reasons for taxation by the national government, we may come to believe that taxation is essential for the reasons I've mentioned. And given a belief that such taxation is essential if we want a certain sort of society, we do in fact give quasi-consent by feeling ok about, and actually paying, our taxes. That is the position I find myself in. I consent to paying my taxes because I believe it is necessary.

I understand that some people do not consent to being taxed and pay only to avoid punishement. That is up to them. Others who believe strongly enough that taxation is robbery are free to refuse to pay their taxes and suffer to the consequences. Alternatively, they can try, in a democracy, to organize politically so as to change the government to one that will not tax them. That has never worked in any large society that I know of. It has not worked because without taxation a large society would fall apart. The majority of people understand that. And so they give implicit consent consent to being taxed by paying their taxes and, if they complain at all, it is only about how taxation revenue is applied by governments rather than about taxation per se.

In summary, I believe that most people consent, at least implicitly, to taxation by the national government because they believe such taxation is necessary.

[LuckyR]

Do you think Martin Luther King consented to being in jail?

Do you think the jailing of Martin Luther King was consensual?

I believe that members of the jurisdiction of the police have "given" group consent to the police/prosecutors fulfilling their job responsibilities by using those identical services each and every day. So in a word: yes.

Surprising.

Say that a town has several restaurants. One of them is a traditional restaurant where customers select food, consume it and pay the cashier and if they don't pay the security guard detains them and hands them over to the police. Is the restaurant practicing "violence"? Would it matter if there was no security guard and the dine'ndasher ran out the door? Are the customers "consenting" to be charged when they choose and eat the food? Would there be a difference if instead of a cashier, there was a coffee can with a sign telling customers to leave the cash they owed in the can?

Hi, LuckyR,

If the jailing of Martin Luther King was consensual, then it follows that taxes presumably are too. So I CAN'T discuss or debate the issue of taxation with someone who believes the jailing of Martin Luther King was consensual. Accordingly, since you believe the jailing of Martin Luther King was consensual, let's instead discuss that at:

Did Martin Luther King consent to being arrested and jailed?


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

Fixed it for you.

[Good_Egg]

That it's only really meaningful to talk of consent where there is a right of consent (or a wrong of non-consent). They just mis-identify moral right with legal right.

Hi, Good_Egg,

The above sentences are incoherent to me, namely because I don't believe in any kind of "moral right", whatever that would even mean.

Seems to me that the philosophical position that moral language is meaningless is a viable one. So I'll try to refrain from addressing to you remarks that are meaningless to you.

The point I was making remains. Which is also about meaninglessness, as it happens.

The sun rises in the east, without your or my consent. Bears crap in the woods, without your or my consent. Billions of humans are born, marry, reproduce, and die, without your or my consent.

Non-consent is only worthy of note where there is some sort of expectation or possibility of consent.

Seems to me that the question of consent only really arises where a person - a being with a mind and language (I think the tradition on these boards is to label him Alfie, for ease of reference) - does something affecting the property/interests (in some sense) of another person (Bruno). At which point we can ask how far Bruno is willing for Alfie to do that action.

Within that framework we can ask meaningful questions:

- is consent binary (yes/no, it exists or it doesn't) ? Or does it make sense to talk of consent that is partial or conditional ?

- what property/interests (in this sense) does a person have ?

- does it make any difference if either Alfie or Bruno is not an individual person but is a group of persons ?

- if Bruno's internal state of willingness does not exactly correspond with the willingness he expresses in language to Alfie, to which does the notion of consent relate ?

Outside of that framework, "consent" seems pretty meaningless...

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Taxes are inherently non-consensual,

I'm glad we agree.