Philosophy Discussion Forums

Leontiskos wrote: ↑August 28th, 2021, 2:34 pm I am falling behind in this thread and my time is a bit short at the moment, but here is a short reply. In general I think GE Morton is offering excellent arguments all throughout.

chewybrian wrote: ↑August 27th, 2021, 4:55 am

Leontiskos wrote: ↑August 26th, 2021, 7:16 pm So are you claiming that interpersonal justice can't exist without, say, paying reparations to blacks for slavery that happened 150 years ago? What is your argument here?

Now, I can be more just or less just in my interactions with others one on one. I can treat people well and fairly, but I am only able to do so within an inherently unfair system.

First, let's suppose for the sake of argument that what you say is true: the "deck is stacked" against some demographics. We could have a society of just interactions and laws in a "stacked-deck" society, or in a society with no inequalities that people are born into. My point is that even if you think the second is better, the first is still good. For people to act justly towards one another regardless of their relative advantages or disadvantages is a good thing. It is still good even though we don't live in your "ideal" society. The classical conception of rights and law establishes a form of equality and mutual respect that would not exist without it. A basic error of progressivism is this fallacy which says that if the state of society is not perfect then it is not good and must be overthrown.

Second, just because it is not perfect does not mean it is not good. It is easy to take a glass-half-empty approach and focus on things like wealth disparity, but what if you looked at things like absolute wealth? Access to food, clean water, shelter? Starvation? Automobiles, television, and internet? Objectively speaking the average western citizen enjoys a life far beyond what kings enjoyed 150 years ago. The whole "stacked deck caste system society" claim is not only remarkably pessimistic, it is also factually and historically false.

You are correct in one sense. What we have in the U.S. is not the worst of all possible worlds by any stretch. But, it is not difficult to see that it could be better, and to see how it could be better. The example is the one to which I pointed, which exists in Finland, Denmark and such. They are not actual socialists, but capitalists enjoying the growth which that system provides. But, critically, they have socialist policies mixed in to address some of the inherent inequities, to help some of the folks who fall through the cracks and laws to protect the environment, even at the expense of maximum economic progress. It seems to be as good a system as we could muster until people reach a higher state of enlightenment. It allows freedom and prosperity with the comfort of some security nets like health care for all and some shared expenses, like good public transportation.

I did not intend to argue that they were real socialists in the sense of the Soviet Union. I only used that phrase to poke fun at Morton, and those who agree with him. That is the term that the MAGA folks and Ayn Rand libertarians often use for government run health care, public housing, even public transportation.

That attitude displayed by Morton is a huge roadblock to real progress. We won't build a just and sustainable society when every interaction between people is an arms length financial transaction. The equation we should be using is not one to maximize wealth for those who want to chase it, but to maximize happiness and well-being for everyone. Wealth is a means, and can never be the end itself.

When we forget that, we might still build wealth, but we also sustain hate and intolerance and live in fear with unjust disparities in wealth and opportunities. We will ruin the planet because every step down that path turns a short-term profit, and we will justify all kinds of exploitation and war when it is good for the bottom line.

Steve3007 wrote: ↑August 29th, 2021, 7:31 am When this topic deviated slightly onto the nature of property law, and the concept of the legal ownership of land, I think one thing that might have happened was the blurring of the distinction between laws in the legislative sense and laws which attempt to describe what is ontologically the case (natural laws).

As I see it, laws in the legislative sense don't say anything at all about the ontological status of things like land. A law which says "Bob owns this piece of land" says nothing about that land. That's not what it's for. It's purpose is to attempt to encourage some human behaviours and discourage others, as with all laws in the legislative sense. But I suppose the form of a sentence like "Bob owns this piece of land" or "This land is Bob's" superficially looks as though it's saying something about the land, because it resembles sentences like "This land is fertile" or "This land is rocky", which do say something about the land itself.

I don't sense anyone is struggling to understand that ownership of an item is not a physical property of the item, like color or shape. But, I do see people struggling to see that a legal claim of ownership has only loose ties to morality, and even looser ties to fact. We may have (allegedly) tried to base our laws on moral principles, but what is the basis of moral principles? They don't begin with verifiable facts about the properties of things. Rather, they begin with desires and fears. The whole thing is a castle in the swamp, and we must rebuild it indefinitely and try to make progress even as it is not easy to know when progress is made.

chewybrian wrote:I don't sense anyone is struggling to understand that ownership of an item is not a physical property of the item, like color or shape.

It was mostly my conversation with Pattern-chaser which gave me that impression, but I could be wrong.

But, I do see people struggling to see that a legal claim of ownership has only loose ties to morality, and even looser ties to fact.

It's hard to say to what extent I agree with you because it depends how loose. Clearly there is at least some connection between morality and legal claims of property ownership, as there is between morality and most laws.

We may have (allegedly) tried to base our laws on moral principles, but what is the basis of moral principles? They don't begin with verifiable facts about the properties of things. Rather, they begin with desires and fears.

Yes, of course I agree. Moral principles begin with the things we want (desires). Specifically, the things we want people to do. I don't think our views as to whether the legally recognized ownership of land is a good or bad thing change that. People who think that legally recognized ownership of land is a good thing presumably do so because they think it helps to achieve their desires; the ways in which they want people to behave.

In your arguments with GE Morton, it seems clear to me what his moral axioms are because, even though I disagree a lot with him on a lot of this stuff, he's very consistent in his minarchist libertarian views. So it's pretty clear what the desires are which form the axioms of his moral stance.

LuckyR wrote: ↑August 29th, 2021, 1:25 am
Unemployment insurance doesn't require quotation marks since everyone knows it's insurance. Welfare is more similar to than different from unemployment insurance (everyone pays taxes over a long time and a few receive benefits when an unfortunate event occurs), and it is nothing like a charity (since everyone including those who receive benefits doesn't pay into a charity).

Unemployment "insurance" is not really insurance either; it is another charity. "Insurance" is a risk pool wherein each covered person pays a premium to cover losses from a certain type of risk. With unemployment "insurance," the premiums are paid, not by the persons covered, but by their employers (although in 3 US states employees also pay a small portion of the premium). Hence it is another forced charity.

As to the thread, whether a condition is a crime or not is a legal, not a moral issue.

The title of the thread is, "Is being homeless a crime / should it be?" The "should it be" part is a moral question.

Belindi wrote: ↑August 29th, 2021, 4:42 am
But who other than the state will look after needy people?

Whoever is concerned with with that matter and judges that at least some of those needy deserve help.

The churches can no longer do it, and private charity is unfair to donors and inadequate for recipients.

Whether it is inadequate to meet the needs of those deserving of help is an open question. Why is it unfair to donors?

We force would-be criminals to be civilised, and sometimes force is needed to make apathetic people to be civilised.

We don't force anyone to be civilized; we (justifiably) apply force to those who are not. If all people have equal moral status, i.e., none is a priori the slave of another, then force may be exerted by one moral agent against another only:

1. To prevent an agent from inflicting loss or injury on another, or
2. To defend against an attempt by one agent to inflict loss or injury upon another, or
3. To secure restitution from a person who has inflicted loss or injury upon another.

Steve3007 wrote: ↑August 29th, 2021, 7:31 am When this topic deviated slightly onto the nature of property law, and the concept of the legal ownership of land, I think one thing that might have happened was the blurring of the distinction between laws in the legislative sense and laws which attempt to describe what is ontologically the case (natural laws).

As I see it, laws in the legislative sense don't say anything at all about the ontological status of things like land. A law which says "Bob owns this piece of land" says nothing about that land. That's not what it's for. Its purpose is to attempt to encourage some human behaviours and discourage others, as with all laws in the legislative sense. But I suppose the form of a sentence like "Bob owns this piece of land" or "This land is Bob's" superficially looks as though it's saying something about the land, because it resembles sentences like "This land is fertile" or "This land is rocky", which do say something about the land itself.

Some good points here. But is it not the case that our legislation confers on Bob the 'right' to do more or less as he chooses with the land that our laws say he 'owns'? That seems to contradict the good sense you have written above, doesn't it?

Steve3007 wrote: ↑August 29th, 2021, 7:31 am When this topic deviated slightly onto the nature of property law, and the concept of the legal ownership of land, I think one thing that might have happened was the blurring of the distinction between laws in the legislative sense and laws which attempt to describe what is ontologically the case (natural laws).

As I see it, laws in the legislative sense don't say anything at all about the ontological status of things like land. A law which says "Bob owns this piece of land" says nothing about that land. That's not what it's for. It's purpose is to attempt to encourage some human behaviours and discourage others, as with all laws in the legislative sense. But I suppose the form of a sentence like "Bob owns this piece of land" or "This land is Bob's" superficially looks as though it's saying something about the land, because it resembles sentences like "This land is fertile" or "This land is rocky", which do say something about the land itself.

Karl Marx claimed tht capitalists try to misdefine property rights as relationships between people and inanimate objects. IN reality, property rights are relationships between one person and other people vis a vis the inamimate objects. This is obvious, when one thinks about it. What else can property be? If you own a house you control the movement of other people vis a vis your house and yard (you don't control the house at all -- it needs a paint job unless you paint it.)

But someone of GE Morton's (or Karl Marx's) bent might say, "The legal right of one person to control another person's right of free movement is a form of slavery! Therefore all property is a form of slavery." (OK, Morton would say this about taxation, not property, but the comparison between both things and slavery is equally shaky.) Once we recognize that property rights (like other rights) are culturally constiuted rather than "natural", we can see them more clearly, and seeing them more clearly allows us to regulate them more justly.

Pattern-chaser wrote:Some good points here. But is it not the case that our legislation confers on Bob the 'right' to do more or less as he chooses with the land that our laws say he 'owns'? That seems to contradict the good sense you have written above, doesn't it?

No, I don't think our legislation does say that. But if it did say that we could change it without necessarily having to abolish the entire concept of the ownership of land. Laws relating to the ownership of land, like any laws, can say whatever we want them to say. They could say "Bob owns this land and he therefore has the right to evict all the bugs and worms that live there and concrete it over" or they could say "Bob owns this land but he must let the bugs and worms stay, and protect them, and not concrete it over" or it could say anything else. As I said before, I don't know of any ownership of land laws (at least in this country) which allow the owner to do whatever they want with it. There is certainly a lot of land, for example, that is privately owned but on which the owner is not allowed to build and on which he/she must retain rights of way. I went walking in some of it last week (in the Yorkshire Dales). So I don't think there's anything especially bad, in itself, about the concept of land ownership.

Ecurb wrote:Karl Marx claimed tht capitalists try to misdefine property rights as relationships between people and inanimate objects. IN reality, property rights are relationships between one person and other people vis a vis the inamimate objects. This is obvious, when one thinks about it. What else can property be?

Yes, laws about property rights, like all laws, are statements of a groups of humans' determination to try to encourage particular behaviours and/or discourage other particular behaviours in another group of humans.

If you own a house you control the movement of other people vis a vis your house and yard (you don't control the house at all -- it needs a paint job unless you paint it.)

You could say you don't really control those people as such. Owning a house just means that if you don't like those other people being in that house you can call on a bunch of other people to do things to them to reduce their incentive to want to be there. And those other people have written down on a piece of paper that they're going to do that.

But someone of GE Morton's (or Karl Marx's) bent might say, "The legal right of one person to control another person's right of free movement is a form of slavery! Therefore all property is a form of slavery." (OK, Morton would say this about taxation, not property, but the comparison between both things and slavery is equally shaky.)

I suspect GE Morton (and others with similar views on this issue, like, for example, Scott) wouldn't say that taxation is slavery but they would say that it is robbery. Scott devoted at least a couple of topics to that one.

Once we recognize that property rights (like other rights) are culturally constituted rather than "natural", we can see them more clearly, and seeing them more clearly allows us to regulate them more justly.

This is where I think people can think they disagree when they might not, due to semantic issues. There are natural rights and there are legal rights. There is a history of seeing natural rights as analogous to natural laws and of seeing natural laws (and therefore natural rights) as existing independently of people's minds, and therefore as not being "culturally constituted" as you've put it there. Clearly all of these rights are abstract concepts in people's minds and are, as you put it, culturally constituted. They don't exist as properties of the extramental world. But that doesn't stop us from drawing a distinction between those two kinds of rights. When GE Morton has described that distinction before, I haven't disagreed with him.

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑August 29th, 2021, 11:19 am
Some good points here. But is it not the case that our legislation confers on Bob the 'right' to do more or less as he chooses with the land that our laws say he 'owns'?

No. Laws don't confer rights, other than legal rights (fiat rights, or "frights"), which per se have no moral significance, being arbitrary. They may have moral significance if they merely codify natural and common rights, which exist prior to the enactment of any laws and have an objective and morally defensible basis.

Some laws may indeed impose restrictions on the use of land (or any other property one might own). If those restrictions prohibit uses of property than would inflict loss or injury on other moral agents, then they are morally defensible. No natural or common right to property embraces such uses.

Ecurb wrote: ↑August 29th, 2021, 11:21 am
Karl Marx claimed tht capitalists try to misdefine property rights as relationships between people and inanimate objects. IN reality, property rights are relationships between one person and other people vis a vis the inamimate objects.

Property rights (indeed, all rights) do not denote relationships among people, but they do assume a social context. For Crusoe alone on his island the concept would be moot (until Friday arrives). Each person's rights impose constraints on the other people in that social setting, but calling those constraints "relationships," or saying that they establish relationships, would be a misuse of that term, even though it is a very broad term. That I am constrained from murdering my neighbor doesn't mean that I have a relationship with him.

"Rights" does, however, denote a specific, well-defined relationship between a person and the thing to which he claims a right, an historical, empirically verifiable relationship, namely, that of being the first possessor of the thing claimed. If that relationship does not exist, neither does the claimed right.

But someone of GE Morton's (or Karl Marx's) bent might say, "The legal right of one person to control another person's right of free movement is a form of slavery! Therefore all property is a form of slavery." (OK, Morton would say this about taxation, not property, but the comparison between both things and slavery is equally shaky.) Once we recognize that property rights (like other rights) are culturally constiuted rather than "natural", we can see them more clearly, and seeing them more clearly allows us to regulate them more justly.

It would be helpful if you would refrain from attributing to me claims I've never made, and ignoring the definitions I've given for the terms I use. Taxation is neither slavery nor robbery, as long as it is paying for government services from which the taxpayer benefits. "Natural rights" is simply a term for one class of rights, i.e., rights to one's natural possessions, such as one's life, body, various abilities, etc. --- things one brings with one into the world and of which one is inarguably the first possessor. They have the same moral status as "common" rights (rights to things one acquires after arriving in the world).

GE Morton wrote: ↑August 29th, 2021, 1:25 pm

Ecurb wrote: ↑August 29th, 2021, 11:21 am
Karl Marx claimed tht capitalists try to misdefine property rights as relationships between people and inanimate objects. IN reality, property rights are relationships between one person and other people vis a vis the inamimate objects.

Property rights (indeed, all rights) do not denote relationships among people, but they do assume a social context. For Crusoe alone on his island the concept would be moot (until Friday arrives). Each person's rights impose constraints on the other people in that social setting, but calling those constraints "relationships," or saying that they establish relationships, would be a misuse of that term, even though it is a very broad term. That I am constrained from murdering my neighbor doesn't mean that I have a relationship with him.

"Rights" does, however, denote a specific, well-defined relationship between a person and the thing to which he claims a right, an historical, empirically verifiable relationship, namely, that of being the first possessor of the thing claimed. If that relationship does not exist, neither does the claimed right.

But someone of GE Morton's (or Karl Marx's) bent might say, "The legal right of one person to control another person's right of free movement is a form of slavery! Therefore all property is a form of slavery." (OK, Morton would say this about taxation, not property, but the comparison between both things and slavery is equally shaky.) Once we recognize that property rights (like other rights) are culturally constiuted rather than "natural", we can see them more clearly, and seeing them more clearly allows us to regulate them more justly.

It would be helpful if you would refrain from attributing to me claims I've never made, and ignoring the definitions I've given for the terms I use. Taxation is neither slavery nor robbery, as long as it is paying for government services from which the taxpayer benefits. "Natural rights" is simply a term for one class of rights, i.e., rights to one's natural possessions, such as one's life, body, various abilities, etc. --- things one brings with one into the world and of which one is inarguably the first possessor. They have the same moral status as "common" rights (rights to things one acquires after arriving in the world).

I don't feel like looking through this endless thread for the precise evidence, but my memory is that you claimed that forcing people to work for others (i.e. taxation for the purpose of welfare, or food stamps, or housing for the homeless) resembles slavery. Of course you are right. Ownership of property ALSO resembles slavery, because it allows one person to control the movements of another person.

Both my claim about property and your claim about taxation are "dissembling" -- which is a form of prevarication. That's because lots of things resemble slavery, but we cannot assume that they are wicked because of the resemblance. Slaves (for example) ate with wooden spoons. But who would say, "Eating with wooden spoons is like being a slave."? Or, if someone did say it, could we assume that making people eat with wooden spoons is somehow evil because it resembles slavery?

In addition, your criticism of my use of "should" is ridiculous given your arbitrary and slanted "definitions". One's "natural possessions" are neither "natural" nor "possessions" except in that ownership is culturally defined and constituted. Although you claim that this is a mere "definition", it is not. Instead it is an argument, hidden as a "definition". Once again, this contitutes dissembling. You mean (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) that certain things SHOULD be considered "natural possessions". This would be a reasonable position, however much others might disagree. When you say that certain things ARE natural possessions, by definition, you are using the word "natural" to give moral credence to a position which can be reasonably held only through argument, not through assertion and "definition". That's why I 've accused you of prevarication (in case you haven't figured it out).

chewybrian wrote: ↑August 29th, 2021, 8:11 am

Leontiskos wrote: ↑August 28th, 2021, 2:34 pm I am falling behind in this thread and my time is a bit short at the moment, but here is a short reply. In general I think GE Morton is offering excellent arguments all throughout.

chewybrian wrote: ↑August 27th, 2021, 4:55 am

Leontiskos wrote: ↑August 26th, 2021, 7:16 pm So are you claiming that interpersonal justice can't exist without, say, paying reparations to blacks for slavery that happened 150 years ago? What is your argument here?

Now, I can be more just or less just in my interactions with others one on one. I can treat people well and fairly, but I am only able to do so within an inherently unfair system.

First, let's suppose for the sake of argument that what you say is true: the "deck is stacked" against some demographics. We could have a society of just interactions and laws in a "stacked-deck" society, or in a society with no inequalities that people are born into. My point is that even if you think the second is better, the first is still good. For people to act justly towards one another regardless of their relative advantages or disadvantages is a good thing. It is still good even though we don't live in your "ideal" society. The classical conception of rights and law establishes a form of equality and mutual respect that would not exist without it. A basic error of progressivism is this fallacy which says that if the state of society is not perfect then it is not good and must be overthrown.

Second, just because it is not perfect does not mean it is not good. It is easy to take a glass-half-empty approach and focus on things like wealth disparity, but what if you looked at things like absolute wealth? Access to food, clean water, shelter? Starvation? Automobiles, television, and internet? Objectively speaking the average western citizen enjoys a life far beyond what kings enjoyed 150 years ago. The whole "stacked deck caste system society" claim is not only remarkably pessimistic, it is also factually and historically false.

You are correct in one sense. What we have in the U.S. is not the worst of all possible worlds by any stretch. But, it is not difficult to see that it could be better, and to see how it could be better. The example is the one to which I pointed, which exists in Finland, Denmark and such. They are not actual socialists, but capitalists enjoying the growth which that system provides. But, critically, they have socialist policies mixed in to address some of the inherent inequities, to help some of the folks who fall through the cracks and laws to protect the environment, even at the expense of maximum economic progress. It seems to be as good a system as we could muster until people reach a higher state of enlightenment. It allows freedom and prosperity with the comfort of some security nets like health care for all and some shared expenses, like good public transportation.

Like I said earlier, the reason the Nordic countries do well is because of their lack of pluralism. The strong ethnic insularity of those countries is presumably not what you would understand as being “enlightened.” It is the mindset that if such benefits accrue to insiders then it is well and good, but if they accrue to outsiders then there is a big problem. Implementing those policies in the pluralistic U.S. would be very different, as such common good policies are directly related to group identity and cohesiveness. It seems that if pluralism increases in the Nordic countries their strong welfare state will begin to fracture.

chewybrian wrote: ↑August 29th, 2021, 8:11 amThat attitude displayed by Morton is a huge roadblock to real progress. We won't build a just and sustainable society when every interaction between people is an arms length financial transaction. The equation we should be using is not one to maximize wealth for those who want to chase it, but to maximize happiness and well-being for everyone. Wealth is a means, and can never be the end itself.

When we forget that, we might still build wealth, but we also sustain hate and intolerance and live in fear with unjust disparities in wealth and opportunities. We will ruin the planet because every step down that path turns a short-term profit, and we will justify all kinds of exploitation and war when it is good for the bottom line.

Now you’re introducing a number of other considerations, including exploitation, war, ecological impact, and a critique of capitalism itself. I am not going to try to engage of all these diffuse topics, but I will say that just because there is a problem does not mean that the solution you have identified is the correct one. These are quite complex problems and simple solutions will probably turn out to be inadequate. Churchill’s quip about democracy may well also apply to capitalism: it is the worst economic system, except for all the others that have been tried.

I think Morton’s posts are excellent, but even if you disagree with him you have to admit that he is very clear and he has laid out a comprehensive groundwork for his theory. I think his detractors have failed in both of these areas, especially the second. They have only attempted to give counterarguments to his theory without putting forth any alternative of their own. This is inevitably because a system focused on the common good rather than individual rights, or one based on charity rather than justice, would be very hard to explain and defend. Such theories begin to break down with the slightest attempt at elucidation or probing.

Ecurb wrote: ↑August 29th, 2021, 2:03 pm
I don't feel like looking through this endless thread for the precise evidence, but my memory is that you claimed that forcing people to work for others (i.e. taxation for the purpose of welfare, or food stamps, or housing for the homeless) resembles slavery. Of course you are right. Ownership of property ALSO resembles slavery, because it allows one person to control the movements of another person.

*Sigh*. Another attempt to re-define a common word. Er, no, "Slavery" does not consist in "controlling the movements of other people." Not only are there many cases where controlling the movements of other people is perfectly legitimate --- a woman resisting a rapist, a supervisor directing his employees, a sergeant leading his squad, a cop arresting a suspect, a parent restraining an errant child, etc. --- that is simply not the meaning of "slavery." Slavery is forcing someone to work for the benefit of another.

"2. the condition of being owned by another person and forced to work for them
2a. the condition of being forced to work very hard for another person, often in very bad conditions and without pay."

https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dic ... an/slavery

Please try to present arguments that don't rely on Newspeak.

In addition, your criticism of my use of "should" is ridiculous given your arbitrary and slanted "definitions". One's "natural possessions" are neither "natural" nor "possessions" except in that ownership is culturally defined and constituted.

Wow. That is almost as silly as your claim that there is no reason why merit should be involved in determining ownership of property. One's life and body are not natural possessions? Are you now assuming some Newspeak meanings for "natural" and "to possess"? Do I need to cite the dictionary definitions of those terms?

GE Morton wrote: ↑August 27th, 2021, 8:11 pm

Gertie wrote: ↑August 26th, 2021, 1:56 pm
This is the problem when you treat something like ''Natural Rights'' as if it is an ''objective'' foundation which can't be questioned in any circumstance, no matter the consequences. Firstly, it's not objective it's just something somebody made up, like any other right, and secondly if it causes unnecessary harms in some circs you have no failsafe.

Now you might take the position, as some Libertarians do, that individual freedom is the correct moral foundation which all Oughts must flow from. In which case, you're arguing for a moral foundation which takes no account of harms to others. Or if you start caveating your moral foundation of individual freedom to take account of harm to others, then its not really your foundation.

The advantage of a foundation like ''The wellbeing of conscious creatures'' is it not only gives you a basis for considering what Rights are appropriate, it allows you to check that in practice any particular Right is meeting your overall foundational moral goal. If it isn't, then you can re-think, because the Right isn't an end in itself, your foundation is.

If by "some libertarians" you mean me, I'm mystified, Gertie, as to why you would claim, despite the extended exchanges we've had, that rights are the "foundation" of morality, or that "individual freedom" is, when I've given that foundation many times, and neither of those is it.

That "foundation," as you call it, is the axiom, "Develop principles and devise rules governing interactions between moral agents in a social setting which allow all agents to maximize their welfare." I take that to be the underlying aim of most moral theories and systems over the centuries, and also to be equivalent to your "[promote] the well-being of conscious creatures" maxim (though there may be disagreement as to the extent to which moral agents and conscious creatures overlap).

Rights, as classically understood, are not the "foundation" of a rational morality. They are a means of implementing it. Saying someone has a "right" to something merely means that he acquired that thing without inflicting loss or injury on another person, which would violate that axiom. I.e., he acquired it righteously. The first possession principle is accepted as the determinant of rights because it is empirically verifiable and because first possessors per force will have inflicted no loss or injury on other moral agents in acquiring the thing to which they claim a right.

Freedom, too, is an implementing condition for the axiom, not the "foundation" of morality. Persons can maximize their welfare only to the extent they are free to act. It is also entailed by a second postulate, the postulate of Equal Agency, which asserts that all moral agents have equal status in the eyes of the theory. Equality entails liberty, because any restriction upon the liberties of one agent by another, as long as the former is not himself violating the axiom, immediately establishes a master/slave relationship between the two, wherein the former asserts or exerts dominion over the latter.

And if your foundation is the welfare of conscious creatures, you can acknowledge that individuals can have somtimes contradictory notions of flourishing which means some rights to individual freedoms is appropriate, while also acknowledging that basic welfare needs are also necessary to flourish, and rights are appropriate there too. It's a negotiation and compromise which won't achieve perfection for each individual, because we're all different, but it gives you a rule of thumb to guide you.

What constitutes welfare, "basic needs," or "flourishing" is subjective and idiosyncratic. Per my theory "welfare" is defined simply as, "the extent to which an agent is able to pursue his interests and satisfy his desires." I agree, of course, that for most people, adequate food, shelter, good health, etc., will be prerequisites for pursuing their interests and satisfying their desires. But for many, if not most, people, enabling (most) others to pursue their interests and satisfy their desires is not a desire or interest high on their own priority lists, and forcing them to surrender a portion of their time, talents, and efforts to that cause is a prima facie violation of the Equal Agency postulate and hampers their ability to maximize their own welfare, in violation of the axiom. To justify it you will need some additional principle that does not contradict the first two, or a different foundation entirely.

You know my views on the moral system you've devised GE, they haven't changed. You're far more articulate than most Libertarians, and can rationalise your biases till the the cows come home. I just wish you'd use your powers for good .

"Develop principles and devise rules governing interactions between moral agents in a social setting which allow all agents to maximize their welfare."

OK fair enough, this is your personal moral foundation. So lets look at why it leads to such different rights and general outcomes to mine ''promote the welfare of conscious creatures'' and what looks like Chewy's de facto foundation of '' do the best we can for the most people possible''

As I said if you treat the foundation as the goal, you can be flexible and compromise on how you try to get there, and you're able to use it as a touchstone for how your rules and rights and other specific Oughts are meeting the goal.


Your formulation "Develop principles and devise rules governing interactions between moral agents ( a person who has the ability to discern right from wrong and to be held accountable for his or her own actions) in a social setting which allow all agents to maximize their welfare.".


Your position is basically let people capable of making moral choices do what they want, without thought for the welfare of others, barring actively harming them. It is Freedom.

And the moraity involved in dealing with others is transactional. Doing anything which doesn't promote your own personal well-being isn't a moral obligation. Your moral obligations to promoting the wellbeing of people begins and ends at You. It's the ideology of psychopathy. It's your choice to be charitable if makes you feel good, or an immoral imposition if you have to chip in to help others. If a blind person is about to step into traffic, there is no moral reason to warn them, no moral reason to call an ambulance after. That would be imposing an immoral burden on your Freedom. You're just not allowed to push them.

So moral oughts only apply to your own personal welfare, everyone else has to fend for themselves. Dog eat dog, might is right. But property however, is a different matter! Unlike other people, property is of moral value and must be protected by its own special rule. There is somehow a Right to Property which is 'natural' and 'objective', unlike every other Right everybody made up. Which is that great moral maxim - ''finders keepers, losers weepers''. What a magnificent moral vision.

It has appeal, who doesn't want to be free to live how they want, do what they want, to do their best for themselves and their loved ones. But it's cold and crisp and inhumane. And it's gaining traction as its ideologues prey on people's fears of 'the other', justifying the notion that the welfare of others is nothing to do with us, it's actually making us a sucker or putting us at risk. It's not just some dry academic issue.

Where did you find that dictionary? Your definition 2a of slavery is reasonable, but only because whiners use the word metaphorically to complain about working. Slavery = drudgery. I'll grant that's one accepted usage -- but even if that's what you meant your choice of words seems duplicitous.

No. One's life and body are not "natural possessions." They aren't "possessions" at all, although some interlocuters in this threat do seem "possessed".

You misunderstood my clearly stated position on merit: it had nothing to do with who should own what. It merely noted that I don't see any moral merit in wealth. Why should I value someone else's wealth (unless I can levy exorbinant taxes)? Every bitcoin buyer is patting himself on the back for being so clever. But I don't care if they are clever or (equally likely) lucky. Why should I? It's all the same to me.