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From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Force is Unreasonable, still
Message-ID: <253@gargoyle.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-Nov-85 13:24:03 EST
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.253
Posted: Thu Nov 21 13:24:03 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 26-Nov-85 21:30:53 EST
References: <1497@hound.UUCP>
Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 52

Bob Stubblefield writes:

>What is wrong with force in principle is that it is  incompatible
>with reason.

I don't understand this statement.  Consider the story of Ulysses and
the Sirens.  Ulysses, anticipating that he would be too weak-willed
to do the rational thing and steer past the Sirens, told his men to
bind him to the mast, and if he should make signs for them to release
him, they were to bind him even more tightly.  The men had their ears
stopped with wax so they could not hear the Sirens, and they kept
rowing on course.  And that is how Ulysses saved his ship from being
smashed on the rocks.

In this story, force is not only compatible with reason, it is used
in the *service* of reason.  Another example is Torek's favorite,
free-rider situations.  If each one of a group of people would prefer
living in the US to living in Canada, but all are agreed that each
would be better off when all live in Canada than when all live in the
US, then it would be rational for them to place guards at the border
to prevent any individual from crossing into the US.  Note that I am
not claiming that this is the only possible solution to this
collective action problem; I am only claiming that in this case
force is used in the service of reason, and thus is not essentially
incompatible with reason.

Suppose that it were possible, by the threat of the use of
conventional arms, to prevent anyone from building or possessing
nuclear weapons, and suppose further that everyone would be better
off if no one possessed nuclear weapons (surely a reasonable
supposition), and that everyone agrees that this is the case.  Would
you claim that it is contrary to reason to use conventional force to
forestall anyone from building nuclear weapons in order to defend
themselves from a hostile neighboring country?  If so I submit that
your conception of what is reasonable or rational is unintelligible
or at least contrary to our intuitive notions of rationality.  

(This goes back at least to Thomas Hobbes.  The Leviathan-state is a
creature of man's reason, in order that life may not be "solitary,
poor, nasty, brutish, and short."  It is not based on the principle
of "might makes right.") 

>Given the common usage of the language, a more precise formulation of
>the principle is, "the *initiation* of force is the opposite of
>reason."

If I pitch my tent in your backyard while you are on vacation, and
you come back and drive me off your property with a shotgun, or get
the police to take me away, you are initiating the use of force.  Is
this what you are claiming is illegitimate and contrary to reason?
-- 
Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes