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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: A Modest Proposal
Message-ID: <117400072@inmet>
Date: Sun, 28-Sep-86 17:29:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: inmet.117400072
Posted: Sun Sep 28 17:29:00 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Oct-86 08:07:16 EDT
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Nf-From: inmet.UUCP!janw    Sep 28 17:29:00 1986


[carnes@gargoyle.UUCP ]
/* ---------- "Re: A Modest Proposal" ---------- */
>[janw]
>>An elementary principle like "coercion is bad" is not the end  of
>>wisdom  -  but a beginning of it. *If* it is true - then refusing to
>>accept it (and I have never seen you accept it)  undermines the
>>sophisticated  superstructures  you  build.  

>I don't perceive an obligation to affirm, in my postings, what is
>noncontroversial on the net. I assume that everyone, or virtually
>everyone, reading this believes that noncoercion is desirable,  a
>value; ceteris paribus, we prefer to minimize coercion.

Good. A point of agreement. To give you an example where you
have ignored it: you once argued in favor of redistribution
of wealth in the following (approximately) way:  
assume a rich uncle and a poor nephew. If $10K is transferred
from the former to the latter, the sum of human happiness
increases, because the money is more important to the nephew.

I asked you then (and was never answered) if you made a distinction
between *voluntary* and *involuntary* transfer. The act of
coercion in itself would increase the sum of misery.

It would also introduce an uncertainty into everyone's possession
of  whatever  they  still  possess - more direct misery, and also
less wealth created; it would open the door  to  further  coercive
measures, etc. You ignored all this kind of problem.

I think this error of omission is systematic with those who argue
for  state intervention, redistribution, regulation and taxation.
They ignore the *overhead* involved in enforcing their pet  meas-
ures, on the one side, and resisting them - or submitting to them
- on the other. The IRS alone has about 100,000 employees  -  who
are  soldiers  on *one* side of a war. It is better not to have a
war.

>But there are other commonly held values as well, and it is  when
>values  conflict  that the interesting and fruitful questions ar-
>ise.

Very true.

>Dogmatists, with their canned answers to all questions, need  not
>trouble  themselves with these issues. They can simply state, for
>example, that everyone possesses an absolute and inviolable right
>to dispose of his or her own body, without investigating what the
>implications and potential consequences of this  principle  would
>be  in  the real world, and whether there might be potential con-
>flicts with other important values/principles.

I cannot speak for dogmatists -  but  *I*  argued  an  inviolable
right like this - and I have been more than willing to investigate
all the real-world ramifications !

More than that: I have been willing to meet you on the completely
utilitarian  grounds  and  justify  the basic principle itself on
these grounds. I wonder if my postings reach you?

> Philosophy is easy when you know the answers a priori.  

A strawman, Richard, a strawman. 

But political philosophy *is* deceptively easy if one reacts to
each perceived problem by invoking authority's magic wand.
"There ought to be a law" - how tempting and simple to
say that, whatever irks one. 

This simplistic attitude ignores the fact that authority
and law have their own dynamic, not limited to removing
the initial irritant.

It shifts all the hard decisions of reconciling or balancing con-
flicting  values onto future decisions by a reinforced authority.
Will it know better?

But even if it did, it is not at all likely to balance the values
in  the  way  people  who  created it would hope.  It has its own
values and interests. The carte blanche of "take all rights  into
account  but hold none absolute" merely makes the authority's own
will absolute.

As the frogs learnt too well after they invited King Stork...

Long live King Log, and let some rights be inviolate!

		Jan Wasilewsky

P.S.
BTW,  Richard,  another  question  you  never  answered   (you've
developed preterition into a fine art) is this: do *you* draw the
line anywhere, and if so, where?  In other words, in  your  moral
philosophy,  are *some* rights or principles inviolable, whatever
the cost?  To use Dostoyevsky's example, would you sanction  tor-
turing a child to establish an earthly paradise?