The libertarian-ism dilemma.
We all know what libertarianism is; but, not many have considered what it entails (barring Noam Chomsky from the discussion).
The issue that I want to present can be called the 'level playing field problem'. Keep in mind that tabula rasa just doesn't apply here unless (in a perfect world) society was formed on a marooned island from scratch.
The problem presents itself in the form of those already with a strategic advantage (patent trolls, monopolies, oligopolies, and everything that economics hates but has to deal with). One may begin to see the whole appeal of libertarianism by those nefarious elements that promote it.
Does this sound correct? Is the (what I call) 'level playing field' problem an issue that can be resolved without appealing to notions like starting from scratch or tabula rasa?
The issue that I want to present can be called the 'level playing field problem'. Keep in mind that tabula rasa just doesn't apply here unless (in a perfect world) society was formed on a marooned island from scratch.
The problem presents itself in the form of those already with a strategic advantage (patent trolls, monopolies, oligopolies, and everything that economics hates but has to deal with). One may begin to see the whole appeal of libertarianism by those nefarious elements that promote it.
Does this sound correct? Is the (what I call) 'level playing field' problem an issue that can be resolved without appealing to notions like starting from scratch or tabula rasa?
Comments (62)
So a libertarian is not dogmatic, saying there should be no protection for the weak and that dog-eat-dog and the hell with everybody. That's a parody of a libertarian. It's a strawman used by people who don't understand libertarianism.
Libertarianism just says that there's a continuum, and perhaps we should sometimes try to see if LESS government intrusion might solve a particular problem better than more. And to keep a sharp eye on all the way the government causes problems then says that more power for the government is the solution. We should all be aware of that common pattern.
Libertarianism is a tendency toward liberty. Not an absolute my-way-or-the-highway.
Yes, it is; but, it is not a solution unless everyone is not playing on a level playing field, and I have created no straw men as much as I've tried in this thread. Thanks for pointing out the straw men that may have arisen unbeknownst to some or myself.
The principle problem I see in libertarian thinking is 20/20 vision about the problem of governments, and blindness to the problem of corporate power. Free enterprising libertarians also seem to miss the critical role governments have played in corporate success. As Marx put it, "The government is but a committee to organize the affairs of the bourgeoisie."
A true libertarian shouldn't just want to limit government overreach of power, but any overreach that threatens individual liberty. The power of the corporations should be checked, just as the different branches of govt. are, to ensure fair competition and options for the consumer. It's just that the elitist corp. and govt. are in collusion with each other and will squash anyone who tries to rock the boat.
I don't get it. Doesn't that rather support my point? That we should keep a sharp eye on government and not entrust it with too much power?
Libertarianism is NOT a move towards freedom or liberty...it is a move toward chaos and anarchy.
Anyone who truly wants to live in a libertarian society can EASILY do so. Somalia is a libertarian paradise. So is the Amazon basin...and great outback of Australia.
The last thing in the world most Libertarians want...is a libertarian society.
What, exactly, do you expect boldly forwarding straw men to accomplish?
In a capitalist society / economy (such as ours, Europe, Japan...) the central role of the government is to facilitate the accumulation of wealth by the bourgeoisie. "Facilitation" is a matter of establishing law and treaties, and assisting in the accumulation of wealth. For instance, the U.S. government gave land to the railroads to encourage their westward expansion. The government built the Panama Canal to facilitate east coast/west coast transportation, and trade with the rest of the world. The government helps break strikes, and levies taxes to support its various activities.
The government (federal, state, county, city) can be, has been, and is sometimes an oppressive force--no doubt. But in focussing on the nefarious activities of The Government, libertarians overlook or fail to see the nefarious activities of many powerful corporations -- from which we consume pretty much on corporate terms, under whose various and sundry terms we work--or don't work -- and cohabit in an environment which is quite often fucked over by the corporation for purposes of cutting costs and increasing profits.
Here's an old example: Firestone Rubber, Standard Oil, and General Motors formed a combine to buy up perfectly fine electric rapid transit systems. Once owned, they were forthwith wrecked, and replaced by buses running on tires and gasoline (or diesel). The wrecking of electrically powered transit systems was imposed upon the local governments and people by the schemers at these three very large (among the largest!) corporations.
A more recent example: in 1980 most people drank tap water from fountains or taps. Perrier was a small specialty product. By 2000 there were whole aisles in grocery stores devoted to water in bottles. Better? Hardly. In many cases the water in the bottles was municipal water--perfectly good, but the same as the stuff coming out of the faucet. And all those 1 use and toss plastic bottles? Waste. Further, some of the water in the bottles had more bacteria in it than the water coming out of the faucet (still true).
Selling ordinary water by the bottle was a clever way of taking money out of your pocket and transferring it to Pepsi and Coca Cola. The water business has not been without significant externalized environmental consequences.
A current example: Boeing's 737 MAX. Somehow Boeing didn't think so much as a pamphlet was necessary to prepare pilots to fly the plane which had some special software to compensate for a stall hazard. All those 737-MAX planes are currently sitting on the ground. The government of the USA just doesn't seem to think the problem is that serious. Let the company figure it out...
I do not understand your question.
If you are taking issue with something I wrote...tell me what it is and we can discuss it.
Then that's the issue right there. If they don't care or such, then monopolies, oligopolies and such will just expand their power in light of no regulation.
Quoting Wallows
It may be good to remember Goldwater at this juncture. He claimed to want a certain set of progressive values while also claiming that the social engineering proposed to bring about those goals would permit too many bad things for the project to be worth the cost.
And here we are, still balancing the equation.
I think that there are many problem with idealist libertarianism, like with libertarians who are anarcho-capitalists.
The 'level playing field' isn't the only problem. Another problem is that when any libertarian envisages an libertarian society simply assumes defence of the state with an armed forces, hopefully made of libertarian 'citizen soldiers'. The ideological problem with this is that there seldom is anything more collective, more against libertarian individualism than the idea of an armed forces. Even libertarians don't assume that the role of the armed forces can be better solved with the market mechanism: having competing armed groups isn't good idea in any society. And when you open up the role of the government to defence, you also open up the whole discussion for everything else the government can defend.
The next natural problem is democracy. You see, in the perfect function libertarian state, let's say something equivalent of Switzerland, thanks to the liberty in the society other political ideologies would prosper. And of course there indeed are the left-libertarians, like Chomsky. The Bernie type socialists would prosper very well in a libertarian society and they would get their socialism-light through. Just look at, well, Switzerland.
Quoting Wallows
Yet don't confuse those talking heads for the present system that portray themselves to be libertarians always to be true libertarians. For example, a true libertarian doesn't have any issue with there being trade unions, assuming they are voluntary organizations, and will accept the idea that workers can group together when meeting their employers.
Just look at how many of the so-called libertarians just loose it when you talk about trade-unions.
That is because a "level playing field" is a pipe dream in todays society. For a level playing field to be obtained would require humans to be genetically engineered to be the same and all raised in the same environment by the state.
It doesn't matter what it is because of. The only relevant question here is whether one ought to do what one can about it. If I can take money from those born fit, clever and desirable, and give it to those who are born stupid, unfit and undesirable, then should I? The answer has nothing to do with the reason why those differences exist in the first place.
I once met a kid who was training to be a nurse in america. He spent years 0-16 in somalia at the height of the 90s chaos. I mentioned I had been to prison and he was dead serious asking me: "wasn't that scary?" Even in Mogadishu the coca cola factory kept operating. Because apparently nothing goes with khat better than an ice cold coke.
I'm not a libertarian, I'm a blood on the floor anarchist. I think the us is in terminal economic decline, and I'm already living in that future. I think it people will have to be more honest with themselves under those conditions.
I would like to point out as well that the social kabuki in a violent environment eg prison is very interesting because it actually is meaningful in a way school isn't.
Edit: I wouldn't go to somalia anyway because I don't speak the language or know anything about the culture; why put myself at such a disadvantage? Beyond the cities muslim elders have power....why would I want to live under them? Anarchy doesn't exactly mean what the greek would suggest: it just means that power is more fluid.
I'd prefer not to go to Somalia either.
But it certainly is Libertarian heaven.
"But it certainly is Libertarian heaven."
Oh, "certainly", is it?
One of the objects of libertarianism...is as little government as possible.
Damn near none there.
But, I will concede that the Australian Outback...and the Amazon Basin both have even less government.
So your question is, "should we treat people differently because of how they were born"?
The objective is the smallest government sustainable, so that more government or control doesn't arise in its wake. That doesn't amount to libertarians wanting no government, or wanting some arbitrarily small government. Also, libertarians see government as organized, non-voluntary control, which isn't limited to formal or official governments per se.
It helps to understand what you're going to critique before you critique it, but when does anyone ever take that advice on the Internet?
Specifically, what do you see as the major difference between "as little government as possible"...and "the smallest government sustainable?"
I never suggested Libertarians want no government.
Wanting "the smallest government sustainable"...IS some arbitrarily small government!
In my opinion, Libertarians are full of shit. That is more important than how they view governments.
It also helps to make sense when one defends something like libertarianism...but when does anyone take that advice on the Internet?
Well, that is everyone's question. If you have money, you must decide what to do with it, you can't not. One of those choices is o give it to someone less fortunate than you.
Likewise if you have power (say by collectivising), then you have to decide what to do with that power, again, you can't not. One of the choices you have is to force rich people to give money to poor people.
I raised it because you answered the proposition "if they don't care or such, then monopolies, oligopolies and such will just expand their power in light of no regulation." with a reason why. But nothing in that reason prevents anyone from controlling monopolies if they can muster the power to do so.
This is the problem with libertarianism. We either let everyone do whatever they want without interference at all, or we somehow organise to have people's actions constrained by reference to some objective. If we choose the second option then which objective is 'right' becomes nothing more than a matter of preference.
The rest of my post was part of my answer.
The idea of the latter is to non-arbitrarily have the smallest government that won't lead to additional organized control via force or threat of force. The former, in the context in which you employed it, referred to the current situation in someplace like Somalia, which has nothing at all to do with libertarianism.
This demonstrates an admirable economy of expression.
One...Somalia, the Australian Outback, the Amazon Basin...ALL have everything to do with libertarianism.
Libertarianism ultimately leads to chaos and anarchy.
You can have all the small government you want...but most Libertarians will never even consider moving to where it is. They want to provide us all with chaos and anarchy.
Okay...lucky for you guys we live in a society that allows those sentiments.
Good luck with it.
Thank you.
Libertarianism has nothing to do with anarchy. Again, if you want to critique something, it might help to understand it first.
Small government and sustainability are two very different objectives. Both of them are beneficial but pursuing one may get you further away from the other. I imagine it's safe to say that libertarians are more interested in small government than they are in sustainability. Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.
This is the most common illogical argument made against libertarianism. The fact that you make it tells me that you aren't really informed enough for me to have this discussion with you.
Libertarianism isn't letting everyone do whatever they want. That is anarchy. Libertarianism is the belief in limited govt. not no govt.
So a Libertarian would be just fine with laws that stop others from infringing on other people's rights.
Libertarianism ultimately leads to chaos and anarchy.
Libertarians cannot see that...or refuse to acknowledge it.
Are you a libertarian?
And libertarians want to define what "limited government" is!
I, and many others, do not want libertarians anywhere near that decision.
So...that has to be decided at the ballot box,
How have the libertarians been doing on the national scene?
How about state-wide?
How about local?
Libertarians set up systems that can't lead to anarchy. At least not without some sort of revolution that would result in an anarchy, but then any political approach could just as well lead to that. Not that an anarchy can be sustained, anyway, but imagining that it could be.
I used to be a "straight U.S.-party-styled Libertarian," and I was for a number of years. I no longer consider myself that. I call myself a "libertarian socialist" now. But I understand Libertarianism well. I was very involved with the party formally for a while, to a point where I actually carted Harry Browne around to some media appearances during one of his presidential runs.
That sounds like an oxymoron. Could you maybe outline that a bit?
Well...that may be the reason.
Terrapin...it is my opinion that the ONLY place libertarianism can lead...is to chaos and anarchy.
We are not going to agree on this issue.
I didn't say it was. Read the post before reaching for your stock reply. What I said was that we either let everyone do whatever they want without interference at all, or we somehow organise to have people's actions constrained by reference to some objective. We. All of us. Not just libertarians. It is a decision which everyone has to make constantly.
The problem with Libertarianism is that it assumes a level can be determined by some ideology, when in truth it is set entirely by personal preference.
Everyone believes in limited government absolutely everyone. Because no one thinks that government should dictate a person's every move. Virtually no one believes in complete anarchy (not quite such exhaustive disdain, but nearly universal). So what we end up with is everyone believing in some government control, and it's just a matter of personal preference how much.
Libertarianism isn't making an ideological statement about the level of government control. It's just asking for less because the members of the movement don't happen to like being controlled in the way they currently are.
It's fine to dress it up in fancy rhetoric for the political stage, but this is a philosophy forum, not a political rally.
Basically I'm a socialist on economic and social welfare issues, I'm a libertarian otherwise.
So, for example, libertarians would have governments with public police forces, court systems, etc. How would that lead to an anarchy?
Because have public police forces and court systems is not enough for society and civilization to function.
Libertarianism leads to more libertarianism...which is to say that demands for more personal freedom leads to more and greater demands for more and greater personal freedom.
It leads to anarchy and chaos.
As I've mentioned...there are places on planet Earth right now where personal freedom is almost without restraint. Libertarians do not move there. It is a concept that only sounds good to people moaning and groaning about government.
We, the governed, are the government. If anything, today we need more, not less.
I’m no expert on libertarianism but I believe the basic ideology is that a free market or economy is self regulating and is made worse or less efficient by government interference.
A fine line between that and an American liberal?
I wasn't saying that libertarians only have police forces and court systems. I was asking you how we wind up with anarchy when we have public police forces and court systems.
So for example, if rape is against the law and enforced as such, then we don't have an anarchy, right? So how do we go from rape being illegal and enforced as such to rape no longer being illegal under libertarianism?
I don't think so. Liberals want to control all sorts of stuff that I'm not at all in favor of controlling. For example, most liberals are in favor of there being some speech prohibitions.
Can you support this claim with evidence?
If you’re referring to things like SJW and “identity politics,” those are expressions of liberal values surrounding egalitarianism and concern for the well-being of the disenfranchised. A libertarian values liberty more than they care for the plight of the underclass.
And who really gives a fuck if a libertarian fool like Milo Yiannopoulos is talked down at college campuses by some impassioned adolescents.
Would you need evidence of them being in favor of slander and libel prohibitions, for example?
Aside from that, many are in favor of some hate speech and hate crime prohibitions, for example.
I suggest trying to support the claim any way that you can. Bear in mind that you need to show majority support.
So you don't buy that most people are in favor of slander and libel laws?
I do indeed, including libertarian hero Milo https://bigleaguepolitics.com/exclusive-milo-yiannopoulos-talks-his-lawsuit-against-newspaper-that-blamed-him-for-5-deaths/
Are you implying that if someone damaged your professional reputation, for example, and it cost you significant monetary damage, you wouldn't pursue a legal case because of ideological beliefs?
Cool. I think that most people are in favor of them, too. I just don't know how I'd provide evidence of that to someone who doesn't believe that most people are in favor of them.
Re "Milo," I don't know anything about him. He certainly doesn't have anything to do with me.
I'm a free speech absolutist. I'm not in favor of slander and libel laws, or any speech prohibitions whatsoever.
So you wouldn’t pursue a legal case for ideological reasons, no matter how bad the damages?
Must be easy to compete with libertarians.
Correct.
I'm not at all claiming to represent anyone else. I was just telling you that my views don't at all equate to typical liberal views.
Fairness and equality seem more to be a concern of those advocating for systems such as socialism.
Libertarians seem to be coming from more of a standpoint of realism about inevitable inequality and a kind of survival of the fittest and promotion of innovation by competition, which is said to be incentivized by rewards for excellence. A common claim of free-market advocates: A free market produces the best products and the most overall wealth.
Suppose we are just talking evolutionary biology. If birds with better wings tend to be more successful, birds will tend to develop better wings. The birds with better wings didn't merit them. They just happen to have them. Is this unfair? Perhaps. What if we level the playing field and make sure that all birds reproduce at exactly the same rates, regardless of their wings? What if even the most decrepit bird reproduces and contributes to the gene pool just as much as the most high-performing bird? Suppose we interfere and extract the sperm and combine it with the eggs. What if we ensure that all the birds have equal reproductive success? Is this good for birds in the long run? Probably not. Is it more fair? Perhaps. Is the natural system unfair? Sure. Life is unfair through and through.
Free-market people like competition. Competition is the revealing of advantage. It is exactly about discovering inequalities and revealing and rewarding the best.
Consider the idea that performance enhancing drugs are considered cheating because they make the playing field unequal. Is the playing field equal without them? Is it? What about superior genes for the sport? What about more money for good trainers? What about higher intelligence behind the training? What about better equipment? It could be argued that absolutely every single factor that leads to the winner winning is a matter of an unfair advantage.
So and so tried harder and therefore advanced in fitness more and therefore deserved his win. But what is motivation if not a part of health that is unequally distributed? If your heart is less healthy than mine, you'll feel more depressed, less able to run hard without chest pain, and so on. You might look like you aren't trying as hard. You might give up. I might call you lazy. But in reality, it might come down to difference in genetics, age, or something similar.
Where libertarianism gets into trouble in my opinion is when it tries to claim that in such a system, everyone gets what they "deserve", what they "merit", when it moralizes success, winners presumably winning because they are good people and losers losing because they are bad people. There, I am going to raise a lot of problems for their obviously faulty position. Take your prosperity theology and shove it! That shit pisses me off. Trump didn't earn his inheritance. Einstein didn't earn his intelligence.
But socialists, if they say that by leveling the playing field, they are ensuring that everyone gets what they "deserve", they are going to have to answer some questions as well.
The funny thing about the idea of a "level playing field" is that "playing field" suggests competition. And competition is basically about revealing inequalities. And "leveling" is about eliminating inequalities. A truly level playing field would be a ridiculous affair. Just consider it:
All players have the same genes. All players have exactly the same past experience and mental and physical conditioning. All players have exactly the same play conditions and are faced with exactly the same obstacles.
What would this mean? Theoretically, all players would perform exactly equally. We would be dealing with a set of identical deterministic systems and initial conditions. If there are no inequalities, there are no differences for the contest to reveal.
Contrary to popular fantasy, sport isn't about fairness. Really, it is about sorting people according to fitness and bringing the cream of the crop to the top. It plays into status games, mating games, and so on. It is like having a dog show and revealing the best candidates for breeding. It is also simply about the spectacle and the struggle. It is fun to watch people perform at high levels. And if you reveal the top performer and watch that person being tested, it is impressive to see. People pay to see that.
The idea that sport is about fundamental fairness and merit is a sham. Only without thinking about the matter can we believe this.
It would seem to me that the real reason that performance-enhancing drugs are maybe a problem in sport is because they deceive us about who is in fact physically and mentally superior. It is like people straightening their teeth with orthodontics and thus fooling potential mates into thinking they do not have bad-teeth genes. If a person's facial attractiveness tells me something about their genetic health and I am evaluating candidates to mix my genes with, makeup deceives me. It is like lying in a job interview. It is untruth in advertising. Someone is misrepresenting the product they are trying to sell me, to put it very unpleasantly and objectifyingly.
If the purpose of the game is to reveal the best genes, the best training strategies, the best culture, or whatever, if some use performance-enhancing drugs and some don't, this undermines the purpose of the contest.
All this is ugly, yes. And I am uncomfortable with it. But to some extent, it is the way things are. Life is unfair. All people are eugenicists when dating. We are in fact not equal in many respects. And no person is responsible for things being this way. And I am not saying that it is right that they should be this way. It's just how it is. Some are smarter. Some are faster. Some are stronger. Some are more beautiful. The world is topographically varied. Things are not level. They never were and never will be.
But it could be argued that we can smooth some of the roughest edges from things. We could make reality a little more pleasant to live in.
I should mention that I am not a libertarian.
I think you could safely remove ‘liberal’ from the sentence. I doubt it’s typical for a libertarian to be so absolutist.
I wonder, would you also not pursue a legal case if someone intentionally damaged your property? For business ventures, reputation or branding can be much more valuable than property. I don’t see a fundamental difference between brand and property when intentional harm is committed.
I agree with most of what you said, I just don't think that the field is level, already. But, I don't agree with the false analogy of there being people with superior genes and all that eugenic bullcrap. If everyone would assume the Rawlsian veil of ignorance, then some unanimous decision could be made about the merit of having a level playing field as an original position everyone would want to start with.
We could dispense with the valuation implicit in "superior" and just say "genes for more X", faster running for example. How's that?
I should make it clear that I am not advocating eugenics as social policy. But I do think nature operates in a rather eugenicist fashion in how it ruthlessly selects for fitness traits, though it certainly doesn't make any kind of valuations. And it doesn't necessarily always select for traits that humans value. I also have in mind the free market when I talk of nature selecting for fitness traits.
And without suggesting that it is good that it is the case, I'd point out that human contests might in fact serve a eugenic purpose, whether they are designed for this consciously or not. Consider how the women line up to breed with star male athletes, for example. I remember Magic Johnson years ago claiming that he slept with, what, over a thousand women? Unprotected too! Assuming some of those women were not on birth control, he probably fathered many more children than the less successful players.
Consider beauty pageants. They are a kind of meat market for rich men, aren't they? It is like someone visiting a slave market and checking the teeth of the slaves to assess value. Notice that men like Trump are into beauty pageants and tend to commonly rate women for their attractiveness. They are shopping. Do the women know that they are genetic specimens on display in a store window? Probably not. Maybe they do! Maybe they also want to win the attention of the wealthy men! Such men are also the winners of a sort of contest. And the money doesn't hurt!
In horse races, winning horses have extremely valuable sperm that is in high demand. link Do you suppose human contests are completely unlike that?
Commonplace mate selection in dating is rather eugenicist and Nazi-esque in practice as well. But most people don't recognize it. Would you have unprotected sex with a developmentally disabled person with severe physical deformities? Suppose one eye is an inch higher than the other and there is no arm, just a hand protruding from the shoulder. Would such a person be sexually attractive to you? Asking yourself such a question elicits uncomfortable answers, doesn't it? But not wanting to mate with such a person is basically deciding that such a person shouldn't reproduce, shouldn't continue to exist. What other sorts of people would you resist sleeping with?
Maybe a more fair situation is to give all people equal mating opportunities. We could just have computers randomly pair people to have sex and we would all be required to have sex with whoever we are assigned to. "Level the playing field." "Regulate the market." "Redistribute wealth." We could have a kind of affirmative action for ugly men. Force pretty girls to sleep with a certain number of ugly men. :wink: Check your privilege, attractive people! Sexually unattractive people are the new oppressed class! I am joking, of course!
Or we could ban sex altogether and just combine sperm and egg in labs, using some sort of random mate selection. This way, we could avoid the rape problem. :wink: Fairness!
Please don't mistake anything I am saying for anything like Nazi-sympathy. To say "X ought to happen" is very different from saying that "X happens". I here make descriptive claims, not prescriptive. I disapprove of Nazism. I just want to make that clear.
Something like the Rawlsian veil of ignorance can lead to conclusions quite unlike the ones we are expected to arrive at. Suppose we do a thought experiment where reincarnation is real and we don't know who we'll be in the next life. Maybe it is random. Perhaps to achieve social justice, we ought to think about social policy from such a standpoint, behind such a veil of ignorance. Presumably, since I might be born poor, I would vote for a minimum income and lots of safety nets for the poor.
But it occurs to me that a Nazi could say that he would prefer to be part of the master race in the next life, and so to eliminate all non-whites is to ensure that he'll be born white.
A regular eugenicist could argue that if eugenics is practiced, the body she would get in the next life would be more likely to be a good one.
A free market advocate could argue that the average member of a free market society has an average higher standard of living than in a centrally planned system, even if wealth disparity might be greater. This being the case, he might prefer to be a random person in a free market economy rather than one in which wealth is redistributed heavily, which might disincentivize innovation and so on. Maybe he really wants an iPhone and iPhones are impossible in a planned economy.
Suppose we do something different from the veil of ignorance, something more radical. Instead of saying that we don't know who we are, what if we say that there is one self that experiences being everyone in the society at all times? That which experiences being you also experiences being everyone else. You, in other words, are everyone. What policies would we choose then? In such a case, if I know that I am not only Trump, but also the homeless guy on the street, presumably, I'd go for massive wealth redistribution. After all, poor people outnumber rich people by a large margin, so most of my simultaneously lived lives are lives in poverty. And naturally I would be an environmentalist since I will also be my own grandchildren and will inherit the earth. Right?
But would generally leftist social policy always be the natural answer? A Nazi could once again choose as I suggested above. And so on.
Hell, an anti-natalist might argue that all human lives suck and to end human existence is to place limits on this unpleasantness!
Some suicidal anti-humans might even advocate the releasing of a virus to wipe out the species immediately! All this for social justice!
Someone else who loves life might want to maximize population at whatever level is sustainable, or whatever will produce the most overall number of humans throughout our entire history, even if that might mean wiping out the biosphere in the process of burning up the planet's resources to develop as necessary to cut loose from this planetary system.
Personally, I think complex, intelligent, and aesthetically pleasing conscious experience ought to be maximized, however that is to be best achieved. The more the universe understands and appreciates its existence, the better! That is my general ethical imperative.
How we reason about social policy from behind a veil of ignorance clearly depends on our values. No particular policy naturally falls out of the thought experiments.
Well, as a libertarian socialist my views certainly aren't typical libertarian views, either. But yeah they're not even typical of other folks who have called themselves libertarian socialists. Nevertheless, they don't more or less just amount to liberalism.
Quoting praxis
It would depend on the situation. What was damaged/how badly, who damaged it, why/what was the scenario, etc. In some situations I would, in some I wouldn't. Same would go for personal injury and breach of contract.
Quoting praxis
Speech doesn't force anyone to believe what was said. I care about causality.
I don't frame anything simply on "harm." This is a good example why.
Now I believe you’re not a liberal.
In general, by the way, I don't like that people are so lawsuit/press-charges/prosecute-others-for-every-little-thing happy. I think we ridiculously overreact in that regard. I think that we impose ridiculous sentences on people. And I think that the prison system, and the criminal justice system in general, should be completely retooled. I'm definitely in favor of separating out people who commit significant violent offenses, for example, especially if there's any reason to believe that they'd commit further offenses, but I think that sentences/penalties tend to be ridiculous overall.
Legal defamation of business competitors or political rivals would be rather anarchistic, on the other hand, and lead to instability.
We should strive for a culture where people don't believe things, especially proportional to the practical impact they would have, just because they hear/read them.
We also can’t ignore our irrationally.