Voluntaryism is the largest philosophical movement in history, do you know about it?

[ParkCungHee]

Wait, so you welcome Mafia bosses who demand "protection fees"? You wouldn't stand up for the victims of that kind of predation?

Why would he? They have broken no enforcable moral law.

 

[Conspiracy Bob]

There is a difference between not having knowledge of something, and something being untrue.

You said, "knowledge is accordance with the forms" but you didn't really know if that was true or not.

If I asked you "what's on the other side of the door?" and you had no idea, then ANY answer would be false since you weren't in fact aware of what was on the otherside of the door.

Your answer about Forms was false. It was a non-answer.

 

[Conspiracy Bob]

Why would he? They have broken no enforcable moral law.

I think I'm done talking to you.

 

[ParkCungHee]

You said, "knowledge is accordance with the forms" but you didn't really know if that was true or not.

If I asked you "what's on the other side of the door?" and you had no idea, then ANY answer would be false since you weren't in fact aware of what was on the otherside of the door.

So similarly, since I don't know with certainty what your body is like, any answer describing your body is wrong. Therefor, you don't have a body.

 

[ParkCungHee]

I think I'm done talking to you.

But you don't know. Which means you're wrong.

 

[luiz]

Wait, so you welcome Mafia bosses who demand "protection fees"? You wouldn't stand up for the victims of that kind of predation?

If the Mafia bosses are better than the alternative, sure.

I'm not here to antagonize you or ridicule or your worldview, BTW. As far as utopias go I much prefer yours to the horrible egalitarian nightmare supported by so many "idealists". But it's still a utopia, which if actually implemented would lead to chaos. And it has its fair share of logical inconsistencies too, as others have pointed out. So I'll take my chances with the Mafia Bosses.

PS: I do remember CoolioVonHoolio.

 

[Conspiracy Bob]

Thanks for all the responses again, everybody. I'm gonna take a break from this discussion for a little while and grab some food. Hope to continue it later!

For all of those wondering how to achieve a free society:

Self-knowledge will be required!

 

[Traitorfish]

Self-ownership is exclusive and non-negotiable. If we own our bodies then why would any other property be different?

I don't own my body, I am my body. Ownership is an external relationship, and how could I enter into an external relationship with myself?

If self-ownership is not exclusive and non-negotiable then you just justified rape. That doesn't sound right.

I don't follow. The non-exclusivity and negotiability of self-possession are evident in something as simple as shaking a hand; I possess their hand, they posses my hand, this is a negotiated state of affairs, and nobody has to rape anyone. So how do we get from one to the other?

 

[Conspiracy Bob]

I don't own my body, I am my body. Ownership is an external relationship, and how could I enter into an external relationship with myself?


I don't follow. The non-exclusivity and negotiability of self-possession are evident in something as simple as shaking a hand; I possess their hand, they posses my hand, this is a negotiated state of affairs, and nobody has to rape anyone. So how do we get from one to the other?

Ownership, as I've defined it, is an effect you have on material reality. You feed yourself, right? Sleep? Maybe exercise? We have to do work to keep our bodies alive- we own them. How could ownership be an "external relationship" when it always involves an internal subject?

Also, the exclusivity of your hand is that you-exclusively- get to *choose* who to give your hand to. Nobody can coerce that out of you if you don't want to- that's what I mean by non-negotiable.


See, 90% of philosophical disagreements are actually around definitions. I'm sure we actually agree when it comes right down to it.

I mean, you don't use violence to get your way on a day to day basis, right?

 

[Ajidica]

Stalin's political repression alone killed over a million, so how can you call his claim a fallacy?

I wasn't aware that Stalin=Communism.
Should I equate all Brazilians with the Brazilian junta? That is on the same level of silliness as assuming Stalin engaged in political repression because he was a member of the All-Union Communist Party and not because he was a paranoid sociopath.

 

[Dachs]

I wasn't aware that Stalin=Communism.
Should I equate all Brazilians with the Brazilian junta? That is on the same level of silliness as assuming Stalin engaged in political repression because he was a member of the All-Union Communist Party and not because he was a paranoid sociopath.

Completely divorcing something from its context makes roughly about as much sense as failing to distinguish something from it.

 

[Ajidica]

Huh? I'm not entirely sure what you are getting at.

 

[Traitorfish]

Lockean labour theory of value needs only to apply to use value. Labour theory of value is usually taken to apply primarily to exchange value.

To whit, the economic labour theory of value (usually) holds that the exchange value of a good -how much a good is worth on the market- is essentially linked with the labour
that goes into producing that good.

But Locke need say nothing about the market value of goods. He believes that the use value of goods increases primarily because of the input of labour. Labour magnifies the utility (interpret utility as you will) garnered from the use of a good. Cultivated land is much more valuable than uncultivated land. Because the increase in use value is so great, Locke thinks, mixing our labour with things in the world gives us rights over those things. Most of their use value comes from our labour and, since we own our own labour, we own that thing (or the vast majority of its use value).

I think I probably need to elaborate on my point, because I'm clearly being far too obscure here.

Lockean property theory claims that property rights derive from labour. You invest labour into natural substances, and as this labour represents an extension of yourself, and you own yourself, you therefore own any substance thus invested with your labour. Fair enough so far.

The problem I see emerges when you reach the issue of commerce. Taking the labour theory of property outlined above at face value, it's not possible to transfer ownership of an item between individuals, because the item remains and will always remain a product of their labour. We could certainly lend each other items, but we would never truly own them; I would be sitting in a flat full of things which I don't own, and which could in principle be recalled at any time.

Of course, what can we say is that what is being traded is not the items, but the labour which they represent. But concrete labour is heterogeneous, so we could only trade like labour for like. A potter might be able to trade pots with a potter, and a pig-farmer might be able to trade pork with a pig-farmer, but that's not much good to anyone. We want to figure out how a potter can trade with a pig-farmer, which means figuring out some way to homogenise labour.

The solution is to identify the trade as not a trade of concrete labour, but of abstract labour. A "unit" of pots is worth a "unit" of porks, and the potter and farmer are able to trade them without engaging in an elaborate series of loans.

Arguably, that doesn't constitute a labour theory of value, because as you say it doesn't follow that exchange is actually conducted on the basis of abstract labour. But it would certainly imply some sort of just price theory based around abstract labour, which brings back all the standard Marxian criticisms of exploitation, capital-as-vampire, blah blah blah, which advocates of Lockean property theory are pretty firmly hostile to.

So how do we square that?

Ownership, as I've defined it, is an effect you have on material reality. You feed yourself, right? Sleep? Maybe exercise? We have to do work to keep our bodies alive- we own them. How could ownership be an "external relationship" when it always involves an internal subject?

When I say "external relationship", what I mean is it a relationship between two (or more) things that are constituted prior to their engagement. This is as opposed to an internal relationship, in which two (or more) things are mutually constituting.

In this case, what I mean is that property is conceived of as a relationship between a subject and an object, e.g. between "this guy" and "this bicycle". This is a logic which I do not think can be coherently applied to the the body, because the body is not something distinct from the subject, but the subject itself; not "this guy" and "this body", but "this guy-body". This body-subject cannot enter into an external relationship with itself, so it cannot enter into an ownership relationship with itself. Thus, I don't consider it valid to say that "I own my body".

Also, the exclusivity of your hand is that you-exclusively- get to *choose* who to give your hand to.

Nobody can coerce that out of you if you don't want to- that's what I mean by non-negotiable.

I don't think it's a choice between insisting upon exclusivity and non-negotiability on the one hand, and permitting coercion on other. I would claim that the non-exclusivity and negotiability are at the end of the day ontological facts; my body is not mine alone to dispose of, and I am regularly forced to negotiate my possession of it with others. Every time I help somebody lift something, I am engage That doesn't mean, however, that we concede to any and all coercion, because it is still possible- necessary- to construct an ethics which addresses aggression between subjects. By the same token, I don't think that I possess my couch in an exclusive or non-negotiable fashion, but that doesn't mean I'm cool with any old sod wandering in and nicking it.

See, 90% of philosophical disagreements are actually around definitions. I'm sure we actually agree when it comes right down to it.

I mean, you don't use violence to get your way on a day to day basis, right?

I think you're being over-optimistic. As far as I can tell, we don't even agree on what a person is, let alone how we should go about being one.

 

[Cutlass]

This.

I always find it irritating that people ridicule the libertarians' claim that taxation is theft when it so evidently is theft.

What hardcore libertarians fail to understand is the last part of your post.

The problem with that, of course, is that taxes are not theft. And so you're stuck with a problem. Now while it is possible for taxes to be theft, in and of themselves taxes are actually the opposite of theft. Refusing to pay taxes is theft. Calling taxes theft is actually the attempt to build a moral justification for theft.

 

[Traitorfish]

The problem with that, of course, is that taxes are not theft. And so you're stuck with a problem. Now while it is possible for taxes to be theft, in and of themselves taxes are actually the opposite of theft. Refusing to pay taxes is theft. Calling taxes theft is actually the attempt to build a moral justification for theft.

"You're wrong because I'm right" isn't much of an argument.

 

[Conspiracy Bob]

The problem I see emerges when you reach the issue of commerce. Taking the labour theory of property outlined above at face value, it's not possible to transfer ownership of an item between individuals, because the item remains and will always remain a product of their labour. We could certainly lend each other items, but we would never truly own them; I would be sitting in a flat full of things which I don't own, and which could in principle be recalled at any time.

But ownership implies the right to do whatever you please with your property, as long as you're not violating moral rules, and if that doesn't include giving it away to another person then you don't truly own it.

If that were true then inheritence would also be ruled out. But I think the "recall" principle is actually very important in trade and commerce and you brought up a great point. That's why I won't do business with somebody who won't give me a receipt. But of course, there are limits to that where clearly a recall would be unfair, so I don't think it could be a moral rule- just good business practice.

 

[Cutlass]

"You're wrong because I'm right" isn't much of an argument.

Well I don't often get accused of being articulate. But how is saying taxes are not theft different from saying they are in that respect?

 

[Conspiracy Bob]

By the same token, I don't think that I possess my couch in an exclusive or non-negotiable fashion, but that doesn't mean I'm cool with any old sod wandering in and nicking it.

"Any old sod" is totally subjective and you get to decide who that is at any time, so it is exclusively yours.

not "this guy" and "this body",

So, it wouldn't be valid to tell somebody, "You stole my kidney!" or "Let go of my arm!"? What would you say?

The body is not "you". "You" are a complex bioelectric effect of your body, which you own. "You" cease to exist and lose ownership over your body, which remains in existence.

 

[ParkCungHee]

The body is not "you". "You" are a complex bioelectric effect of your body, which you own.

So when someone has a seizure, they cease to exist?

 

[del62]

Taxes can't be theft, because in order to pax taxes you have to voluntarily opt in to the monetary system which regulates the taxes