RoR: Forum

Jim,

That was a "brain-full." I'm too tired to answer this post tonight ...

Ed

Post 81

Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - 9:21am

Jim,

Because of identity, there is one right law for mankind.

Well, no. The values one places on goods and services and actions are inextricably subjective, as pointed out here:

http://mises.org/austecon/chap4.asp

Thus, laws reflect the values of those people formulating them. A woman who considers her one week old fetus a mere lump of flesh has an extremely low subjective valuation for that fetus. A woman who considers her one week old fetus to be her baby, and who desires such a baby intensely, has a much higher subjective valuation for that fetus.

While it is true that "positive law" (law from legal positivists) reflects the relative frequency of values in a given legislature (or populace) at a given time, such non-objective law is merely law in name only. You're confusing an "is" with an "ought". For explanation, see:
With regard to the idea of justice, the central and predominant controversy consists in a three-sided dispute. There are three conflicting theories, two ancient, one modern.

Coming down to us from antiquity is the view that might makes right. This, in the course of centuries, became the legalist or positivist theory of justice, which holds that, antecedent to the positive law of the state that carries with it the force of the sovereign, nothing is either just or unjust. Unjust acts are those prohibited by the positive law; just acts those prescribed by it.

Equally ancient is the view that natural justice is antecedent to legal justice -- that the precepts of the natural moral law and the existence of natural rights determine what is just and unjust prior to and independent of legislative enactments by de facto or de jure governments. This being the case, states, constitutions, governments, and their laws can be judged just or unjust by reference to natural rights and the principles of natural justice.

The third side in this three-cornered dispute is the utilitarian or pragmatic theory of justice ...
--http://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/Law111/AdlerJustice.htm

... and ...

There has been much opposition to natural-law philosophy from the very beginning. Indeed, one might say the opposition came first, for the idea of natural right or justice was developed in ancient Greece to counter the views of the Sophists, who were "conventionalists." These men believe that law and justice are simply man-made conventions. No action is right or wrong unless a particular community, through its positive laws or customs, decrees that it is right or wrong. Then it is right or wrong in that particular place and time -- not universally. By nature, the Sophists say, fire burns in Greece as it does in Persia, but the laws of Persia and of Greece, being matters of convention, are not the same. The "conventionalist" or "positivist" doctrine of law has come down all the way from the ancient Sophists to many of our modern law-school professors.

The naturalists, as that name indicates, affirm the existence of natural justice, of natural and unalienable rights, of the natural moral law, and of valid prescriptive oughts that elicit our assent, both independently of and prior to the existence of positive law. The positivists deny all this and affirm the opposite. For them, the positive law -- the man-made law of the state -- provides the only prescriptive oughts that human beings are compelled to obey. According to them, nothing is just or unjust until it has been declared so by a command or prohibition of positive law.

--http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/adler_naturallaw.html

So, while it's proper to say that much of contemporary, positive law is subjective and utilitarian in that it derives from a Gallup poll of the subjective values of some people in some areas (because you can "point" to such cases), it is not proper to say that such law is proper, or objective, for mankind. This is so because it is not based on individual rights. Objectivist law, however, would be, and is proper and objective for all of mankind.

And, because it has a "final answer" to the abortion legality question, it overcomes that particular limitation of the OPDP system (which doesn't have such an answer).

Related:
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/ObjectivismQ&A/0137_14.shtml#294

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 3/22, 9:53am)

Post 82

Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - 2:46pm

In Post 70, Jim wrote, "War is expensive. Competing OPDPs would have an incentive to avoid armed conflict with each other and make arrangements that peacefully resolved such conflicts."

In Post 72, I replied,

"No, they wouldn't. The reason they wouldn't is that their subscribers are paying money to have their rights defended. If an agency were to compromise with a rival agency enforcing a different set of laws, it would be compromising its subscribers rights and be in violation of its contract to defend them. For example, if a pro-choice agency were to compromise with a pro-life agency by agreeing to surrender one of its subscribers (e.g., a woman or doctor) for a brief prison stay in exchange for some kind of consideration, monetary or otherwise, it would be reneging on its contract to defend that person, in which case, the subscriber could turn around and sue the agency for breach of contract.

Compromising with a rival agency would also compromise its reputation as a staunch defender of its clients' rights and cause it to lose business. Who would sign up with such an agency knowing that it would surrender its subscribers' rights to avoid a violent confrontation with another agency? Instead of having a monetary incentive to compromise their differences, as you allege, rival agencies would have precisely the opposite incentive, namely to prevail in an armed battle with their adversaries. The most successful agency under your system would be the one that had little to fear from rival agencies and that didn't compromise its clients' rights to avoid a violent conflict -- in other words, a dominant agency with an enforceable monopoly on defense services."

In Post 74, Jim responded, "I fail to see your objection to that laudable instance of mutually profitable cooperation between competitors."

Really, that's all you have to say -- that you "fail to see" my objection? Well, then, I suggest you get your eyesight checked.

In Post 70, he wrote, "The question is, do you trust laissez-faire capitalism, or do you trust a large amount of socialism admixed with some partially free markets (aka minarchism in regards to defense services), to do a better job of reconciling these differences?"

In Post 72, I replied, "Give me a break! The Objectivist government is not 'a large amount of socialism'."

To which Jim replied, "Are you really saying that having a monopoly government with a unionized public police force paid for via forcible taxes taking under the ability to extract money, rather than the amount of services consumed by each person taxed, is not a large amount of socialism? Are you saying that that arrangement even remotely resembles a laissez-faire capitalistic individualistic approach to personal protection?"

Are you really so unfamiliar with Rand's philosophy that you think an Objectivist government is paid for via forcible taxes? If so, then I suggest you educate yourself. I thought I was arguing with someone who knew the basics of Rand's philosophy.

P.S. The following is an article by William Thomas in defense of the Objectivist view on anarchism, which appeared originally in Chapter 4 of Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a Free country? Eds. Roderick Long and Tibor Machan (Burlington, VT, 2008: Ashgate Publishing Company, pp. 39–57) -- www.ayn-rand.info/research/AgainstAnarchy.pdf -- a book which has captured international recognition. See http://www.liberaux.org/index.php?showtopic=36063&mode=threaded&pid=407974 for the French connection. :-)

There is also an article in the same book by Tibor Machan entitled "Reconciling Anarchism and Minarchism."

(Edited by William Dwyer on 3/22, 8:07pm)

Post 83

Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - 3:29pm

Are you really so unfamiliar with Rand's philosophy that you think an Objectivist government is paid for via forcible taxes?

Right. A good essay on funding government without coercion is found right here at RoR:

http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Younkins/Funding_Government_Without_Taxation.shtml

And here are some snippets from a web search:

What it can do in place of taxation: the business of protecting individual rights includes the security and trade of property. It is here government could charge user fees for its services -- particularly with business contracts.

If businesses want their contracts to be enforceable in a government court of law, which would be in their interest in case of dispute or fraud, they would build into the contract a fixed amount or small percentage paid to the government for assured enforcement.

As business trade totals trillions of dollars every year, a small percentage of this would adequately pay for all the activities of a limited government in time of peace. As disputes between individuals involve much smaller sums of property it is conceivable the fees generated from business contracts would more than pay for the expense of personal use, thereby making government services freely available to all individual citizens, no matter their financial standing.

In time of military defense explicitly defined emergency taxation measures could be implemented to cover expenses. Donations would also be accepted. This may sound peculiar but individuals stand to lose a lot more than a donation if the country gets overrun by an enemy.

Changing the financing of government would be the last step of transition to securing individual freedom and a limited government. It would “be practicable only in a fully free society, a society whose government has been constitutionally reduced to its proper, basic functions.” (Ayn Rand)

--http://www.vampiricalchameleon.com/vca/laissezfaire.html

Recap:
A 5-10% user fee on all business contracts would more than cover all possible expenses of a minarchy during peace-time.

Though not mentioned above, it has come to my attention that the excess amount collected could go into an open and transparent national defense fund where private companies (like Blackwater) make open bids to be "first-in" or, say, to be "in for 20%" in case a war breaks out. Since it'd be an immediate windfall, defense companies would remain "at-the-ready" with persistent, moderate-to-large bids.

On second thought, these contractors might want to start wars in order to get rich (or die tryin'). Maybe we could use 10% of the excess funds collected to pay for a small (<100,000 troops) battalion of active troops, 10% of the excess funds to pay for supplies and ammo, 10% of the excess funds to pay for military equipment/technology, and 10% of the excess funds to pay small stipends to a large (>100,000 troops) "reserves" battalion -- and then throw the remaining 60% in the bank for our serious national security emergencies.

:-)

Also:

Rand had a few notions of how to pay for this, and dozens have risen from the ranks of Libertarian economists after her. An overview of some of the main ideas:

1 - Voluntary donation.
This argument is that you have most to gain by living in a free country. Those who had the most to lose by having it taken over militarily, or having it fall into anarchy, would have a vested interest in paying to have military, police, and judicial safeguards. This security is an investment against groups that would take over the country and tax them more heavily. As the rich stand to lose the most, they would likely invest the most on a strictly voluntary basis.

An argued corollary is that a lack of taxes would free money, which would lead to more private investment, which would, in-turn, create more jobs and thus raise the standard of living for all citizens. As all the people gain more, there would be a larger incentive to invest in the government. Thus, the longer the taxes are gone, the more the people are willing to give. This point is debatable (I don't really see it happening on any but negligible scales), but I thought I'd put it up for consideration.

2 - Voluntary corporate donation.
Companies could charge a small percentage cost on their products to donate to government services. Like Method #1 above, they stand to lose the most by having our country undefended, so this would ultimately be to their advantage. This could be a marketing ploy as well...maybe you'd pay another 2-3% on a cup of coffee that goes to the military, and you get the slogan, "Starbucks: the coffee that defends America." My brother and I came up with a more amusing idea one day: "Sir! We just got f#*%ed by something sponsored by Trojan Condoms!"

3 - Sale of government assets and management into a trust fund.
If the government were to sell the property that would be deemed unnecessary for services, this could be organized into a multi-billion dollar trust fund. Managed properly, this money would provide not only transitional costs, but also an emergency fund in the case of war.

4 - Fee-based services.
Instead of receiving a "pot" of money on occassion, government services receive money for those voluntarily using the service. For example, two parties bring a case to court, they owe fees to the courthouse. When first transitioning, this helps the government pay down debts.

--http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080724035755AA3SyVf

Recap:
There's more than 2 ways to skin this cat.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 3/22, 3:50pm)

Post 84

Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - 9:35pm

"Well, then, I suggest you get your eyesight checked."

LOL!

Good posts Bill and Ed :)

Post 85

Tuesday, March 22, 2011 - 9:55pm

Thanks, John.

By the way, I just submitted -- as an article -- a tragic-comedy, short story regarding a future outcome of competing defense agencies. I hope it gets approved.

Ed

Post 86

Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - 4:52pm

If businesses want their contracts to be enforceable in a government court of law, which would be in their interest in case of dispute or fraud, they would build into the contract a fixed amount or small percentage paid to the government for assured enforcement

Yes, Ayn Rand recommended this. However, it violates the basic premise of what a government is and does within the context supposed. The government exists to protect your rights. They provide army, police, and courts of law. If they charge extra to "insure" a contract then:

1) they are charging extra for what they are supposed to be providing for free.
(Otherwise, access to justice would depend on how much you can afford.)
or
2 the government is competing with agencies that provide adjudication.
(This would violate a basic principle that government businesses such as steel mills and automobile factories do not compete fairly in the free market.)

Post 87

Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - 5:03pm

In time of military defense explicitly defined emergency taxation measures could be implemented to cover expenses.

Income tax withholding was an emergency wartime meaure suggested by Milton Friedman. Nothing like an emergency to last forever...

Donations would also be accepted. This may sound peculiar but individuals stand to lose a lot more than a donation if the country gets overrun by an enemy.

If a nation could not garner enough voluntary contributrions to resist an invader, then the invasion would be sanctioned as a liberation?

What if America were invaded by a coalition centered on Switzerland, Hong Hong, and the Cayman Islands? Would you voluntarily donate to protect President Obama? Oh.... Of course, that is metaphysically unreal because capitalist nations do not invade other countries. If you look at the reality provided by history, you see that the invasion by very socialist Germany of nominally capitalist Netherlands was a rout. On the other hand, the threat by Germany against Switzerland was met by a challenge, Henri Guisan's famous speech to the Swiss Officer Corps. Some things you cannot buy your way out of.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 3/23, 5:26pm)

Post 88

Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - 6:13pm

Michael,

Writing about the idea of an optional fee to guarantee access to civil court, you wrote, "However, it violates the basic premise of what a government is and does within the context supposed."

The purpose of the government is to provide the best possible environment supporting individual rights. Civil courts are required as part of an environment to support individual rights but not as directly as a criminal court. Civil courts, or mediators, to the degree that they let people settle differences without resorting to violence are doing their job. No where in the universe (other than in some anarchists imagination :) does, should, or could government provide it's services for free - there is a cost and it needs to be paid. I know that isn't what you meant... and I'm getting to that. When two people disagree over a contract, their is no violation of a right (no initiation of violence) and no obligation to make this service available even through it is valuable in producing a better rights enviornment. Each party has the opportunity to offer a tiny percent of the worth of the contract (say 1/10th of 1 percent) - if they don't, they don't have the right to initiate a case, but, of course they have the right to defend.

Police have the effect of competing with security firms, but there must be some degree of police power to back the monopoly of law. That is the way it must be to separate initiated force from voluntary interactions as spheres of human action. (Anarchists won't ever agree with this because they think that free markets exist in the midst of anarchy.) And governments provides civil courts for similar reasons - there is a close connection between the monopoly of laws and the courts that adjudicates them. Maybe a case could be made that private mediation could completely replace civil courts, but I'm not sure that would be the best approach for protecting individual rights (property rights are the heart of most civil disputes and they are certainly individual rights).

As for the fee, remember, it was just a suggestion to replace some portion of the tax burden of funding government with voluntary funding. As I pointed out there is a real value and a real cost involved with structuring the best of enviornments and even though I believe it can become totally voluntary I'm not at all opposed to paying taxes that are as small as they can be made at the time, and as long as those running the government are working to evolve the government towards reducing or replacing them.

Post 89

Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - 6:23pm

Michael, could you point out where Milton Friedman made that statement? Thanks.

The government's purpose is be provide the needed facilities to protect from an invasion. That comes first - arguing about whether or not the funding was via donations, or taxes, or what kinds of taxes would be of no use is we were defeated in a war, regardless of who the invading nation was.

Post 90

Thursday, March 24, 2011 - 3:34am

SW: Michael, could you point out where Milton Friedman made that statement? Thanks.

Well, we all know that he is famous for it. I googled Milton Friedman income tax and took my choice of citations.

Friedman: I was an employee at the Treasury Department. We were in a wartime situation. How do you raise the enormous amount of taxes you need for wartime? We were all in favor of cutting inflation. I wasn't as sophisticated about how to do it then as I would be now, but there's no doubt that one of the ways to avoid inflation was to finance as large a fraction of current spending with tax money as possible.
In World War I, a very small fraction of the total war expenditure was financed by taxes, so we had a doubling of prices during the war and after the war. At the outbreak of World War II, the Treasury was determined not to make the same mistake again.
You could not do that during wartime or peacetime without withholding. And so people at the Treasury tax research department, where I was working, investigated various methods of withholding. I was one of the small technical group that worked on developing it.
One of the major opponents of the idea was the IRS. Because every organization knows that the only way you can do anything is the way they've always been doing it. This was something new, and they kept telling us how impossible it was. It was a very interesting and very challenging intellectual task. I played a significant role, no question about it, in introducing withholding. I think it's a great mistake for peacetime, but in 1941-43, all of us were concentrating on the war.
I have no apologies for it, but I really wish we hadn't found it necessary and I wish there were some way of abolishing withholding now.
http://reason.com/archives/1995/06/01/best-of-both-worlds

On the other point, there is an amoral functionalist context here. The worst governments provide an army, police and courts. When they cannot do that we call them failed states.

SW: The government's purpose is be provide the needed facilities to protect from an invasion. That comes first - arguing about whether or not the funding was via donations, or taxes, or what kinds of taxes would be of no use is we were defeated in a war, regardless of who the invading nation was.

So, really, in order to protect itself - never mind its citizens - any government can, will, and must acquire whatever resources it needs by any means available. As for its citizens, what if they decide that the new guys are better, as for instance (bear with me), the people of Iraq actually welcoming American liberators? Would not their abandonment of their government be clear notice that that government no longer has a right to donations or taxes or borrowing? And how would you determine that in media res?

I grant the functionalist consideration, but, beyond that, do you not suggest a moral limit to legitimacy?

Of course, I agree with 99% of your post #88. The 1% is a matter of some complexity. So, I put a citation in the General topics.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 3/24, 3:45am)

Post 91

Thursday, March 24, 2011 - 7:18pm

Michael,

You misread what I wrote.

I wrote, "The government's purpose is be provide the needed facilities to protect from an invasion. That comes first - arguing about whether or not the funding was via donations, or taxes, or what kinds of taxes would be of no use is we were defeated in a war, regardless of who the invading nation was."

You replied, "So, really, in order to protect itself - never mind its citizens - any government can, will, and must acquire whatever resources it needs by any means available."

I put the protection of the citizens ahead of everything and you imply that I'm okay with any degree of confiscation. That is a cheap tactic and speaks poorly of you.

The government's job is to protect the country and the citizens are the most important part of that, and I've always said that the only valid purpose for a government is to provide the environment for protecting individual rights. When I said 'protect against invasion' that means protect the individuals from having their rights violated by an invasion.
--------------

Who cares what the people want relative to the invaders versus the current government? The only issue is individual rights. People should always use the most reasonable approach to maximizing their individual rights.
----------------

No one has the right to violate rights so those questions on Iraq are a non-issues. The only issues that can be answered regarding Iraq are these: should we have gone to war, should we have engaged in nation building, and are the political desires of the people there based upon wanting more or less protection for individual rights.
--------------

Your question is in the same category as one regarding a set of federal officers coming to a southern town in the 30's to stop the lynching of blacks. And the question is do the people welcome the feds, or do they want to keep the current sheriff's office. And what does the question of money have to do when put up against the protection of individual rights? If that town is in another country, then does our government have a responsibility to protect the rights of the lynched people? If the people of the United States support far left or far right totalitarian government, does that make it right?
---------------

Without individual rights these political questions aren't answerable. Without a monopoly of law they aren't solveable.

Post 92

Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - 5:26am

Steve:

You can NOT have full and complete laissez-faire capitlaism without a monopoly of law based upon individual rights - minarchy.

Think of the most totalitarian regime imaginable. Even in that regime, will it have eliminated the competing set of laws based on The Mob/Mafia? Conversely, think of the amount of totalitarianism necessary to even attempt to enforce the idea of an effective "monopoly of law."

I'm not sure the ideas of 'monopoly of law' and 'law based upon individual rights' are compatible.

Take our context, for example. We claim a 'monopoly of law' and the right to enforce that law, based on our constitution.

Yes, the Mob/Mafia is 'outside that monopoly of law.' But, does anyone claim that the Mob/Mafia doesn't have 'laws,' that they don't enforce those 'laws', fully adjacent to the political context that the rest of us claim a 'monopoly' upon?

Now, imagine what would be required to effectively eliminate the Mob/Mafia from our context. To actually eliminate it, as opposed to, subdue it, combat it, manage it.

What we have is a majority seat of law, and competing minority seats of alternative law, both based ultimately on enforcement via force. A stand-off at an acceptable level of conflict.

And, we can pretend that the majority seat is not in fact completely long effectively over-run by the minority seat via a more effective use of force, because to believe otherwise would be uncomfortable.

Post 93

Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - 12:32pm

Fred,

You wrote, "I'm not sure the ideas of 'monopoly of law' and 'law based upon individual rights' are compatible."

I know that we agree on the basic moral principles involved in individual rights, and that individual rights are universal, and objectively derived from our nature as humans and that the best of all systems to live under would be the one that best reflected those rights. By saying that I've set a common foundation and agreement from which we can examine the purpose of a political system.

A political system that would create the environment that best serves that purpose would be one that explicitly set forth the set of laws that most carefully matched individual rights. The idea is that we should over the curve of history be moving towards a better system with each change.... like the way that science constantly moves forward by making changes through discovery and testing and analysis. We will never, in absolute terms, reach some utopian final end, because we live out our lives in the practice of pursuing the course which is one of making the changes that keep us on the correct trajectory.

Take that as our context. Then our body of law, as it is now, is that which is held by, and came from our structures, our system, as it is now. We keep changing that body of law and tweaking the structures. Sometimes in the right direction and sometimes the wrong direction. If there is a major 'discovery' that changes how we see things, we make major changes. But we don't let there be two centers, two bodies of law (not in this context), just as we don't have two physics. It doesn't matter that people, being people, will come up with what they want to add to science, (e.g., the paranormal), or to apply as if it were law (as I'm using the term) like for example the mafia with their laws. But we all have a strong vested interest to deny that the paranormal folk are to be included within the body of physics proper, and the mafia will stay illegal and not be part of the sanctioned monopoly - the body of law proper.

That sanction is important. It is the boundary of force. Inside the boundry of law founded upon individual rights - the degree that the law is properly reflecting individual rights - there will be no initiation of force that isn't dealt with as best we can.

It is the same with the sciences or any body of knowledge, except the boundary isn't force, it is truth - it is an epistemological sanction. We know that we harbor untruths in our current body of knowledge, and we expect to discover and correct them as time goes on. As we work in this fashion, we have this boundary that we attempt to maintain and we say that inside of the boundary is the true stuff and outside is the questionable or false stuff. It has very fuzzy boundaries in the cases where there are still legitimate disagreements, but that is just the boundary in motion - when that area becomes well understood it will be a crisp and clear line.

For the law, the monopoly has more than one dimension. Primarily it is about a moral sanction. As Objectivists we reject any notion of moral relativism and so we would reject the idea put forth by some mafiosa that his system is moral for him despite its conflict with individual rights. We observe a boundary based upon separation of that which is moral from that which is not, and to maintain the connection between the moral and the legal, our laws are constructed within our moral boundary but only as per individual rights - those moral rights are the connectors between the moral and the legal. There is also a practical requirement in that a monopoly of law needs a geographical boundry. There is also the practical requirement that the law be explicit, understandable, and reasonably stable so that it can be known in advance - so that it can be counted on existing in the future so that plans can be made. And an over-arching principal is that law is about the conversion of only individual rights into statutes and their structures. There are a body of principles that we derive to judge the objectivity of law. And we use the purpose of the law, and the purpose of individual rights to judge the effectiveness of enforcement structures - the judging of the resulting social environment in maximizing the observation of individual rights.

Looked at like that, it is clear that we are always faced with both honest and dishonest arguments about what should be included inside the boundary. And there will be "outlaws" which are people that knowingly operate outside of the law - which would include the mafia. From that perspective I hope you can see they do not even fall under the same category. They aren't vying for a place under the sanctioned monopoly tent.

I hope you can see that the way I use the term "law" when talking about a monopoly of law is an entirely different meaning from a parent laying down the LAW, or any mafia's LAW it attempts to enforce, or the LAWS of nature, etc.

To have a society where it is reasonable to expect ones property rights to be fully respected and that it is reasonable to expect this to be continuing state that is protected by reasonably effective, lasting structures, and where disagreements can be settled by laws known in advance using objective processes is that meeting of individual rights and laisse-faire capitalism that I am saying is only possible if there is a set of objective, sanctioned laws that are stable and based upon individual rights. And that, to me is a monopoly of laws. If someone, via the government passes a conflicting or a bad law, it is like a bad theory in science - it needs to be examined and changed or rejected/repealed. If a bad 'law' arises outside of the boundary of the governments laws, as in privately enforced mafia, or sharia 'laws' - then it needs to be addressed as an enforcement issue.
------------------

You wrote, "...imagine what would be required to effectively eliminate the Mob/Mafia from our context. To actually eliminate it, as opposed to, subdue it, combat it, manage it. What we have is a majority seat of law, and competing minority seats of alternative law, both based ultimately on enforcement via force."

We don't need to make a perfect monopoly in the sense that you are describing. We need to hold our purpose in mind, and we can imagine a utopia that might be reached some time in the distant future, but in the meantime we live in the present and we keep working to make better laws, to make them hew more closely to individual rights, to be more effective in their enforcement, and not abandon the concept of a monopoly of sanctioned laws just because we can't jump from where we are now to some perfect implimentation in the foreseeable future. Imagine yourself at any point back in history and that you are a scientist and you are somewhat ahead of most of your collegues. Now, do you abandon the concept of a body of epistomologically sanctioned knowledge in your area because there is so much nonsense being spouted? And if you did allow that despair cause you toss out the image of an ideal, and the energy to work towards it, how would we have ever come to where we are today, or hope to get where we want to be tomorrow? In the most basic of senses we are just making mental boundaries between true and untrue, between right and not right - and then, because they are important, we give external structure to these boundaries.

Post 94

Wednesday, April 6, 2011 - 8:26am

Steve:

Our political context certainly has a monopoly on what I would characterize as (mostly) just law, and I agree with you that is requirement for freedom. And, I use the weasel qualifier 'mostly' because just law is law based on clear known principals and axioms, easily understood in advance, and that is where I think our current dinged political context has gotten more than a little sloppy over the years. There are lots of examples of that, too many.

As well, opportunists from every direction have sprinted to the guns of government for force based leverage as a short cut to open and fair market based competition, principles be damned.

In the prevailing political context, all competing sets of laws are 'outlaws.' The Mob/mafia is clearly an outlier, and based purely on reptilian force as its only principle.

But still, tolerated. Why? Because -- I think -- our freedom could barely tolerate the kind of absolute totalitarian state necessary to actually effectively wipe out the Mob/mafia. It would be heavy handed and coarse and unlikely to strike with the precision of a scalpel, excising just the cancerous growths. It would, to illustrate with hyperbole, have to bomb villages to guarantee that it got the village thief. The alternative -- our alternative -- is that, instead of wiping out the Mob/Mafia, it is inhibited. Subdued. Kept under check.

That is, I wish it was. As opposed to, controlling every union in America, including government unions, and who knows how much of Congress. (What would have ever stopped them from trying to buy influence in Congress? Our less than 100% effective laws?)

So in that sense only, we tolerate side-by-side competing bodies of enforced laws, as a consequence of what it would require to convince them to ... eliminate themselves.

Post 95

Wednesday, April 6, 2011 - 11:15am

Fred,

I agree. Our current political context has been badly polluted with bad laws over the last 100 years or so. Instead of carefully trimming and tweaking for a better representation of individual rights, the leeches, special interests, and politicians have been, as you point out, using the law to violate individual rights. After a point, the bad laws create a great mess and it becomes harder to work with scalpel-like precision even if the politicians were so inclined or capable.

I wanted to flesh out what I meant by "monopoly of law" because the principles of Objectivism give us a great foundation, but each major discipline, like law, or psychology, or science in general also need their own philosophy that gives the principles general to that specific body of knowledge in a way to connect that discipline to the the principles of Objectivism. This is about that hierarchy of knowledge that keeps us from running around chasing after floating abstractions.

e.g., Metaphysics -> Epistemology -> Ethics -> Political Philosophy -> Philosophy of law -> Legal theory -> The body of laws.

Post 96

Wednesday, April 6, 2011 - 4:28pm

Steve,

If there is a major 'discovery' that changes how we see things, we make major changes. But we don't let there be two centers, two bodies of law (not in this context), just as we don't have two physics.

It doesn't matter that people, being people, will come up with what they want to add to science, (e.g., the paranormal), or to apply as if it were law (as I'm using the term) like for example the mafia with their laws.

But we all have a strong vested interest to deny that the paranormal folk are to be included within the body of physics proper, and the mafia will stay illegal and not be part of the sanctioned monopoly - the body of law proper.

Well put.

Law is a science, not a free-for-all playground for hippies and thugs.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 4/06, 4:32pm)

Post 97

Thursday, April 7, 2011 - 7:03am

Steve:

e.g., Metaphysics -> Epistemology -> Ethics -> Political Philosophy -> Philosophy of law -> Legal theory -> The body of laws.

I think there is a hint in there where the pollution of our laws comes from: if a graduate degree is required to understand the foundation of our body of laws, then few in the electorate are actually going to understand the foundation of our body of laws, and will politically accept anything, even under a supposed constitution of liberty.

Politicians gain power by doing one thing very well: counting heads, and alternating between pandering to the center of mass with broad never fulfilled promises, and pandering to connected special interest groups, who both court and are courted and are well fed.

It is why, I think, a free nation of on average, we're all average people -- who can yet still be decent, freedom loving people -- desperately need a simple enough axiom at the base of all of that, a principle that is readily grasped and easily understood and easily applied as a litmus to public issues, the most important of which is, "Is this issue a suitable issue for public consideration?"

The closest concepts to that in America used to be the words "Freedom...Liberty." Recognizing that, the totalitarian leaning enemies of 'Freedom...Liberty', to which those concepts are anathema to their totalitarian leaning goals, attacked those concepts with a vengeance, on all fronts. America thought those concepts were defended only on battlefields, but the war was lost in classrooms and on the commons, in our culture.

We've been over-run. For decades. A nation that cannot broadly with consensus define the words 'Freedom...Liberty' cannot with consensus defend them.

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

It is? Really? 'Arguments' like that are all it took, like from that shrieking hag of a derelict, to undercut and over-run freedom in America?

"It's the economy, stupid!"

"It" is? Really? Not two years from the fall of the Berlin Wall, the supposed public collapse of command/control centrally planned 'the' economy running, and America is dumbly tripping over itself, unable to defend freedom from that intellectual juggernaut 4 word bumper sticker of an 'argument?'

How was freedom in America over-run by such ... light breezes of abject stupidity? And thus, what prayer of the American electorate ever broadly taking on ...

Metaphysics -> Epistemology -> Ethics -> Political Philosophy -> Philosophy of law -> Legal theory -> The body of laws.

...to guide its choices?

Said another way, you are arguing for what should be the foundation of our laws. By examination of what is, in our electorate, the one that is courted and pandered to, the only possible conclusion is that none of that actually is the foundation of our current body of laws.

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 4/07, 7:05am)

Post 98

Thursday, April 7, 2011 - 2:27pm

Fred,

I don't understand. I agree with much of what you are saying, but you have mixed in some things that don't make sense for me. Why do you object to the concept of knowledge being hierarchical? Or am I misunderstanding you?

Let me change areas, just as an example, and put it this way:
Metaphysics->Epistemology->Philosophy of Science->Physics->Engineering Theory->Specific Engineering Proposal

Isn't that meaningful to those who want to understand the foundations of the concepts important in the area under discussion? I know that it is not needed by a lay person making use of the talents of an engineer and I understand that engineers themselves have limited needs for looking at things that way. But I say that if SOMEONE isn't doing this, engineering will be less well understood and more susceptible to errors and those the most ignorant of these layers will be those least likely to spot the nature of an error.

I would never say that the average American voter needs to be conversant with the epistemological roots or the philosophical terminology used to discuss the hierarchical structure of ideas that trace from the most fundamental level to the most detailed - or to understand the intellectual connections between our senses and man's nature and our requirements in a given area or how we justify the logical soundness of our basic conclusions. But because it isn't required of the average voter doesn't mean that political intellectuals are free to be ignorant of these things.
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You wrote, "...if a graduate degree is required to understand the foundation of our body of laws, then few in the electorate are actually going to understand the foundation of our body of laws, and will politically accept anything, even under a supposed constitution of liberty."

I have a graduate degree but isn't even remotely related to the law. I don't even have a high school diploma certifying any understanding in this area. So, I don't know why you made that statement. We have people who think that foundation of our body of laws is the word of God. Other are busy attempting to implement Sharia on the basis of what they claim their god wants. There are atheists that see the constitution as an impediment and those who see it as a key requirement in translating the moral to the legal. Clearly there is a great need for a more rigorous and logical understanding. And I'm writing it for ROR, for Objectivists (not the average American), and certainly this is within the area we might be interested in and capable of grasping.
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What I am attempting to do in applying the concept of the hierarchical nature of knowledge to this area that stretches from metaphysics through a number of layers out to the specific statutes in law is to categorize the different layers. Each layer, like in software, for those who have done some programming, must interface with the layers above and below. This kind of thinking is good for understanding the context that is applicable to any given assertion or question and for understanding the connections that keep abstractions from being floating abstractions.
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If no one understands even the most basic levels, you can be sure they will lose argument to those who do. The far left never strays far from their altruistic moral base when they argue. And those attempting to defend freedom often don't even see the layers involved and try to counter with pragmatic arguments or "Me too, but not so much." They loose. Those who understand freedom and argue for freedom have the best base, the most logical connections from top to bottom... but they have to understand it to succeed.

Post 99

Thursday, April 7, 2011 - 2:38pm