Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The social-progressive mindset
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Kwesi: Much of this discussion has assumed little distinction between moral universalism and rights, but I think we have failed to recognised a distinction between morals and rights, which is important in the context of social progressivism. Moral precepts are obligations, duties, which are imposed on us, “thou shalt honour thy father and thy mother”, “thou shalt not commit adultery”, whereas rights are claims which we have on others or institutions towards ourselves, “I have a right to choose”, “I have a right to bear arms”. The capacity to sell to whom one wishes is not a moral precept but a right (or not), and as such is not a matter of moral universalism but of the existence or not of human rights and how they are discovered.
I'd argue that rights and duties are two sides of the same thing. If you have a right to sonething then other people have a duty not to take it away from you. If you have a duty to honour your parents then they have a right to your respect. If people have a right to vote then people have a duty to accept the result.
So there are legal, moral and customary duties to parallel the three categories of rights.
-------------------- Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Russ: I'd argue that rights and duties are two sides of the same thing.
I don't believe so. Duties can be divided into perfect and imperfect: perfect duties can be fully discharged by action or inaction and must be fully discharged, whereas imperfect duties can't ever be fully discharged and require only appropriate pursuit. So the duty not to kill is a perfect duty, which is discharged by not killing anyone; whereas the duty to be generous to those worse off than I am is imperfect since it's beyond the power of any individual to be generous to everyone.
Most imperfect duties do not have corresponding rights. If someone doesn't act generously towards me I have no right to recompense. (There is a right to assistance while in want; it's arguable whether or not that corresponds to the duty to assist those in want, since I cannot except in an emergency claim that right off any particular individual.) A duty to be generous in giving does not have any particular right attached. Kant thought there was a duty to develop one's skills and talents: nobody has a right there. Conceptually speaking there could be perfect duties with no rights corresponding. If you think there is a duty to refrain from sexual activity outside marriage that isn't incoherent merely because nobody has the right.
Clearly then the category of duties is wider and more encompassing than rights. I would personally argue that rights are therefore reducible to duties (and both are derived from other moral considerations).
-------------------- we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Kwesi
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# 10274
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Posted
Ross quote: I'd argue that rights and duties are two sides of the same thing. If you have a right to sonething then other people have a duty not to take it away from you.
I agree with Dafyd's last post, and would like to add to it.
Perhaps I should make myself clear as to what I understand as the distinction between rights and morals in terms of this discussion. I concede that morals involve rights and duties, but in discussing public policy the concept of rights is understood differently. ISTM that a duty not to commit adultery, or be envious, or to loves one’s enemies, or to honour God and one’s parents is of a different order (moral), than the right (duty) to go to school, to drive a car, to a passport, to a grant, to a pension, and so on.
To my way of thinking a right is essentially legal in nature and the creation of legislation and case law. These rights consist of claims an individual or a group of individuals may make of others and the public authorities. The right to various social benefits and the conditions under which they can be claimed are determined by law. There is nothing intrinsically moral or immoral about these rights, except insofar as one considers it a moral duty to obey the law, or not.
You are only partially correct, Russ, in saying “If you have a right to something then other people have a duty not to take it away from you,” because it still remains within the power of a legislature to remove or redefine an existing right. At one time there was a right in the US to discriminate at lunch counters on the basis of race, but following decisions of the Supreme Court that is no longer the case. Societies are continually changing their minds as to what should constitute a right. Perhaps the most dramatic in recent times has been the removal of public protection from what is now termed a foetus, leaving it a matter of moral choice for the mother, which reflects a general tendency in the West to remove questions of private morality out of the public sphere. (I think, by the way, that this is a sensible policy).
I don’t agree with you, Ross, regarding an equivalence between socio/ political rights and the concept of moral universalism. Respecting “natural rights” I agree with Bentham that the discourse is “nonsense upon stilts.” All sorts of natural or (these days) human rights are asserted, for which there is no convincing evidence whatsoever. While I’m prepared to admit the existence of a universal moral order known to God its author or pure reason, the morals and rights we experience, know, and need are heavily influenced by their temporal context. I think it's your unwillingness to acknowledge this that has raised for you dilemmas that an acceptance of a degree of human invincible ignorance would avoid.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
Kwesi,
I want to check that I've understood you right.
You've made the distinction between the moral level of universal and immutable truths, and the socio-political level, where each society can organise its affairs according to its laws and traditions which it can change over time.
You think there are moral duties and socio-political duties, but that rights are essentially socio-political. That talk of moral rights is a nonsense, a philosophical error. That moral duties are not of such a nature as to confer a corresponding right. That you may have a duty to God to treat your neighbour well (for some interpretation of "well") but that doesn't give your neighbour any sort of claim on you for good treatment.
Within the socio-political arena, you think law trumps tradition, that any customary right can be legislated away.
Is that right ?
So apartheid and caste systems and concentration camps and slavery may be moral wrongs against God, but - so long as they're legal - they don't infringe anyone's rights ?
And a man can have no intrinsic rights against the duly-constituted government of the territory in which he lives, he has only those rights which the laws of that government grant him ?
Is that what you believe ? And are you saying that that is the philosophy underpinning social progressivism ? Or saying that that's why you think social progressivism is mistaken ?
-------------------- Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Dafyd:
Most imperfect duties do not have corresponding rights. If someone doesn't act generously towards me I have no right to recompense.
I suspect I don't believe in imperfect duties.
At the level of custom and tradition, there's a level of generosity that is expected (neighbours "borrowing" a cup of sugar which isn't expected to be returned ?) And levels of generosity that are extra-ordinary (could I borrow your Ferrari ?).
At the level of statute, good laws are enforceable.
And at the level of morality, there is grace, super-erogatory goodness done out of love.
So I think in my lexicon, "duties" and "ought" and "should" refer to what you call perfect duty. Duties to someone - to neighbours or to God - whom we wrong when we fail in those duties.
And Jesus the Christ calls us to go beyond duty. Without that call becoming another duty. His yoke is easy etc.
-------------------- Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Dafyd:
Conceptually speaking there could be perfect duties with no rights corresponding. If you think there is a duty to refrain from sexual activity outside marriage that isn't incoherent merely because nobody has the right.
Such a duty would make sense to me in one of two ways.
Either as some sort of duty to God to obey His wishes, implying that He has a moral right to our obedience.
Or as a duty to one's present or future spouse. Who has some sort of right to one's virginity or to all of one's physical expression of love.
But I'm not convinced that it is comprehensible as a moral duty without a corresponding moral right.
-------------------- Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
Russ quote: “I want to check that I've understood you right.”
Thanks for your post. You raise some fair questions.
What I’m arguing is that the language of universal human rights is a function of the Enlightenment when some philosophers (esp. Locke) expressed the view that individuals held such rights simply by virtue of being human. Even in a state of nature before the formation of government, they argued, humans possessed natural rights, and that the reason for establishing political authority was primarily to better protect their enforcement. Governments ought not to abridge those rights and if they do so there is a right, if not a duty, of rebellion. Such natural rights are by definition universal, and as such they trump laws and customs. It would seem to follow that if these rights are universal and natural then they must also be harmonious, otherwise they would cease to be universally applicable. Presently, many groups and interests press for a greater recognition of these universal rights as more and more of them are (apparently) discovered. It’s a way or arguing one’s interests against the status quo. “‘I’m not pursuing my narrow self-interests like those in power but the greater rights of the whole of humanity!”
I am among those who are sceptical that being human necessarily confers natural rights, or, more importantly, that they can be discovered and accepted as such. For example, although I’m against racial discrimination, I find little evidence across time and space that it is recognised as a natural human right. Indeed, the founders of the US, who propounded natural rights, had no problem in accepting slavery amongst African-Americans. One might question the natural character of a whole series of rights. The problem is that while they may seem obvious to us as to be universal they are not so in all societies and often in our own in the past. ISTM that the language of universal human rights is the ideology of Western liberal elites seeking to impose their values across the globe. Incidentally, they don’t seem particularly interested in defending private property and capitalism, which were the prime concern of the early advocates of natural rights. Bentham, in my opinion, was right to de-mystify the concept as “nonsense on stilts”, however much one might applaud the causes they espouse(d).
Rights, for me, are the creation of positive law and common law as interpreted by the courts and tribunals, and as such are ephemeral and culture and time-bound rather than set in stone; and that humans do not have natural rights. It follows, of course, that laws can legitimately create rights and deny rights which in my opinion are morally abhorrent. My moral and Christian religious convictions may well demand that I undertake various actions to resist them, even the murder of a tyrant. The grounds would be not that they offend non-existing natural rights but constitute a set of values inferior to those I hold.
quote: Russ:“And a man can have no intrinsic rights against the duly-constituted government of the territory in which he lives, he has only those rights which the laws of that government grant him ?”
Yes, and woman, too! I can’t think of a country, incidentally, where you can go to a court and argue against its laws on the grounds of natural rights. Even in the US you could have to invoke a violation of the constitution and bill of rights i.e. pieces of legislation. quote: Russ: “And are you saying that [natural rights] is the philosophy underpinning social progressivism? Or saying that that's why you think social progressivism is mistaken?”
I think that the concept of natural rights underpins much of social progressivism, which I believe is an ideology of the liberal middle class, especially those with tertiary education, and seeks to promote their world view and cosmopolitan interests. I would also argue that its assumptions regarding the existence of natural rights is mistaken. On the other hand there is much about their stands on various issues that I applaud, even if they are built on sand.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Russ: That talk of moral rights is a nonsense, a philosophical error. That moral duties are not of such a nature as to confer a corresponding right.
As a slightly different opinion from Kwesi's, I would say that language about universal human rights is usually shorthand for statement about other morally binding considerations. (Just as a political atomist would think that statements about corporations or governments doing this or that can be reduced to statements about the actions of the individuals within those corporations or governments.)
quote: Within the socio-political arena, you think law trumps tradition, that any customary right can be legislated away.
I note that the positions you've espoused on this and other threads entail the view that the law ought to trump custom.
quote: And a man can have no intrinsic rights against the duly-constituted government of the territory in which he lives, he has only those rights which the laws of that government grant him ?
The question is whether talk of rights adds anything except convenience or rhetorical force to the assertion that a law is morally wrong?
If you think natural rights give you a claim against the government to whom do you appeal to make that claim? If no court to which you can appeal recognises or enforces that claim then what does it mean to say that you have a right against your government?
quote: quote: Originally posted by Dafyd: Most imperfect duties do not have corresponding rights. If someone doesn't act generously towards me I have no right to recompense.
I suspect I don't believe in imperfect duties.
Your position does seem to entail that there aren't any. I would say that the resulting work-to-rule morality is idiosyncratic. If you're arguing from premises that include the non-existence of imperfect duties you're going to be arguing from different premises to most people you're arguing with, social-progressives or not.
I'd argue that the duties of a parent (or other carer) to their children are clearly imperfect. A parent who does just as much for their child as can be defined by perfect duties fails in their duty to their child. (Yes, that's not obviously a duty without a correspondent right. But it is obviously an imperfect duty.)
quote: Originally posted by Russ: quote: Originally posted by Dafyd: Conceptually speaking there could be perfect duties with no rights corresponding. If you think there is a duty to refrain from sexual activity outside marriage that isn't incoherent merely because nobody has the right.
Such a duty would make sense to me in one of two ways.
Either as some sort of duty to God to obey His wishes, implying that He has a moral right to our obedience.
I don't think it's coherent to talk about God having rights. Rights are defined and have limits and God's moral authority has no limits. And to whom would God appeal to claim rights against us?
In any case, that would imply that the duty not to have sex outside marriage was incoherent outside of revelation. And I think that would imply that no atheist has ever asserted it (some have done) and runs counter to what most conservative Christians have thought of it.
-------------------- we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Kwesi: One might question the natural character of a whole series of rights. The problem is that while they may seem obvious to us as to be universal they are not so in all societies and often in our own in the past.
I agree that it's hard to distinguish morals from customs. We learn as children a whole lot of things that good people don't do, without making the distinction.
quote:
Rights, for me, are the creation of positive law and common law as interpreted by the courts and tribunals, and as such are ephemeral and culture and time-bound rather than set in stone
Nobody doubts that those exist. The question is whether it's meaningful to ask whether there are statutory or customary rights that societies should have.
Or whether, at the risk of incurring the wrath of Godwin, there is no objective basis for preferring any society to any other.
quote: laws can legitimately create rights and deny rights which in my opinion are morally abhorrent. My moral and Christian religious convictions may well demand that I undertake various actions to resist them, even the murder of a tyrant. The grounds would be not that they offend non-existing natural rights but constitute a set of values inferior to those I hold.
So if suicide bomber kills people as an act of resistance to the laws of your country, in the belief that his creed constitutes a superior set of values, that's OK ?
How is he worse than you are ? unless there's a right answer ?
quote: I think that the concept of natural rights underpins much of social progressivism, which I believe is an ideology of the liberal middle class, especially those with tertiary education, and seeks to promote their world view and cosmopolitan interests. I would also argue that its assumptions regarding the existence of natural rights is mistaken. [/QB]
Your challenge is a more fundamental one than mine then.
-------------------- Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Kwesi
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# 10274
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Posted
Russ quote: The question is whether it's meaningful to ask whether there are statutory or customary rights that societies should have.
i don't think that 'customary rights' can be regarded as being generally applicable because they are manifestly culture-bound, and would be expected to vary from one culture to another.
It is, however, fair to ask whether or not there are values that are so universal in nature that all states ought to enshrine in law i.e. to recognise them as natural rights. To repeat, I'm not amongst those who are convinced.
quote: Russ: So if suicide bomber kills people as an act of resistance to the laws of your country, in the belief that his creed constitutes a superior set of values, that's OK ?
No, because it involves the indiscriminate killing of the guilty and innocent. I also think that violent action should only be resorted to in extremis, and particularly with reference to murderous tyrants, such as A. Hitler. If you recall, I raised it as an example to challenge the notion of a universal right not be murdered, killed extra-judicially. Natural righters are more prone than most to take violent action because for them governments should be resisted when they pass laws or behave contrarily to natural rights hence the rightt of the citizen to bear arms. Taking the law into one's own hands to promote natural justice is a powerful theme in American culture: the cowboy. The trouble is that in real life you end up with Timothy McVeigh and the like. Terrorism in the US is mostly of this type.
quote: :Kwesi: The concept of natural rights underpins much of social progressivism, which I believe is an ideology of the liberal middle class, especially those with tertiary education, and seeks to promote their world view and cosmopolitan interests. I would also argue that its assumptions regarding the existence of natural rights is mistaken.
Russ: Your challenge is a more fundamental one than mine then.
I think that's right. ISTM you accept their framework of natural rights but from a more Lockeian seventeenth century perspective relating to the right to dispose of one's property the way one wishes.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Kwesi: quote: Russ: So if suicide bomber kills people as an act of resistance to the laws of your country, in the belief that his creed constitutes a superior set of values, that's OK ?
No, because it involves the indiscriminate killing of the guilty and innocent. I also think that violent action should only be resorted to in extremis, and particularly with reference to murderous tyrants, such as A. Hitler. If you recall, I raised it as an example to challenge the notion of a universal right not be murdered, killed extra-judicially.
Seems to me that you believe in a moral code that is "higher" than the law of the state. So that it is sometimes right to break that law.
And your version of the moral code allows or even commends - in extremis - the murder of tyrants but prohibits the murder of innocents.
If we agree that there is a moral duty not to murder innocents, what if anything is wrong with expressing the flip side of that duty as a right, and saying that innocents have a right to life ? Or more precisely to freedom from murder ?
A right which they may conceivably forfeit as a punishment for evil actions they commit which remove them from the set of innocent people ?
You might conceivably be willing to use a time machine (if one were available) to go back in time to murder Hitler after he'd written Mein Kampf and after he'd taken power but before he gave any orders relating to Jews and concentration camps. But unwilling to use the same machine to go back a bit further and strangle him in his cradle. On the basis that babies are innocent...
quote: :Kwesi: ISTM you accept their framework of natural rights but from a more Lockeian seventeenth century perspective relating to the right to dispose of one's property the way one wishes.
If we agree that there is a moral duty not to steal, what if anything is wrong with expressing that the other way around as a right to property ?
-------------------- Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Kwesi: If you recall, I raised it as an example to challenge the notion of a universal right not be murdered, killed extra-judicially.
Not all extra-judicial killings are murder. For example, accidental homicide is an extra-judicial killing (because it is done without judicial authority) but is not considered murder. [ 11. December 2017, 20:23: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
-------------------- Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Kwesi
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# 10274
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Posted
Russ quote: Seems to me that you believe in a moral code that is "higher" than the law of the state. So that it is sometimes right to break that law.
I suspect that most people do, though not all. There are Christians who believe that Paul's injunction to obey the emperor because all power is of God is inviolable.
My real difficulty is that I don't pretend I have an answer to moral problems and dilemmas. Nor am I sure why i feel very strongly about this or that- it’s more a gut feeling than a considered conclusion starting from first principles. But why do I have that gut feeling? And why do others have guts that tell them differently? quote: Russ: If we agree that there is a moral duty not to murder innocents, what if anything is wrong with expressing the flip side of that duty as a right, and saying that innocents have a right to life ? Or more precisely to freedom from murder ?
The question of innocent children is an instructive one. Most people would think it axiomatic that it’s wrong to kill innocent children. The Roman’s, however, were approving of the exposure of newborn infants. There is the dispute as to whether the unborn have the rights of personhood, or do they only kick in at the moment of birth. Is it permissible to abort a foetus if found to have severe abnormalities? Who should have the burden of making the moral decision, society or the mother? They are not easy questions to resolve. quote: Russ: “If we agree that there is a moral duty not to steal, what if anything is wrong with expressing that the other way around as a right to property?”
OK, but it does not show there is a natural right to private property. Communists take the view that the possession of private property is theft, and that the only legitimate property is that owned by the public. Some on the left describe the theft of private goods not as such but as the liberation of those items. In other words the injunction not to steal does not necessitate a belief in private property. Of course, some neo-liberals take the view that much of taxation is theft because it takes away private property to which an individual has a natural right.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Kwesi: Russ quote: Seems to me that you believe in a moral code that is "higher" than the law of the state. So that it is sometimes right to break that law.
I suspect that most people do, though not all. There are Christians who believe that Paul's injunction to obey the emperor because all power is of God is inviolable...
...Of course, some neo-liberals take the view that much of taxation is theft because it takes away private property to which an individual has a natural right.
Once you believe that the emperor - the State - can be morally wrong because there is a higher moral code of right and wrong, then it is possible that the emperor commits murder when he has people executed who don't agree with him, and possible that he commits theft when he uses his legions to take property away from his political opponents to give to his political supporters.
So is it not at least possible that the neo-liberals are right ?
What criteria would you use to determine whether any particular act of taxation is in fact theft ?
(Of course we know that the unprincipled and biased will use the criterion of which group they sympathize with, but I don't see you as being in that camp).
-------------------- Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Kwesi
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# 10274
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Posted
Russ quote: What criteria would you use to determine whether any particular act of taxation is in fact theft ?
I don’t agree that the possession of private property is invariably or even mostly theft, nor do I believe that taxation is theft by definition. That sort of language is usually mendacious, self-serving, and a silly way of looking at the questions raised. I think any approach to taxation should be a sensible balancing on the one hand the need to encourage enterprise and economic growth, and on the other hand whatever the society determines should be its social objectives. (The two sides, of course, are inter-related, because a significant portion of government spending is related to infrastructural projects, and the creation of a well-educated and healthy workforce). Where the balance is struck between taxation and public spending varies from one society to another because there are differing views between polities as to what it is fair for the state to take. It’s a question of judging where taxation discourages enterprise and encourages tax evasion and avoidance. Taxation designed simply to deprive a group of individuals of their property for no purpose other than to be confiscatory is probably foolish, morally wrong, or both. By and large the most successful societies are characterised by high levels of income and states with higher levels of taxation, as I have argued earlier.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Leaf
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# 14169
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Russ: (Of course we know that the unprincipled and biased will use the criterion of which group they sympathize with, but I don't see you as being in that camp).
[emphasis added]
Imma stop you there, because I think this deserves more examination.
Is it morally possible to sympathize with a group? Is it morally impossible NOT to sympathize with a group, depending on the nature of that group?
You refer, often and pejoratively, to "sympathy with a group." I suspect that, along with (and related to) a lack of belief in imperfect duty, the contemptuous references to "sympathy with a group" reveal the difference between your stance and that of socially-progressive people.
I would say that it is morally necessary to sympathize with people in disadvantaged groups, and to help change the conditions that put them at a disadvantage. It is not fair to pretend that they were born on a level playing field. It is not bias to attempt to remedy the biased-against-them conditions of society.
You resort to phrases such as "treating people as people" as a sort of idealized, individualized response to people experiencing a disadvantage. Based on this, it seems you would personally carry each mobility-handicapped person up a set of stairs - if you happen to be there at the same time - rather than think, "Hm. There are many people with mobility handicaps. Maybe if we put in ramps, they could have access without waiting upon the chance of my personal benevolent charity."
I propose that the opposite of "sympathy with a group" is "philosophical sociopathy" - the utter lack of appropriate sympathy.
Posts: 2786 | From: the electrical field | Registered: Oct 2008
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Russ: If we agree that there is a moral duty not to murder innocents, what if anything is wrong with expressing the flip side of that duty as a right, and saying that innocents have a right to life ? Or more precisely to freedom from murder ?
There's nothing wrong with that as long as it's merely expressing the duty in other terms. One can support the Universal Declaration of Human Rights regardless of one's ethical ontology.
There are problem with treating them as ontologically interchangeable. Firstly, and arguably most importantly, there are no good arguments for rights as a primary moral category. You can only construct arguments for rights out of other moral categories that attach to human life. Secondly, a talk of rights places the onus on the person who has rights to assert them. Whereas talk of duty places the onus on the moral actor to do their duty. Thirdly, a picture of the human being as fundamentally a rights-bearer implies something like a picture of humans as fundamentally separate from each other, with their rights marking out the boundary between their competing claims. Such a vision has no connection with human beings as they actually live: if entertained seriously it is a sociopathic delusion.
quote: What criteria would you use to determine whether any particular act of taxation is in fact theft ?
Theft is in the central cases done by stealth. If something is done openly according to the rule of law it cannot be properly called theft.
Theft is not the only form of injustice so you can make some other case that a tax is unjust.
Arbitrary appropriation is not taxation. Appropriating property from the rulers' legitimate opponents and not from the rulers' supporters is arbitrary if it is based solely on considerations of personal attitude. If it's based on financial status or some other relevant policy consideration it isn't arbitrary. Even if in a democratic society one assumes that many voters will vote based on perceived self-interest.
quote: (Of course we know that the unprincipled and biased will use the criterion of which group they sympathize with, but I don't see you as being in that camp).
What Leaf said. And again a biased person thinks decisions based on principles they don't wish to acknowledge are unprincipled and biased. Mere disavowal of bias is not a sufficient sign of lack of bias. But also don't we think that the self-interest of the group that one belongs to is just as likely to be biasing as the interest of the group one sympathises with? If not more so? In which case the focus on sympathy looks tendentious.
-------------------- we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Leaf: quote: Originally posted by Russ: (Of course we know that the unprincipled and biased will use the criterion of which group they sympathize with, but I don't see you as being in that camp).
You refer, often and pejoratively, to "sympathy with a group." I suspect that, along with (and related to) a lack of belief in imperfect duty, the contemptuous references to "sympathy with a group" reveal the difference between your stance and that of socially-progressive people.
I think you're right that this is a key difference.
It's not having sympathy that's the problem, it's making that different level of sympathy that you have for the two parties involved in a question your criterion for judgment on that question.
Just as it's good to have a natural familial affection for your relatives but not good to use that affection as the basis for deciding on behalf of your employer whom to hire to fill a vacancy. Affection yes, nepotism and corruption, no.
Yes I go on about it a little too much. Because there's no point in trying to have a discussion about what's right and wrong on any other topic with someone who thinks the right answer is whatever furthers the interests of the side they've chosen to support.
Moral universality - a system of rights and duties that doesn't care if you're male or female, black or white, rich or poor - is just so fundamental.
-------------------- Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
You say "chosen to support" as if it's arbitrary. It's not. It's "people who've had the shitty end of the stick". It's a bit like the favouritism shown to Lazarus as opposed to Dives, where it's really explicit. So it's not a favouritism I'm going to apologise for.
-------------------- Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Russ:
Yes I go on about it a little too much. Because there's no point in trying to have a discussion about what's right and wrong on any other topic with someone who thinks the right answer is whatever furthers the interests of the side they've chosen to support.
Moral universality - a system of rights and duties that doesn't care if you're male or female, black or white, rich or poor - is just so fundamental.
Oookay. But surely everyone agrees that there is a universal morality about murder. It doesn't matter who you are, randomly taking the life of another human (out of spite, jealousy, anger etc) is wrong.* Cultures and countries where people are murdered can't be explained away as acceptable cultural differences.
That's not the same for everything. One can believe that (a) murder is always wrong no matter who does it and also (b) progressive tax policies which take more from the rich and less from the poor are morally right.
I've never heard of the idea that morals are so universal that one is forced to believe that absolutely everything applies to everyone equally.
I don't think anyone seriously believes that.
* of course there are exceptions and valid excuses. But this still underlines the universality of the understanding that murder is wrong.
-------------------- arse
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Russ: It's not having sympathy that's the problem, it's making that different level of sympathy that you have for the two parties involved in a question your criterion for judgment on that question.
That would be a problem if that were what Leaf were doing. It furthers the interests of the 'side' you've chosen to support to think that's what Leaf and the rest of us are doing. Have you any other reason to think that's what Leaf and the rest of us are doing? One that might convince those of us who don't see this as a matter of sides?
quote: Yes I go on about it a little too much. Because there's no point in trying to have a discussion about what's right and wrong on any other topic with someone who thinks the right answer is whatever furthers the interests of the side they've chosen to support.
The irony. So you acknowledge that you think there are sides here? You see the people you're criticising as a side? And by implication that you support the other opposing side?
quote: Moral universality - a system of rights and duties that doesn't care if you're male or female, black or white, rich or poor - is just so fundamental.
Interesting then that you don't include imperfect duties in your proposed system. As we've seen imperfect duties are necessary to the social-progressive case. However, they're hardly unique to social-progressives. Moral philosophers and ordinary moral agents in all religions and cultures have acknowledged their existence, or the existence of moral virtues upon which they depend. So your position here is highly idiosyncratic. You haven't offered any kind of principled justification for your rejection. On the other hand, if you thought that the right answer to any moral topic would be the one that furthered your side, you would reject imperfect duties. Even that circumstantial case is quite strong isn't it?
-------------------- we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
So here's a thing I spotted when I was out last night. My bus stop home is outside a sports shop that was advertising the Cycle Scheme, which is backed by the government to encourage people to commute by bike, by making the purchase of the bike deductible against tax.
Now, those who earn £11.5k-50k can deduct the basic rate from the cost of the bike. But those who earn £50k+ can deduct the higher rate of tax from the cost of the bike.
The same bike, if bought through the scheme, will cost you 10% more if you earn less than £50k pa, than if you earn more. We are literally giving a bigger tax-funded discount to people who already have lots of money.
And that's just one example of why universality just doesn't work. Those who already have, get more.
-------------------- Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Dafyd: quote: Originally posted by Russ: [QUOTE] What criteria would you use to determine whether any particular act of taxation is in fact theft ?
Theft is in the central cases done by stealth. If something is done openly according to the rule of law it cannot be properly called theft.
Theft is not the only form of injustice so you can make some other case that a tax is unjust.
Arbitrary appropriation is not taxation. Appropriating property from the rulers' legitimate opponents and not from the rulers' supporters is arbitrary if it is based solely on considerations of personal attitude. If it's based on financial status or some other relevant policy consideration it isn't arbitrary.
Thank you for engaging with the question.
Not convinced by the stealth argument. There may be a good reason for using one word for breaking into a bank vault to steal the money when nobody's looking and another word for getting in in broad daylight by holding a gun to the head of the man with the combination. But it seems to me that the commandment against stealing pretty obviously covers both methods.
Whilst I agree that a ruler should not act arbitrarily, that won't do as an answer to the question.
Systematic murder committed by a government - ethnic cleansing for example - doesn't become morally OK because it's not arbitrary. It doesn't become morally OK if it's done openly in accordance with a statute that has been enacted to permit it. And it doesn't become morally OK because it's a policy.
So why these lame attempts to justify systematic theft ?
Your problem seems to be that you want governments to have the moral right to enact policies like wealth redistribution that you approve of but not have the moral right to enact policies like apartheid that you disapprove of.
-------------------- Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Russ:
Not convinced by the stealth argument. There may be a good reason for using one word for breaking into a bank vault to steal the money when nobody's looking and another word for getting in in broad daylight by holding a gun to the head of the man with the combination. But it seems to me that the commandment against stealing pretty obviously covers both methods.
Yes, but surely you recognise that the same action might be "stealing" or "not-stealing" depending on who it is that is doing the thing and why.
A prison officer that breaks into the personal effects of a prisoner, finds drugs and confiscates it as contraband is not "stealing" the prisoner's personal belongings.
quote: Whilst I agree that a ruler should not act arbitrarily, that won't do as an answer to the question.
I think it pretty much will do for everyone else who actually bothers to do the minimum of thought about this issue.
quote: Systematic murder committed by a government - ethnic cleansing for example - doesn't become morally OK because it's not arbitrary. It doesn't become morally OK if it's done openly in accordance with a statute that has been enacted to permit it. And it doesn't become morally OK because it's a policy.
No, but then killing isn't always murder. A policeman shooting dead someone with a gun isn't in the same moral position as someone else shooting and killing. A soldier on the battlefield killing someone is a different moral category than a person in the street using the same weapons in a different circumstance.
Surely this is plainly obvious.
quote: So why these lame attempts to justify systematic theft ?
In what sense is it "lame"? It seems to me what is lame is your total inability to think through this issue before you post more drivel.
quote: Your problem seems to be that you want governments to have the moral right to enact policies like wealth redistribution that you approve of but not have the moral right to enact policies like apartheid that you disapprove of.
Your problem seems to be that you continue to make the discussion increasingly muddied by introducing more and more rubbish without ever actually addressing the previous points put to you.
-------------------- arse
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Russ: Moral universality - a system of rights and duties that doesn't care if you're male or female, black or white, rich or poor - is just so fundamental.
Given you claim to consider racial discrimination to be morally justifiable I don't think this is an argument you can plausibly advance.
-------------------- Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Russ: quote: Originally posted by Dafyd: quote: Originally posted by Russ: [QUOTE] What criteria would you use to determine whether any particular act of taxation is in fact theft ?
Theft is in the central cases done by stealth. If something is done openly according to the rule of law it cannot be properly called theft.
Theft is not the only form of injustice so you can make some other case that a tax is unjust.
Arbitrary appropriation is not taxation. Appropriating property from the rulers' legitimate opponents and not from the rulers' supporters is arbitrary if it is based solely on considerations of personal attitude. If it's based on financial status or some other relevant policy consideration it isn't arbitrary.
Thank you for engaging with the question.
Not convinced by the stealth argument. There may be a good reason for using one word for breaking into a bank vault to steal the money when nobody's looking and another word for getting in in broad daylight by holding a gun to the head of the man with the combination. But it seems to me that the commandment against stealing pretty obviously covers both methods.
Whilst I agree that a ruler should not act arbitrarily, that won't do as an answer to the question.
Systematic murder committed by a government - ethnic cleansing for example - doesn't become morally OK because it's not arbitrary. It doesn't become morally OK if it's done openly in accordance with a statute that has been enacted to permit it. And it doesn't become morally OK because it's a policy.
So why these lame attempts to justify systematic theft ?
Your problem seems to be that you want governments to have the moral right to enact policies like wealth redistribution that you approve of but not have the moral right to enact policies like apartheid that you disapprove of.
You mean we want governments to do good things and not bad ones? No shit, Sherlock... [ 13. December 2017, 19:01: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
-------------------- Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Russ: ... Your problem seems to be that you want governments to have the moral right to enact policies like wealth redistribution that you approve of but not have the moral right to enact policies like apartheid that you disapprove of.
Whereas you seem to be arguing for individuals to have the "moral" right to enforce personal zones of apartheid, along with the "moral" right to enjoy all the benefits of civilization with no obligation towards those who don't.
These arguments have nothing to do with morality or Christianity any more; they're just tired, old AynRandian-objectivist-taxation-is-theft-freedom-for-me-fascism-for-you crap.
The best argument for redistribution of wealth is economic: poor people spend their money and boost the economy. Rich people evade taxes and send their money overseas. All that stuff about rich people not "creating wealth" if taxes are too high is also crap. Yes, it is endlessly-repeated and religiously-believed but it is still crap. Don't take my word for it - there's more than a century of data available on the USA economy. Tax reform, which results in reducing some rates, can boost growth, but that is because it closes loopholes, not the rate change itself.
quote: The vast differences between taxes before 1913 and after World War II can therefore provide at least a first-order sense of the importance tax policy on growth. However, the growth rate of real GDP per capita was identical – 2.2 percent – in the 1870-1912 period and between 1947 and 1999 (Gale and Potter 2002). ... More formally, Stokey and Rebelo (1995) look at the significant increase in income tax rates during World War II and its effect on the growth rate of per capita real Gross National Product (GNP). Figure 1 (next page) shows the basic trends they highlight – namely, a massive increase in income tax and overall tax revenues during World War II that has persisted and since proven to be more or less permanent. There is, as shown in Figure 1, no corresponding break in the growth rate of per capita real GNP before or after World War II (though it is less volatile). A variety of statistical tests confirm formally what Figure 1 shows; namely, the finding that the increase in tax revenue around World War II had no discernible impact on the long-term per-capita GNP growth rate. ... Hungerford (2012) plots the annual real per-capita GDP growth rate against the top marginal income tax rate and the top capital gains tax rate from 1945 to 2010 (see Figure 2 next page), a period that spanned wide variation in the top rate. The fitted values suggest that higher tax rates are not associated with higher or lower real per-capita GDP growth rates to any significant degree. In multivariate regression analysis, neither the top income tax rate nor the top capital gains tax rate has a statistically significant association with the real GDP growth rate. ... The argument that income tax cuts raise growth is repeated so often that it is sometimes taken as gospel. However, theory, evidence, and simulation studies tell a different and more complicated story. Tax cuts offer the potential to raise economic growth by improving incentives to work, save, and invest. But they also create income effects that reduce the need to engage in productive economic activity, and they may subsidize old capital, which provides windfall gains to asset holders that undermine incentives for new activity. ... Still, there is a sound theoretical presumption—and substantial simulation results — indicating that a base-broadening, rate-reducing tax reform can improve long-term performance. The key, however, is not that it boosts labor supply, saving or investment—since it raises the same amount of revenue from the same people as before—but rather that it leads to be a better allocation of resources across sectors of the economy by closing off targeted subsidies.
Effects of Income Tax Changes on Economic Growth
-------------------- "You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Crœsos: quote: Originally posted by Russ: Moral universality - a system of rights and duties that doesn't care if you're male or female, black or white, rich or poor - is just so fundamental.
Given you claim to consider racial discrimination to be morally justifiable I don't think this is an argument you can plausibly advance.
Presuming Russ' arguments are genuine, there must be a logical fallacy name for his style. It is a sort of slow motion, response oriented version of the Gish Gallop. If there is none currently, I would nominate Russ' Waddle as the name for it.
-------------------- I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Russ: quote: Originally posted by Dafyd: Theft is in the central cases done by stealth. If something is done openly according to the rule of law it cannot be properly called theft.
Theft is not the only form of injustice so you can make some other case that a tax is unjust.
Arbitrary appropriation is not taxation. Appropriating property from the rulers' legitimate opponents and not from the rulers' supporters is arbitrary if it is based solely on considerations of personal attitude. If it's based on financial status or some other relevant policy consideration it isn't arbitrary.
Not convinced by the stealth argument. There may be a good reason for using one word for breaking into a bank vault to steal the money when nobody's looking and another word for getting in in broad daylight by holding a gun to the head of the man with the combination. But it seems to me that the commandment against stealing pretty obviously covers both methods.
The commandment against adultery covers ogling people in public. When engaging in philosophical debate rather than interpreting revelation, some degree of linguistic accuracy is required. Armed robbery may happen in public; the planning and the identities of the perpetrators are usually kept secret from the law enforcement authorities. If the Vikings descend on your village and carry away all the moveable property openly the connotations of the word 'theft' are inappropriate. In that case, we'd prefer words like 'plundering' or 'looting'.
quote: Whilst I agree that a ruler should not act arbitrarily, that won't do as an answer to the question.
Systematic murder committed by a government - ethnic cleansing for example - doesn't become morally OK because it's not arbitrary. It doesn't become morally OK if it's done openly in accordance with a statute that has been enacted to permit it. And it doesn't become morally OK because it's a policy.
I would think singling out one group of citizens as targets of killing does count as arbitrary myself unless you can make out a case why the grounds on which they're selected is morally relevant. There are reasons to think that killing is wrong regardless of who is doing it and what the circumstances. The value of life needs no justification. The value of absolute property rights does need justification.
quote: So why these lame attempts to justify systematic theft ?
Tsk tsk. And you were doing so well.
quote: Your problem seems to be that you want governments to have the moral right to enact policies like wealth redistribution that you approve of but not have the moral right to enact policies like apartheid that you disapprove of.
What you're saying is that I think governments are morally permitted to do what I think they morally ought to do, and that if I think they ought not to do it then I think they ought not to do it. That's not a problem; that's a tautology.
Do you think the government is morally permitted to run a police force funded by taxation? If you do, that looks rather bad for the consistency of your position.
-------------------- we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Dafyd: quote: Originally posted by Russ: Your problem seems to be that you want governments to have the moral right to enact policies like wealth redistribution that you approve of but not have the moral right to enact policies like apartheid that you disapprove of.
What you're saying is that I think governments are morally permitted to do what I think they morally ought to do, and that if I think they ought not to do it then I think they ought not to do it.
Spot the difference ?
You've converted "approve of" into "think they morally ought to do".
Now a perfect individual would not only know what is moral, but desire everyone (governments included) to do what is moral. Isn't that what we all say we want ? Karl summarised it neatly.
Unfortunately, people aren't perfect. Not even you. Not even me.
We imperfect humans have sympathies, affections, likings - passions in traditional language. Which distort our judgment.
It's like a court case where someone who's had a really tough life is charged with a serious offence. We're divided; part of us recognises that it is a serious wrong and the evidence is that he did it, part of us recognises that the accused hasn't had much joy in life so far and are thus at some level rooting for him to be let off. The heart and the head do not always align.
So the charge I'm making against social progressivism is that it confuses sympathy for a group of people (heart) with a moral understanding (mind) in their favour. The confusion you've just demonstrated.
I'm suggesting that you can't construct an understanding of morality that follows those sympathies withput failing the test of moral universalism, of the impartiality of natural law.
Which is why there's a temptation for social progressives to fall back on an argument that government doesn't have to be moral, that government has moral authority to set social objectives and policies in a political realm that is immune from moral obligations.
-------------------- Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Dafyd:
Do you think the government is morally permitted to run a police force funded by taxation?
I see having a police force that protects everyone from immoral acts such as murder and theft as being a public good. That this is a good thing that governments can do better than private individuals. Clearly it costs money and has to be paid for. All people of good will benefit, but those with more wealth gain greater benefit, so I see nothing unjust in charging the cost to everyone in a way that is broadly proportional to income.
-------------------- Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Russ: I see having a police force that protects everyone from immoral acts such as murder and theft as being a public good.
But not one that protects people from immoral acts such as racial discrimination or economic exploitation, right?
Perhaps you can explain the difference between immoral acts people should be protected from and immoral acts people shouldn't be protected from?
-------------------- Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
If only human beings were so simple that they could be divided up into groups that could either be approved of or disapproved of, as Russ seems to think is the social-progressive way.
But they aren't.
Some of us think that modern facilities should be designed to be accessible by wheelchair even though some wheelchair users might be white supremacists.
And some of us think that there should be more ethnic minority MPs in parliament even though some of those ethnic minority MPs may be conservatives.
What Russ refers to as being akin to corruption and nepotism, is, in my view, justifiable widening of access to ensure fairness to all.
Because unless one genuinely believes that white middle class men are fundamentally better at everything than everybody else, then the continuing over-representation of white middle class men in most spheres of power, wealth, choice and influence can only be the result of exactly the kind of corruption and nepotism that Russ refers to.
-------------------- And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Russ: quote: Originally posted by Dafyd: quote: Originally posted by Russ: Your problem seems to be that you want governments to have the moral right to enact policies like wealth redistribution that you approve of but not have the moral right to enact policies like apartheid that you disapprove of.
What you're saying is that I think governments are morally permitted to do what I think they morally ought to do, and that if I think they ought not to do it then I think they ought not to do it.
Spot the difference ?
You've converted "approve of" into "think they morally ought to do".
Yes - 'approve of' means to think morally commendable, objectively morally commendable if you think morals are objective. It doesn't mean that I subjectively like something. It makes no sense to approve of kittens or brown paper packets tied up with string.
quote: So the charge I'm making against social progressivism is that it confuses sympathy for a group of people (heart) with a moral understanding (mind) in their favour. The confusion you've just demonstrated.
What confusion? 'Approve' refers to objective moral judgement rather than subjective liking. The problem I think is that you want to promote a highly idiosyncratic theory of morality that serves your political goals. And so you have to give terms like 'approve' idiosyncratic meanings to express your theory. [ 14. December 2017, 13:18: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
-------------------- we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Marvin the Martian: quote: Originally posted by Russ: I see having a police force that protects everyone from immoral acts such as murder and theft as being a public good.
But not one that protects people from immoral acts such as racial discrimination or economic exploitation, right?
Russ is already on record as favoring the use of police to enforce racial discrimination (but not in a "racially prejudiced manner"! ).
-------------------- Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Russ: quote: Originally posted by Dafyd:
Do you think the government is morally permitted to run a police force funded by taxation?
I see having a police force that protects everyone from immoral acts such as murder and theft as being a public good. That this is a good thing that governments can do better than private individuals. Clearly it costs money and has to be paid for. All people of good will benefit, but those with more wealth gain greater benefit, so I see nothing unjust in charging the cost to everyone in a way that is broadly proportional to income.
You have repeatedly said that you do not think that an essentially immoral act becomes moral because it is done for the public good. Theft does not on your account cease to be theft because people of good will benefit. Except it turns out, when those with more wealth gain greater benefit you no longer apply your stated principles.
-------------------- we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Marvin the Martian: quote: Originally posted by Russ: I see having a police force that protects everyone from immoral acts such as murder and theft as being a public good.
But not one that protects people from immoral acts such as racial discrimination or economic exploitation, right?
To the extent that what you mean by "economic exploitation" is a genuine moral wrong involving abuse of monopoly power, then yes it's right that the legal system should protect people against this. To the extent that what you mean is a sentiment that it would be nice if the going rate for unskilled labour were higher, then no the legal system doesn't exist for the purpose of imposing your sentiments on those who feel differently.
And the same for race.
I'm sorry if that sounds like two different ways of describing the same thing. It's intended as a call to greater discernment of what is morally right.
I'm saying that the State has a duty to act morally. Which is the intermediate position - neither anarchist not totalitarian. I reject the idea that a duly-constituted government has carte blanche to do whatever it pleases, as well as the idea that all acts of government are dressed-up banditry.
Within that framework - that acts of state are neither necessarily moral nor necessarily immoral - a framework which I imagine you share, we can ask whether there is a characteristically social-progressive concept of morality, and if so what it is and whether it is adequate.
The answer seems to be that s-ps see what is moral in terms of correcting an imbalance in the total life-satisfaction of groupings of people that they deem to have political significance.
For example, if they perceive life as a female to be tougher than life as a male, then any measure which will tend to redress this cosmic inequality is - other things being equal - moral.
Is that your understanding ?
-------------------- Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Russ: To the extent that what you mean is a sentiment that it would be nice if the going rate for unskilled labour were higher, then no the legal system doesn't exist for the purpose of imposing your sentiments on those who feel differently.
And the same for race.
Let's just take a moment to let this sink in.
.
-------------------- arse
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by mr cheesy: quote: Originally posted by Russ: To the extent that what you mean is a sentiment that it would be nice if the going rate for unskilled labour were higher, then no the legal system doesn't exist for the purpose of imposing your sentiments on those who feel differently.
And the same for race.
Let's just take a moment to let this sink in.
.
Indeed. Apparently the idea that a person who works 40 hours should make enough money from so doing to put food on the table and a roof over his head is mere sentiment, and not a matter of justice at all.
What bullshit. [ 15. December 2017, 11:52: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
-------------------- Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Russ: I'm saying that the State has a duty to act morally.
Where your definition of 'morality' seems to be narrowly defined as 'maintaining current property rights' without addressing thorny issues around original accumulation
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Eliab
Host
# 9153
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Russ: the legal system doesn't exist for the purpose of imposing your sentiments on those who feel differently
Russ, if you aren't around for me to ask whether my moral judgment on an issue is one that you agree with, how am I to distinguish a "principle" from a "sentiment"?
I'm all for the idea that there's a realm of moral discussion in which reasonable people may have different views, and where the proper role of the law is protect freedom of conscience, not enforce conformity. And I think that there are principled arguments about what wrongs the law should address, and pragmatic arguments about what wrongs the law can address.
However that point seems to be widely recognised within the broadly liberal and progressive worldview that you are attacking (which seems to me to be an incredibly wide one, as compassionate conservatives, centrists, and radical socialists on this thread seem to be equally comfortable in seeing your arguments as being aimed at their positions). And most people arguing with you could say (even if they disagree with each other) what principles they would use to draw the line. The one person who seems to be arguing that their personal moral judgments are universally applicable principles, and everyone else's are merely non-binding "sympathies" or "sentiments" is you.
-------------------- "Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Russ: ... The answer seems to be that s-ps see what is moral in terms of correcting an imbalance in the total life-satisfaction of groupings of people that they deem to have political significance.
For example, if they perceive life as a female to be tougher than life as a male, then any measure which will tend to redress this cosmic inequality is - other things being equal - moral.
Is that your understanding ?
No, that's your understanding. Which you've repeated many times.
Let's play a game: stop using the word "moral". If you really wanted to understand or debate what you call the "social-progressive mindset", then you need to understand that yeah, we don't give a flip about morality, because morality is individually and culturally subjective. We're interested in fairness and justice. There's scientific evidence that even animals understand these concepts, which makes them more natural and universal than your "morals".
You're also obsessed with the group vs. individual distinction, yet you will not acknowledge that groups are made up of individuals - that how we treat a group of people is how we treat the individuals in that group. Injustice towards a group of people is injustice towards individuals.
-------------------- "You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Soror Magna: Let's play a game: stop using the word "moral". If you really wanted to understand or debate what you call the "social-progressive mindset", then you need to understand that yeah, we don't give a flip about morality, because morality is individually and culturally subjective. We're interested in fairness and justice. There's scientific evidence that even animals understand these concepts, which makes them more natural and universal than your "morals".
I don't see that there is anything to be gained by allowing Russ to think he has proprietary rights over the word 'morality'.
His definition of morality is neither coherent nor rationally justifiable nor traditional. [ 15. December 2017, 14:00: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
-------------------- we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Kwesi
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# 10274
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Posted
quote: Russ: To the extent that what you mean by "economic exploitation" is a genuine moral wrong involving abuse of monopoly power, then yes it's right that the legal system should protect people against this. To the extent that what you mean is a sentiment that it would be nice if the going rate for unskilled labour were higher, then no the legal system doesn't exist for the purpose of imposing your sentiments on those who feel differently.
And the same for race
Russ, I find this very confusing due to the double negative at the end of the second sentence. Do you mean it to read “A legal system exists for the purpose of imposing your sentiments on those who feel differently” or “A legal system doesn’t exist for the purpose of imposing your sentiments on those who feel differently.” Are you making a normative statement “a legal system ought/ought not to….” or simply stating what is the case “legal systems do/do not……..”
I would would also like some clarification of where “sentiment” fits into your framework. Is it “moral sentiment” or some sort of emotional spasm that gets in the way of enforcing morality? Or what? quote: Russ: “I'm saying that the State has a duty to act morally. Which is the intermediate position - neither anarchist not totalitarian.”
I don’t think a “duty to act morally” is an “intermediate position”between anarchy and totalitarianism. Doesn't it simply mean that however constituted a state has a duty “to act morally.” It’’s not clear to me what “to act morally” means in this context. quote: Russ: I reject the idea that a duly-constituted government has carte blanche to do whatever it pleases, as well as the idea that all acts of government are dressed-up banditry.”
Russ, are you saying that no government, even the most democratically constituted with processes subject to the rule of law, has a right to pass legislation in contravention of an individual’s “natural rights” or the dictates of “natural law”? In other words are you seeking to uphold the ideas of John Locke. If so, how does that relate to your argument?
I’m also unsure as to what you understand by “socially-progressive,” and whether you applaud the concept, or are anxious to expose its fallacies.
I, for one, would welcome a succinct statement of your general thesis so our discussion can become more focussed.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Leorning Cniht
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# 17564
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Russ: The answer seems to be that s-ps see what is moral in terms of correcting an imbalance in the total life-satisfaction of groupings of people that they deem to have political significance.
No, not at all.
We can certainly identify groups of people who are generally given the shaft by our current society. Let's pick one of them - poor black kids in cities. We know that there are many ways in which these kids are disadvantaged compared to their suburban white coaevals - their family's resources, the quality of the public schools they attend, the way they are treated by the police, the opportunities for work experience that they are likely to be offered, etc., etc.
Social Progressives identify most of those things (such as, for example, the police being lenient to nice middle-class white kids, and harsh with poor black kids who are doing exactly the same thing) as problems, and seek to fix them, certainly.
But it's not about "total life-satisfaction". Social progressives are not seeking to improve the life-satisfaction of currently disadvantaged groups by giving members of those groups a new TV. Social progressives are, in fact, explicitly not about that kind of bread-and-circuses approach.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Russ
Old salt
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Leorning Cniht: We can certainly identify groups of people who are generally given the shaft by our current society. Let's pick one of them - poor black kids in cities. We know that there are many ways in which these kids are disadvantaged compared to their suburban white coaevals - their family's resources, the quality of the public schools they attend, the way they are treated by the police, the opportunities for work experience that they are likely to be offered, etc., etc.
OK. Taking that as an example, what is the characteristically social-progressive approach ? And how does it contrast with how other people of goodwill might define and approach the problem ?
I note that there's a pond difference. That in Europe poor inner city kids from ethnic minorities are likely to be the children or grandchildren of post-1945 immigrants, whereas in the US they may well be the descendants of freed slaves.
I note also that left-leaning people will want to see more money spent on the problem and right-leaning people will want to see money spent more effectively.
But neither of those aspects is central to the social progressive approach. What do you think best defines that approach ?
-------------------- Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
What you call "social progressive" is the outworking of being a person of good will. You cannot claim to have good will while standing by letting people get shafted by the system; sticking a tin of beans in the food bank doesn't cut it; nor does even a lifetime of charitable giving if nothing is being done to address the underlying injustices.
-------------------- Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Jay-Emm
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# 11411
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Russ: I note also that left-leaning people will want to see more money spent on the problem and right-leaning people will want to see money spent more effectively. [/QB]
That's clearly not the case. For one thing the right-wing approach almost always leads to higher costs later. Perhaps Left Wing wants to get more solution on the problem. As this can come from efficiency, more money (even at slightly less efficiency if it overcompensates) or combinations. Those who want more money are likely to be left wing. But efficiency is wanted.
Right wing give the impression of wanting to cut money going to the problem (though not necessarily to contractors). If efficiency can allow more solution for the same money then some will will take it. Others will take the same for less, while others just want to cut it (even at the expense of efficiency).
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Kwesi
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# 10274
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Posted
quote: Russ: I note also that left-leaning people will want to see more money spent on the problem [of poverty amongst inner city immigrants] and right-leaning people will want to see money spent more effectively.
But neither of those aspects is central to the social progressive approach. What do you think best defines that approach ?
Posing the question these terms is to misconceive the question of social-progressivism, IMO, because it it not essentially about disadvantaged minorities but the economic organisation and objectives of society as a whole.
Social-progressive approaches towards poverty have their roots in attitudes towards the economic crises of the inter-period (1918-1939) and post-war reconstruction. In the West they were characterised by the New Deal in the USA and various welfare states in Europe, especially in Scandinavia. The major intellectual force behind these developments was John Maynard Keynes, who argued that in times of depression governments should borrow money and spend it to revive demand. His opponents, classical economists, held that governments should not resort to borrowing in this way, and some, such as Hayek, thought it made the state too powerful. (Hayek called his riposte The Road to Serfdom). In the United Kingdom a second critical influence was William Beveridge, a civil servant, whose Report in 1942, laid the foundations for Britain’s attack on poverty in the post-ward period. Essentially they saw an important role for the state in managing the economy and social welfare, including universal education and access to health services by all. Instructively, both Keynes and Beveridge were not socialists, but welfare Liberals, after Lloyd George, though it was a Labour government that adopted their approach of managed capitalism, a mixed economy. An important characteristic of these societies was a higher level of progressive income tax than had hitherto been the case. It is important to emphasise that these policies were not directed towards disadvantaged minorities but disadvantaged majorities, the industrial and agricultural working class, who were the electoral engine for change.
Thus defined, social progressivism has more or less dominated politics in the western world since 1945 despite forays by classical economists. It is notable that Ronald Reagan, nominally an opponent, increased US budget deficits, and in Britain the tax share of GDP was as high when Mrs Thatcher, a more explicit critic, left office as when she entered. Indeed had she not herself stated: “The health service is safe with us”? Political debate between left and right, working within the parameters described, has centred on the distribution of the tax burden, the allocation of public spending (who gets what), and getting the right balance between taxation, spending and economic growth. The right tends to emphasise the need to grow the cake, while the left is more inclined to focus on the fairness of its distribution. Until someone comes up with something better this mind-set is here to stay.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Jay-Emm
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# 11411
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Posted
Or to put it another way. Both the Left and much of the Right would love to have a fast, reliable health service that through magical efficiency (and not through e.g. slavery) cost no money.
Where the difference occurs is when you have to chose between having your cake and eating it.
And also in the hypothetical situation what to do with the saved money and benefits. And whose problem the helping of unemployed doctors is.
Posts: 1643 | Registered: May 2006
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