First, the business about interdependence occured in a context of objecting to trying to describe complete isolation as a normative condition
Well, if you think my point was to advocate living alone as a standard, rather than to use a reductio ad absurdum as an illustration of the feeblenesss of your CLAIMS/DEMANDS as a normative ethical precept--then you, sir, have missed (and continue to miss) the entire point of our disagreement. I have not advocated living alone as normative. That would be an entirely other argument that I have every right to make if I so choose. But I didn't make it. Lets stay on topic.
I have spoken to you of the rightfulness of being free from the conceits of CLAIMS/DEMANDS of others, and the force that rides shotgun on their DEMANDS.
sometimes they are enforceable, as when you abscond with my property, I can assert my right and expect the police to retrieve it, assuming it is recoverable. But in many instances, there is only your recognition of the obligation, and whether or not you choose to honor it. That is the primary way we discussed the matter.
You keep taking my arguments. Is that simply a principle of frugality? Your "right", in this instance, is both a societal "right", and your inherent RIGHT to be left alone (i.e. the right to your own property). Of course, you have the RIGHT (and society recognises this) to be defended by the social structure. I have already dishonored your RIGHT to be left alone, by making an unjustified CLAIM/DEMAND upon you: The right to your property. When I made a CLAIM/DEMAND upon you (in your hypothetical) that was both immoral and illegal (the CLAIM/DEMAND, I mean), society sent the police to your assistance, to enforce your freedom from my DEMANDS. Simple, really.
Third, your description of mass slaughter is wildly inappropriate to both the tone and content of the discussion. What ethnic cleansing and savagery has to do with my assertion that we have a mutual obligation to behave with decency and courtesy to one another beats me
To present the daily news as a real-life illustration of where the principle of initiating force leads the argument, is hardly inappropriate. The tone of your response indicates to me that you are attempting to personalize the argument. It is unnecessary for you to be so willful at missing the point.
Moral obligations are voluntary, in the sense that we are at liberty not to honor them
There are no moral OBLIGATIONS; There are moral choices and moral behavior, and moral is only a meaningful descriptor IF the choices are free.
OBLIGATION 1 : the action of obligating oneself to a course of action (as by a promise or vow)
People do not have an obligation to be moral. Their obligation, if they choose to assume one, IS their FREE choice, and may be either moral or immoral.
Whether or not you are affectionate, attentive, or fully reliable is a matter outside of the scope of government.
On those occasions where it IS outside of the scope of Government, and where it is NOT a violation of someone's RIGHT to freedom--it is also outside of the scope of you. To make the choice of walking to one's own drummer (as Thoreau did) is any person's RIGHT. Their life belongs to them--not to you. You already have one of your own. I don't live it for you, and I don't die it for you. Our lives are not interchangeable.
In the end, then, voluntariness is desirable, but not necessary, and in the most egregious circumstances, society is right to intervene to defend rights and enforce obligations
Not necessary for existence, but NECESSARY for FREEDOM. A moral Society only intervenes where someone is suspected of violating the rules and laws of the social compact. Where an individual has desires that are irrelevent to this compact, and wishes to CLAIM/DEMAND that his/her desires be met by another--TOUGH.
I don't believe, by the wiggling of your responses, that you are open to changing your mind. This conceit that you have the RIGHT to use force against me, when the only thing I have done wrong is to leave you alone, is one that truly makes me sad. And even when I give real life illustration of the ugliness that this type of mindset allows--still, your response does not acknowledge the obvious, but rather repeats my arguments that (in your words) society is right to intervene to defend rights and enforce obligations, and so forth.
AGAIN: A DEMAND implies the force, or the threat to force your desire. I will not recognize your DEMANDS upon me because they are not grounded in ethical principle, or inherent RIGHT. Indeed, the initiation of force against innocent people minding their own lives is a doctrine of evil. This was my argument; This remains my argument. You have offered nothing of substance against it, and, in fact, have atempted to confuse the issue with extraneous comments. The problem with your argument is that you are on the wrong side of it. But you made that choice. |
