What's wrong with politics ?

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  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    Please stop using the Holocaust as your example. It's offensive to people like me who would have ended up in the gas chambers.
    Also, I think it counts as an instance of Godwin's Law.

  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    Better examples have been given by others and me - Poll Tax, criminal damage to war planes - so use them instead.

    My understanding is that those are examples where the moral rightness of the act is disputed; doesn't prove anything.

    What would you say was an example of a law, passed by a democratic government, that is so self-evidently morally wrong that nobody here could conceivably think otherwise ?

    (Yes, it's fair to argue that Hitler, however democratic his first steps to power were, was a dictator by the time of the "final solution". That makes no difference. Unless you can argue that it is logically impossible - rather than merely unlikely - that a democratic state could pass a similar law).

    All we need at this point in the story is to disprove the notion that democratic process makes any wrong into a right.

    Which is a collectivist version of "consent justifies all". Which is inconsistent with any notion of minority rights.
    Kwesi wrote: »
    Russ, it's still not clear to me what you think should happen if a citizen or group of citizens object to a piece of legislation on the grounds it's immoral. What would it be morally legitimate for him/her, or incumbent on them, to do? You don't address the question at all.
    You're right - I've not addressed that at all. Because that seems to me to come later on in the story.

    At this stage I'm focused on ideas of what a state may or may not morally do; or how state coercion is morally justified.

    You say that Locke's answer is in terms of "natural rights".

    But "natural rights" to me means something like rights of property, rights of free movement, rights of privacy - things that the state transgresses against all the time without anybody thinking anything is amiss.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Russ:
    You say that Locke's answer is in terms of "natural rights".

    But "natural rights" to me means something like rights of property, rights of free movement, rights of privacy - things that the state transgresses against all the time without anybody thinking anything is amiss.

    Ok, Russ, let's run with this. Locke has consented to live in a state which better protects his natural right to property than he as an individual was less able to do in a state of nature. Unfortunately, a democratic government introduces a property tax, which he regards as confiscatory and in breach of the social contract. What is he to do? He also owns slaves (property), but they regard their status as infringing their right to free movement, and yet other citizens (inc. Locke) object to the state knowing how much they earn for tax purposes (right to privacy), and females regard their inferior rights to men as infringing their autonomy in a state of nature (though men regard them as property). This looks to me like a powder keg of resentment justifying rebellion all over the place. It also looks to me where your emphasis on morality as trumping any legislation is leading you, because individuals and groups argue continuously and variously as to what is and what is not moral. You end up with a state that doesn't look very different from the natural state you are trying to avoid! One solution, as you indicate, is to act as if nothing is amiss in order to preserve peace, or to exercise your natural right to bear arms against an over-weening government and invade a state legislature!
  • Russ wrote: »
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    Better examples have been given by others and me - Poll Tax, criminal damage to war planes - so use them instead.

    My understanding is that those are examples where the moral rightness of the act is disputed; doesn't prove anything.

    What would you say was an example of a law, passed by a democratic government, that is so self-evidently morally wrong that nobody here could conceivably think otherwise ?

    (Yes, it's fair to argue that Hitler, however democratic his first steps to power were, was a dictator by the time of the "final solution". That makes no difference. Unless you can argue that it is logically impossible - rather than merely unlikely - that a democratic state could pass a similar law).

    All we need at this point in the story is to disprove the notion that democratic process makes any wrong into a right.

    Which is a collectivist version of "consent justifies all". Which is inconsistent with any notion of minority rights.

    You're engaging, repeatedly, in a category error. I've not said, and I don't think anyone has said, that morality is congruent with legality. Most of the argument on the 'other' side has been whether it is better to obey the law - which, I think, is self-evident in that it avoids dispute with the civic authorities, however they are constituted.

    If you're arguing that morality should be congruent with legality then, as has been said repeatedly by me and others, then there will be little morality and no law, since we'd never be able to agree on even the basics - including killing and stealing.

    There is no 'wrong' into a 'right'. It's simply a question of law on the one hand, and moral philosophy on the other. If you feel strongly enough about an action, you'll do it whether or not it's illegal.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Well said above, Doc.

    Much of the discussion has been theoretical, e.g. what a democracy might do. We might, however, also appeal to experience, namely, that liberal democracies have done less terrible things than authoritarian states. This is because their creators have sought to accommodate a multiplicity of classes and interests together with values expressed through competing religious denominations and sects. Inevitably, that continuing process has involved social and economic bargaining and decisions reflecting moral compromises. From a moralist's point of view democracies struggle to pass the test of purity, but most people seem to prefer them to the rule of saints. The alternative model may be reigns of virtue, but, as regimes from Robespierre to Pol Pot have demonstrated, they do seem to kill an awful lot of people. Such a system seems to be the logical conclusion to Russ' argument, but he's afraid to admit it. It's not a pudding, in my view, that's approved by the eating.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Kwesi wrote: »
    The alternative model may be reigns of virtue, but, as regimes from Robespierre to Pol Pot have demonstrated, they do seem to kill an awful lot of people.

    If your idea of virtue is Robespierre and Pol Pot, then no wonder you're not receptive to the idea of having moral principles.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    If you're arguing that morality should be congruent with legality then, as has been said repeatedly by me and others, then there will be little morality and no law, since we'd never be able to agree on even the basics - including killing and stealing.

    If there were anyone here arguing in favour of death camps, then you might have a point.

    But maybe you are arguing in favour of death camps. Provided they're set up by a duly-elected democratic government, of course. Sometimes I find it hard to tell...
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Kwesi wrote: »
    It also looks to me where your emphasis on morality as trumping any legislation is leading you

    If the options are morality trumping any legislation, legislation trumping any morality, or picking and choosing which you fancy on any particular question, where do you stand ?

    Maybe you're too worried about where the argument is going and not enough about the steps along the way ?
    One solution, as you indicate, is to act as if nothing is amiss in order to preserve peace, or to exercise your natural right to bear arms against an over-weening government and invade a state legislature!
    To rebel, or not to rebel, is that the question ? Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the transgressions of an over-weening government, or to take arms against a sea of politicians...
  • Russ wrote: »
    Kwesi wrote: »
    The alternative model may be reigns of virtue, but, as regimes from Robespierre to Pol Pot have demonstrated, they do seem to kill an awful lot of people.

    If your idea of virtue is Robespierre and Pol Pot, then no wonder you're not receptive to the idea of having moral principles.

    NOW we're getting somewhere! Robespierre is not @Kwesi's or @Russ's or @TurquoiseTastic's idea of virtue, but he is of course Robespierre's idea of virtue. Robespierre was wrong in this belief, but having (temporarily) enormous power he was able to implement his mistaken idea of virtue to disastrous effect.

    @Kwesi is highly receptive to moral principles. But he is not receptive to giving one person or group's necessarily flawed version of morality the full power of the State.
  • Doc TorDoc Tor Admin
    edited November 2020
    Russ wrote: »
    Kwesi wrote: »
    The alternative model may be reigns of virtue, but, as regimes from Robespierre to Pol Pot have demonstrated, they do seem to kill an awful lot of people.

    If your idea of virtue is Robespierre and Pol Pot, then no wonder you're not receptive to the idea of having moral principles.

    You don't get to choose other people's moral framework. That what makes the rest of us rightfully suspicious of any one who wants 'moral laws'.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Russ: If your idea of virtue is Robespierre and Pol Pot, then no wonder you're not receptive to the idea of having moral principles.

    The point, Russ, is that these individuals were both highly principled and intent on creating a better world by removing the vestiges of the old one. They were uncompromising in their pursuit of the good. Their problem, of course, was that those who worked for them were hypocrites or lacked the moral fortitude to live up to their ideals, and their opponents had different moral frameworks. The only way the good could be preserved was by purging traitors and persecuting those who thought differently. It seems to me, you, like them, wish for a society in which politicians pass and enforce laws based on your knowledge of an objective moral reality. The basic problem does not lie with the principles but the means of promoting and protecting them, which inevitably leads to oppression if not totalitarianism. Your difficulty has the added problem that you seem to have a strong libertarian streak that must, surely, run counter to your views on politics and morality. That is why I'm pressing you to indicate what sort of political society you envisage as realising your views on morality.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Kwesi wrote: »
    The point, Russ, is that these individuals were both highly principled and intent on creating a better world by removing the vestiges of the old one. They were uncompromising in their pursuit of the good.

    ...of the good as they saw it. But that's not goodness; that's ruthlessness.

    You say of them that
    The basic problem does not lie with the principles but the means of promoting and protecting them, which inevitably leads to oppression if not totalitarianism.

    And in one sense that's right. But in another sense, what I've been trying to talk about is a morality based on consent, on rejecting any coercion beyond that minimum to which people can be said to have consented by choosing law over an outlaw's existence.
    A principle which is directly opposed to those totalitarian means of promoting one's own idea of the good. Which is maybe to say that the problem does lie with the principles after all.

    Or to put it another way, we all like the idea of using the power of the State to do good as we see it. Power is attractive. But condemning Pol Pot for doing so while not seeing anything wrong with seeking to do so oneself seems.. ..unprincipled.

    I find the instinctive denial of the comparison (he was a nasty undemocratic extremist, we're caring democratic modern people) unconvincing. Just another form of exceptionalism.
    It seems to me, you, like them, wish for a society in which politicians pass and enforce laws based on your knowledge of an objective moral reality.
    I thought I was suggesting that politicians don't pass and enforce laws, except those to which everyone can in some sense be said to consent. On the basis of a public understanding of objective morality which doesn't rely on my knowledge or interpretation.
    That is why I'm pressing you to indicate what sort of political society you envisage as realising your views on morality.
    I'm interested to know where this line of reasoning would lead to. I'm imagining that it would involve structures and systems that individuals opt into, with some irreducible minimum state at its core. But this is speculation in progress, not any well-thought-out political philosophy.

    It may be that having reasoned from a premise of a morality of consent to a political model, we'd find it wouldn't be a society any of us would choose to live in. Which would tell us something about why such a view of morality isn't adequate.


  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Russ: I'm interested to know where this line of reasoning would lead to. I'm imagining that it would involve structures and systems that individuals opt into, with some irreducible minimum state at its core.

    Thank you for your post, Russ. I found it helpful, and the above quotation seems to summarise your position pretty well.

    ISTM that you are in a position similar to Locke's in which the state is a necessary inconvenience to permit you and others to exercise your personal and social preferences without interference from the state, whose responsibilities would, presumably, be limited to basic security (defence against outsiders and the protection of life and property), and the enforcement of private and public contracts. Within that citizens would have the freedom to join (and leave) at will private institutions for the purposes of access to education, sport and recreation, worship and so on that reflect their social and moral preferences. They may, of course, choose to live without recourse to such secondary institutions, like hermits or frontiersmen (and women). By limiting the scope of the state it follows that the state's capacity to coerce is also restricted.

    The problem, of course, is that it has proved difficult to limit the scope of the state, so that private decisions have increasingly become public ones, and with it an individual's capacity to exercise moral choice. So, I think the answer to the question "what's wrong with politics?" from that perspective is that its claims have become far too comprehensive, reducing the capacity of an individual to live the moral life. Perhaps we might pursue this, always bearing in mind Orwell's last sentence in 1984: He loved Big Brother.




  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Russ wrote: »
    On the basis of a public understanding of objective morality which doesn't rely on my knowledge or interpretation.
    On whose knowledge or interpretation does it rely then?
    The public differ in their interpretation of morality. You think that two people agreeing to a partnership for mutual advantage require the consent of any third party who will be adversely affected. I think that your opinion is motivated not by any knowledge of objective morality, but by your partisan political opposition to trade unions.
    Ordinary political debate includes appeals to moral argument, presupposing a standard of morality independent of the debaters. Your claim that this is not moral but political is just an attempt to impose your interpretation of morality without argument. Your claim that you are not unlike other people imposing your own idea of the good is, well, just another form of unconvincing exceptionalism.



  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Kwesi wrote: »
    ...the state, whose responsibilities would, presumably, be limited to basic security (defence against outsiders and the protection of life and property), and the enforcement of private and public contracts.

    That, ISTM, is where the classical social contract argument gets us to. If there's a convenient wilderness nearby, the state can ask its citizens whether they prefer to live under the rule of law or as outlaws in the wilderness. And in making that choice people consent to as much government as you've described. You could call it the level-1 state.

    In general, consent to live in a level-1 state (with the degree of taxation and policing that that necessarily implies) does not logically imply consent to anything more.
    Kwesi wrote: »
    ISTM that you are in a position similar to Locke's in which the state is a necessary inconvenience...

    Enduring the coercive power of the state in the service of those level 1 functions is the necessary burden.

    I'd want to be more positive about the state than that. I think the state should facilitate us doing collectively what we cannot do individually. But who is "us" in that statement ? All of us if we collectively consent, or only those who individually consent (whether by opting in or declining to opt out) ?
    The problem, of course, is that it has proved difficult to limit the scope of the state, so that private decisions have increasingly become public ones, and with it an individual's capacity to exercise moral choice.

    How much of that is that modern life presents a number of challenges to that classical view of the role of the state ?And how much of that is the corrupting effect of power ?
    ...bearing in mind Orwell's last sentence in 1984: He loved Big Brother.

    Rats!

    But yes. It seems natural to us humans, when threatened or overwhelmed, to turn to a protective parent-figure.

  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Russ: How much of that is that modern life presents a number of challenges to that classical view of the role of the state ?

    Thanks for clarifying your position, Russ.

    I think you have to be careful about referring to Locke's view as the "classical view of the role of the state" . Rather it might be regarded as the "classical liberal view of the role of the state," reflecting the rise of capitalist individualism in the seventeenth century, against the collectivism of feudalism and the divine right of kings; and in classical times both Plato and Aristotle envisaged governmental authority having an extensive intrusive scope. IMO the classical liberal view of the state is of little descriptive or diagnostic value in relation to the problems modern states have to address. At the end of the day "man is by nature a political animal": a social not an isolated individual being.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    edited November 2020
    Dafyd wrote: »
    The public differ in their interpretation of morality.
    Yes - don't think anyone disputes that.
    Ordinary political debate includes appeals to moral argument, presupposing a standard of morality independent of the debaters.
    Yes. And such appeals are only meaningful if such standards are either cultural or objective, i.e. outside of the individuals involved. So the true statement that individuals disagree does nothing to cast doubt on the existence of such standards as "public truth".

    Also, your statement is equally true if the word "political" is removed. And part of the original question was about what politics is and whether this is a bad thing (and if so why).

    If you use the word so broadly that every part of every debate is political, then it's understandable if you don't see being political as a bad thing.

    But to me it would make sense to say of a particular discussion or debate that at some point it started to become more political. Implying a meaning of the word that is narrower than the totality of human interaction.
    Dafyd wrote: »
    You think that two people agreeing to a partnership for mutual advantage require the consent of any third party who will be adversely affected.

    Not exactly. I tend to think in terms of moral rights, so that there are adverse effects that breach the rights of other people and adverse effects that don't. And also that intention matters - that conspiring to do someone else down is morally wrong, even if you'd be within your rights to adversely affect them accidentally.

    We've covered that elsewhere - not sure exactly how this ties in with the current topic...
  • Russ wrote: »
    Yes. And such appeals are only meaningful if such standards are either cultural or objective, i.e. outside of the individuals involved. So the true statement that individuals disagree does nothing to cast doubt on the existence of such standards as "public truth".

    You have repeatedly asserted the existence of an 'objective morality' (or in this case 'public truth') without providing any argument, let alone evidence, of it.

    Yes, I'd like there to be a morality external to my opinions. But the proof of such is, for temporal creatures, impossible. That two people can consider themselves moral while holding diametrically opposite views is, I'm afraid, axiomatic.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    edited November 2020
    Russ wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Ordinary political debate includes appeals to moral argument, presupposing a standard of morality independent of the debaters.
    Yes. And such appeals are only meaningful if such standards are either cultural or objective, i.e. outside of the individuals involved. So the true statement that individuals disagree does nothing to cast doubt on the existence of such standards as "public truth".
    If by public truth you just mean independent of the debaters you're just repeating what I said.
    If by public truth you mean something more than that, such as knowable beyond reasonable disagreement, then your conclusion does not follow from the premises.
    Also, your statement is equally true if the word "political" is removed. And part of the original question was about what politics is and whether this is a bad thing (and if so why).

    If you use the word so broadly that every part of every debate is political, then it's understandable if you don't see being political as a bad thing.
    That's sophistical. It's as if you were to argue that because, All cetacean mammals feed their young on milk, remains true if you remove the word cetacean, there must be a narrower sense of cetacean in which cetaceans don't feed their young on milk. The argument doesn't even begin to be coherent.

    (In any case, the statement is not true if you replace the word 'political' with e.g. 'metaphysical'.)
    Dafyd wrote: »
    You think that two people agreeing to a partnership for mutual advantage require the consent of any third party who will be adversely affected.

    Not exactly. I tend to think in terms of moral rights, so that there are adverse effects that breach the rights of other people and adverse effects that don't. And also that intention matters - that conspiring to do someone else down is morally wrong, even if you'd be within your rights to adversely affect them accidentally.

    We've covered that elsewhere - not sure exactly how this ties in with the current topic...
    That's not how I remember it. To say we covered something implies as far as I'm aware that a topic has been expounded in accordance with some consensus. And the point is that no consensus was reached.

    To believe that an objective moral standard is knowable beyond reasonable disagreement is to assert that anybody who disagrees with you is guilty of bad faith. (Or else, that you know you're guilty of bad faith...) And therefore that if they try to implement their views they are morally guilty, and may be punished. To hold that an objective standard is knowable beyond reasonable disagreement is therefore incipiently totalitarian.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Kwesi wrote: »
    I think you have to be careful about referring to Locke's view as the "classical view of the role of the state" . Rather it might be regarded as the "classical liberal view of the role of the state," reflecting the rise of capitalist individualism in the seventeenth century, against the collectivism of feudalism and the divine right of kings
    I don't think Locke is an individualist. He thinks that we enter into a society not only to protect our own interests but also to protect the interests of our neighbours.
    Even in the state of nature we have a duty to love our neighbours as ourselves and Locke's argument against excessive taxation is aimed at personal aggrandisement by the ruling class, not at the government spending of a social democracy.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    I just dipped into Locke for the first time since I was an undergraduate. I knew he cited Richard Hooker once: I hadn't appreciated just how many times he does so. The early chapters of the Second Treatise on Government on the law of nature and the entry into society are pretty much all Hooker with Locke adding elaboration.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Dafyd wrote: »
    To hold that an objective standard is knowable beyond reasonable disagreement is therefore incipiently totalitarian.

    And that's a bad thing ?

    Or is this merely a neutral observation that the 10 Commandments do not appear to be the result of any democratic process ?
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    Yes, I'd like there to be a morality external to my opinions.
    But only if it supports your opinions ?

    I''m making the distinction between what us personal or subjective, what is cultural or inter-subjective, and what is above-culture or objective.

    If you say that you think slavery is wrong, I can understand that at any of those three levels.

    - that you have a personal preference for a society in which nobody can own anybody else, but that's only an opinion and there's no reason for anyone else to agree with you, and you have to hold your tongue sometimes to get along with people who hold different opinions from your own.

    - that our culture includes a belief that slavery is wrong, and so if I speak in favour of it then I'm violating a cultural norm, so I should expect some level of social pressure to conform. But there's no basis for thinking our modern western culture is any better than other past or present cultures which owned slaves.

    - that enslaving another human being is objectively morally bad, and our culture has progressed to the extent that we now recognise this and have abolished the institution. Punishment of slave-owners and slave-traders is morally justified.

    Of course it's possible that you are in good faith wrong in what you think. All of us are fallible. But we can at least try to be clear what we mean (not that I'm very good at it).

    Which is it ?
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    edited November 2020
    Russ wrote: »
    The question at issue is whether the sort of behaviour - using the political and legal process to impose your view on your neighbour who disagrees with you - can ever be meaningfully and correctly described as morally right or morally wrong.

    You realise that you're asking whether having democratically-agreed laws that apply to everyone is morally legitimate, right?

    He's been asking that for MONTHS.

    Honestly, this whole thread has basically been a regular flirtation with anarchism, without labelling it as such.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Russ: If you say that you think slavery is wrong, I can understand that at any of those three levels.
    I think the point to be made, Russ, is that liberal democracies are more about process than policy outcomes, because those processes involve less coercion than other forms of government, and optimise outcomes that command wide acceptance even from opponents of those outcomes. A fundamental feature of them is that they involve compromises of principles and interests by all involved. In terms of this discussion they recognise human weakness, ignorance, and, assuming the existence of an objective morality, that it can be known and obeyed without an apparatus of unacceptable coercion.

  • Russ wrote: »
    Which is it ?

    None of the above.

    "I believe slavery to be wrong. In the first instance, I will attempt through democratic means to abolish it, and thereafter use the coercive power of the state to enforce the law. If I fail to do that, I'll have no hesitation in engaging in acts of creative civil disobedience until such time I win or I die."
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Doc, the question was more about the nature of your belief that is opposed to slavery, rather than what you intend to do about it.

    Do you conceive your belief as a personal whim, or an expression of your culture, or as a perception of a moral truth ?

    It sounds like you'd be prepared to make some considerable effort to change the culture of the society that you live in. Which argues that you see the wrongness of slavery as a moral truth that is above culture. And yet you seem to deny that such moral truths exist...

  • RussRuss Shipmate
    orfeo wrote: »
    Honestly, this whole thread has basically been a regular flirtation with anarchism, without labelling it as such.

    I think you're confusing the proposition "no laws are morally legitimate" with the proposition "not all laws are morally legitimate"
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Russ wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    To hold that an objective standard is knowable beyond reasonable disagreement is therefore incipiently totalitarian.

    And that's a bad thing ?

    Or is this merely a neutral observation that the 10 Commandments do not appear to be the result of any democratic process ?
    After all of your talking a good talk about the supremacy of consent and individual freedom, you're now asking whether totalitarianism is really such a bad thing?

    Let's take the Ten Commandments. You appear to want to argue that the Ten Commandments are legitimate despite not being the result of any democratic process. That obviously includes the Second Commandment (Protestant and Jewish numbering), You shall not make unto thee any graven image (KJV). Presumably on your view even if the laws of a democratic society fail to forbid this they should do, and Orthodox Jews or Conservative Protestants or Muslims, say, who realise that graven image makers ought to be punished are morally entitled to do so?

    Or would you not rather argue that, although presumably there is some truth of the matter, while atheist secularists, liberal Protestants, conservative Protestants, Roman Catholics, Jews, Muslims (modernist and strict), Muslims (traditionalist and permissive), Hindus, Buddhists, and neopagans cannot agree on the rule or on its application, all concerned should try to appeal to the needs of civil society and mutual tolerance (which are themselves moral issues)?

  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Russ wrote: »
    that you have a personal preference for a society in which nobody can own anybody else, but that's only an opinion and there's no reason for anyone else to agree with you, and you have to hold your tongue sometimes to get along with people who hold different opinions from your own.
    A common, almost ubiquitous, mistake made is to suppose that if something is a personal opinion rather than an objective moral opinion it is therefore objectively wrong to impose it on others. That is only true if you think that 'it is wrong to impose things on others' is objectively true. People who think there is no objective morality ought therefore either to think that its fine for them to impose their moral opinions on others if they can, or at least they ought not to impose a ban on other people imposing their opinions on them.

  • Russ wrote: »
    Doc, the question was more about the nature of your belief that is opposed to slavery, rather than what you intend to do about it.

    Do you conceive your belief as a personal whim, or an expression of your culture, or as a perception of a moral truth ?

    It sounds like you'd be prepared to make some considerable effort to change the culture of the society that you live in. Which argues that you see the wrongness of slavery as a moral truth that is above culture. And yet you seem to deny that such moral truths exist...

    No, that's not what any of us are saying. Repeatedly.

    We're saying that it doesn't matter whether or not there is an external morality because we can't prove it, so we have to operate within the confines of temporal, secular culture.

    We care about your idea of an external morality as much as we do about the number of angels dancing on a pinhead. The abstract debate might be entertaining, but it serves no practical purpose.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    We're saying that it doesn't matter whether or not there is an external morality because we can't prove it, so we have to operate within the confines of temporal, secular culture.
    That's not quite what I'm saying. The practice of rational moral or political debate I think presupposes a morality other than what we happen to believe at this moment, and therefore that rational debate gets us closer to it than any other method, even if we may never know for certain that we're actually there. On the other hand, declaring that we can know what objective morality is and that anyone who disagrees with us must be intentionally ignoring what they in fact know does not in fact get the person who does so at all close to it.

  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Russ:If you say that you think slavery is wrong, I can understand that at any of those three levels.

    As far as liberal democracy is concerned, whichever of the three routes one takes the decision is the same: slavery is unacceptable. The nearest one can get to an 'objective' moral position on any political matter which requires the application of some sort of moral value is when there is general agreement that 'x' is the right course of action. It is, however, important to stress that liberal democracy is justified by process, mediated through the rule of law, rather than outcomes.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Kwesi wrote: »
    It is, however, important to stress that liberal democracy is justified by process, mediated through the rule of law, rather than outcomes.
    The liberal part of liberal democracy presumes that some outcomes are off the table: you can't send unpopular minorities to the death camps and so on.

  • Still a democracy though. Forcing people to drink hemlock can be put back on the statute books if enough folk want it.
  • Dafyd wrote: »
    Kwesi wrote: »
    It is, however, important to stress that liberal democracy is justified by process, mediated through the rule of law, rather than outcomes.
    The liberal part of liberal democracy presumes that some outcomes are off the table: you can't send unpopular minorities to the death camps and so on.

    The “liberal” part is up to the population, rather than the system. As far as I’m concerned it’s the “democracy” bit that matters, and if the population elects a Party that plans to send unpopular minorities to the death camps then that’s what will happen.

    Our protection against that happening is in there being enough people who think it’s abhorrent, not some structural or legal system that would prohibit it even if 99% of the population wanted it.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    As far as I’m concerned it’s the “liberal” bit that matters. I'd rather be ruled by a benevolent monarch or dictator who respects the rights and freedoms of every citizen than by elected politicians who don't.


  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    We're saying that it doesn't matter whether or not there is an external morality because we can't prove it, so we have to operate within the confines of temporal, secular culture.

    We care about your idea of an external morality as much as we do about the number of angels dancing on a pinhead.
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    I believe slavery to be wrong. In the first instance, I will attempt through democratic means to abolish it, and thereafter use the coercive power of the state to enforce the law. If I fail to do that, I'll have no hesitation in engaging in acts of creative civil disobedience until such time I win or I die.

    "Civil disobedience" I understand to mean acts like peacefully obstructing the highway or painting slogans on public buildings. In other words, breaking some relatively trivial democratically-made laws, whilst being careful not to break the weighty moral laws against assaulting people.

    And I'm struggling to see how this fits with your stated position that we cannot know that slavery is wrong and that there are no (knowable) higher values by which one can judge democratically-made law.

    So it's your personal conviction. Why should anyone care about that, any more than they care about the number of angels who can do the tango ?
  • What's wrong with politics? Nothing. Nothing at all, now Trump is defeated at the polls.

    :smiley:
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    Russ wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    Honestly, this whole thread has basically been a regular flirtation with anarchism, without labelling it as such.

    I think you're confusing the proposition "no laws are morally legitimate" with the proposition "not all laws are morally legitimate"

    I don’t think I am, because you regularly make blanket statements until someone forces you to roll back to a more qualified version after pointing out that logically you’ve proposed that no-one should be forced to go against their own individual views.
  • Russ wrote: »
    "Civil disobedience" I understand to mean acts like peacefully obstructing the highway or painting slogans on public buildings. In other words, breaking some relatively trivial democratically-made laws, whilst being careful not to break the weighty moral laws against assaulting people.

    I mean, good luck with trying to square that with my stated position on punching fascists. You seem to be confusing civil disobedience (which has always included breaking things and burning shit down) with disobedience that is civil.
    And I'm struggling to see how this fits with your stated position that we cannot know that slavery is wrong and that there are no (knowable) higher values by which one can judge democratically-made law.

    So it's your personal conviction. Why should anyone care about that, any more than they care about the number of angels who can do the tango ?

    We can, by personal conviction and testimony, know that slavery is wrong. That is how we got rid of slavery. There are even actual books on the subject. And I'm not saying that you should care. I'm saying that if you don't care, the majority will make you care. I have zero qualms about coercing you in this and other regards.

  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Dafyd: The liberal part of liberal democracy presumes that some outcomes are off the table: you can't send unpopular minorities to the death camps and so on.
    I agree with you that in liberal democracies there are a number of outcomes which are off the table. The question is: What keeps them there? Why do they not require Socrates to take the hemlock? Facing an existential threat it's surprising what liberties citizens of such states are prepared to surrender in wartime, faced with covid-19 and so on. It's difficult to say where the absolute guarantees lie, if at all. What one can say is that such states seem better able to sustain those values that "are off the table" than others.

  • Well, messy though it is, it worked in the USA this week.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    orfeo wrote: »
    Russ wrote: »
    I think you're confusing the proposition "no laws are morally legitimate" with the proposition "not all laws are morally legitimate"

    I don’t think I am, because you regularly make blanket statements until someone forces you to roll back to a more qualified version after pointing out that logically you’ve proposed that no-one should be forced to go against their own individual views.

    I'm saying that forcing someone to go against their own views is something that is inherently contrary to the Golden Rule (I.e. not something that you would want done to you). And therefore needs to be justified.

    We've been talking a bit about justification by implied consent through some form of social contract theory.

    Or you can take the view that coercion is justified when it is coercion not to do something that is objectively morally wrong.

    And I've acknowledged that if you're a full-blown utilitarian then any coercion is justified by sufficiently-good consequences.

    But in all 3 cases, the justification is limited to some particular cases of use of state power, and isn't a blanket justification for anything that the state might choose to do.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Russ: I'm saying that forcing someone to go against their own views is something that is inherently contrary to the Golden Rule (I.e. not something that you would want done to you).

    Are you not confusing coercion with the imperative to do right? The Golden Rule is not about coercion but behaviour towards others. If
    it is my will to act prejudicially towards another because I judge it to be to my advantage, why would being forced to desist be contrary to the Golden Rule?
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Russ wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    To hold that an objective standard is knowable beyond reasonable disagreement is therefore incipiently totalitarian.

    And that's a bad thing ?

    After all of your talking a good talk about the supremacy of consent and individual freedom, you're now asking whether totalitarianism is really such a bad thing?

    I was asking whether you think so. Because there seems a potential contradiction in asserting that totalitarianism is objectively morally bad and also that objective morality is inherently totalitarian...

    I think that contradiction is avoided by a view of three realms - the objectively real, the cultural, and the individual - where the possible errors are to mistake where any of the boundaries are.

    (Legislating the value of pi would be such a mistake).

    Misplacing the boundaries of objective morality in one direction could indeed lead to a "moral minority" both undemocratically controlling the cultural sphere and overly-restricting the individual, which combination it seems reasonable to call totalitarian.

    Misplacing the boundaries in the other direction leads to over-stating the authority of the democratic state. The notion that a democratic mandate trumps any moral considerations.

    @Kwesi - under what conditions or premises do you think coercing someone to act morally is a moral or immoral act ?
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Russ: @Kwesi - under what conditions or premises do you think coercing someone to act morally is a moral or immoral act ?

    Stopping the police killing black people for a start.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Russ: - under what conditions or premises do you think coercing someone to act morally is a moral or immoral act ?

    More generally:
    In your framework, Russ, coercion is morally justified whenever an individual is forced to obey the Golden Rule.
  • Russ wrote: »
    @Kwesi - under what conditions or premises do you think coercing someone to act morally is a moral or immoral act ?

    But what we're really talking about is coercing someone to follow the law of the land. Morality =/= law. As has been previously discussed, where morality = law, it's much more likely to be an autocracy of some sort - theocracy or one-party state. I sorry, but there appears to be a disconnect between what you're trying to discuss, and what is actually being talked about.
  • zogwargzogwarg Shipmate Posts: 11
    Regarding the potential basis of law on objective morality, and the lack of provability of such objectivity. Can I suggest the word axiomatic?

    An axiom is true by definition, not by proof.
    Yet any society with a legal framework, should strive to base it on a sound moral axiomatic set. It's not by accident that the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen" has constitutional value today in France. I think that in a very real sense this meets both side of the discussion here.

    I will grant that certainly those axioms need to be updated with time, which means they are only true as long as they are still held as axioms.

    --

    Regarding the question of coercion, i would join that coercion as an extension of law enforcement (executive, legislative, or judicial) can only entail what is strictly outlined in the law. I think it is one of the better axioms of western democracies, and one that we should defend the strongest.

    That being said, political and civic (in the polis sense) action does not stop at the legal powers of government officials. To what degree does public pressure in either maintaining or moving social norms constitute undesirable coercion ? (I would however express here personal distaste for online lynch mobs)

    --

    Finally going back to the original question of what is wrong with politics, i think politics becomes wrong as it slides towards becoming a game, where the games starts to become its own goal, as simple expression of the desire of power dominance.

    When for the sake of the game, everything from the other side is to be rejected, and nothing from your side is ever wrong.

    When the focus becomes less solving problems, and more scoring political points.

    I don't believe the game is inherently wrong, i believe the game must be played, or rather is played inevitably (I believe as pointed out earlier in this thread), but when the real world stakes become to high, and the players too detached from those stakes, that is when the game becomes toxic.

  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    edited November 2020
    Russ wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Russ wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    To hold that an objective standard is knowable beyond reasonable disagreement is therefore incipiently totalitarian.

    And that's a bad thing ?

    After all of your talking a good talk about the supremacy of consent and individual freedom, you're now asking whether totalitarianism is really such a bad thing?

    I was asking whether you think so. Because there seems a potential contradiction in asserting that totalitarianism is objectively morally bad and also that objective morality is inherently totalitarian...
    Again you're eliding the difference between 'objective morality' and 'claiming to know what objective morality is'. In any case in which there is moral disagreement we do not know beyond reasonable doubt what the objectively moral answer is. We do know that if there is an objective moral truth of the matter rational debate is the most reliable way of approaching to it. Claiming to know what is the objective moral truth, without debate, and therefore claiming the right to unilaterally impose morality and punish offenders is not a reliable way of approaching to objective moral truth.
    Thus, we can believe through argument that totalitarianism is according to the best arguments of which we are aware morally wrong in itself, liable to enable further moral abuses - the benevolent autocrat who respect his subjects' rights is a largely myth - and also see that totalitarianism by suppressing debate is also indirectly bad as preventing better access to objective moral truth.
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