Pomp

Alonzo Fyfe,

I disagree vehemently with your vehement disagreement.

All right.

Or, actually, I must ask if you are using a question-begging definition of slavery which means 'immoral involuntary servitude'

No, I am using the uncontroversial "involuntary servitude" as a definition of slavery. To clarify, I am assuming that such servitude is not enacted as punishment for some offense or payment for some service but rather completely against the will of the enslaved.

But if your definition of slavery is the morally neutral "involuntary servitude" (servitude that goes against the desires of the person performing the service), then taxation and conscription do count as slavery -- they are both enforced at the point of a gun.

As I have already noted, I consider taxation (and, to a lesser extent, conscription) to be payment for services rendered to the individual by a society. As such, they do not fall under my definition of slavery. This is a side issue, at any rate.

A definition of slavery as "unjustified involuntary servitude" makes a great deal of sense. Slavery can easy be understood as an institution of servitude where the desires of the person forced into service are considered irrelevant to the moral calculation -- that is, the slave is treated as a means only, a mere tool without morally relevant reasons.

I'll grant that,using your definition of "slavery," not mine. You're not addressing my complaint though. The problem is, if the group of slaves is sufficiently small as compared to society as a whole then, even counting their reasons in the moral calculation, the slaves moral-ought to willingly remain slaves. You have previously stated that moral-oughts are not mere hand waving under your system because those whose reasons are not taken into account by practical-oughts have reason to "promote morality" (a phrase whose meaning you have not been clear about...can you clarify?). I am attempting to demonstrate that those very people (the slaves inmy example) have no reason to "promote morality" because, under your system, they moral-ought to be enslaved.

Can you address this issue?

Alonzo Fyfe

I am going to continue to answer that your question is question-begging.

You assert that my account leads to counter-intuitive results because it may justify slavery.

I answer that this is true -- it may be used to justify conscription and taxation, but these results are not counter-intuitive.

You answer that these things are also not properly called slavery.

To which I respond that true slavery is ruled out on the system I propose a priori. It treats slaves as mere things -- tools -- "as a means only and not, at the the same time, as ends in themselves" -- in failing to figure their interests in the moral calculation.

You assert that there is a third option, something properly called slavery that nonetheless fully considers the interests of the slave.

My answer remains that you are equivocating between the two definitions above, equivocating between a definition that is morally wrong a priori and a definition that would include taxation and conscription. If there is a third option, I do not see it, and ask that you present it to me more clearly.

You have stated that taxation does not count as slavery because "Taxation is a fee levied upon those who benefit from a social organization." Yet, clearly it is not the case that the amount paid in taxes is proportional to the benefit received. Taxation is also used to transfer wealth, and in so doing one person works for the benefit of another. Many regulations perform the same task.

Conscription makes a clearer case. Here, I find no plausibility in claiming that the 18-year-old laying dead on a battlefield he was forced onto is paying dues for a benefit that he receives. Rather, he is being forced into making a sacrifice so that others may benefit. Those wounded in battle similarly pay more than they benefit, but the benefits all things considered are used to justify the sacrifice.

[ March 27, 2002: Message edited by: Alonzo Fyfe ]</p>

WJ

Hi!

Though I haven't read all of the post, the majority seem to agree that there exists an unavoidable dichotomy of integrating the two extreemes. My personal belief is that while there are many sides to Objectivism/Subjectivism, we should first approach ethics in an epistemological fashion in terms of the conscious Self-human existence.

For example, I am an advocate of Keirkegaardian 'truth is subjectivity'. When I see a basketball player (object) and I want to know something about playing basketball, I proceed to make it my own truth(subjective) by either practicing it, reading about, etc.. And so I would not actually 'know' what I am talking about if I claimed that MJ stunk, if I had never played or attempted an understanding of it, itself.

How does this relate to morality? Perhaps the answer is found in a move towards a 'good'. But how do we come to know what comprises a universal absolute good? Take survival needs for example. Is it considered good to protect a life at all costs? Are there sacrifices made to save some, verses others, viz. public saftey policies and medical science?

Those are just some of the diffucult questions people have to make when confronted with absolute ethics. You might could say common sense can be bestowed on a child's development to prevent it from harming itself and moving toward a better 'good', but beyond conscience (not consciousness), it might just be fair game.

Like the poster who mentioned sucking the little flipper. I think it would be common sense and good conscience not to do this in public, here in America. Does this then imply that other's need corrective guidance because the behavior is not common or naturally strange in the mind of American's or western culture? Should they continue sucking the flipper's as they grow both in size and onto adulthood? If not, does the objective-asthetic sight of watching this act become abhorant in the mind?

Kind of amusing I know, but it seems objective methods of governing behavior come from a result of consciousness/conscience and/or reading about it ethics from a book (bible or otherwise)which brings us back to the brute fact that the primacy of ethics is derived from 'truth being subjectivity'.

But it is also based on an objective physical existence-perception. They are interchangable, I think. Perhaps in that sense we [subjective]are trapped in a physical existence [objective] of percieving a thing [or a thought/concept itself] ethically.

What all that may mean is that objective dogma of conduct is derived from observations of the subjective, and therefore are meant to guide behavor toward something that is a greater good, not otherwise contemplated. A kind of a saving of those from themselves if you will (ie, teaching a child, stopping flipper-sucking at the age of adulthood, public health and saftey issues,etc.).

....just some more thoughts.


Walrus

[ March 27, 2002: Message edited by: WJ ]

[ March 27, 2002: Message edited by: WJ ]</p>

Pomp

Alonzo Fyfe,

Clearly, either I'm misunderstanding you or you're misunderstanding me.

You assert that my account leads to counter-intuitive results because it may justify slavery.

I made two original assertions in the post that started this branch of the discussion. One, as you note, is that your version of morality leads to a counter-intuitive results. As you reject the notion that intuition is a reliable guide to proper moral thought, I have dropped this charge.

My other assertion was that your theory of morality doesn't have a leg to stand on because there is no practical reason for anyone to care what the theory says and, until the theory has been accepted, there can be no moral reasons at all. In short, there is no reason that anyone would do what is moral under your theory because it is moral under your theory. In other words, people will continue to act on their practical reasons alone.

In answer to this charge, you stated that those individuals whose practical interests are ignored by others (who are being treated as "tools," in other words) have reason to "promote morality." Now, my reasoning may be flawed form this point on, as you haven't specified precisely what you mean by "promote morality." I am assuming that someone who "promotes morality" desires that all individuals do what they morally ought to do, at least in general.

My response to this is to note that, if the group of individuals whose practical reasons are ignored by others (that is to say, the group who are treated as "tools") is sufficiently small (and I have no idea how small the group would have to be, as I don't know the details of your moral calculation procedure) in proportion to society as a whole, then, even if their reasons are taken into account by the moral calculation they moral-ought to retain their secondary status. The group who you claim will "promote morality" has no reason to "promote morality" at all, because it will not change their circumstances. It is possible that the way you actually envision the moral calculation will prevent this outcome, but it doesn't seem so from the very brief description of that calculation that you have provided.

To which I respond that true slavery is ruled out on the system I propose a priori. It treats slaves as mere things -- tools -- "as a means only and not, at the the same time, as ends in themselves" -- in failing to figure their interests in the moral calculation.

As I have demonstrated, true slavery is not ruled out a priori unless you consider people who are owned by others and forced to provide unpaid labor to be something other than true slaves, provided that their interests were taken into account by the moral calculation. Even if you don't consider them "true slaves" I see no reason why they would willingly "promote" a morality that requires them to be virtual slaves.

You assert that there is a third option, something properly called slavery that nonetheless fully considers the interests of the slave.

I haven't just asserted it, I've demonstrated it, several times. If you want to play with semantics and argue that the situation I've described is not "properly called slavery" then we'll agree that it is "virtual slavery," or whatever term you want to use, and proceed from there.

I'm declining to respond to the portion of yoru post that relates to taxation and conscription, as it really isn't important to my point. If you really want to discuss those two cases, let me know, and I'll go back and address them.

Alonzo Fyfe

I consider somebody who is owned by another to necessarily be somebody whose desires are, at least to some extent, excluded from the moral calculation. That is a part of the meaning of ownership -- that the person owned is treated as a thing rather than as a person. Thus, it is immoral a priori given the theory I have advanced here.

What you describe above is a contradiction.

[ March 29, 2002: Message edited by: Alonzo Fyfe ]</p>

Pomp

Alonzo Fyfe,

I don't see how your assertion that slavery is immoral a priori follows from the description you have given of your moral system. It seems clear to me that, unless your moral calculation involves some process by which the desires of the slaves are amplified, then a sufficiently large group of slave owners ruling over a sufficnelty small group of slaves would skew the calculation so that the slaves desires could be taken into consideration without causing the calculation to resolve in favor of their freedom. Unless you want to describe your moral calculation detail so we can analyse the situation more precisely (and such a process would probably be intolerably boring for both of us) I suppose we'll have to drop the issue and just disagree.

Malaclypse the Younger

Alonzo Fyfe

That you are against slavery is laudable and praisworthy, in that I will laud and praise you for holding a value I happen to agree with. However much I admire this value, it is still arbitrary.

The prohibition against slavery is true a priori if and only if you hold a value system that results in such a conclusion. However, no logical contradiction is entailed by holding a value system that does not result in the conclusion that slavery is prohibited. It merely differs from your own.

There is no logically compelling reason to take into account others' desires and wills. Admittedly, I find such a position to be digusting, but my own disgust is not logically compelling.

Alonzo Fyfe

If by this you mean that it is logically and phhysically possible that a person may have no reason to take into account others' desires, then this is true. Unfortunately, perhaps, but true. And I have never disputed this.

Yet, even though a conclusion based upon the desires that a person has may be different than a conclusion based on all of the reasons that exist, it does not change what the answer to the question based on all the reasons that exist.

A person may call 'moral' that which is evaluated according to his or her own personal desires, disregarding the desires of others. But such a person is merely playing with words. A person may call the frisky feline who shares his house a 'horse' if he wants. There is no law of nature saying that the word 'horse' cannot be used to refer to such a creature. But the person who does so is merely playing with words. It is the subjectivity of language which is being exploited here, not the subjectivity of horses.

The same is true of the person who does not take into consideration the desires of others, yet calls his conclusion 'moral.' Again, he is not playing with the subjectivity of morality here. He is playing with the subjectivity of language.

tronvillain

It does not change the answer to the question based on all the reasons that exist? There is no unique "the answer", since any answer presupposes certain interests. Now, those interests could be those of all humans weighted in some fashion, but there is not reason this system should be labelled the moral system.

Malaclypse the Younger

The problem is that both positions are equally arbitrary. You may (and apparently do, as do I) define "morality" as "consideration of the desires of others". However there is no logically compelling reason to do so; we do so only because we subjectively hold that such consideration is valuable (or rather we hold the more fundamental value that we find society beneficial).

To claim that only one side is playing games with the subjectivity of language is valid iff there is an objective reason to prefer one definition over another. To call a cat a horse is to imply that it is impossible to objectively distinguish cats from horses, a position that is false-to-fact.

However, there is no objective referent to "morality"; therefore all definitions are arbitrary, and for anyone, the socialist or the individualist to insist that one definition is objectively (rather than intersubjectively) preferred is without foundation.

Of course it is a fact that the overwhelming majority of people do value society, and thus derive the value of the consideration of the values of others. To recognize this intersubjective fact is simply true, and to act on it entirely rational. However to infer from this intersubjective fact that this value is thus objectively true is to commit a fallacy of argument from popularity.