I was just reading in another thread a hypothetical situation where a little girl agrees to get gang banged by 100 men for a sandwich or something, which I guess is supposed to show how horrible voluntary exchange can be. Is there any reason to even entertain crazy hoptheticals without asking "wait, why are there 100 pedophiles standing ready with sandwiches to rape little girls. Where did they come from and why is she in a state of such desperation?"
My real question is whether there is an obligation on anyone to really respond to crazy hypotheticals in the course of debate. So by obligation i mean that if I were to assert that the moon is made of cheese during discourse, the burden of proof would be on me to verify that claim, not on you to falsify it. With regards to hypotheticals, if I created a scenario where one man owned all the oil in the world, shouldn't I have to present the details of how such a situation could arise, especially if this scenario was to illustrate some economic, political, or ethical proposition?
they said we would have an unfair fun advantage
As I made clear in various posts, I think this propensity to respond to ridiculous hypotheticals is very damaging to libertarian ideology. It would be wise to know when not to respond.
“I was just reading in another thread a hypothetical situation where a little girl agrees to get gang banged by 100 men for a sandwich or something, which I guess is supposed to show how horrible voluntary exchange can be.”
That hypothetical is easily countered: a child cannot give informed consent. This could arguable be different in life-and-death situation: starve to death or accept a high price to live. Easy choice, right? Maybe not. The girl may live to regret the price she paid to live, long haunted by the abuse endured, so informed consent still applies, in my view.
“Where did they come from and why is she in a state of such desperation?"”
They came from the imaginations of people who cannot come up with better arguments.
These extreme hypothetical suggest to me a lack of good argument against libertarianism. “If we adopted your view, and because of that, the moon broke out of orbit from earth and zombies arose and started attacking humanity, would you admit you were wrong?” Libertarian: “WTF?!”
“So by obligation i mean that if I were to assert that the moon is made of cheese during discourse, the burden of proof would be on me to verify that claim, not on you to falsify it.”
Your assertion requires evidence if you want others to take it seriously, but if you say “what if” then evidence is less needed. It is hypothetical.
“if I created a scenario where one man owned all the oil in the world, shouldn't I have to present the details of how such a situation could arise, especially if this scenario was to illustrate some economic, political, or ethical proposition?”
Yes.
Hypotheticals can be useful for highlighting the principles of a problem. The logical extremes demonstrate what is actually being discussed. The problem is with people who don't know how to frame a hypothetical correctly. If they don't know how to frame a hypothetical that actually highlights the logical extreme, then you have to spend your time demonstrating why their hypothetical isn't accurate. They are like analogies. Great tools when used correctly, but they are easily misused.
Your example, however, looks similar to the lifeboat situation. I don't know if you read Murray Rothbard's take on the lifeboat situation, but before (or after, I can't remember which) applying his libertarian theory to the situation, he made it clear that there could be no resolution that was satisfactory. The nature of the situation is terrible, so there should be no way to expect a happy ending.
With regards to hypotheticals, if I created a scenario where one man owned all the oil in the world, shouldn't I have to present the details of how such a situation could arise, especially if this scenario was to illustrate some economic, political, or ethical proposition?
Yes, I think you should have to present the details of a hypothetical. Sometimes they are implicitly understood, like when one talks about Crusoe's island. We all know that it's just him in this situation, so there is no need to explain how he got stranded - unless of course someone isn't familiar with it, but the explanation is so brief it's not a problem. But if you present a situation that is so incredibly unlikely, how can you expect others to humor your scenario if you don't/can't/won't explain how such a situation could arise.
The lifeboat situation is easy enough for us to get. A ship is sinking. There is one lifeboat that holds 8 people. There are at least 9 people. But if someone says something ridiculous like your pedophile sandwich scenario or someone owning all the oil in the world, they need to explain how something so absurd could happen.
Otherwise it's like arguing with someone who rejects reason. A total waste of time.
EmperorNero:As I made clear in various posts, I think this propensity to respond to ridiculous hypotheticals is very damaging to libertarian ideology. It would be wise to know when not to respond.
If it were beneficial to libertarian ideology would you change your position? That is, would you reject those questions solely because they relegate libertarianism to insane lifeboat ethics when no other philosophy has to go there, or because they interfere with the general advancement of social, economic and political understanding? I agree with you for the most part though.
gotlucky:Your example, however, looks similar to the lifeboat situation. I don't know if you read Murray Rothbard's take on the lifeboat situation, but before (or after, I can't remember which) applying his libertarian theory to the situation, he made it clear that there could be no resolution that was satisfactory. The nature of the situation is terrible, so there should be no way to expect a happy ending.
I remember Ayn Rand saying something along the lines that a lifeboat is no place to determine mans nature.
I thought of a better way to illustrate what I'm trying to say. In a normal debate, you might say that my position is wrong because I have a big nose. Obviously, we don't need to discuss this because I can reject ad hominem fallacies immediately and move on. Hypotheticals that are crazy and improbable (and aren't red herrings) are not logical fallacies, so my protests cannot be boiled down to a short latin phrase.
They can't be boiled down to a short Latin phrase, but they can be boiled down to a short phrase: nirvana fallacy.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
good point....
its as stupid as saying...ok, so you want government.....well....what if 100 soldiers are pointing guns at a little girl and force her to....
mikachusetts:If it were beneficial to libertarian ideology would you change your position? That is, would you reject those questions solely because they relegate libertarianism to insane lifeboat ethics when no other philosophy has to go there, or because they interfere with the general advancement of social, economic and political understanding? I agree with you for the most part though.
Well, I think relegating libertarianism to insane lifeboat ethics is what interferes with the advancement of understanding. People only hear about these unlikely extremes and think that's what libertarianism is. A libertarian society is always explored in the form of these unpleasant hypothetical situations around the edges. For example, everyone heard the "what about people who can't afford food" problem, but really few people are aware how higher productiveness in a libertarian society would make food really abundant. Libertarians defend against the former, but they rarely point out the latter. For some reason the opposition managed to make all discussion about fringe circumstances under which libertarianism might conceivably be imperfect. And libertarians are too eager to follow the argument down that road. (My guess is because they like theorizing so much.) Libertarians never talk about the abundance and the ease of life that would be possible if we had free markets, we mostly complain about the current system; while the communists go on and on about superabundance and free stuff. Is it any surprise that the audience is inclined to support the more pleasant sounding ideology?
One time I had a person argue that free market economics "fails" because people don't have perfect knowledge or act perfectly rational. In other words, if the theoretical optimum is unattainable then we better not risk it at all. There was no mention of whether this slightly imperfect situation is still better than the statist alternative. No, libertarianism is considered a failure if it is not perfect. People are much more lenient with statism for some reason. Yeah, it was the leading cause of unnatural death, but at least it's not worse than the theoretical optimum!
The real problem, Nero, is that people who bring up such insane hypotheticals do so because they believe they'd be much more likely in a libertarian or anarcho-capitalist world. Such people are authoritarians - implicit in their bringing up of those hypotheticals is the argument that, were it not for monopolized authority, people would run amok.
You're not obliged to respond, and you're usually better off not. The person who poses such a ridiculous situation as if a failure to answer or a doctrinaire answer on your part is proof of your folly almost never accepts the same standard for their views. Pose a ridiculous hypothetical right back to them,
Autolykos:The real problem, Nero, is that people who bring up such insane hypotheticals do so because they believe they'd be much more likely in a libertarian or anarcho-capitalist world. Such people are authoritarians - implicit in their bringing up of those hypotheticals is the argument that, were it not for monopolized authority, people would run amok.
There is truth to that. I think the main problem is that authoritarians do not understand systemic effects. And most of the benefits of libertarianism are systemic, while most of the benefits of statism implemented on purpose (one recent example). It's also about economic literacy, of course. If you think prices create scarcity you are a lot less likely to endorse free markets than if you know government spending can't create a free lunch. Public school does an amazing job at keeping elementary economics away from people.
xahrx:You're not obliged to respond, and you're usually better off not. The person who poses such a ridiculous situation as if a failure to answer or a doctrinaire answer on your part is proof of your folly almost never accepts the same standard for their views. Pose a ridiculous hypothetical right back to them,
Indeed. That's what I often do, especially when faced with "In a libertarian/anarcho-capitalist society, what's to prevent X?" I turn right around and ask them, "In today's statist society, what's to prevent X?" My point is to illustrate that they believe in an illusion of certainty provided by the state.
@mikachussets: You need to point out where the proposed thought-experiment fails to conform to the essential attributes of reality under discussion. Even in a more voluntary society (don't forget that society is already 99% voluntary... it's the 1% of legitimized, coercive interactions we have a problem with), a little girl would have parents. Children are extremely vulnerable to predation and an abandoned or lost child is in a desperate and dangerous situation government or no government. So, this "hypothetical" fails to discriminate between a stateless and stateful society, that is, the child is in a dangerous situation regardless of whether there's a government or not.
The thought-experiment is not properly constructed. Send them back to the drawing boards.
Clayton -
What if there were no hypothetical questions?
Reasonable hypothetical questions can be interesting to entertain, but unreasonable questions are usually questions designed to be used against you. Like a loaded question, where the person knows the answer that he will get based on his knowledge of your ideology, so he asks a question that will set you up to look like a fool or allow him to refute you with a pre planned argument. Very common online.
What i tend to do is force the hypothetical in to his ideology and then throw the question back at him by showing how it would be a bad situation even in today's society. This usually forces them to change the question in to a more reasonable one.
edit: i should realy read the whole thread before posting, not one thing in my post was original...
Here are a few real world examples -
Reporter: "Sir, if fighting should break out again, would you pull the marines out?"
President Ronald Reagan: "You're asking a hypothetical question, and I've found out that I never get in trouble if I don't answer one of those."
-----------------------
Tom DiLorenzo's debate with Harry Jaffa:
Audience Member #7
Just limit your answer to Mississippi, then. Would Mississippi have been OK to secede to establish a society based on the kidnapping and ritual rape of 9-year-old girls?
Thomas DiLorenzo
I’m not going to answer crazy hypotheticals like that.
Where do you draw the line?
I would say, if a state has a right to secede, if a right to secede exists, a right to secede exists even if slavery was the issue, and we should have diligently worked to get rid of it peacefully.
Or anything else?
No, I’m not going to answer crazy hypotheticals. Child rape—ridiculous.
Actually, thinking about what you all have said, DiLorenzo could have answered that by saying, "Well, what if a bunch of child molesters got voted into office, and Mississippi wanted to secede from them?"
This is not necessarily germane to discourse centered on economics and political science, but from a proper ethics perspective you still have to answer the question, even if it isn't a rosy scenario. I do agree that many libertarians, as any with all people of any ideology when faced with this situation, trip themselves up in this and sometimes you get a lot of attempts at evasion when all that's needed is just to accept the terms of the scenario, not try to change them. You can always answer back with an insane hypothetical of your own just to catch them in their tracks and see their reaction. Don't let them get away with what they're trying to do; reductio ad absurdum goes both ways. Take advantage of it.
Suntne reductiones ad absurdum semper absurdae?
http:translate.google.com and no.
Interestingly enough this thread was started only days after we actually did just what the OP describes...calling out the insane notion of everyday individuals having access to nuclear bombs, like the accessibility of guns today.
Nukes are silly, but the underlying premise isn't. The idea is that in a free society people might be able to create on their own land enough explosives to accidentally destroy their neighbors property (And potentially kill the neighbors). Would the neighbor have the right to step in to stop this person? That's a perfectly legitimate question, and the answer is "Yes". Putting a persons property at a percieved risk is enough to justify intervention. Someone can't build a bomb-manufacturing facility next to your house without an agreement from the neighbors (if they're at risk.), but on the flipside neighbors can't buy property next to the facility and then demand that the facility stop or move. This isn't a new idea. If everyone has nukes, that would mean that no one objected to the risk their property was put into, and the fact that the questioner is objecting to this idea is evidence that our society would not make the same judgement. Anyways, my point is just that even though the hypothetical situation is silly, libertarians should still have an answer.
damn, I thought this thread was about trying to come up with as crazy a hypothetical situation you could throw out there
Anyway,
I think it would be a good project to show these problems are worse than useless, and can't actually be done in the context most people wish them to be done. Incidentally, this may put me at odds with some of the economists who associate with Mises.org, as a few seem apt to tbring up hypotheticals.
Either way, I think most of these questions can just get thrown in the much less shocking things such as "externality", and the Austrians relation to them.
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
Cortes, is that your way of saying my Latin was wrong?