They're both actions you can take to avoid something; both have the exact same result, but you want only to punish one.
How about this: what if I throw something at you and it bounces off you and hits a glass window, breaking it? Should you have to pay for it?
Don't allow leftists to play games with definitions! Some of the libertarian-leaning leftists at this forum will try to redefine "left-wing" back to its original defition (Third Estate, limited government, free-markets, laissez-faire reforms, etc.). Fine! We non-leftists can't stop them from using their own personal definitions; they can use whatever labels they want to describe any concept they want.However, they have the audacity to then use their personal definition of "left-wing" (remember, the original definition, which is no longer valid) to prove that modern leftists are more libertarian than modern rightists! They will say that libertarianism is "inherently leftist" (again, using the original, no longer valid definition), and use that to insist that we should prefer and side with modern leftists over modern rightists.
Question their motives.
According to you, if you have "only negative obligations" in regards to ducking, why wouldn't the obligation be "don't duck, you know someone will get hurt"?
In reality, the only person who should be punished is the one throwing the brick.
Ego:How about this: what if I throw something at you and it bounces off you and hits a glass window, breaking it? Should you have to pay for it?
No. Obviously something bouncing off of you is not an action and cannot be considered a crime.
Ego:In reality, the only person who should be punished is the one throwing the brick.
Vicitms of crimes should have the right to punish anyone who commits a crime against them, regardless of whether that person is a victim of another crime. People do not have the right to externalize their costs of defense onto innocent parties. Why should someone be let off the hook if their defence includes aggressing against an innocent party? Why should the innocent parties rights by circumscribed? After all, they have done nothing wrong. Why shouldn't they be allowed to punish both aggressors?
Ego:According to you, if you have "only negative obligations" in regards to ducking, why wouldn't the obligation be "don't duck, you know someone will get hurt"?
Because, I only look at the issue from a property rights perspective. A person only has the right to not have their property invaded. They do not have the right to not get "hurt" apart from their property titles.
When a person homesteads scarce standing room, they also homestead all unowned property necessary to make use of that property except what has already been homesteaded by someone else. If he feels threatened by someone who plans to throw a brick at him and stands behind a barrier that is unowned, he homesteads the barrier (temporarily at least). No one else has the right to remove that barrier. Now if that barrier happens to be another person's property, such as their body, it can not be homesteaded. The person can move freely about and dodge if they would like to.
See it all comes back to first principles.
Right to own body => Right to homestead
((Right to own body)AND(Right to homestead)) => NAP
NAP => (Right to duck)AND(NOT(Right to deflect))AND(NOT(Right to shoot through hostage))
NAP => (NOT(Right to cause collatoral damage))AND(NOT(Right to hit trolley switch)
NAP => Punishment theory
Punishment theory => (Right to self-defense)AND(Right to proportional restitution)AND(Right to proportional retribution)
So there's my case. What's yours? Why should resulting harm be considered the basis for rights instead of property?
Solid_Choke:Imagine this scenario: I really dislike Bob. I dislike him so much that I want to kill him. I happen to be an active trader in prediction markets. I start a new contract that says Bob will not die in the next month. I put tons of money into this contract and bid up the price knowing that someone will short the contract, kill Bob, and make lots of money off of the deal. In this case there is no agreement between me and the hitman and I have never even communicated with him. Should I be prosecuted for the murder of Bob?
I thought about this for a while and it does seem like it's unpunishable. But I think the main reason why it is difficult to imagine this being criminal is that it wouldn't be an effective method of putting a hit on someone. For one, the information is public immediately. Bob could go into hiding. Also there may be alot of ppl who don't think that Bob will die next month and bid the price down. Another possibility is that some bodyguard or security agency may just decide to buy the contract at the high price and then protect Bob. It seems very hard to proove causal connection in this case because the causal connection is rather weak. You might as well fire a gun in the air and hope that the bullet will fall back on Bob.
Ego: What if you throw your hands up to shield your face and it bounces off of your forearms? I know that exact thing has happened to me!
What if you throw your hands up to shield your face and it bounces off of your forearms? I know that exact thing has happened to me!
The action was blocking yourself, not deflecting it.
I'm a bit late to this thread, but I wanted to mention something regarding the original idea of the Trolley Problem.
My normal response to this ethical question is that you are morally required to not act at all unless you are fully informed of all the variables. For instance, you do not know if the five guys on the track are planning to violently gang-rape and then murder a woman later that evening. You also don't know if that one person on the other track might cure cancer in 10 years. You cannot simply state that five lives are worth more than one life because you do not have sufficient data to calculate the worth of those lives.
This also adds something to the current debate. If that brick is coming at my head, and I need to determine whether to duck or not, I have an easy calculation to make. I know the brick will hit me and cause harm. I do not know what will happen if I duck...it might just hit a wall. The current data suggest that ducking is a better solution.
Now if I know there is a baby behind me, and ducking will cause the baby to be killed when the brick hits it, I now have more data with which to make my decision. I can still decide to duck, but my moral footing has changed with the new information.
No, that action was deflecting it, too.
If you want to use that logic, though, Stephen's entire argument falls apart.
I've been arguing that if someone holds a spinning chainsaw next to your genitals and coerces you into commiting a crime, that person should be charged with the crime instead of you; he has argued that any action taken by an individual should be punished, regardless of the reason behind taking it.
I'm having trouble following your logic:
Jonas:My normal response to this ethical question is that you are morally required to not act at all unless you are fully informed of all the variables.
Ok, but then:
Jonas:If that brick is coming at my head, and I need to determine whether to duck or not, I have an easy calculation to make. I know the brick will hit me and cause harm. I do not know what will happen if I duck...it might just hit a wall. The current data suggest that ducking is a better solution.
Seems to me that, by your previous statement, a better thing to say here is that you are morally required to not act at all unless you are fully informed of all the variables. In the trolley case, ignorance was a reason that I must NOT act, but now ignorance is being given as a reason that I may act.
Or, we can work it back the other way. In the trolley case, I don't know what the 5 people are planning to do tonight. Current data suggests that I should act - without any further information, all I have is 5 lives vs. 1. Why do we give special consideration to the possibility that the 5 are bad and the 1 is good? Why not worry that the 1 is Hitler, by that token?
Yea, sorry. Probably not the best analogy. In the trolley example, you are not in any risk yourself. So you have no need to act out of self preservation. Not like the brick example at all.
JAlanKatz:Or, we can work it back the other way. In the trolley case, I don't know what the 5 people are planning to do tonight. Current data suggests that I should act - without any further information, all I have is 5 lives vs. 1. Why do we give special consideration to the possibility that the 5 are bad and the 1 is good? Why not worry that the 1 is Hitler, by that token?
We don't worry about either possibilty. We can't know if the one is good, or the five is good. It is exactly this unknown that means we should not act, since if we interfere in an existing situation we are doing so with incomplete data.
Ego: No, that action was deflecting it, too. If you want to use that logic, though, Stephen's entire argument falls apart. I've been arguing that if someone holds a spinning chainsaw next to your genitals and coerces you into commiting a crime, that person should be charged with the crime instead of you; he has argued that any action taken by an individual should be punished, regardless of the reason behind taking it.
And I would argue this scenario is impossible. Unless you were somehow tied down, you could just run away or fight back. And if you were tied down, you would not be able to commit a crime.
At most, I think only 5% of the adult population would need to stop cooperating to have real change.
Just shedding responsibility. Moral cowardice in the first degree.
explain how it what you responded to is 'shedding responsibility'
is asking for consent to do X shedding responsibilty over X ? or is it perhaps a responsible approach to at least find out if you have the consent of someone who is at the moral centre of what is at stake....
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
Spoken like a true statist who doesn't even have a coherent theory of morality or justice in the first place.
I read only three pages or so, but only Brainpolice's arguments are most consistent and I actually share the same (or very similar) opinion on this issue. No action, no obligation. That's it. Problem solved.
If one wants to ask what I would personally do (even though it's like asking, what super power you would like to have), then there is a matter of speculation and preferences. I think that everybody wants to survive, to some degree at least, so many would KILL innocent instead of being killed themselves. If there is no risk to one's life, then the answer becomes even more easier. Just don't kill directly (pushing a button I concider also a direct killing).
Which passengers of a two cars you should save first? A family with kids in one car or lonely driver in other car? I would choose (personally) the bigger chance to save as more as I can. It's the car with family inside. What if that lonely driver was my father or mother, or brother? Again, I would go only with my personal preferences, so MY familie's member is worth to me more than some other familie's members. It has nothing to do with "utalitarianism" now. Well, I saved my family member, but there wasn't enough time to save a passengers of the other car, so what? Not my problem, not my fault.
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
Really? The man you're addressing is a great libertarian economist, and one of the first LRC writers I read when I began reading LRC.
He was a libertarian economist, now a conservative economist as far as I can tell.
What has economics to do with this?
I'm pretty sure that Mr. Callahan does not consider himself a libertarian, at least he doesn't seem to agree with most of the theory. I responded to his blog post on homesteading here. As far as I know he doesn't "have a coherent theory of morality or justice", just like most who take swipes at libertarianism. I'm not sure what he is even responding to here.
I didn't read this thread but, given the person who is faced with this choice isn't responsible for hte people being on the tracks, I think the right answer is to do nothing in order to avoid culpability. Still, I think that a person in a hypothetical free society might be able to switch from the track with 5 people to the one with 1, having some knowledge of how justice firms have codified law, without much fear of prosecution. While we are typically concerned with theoretical, praxeological law, jurisprudence, or law in action, is a separate discipline. What I've termed the via negativa of libertarian justice is that a judge might simply refuse to act on a crime.
An example I've used along with this is a hypothetical person who trespasses while fleeing a mudslide. Since it's somewhat time consuming to figure out what an appropriate punishment for trespass is, we'd typically see monetary fines, but either way, a judge who stands to gain very little from doling out this fine might stand to lose a lot more from the publicity of being the cruel judge who punishes the poor guy who almost got smothered in a landslide. The case in this pathological hypothetical is more severe since 1 person will die, but I couldn't see many judges handling it in any other way.
Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave.—Karl Kraus.
"I didn't read this thread but, given the person who is faced with this choice isn't responsible for hte people being on the tracks, I think the right answer is to do nothing in order to avoid culpability."
Yeah, that's what morality is about -- "avoiding culpability"!
"Spoken like a true statist"
Name calling -- the ultimate argument!
The poster did not write that morality is about avoiding culpability.... so ..... ?
I try to avoid culpability for all sorts of crimes by not performing them in the first place. Would you say that proves i don't understand morality?
Hey, some people made really good and interesting situations. I like about "bouncing". If someone throws a brick at me, I duck and the brick hits 3 years old child and kills him. Am I guilty?
To complicate the task consider this:
1) I know about the kid behind me.
2) I don't know about the kid behind me.
Can someone offer some thoughts? I am rather confused on this one. I believe that in both ways I wouldn't be considered guilty of "killing a child", because it wasn't me who threw a brick and I just ducked and didn't initiate force on the kid. Seems legit. Trolley dilemma is easy one.
Gene Callahan:Yeah, that's what morality is about -- "avoiding culpability"!
Mr. Callahan, you ought to keep in mind what libertarianism is. It is a system of punishment, not an all-encompassing "philosophy of life". For instance, we only ask, "Is it a criminal action to determine what plants grow in my backyard or what chemicals enter my own bloodstream?", not, "Ought I grow pot or smoke crack?"
It's pretty sad when someone abandons a philosophy, it appears they never actually understood in the first place.
"The error here...is to confuse the question of the moral course of action for the person in such a tragic situation with the totally separate question of whether or not his seizing of lifeboat or plank space by force constitutes an invasion of someone else's property right. For we are not, in constructing a theory of liberty and property, i.e., a "political" ethic, concerned with all personal moral principles. We are not herewith concerned whether it is moral or immoral for someone to lie, to be a good person, to develop his faculties, or be kind or mean to his neighbors. We are concerned, in this sort of discussion, solely with such "political ethical" questions as the proper role of violence, the sphere of rights, or the definitions of criminality and aggression. Whether or not it is moral or immoral for "Smith" - the fellow excluded by the owner from the plank or the lifeboat - to force someone else out of the lifeboat, or whether he should die heroically instead, is not our concern, and not the proper concern of a theory of political ethics.[5]" - Lifeboat Situations, TEOL - MNR
These last two posts really shine light on what libertarianism is about. The quote is really helpful in understanding those "fringe" cases.
Thanks, guys.
'Mr. Callahan, you ought to keep in mind what libertarianism is. It is a system of punishment, not an all-encompassing "philosophy of life". For instance, we only ask, "Is it a criminal action to determine what plants grow in my backyard or what chemicals enter my own bloodstream?", not, "Ought I grow pot or smoke crack?"'
Mr. Olovetto, you ought to keep in mind what the question that started the thread was: 'Should you flip the switch?', not 'Should failure to flip the switch be illegal?'
'It's pretty sad when someone abandons a philosophy, it appears they never actually understood in the first place.'
It's also pretty sad when commas pop, up at random in sentences.
In any case, that's a very nice quote, except that what the original poster asked was, 'Is it moral to flip the switch?' So, what is the point of quoting that here?
(Oh, and libertarianism is not 'a philosophy.')
Gene Callahan, have you read any of the non-natural rights, non-utilitarian liberals/libertarians like Anthony de Jasay?
"I cannot prove, but am prepared to affirm, that if you take care of clarity in reasoning, most good causes will take care of themselves, while some bad ones are taken care of as a matter of course." -Anthony de Jasay
Actually, the OP ends by asking, "how would a libertarian solve the trolley problem?", which I answered. I still don't understand who or what your original comment is directed at:
What is your answer to the problem anyhow?
If it isn't, what would it be? I was thinking of writing an essay on what libertarianism is. To me, the word can represent a range of political ideologies. At the same time, following praxeological reasoning leads to a legal philosophy, which in turn has the concomitant ideology of plumbline libertarianism. Divergent "libertarian" ideologies fail to form legal doctrines due to their internal contradiction.
Solid_choke, yes.
Sounds like his solution would be to make flipping the switch compulsory.
"If it isn't, what would it be"
An ideology.
"following praxeological reasoning leads to a legal philosophy, which in turn has the concomitant ideology of plumbline libertarianism."
How did Mises miss all that?
What is your verdict? I guess you don't even have to even have libertarian values (for instance you could have progressive or conservative values) to be a "strict liberal" in the sense Jasay uses it. All you have to do is affirm the presumption of liberty and deny the legitimacy of the rule of submission.
"It's also pretty sad when commas pop, up at random in sentences."
Haha, bad habits. [sic? lol] Or just the lingering effects of a state tainted education.
"(Oh, and libertarianism is not 'a philosophy.')"
Yeah, it's a political philosophy.
"An ideology."
Interesting. How are you defining that? Are you going with Mises conception?
The theories directing action are often imperfect and unsatisfactory. They may be contradictory and unfit to be arranged into a comprehensive and coherent system.
If we look at all the theorems and theories guiding the conduct of certain individuals and groups as a coherent complex and try to arrange them as far as is feasible into a system, i.e., a comprehensive body of knowledge, we may speak of it as a world view. A world view is, as a theory, an interpretation of all things, and as a precept for action, an opinion concerning the best means for removing uneasiness as much as possible. A world view is thus, on the one hand, an explanation of all phenomena and, on the other hand, a technology, both these terms being taken in their broadest sense. Religion, metaphysics, and philosophy aim at providing a world view. They interpret the universe and they advise men how to act.
The concept of an ideology is narrower than that of a world view. In speaking of ideology we have in view only human action and social cooperation and disregard the problems of metaphysics, religious dogma, the natural sciences, and the technologies derived from them. Ideology is the totality of our doctrines concerning individual conduct and social relations. Both, world view and ideology, go beyond the limits imposed upon a purely neutral and academic study of things as they are. They are not only scientific theories, but also doctrines about the ought, i.e., about the ultimate ends which man should aim at in his earthly concerns.
And where exactly does libertarianism do that?
"Libertarianism, then, is a philosophy seeking a policy. But what else can a libertarian philosophy say about strategy, about “policy”? In the first place, surely-again in Acton’s words-it must say that liberty is the “highest political end,” the overriding goal of libertarian philosophy. Highest political end, of course, does not mean “highest end” for man in general. Indeed, every individual has a variety of personal ends and differing hierarchies of importance for these goals on his personal scale of values. Political philosophy is that subset of ethical philosophy which deals specifically with politics, that is, the proper role of violence in human life (and hence the explication of such concepts as crime and property). Indeed, a libertarian world would beone in which every individual would at last be free to seek and pursue his own ends-to “pursue happiness,” in the felicitous Jeffersonian phrase." - TEOL, Chp 30 MNR
These are impracticle questions that are not worth calculating in most peoples lives, much less phathom the state of mental/physical condition your body will be in at the time.
Take an action and don't beat yourself up over the consequences: even if your decision making is something "evil", like choose the decision that pays better (something I may consider). There isn't even a reason to ponder this, much less apologize for any action you make.
There isn't even a reason to ponder this, much less apologize for any action you make.
It's funny that Callahan is so worked up about this. This track switch scenario originated as a part of a psychological study in which the choices of participants in this scenario were compared to the choices in a scenario where the choice was between directly pushing someone off a bridge onto a highway or allowing some larger thing to happen- can't remember exactly. The point was to find how strong the impact of direct contact was in determining the choice that would be made. FYI, the choice to act in the case of flipping the switch was far higher, proving that calculation of casualties is insignificant compared to instinct (or whatever base impulse inhibits the pushing act).
"It's funny that Callahan is so worked up about this."
Yes, my blood pressure is up over 200, my eyes are bulging, and I'm frothing at the my mouth.
But you might notice that there are several hundred responses on this thread, only a few of which are by me. Why aren't you remarking how "funny" it is that all these other people are "worked up" about it?
"There isn't even a reason to ponder this..."
Yes, as Socrates said, "The examined life is not worth living."
"Actually, the OP ends by asking, "how would a libertarian solve the trolley problem?", which I answered."
Yes, but ACTUALLY he asked how to answer a moral question, not a political one. (I love that snotty little "actually.") So what was the point of your lecturing me on how libertarianism is not a moral philosophy, again?
"I still don't understand who or what your original comment is directed at:"
The person who recommended just washing one's hands of the whole situation, because "It's not your fault." Moral cowardice.