Autolykos: Birthday Pony:Does anyone else see the irony in discussing how war can be compatible with the non-aggression principal [sic]? No. A person aggressing against you could be said to be waging war against you. If you defend yourself, then you could be said to be waging against war in him in return. From the point of view of the non-aggression principle, the two sides aren't on an equal moral footing. Defending oneself and/or others from aggression is perfectly acceptable under the non-aggression principle.
Birthday Pony:Does anyone else see the irony in discussing how war can be compatible with the non-aggression principal [sic]?
No. A person aggressing against you could be said to be waging war against you. If you defend yourself, then you could be said to be waging against war in him in return. From the point of view of the non-aggression principle, the two sides aren't on an equal moral footing. Defending oneself and/or others from aggression is perfectly acceptable under the non-aggression principle.
Great reply. Couldn't have said it better myself.
Autolykos:Most nazis and communists believed they were good people. Most nazis, at least, also had religious convictions. I think your point would be better served by simply saying that non-violence may well not provide an effective defense against people who simply want to hurt you.
But they had accepted a new moral system which was predicated on sacrificing the few for the many. Willingness to do that became the new 'good'.
Autolykos:I fail to see how atheism necessarily means abandoning the notion of ethics and morals. I'm an atheist and I definitely subscribe to a moral code, based on self-ownership and the non-aggression principle.
There is such a thing as a rational moral code, based on valuing life. Where the atheists have degraded human morality is in reclassifying people as 'advanced animals'. It was this rationalization that allows the atheist communists to rationalize away the deaths of millions as meaningless, such as in Mao's "great leap" or the Khmer Rouge's crimes. Atheism grows ugly when it is used to remove human exceptionalism and justify murder. Any philosophy used so grows ugly. My larger point is that atheism can be used so, not that it need be in all cases.
Anemone:But they had accepted a new moral system which was predicated on sacrificing the few for the many. Willingness to do that became the new 'good'.
That falls right in line with what I said. If you were one of "the few" that the nazis/communists wanted to sacrifice for "the many", non-violence probably wouldn't provide an effective defense against them, because they simply wanted to eliminate you.
Anemone:There is such a thing as a rational moral code, based on valuing life.
What do you mean by "rational"?
Anemone:Where the atheists have degraded human morality is in reclassifying people as 'advanced animals'. It was this rationalization that allows the atheist communists to rationalize away the deaths of millions as meaningless, such as in Mao's "great leap" or the Khmer Rouge's crimes. Atheism grows ugly when it is used to remove human exceptionalism and justify murder. Any philosophy used so grows ugly. My larger point is that atheism can be used so, not that it need be in all cases.
In other words, atheism does not necessarily mean abandoning the notion of ethics and morals - which was my point.
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Voluntaryism Forum
Autolykos: Anemone:There is such a thing as a rational moral code, based on valuing life. What do you mean by "rational"?
What else--one based on reason. The rational standard is man's life, and anything that furthers life is moral and rational, and that which does not is not.
Anemone:What else--one based on reason.
... What do you mean by "reason"?
Anemone:The rational standard is man's life, and anything that furthers life is moral and rational, and that which does not is not.
Are you taking the first clause to be a premise, or a conclusion? If the latter, what premises do you think it derives from?
Autolykos: Anemone:The rational standard is man's life, and anything that furthers life is moral and rational, and that which does not is not. Are you taking the first clause to be a premise, or a conclusion? If the latter, what premises do you think it derives from?
I'll summarize Rand's foundation for her reason-based morality:
You have only two existential options: existence or non-existence, meaning, in regards to living beings, life or death.
Matter is unconditional, it exists no matter what, without requirement. However life is conditional, it requires maintenance, meaning a specific course of action to maintain its life.
Matter faces no alternatives, it will continue to exist regardless. Only living organisms face the question of life or death.
Life is self-sustaining, requiring self-generated action to further its existence as life. If an organism fails to sustain itself, it dies and only nonliving chemical elements are left.
The concept of 'life' is what makes the concept of 'value' possible, nothing can be good or evil to a non-living thing which cannot be created or destroyed or fundamentally harmed, only changed into other forms of matter.
So, a plant or animal must feed itself to survive. It needs water, food, shelter, a specific temperature range, etc. These are the values which nature has forced living organisms to pursue. "Its life is the standard of value directing its actions."
A plant has no choice, its processes are all subconscious. An animal can make choices, but its decisions are guided by instinct with very limited powers of observation and learning. So long as it lives, it acts to further its life by instinct, not by reason, for an animal cannot conceptualize. Because of instinct, it acts always for its own good, unable to choose actions which would destroy itself. And when it meets a situation which instinct cannot deal with, it dies.
"Man has no automatic code of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by means of volitional choice. He has no automatic knowledge of what is good for him or evil, what values his life depends on, what course of action it requires... Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him to perform. Man has the power to act as his own destroyer—and that is the way he has acted through most of his history..."
Man is a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice. Man has to hold his life as a value as a matter of choice. He has no innate code of instinct to guide his actions, but must think, learn, and reason in order to preserve his life. He has to discover what values sustain his life, and his virtues then consist of the actions that obtain those values.
"A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality. All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil."
You must think and reason to survive. "Man’s life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose. If existence on earth is your goal, you must choose your actions and values by the standard of that which is proper to man—for the purpose of preserving, fulfilling and enjoying the irreplaceable value which is your life.”
All of that will be familiar for anyone who read through Atlas Shrugged.
A rational standard of morality may quite possibly be the single greatest contribution to philosophy of Rand's. An objective rational morality means we can finally achieve a -true- separation of church and state, not the pseudo separation we rely on now, where legislation is just the embodiment into law of someone's religious philosophy. It is a secular morality without appeal to any great book, and thus the most inclusive and fair possible morality.
... So what do you (and/or Rand) mean by "reason"? You still haven't answered that.
Vladimir Ulyanov: Well you can look at it this way: the worst thing a conventional army could come up against is a guerilla army. The US had no problem destroying the Serbian air force or taking out the Iraqi army. But when up against guerillas like in Afghanistan or Iraq (after it fell) or Vietnam they had great dificulty. Look the the US gained independence through guerilla tactics. I don't know a whole lot about the war in the Caucuses but would ending government and democracy not go a long way in ending the conflict. For sure people there of different ethnicities would probably dislike eachother even after this but without national boundries or one group being dominated over by another through democracy it is my opinion that people would be alot less violent and angry.
Well you can look at it this way: the worst thing a conventional army could come up against is a guerilla army. The US had no problem destroying the Serbian air force or taking out the Iraqi army. But when up against guerillas like in Afghanistan or Iraq (after it fell) or Vietnam they had great dificulty. Look the the US gained independence through guerilla tactics.
I don't know a whole lot about the war in the Caucuses but would ending government and democracy not go a long way in ending the conflict. For sure people there of different ethnicities would probably dislike eachother even after this but without national boundries or one group being dominated over by another through democracy it is my opinion that people would be alot less violent and angry.
Autolykos: ... So what do you (and/or Rand) mean by "reason"? You still haven't answered that.
The human faculty that integrates and makes sense of the information which the human senses provide to the mind.
Perception is the medium between reality and a rational mind. The mind uses predictability of how the world works, integrates it with other facts, and makes a choice to act in order to produce its values. Thus we learn by our senses that rubbing two sticks together in such a way makes fire.
Is there any book or article about fighting a war without causing civilian causalities? I am trying to understand if that's possible from military standpoint.
I dunno about books/articles. But currently it's not completely possible. But when it is completely possible, it will be unethical not to do so.
edited to add: also see his more recent books such as Expeditionary Eagles and the fourth generation warfare section in the Defense and the National Interest archives at pogo.org
Very interesting. Have you read this book? Do you know if there is a free online version of it?
Is there any book or article about fighting a war with Senegal without massacring civilians in Peru? I am trying to understand if that's possible from a military standpoint. If you don't want to massacre innocent human beings you have no beef with, you don't massacre innocent human beings you have no beef with. It's that simple. United States manages to wage most of its wars without executing American civilians, so where's the problem?
I live in Israel, and today 80 rockets were fired at civilian populations in two cities. About a dozen of terrorist squads were responsible for it. Now how are you going to find them in a crowded huge Gaza city with hostile population without hurting civilians? That's very difficult if even possible.
Now how are you going to find them in a crowded huge Gaza city with hostile population without hurting civilians?
You mean, without risking IDF lives? The problem isn't at all in not massacring civilians. There is no such thing as civilians and non-civilians in ancap. There are only parties you are at war with, and parties you are not at war with. And if you are at war with A, you probably aren't served well by getting into a two-front war by hurting and thus declaring war on B as well. The problem is that governments don't know, or don't want to define who they are at war with. That is because they idiotically think their life is made easier by them having the levaay to expand their war, and come to wage it against parties with whom they are not technically at war with, the so-called civilians. The problem isn't technical at all, but ideological. Governments believe more aggression, against more parties will help them win a war, which is an absurd notion just on the face of it — the more enemies, the worse the odds. You yourself put the finger on the heart of the problem in your scenario. The population in Gaza is hostile. This impedes intelligence gathering and makes going into it such a risky proposition. Now tell me, does killing civilians improve this situation, or makes it worse?
Marko I agree with these arguments. I'm just not sure it is technically possible to "wage war" against an army of terrorists hiding in a large city without damaging the property or body of unrelated people.
If you want to actually win, it has to be. You win by degrading the military effectivness of the enemy, not by building it up. How do you propose to win by strengthening your enemy, giving it more supporters, and increasing its resolve? What do you imagine "waging war" is? Blowing stuff up, or working to defeat your enemy?
Anemone:[Reason is t]he human faculty that integrates and makes sense of the information which the human senses provide to the mind.
I call that by a different word: "thought". It's hardly a uniquely human faculty, as far as I can tell.
Anemone:Perception is the medium between reality and a rational mind. The mind uses predictability of how the world works, integrates it with other facts, and makes a choice to act in order to produce its values. Thus we learn by our senses that rubbing two sticks together in such a way makes fire.
I'm confused by the phrase "produce its values". Can you explain to me what you mean by that?
Of what defensive value could nuclear weapons be to an-caps given that an-caps necessarily reject nuclear retaliation against civilians? No MAD.
Minarchist: Of what defensive value could nuclear weapons be to an-caps given that an-caps necessarily reject nuclear retaliation against civilians? No MAD.
What makes you think that nukes can be used only against cities? Why not armies amassed at the border? Why not naval armadas, or bases? Why not pulverize some empty desert as a warning? Why not blow a single one in the atmosphere to kill the grid of the attacker?
A foreign state launches a successful nuclear strike on a major population center of the an-cap society. The an-cap society responds how?
Bottom line: for MAD to work, the risks faced by each side have to be high and roughly proportional. There was no war between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R because each could have killed the majority of the other's population in a nuclear exchange. If U.S. could have done that, but Russia could only have retaliated with limited strikes against some of the more remote U.S. military bases (where civilian causalities would be minimal), the situation would have been quite different, and war far more likely, and rational from the perspective of the U.S. government. The logic of deterrence is to make the cost of aggression too high, and it seems to me that the NAP restricts the possibilities for the use of nuclear weapons by an-caps to such an extent that nuclear deterrence is non-viable. And then the only defense against nuclear attack is missile defense, which is pretty flimsy. Under these conditions, it's not hard to see how an an-cap society would be subjected to extortion under the threat of a nuclear strike, by states that understand and are willing to exploit the ethical stance of the an-caps.
And this problem is not really unique to nuclear weapons. An an-cap society can defend itself very well. The problem is that they cannot effectively deter because they cannot effectively retaliate. The distinction I'm making between defense and deterrence is the distinction between (for example) holding off an infantry assault with rifle fire and responding to a successful missile strike with a retaliatory missile strike. An-caps can retaliate for relatively small scale attacks, but when a proportional retaliation would necessarily involve killing innocents (as with nuclear retaliation), the NAP ties their hands.
And, again, there is the conscript problem, which is really even more serious, as it potentially limits even very precise attacks on military targets.
Minarchist, I for one consider the NAP to be more about justice than action per se.
Most of the points you make have some merit. I was thinking of avoiding this, but anyway there’s no point in beating the bush:, I’d retaliate against any state which attacked a free society (if, say, I was the territorial defense contractor) even if it meant that civilians and/or conscripts over there will have their property and/or lives destroyed.
I do not think that any government on earth would be foolish enough to nuke a nuclear power (even if that power is not a state), but in the highly unlikely scenario that they did, I’d respond in a de-escalated, though still nuclear, fashion. Breach of the NAP? Probably.
U.S is not a person, its just an abstract entity. The person who actually sends the nuclear missile WILL be 100 % deterred since he will almost definitely be assassinated by someone from the free society.
Could you elaborate?