From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Wed Sep 10 2003 - 06:11:55 MDT
Robbie Lindauer wrote:
>
> Example: if I fail to deliver a piece of equipment to you on monday
> because some troglodytes were cutting off the road and I didn't feel
> like running the gauntlet, then according to your moral system I
> should be blamed because obliged due to contract?
### Of course.
---------------------------------------
>
>> A contract must be explicit to be enforced.
>
> However, lacking any explicit agreement with my children about when I
> will be there to save them, if II fail to pass the road due to
> cowardice on my part and my son dies as a result with my full
> knowledge, I'm not to be ashamed or blamed?
### Ashamed, perhaps. Blamed - well, it depends on the local customs
regarding the duties of guardians of prepersons. Such customs should be
sufficiently simple and well-known to allow expectations to form, and at the
same time they should be subject (largely) to choice, by both parents and
(to a lesser degree) their children, e.g. by the expedient of polycentric
law.
---------------------------------
>
> But we're very close. There is a familial and filial contract
> implicit in human-being but state-enforced contracts almost always
> arise as a result of coercion. Similarly economic contracts tend to
> be backed by force and coercion either explicitly or implicitly.
### See medieval merchant law. Ostracism is not coercion, but is very
effective at enforcing many contracts.
-----------------------------
An
> example of an IMPLICIT form of coercion might be forcing people to
> take minimum wage jobs and drive three hours to their work because
> that's the only work available for them - and because the education
> system set up to provide them with necessary skills to either provide
> for themselves or get better jobs has utterly failed them, but
> apparently deliberately.
### This would not be coercion, unless you are talking about non-market,
monopoly situations - such as a communist economy, or a statist plutocracy.
-----------------------------------
>> ### It is not my prerogative to define other sentients'
>> self-interest for them. I can however hypothesize that it is,
>> similar to mine, the achievement of whatever goals they act to
>> achieve, ideally in the presence of sufficient information needed to
>> evaluate those goals in reference to other goals they strive for.
>> Therefore, "goodness" is for me getting what humans really want, and
>> the ideal society is the one that best serves the achievement of the
>> average Rawlsian human's goals, including my own personal goals.
>> Goodness is then defined in the context of my self-interest, not the
>> other way around.
>
> Getting what WHICH humans really want? If your predictive statement
> "Goodness is what tends to produce good results in the long-run"
### My statement goes "Social goodness is whatever tends to get me and
others most of what I and they want". For most well-informed, low-emotional
persons this will mean absolute (not relative) economic success under
conditions of personal liberty.
-----------------------------
>
> "Most People" want to gain at other people's expense. It's the first
> rule of capitalism - buy low, sell high. We can call this the modern
> equivalent of original sin.
### Nah, most people want to gain. Whether it occurs at other people's
expense, is a minor secondary consideration. In fact, with the exception of
egalitarians, who see the gain of others as an affront to themselves, and
would prefer to even personally lose if it's needed to ruin others, most
people would rather gain *and* profit others at the same time. It feels
better, I can tell you that.
-------------------------
>
> "Most People" don't agree about what they want - shoot, most people
> don't even know what they want themselves. But just about EVERYBODY
> can tell you whether or not you should torture children. Good is much
> more concrete than this abstract "what people want" thing.
### Certain procedures are good at finding out what people want. This
includes the free market, demarchy, Borda count and a few other tricks.
These define good much better than whatever you or I could elaborate on our
own. Nothing abstract about it.
---------------------------------
>
>>> Doubtful. Calm rationality and long-term outlook has made this
>>> world the way it is NOW. Is this the best world there can be? (in
>>> something more than a tautological sense.)
>>
>> ### Today's world the result of calm rationality and long-term
>> outlook?!!!!!
>>
>> You really meant it?
>
> Definitely. On the part of a few very wealthy and powerful people who
> have had and continue to have extraordinary power.
### This world is not made for and by elites. Masses of all kinds of humans
labored for centuries to build what we have, and AFAIK there are no
Illuminati, effective conspiracies, and worldwide cabals.
I guess we differ here.
No Elders of Zion, either.
Rafal
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