Ethics, Morality, Coercion and Responsibility

Great Debates
21

Thanks for not piling on, Lib, but go ahead if you feel the urge. I would say you’ve been at the receiving end enough to have a free pass (at least in my threads) to do so.
Anyway, back to bidness:

Individuals, Society & The Social Contract

I’m aware of the libertarian opinion regarding the social contract, Lib, as you are aware that liberalism is based on an explicit acceptance of that concept. Let’s not pretend that I came up with the idea; it is a mainstream political concept, and has been at least since Locke and Rousseau. While I personally have no problem accepting the validity of a hypothetical structure (heck, even Locke accepted that validity, when he figured it was a limited contract), you may certainly disagree with that ideal. Feel free to strike up that argument as a side debate with someone else, for I have no intention for the moment of debating the social contract as a means of promoting individual rights and public welfare.

It is purely my intention to show that such an ideal best suits my personal philosophy. Given that the underlying article of faith which guides my interpersonal relationships is that people can change, and the underlying article of faith which guides my political thought is that I am responsible for my brothers, I believe it is a logical progression that I embrace contractarianism.

Society is, as you pointed out, an imprecise term. It can refer to any subdivision of humanity wherein the members have contact with each other and share a common set of interests, conditions or prospects. However one wishes to break down the population of a state, one must admit that all members of that state share at least the set of conditions and prospects defined by membership in that state. All other societies in which the various members of the state society are involved are connected at least tangentially to the larger society. (And some state societies may, of course, be subsets of other large societies.) My point being that argument over the semantics of “society” becomes obfuscatory; it is either accepted that people have common interests and that those interests are theoretically served by a government, or political discussion is pointless.

In Human Action, Ludwig von Mises tells us: “Society is not merely interaction. There is interaction–reciprocal influence–between all parts of the universe: between the wolf and the sheep he devours; between the germ and the man it kills; between the falling stone and the thing upon which it falls. Society, on the other hand, always involves men acting in cooperation with other men in order to let all participants attain their own ends.” von Mises, of course, also believes that society is no more than the combination of individuals for efficient division of labor. “It is a delusion to search for it outside the actions of individuals. To speak of a society’s autonomous and independent existence, of its life, its soul, and its actions is a metaphor which can easily lead to crass errors.”

Where modern liberalism departs from classical liberalism is that it recognizes society as more than a term for humankind’s division and combination of labor. The benefits derived from society are not derived from a mere metaphor! Society is a continually changing vector, representing the unconscious collective will of its members. As society represents the collection of changing desires and concerns of the heterogenous groups comprising it, it becomes a weather vane pointing the way toward consensus of thought. There is nothing mystical about the process, but neither is there any collective intention. While there are many competing theories of society, it is no more a metaphor than is gravity or evolution.

Liberalism attempts to serve society by delivering the maximum freedom to individuals. This includes freedom from economic oppression as well as freedom of action. It requires a concern for worker safety and environmental protection as well as concern for fair trade. It focuses on maximum civic participation in government. It attempts to allow the clearest voice possible for the collective will, and to enable the best methods of informing that collective will.

Points of Contention
[ul][li]whether other political philosophies better reflect my ethical standards[/li]Lib, with all due respect to the noble focus of libertarianism on individual liberty, I believe the total denial of the social contract makes it incompatible with my basic political axiom.[li]whether my ethical standards adequately serve my moral imperatives[/li]I think we probably need to cover more of the omissions you perceive before we can wrap this one up. I truly appreciate the criticism; I have the uneasy feeling that there is more to consider among the “basic” ethical standards if I’m to optimize my ability to weigh those standards against each other.[li]whether those moral imperatives adequately address the moral context of shared physical/spiritual realities.[/li]I understand your point regarding the universality of moral imperatives. Perhaps I should’ve called them “moral operatives” instead. I don’t really believe in moral absolutes, except possibly for the same one you propound. :slight_smile: But, love is not specific enough to inform the actions of a moral being in a physical plane.[/ul]

The Unslideable Gnat

Point taken, Lib; I’ll pay more attention to “scope” versus “size” in the future. (BTW, are you saying libertarians believe size doesn’t matter?) That was not the only careless error I’ve made in this thread. I’ll leave the rest as an exercise in observation for those willing to tweak me on them!

22

I should note in reference to my comments on society as a real effect of group cooperation that the state society does not necessarilly reflect a cohesive whole outside of the arbitrary distinction of state membership. Liberalism, while recognizing the separate societies within the state society, seeks the ideal condition where a cohesive state society can exist
Ahem.

23

[scratching head…]

Well, I’m not sure where I should go from here. Suddenly, I’m precluded from debating the very core of Contention C. After putting on the back burner a thoroughly interesting study for what I believed to be a very interesting debate with a person whom I admire, I find that there is to be no debate, but rather that I am to answer a poll — does the notion of a social contract fit cozily within the person’s philosophy? That’s an approach I hadn’t considered in my libertarianism threads: don’t debate the implications of noncoercion, simply tell me whether noncoercion fits with libertarianism.

Take it to someone else? All right then, I will. :wink:

Someone Else

Society and the collective unconscious will

I’m going to leave aside the name-dropping (Locke and Rousseau) and pretend it didn’t happen. I would have conceded willingly that the notion of society was not original to Xeno, or even to liberals. I don’t frankly know what relevance it would be if I could point to an historic figure and declare that here is the one who planted his flag on the shores of Societaria. I wouldn’t presume to argue its origins, but merely its pertinence to Contention C, i.e., whether a perceived social contract, as the basis of a moral imperative (or moral operative) adequately addresses the moral context of shared physical/spiritual realities.

The nature of society and the claim that its member elements are under contract is simply too much to let slide away unchallenged. I tried to wrap my brain around the explanation that society is not a metaphor but a vector, that it represents not only the collective will, but the unconscious collective will, that it serves as a weather vane pointing toward a consensus that is not mystical, but rather is as sure and plain as an orbiting moon pointing to gravity, or a mutation pointing to an organismic change. I honestly cannot squint and grunt my way to an understanding no matter how hard I try.

For one thing, a physicist can tell me about gravity, and a biologist can tell me about evolution. But who is going to tell me about the collective unconscious will? Who is going to perceive and mediate that which is not perceivable[sup]1[/sup]? I submit that such a philosophical mediation must be effected dictatorially, because bringing together a committee to decide the collective unconscious will walks right back into the same problem: what is the collective unconscious will of the committee?

I also cannot see how replacing “metaphor” with “vector” is any progress toward understanding, since vector itself is a metaphor in this case, unless you can show the vector equation of the collective unconscious will. In fact, what is offered to explain what society is and how it works leaves me more confused than when I thought it was merely a broad and arbitrary grouping[sup]2[/sup].

But let’s be gracious and leave even all that aside. Let’s grant Xeno that he has an understanding of society that is difficult to mediate. I can empathize. I run into the same problem when I must describe the spirit, though I admit that I must resort to metaphors since the spirit cannot be perceived by the senses. Let’s grant, if only for the sake of argument, that society is the collective unconscious will, and that there is a sure way to relate that will to a governing entity. When we allow that, we run headlong into these:

No no no no no. What it delivers is the minimum freedom to individuals, because it (presumably) calculates the lowest common denominator of unconscious will. That is, it enforces the intersection upon the union. The way to deliver the maximum freedom to individuals is to recognize, not their shared will, but their individual autonomous will. Allow Smith, Jones, and Brown each to exercise his own will as he sees it, so long as none imposes his will upon any other. Let Smith be free from the imposition of Jones and Brown; let Jones be free from the imposition of Smith and Brown; and let Brown be free from the impostion of Smith and Jones. Voila. Maximum freedom to individuals.

If not maximum freedom, then what maximum does modern liberalism deliver? It delivers the maximum homogeny. Because it takes its marching orders from the collective unconscious will, it is like a manifold of rivers feeding into a central sea. Modern liberalism is morphing into centrism right before our eyes. Just as water seeks its own level, and does so as expeditiously as possible, so does liberalism seek to homogenize society because the problematic divining of the collective unconscious will is eventually replaced by the simple mediation of a single unconscious will that is shared by all. Thus, any arbitrary element of the society may express the society’s will, since the will of the elements is all the same. I am not arguing a slippery slope of implication, but rather a direction of intention. Society itself might not have a collective intention, as Xeno pointed out, but those who govern it do.

That is all well and good so long as your liberty from economic oppression does not constitute my subjection to it, and so long as your freedom of action does not trump mine. Otherwise, you leave Smith free to take Jones’s money to help Brown, or you leave Mr. Smith and Ms. Jones free to make love, but not Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happens with liberalism. “Economic oppression” translates into “economic inequality”. Thus, if Jones has $1,000, Smith has $500, and Brown has $100, liberalism discerns an oppression and seeks to redistribute the wealth, ideally leaving Jones, Smith, and Brown each with $400. I submit that neither Jones nor Smith were free from economic oppression in the process of redistribution, neither was either “free to act” by refusing to give his money over to you. Oh. Where did the other $400 go? It went to build the building, pay the staff, buy the supplies, and provide the salaries of the people who did the redistributing.

Let’s assign the nominatives here, and not leave them dangling to interpretation. It requires a concern by an employer for worker safety, leaving the worker every sort of way to wiggle out of any responsibility of his own. It does not merely require that the employer honestly represent any safety hazards, as libertarianism does, but that the worker may assume no hazards await him. Every one of these liberal homogeny projects necessarily generates an oversight entity, such as OSHA, and a mitigation entity, such as Workers Compensation, so that the collective unconscious will can be enforced. The concern for environmental protection is assigned, not to the owners of the property, but to the governors of it. It presumes that the interest of the governors is arbitrarily more benign than the interest of the land owners. And it assigns concern for fair trade, not to the people who trade with one another, but to their governors. Thus, you can buy a Mexican cigar, but not a Cuban one.

Unfortunately, that is as true as it can be. Jones and Smith decide that all three ought to wear seatbelts. Their collective unconscious will carries because they are a majority over Brown, rendering Brown’s participation futile and irrelevant. Brown must now wear a seat belt despite the excrutiating pain he experiences as the belt presses against his abdominal hernia. He is not allowed to manage his own safety in some other way. Why not? Because the collective unconscious will has determined that seatbelts are the best safety management. There is no need for entrepreneural advancement because the solution has been found. The oversight and mitigation entities that enforce the wearing of seatbelts have no incentive even to allow alternatives, because their mission is clearly defined: make people wear seatbelts and redistribute the wealth to compensate those who get hurt anyway. If something besides seatbelts were shown to be an improvement in safety, suddenly the seatbelt experts and mitigators would be unnecessary. That is why a bureaucracy that is not market-based never goes away. Even bureaucrats understand what is in their self-interest, and unlike Mr. Brown, they have the power and authority to implement theirs.

I don’t deny that its intentions are based on noble ideals. On its surface, modern liberalism merely seeks to level the playing field in order to provide equal opportunity for all. Unfortunately, there are already people standing on that field, and when you grade it out from under them, you are diminishing their opportunities. Like so many noble intentions, the implementation often produces unanticipated side-effects. Though the intention is maximum freedom for every individual, the effect is homogeny, leaving no one free at all.

The social contract

Libertarianism recognizes certain unary contracts, that is, contracts that do not require the consent of all its parties. The contract between a parent and a child is one such. The child had no part in his existence that involved his own will; rather, he was the product of his parents’ will. Moreover, the child is incapable of giving meaningful consent, and thus it falls to his parents to execute the contract unilaterally. But even a unary contract must have at least one consentor, and all parties who do not consent must be unable to give meaningful consent.

The alleged social contract, like society, is an arbitrary construct conceived and offered for the sole purpose of legitimizing tyranny. That is why libertarians find the notion of a social contract so deplorable. When we protest that we did not sign and do not consent, we encounter the argument that our continued presence within the boundaries defined by the contract’s enforcer constitutes our consent. Thus, we are born into this foggy contract and can relieve ourselves of our obligation to it only by abandoning whatever property we have improved with our toil, sweat, and capital. It is not a matter that our consent is not meaningful, but that our meaningful consent was extruded from us in our sleep. The cat stole our breath, and we find ourselves in the Twilight Zone.

Not only are we living in a weird dream imposed upon us by those with the most political clout, but we find that, absent enough clout of our own, the terms of our contract can and do change. Daily. And if we don’t like it, we can go live out in the ocean. We can vote and vote and vote, but until the collective unconscious will intersects exactly with our own conscious will, we cannot escape the obligations to which we never consented. And what exactly are those obligations? What are the terms of the contract? They are so many that volumes and volumes in whole libraries house their contents. We must obtain the equivalent of a masters degree before we can even understand them, let alone consent to them.

I suppose what is most remarkable to me is that the liberal philosophy lays claim to an intention to implement fairness, while holding that the social contract, the very basis of its justification, is fair. I suppose it is no wonder that if a contract that can bind parties capable of giving meaningful consent, but whose consent is presumed from their mere existence, is seen as fair, then the redistribution of resources, planned by the examination of an unperceivable unconscious will — and against the express conscious will of those who are pillaged — is seen as maxium freedom.

Xeno

Tell me where I am. Tell me whether I’m wasting your time and mine here.

[/quote]

[sup]1[/sup] unconscious: “The division of the mind in psychoanalytic theory containing elements of psychic makeup, such as memories or repressed desires, that are not subject to conscious perception or control but that often affect conscious thoughts and behavior.” — The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

[sup]2[/sup] society: “A group of humans broadly distinguished from other groups by mutual interests, participation in characteristic relationships, shared institutions, and a common culture.” — Ibid.

24

Now, now Lib; settle down, my friend. I DID NOT intend to preclude debate over my contention C (whether those moral imperatives [listed in 2nd post] adequately address the moral context of shared physical/spiritual realities). You’ve convinced me. You have made it abundantly clear that an exploration of social contract is necessary to explore those imperatives (or operatives… let’s use that term from now on), so we will discuss the social contract.

However, remember that my intention in this thread, stated in the introduction to my three part ramble and reiterated to IzzyR, is to show definitively that those who disagree with any observer’s political philosophy do not do so due to a faulty ethical code or a failure to apply ethical standards, but merely due to a different moral emphasis. The effectiveness and utility of any political theory/philosophy/ideology/experiment are fair game, but I will be a very happy little liberal if I can affect just a little lessening of the ethical nitpicking and moral outrage I see in political arguments.

OK?

Now, let me respond carefully to your quite perspicacious criticisms. You have made some wonderful and insightful points, which I would hate to see degraded were this debate to become embroiled in a rhetorical snip-fest. As always, where you have failed to sway me toward your entire argument, you have forced me to modify my understanding, and I thank you for that. However, you’ve also made some false claims against liberalism and some misrepresentations of majoritarianism. I, in turn, have been stunningly unclear in explicating my view of society.

While the far greater and more fundamental debate here is the debate over society, the individual’s place in it, and the concept of a social contract, I’d like first to correct those misrepresentations and factual errors I found in your deconstruction of my comments re: the aims of liberalism. I’ll do that in this post, and then approach the much more important task of making my argument for the social contract in a succeeding post. Since you are quite imposing as a debate opponent, I want to be more careful in my wording, so as to make my meaning as clear and be as persuasive in my argument as possible. It may take me a while to do that; please be patient.
Reconstructing the Deconstruction:

xeno’s statement “Liberalism attempts to serve society by delivering the maximum freedom to individuals.”
Answered by Lib:

Nice pictures. First, let me say that I agree fully that, in a society consisting ONLY of Mr. Smith, Mr. Jones and Mr. Brown, libertariansim is the ideal political philosophy. I highly recommend the philosophy to the residents of Smithjonesbrownia.

Lib, your illustrations are fairly useful, but tend to become less so with more complex societies. The first illustration shows the points of common interest between Smith, Jones and Brown. However, it is not representative of the society of S, J & B. The small area of intersection in their common interests does not represent the “unconscious will.” Rather, the entire area of the chart shows the common circumstances in which SJB coexist, and nowhere on your graphic are their individual wills or their consensus will represented.

Consider the combined preferences of SJB concerning a given shared circumstance. This can be seen as a vector (yes, I’m sticking to that analogy), if we place it in a three dimensional object (let’s say a sphere, for convenience) in which are shown all recognized options and combinations of options for the actions of Smith, Jones and Brown toward a given goal or circumstance. The length and direction of the force arrow would indicate the degree to which the three agree on any specific option or option combo, and the degree to which their various enthusiasms for that option combine.

Now, for a small society such as Smithjonesbrownia, any attempt to apprehend that force vector of combined wills would be counterproductive. As long as Smith’s preference doesn’t confront Jones’ condition, and this is true in any permutation among the three, then they don’t really need to care about the “collective unconscious.” In a very large society (lets say 100 million times the size of Smithjonesbrownia), there is no way of adequately gauging the permutations and combinations of unfettered action on personal preferences.

In the case of such a large society, Liberalia, the citizens who share the large sphere of possible options must make some attempt to define that vector if they are to decide on a collective approach (which they have agreed to do per the social contract :wink: ). This will necessitate much public debate, much parsing of the circumstance under consideration, and many attempts at persuasion by advocates of one option or another. All leading up to an attempt at gauging the vector (society’s collective will).

That is the aim of liberalism; not some lame calculation of lowest common denominators.
xeno’s statement: “This includes freedom from economic oppression as well as freedom of action.”
Answered by Lib:

Uh, nope. Liberalism wants to redistribute wealth only to the extent that Brown doesn’t starve to death, has access to opportunities at improvement, and has the ability to exercise any guaranteed rights in Smithjonesbrownia. (Again, I recommend that Smithjonesbrownia stick with libertarianism; it’s much easier for them.)
xeno’s statement: “It requires a concern for worker safety and environmental protection as well as concern for fair trade.”
Answered by Lib:

Lib, one of the truly delightful events which befell me during the past year is that I finally married a wonderful and beautiful woman who’d been my friend for many years before we finally looked into each other’s souls. One of the facets of this terrific individual (light of my life) is that she is very conscientious and caring about her job. Her occupation, as it happens, is safety and health administration, and she is the administrator in charge of OSHA and environmental compliance and worker’s compensation at a fairly large manufacturing facility. It is a machining operation, with all of the dangers and hazards inherent in such an operation. In the three years she’s had the role, she has been able to reduce lost time injuries by a factor of four, and has cut worker’s compensation expenditures by an even larger amount. She has had to defend her company’s actions in court and in front of various state boards many times in the pursuit of her job duties. In every case, the company’s actions have been upheld, despite claims by individuals who felt they were wronged or that their working conditions were too hazardous. Her key to success? Strict compliance with OSHA regulations and prompt filing of paperwork. There is nothing in OSHA that allows workers to “wiggle out” of their responsibilities for their own safety, and in any case, such an allowance would’ve been an administrative failure of OSHA, rather than an intention of liberalism, which categorically DOES NOT relegate individual responsibility to the government, merely encourages higher governmental responsibility for public safety.

xeno’s statement: “It focuses on maximum civic participation in government.”
Answered by Lib:

Irrelevant? Has Brown no voice with which to present his case against seat belt’s? Has Brown no personal choice about his actions, despite the popular will? Does Brown actually even have a position on this? Oh well, no matter; Smithjonesbrownia isn’t Liberalia, so Brown can do his own thing as long as his lack of seatbelt don’t confront Smith and Jones. However, let’s assume from this example that Brown emigrated to Liberalia, and he’s now coexisting with about 299.999 million more people than he’s accustomed to sharing circumstances with:

Uh, “seatbelt experts”? “Mitigators”? Please, visitor to Liberalia, explain where these people are. Explain also where you see the prohibition against improvements in automotive safety. We’d like to know, because we’re liberals, and as such are extremely interested in public welfare. Also, please explain to Brown that other passive restraint devices are available, and modifications are allowed to protect his hernia. I’m surprised that publically subsidized clinic which treated him didn’t provide one of the printed pamphlets regarding hernia recovery and transportation options. (It’s the kinda thing that makes me want to complain about my tax money…)

xeno’s statement: “It attempts to allow the clearest voice possible for the collective will, and to enable the best methods of informing that collective will.”
Answered by Lib

Thankyou for at least recognizing the intentions of liberalism regarding that playing field. Unfortunately, it would be irresponsible to allow the playing field to remain in such a state, and criminal to try and remove the players. This is a condition all other political philosophies have to deal with as well, and one of the reasons you yourself have said you would not recommend a sudden shift to libertarianism in this country.

The intended effect of liberalism is not equality of means, but of opportunity throughout a very heterogenous society. The instances in which it promotes the second, yet seemingly works toward the first are not, in my opinion, failures of the philosophy; they are failures in application.
I’ll be back later on to try and swim the muddy waters of social theory. Right now, I’m going to go play with my kid. :slight_smile:

And thanks again Lib and Izzy for taking this thread in unexpected but totally helpful directions. (erl, I hope my answers to Lib are adequately addressing your concern about the “parental” role that makes you nervous.)

25

OK, so there haven’t been any posts to this thread for a while. I can therefore make another point that does not directly address the requested proposals for debate. Again, feel free to ignore if you are so inclined.

This concerns again the notion that in searching for a political philosophy, one searches for the philosophy that matches one’s own.

There is another concern that goes beyond philosophy, to the extent that philosophy is understood to mean a set of beliefs about the inherent rights and values that should be respected and adhered to. This is the practical - will it work? A situation can exist where a right or value might be considered paramount when looked at in a vacuum, but it’s acceptance and implementation might lead to disastrous and unintended consequences. This very fact would itself gives rise to other counter-rights and concepts (e.g. various rights of government). However, the reconciliation of competing inherent rights and practical necessities often underlies many issues, even when not directly addressed (e.g. here).

I believe every political philosophy accepts this in principle. But the difficulty lies in determining what is truly necessary as a practical matter. At the ultimate extreme of optimism (from what I remember) were the anarchists, who seemed to have believed in the inherent goodness of mankind to the point that they felt government was unnecessary. (I think Marx may have had this in mind when discussing the State withering away). Same issue befell Communism, which had difficulty with the practical outcome of their belief system.

The issues I raise here are two. 1) There is likely a high degree of correlation between what people believe in principle and what people believe to be practical. One could believe passionately in the theoretical importance of free speech, but believe that it must be severely limited or chaos or tyranny will prevail. One could believe that the government should have no right to put murderers to death, but feel that it is necessary to fight crime. The same goes for many issues. But it does not seem to work out this way often, as a practical matter. This is no doubt due to human nature. Nonetheless, it would seem to suggest that a greater emphasis deserves to be placed on at least attempting to first arrive at as unbiased a projection as possible as to the likely outcome of following any particular policy, instead of focusing on the philosophical aspects of the policy and letting conclusions about the practicality follow.

The second point is directed more specifically at Liberalism (also, to a lesser extent at Libertarianism and any other “new” philosophy). I believe it is accepted in general that Liberalism is more often attempting to take society into uncharted waters, whereas Conservatism is, to a large extent, an adherence to the current or past value system. It would seem to me that, as such, there is a higher “burden of proof”, a higher level of certainty required from Liberals than that which is required from Conservatives. Anyone seeking to take the ship into uncharted waters has to have a higher degree of confidence in his assumptions than someone who wishes to stick to the tried and true. I wonder if you might comment on this.

26

Hi Izzy. I’m still working on that society/social contract accounting requested by Lib, but let me address your comment regarding the reconciliation of philosophically accepted values and pragmatic real life necessities. The thread you cited as an example of such a case really illustrates why and how such reconciliations must uphold the accepted values rather than except them for a special case. If the values are worth maintaining, they must be applied in the worst case scenarios as well as the best cases.

As the ACLU has argued over and over again, if we do not jealously protect the rights of the unpopular and the unwanted, we’re in danger of giving them up for ourselves. Similarly, if we are willing to abandon principles to ease temporary practical concerns, we’re really not very principled, are we?

It’s the nature of ethics that they will be constantly tested. As Sua Sponte said in your example thread, tolerance is the hardest part of liberalism, but it’s the best part.

I hope to address your second point (sailing the ship into unchartered waters) with my next post to Lib.

27

I think it is obvious that a social contract will exist implicitly in any society, though most likely not explicitly. I think a match can be made between the social contract and this social vector, that is, that they are one in the same.

My problem with actively adjusting the social contract by law is that it seems to run against the idea of a social contract at all (if we are equating with the social vector, so aptly put I think).

At any point in history, given any person of any status, something was expected of them. Some things were legally required, and we might call them static requirements. The law in most cases, even if provisions are made for the legal change of law, can only shift in response to social action or request (whoever that society may be, large, small, or all encompassing).

As such, no law serves the purpose it is aimed for (if laws are passed according to a social vector). Instead, laws act to place the social vector, and hence the social contract, on explicit, enforceable, and a permanent basis. But society is not as static as laws, and social contracts are not necessarily self-enforcing like laws. Creating laws based on the idea of a social contract stops the action of social contracts. That isn’t to say they no longer exist, or even stop changing, but are at least repressed from acting naturally. The explicit legal contract always trumps the implicit unconscious contract by virtue of practicality. Consider the difference between something that is socially unacceptable and something that is illegal. Murder is both socially unacceptable and illegal. The death penalty, however, is legal (and illegal) and socially unacceptable (and socially acceptable), depending on what level of society we are willing to abstract and where we are looking through the law books. Should the highest level of abstraction indicate that the death penalty is socially unacceptable, the liberal society with then act accordingly and declare the death penalty to be an unacceptable form of punishment.

This is all well and good provided, as you said, that we almost unanimously take an active position in government. I find that to be an unreasonable request in and of itself. People will actively take part in the government for two reasons, IMO. One, they are pleased with the way things are going and will continue to keep things the way they are in the face of opposition. Two, they are not satisfied with the way things are and want to change stuff. What sort of things do we try and keep? Our money, our freedoms, our property, our leisure, our health. What sort of things do we try and get? More money, more freedoms, more property, more leisure, better health. Were there unlimited quantities of these things then there would be no problem, but since there isn’t, this can only mean inequality. The struggle to simultaneously maintain and remove inequality is government in action. Fact one, there must be an inequality in power else there is no enforcement of explicit rules. Fact two, there must be an inequality of wealth (in all its forms) else there is no point to working. By removing the necessity of survival (i.e.—living wages, guaranteed housing, etc) we remove the very basis of primary action, and leave it wholly in the secondary action of hedonistic pursuits (more leisure, more money, etc).

In my opinion, the struggle for survival is a more powerful motivator than the struggle for excess pleasure. Perhaps I come off as some sort of “Social Darwinist,” but that isn’t what I hope to promote. My idea is that implementing explicit action on a social vector is a very dangerous thing without allowing for a few things. First, no law is permanent (perhaps after a certain quantity of laws are passed). They all have terms and after those terms are served they must be reconsidered. Second, I think the “majority” necessary to pass a law must be farm more than a majority. Otherwise the vector we are using as our compass is being pointed by smaller subsocieties (special interest groups, say). I think that an 80% majority is not unreasonable. Third, given situations where there is more than one choice (such as, say, presidential elections) it must be an absolute majority vote, including people who don’t vote as not participating is a form of participation in itself. If the will of the people cannot be represented in such a large number then, obviously, it isn’t the will of the people and we’ve done something wrong. Finally, we must be careful when we attempt to vote away any form of inequality. Struggle, action, pursuit—these are all based on inequality. War, competition, sports, status, friendships, all of these are based on the simple idea of natural inequality: some stuff is better than other stuff, and I want that stuff because it will help me survive better or make me happier. Without struggle there is no life! Consider the distopian 1984, where the inequality was made permanent: people became robots since struggle was pointless. Consider permanent equality (never read a book which pictured it), again we find that there is no reason to struggle.

The more we make permanent (by permanent I mean they must be acted upon to be removed) laws the more we remove the struggle and the less we have to live for. The idea of society is fluidity, and the idea of a government is non-fluidity. A government that attempts to act on any fluid object solidifies it; a government which acts on the interests of some social vector breaks it.

Given the conditions I outlined above, I would accept a liberal society, even though it isn’t exactly what I would want in a society it is pretty good anyway. But without those conditions, a liberal society is no better than a monarchy to me as it requires benevolence in the first place which is unreasonable since if we were benevolent we wouldn’t need a government!

28

I would suggest that, to use that example, if people were convinced that not “doing anything about” that imam was likely to allow him to build enough support to eventually undermine freedom in Holland, that there would be a lot of support to “do something”. However, many people are convinced that no major harm will come out of allowing him the freedom. This evident in the response of numerous posters. It sounds like you would disagree with this. Is this possible?

The ACLU does indeed fight for freedom of expression for Nazis etc. But they also seem quite convinced that their method of allowing freedom of expression will ultimately be effective in combating such groups. Even if this is actually true, the judgement that it is so is distinct from the inherent value of freedom of expression.

29

Izzy, there is a large difference between allowing freedom of expression to those who express repulsive opinions and “not doing anything” about it. If anything, citizens of a free society bear a large responsibility to always do something about such cases, and it looks like many of the Dutch are indeed doing something. They are following the prerogative of expressing their contrary opinions, letting the force and truth of their message stand in stark contrast to the bigotry and ignorance expressed by the imam.

Voices of hatred and intolerance can never undermine a free society where the voices of tolerance and reason can be raised in opposition. Only when certain voices are silenced by authority is freedom undermined. That is the pragmatism behind idealism; by giving our freedoms away we can best retain them.

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Liberalism, the social contract, my moral operatives, and speculation about society

How then, does the concept of a social contract fit in with the moral operatives on which I’ve based my understanding of ethics? How does it fit within the political philosophy of liberalism? Can I have my own ideas about what a social contract entails, and if so, is it equivocation to use the term in describing purely liberal ethics?

Seeking the answers to those questions, I go exploring. Please, come with me while I take a look at what I believe, and see if my undereducated opinions are in agreement with established liberal leanings.

First, I must carefully explain my view of society, my understanding of which is constructed from my own observations, opinions, real life experiences and limited knowledge of sociology. Based on such purely personal perspectives, my conception of society may not agree precisely with modern sociological or philosophical thinking. I do not want to give the impression that I speak with any authority beside my own. However, it is clear that mainstream liberalism agrees with me insofar as the idea that large scale society is a real factor to which government is responsible and to which it must be answerable. The mechanisms of responsibility are the familiar “welfare-state” devices of means-tested benefit programs, educational assistance, health and safety regulatory bodies, affirmative action and legislation regarding civil and consumer rights. The method of accountability to society is open examination of public policy.
Society according to xeno:

As noted previously in this thread, society can mean any group of social animals in which all the members share a common set of circumstances, interests, goals or ideologies. For the purposes of this discussion, whenever I use the term ‘society’ without qualification I am speaking of a large scale human society which has as the primary shared circumstance among its members a specific nationality or representation by a specific government. Whenever I use the term ‘government’ without qualification I am speaking of a US style federal or state government, representing a large number of people with a large variety of religious, ethnic and cultural differences.

The two figures which were provided by Libertarian to illustrate “lowest common denominator” majoritiarianism are not helpful in understanding the competing ideologies and aspirations of a mixed culture society, but they can be used to show common experience. Lib’s first figure shows a square area (we’ll call it a “circumstance”) in which three persons (Smith, Jones and Brown) find themselves. Their different experiential histories regarding this circumstance are shown as overlapping circles, with a small area inside of all three circles which represents their shared perceptual experience of the circumstance. (NOTE: This is NOT how Lib intended the figure to be seen. For his explanation, please back up a few posts; my explanation is substantially different. You’re in xenopost now, Sir or Madam. Please enjoy your stay and don’t forget to tip the moderator on your way out.) Now, consider the same circumstance if it affected a few hundred million more people. There will necessarily be many areas contained by a large number of circles, but the area of common experience of the circumstance will be very small indeed, if it exists at all. That is the milieu in which a circumstance occurs in a large society.

Each circumstance may not be common to all members of society. If we were to show the above circumstance in relation to society as a whole, we would have to place that square within a larger shape containing the experiential circles of all members of that society. We would then see that many of those circles lie outside of the circumstance. However, since the circumstance has occured within the context of that society, we must assume that many of the people whose experience lies outside of the circumstance are at least aware of or capable of understanding the circumstance. If we were to overlay all existing circumstances over this map of society, we would see a complex web of shared experiences and circumstances, the overview of which, contained within the larger “shape” of society, could be spoken of as a snapshot of the “national” experience.

Unfortunately, if we are to graphically represent the options available for society’s members concerning each of these circumstances, we’ll have to change models; this one can’t handle the job. We’ll have to consider society as an interconnected bubble of experience (made up of all the interrelated individual bubbles of its members), moving through a three dimensional space containing various nasty and undersirable circumstances as well as coveted spaces of plenitude and peace. These nasty/nice situations are also moving, sometimes mysteriously, sometimes in vaguely predictable ways, and sometimes coming into contact with parts of society’s bubble without our prior apprehension. Now let’s add some force vectors which act upon our bubble. (Here we go again.) These are the various actions of individual members which push and pull society through these changing circumstances. With millions of individual actions exerting their motive forces on various pieces of the larger society, attempting to avoid or approach various circumstances, society tends to move, stretch and reshape itself according to combined preferences. The forces acting upon the super-bubble of society can sometimes pull it apart into fragments, or move it precipitously toward a looming set of circumstances if the combined forces produce such a vector.

The larger and more cohesive a society, the harder it is for these competing forces to permanently split sections away from the whole. Cohesiveness can be achieved through strong cultural similarities, through a compelling ideology or national belief, through stringent exertion of authority or by various physical practicalities (such as island cultures, agricultural necessities, supply chain logistics, etc.). In addition, the less disagreement between the individual forces, the less convoluted society’s path will be, and the less stretched and segmented the superbubble will appear to be. However, as a society grows, so doe the likelihood that various segments of society will experience circumstances which are not spread through society as a whole.

While these views of society as overlapping fields of experience or as superbubbles moving through changing conditions are helpful in visualizing the complex nature of societal forces, they are ultimately unsatisfying. Society is not a moving bubble; it is not intersecting circles, it does not happen in some geometric minefield of circumstances. While we must resort to these metaphors in order to describe certain aspects of society, society itself is more than can be contained in a metaphor. It is the combination of experiences, cooperative and individual actions, fears, hopes, capabilities, entertainments, religions, languages, perceptions, histories, ethics and contexts of all of the individual members and member groups. It is the vessel and that which it contains. When we speak of service to society, we are not speaking of some amorphous hypothetical entity; we are recognizing the nature of humanity, that what happens to one happens in degrees to all. John Donne exhorted us all to “ask not for whom the bell tolls.” I ask only that we consider the connections.
xeno’s take on the social contract, and how it relates to the movements of society:

It is nearly impossible to discuss the social contract without noting the various theories of contractarianism and the theorists who have promulgated them. However, since I am to be accused of name dropping if I do so, then I will merely paraphrase the basic idea as I see it, relate the idea to the movement of society, and try and tie this in with those moral operatives I listed way back at the beginning of the thread.

First, people want to belong to a group. We are social creatures; we form family units, we collect into clans, we make agreements and work cooperatively to increase the efficiency of our labor and to expand our contact with others. Our groups and alliances often become very large and representative of the wide variety of characteristics among humans. This means there will be able humans and incompetent humans in a large society. There will be those who can accrue much wealth and property, and those who cannot or do not. There will be noble humans, and there will be the wretched and mean. There will, of course, be those with influence, those with power and those in control. There will be government, and that government will be based on the defense of territory, as that is where the means of survival for the group are to be found.

The members of a group will expect their government to work to assure certain things. They will want their personal belongings to be protected. They will want to be secure in their homes. They will want the chance to better their position in society, and a chance for their children to have better belongings / more security / better opportunity than they have had. And they will be willing to give some of their effort or some of their wealth for these things, so that they do not end up giving more effort and more wealth in tribute to more powerful groups or individuals. If members of a society feel they are giving too much effort or wealth, or receiving too little security or opportunity, they will opt for a different government. They will do this through peaceful means if that option has been structured into the government, or through violent means if not.

The social contract is a recognition of these universal requirements of government, and of the practical realities that those least able to govern must rely on the more able, that the least powerful must rely on the more powerful and that those who have the knowledge and the wit must guide those who do not. Those realities require certain concessions on the part of government, and on the part of the governed. In order to avoid totalitarianism, government must accept the maximum informed consent of the governed; in order to promote competence and consistency in government, the governed must allow public interests to be represented by those entrusted to make decisions on behalf of parts of society. In order to prevent autocracy, the government must consist of elected and removable officials; in order to allow efficient operation of government, the terms of office must allow time for actions to be decided and coordinated, and review of public officials must have a legal structure. In order to protect the property of the strong and wealthy, government must prevent abuses and invasions; in order to keep the structure on which such power and wealth is based in good repair, some of the wealth and power must be redistributed to the weak and the poor.

Liberalism attempts not to change the social contract as the public will vacillates, but to continuously revise the application of government to meet changing circumstances and desires. In order to do this, it is assumed that the clearest path can be determined by the most complete understanding of circumstances and effects, and by the most complete participation in the process of government by those with competing desires. This is why liberalism encourages democratic processes and public debate; not to blindly follow public opinion, but to allow that opinion to be informed and to be voiced, in all of its forms. This is why our liberal founders created a structure for government that can be revised to deal with changing world conditions, and to correct for mistakes made along the way.

Liberalism does not aim to eliminate conflict, but to allow the maximum flexibility of society to resolve conflict with the least harm to the weak and the small. Liberalism considers the connections between all of society’s members. Liberalism asks not for whom the bell tolls, but requires that the bell be heard.

The underlying article of faith in my personal philosophy is that people can change for the better. This is most represented by the moral operatives requiring freedom of thought and action for myself and all others, the allowance for change in myself and others, and respect for property. The underlying article of faith in my ideal political philosophy is that all members of a society are responsible to and for that society. This is most represented by the moral operatives requiring freedom of thought and action, and evaluation of collective and individual needs. Liberalism shares those articles of faith and represents those moral operatives.

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This is not a statement of values - it is a pragmatic judgement. It may be right and it may be wrong, but it is independent of the inherent value that one places on freedom. Imagine for a second that you were wrong in making these statements - that “Voices of hatred and intolerance can undermine a free society [even] where the voices of tolerance and reason can be raised in opposition.” The inherent value of freedom would remain the same. But one might be forced to compromise based on the practical realities.

So again, you might be right about the pragmatic judgement in this or that instance (or in all instances). But these judgements are independent of the values that they concern, and must be carefully and independently considered.

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(bolding added)

The judgements we make are entirely dependent on our values; otherwise they are not values, but instead are mere platitudes we mouth, with no real intention of practicing them. If a country decides to compromise on freedom of expression, whether they feel they are “forced” to do so or not, then they themselves have destroyed their “free society.” I am not advocating freedom of expression as the most pragmatic judgement in any instance, I’m arguing that it is the only pragmatic judgement in all instances.

Please go back and read minty’s J. S. Mill quote. Mill talks about the pragmatism behind the principle, as well as explaining the fundamental necessity for freedom of expression far better than I can.

33

xenophon41

I’ve completely failed to understand your most recent post. On the chance that you have misunderstood my preceding most, I will restate.

The statement (by you) that

is one that may be either true or false. The likelihood of it being true or false is not affected by the inherent value that one places (whether based on Mill’s reasoning or any other) on free expression.

34

Izzy, I’ll try and be as clear as possible. If we still fail to understand one another after this post, I don’t know where to go from here.

You questioned, I believe, the practicality of basing a political policy on ethical beliefs. You suggested:

I replied that such policy decisions must be made in favor of the particular values embodied in the philosophy, and asserted that the example of the imam in Holland illustrated why that was particularly important. Later in our exchange, I attempted to show that freedom of expression cannot be modified situationally by a state in order to stifle unpopular points of view without first abandoning the principle of freedom of expression. That is the nature of a principle; it is all or nothing.

By insisting on a purely outcome-oriented approach to government, you seem to be suggesting that a government can serve a society without serving the ethical values of that society. I believe that such a government can have only three outcomes; either it will be dissolved by that society because it fails to represent their core values, or it will be destroyed by a competing ideology which does represent those values, or the values themselves will be lost to that society.

Now, it could be argued that values which cannot support the survival of a society should be lost (and I believe that is what you are getting at). But that is quite different from employing a value situationally, based on the temporary advantage to be gained. Either a society holds the value or it does not.

35

Xeno

Governance and Complexity

Classical liberalism is unaffected in principle by the number of elements in its society. Smith, Jones, and Brown each have rights as attributes of his own property. When Jackson enters the society, he takes his place with the others and has his own rights as attributes of his own property. In like manner, any number of elements causes no change in this regard. Where S = {e, e1, e2, … eN), there is no change in anyone’s rights status. Thus, classical liberalism can be applied to a society of any arbitrary complexity with no adjustment to the law, since the purpose of law is to secure rights.

Modern liberalism, on the other hand, is hard-pressed to deal with complexity precisely because its application is predicated upon the collective unconscious will. That will becomes increasingly difficult to pin down in direct proportion to the complexity of the society. Wherease classical liberalism apportions rights to individuals based on their identity attributes (i.e., property), modern liberalism apportions rights to individuals based on the collective unconscious will. The natural result of attenuating law in response to an ever-changing manifold of vectors is a stampede of complicated and conflicting regulations, each intended to mitigate the others and homogenize the whole. Implementing the collective unconscious will becomes an exercise in stamping out little fires that erupt here and there and everywhere. The successful citizen is the one who can play push-me-pull-you well enough to stake a claim to his rights. Citizens must posture and position as best they can in a mosh pit of governance.

Modern Liberalism and Majoritarianism

What is of interest to a candidate in a majoritarian society is whether people will pull the lever, press the button, or (attempt to) punch out the chad next to his name. The successful candidate, therefore, will be the one who can galvanize the majority of voters into associating him with a popular jingle or catch-phrase that they find appealing. Most people never see a candidate except for a few minutes of advertising that imposes itself just before elections. What is of interest to casual voters is where the candidate stands on one or two issues of particular political importance to them. If a constituency largely opposes abortion, the successful candidate will associate himself with that opposition. If a constituency largely opposes gay rights, the successful candidate will make clear his opposition to gay rights. Taking a seat of power thus becomes an exercise in determining the collective unconscious will of the majority of the voting constituency, which is a small subset of the larger whole: the governed society itself.

Because of the manifest nature of modern liberalism — imposition of one man’s will upon another — the majoritarian society will always be ruled by the will of those with the greatest political clout. If you wish to be happy in a modern liberal society, you’d best abandon your own will and steer your vector toward the will of those with the power to elect power. In theory, there is nothing to prevent the majority of voters from implementing whatever tyranny they please, whether it’s requiring that people submit to wearing seatbelts or submit to being raped by gangs.

Modern Liberalism, Classical Liberalism, and Society

There is an urban legend afoot that classical liberals are loners who seek isolation, despite that one can hardly imagine a more dynamic society than a free-market. This mistaken notion is due to any number of logical fallacies, not the least of which is the extrapolation from a refusal to recognize “rights” of a society into a dislike for society in general. It is not unlike the notion that a young black male who refuses to attend a Ku Klux Klan rally is a racist. Classical liberals may fear a society that will use its authority to impose its will on them, but that does not mean that they would fear a socety they deem safe.

Modern liberalism defines freedom as freedom to do this or that. Classical liberalism defines freedom as freedom from coercion. Freedom to act versus freedom from action. Society centric versus individual centric. Rights, for the modern liberal, are endimic to society. It is the society that has rights, and thus there are no “natural rights” but only rights that the society determines to exist. Classical liberalism, on the other hand, holds that rights are native to individuals, predicated upon their identity attributes, and are as natural as any other attribute with which the person is born. Usurping a man’s rights is the ethical equivalent of cutting off his limbs.

For modern liberalism, the paradigm is of society looking out toward individuals. For classical liberalism, the paradigm is of individuals looking out toward society. Unlike the modern liberal, the classical liberal may be a hermit if that is his wish, but as you have pointed out, “people want to belong to a group”. The fundamental difference then is this: the modern liberal must belong to whatever group is deemed significant by those with the most political clout, whereas the classical liberal may decide for himself what group or groups hold to ideals or values that he considers significant.

Precisely because of the nature of man wanting to belong to groups, the mythical notion that a classical liberal society will have no cohesion falls apart. In accordance with Hayek’s Theory of Spontaneous Order, the very best associations will be made because the people most intimately familiar with their own needs and desires are making them.

Points of Contention

[li] A. whether other political philosophies better reflect my ethical standards[/li]
The very basis of your ethical standards is this: “[One] must assume that all other moral creatures are of equal importance to oneself”. If that is the case, then you are precluded a priori from imposing your will, or the will of your group, upon any other individual. Otherwise, everything that is built upon your foundation falls apart, and for your moral operatives to hold, you must assume that other moral creatures are not as important as you. Therefore, classical liberalism better reflects your ethical standards.

[li] B. whether my ethical standards adequately serve my moral [operatives][/li]
They are if you are willing to concede that some other will is more morally significant than my own.

[li] C. whether those moral imperatives adequately address the moral context of shared physical/spiritual realities[/li]
Clearly, they do not. The shared reality is that each of us reaches out from within. We each process the world around us through a consciousness and a set of senses that absolutely no one else shares. We each are a whole being, born of nature or God into our own identity. Any entity that is extruded from bits and pieces of different men, whose collective unconscious will is determined by men with wills and prejudices of their own, is nothing more than an arbitary abstraction that — what a coincidence! — happens to serve the purposes of those who invent it. When rights are given to abstractions, they are indeed unnatural.

36

Lib, thanks for responding.

I really treasure your insight into questions of morality. Unfortunately, just about every characterization of modern liberalism in your posts to this thread has been wrong. And I don’t just mean “wrong” as in unfairly critical, I also mean in the sense that many of those characterizations have been factually incorrect or irrelevant to the liberal philosophy. You describe certain real or perceived failings of the American system, and lay the blame on liberalism. The real problems you describe are endemic to any democratically operated governmental structure, and some of the allegations you’ve made concerning the consequences of liberalism are quite disturbing. They do not accurately portray the philosophy, my passionate friend, although I do understand in some cases why you would associate them with it.

However, if I’m to show you where you’ve misapprehended modern liberalism, I’ll have to answer your latest post in reverse order, beginning (as I began this thread) with the moral context of shared realities and the ethical implications of actions within those shared realities.
[ul][li]The importance of other moral creatures and the imposition of will.[/ul][/li]{will: The power of choosing; the faculty or endowment of the soul by which it is capable of choosing; the faculty or power of the mind by which we decide to do or not to do; the power or faculty of preferring or selecting one of two or more objects.}

I don’t agree that acceptance of the proposition “all moral creatures are of equal importance” presumes the ethical declaration “one must not impose one’s will on other moral creatures.” Perhaps we have different understandings of some of the terms we’re using. Let me start then with the definition I have in mind of moral creature.

moral creature: A self-aware being who is capable of recognizing the individuality of other beings, and has free will in its behavior toward other individual beings.

If we take as axiomatic that moral creatures share a physical or spiritual reality (which we must if we are to discuss politics and society in a meaningful way), then we must also accept the natural consequence that congress occurs among moral creatures, and that such congress can be done on a moral basis. In addition, we must recognize that conflict occurs between moral creatures insofar as they may among themselves desire resources which cannot be adequately shared, or may wish to alter their reality in a way with which other moral creatures who share that reality do not agree. The resolution of such conflicts may not always be achieved through a consensus, meaning that in some cases, some individual desires are going to be trumped by one or more others.

{impose: 1. To establish or apply as compulsory; levy: impose a tax. 2. To apply or make prevail by or as if by authority: impose a peace settlement}

When conflicts arise which necessitate resolution by means other than consensus, the party or parties whose desires have been denied will have had some other’s will imposed upon them. They may accept this imposition based on explicit or implicit agreement to do so, or they may actively strive against it, but it is in either case an imposition derived through social interaction. The ethical nature of any social interaction can be established by examining the ways in which realities have been shared between moral creatures.

{shared: held or experienced in common with another}
[list=1][li]Consensus - actions have been decided by unanimity of preferences among affected parties. I believe this is ethically acceptable.[]Agreement - actions have been decided through mutual agreement of all affected parties (example: sales transaction, ) Ethically acceptable.[]Compromise - some affected parties allow non-preferred action in return for immediate or future alternative preferences; used in pursuit of Agreements (example: any idea which makes it out of committee). Ethically acceptable.[]Contract - all parties agree by prior arrangement to decide certain actions by process; some parties may not prefer the outcomes, but Agree to be bound by them (examples: lend/lease agreements, service contracts). Ethically acceptable.[]Association - an individual or group becomes affected by an existing Agreement or Contract through interaction with one or more of the initial parties in a way which affects those parties relative to that Agreement or Contract (examples: social contract, immigration). Ethics dependent on context.[]Disassociation - an individual or group removes itself from an existing Agreement or Contract (examples: emigration, resignation). Ethics dependent on context.[]Authority - an individual or group exerts control of a shared reality on behalf of other affected parties per Contract, Agreement or Association (example: police action, work supervision, family dinner menu) Ethically acceptable.Disregard - an individual or group is denied choice in an action which affects them and which is not consequential to an existing agreement or contract and is not an action from Authority (examples: robbery, rape, invasion, assault). Ethically unacceptable.[/list=1][/li]Notice that there are at least a few ethically acceptable social interactions which result in the imposition of the will of one person or group onto other persons or groups who disagree with the way in which their shared reality was altered.

[ul][li]Social contract, shared realities, ethical concessions[/ul][/li]{state: 1.a. The supreme public power within a sovereign political entity. b. The sphere of supreme civil power within a given polity: matters of state. 2. A specific mode of government: the socialist state. 3. A body politic, especially one constituting a nation}

As noted above, the social contract is an example of Contract by Association. Association [of obligations or allegiances] is one of the social interactions I indicated that I felt could be either acceptable or unacceptable depending on the context.[ul][li]Ethically acceptable conditions under which Association can be applied:[list=1][]A guardian entity enters into Contract or Agreement on behalf of an individual who is incompetent through youth or infirmity.[]Competent individual or group voluntarily begins or continues interaction with a party to an Agreement or Contract, with prior understanding that such an Agreement or Contract exists and that Association will be applied.[]Individual or group gains direct benefit from an Agreement or Contract or participates directly in the pursuit of such arrangements.[]Individual or group gains directly from an action which Disregards the choices of others, with prior or subsequent knowledge of the nature of that action (ex: fencing stolen goods).[/list=1][]Ethically unacceptable conditions under which Association should not be applied:[list=1][]Individual or group interacts with a party to an Agreement or Contract, with no prior understanding that such arrangements exist, and attempts to Disassociate upon gaining that knowledge.[]Individual or group which interacts with party to a Contract or Agreement has no expectation of benefits from that arrangement, and does not directly participate in the pursuit of the arrangement.[]Individual or group attempts Association but has no actual acceptance by contract holders, or procedural acceptance by process.[/list=1][/ul][/li]Liberalism assumes that inclusion of all citizens in the social contract is ethically acceptable based on the above criteria, the state being the primary party with which all citizens interact. Liberalism further assumes that all participants in the social contract must derive direct benefits from that participation, and all who derive benefits from the social contract must participate.

If any ethical concessions must be made, they have nothing to do with the relative importance of moral creatures; instead, they deal with relative needs and abilities as factors in deciding the requirements for participation and the apportionment of benefits. Modern liberalism, IMO, except for one other political philosophy, makes far fewer ethical concessions in pursuing the social contract than the others make in pursuit of their guiding principles. The philosophy which makes the least ethical concessions, unsurprisingly, is libertarianism, which holds so firmly its One Ethic of Non-coercion that a libertarian government would be forbidden by its contract holders from pursuing ANY guiding principle for fear of treading on individual perogatives.

[ul][li]Society, governance, and complexity[/ul][/li]In any sufficiently large society, resource management becomes the main driving force for social action. All individuals will pursue the most advantageous avenues (according to their perceptions), to the limits of their means and abilities, in order to possess or gain the use of the things which will do them the most good. They will pursue these advantages and goods according to their own ethical codes, governing their actions according to their own nobility of spirit. Cooperative efforts are joined in order to maximize productivity and the efficiency of distribution; teamwork is the most advantageous avenue for collections of human individuals in their pursuit of goods.

When the relative sizes of any society and the environment (physical reality) in which that society occurs reaches the point where either the raw amount of resources cannot adequately meet the needs of all individuals or the access of individuals to those resources becomes so restricted by logistical difficulties that their needs cannot be met, conflict over resource management arises. The libertarian approach to conflict resolution is to have government protect each individual against initiated force, by which the libertarian means any imposition upon an individual’s preferences without first receiving that individual’s consent. While this gives a heavy advantage to those whose ability or good fortune have placed them in position to gain more resources than others, allowing them the ability to dictate terms which others must realistically accept, it is fair. In a world of limited resources, it is horribly and unspeakably fair; each individual is solely responsible for their own life, is unrestricted in their pursuit of property and unfettered in their liberty to do so.

The liberal approach to conflict resolution is not so fair to the individual, allowing no brutalization of the disadvantaged by the strong and the powerful, no silencing of the timid by the forceful, or (despite your paranoia, Lib) of the minority by the majority, no exclusion of the unwanted by the popular. Liberalism demands that government be the means by which society responds to the needs of its members by redistributing resources according to that responsibility. Liberalism attempts to do this promoting free expression and maximum participation while providing public assistance to those who need it.

Liberalism is equipped to deal with complexity precisely because it is predicated on the very conscious expression of the informed, collective will of society. I’m sorry you took the term “collective unconscious will” so wrongly, but please go back and review my uses of that term. As I said earlier in this thread, society shapes itself according to the collective unconscious will of its members; it does not need liberalism to help it do that. What liberalism does is it attempts to inform society by ensuring that all of society’s members can have their voices heard, and it attempts to free members of society from the immediacies of hunger and poverty, allowing them the precious luxury of a higher perspective. Liberalism attempts to influence the shape of society by levelling the advantages and increasing the abilities of its members, thereby enabling a more rational and inclusive manifestation of the collective will. Liberalism attempts to wake up the collective will.

It can be seen then that liberalism works best and takes root most deeply in societies with widely developed communication and distribution infrastructures. The more widely communicated the ideas, needs and differences, and the more efficiently redistributed the resources within a nation, the more effective modern liberalism can be and the more closely it can approach the ideals of classical liberalism. If we ever reach the point technologically where resources are effectively inexhaustible, and access to resources is effectively unrestrictable, then we would be ready for a libertarian society without the dire consequences of unspeakable fairness.

[ul][li]The liberal approach to majoritarianism[/ul][/li]I agree with the man who said: “The first principle of republicanism is that the lex majoris partis is the fundamental law of every society of individuals of equal rights; to consider the will of the society enounced by the majority of a single vote as sacred as if unanimous is the first of all lessons in importance, yet the last which is thoroughly learnt. This law once disregarded, no other remains but that of force, which ends necessarily in military despotism.”

If one wishes to be happy in a liberal society, one had best participate in that society through public discourse and through the democratic processes on which a liberal government is operated. The evils you ascribe to liberalism, Lib, are more properly ascribed to populism and opportunism. Majority decision making is inherent to all democracies; however, since liberalism so heartily embraces majoritarianism, I understand why you would be concerned that it does what it can to avoid “tyranny of the majority.” I would have hoped, however, that you’d have tried to avoid the clumsy use of reductio ad absurdum that resulted in your charge that liberalism would somehow blithely allow a majority imposition of the requirement to submit to gang rape.

Since you can’t seem to imagine that liberalism restricts the ability of the majority to impose its will on [itself and] the minority in any way, let me remind you that liberal governments require certain human rights to be constitutionally guaranteed, prohibiting the creation of laws which violate those human rights. Should at any time those rights be expunged from the constitution of a state, then it has ceased to be in any way a “liberal” society. Ignoring for the moment the enormous paradox involved in a society deciding by popular vote to impose on themselves a condition which they do not want and which holds no advantage for them or for future generations, grant me at least that liberalism does put institutionalized limits on the power of the majority.

Factually, the assertion that majority whim can arbitrarily negate the rights of minority individuals in a liberal society is WRONG. If you want examples of attempts to do just that, you must examine conservatism, fascism and communism. Libertarianism does not have a monopoly on the obligation to protect citizens against coercion. In a liberal society, as a matter of fact, the majority is prohibited from denying equal rights to a minority, even if 99% of all eligible voters are somehow convinced that it’s a good idea to do so.

In a libertarian society on the other hand, any group of adults can theoretically sign a contract with another group allowing that group to randomly gang sodomize individuals from the first group without warning; after all, since it’s a signed agreement it aint rape any more, it’s consensual sexual relations. You may point out that there would be no reason for the first group to sign such a ridiculous contract, but in theory, there’s nothing to prevent it. (I make this assertion merely to demonstrate to you the obfuscatory nature of such arguments.)

[/quote]

Take your time in responding Lib. I’m very happy with the quality of all the posts in this thread so far, and I wouldn’t want either of us to rush it.

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Have cake and eat it, too — liberalism and majoritarianism

If you wish to separate liberalism from marjoritarianism, then you will have to explain it in some way other than as the implementation of the conscious or unconscious collective, public, or shared will. Because, as I have demonstrated, there is no such thing as a unanimous will in a complex society, nor any reliable way to determine it if there were, all that you can possibly implement is the will of SOME of the people. If you wish to implement the will of most people, then liberalism, by your definition, reduces to majoritarianism — not absurdly, but simply.

Will and tyranny

So long as you allow any person or persons, comprising whatever you wish — the majority, the smartest, the strongest, whatever — to force the will of even one man without his consent, you cannot escape the commission of tyranny.

If even one man is not free, then no man is free.

That is not a slogan, but a fact. So long as there is adequate rationale to tyrannize any one man, there will always be adequate rationale to tyrannize another. The tyrants that arise will be very specific: they will be those with the most political clout.

Scribbles and guarantees

So long as your constitution can be amended, you are unable to guarantee whatever it is that you call rights. Rights will be whatever is scribbled. Thus, what was originally attributed as unalienable rights given by God or nature is now construed as, in the words of Justice Ginsberg, “the rights given to us by the Constitution.”

[shudder…]

Gang rape and consent

Surely you do not need to be instructed in the difference between a mutually consentual contract and a nonconsentual rape. All you have pointed out is that there is nothing to prevent someone from CONSENTING to join a mutual rape club. Well, amen. That you offer that as the ethical equivalent of being raped AGAINST YOUR WILL might mean that we will not ever understand one another.

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Lib, you sadden me. I think you are correct that we may never see eye to eye on this. Perhaps it is because we have radically different understandings of human consent and of freedom.

The man who gives consent to a work arrangement that will keep his family living in a hovel, uneducated and powerless, gives his consent freely, but he is not free. The woman who sells her body so that she can buy the crack cocaine supplied by a ghetto entrepeneur does so of her own free will, but she is not free. The parents who give their children to work in brutal sweatshops do so deliberately and with full consent; they and their children are not free.

You think a system whereby anything is permissible as long as consent is given will set men free? Promote it however you want. I will fight such a system forever. I understand you think that I support tyranny by this, and that those Constitutional “scribbles” liberalism holds so dearly are meaningless, and that the majoritiarianism liberalism embraces amounts to the rape of the minority. Very well. I believe I’ve argued my position as persuasively as I have the ability to. I’ll refrain from further reply. If you wish to make a further presentation arguing the horrors of liberalism, please feel free. The last word is yours, if you want it.

I think my primary intention in this thread, to demonstrate that liberalism and other political philosophies differ only in moral emphasis and not in basic moral beliefs, has been served. (For anyone who still doesn’t understand that thesis, I recommend John Corrado’s thread in the BBQ Pit.) I think my secondary intention, to show the underlying philosophical assumptions of liberalism (and how they match my own convictions), has also been served.

So I’ll leave this thread alone unless someone else wishes to argue the ethics of individualism and society from a new standpoint, or wishes to disagree with my understandings of liberal philosophy, social interactions, etc. from a different perspective than Lib has so far offered.

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Can I respond to say that you are, as ever, one of my SD heros?

stoid

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Xeno

That depends on how one defines freedom. If freedom is the absence of coercion, then classical liberalism is the only context in which freedom can exist. If freedom is the ability to impose one’s own will on others, then it’s pretty much pick-a-card-any-card, including conservatism (for imposing social will) and modern liberalism (for imposing economic will).

In what way will modern liberalism build the man’s character so that he wishes to be educated and work to better his condition? Do you equate plopping a body into a state-funded desk with education? Do you equate the offer of state assistance to the elimination of poverty?

My father was poor, and we lived in a “hovel” that he built with his own hands. How would we have been more free had a gang of know-it-alls interfered?

How is she more free if she is treated as a criminal for what she does, and is thrown into a prison to be forgotten by a system that has deemed her to be something less than human?

As you knew, even as you composed those words, classical liberalism prohibits parents from exploiting their children for personal gain. In fact, it enforces the strictest compliance with the parents’ unilateral contract to provide for their childrens’ welfare.

Only this: please forgive me for having upset you.