Bricker
August 6, 2013, 4:54pm
1070
Bryan_Ekers:
It remains unclear that the potential-murderer nephew, a concept you brought into this discussion, has any relevance whatsoever, or is even a useful metaphor, or anything other than a waste-of-time tangent, really.
The reasons society should not be tolerant of murder in the general case are indeed tangible, relating to lowered life expectancy, more violence, more isolation of the wealthy trying to protect themselves… I think it fairly obvious that if society was okay with murder, society would be worse off. If that’s not good enough, I guess I could compile some statistics comparing subcultures (even within a single country) where murder is commonplace versus those where murder is rare.
And I agree. But I’m asking what, if anything, is wrong with the atheist nephew saying to himself, “Look, whether I murder Auntie or not will have no appreciable affect on society. And I need the money.”
My personal standards regarding legislation are actually pretty consistent. The gist is that:
-societies that are based on individual freedom are better than societies that are not (arguably an unprovable axiom, but I think I could find some empirical evidence, given an agreed standard of “better”)
Very much so. Why, in another thread just today I read:
I have noticed that people who often cry freedom usually mean that to be the freedom to suffer, the freedom to be exploited, the freedom to have everyday choices blow up in your face as to destroy them and their families.
I’m sure that the TV reporter just loves the freedom to be fired for joking on a blog. I’m sure the many people who have posted rants about their jobs on their personal Facebooks love having the freedom of their boss to snoop into their lives and be fired, I’m sure that the single-parent family suffering in poverty because the layoff that caused the parent to lose their job because their CEO can get a bonus believes in exactly the kind of freedom you do
Freedom is a means to an end, it is not intrinsically good in and of itself. If more freedom means more unhappiness, more poverty, more crime, and more suffering, then I wish we have less freedom, as much less as it takes to lower poverty, lower crime, and lower suffering
If you love freedom so much, move to Somalia. I hear they don’t even have laws there, its paradise :rolleyes:
Obviously this comment goes directly to the conundrum of weighing personal freedom against the need you also recognize: “…societies need laws and regulation to maintain stability.”
How we determine the point at which those lines are drawn, though, is …
…well… it’s a process that involves “vaguely defined, unproven premises.”
Or doesn’t it?