And to be clear, A refuses to recognize any problem exists. He doesn’t believe he is trespassing on B’s property in any manner and sees no reason to bring an arbitrator in to discuss a non-existent problem. And just to be fair about it, let’s say that B really does have a problem. The smell is so overwhelming, his doctor has told him he has to move out of his house and the grass on his lawn is dying.
There clearly is a conflcit of wills here. Without imposing a majoritarian solution, how will it be resolved? Keep in mind both men are extremely stubborn and have no interest in a compromise. A will not accept any solution involving closing his pig farm and B will not accept any solution where the pig farm stays open.
I feel hardly qualified to participate in the general debate (I hardly know the difference between morals and ethics :)) but I think I can expand on this quote.
Compromise is just half the story. The process of consulting among the groups of interested parties, in itself, serves to align people’s interests, ideas, motivations, Wills, etc. It not only allows good ideas and reasonable compromises to bubble up, it also serves to build support for the eventual decision. Group dynamics can play a positive role, too (sometimes a negative one). Of course, people could voluntarily participate in such a process. But “encouraging” people to pursue political support and group consensus certainly is a positive thing, if not an ethical principle.
Not sure if this is what you’re (still) asking, but with Libertarianism, B would have a case against A if there really was an annoyance (= coercion). If A agreed to install air filters against any smell, and reprocess the pig waste into All Natural 100% Pure Tofu Cheez Whiz, thus preventing any annoyance, then B would have no case. The (only?) business of government would be to arbitrate this case through the courts, where the issues would be decided entirely on merits and basic ethical principles.
Sounds actually like Libertarianism would arrive at the “best” (fairest) solution here, in contrast to majoritarianism, where all kinds of “interests” might be weighed. Certainly everybody might not always be perfectly happy in either system.
You also mentioned the damming/undamming example. That would be less clear-cut without knowing more details - who owns what, who are affected and in what way? I think there is a principle of “first, do no harm”, eventually such a case might hinge on that. In any case, it would be merits and ethical principles.
I’m in complete agreement with what you’ve written, but what you’ve described is a majoritarian solution not a libertarian one. A government in which the community decides whether or not a coercion exists is majoritarian.
Well, if my description was not in fact libertarian, then I hope somebody better versed in libertarianism can arbitrate that matter. I am ready to stand corrected.
Surely there are differences in substance in the decision-making process between libertarianism and majoritarianism, even though some of the mechanics might be similar (e.g. courts). There would be no vote on whether to allow the pig farm. There would be no interpretation of arbitrary laws passed with majority vote by a legislature. (Ethical principles, not the same thing.)
Unfortunately, I am uncapable to bring you any more of those. Since I do not consider majoritarianism to be perfect and even the words “best” and "good " stick in my throat when I try to describe majoritarianism, I can only defend it as compared to other systems. I consider it to be the least bad of all systems I know of. Apparently, this means you do not want to hear from me, since you only want to hear justifications for majoritarianism which exist in a vacuum. That seems to be not only impossible but utterly pointless.
It sounds to me like you understand libertarianism just fine. It’s true that practically any political philosophy can accomodate an arbitration system of some sort or other. Even Ba’athist states have courts. But what made your interpretation libertarian was the statement, “The (only?) business of government would be to arbitrate this case through the courts, where the issues would be decided entirely on merits and basic ethical principles.” Whether a society is libertarian may be determined by whether it is voluntary. Whether a society is majoritarian may be determined by whether the majority may impose its will on the minority.
I don’t know what you mean about “in a vacuum”. I can talk about blues in terms of music theory without making reference to other types of music. I can identify it by its 12-bar I I I I IV IV I I V IV I V pattern. Majoritarianism just doesn’t impress me as something a prudent person might come up with on his own if he were attempting to design a political system without knowing what the future consequences of his own participaton might be. If you were a black Jewish lesbian conservative, for example, you’d be a fool to design a system in which the majority of people can tell you how to live your life. It seems like you’d have to be confident in advance that you’d be in the majority.
But in the question I asked, I specified that neither party is willing to participate. How would a libertarian society handle a situation where one or both parties does not want to voluntarily submit to arbitration?
Or that you would realize that there are always going to be conflicts, and these are best resolved so that the solution the majority favours wins the day. I feel I have explained my support for majoritarianism as well as possible without referring to other systems, but after a certain point it becomes impossible. That point was reached many posts ago.
There are many issues that I don’t think could be satisfyingly resolved outside a majoritarianism system, such as age of consent, but since your response to that is either “defend majoritarianism without reference to other systems” or “I have explained many times how age of consent would work”, there is little I can do.
There’s no effective difference between a court issuing a decision based on the ethical principles of a society and a legislature enacting a law based on the majority viewpoint of a society. The majority view establishs the ethical principles - court decisions and legislative acts are just the tools to express them.
But in every society there will be some people who do not agree with the majority. In a majoritarian society, if the will of an individual comes into direct conflict with the will of society, the individual can be compelled to submit. In a libertarian society, no individual can be compelled to submit to the will of society.
On paper, libertarianism sounds better. But both systems are open to abuse. As Liberal pointed out in his original post, a majoritarian society could theoretically require everybody to have sex with pigs. But in a libertarian society, an individual could theoretically go around town starting fires and there’d be no way to stop him. If he doesn’t agree to be bound by a law against committing arson, there’s no way for the people in the town to get him to stop setting fires without compelling him to submit to a law he didn’t agree to.
That depends. A society cannot even BE libertarian if even one of its citizens has not consented to be governed. I’d say that’s quite an effective difference.
The hell? There is in that statement zero — and I mean zero — understanding of what libertarianism is. Let’s just stick with majoritarianism, okay?
Can you respond to post #133 namely ethically speaking how is it right that you can damage my property and endanger my life by actions on your property.
But that is part of what a society is, a set of rules that tell you how you may live your life. Not that there aren’t significant differences in the amount of freedom left to the individual but overall every society contains rules and members must live within them or risk the consequences. Complex societies have governments to determine and enforce the core rules. So the question is not, “Should someone be allowed to tell us how to live our lives?” but instead, “Who should be allowed to tell us how to live our lives?” Or, more broadly, who shall have a say in what the core rules of the society will be?
As I said before, the ethic of majoritarianism is equality. It supposes everyone deserves an equal say.
Point of fact, our pig farm example could be settled under the status quo without recourse to statutory law. The common law doctrine of nuisance would govern – and that doctrine evolved based on ethical principles derived by judges over time, rather than having sprung from legislative action.
The point being that majoritarian systems need not put every single decision to a vote. Common law doctrines coexist quite peacefully with statutory enactments. It isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition.
You can describe the blues without reference to other types of music, but you can’t evaluate the merits of the blues without comparing it to other types of music.
Similarly, I can describe the mechanics of a particular type of majoritiarian government without reference to other systems, but I cannot evaluate majoritarianism without drawing comparisons to the alternatives.
A few things disturb me about this line of thinking.
It presumes that there is a monolithic lockstep “majority” and “minority” on every issue. Of course, that is simply not true. People have a variety of views on different issues, and a belief on issue A need not correlate to a belief on issue B. I may be in the majority on issue A but in the minority on issue B.
It presumes a binary choice on each issue. But that isn’t really how majoritarianism works. Most issues have a range of possible solutions. Part of the beauty of majoritariaism is that this fosters compromise, and thus solutions that are temperate. Compare to a system, such as the one proffered, that relies so heavily on arbitration – a system where there are winners and losers, and the solutions adopted for any given issue is likely to be an extreme.
It presumes a venal majority, when history teaches us otherwise. The US, for example, contains numerous examples of majorities limiting their own power in favor of protecting minorities. The Bill of Rights and the Civil War Amendments were passed by supermajorities, as was women’s suffrage. Consider that whites and men were effectively choosing to dilute their own political power in passing the 15th and 19th amendments. The majority voted against their own self-interest in both cases.
This is not to say that the majority, left unchecked, never kick around the minority. Clearly, they can and they do. But history teaches that majorities are also open to moral reasoning, and to acting against their own self-interest in the interest of higher values.
And of course no system is purely majoritarian in practice. I’ve argued before and continue to believe that a just government must derive its powers from the consent of the governed – that is, that a just government must be fundamentally majoritarian at base – but I also believe that a good government puts checks on the majority. Those checks include, in the US, separated powers, constitutionally-prescribed areas where the legislature may not tread, and a legislative system designed to slow down the lawmaking process long enough for sober debate to take place.
In short, “pure” systems suck. They put ideology above practicality. Majoritarianism is good, but it must be tempered. Hell, Libertarianism is good in some ways – I’m a fan of free markets and privatization and small government – but it must be tempered.
Yes, Lib, that was the same point I was making. Both systems are majoritarian. The dofference between a majoritarian system and a libertarian system is not determined by how decisions are made; the difference is in who they decisons apply to. That was what I said next paragraph.
Lib, this is going to surprise you, but I actually do know what I’m talking about. In terms of the fundamental principles of libertarianism as opposed to the arcane terminology, I suspect my understanding of the subject exceeds your own. I, at least, recognize the central paradox that lies at the heart of libertarianism and needs to be addressed.
If there is no affected party (A, B, neighbors within the appropriate radius) that have submitted to the arbitration of the libertarian government, then we are obviously not talking about libertarianism.
I guess the interesting case would be when the defendant, A, has not chosen to submit but the plaintiff/accuser (B) has. Then A could indeed be forced against his will and against any agreement he is part of. However, he would not be forced to submit to B’s (or anybody else’s) arbitrary whims nor necessarily be forced to shut down. He would simply have to clean up his operation to the point where no more coercion occurs.
I disagree. Libertarianism is based upon a universal, unchanging ethical principle - noncoercion. There would be no laws based on any other principles. (I hesitate to add - since people invariably get the wrong impression from these examples - ) No zoning laws, no tax laws, no drug laws, no welfare laws…
False. See earlier example or any of the threads we have on Libertarianism.
I realize that. I deleted that part from my post for clarity. The point is really the amount of variation / leeway in majoritarianism as opposed to libertarianism. The Common Law doctrine is a nice example, it is certainly closer to libertarianism than the later, more arbitrary laws that we have accumulated.
Your post was thoughtful and I agree on the substance, of course. However, I don’t see where Lib’s post “presumes” any of the things under items 1, 2 or 3.
Explain how you force A to clean up his farm against his will without using coercion? He never agreed that his farm was a problem or needed any correction. He thinks B’s opinion to that effect is exactely the kind of arbitrary whim you say he shouldn’t have to submit to. So who decided that A was coercing B?
There is in that statement zero — and I mean zero — understanding of what libertarianism is. Let’s just stick with majoritarianism, okay?