The morality of coercion

Great Debates
1

Most, if not all societies have endorsed the idea of forcing people to do things against their will, to some extent or another. At one end of the spectrum you have totalitarian political or theocratic doctrines, which call for the universal imposition of that doctrine, with punishment up to and including death for the recalcitrant. At the other end you have pacifists and libertarians who dream of a society that has as little coercion as possible. Democratic republics that respect human rights and individual liberties are somewhere in-between. Given that people inevitably come into conflict there will have to be some resolution that ends up with someone not getting their way. But where do you draw the line?

The whole issue of “legislating morality” repeatedly comes up in topics as diverse as the abortion debate or legalizing drugs, and the arguments are hardly limited to utilitarian concerns: at bottom, some people simply think that if something is wrong and evil, even if it doesn’t personally affect them, that it should not be tolerated and those who do these things should be punished. One the one hand we don’t draw and quarter people for not using the correct prayer book anymore; on the other hand, would an absolutely “zero aggression principle” society be not merely impossible but morally blind? Is moral relativism liberation or a pit trap?

2

Bullshit. Posit the spectrum in question before you make any more specific claims about it.

3

:confused: I truly don’t understand what’s being objected to here.

4

These days I encounter the term “coercion” mostly from libertarian(ish) and freeman-on-the-land types. It’s usually along the lines of “How dare you support the use of VIOLENCE to FORCE me to follow the rules that I had previously agreed to follow and now want to break?”

5

Much too strong an objection. Most societies have taxes. That, alone, validates the claim in the OP.

Civilization depends on coercion, because otherwise, you’d have chaos. There are simply too many people, even in a small, ancient city, to permit everyone to act with perfect freedom. If I’m cold…I just light a fire. Anywhere? No regulations?

What may not be obvious is that this is also true in primitive societies outside of the envelope of “civilization” – and probably moreso. The amount of control that tribal elders have over their society makes Stalinism or Maoism look like libertarian utopias in comparison.

Meanwhile, Lumpy, I think the OP is too broad. You might as well say, some societies are more violent than others. What is the proper role of violence in human society? This is the stuff of entire university-level courses, or series of courses. How can we possible answer it in the space of a SDMB post?

The minimum of necessary coercion is pretty much a philosophical ideal. No two people will agree on exactly what that minimum is.

6

I agree with the OP. This seems like a pretty self-evident truth. Can you explain why you disagree?

7

Majority rule is a workable yardstick. It’s obviously not perfect but it tends to keep you away from the worst extremes.

8

Until it becomes a lynch mob, as it has throughout history.

9

Excellent point. Many Libertarians seem to think government coercion is a relatively recent “aberration.” They have no knowledge of simple anthropology; and not even a response (it’s not on YouTube :rolleyes:) to simple queries about family discipline.

10

What’s the alternative? If majority rule leads to lynch mobs then individual freedom leads to serial killers and authoritarian rule leads to concentration camps. Assuming, that is, that you accept the premise that humans are inherently homicidal and are just looking for ways to kill each other.

Personally, I’m a Lockean not a Hobbesian. I think people are generally good and reasonable. Yes, most people have some bad impulses and some people are generally bad. But the consensus of society is usually good and reasonable and majority rule is a system that lets the good keep the bad under control. As evidence, lynching has declined as democracy has spread.

11

It would seem to me that a good rule of thumb would be to draw the line at the point where the benefit (or pleasure) that an individual gets from exercising his freedom is strongly outweighed by benefit others in the society get by restricting that freedom.

For example it makes sense that people be coerced not to murderer other people. Since the harm to the other person clearly out weighs the benefit to the killer.

On the other side, it makes no sense to coerce gays not to marry since, they clearly gain a benefit and the harm to others is minimal.

In between we have taxes where it must be decided whether the benefit of a paying collectively certain endeavor is worth the coercion of having people not be able to spend their money as the might wish.

Of course this isn’t really defining where to draw the line, but instead just giving us a new ambiguous line that needs to be drawn.

12

From my perspective, the concept of the morality of coercion is a contradiction in terms. That is, I see morality at it’s most basic levels as being about making choices that respect the choices of others (at least coming from a perspective of self-ownership and property rights). Coercion, however, is the forcible removal of the choices of others. That said, the concept of govern, at it’s core, is an ammoral concept. The purpose of government is about the establishment of order. The interesting conflict between these concepts arises because, while we as a society have some basic morals upon which we can mostly agree, we also observe that the choices of everyone in a society of sufficient size cannot have sufficiently similar morals, or at least cannot be expected to actually be moral, and thus we must come up with some set of unified rules, and these rules must be enforced coercively. So what we’re left with is a balance between two orthogonal concepts of morality vs. order.

Now, I would tend to agree with the spectrum proposed by the OP that, in theory, if we had a population where everyone more or less agreed on what is right and wrong and everyone more or less could be trusted to follow it, then we’d need very little coercion from an authority to maintain order. On the other hand, considering that coercion is inherently immoral, it would seem to me that a given authority should try to appropriately balance the level of coercion with the level of order necessary for the appropriate society. If you have too much coercion, you may have order, but you also have an oppressive regime, but if you have too little, you may be allowing greater freedom, but you also have more chaos.

Further, like any multiple point optimization, I doubt there’s any sort of objective ideal point, so not only will that point vary from society to society just due to the inherent differences in those populations, but even in a given society, there will be disagreement about where that point is and how to achieve it.

But this is why, despite that I see morality as an essential part of the human condition and a consideration for governing, it is precisely that it is orthogonal to the concept of order that the idea of legislating morality is a bad idea. That is, sure, we can almost universally agree that murder, theft, assault, rape, etc. are things that need to be elminated to maintain order, there are plenty of things that we simply cannot agree on are necessary for establishing order or a universally agreed upon moral state, so it makes no sense to legislate that. So, for instance, while I have no desire to smoke pot or hire a prostitute, as common points of argument for legistlating morality, I also don’t see how it benefits society in a way that is sufficient to warrant that added level of coercion necessary to do so and, as such, in a sort of logical irony, I see those sorts of laws as immoral. Similarly, anti-homosexual laws ultimately result in reduced freedom and increased coercion, which makes those sorts of laws immoral for the same reason.

13

Again, it is the freedoms enjoyed by most people today that are a historical and “natural” aberration. The most primitive bands were based on coercion; even the chief of a band was bound by the “morality” he learned from his father or the previous band leader. In early societies, ostracism was often a death sentence. Even medieval nobles adhered to very strict rules. Sovereigns and outlaws may seem to be exceptions, but even Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor, was forced to stand in the snow for three days to make penance to his superior, Pope Gregory VII.

Even our dogs have some enforced morality. I don’t know the details, but some are bloodied after dallying with bitches “owned” by a “superior.” :o

It is counterfactual to pretend that “freedom” is a “natural” state, or much practiced among humans before recent times.

And of course, smoking pot etc. is mostly a diversion. The real debate is about property rights. Property rights are based on coercion almost by definition. All property owned in England traces its legitimacy back to the Conquest by William the Bastard in 1066, though of course he wisely endorsed some rights that traced back to Anglo-Saxon Kings.

I like freedom. Freedom is a friend of mine. But the nonsense spouted by Libertarians, Freeman-on-the-Land, and some Republicans is just gibberish.

14

Granted that absolute libertarian-anarchist freedom isn’t possible; but does that mean that coercion is right? That is, would a totally good person renounce coercing others? Or should some things be punished because they’re inherently wrong, and a good person would have a moral obligation to do so?

15

The contradiction in libertarianism is they believe in coercion every bit as much as the people they denounce. They just want to use coercion to enforce a different set of rules. Disagree with the majority in a libertarian society and you’re in just as much trouble as you are in any other society.

16

You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Nemo. The foundation of libertarianism is that unprovoked use of coercion is illegitimate (which separates libertarianism from most forms of government), but that coercion may be used defensively in response to unprovoked use of coercion (which separates libertarianism from anarchism). That is not a contradiction - it is self-consistent for the exact same reason the concept of self-defense is self-consistent.

17

Most modern democracies have fairly strong protections built in, to defend minority viewpoints. Atheists are only a small part of the population of the U.S., and we aren’t “in trouble.”

In a libertarian society, this would be true also. Libertarians would suggest that minority viewpoints would be more protected than they are in conventional democracies.

18

And coercion is defined as a use of force against another person?

19

Because in the United States, there’s a government that protects the rights of religious minorities. In a libertarian society, the majority would be free to do anything to the minority short of violence. I don’t see how the minority is more protected in such a system.

20

Is that the definition? I would have also included the use of force against groups, and, also, the threat of force as a mechanism of enforcement. I’m “coerced” to obey the speed limit, and Microsoft is “coerced” to adhere to certain regulations in issuing stock, etc.

There are about as many different Libertarian systems as there are individual Libertarians, but some interpretations of a Libertarian government would include a law-making power, backed up by a police force, that would have the same power to protect minorities as our governments have today.

A “minimum state” Libertarian is very different from an “Anarchist” Libertarian. The former may accept a sufficiently robust government to provide such protections.

The idealists would say that a Libertarian state will always provide the maximum possible individual liberty, by prohibiting the use of violence by anyone against anyone. The principle of personal individual consent is held to be just about the highest possible moral guide.

(I’m not a Libertarian; I think that the American experience with the Articles of Confederation show that a government based solely on consent is not workable.)