[844] in libertarians
Re: Imposing Values
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vernon Imrich)
Thu Mar 23 17:06:27 1995
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 1995 17:05:01 EST
From: Vernon Imrich <vimrich@MIT.EDU>
|> Well, this is still a value, but I can see how you say that this is sort
|> of a "root value" or metavalue. But even if we accept this principle,
|> putting it into practice can be sticky. When you say "other," does that
|> include fetuses? Viable fetuses? 2-minute old infants? And what about
|> animals?
All points well taken. It is not always easy. However, the standard
for deciding is different than it otherwise could be. Right now, the
courts and many people, use some "social good" reasoning to determine
the solution. Libertarians what the basis to be "who's impinging on who?"
We may not agree on the answer, but that's only from differing interpreations
of the facts (eg how dangerous IS second hand smoke?). It's a very
different paradigm that "who much social good is gained/lost by
adopting policy X?"
|> Well, I would not actually want to _mandate_ any of the values you've
|> listed, except maybe honesty in business dealings and other
|> transactions.
Yes and no. I want to mandate that people live up to what they promise.
If someone charges me $10 and another consumer $8 for the same product
that may well be dishonest (or it may not if the seller makes no claim
about maintaining the same profit margin for each sale). But in any
case we all agreed to it so it's ok.
|> But I do consider myself a hard-core libertarian
|> anarchist, and I do care about these values. People should have the
|> freedom to make whatever choice they want, but all these choices aren't
|> the same, morally speaking. Also, I'm just curious: how do you arrive at
|> liberarianism as a value? For me, individualism leads to libertarianism,
|> not the other way around.
Same for me, but it's not the only way to get to libertarianism, and
thus, libertarianism does not logically require idividualism (it
just mandates that whatever collectivism one adheres to is consentual).
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| Vernon Imrich | market failure, n. The inabilty of the |
| MIT, Dept. OE | market to recover from a blow by |
| Cambridge, MA 02139 | intervention. (The Exchange) |
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| MIT LP: http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/libertarians/home.html |
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