Freedomain Radio

Paul47:

However, I do think that logic, and that which is used in UPB, says that in order for an act of violence to be moral it must be used in a situation in which no other option is available to prevent someones UBB.

If you could point me to the proof of that, I'd appreciate it. At the moment I find it implausible (only guessing about what UBB is).

 

Forgot to respond to this request.  Here is how I would prove it.  If morality exists then it must be UPB.  When is it UPB to use violence? It cannot be UPB to use violence anytime outside of an initiation of force.  The reason being people do not preferred to be aggressed against, however, when people are being attacked, in that moment, in order to defend themselves, they must use violence.  Once the moment of initiated violence has passed then other options are available.  Morality dictates actions of the moment, if we make the moral rule independent of time, then that means anyone if free to defend anyone else outside of the initiation of force.  Because of the long history of violence, this would allow millions of people the right to use violence against millions of others, since not only the victim has the right to defend themselves, but others also have the right to defend the victim.  It is not UPB to want a scenario where we morally condone the violence of millions upon millions.  There may be more succinct arguments for why violent retaliation can only be used during the moment of initiated force, but that is one that I think is logical.

Because of the long history of violence, this would allow millions of people the right to use violence against millions of others, since not only the victim has the right to defend themselves, but others also have the right to defend the victim.  It is not UPB to want a scenario where we morally condone the violence of millions upon millions.

You've already condoned the violence of "millions on milions", when you agreed people have the right to defend themselves in initiated violence.

This is the sort of thing that I've always found "difficult" about philosophical arguments. There is no room for judgment or common sense. Philosophers worry that people will go overboard with violence because some i's have not been dotted or t's crossed in their arguments, when nobody actually gives a damn.

I think of this as "equation envy". Philosophers envy the hard sciences, where you can wrap up a major unifying concept in a small equation. So they try to argue in absolutes to make that happen in their field. But this is about human relations. There are no hard and fast rules. There will never be perfection in human society, nor in the rules that people use (and violate) in relating with each other. There can only be "good enough".

That's why I bring up the market argument. You may get some people to buy into this stuff (no Do-It-Yourself justice) but I doubt everybody will buy it. Given a choice, I prefer to live in an anarchy where DIY justice is still possible, and I'll take my chances with the "millions on millions" problem, if a problem it is. Some outrages ought not to be handed over to institutions for rectification.

Eric Starnes:

I think it is likely that vigilantism would be forbidden in a stateless society.

How and by whom. At worst in a tort based systems the claims would cancel out.

Paul47:

This is the sort of thing that I've always found "difficult" about philosophical arguments. There is no room for judgment or common sense. Philosophers worry that people will go overboard with violence because some i's have not been dotted or t's crossed in their arguments, when nobody actually gives a damn.

I think of this as "equation envy". Philosophers envy the hard sciences, where you can wrap up a major unifying concept in a small equation. So they try to argue in absolutes to make that happen in their field. But this is about human relations. There are no hard and fast rules. There will never be perfection in human society, nor in the rules that people use (and violate) in relating with each other. There can only be "good enough".

That's why I bring up the market argument. You may get some people to buy into this stuff (no Do-It-Yourself justice) but I doubt everybody will buy it. Given a choice, I prefer to live in an anarchy where DIY justice is still possible, and I'll take my chances with the "millions on millions" problem, if a problem it is. Some outrages ought not to be handed over to institutions for rectification.

I sympathize with the fact that getting an entire population to agree on one rational standard is impossible.  If we are discussing a logical proof of ethics, its truth value does not depend on everyone agreeing with it.  So arguments about the impracticality of a logically consistent theory frankly do not affect the truth value of the argument. Forgive me if I am incorrect, but thought our argument was on whether or not revenge can fit into UPB, and I think the logical conclusion is that it does not.

If we are discussing a logical proof of ethics, its truth value does not depend on everyone agreeing with it.

Certainly. 2+2=4 no matter what people think about it. And if there can be a logically consistent theory of ethics, then the rules of that ethics are also immune to opinion. I just have some doubts there can be such a thing. I also have reservations, assuming there can be such a thing, that Stefan's UPB is it. In fact, if it does disallow "revenge" under all circumstances (which I have seen no proof of, but will research further), that would increase my doubts about it, because I don't find that to be a reasonable rule. I can give an example why:

Say you looked out your window, and saw a man you don't know plant an axe in your daughter's head, while she was playing in the back yard. She falls over dead. He then walks away; his violence is over, and there is no longer any need for immediate defense. However if he gets away, there is difficulty in DROs actually identifying him. Oh, and you have a rifle at hand. What do you do?

I think the answer is, "pick up the rifle and kill him". Yet you (I think) would call that immoral according to UPB. If that is truly what UPB says, then I have no use for it, and few people would. Are we all saying 2+2=5? I doubt it; I think UPB is saying 2+2=5. But I need to really find out if UPB calls that immoral...

FreeSpirit:

todofixthis:

By "retaliate", I mean revenge

I think we need to differentiate between "restitution/compensation" and "revenge/punishment".

Restitution should be the primary goal. Where restitution can't be made, then "compensation" should be the goal.

I don't see a case for "revenge" or "punishment" ... those are biblical constructs that have no place in a modern free society.

  Revenge and punishment are not biblical constructs, they are strategies based on solid game theory that were being selected for millions of years before man first put pen to paper, let alone wrote the bible.  Punishment is turning a behaviour that disadvantages you and might be optimal for other people to some that isn't optimal from their POV.  Take for instance a  trader in a town where there are a lot of transients.  Tracking down one that stole from his store would be expensive, and given that thieving transients probably don't have property to take in restitution futile without the "punishment" concept.  Forcing them to do labor is also probably too expensive because why would you expect them to have valuable skills?  What are you going to do if they simply refuse?  But if you have the punishment concept then (hiring someone to) track down the thief and beat him up makes sense.  People know this and assess whether or not to steal from you on the basis of the knowledge that you'll track them down and beat them up.  This makes the thieveing strategy suboptimal in almost all cases. 

  Now I'm not saying that retaliatory force is a good solution in most cases, but it's in our genetically programmed set of strategies for a reason.  We share it with all other primates for a reason.  It works. 

  So on to the morality of reliation, which is quite seperate from it's practicality.  If someone deliberately damages your property (including your body) then you are entitled to compensation.  However having given the compensation they are then not morally required to do anything else.  If they make a sincere appology and attempt to reform that's great, but they don't owe you that in addition to the compensation.  So if they can't or won't pay the compensation, any damage you do to their property (including their body) also only obliges you to pay compensation.  If the compensation you owe them for retaliatiory force is less than or equal to the amount they owe you then you owe them nothing.  So you have no unpaid claims against you, which is pretty close to being considered moral.

FreeSpirit:

(I say this because we all know that the most effective way to instill "proper" future behaviour in a child is to educate rather than to punish -- and the same would apply to criminals).

Since restitution is obviously not possible in cases of rape, murder or assault, the "compensation" path would be followed. First by the DRO immediately compensating the victim, then by the DRO extracting the compensation from the perpetrator -- either in cash or by way of some form of equivalent value of labour as an alternative. If the perpetrator was unwilling (or unable) to pay up or work it off, then he/she would be ostracised until a change of mind came about. I suspect that any decent DRO would also be educating the perpetrator on the way to avoid such consequences in the future and would probably assist in rehabilitation to mitigate the risk of the perpetrator re-offending against their policyholders.

As you might guess, I don't approve of vigilantism or lynch mobs as a means of seeking compensation for wrongs. That kind of Abrahamic "eye for an eye" mentality is the cause of self-perpetuating violence in the Middle East and multigenerational family feuding in Sicily.

  The problem with the cycles of "tit for tat" violence is that neither side wants to admit the legitimacy of the cause for retaliation, therefore each attack is treated as justifying a retaliation rather than being one.  An authority seen as an independent legitimate judge of what is worthy or retaliation is the answer.  Such an authority might decide to punish both parties so that neither party is seen as "getting away with" their most recent attack and therefore attacks on both parties are shown to be suboptimal, which is the aim.

WorBlux:

Eric Starnes:

I think it is likely that vigilantism would be forbidden in a stateless society.

How and by whom. At worst in a tort based systems the claims would cancel out.

  This does lead to the problem that the compensation for large numbers of small rights violations could equal that for large physical injuries or even death.  So people could effectively be executed for repeated spamming on networks that specifically forbade using them for that purpose, which wouuld be... wrong?