I noticed an interesting consequence of the moral theory I outlined yesterday–if it’s true, it is not possible to be moral beyond a limited scope in the absence of a state. Let me explain what I mean. Continue reading “Can We Be Moral Without the State?”
Category: Politics
Concerning the nature of man and the state, and how best the latter can be structured to augment the former.
Am I an Egoist?
There was a very interesting tension pointed out to me yesterday in my moral philosophy. As regular readers know, I am broadly utilitarian–I think that we should try to promote the general welfare. I am concerned with the consequences of moral decisions rather than their motivation, and I do not think hard, fast rules forbidding given behaviours without regard to situational consequences are good ideas. I have, however, recently seemingly changed a position somewhere, because I now find myself embracing, in some situations, what looks like an egoist view. The egoist position is that a person should do what is good for them, not what is good for society at large. So how do I square this circle? Let me see if it can be done.
First World Problems
Today I had an old thought, half-forgotten, about the popular first world problems internet meme. For those of you who are unfamiliar with “first world problems”, it is type of internet joke in which a problem or complaint is dismissed as trivial due to its exclusivity to people living in developed countries. It’s funny, but there’s something that has been eating at me about it. Continue reading “First World Problems”
The Democracy Pendulum
I was reminded of an old thought I had about democracy the other day that I had not as of yet put into blog form. The contention is basically this–one cannot derive the social interest from an amalgamation of individual or subgroup interests. Let me explain.
Stephen Davies’ Libertarianism
I went to an interesting talk today given by Stephen Davies of the Institute of Economic Affairs, a British free market think tank, in favour of the libertarian position. In the past, I have not been particularly kind to the libertarian position, both in its theory and in the practical policies that result from it. Davies did, however, present the libertarian position in an interesting fashion. Whereas usually libertarianism is derived from some foundational larger philosophical theory (some libertarians are right utilitarians, natural rights theorists, egoists, and so on), Davies wishes to divorce libertarianism from its wider philosophical context and consider it on its own, irrespective of which foundational theory it sits upon. In the past, some of my criticisms of libertarianism have been themselves criticised for over-relying on problems with foundational theories rather than considering the planks of libertarianism in isolation. Today, I shall look at libertarianism as presented by Davies and see where it leads me.
