What could make morality objective?

[RCSaunders]

I have no idea what to think of this post. I have to think you must be kidding, but then there are things you admit that I think are more sad than funny.

Some of your comments:

So you're taking for granted there [is] a thing called "society."

Err, isn't that what we were talking about?

It seems to me where we struggle is that it still looks to me like you're both assuming "society" is going to exist, but that the "individuals" are not going to owe to it anything.

I have no idea what, "struggle." you are talking about or what it means to say, "society is going to exist." What do you call people who live near each other, geographically, socialize with each other and do business with each other? And, except for car payments, utility bills, and payments due on credit cards, what would they owe and to whom?

But if they don't, then all you have is a bunch of scattered "individuals," with no social contract, moral rules or terms of engagement among them.

I know it is going to be a shock to you, but there a millions of people in this world who work, do business, and socialize with one another every day without any "legitimate social rules," "bill of rights," "rule of law," or "agreed-upon procedures' which they are compelled to comply with by some agency of force.

Every "deal" is privately and individually negotiated between two "individuals," which means that no legitimate social rules are allowed to exist.

Here comes another shock. There is no limit to the number of individuals that may, and usually are involved in participating in projects, business deals, and social activities in which every participant does so by their own choice.

Then I fear you're construing the word "philosophy" far too narrowly. Because the rule of law is always predicated on a philosophy, even when for some participants the rationale for it is merely unconscious. There is always a "why" that any set of rules was put into place...and only by recognizing and judging that "why" can be know why the rule of law in our society is a good one, a bad one, or a flawed one that could be better.

"Laws," are nothing more than codified justification for government oppression, and the use force to make other human beings do or not do what law makers want. They have no other purpose, though a million lies are told to put them over. You can call that philosophy if you like.

Because then they have no rule of law, no common moral codes, and no general procedural regularities or even social conventions. Nobody in the group knows what any other is supposed to do at any given time, so nothing can be coordinated. And, since they only involved themselves in exchanges in which their personal benefit is evident to them, they all compete with one another ceaselessly, each trying to get more out of the exchange than he has to give. It's a group of untrusting individuals, with no commitment to the welfare of the others.

You are obviously traveling and associating with the wrong crowd. I know hundreds of individuals personally and countless others who have no problems at all developing and learning procedures, regularities, methods and such social conventions that are useful in their social relations, and know how to deal with others to their mutual benefit, and apparently enjoy each other in ways those you know are unable to.

As for, "no commitment to the welfare of the others," it is you who is willing for the welfare of some to be sacrificed to, "the common good," or, "the best net result for all." There is no justification or excuse for any compromise on the welfare or good of any individual.

It's your world view that makes it impossible for you to understand individual human beings do not require some set of rules enforced by some other agency to live successfully and happily both individually and socially.

If you view human beings as universally inflicted with some kind of congenital defect (a sinful nature, or whatever else you call it) and the universe as though it were someone's factory and human beings are nothing more than serfs or slaves or workers in that factory and who have no other purpose than to fulfill the wishes of the Big Boss, it is impossible for you do understand either human nature or values.

Have whatever world view you like, but don't be surprised when those who do not share it consider your views absurd. After all, you think their views are absurd. One of you has to be wrong.

Here's a problem: Imagine that your neighbor is very strong...maybe a member of a motorcycle club...and also a raging pedophile. He's stronger than you, has more friends than you, and has some "individual choices" he wants to make about your children...

That's what I mean. You are obviously living in the wrong neighborhood. If someone is dumb enough to get themselves into that kind of situation, it's already too late. [By the way, my wife and I are both bikers, big bad Harley Hog riders. You probably wouldn't want to be my neighbor. If you were, you and yours would never be in any danger of the kind of preposterous hypothetical case you tried to set up, however.]

Not at all. For I have the rule of law, and also social conventions for enforcement of right conduct. So I'm fine. But where is your "individual" in all that? That's my question.

Good luck with that! You'll be, "fine," until the first situation comes along for which you do not have a law, or social convention, or handy-dandy agency of force to tell you what to do, or solve your problem for you and you have to think for yourself and provide your own solution, or lump it. When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

It does often come down to that. In any situation of finite resources and large demand, my win is your loss. How will justice between us be arbitrated?

What, "finite resources?" Did someone just shut down the human ability to invent, create, and produce new products? Since I was a little boy I've heard all the leftist lies repeated over and over, we're going to run out of resources and will all die (or starve to death or any other disaster you can think of). You probably do not remember it, but during WWII, there was a "shortage," of leather for certain industries, and that was supposed to be an irrecoverable disaster. Instead plastics came along and fulfilled the demand for leather so well, most of the leather businesses in world collapsed. You sure do buy a lot of leftist nonsense for someone who claims conservative and Christian principles.

[I have to ask this because it bewilders me. If you really believe there is a God and that the whole future of the universe is ultimately determined by that God, why would you be concerned with any supposed shortage of resources? Is it because God is a poor planner and did not provide enough resources for the remainder of His planned existence for humans on this planet. Even if the resources did run out, wouldn't that be what God planned?]

That's like claiming "the proper name for politics is Communism." It's not. The proper name is "social contract," perhaps, or "rule of law," or "public morality," or even "social conventions." There is no sinister implication there, unless you make one.

Call it what you like. The name it goes by won't make it smell any better. "Engineering" is the application of scientific principles (technology) to the production of specific product and processes. If the science is, "social science," and the technology is any scheme to produce a certain kind of society, that is social engineering. Did you think that was a bad word?

The other is that society-forming is a negotiation among free individuals, in which all private individuals trade off certain advantages to obtain much greater advantages and to coordinate lives together.

That is almost exactly right. To make it exactly right it would have to be, "society-forming results from the negotiation among free individuals, in which all private individuals associate and interact for there own mutual benefit and no individual is sacrificed for the sake of another. It is a very sad commentary to realize you cannot imagine individuals living with one another without some individuals having give up some part of their life or values for others.

[Immanuel Can]

I know it is going to be a shock to you, but there a millions of people in this world who work, do business, and socialize with one another every day without any "legitimate social rules," "bill of rights," "rule of law," or "agreed-upon procedures' which they are compelled to comply with by some agency of force.

Not in any country that has anything close to what we call a "civilization.' I suppose what you're saying could potentially be said of some group of remote hermits somewhere...but of nobody else.

"Laws," are nothing more than codified justification for government oppression,

You mean like, "No committing murder," or "Everyone gets to keep his own property"? Those sorts of laws, RC?

Clearly not. Those are not "codified justification for government oppression." Quite the opposite: it is because there are personal property laws that the government can't simply come in and take your stuff. Absent such a law, they would have the means and power to do it, for sure.

Because then they have no rule of law, no common moral codes, and no general procedural regularities or even social conventions. Nobody in the group knows what any other is supposed to do at any given time, so nothing can be coordinated. And, since they only involved themselves in exchanges in which their personal benefit is evident to them, they all compete with one another ceaselessly, each trying to get more out of the exchange than he has to give. It's a group of untrusting individuals, with no commitment to the welfare of the others.

You are obviously traveling and associating with the wrong crowd.

It's not my crowd. It's the one you're apparently advocating for us becoming.

There is no justification or excuse for any compromise on the welfare or good of any individual.

If that were so, then pity the wives, friends and children of those people. They don't "compromise."

If you view human beings as universally inflicted with some kind of congenital defect (a sinful nature, or whatever else you call it)

Well, let's hear your alternate view, then. We both agree that bad things exist: call them what you want..."oppressions," or "tyrannies," or "thefts," or "evils" or whatever.

Since human beings are not congenitally defective, from where do these bad things come?

Here's a problem: Imagine that your neighbor is very strong...maybe a member of a motorcycle club...and also a raging pedophile. He's stronger than you, has more friends than you, and has some "individual choices" he wants to make about your children...

That's what I mean. You are obviously living in the wrong neighborhood.

Not an answer. Don't duck the question.

[RCSaunders]

I know it is going to be a shock to you, but there a millions of people in this world who work, do business, and socialize with one another every day without any "legitimate social rules," "bill of rights," "rule of law," or "agreed-upon procedures' which they are compelled to comply with by some agency of force.

Not in any country that has anything close to what we call a "civilization.' I suppose what you're saying could potentially be said of some group of remote hermits somewhere...but of nobody else.

You can say anything you want, but just because you don't know what is going on doesn't mean it isn't. (*)

Those millions of people in this world who work, do business, and socialize with one another every day without any "legitimate social rules," "bill of rights," "rule of law," or "agreed-upon procedures' which they are compelled to comply with by some agency of force, mostly live in countries where there are such laws and agencies of force (governments). It's just that in their case, the laws and government are irrelevant, because they do not need someone else to force them to do the right thing. [In actual practice a large part of what those socially benevolent individuals do is in defiance of government laws and regulations, which is why they are both benevolent and productive. When laws are evil, obeying them is evil.]

Would you be a murderer if the there wasn't a law against it and a police force to enforce it? Would you be a rapist, a thief, a cheat, a thug, or vandal if those things were not forbidden and enforced by some government? I hope you wouldn't and will suppose you wouldn't, but if that is true, unless you think you are better than everyone else, why do you think millions of others cannot live without the laws just as you could?

(*) Do you know what hawala is? Billions of dollars are transferred around the world by this system of totally non-regulated and unrecorded financial transactions yearly. I described it briefly in my article, ("Lessons of Hawala"), in the 2010, and 11, series called the Free Individual. The only harm that ever comes from hawala is when some blessed government attempts to interfere in it.

"Laws," are nothing more than codified justification for government oppression,

You mean like, "No committing murder," or "Everyone gets to keep his own property"? Those sorts of laws, RC?

Clearly not. Those are not "codified justification for government oppression." Quite the opposite: it is because there are personal property laws that the government can't simply come in and take your stuff. Absent such a law, they would have the means and power to do it, for sure.

You're kidding, right? There has never been a government in the history of the world that has not confiscated the personal property of its, "citizens."

You are obviously traveling and associating with the wrong crowd.

It's not my crowd. It's the one you're apparently advocating for us becoming.

I haven't advocated anything. I have only pointed out what is wrong with what you and every other statist advocates.

There is no justification or excuse for any compromise on the welfare or good of any individual.

If that were so, then pity the wives, friends and children of those people. They don't "compromise."

A compromise is a deal between a highway robber and his victim, and the deal is this: the robber gets your money and you get to live. In any, "compromise," between good and evil, evil wins. In any compromise between right and wrong, wrong wins. In any deal where a lesser value is given up for the sake of a higher value, it is neither a compromise or a sacrifice, it is prudence and right judgement.

It is impossible for anyone to provide a single example of it being right to sacrifice a higher value to lower value, which is what any compromise must be.

If you view human beings as universally inflicted with some kind of congenital defect (a sinful nature, or whatever else you call it)

Well, let's hear your alternate view, then. We both agree that bad things exist: call them what you want..."oppressions," or "tyrannies," or "thefts," or "evils" or whatever.

Since human beings are not congenitally defective, from where do these bad things come?

It's a choice. Oppressors, murderers, thugs, politicians and other thieves, have chosen to accept what they are taught, usually some religion or ideology or popular social theory and live by their beliefs, or just anything, to evade the necessity of being responsible for their own thinking, choices, and actions.

Here's a problem: Imagine that your neighbor is very strong...maybe a member of a motorcycle club...and also a raging pedophile. He's stronger than you, has more friends than you, and has some "individual choices" he wants to make about your children...

That's what I mean. You are obviously living in the wrong neighborhood. [/quote]
Not an answer. Don't duck the question.[/quote]
Don't ask, "Do you still beat your wife," questions. What I said is my answer. [You don't have to like it. I hope you don't.] Only a fool, who never thinks beyond his next meal, has not planned out long ago how to arrange his life so he does not have to deal with the kind of improbable hypothetical situations you invent, and only a fool would take seriously. Which, you see, I didn't.

[RCSaunders]

I am not saying lust is bad, it's not basically immoral it's merely an emotional reaction to stimulus. Love by contrast is not only emotional reaction. Love is compounded of lust, curiosity, courage, stoicism, imagination in the broad sense of imagination, and sympathy. The human is capable of refining and enlarging upon lust.

The word lust only means, "desire." The culture has lent a kind of prurient view to the word lust which it does not really deserve. Unfortunately, since Freud and Kinsey and that whole crowd corrupted the whole idea of sex and sexual desire, totally confusing it with love, it has been totally reduced to the least important aspect of a romantic relationship, the physical.

Love is really an evaluation of another's whole person as the source of one's greatest joy and the objective of their affection, the one that is worth living with and for. Certainly the ability of lovers to give each other physical pleasure is an important aspect of the loving relationship, but it certainly is not the reason for that relationship or even a most important aspect of its expression. Does that get near what you mean?

[Immanuel Can]

Those millions of people in this world who work, do business, and socialize with one another every day without any "legitimate social rules," "bill of rights," "rule of law," or "agreed-upon procedures'...

Identify them. Where do they live?

Would you be a murderer if the there wasn't a law against it and a police force to enforce it? Would you be a rapist, a thief, a cheat, a thug, or vandal if those things were not forbidden and enforced by some government?

If morality is subjective or merely a social construct, then you would not be objectively wrong if you were any of those things. In truth, they would all be neutral labels...not even labels worth having at all, since they would refer to precisely nothing objectively real.

But you forget...I'm a Theist, so I believe in objective morality.

"Laws," are nothing more than codified justification for government oppression,

You mean like, "No committing murder," or "Everyone gets to keep his own property"? Those sorts of laws, RC?

Clearly not. Those are not "codified justification for government oppression." Quite the opposite: it is because there are personal property laws that the government can't simply come in and take your stuff. Absent such a law, they would have the means and power to do it, for sure.

You're kidding, right? [/quote]
Absolutely not. Are you going to argue that laws protecting your right to property are "codified government oppression"?

you and every other statist

Not a "statist." Sorry to disappoint.

There is no justification or excuse for any compromise on the welfare or good of any individual.

If that were so, then pity the wives, friends and children of those people. They don't "compromise."

A compromise is a deal between a highway robber and his victim, and the deal is this: the robber gets your money and you get to live.

As I say, if that's your best exemplar of a "compromise," then you lead a difficult life. Allowing your children to stay up a little later than you want them to, though less than they want to, is a compromise. Agreeing to go with your wife to her parents' house every second Christmas is a compromise. Deciding to show up at work when you'd rather be home in bed is a compromise. I note, in such normal cases, the distinct absence of highwaymen.

If you view human beings as universally inflicted with some kind of congenital defect (a sinful nature, or whatever else you call it)

Well, let's hear your alternate view, then. We both agree that bad things exist: call them what you want..."oppressions," or "tyrannies," or "thefts," or "evils" or whatever.

Since human beings are not congenitally defective, from where do these bad things come?

It's a choice.

How do creatures that have no "congenital defect" even make such choices? After all, the defect cannot be theirs, so it must come from outside of them. From whence does it come?

Oppressors, murderers, thugs, politicians and other thieves, have chosen to accept what they are taught..

What? They're taught by creatures with no "congenital defect," so how can they be badly "taught"? Whence came this "teaching"? Whence came these various ideologies you don't like, since creatures with no "congenital defect" are the only ones who could have created them? How did all this ever come about?

That's what I mean. You are obviously living in the wrong neighborhood.

Not an answer. Don't duck the question.

Don't ask, "Do you still beat your wife," questions.

it's not. It's a very simple question.

Put it this way: there are people who are stronger than you, or who can amass more power than you, by many means (carrying a gun, raising a mob, catching you unawares, waiting until you are old, or sleeping...). Such people often want to make "individual choices" you will find odious or downright harmful to your welfare (like the drug addict who would immediately rob you to get money for a hit, say, or the man who envies you your wife, or would harm your child; and if not them, then the unscrupulous government that would tax you to death -- that one, you surely believe in).

How do you propose to assert your right to stand against his "individual choice," in spite of his greater power and his willingness to do you wrong? It's just your "individual choice" against his; and on your terms, you lose.

[Sculptor]

Those millions of people in this world who work, do business, and socialize with one another every day without any "legitimate social rules," "bill of rights," "rule of law," or "agreed-upon procedures'...

Identify them. Where do they live?

The entire history of human kind and their ancestors before the advent of so-called civilisation.

[Immanuel Can]

The entire history of human kind and their ancestors before the advent of so-called civilisation.

So "pre-history," you think? Even though we have no "history" of it to confirm that it was so amazingly wonderful then?

And you think it was a bad thing that civilization happened? And people did civilize, though they were better off without it, but just couldn't see that they were?

Roll, Sculpy, roll.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Would you be a murderer if the there wasn't a law against it and a police force to enforce it? Would you be a rapist, a thief, a cheat, a thug, or vandal if those things were not forbidden and enforced by some government?

If morality is subjective or merely a social construct, then you would not be objectively wrong if you were any of those things. In truth, they would all be neutral labels...not even labels worth having at all, since they would refer to precisely nothing objectively real.

But you forget...I'm a Theist, so I believe in objective morality.

Theism generates pseudo-morality that is highly subjective in relation to specific theism.

The Theistic Morality Model is Pseudo-Morality
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=28896

The Christian God issued a command 'Thou Shall Not Kill' but,
the Islamic God - Allah, condone Muslims to kill non-Muslims upon the slightest threat to the religion.

The Christian God issued a command 'Thou Shall Not Kill' but that is conditioned upon a threat of Hell if the Christian do not comply.
If it is conditional, how can it be absolutely objective?

So where is the absolute objective morality for theism as you claimed.

[Belinda]

I am not saying lust is bad, it's not basically immoral it's merely an emotional reaction to stimulus. Love by contrast is not only emotional reaction. Love is compounded of lust, curiosity, courage, stoicism, imagination in the broad sense of imagination, and sympathy. The human is capable of refining and enlarging upon lust.

The word lust only means, "desire." The culture has lent a kind of prurient view to the word lust which it does not really deserve. Unfortunately, since Freud and Kinsey and that whole crowd corrupted the whole idea of sex and sexual desire, totally confusing it with love, it has been totally reduced to the least important aspect of a romantic relationship, the physical.

Love is really an evaluation of another's whole person as the source of one's greatest joy and the objective of their affection, the one that is worth living with and for. Certainly the ability of lovers to give each other physical pleasure is an important aspect of the loving relationship, but it certainly is not the reason for that relationship or even a most important aspect of its expression. Does that get near what you mean?

I agree, and what you say especially your words on the topic of lust. It does get near what I mean except that you seem to be harping on erotic love and not agape which is my main concern, and which I compare and contrast with reactive passions. There is a dynamic tension between reactive passions and agape because agape is not easy to do . Your description of ideal erotic love is a microcosm of agape, just as the passion of a scientist for her research , or a street cleaner for cleanliness, is a microcosm of agape.

[Peter Holmes]

AAAaaaand...we're back to the pure ad hominem: "You're a conservative, therefore you are shallow and immoral." Lovely. I knew we were going there soon.

Well done, Pete.

No, I'm not trying to refute an argument by attacking character. I'm just saying conservatives are (because conservatism is) immoral. People who subscribe to an immoral political or economic philosophy are themselves immoral. That's not an ad hominem.

It is, because you didn't provide evidence or reasons, but just gratuitously attached the terms "shallow and immoral" to anyone who is "conservative." By any fair assessment, that's an overly-broad, prejudiced and unsubstantiated claim. It's a character assassination, not a refutation.

Now, back to Roger Scruton. You accused him of being an "oppressor" and as such, worthy of being "dismissed" without so much as a look at what he said. I provided for you exactly what he said on the matter of "the heredity principle," and it did not at all justify your claim.

If I'm wrong about that, here it is again: show what's so immoral and oppressive about what he actually said:

"The final argument that impressed me was Burke’s response to the theory of the social contract. Although society can be seen as a contract, he argued, we must recognize that most parties to the contract are either dead or not yet born. The effect of the contemporary Rousseauist ideas of social contract was to place the present members of society in a position of dictatorial dominance over those who went before and those who came after them. Hence these ideas led directly to the massive squandering of inherited resources at the Revolution, and to the cultural and ecological vandalism that Burke was perhaps the first to recognize as the principal danger of modern politics. In Burke’s eyes the self-righteous contempt for ancestors which characterized the Revolutionaries was also a disinheriting of the unborn. Rightly understood, he argued, society is a partnership among the dead, the living, and the unborn, and without what he called the “hereditary principle,” according to which rights could be inherited as well as acquired, both the dead and the unborn would be disenfranchized. Indeed, respect for the dead was, in Burke’s view, the only real safeguard that the unborn could obtain, in a world that gave all its privileges to the living. His preferred vision of society was not as a contract, in fact, but as a trust, with the living members as trustees of an inheritance that they must strive to enhance and pass on."

Well? He wants us to consider the older generations and the generations to come, in our applications of the social contract. Show me the "oppression." Show me the "immorality."

Parties to the social contract? Which contract is that? The one that encourages and rewards the enforced extraction of surplus value from the vast majority - workers being the only truly productive factor - by a wealthy and powerful minority who merely own means of production?

You mean the social contract that imposes an economic system that creates and relies on economic inequality - that produces a hierarchy designed to explain and justify gross wealth and abject poverty as natural, inevitable, and even divinely sanctioned - the powers that be having been ordained by a god - and the blessed poor always being with us, bless 'em?

You mean the 1689 setlement Burke tried to defend, guaranteeing the wealth and power of landowners, fearful of the (unsuccessful) attempt in France to overthrow that power? The ancestors and descendants whose bequest and inheritance he wanted to promote with his 'hereditary principle' were the rich and powerful. Just imagine if the endemic violence and oppression of their rule were interrupted by the violence of the guillotine!

Conservation of oppression and economic inequality - inequality of opportunity - is immoral. And Scruton, the small-minded scumbag, tried to dress up the immorality of such conservatism with talk of 'social capital' (a testament to barbarism) - the 'good old English constitution' - the happy days when Anglicanism held sway, and a god blessed the squire and his relations, and we all kept in our proper stations - 'the nation' was a united family - pimped up hunters could slaughter foxes for entertainment, untroubled by pesky sabs - and marriage was for heteros only.

You may be suckered by and attracted to all this wicked hypocrisy, but if so, you should be ashamed.

[RCSaunders]

Those millions of people in this world who work, do business, and socialize with one another every day without any "legitimate social rules," "bill of rights," "rule of law," or "agreed-upon procedures'...

Identify them. Where do they live?

Why? I don't care if you believe it or not. I have named some, which is OK because they are dead, and a few others from whom I had permission to name. I gave you links to my old Free Individual pages, which identify some of them.

I will tell you this: many live in the United States and South America, Costa Rica is very popular with many, some even in Venezuela. A few live in Europe, and quite a few live in Africa (but not South Africa any longer for obvious reasons), a surprising number (especially from Europe) live in the Middle East, (esp. Bahrain and the UAE), and perhaps the largest number of them live in Asian countries like, Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines (even mainland China) and a great many more do not actually live, (as in having permanent residence or citizenship of), "someplace," but wherever they are at any moment most free to live and do their business.

The other reason I will not name the one's I know, who are still alive, is because they do not want people like you knowing they even exist. Most of them live, "outside," your oppressive government laws and know who the threats to their freedom are. You certainly don't think I'd betray them on a public forum?

Would you be a murderer if the there wasn't a law against it and a police force to enforce it? Would you be a rapist, a thief, a cheat, a thug, or vandal if those things were not forbidden and enforced by some government?

If morality is subjective or merely a social construct, then you would not be objectively wrong if you were any of those things. In truth, they would all be neutral labels...not even labels worth having at all, since they would refer to precisely nothing objectively real.

But you forget...I'm a Theist, so I believe in objective morality.

Let's see. How did you put it?

Not an answer. Don't duck the question.

... it is because there are personal property laws that the government can't simply come in and take your stuff. Absent such a law, they would have the means and power to do it, for sure.

You're kidding, right?

Absolutely not. Are you going to argue that laws protecting your right to property are "codified government oppression"?

I'm not going to argue at all. If you are naive enough to believe something on a piece of paper prevents government from confiscating anyone's property whenever they choose to, nothing will save you. No laws prevent government from seizing property under so-called eminent domain laws, which are constantly abused. Individuals regularly have their money and property confiscated by police under so-called civil forfeiture and asset forfeiture laws, usually without being tried, convicted, or even charged with any crime. All taxes are nothing but theft by extortion.

you and every other statist

Not a "statist." Sorry to disappoint.

I didn't mean it as an epithet. Call it whatever you like. I regard any view that places the interests of any system or agency above the interests of individuals a form of statism.

If that were so, then pity the wives, friends and children of those people. They don't "compromise."

A compromise is a deal between a highway robber and his victim, and the deal is this: the robber gets your money and you get to live.

As I say, if that's your best exemplar of a "compromise," then you lead a difficult life. Allowing your children to stay up a little later than you want them to, though less than they want to, is a compromise. Agreeing to go with your wife to her parents' house every second Christmas is a compromise. Deciding to show up at work when you'd rather be home in bed is a compromise. I note, in such normal cases, the distinct absence of highwaymen.

Seems bad huh? Would to me too, just as accusin you if saying, "the proper name for politics is Communism," would sound bad. They happen to be your words. I just took them out of context by leaving out what preceded them, just as you have taken my words out the context of the response that contained a full explanation of, "compromise," (sacrificing higher value to a lower value) with, "trade," (securing a highr value at the price of a lower value). You'll say just anything to justify sacrificing others.

Going to my wife's parent's home at Christmas, even if it were not my first choice, if it will please my wife, which is more important to me than any reason I might have for not wanting to go, is not a, "compromise," not a sacrifice, it is a trade where both my wife gains (the joy of seeing her parents) and I gain (the joy of seeing my wife happy). The view that one human being's interests justifies the sacrifice of any other individual's interests is about as vile a view of life as is possible.

Well, let's hear your alternate view, then. We both agree that bad things exist: call them what you want..."oppressions," or "tyrannies," or "thefts," or "evils" or whatever.

Since human beings are not congenitally defective, from where do these bad things come?

It's a choice. [/quote]
How do creatures that have no "congenital defect" even make such choices? After all, the defect cannot be theirs, so it must come from outside of them. From whence does it come?[/quote]
A wrong choice is not a, "defect." If there was no possibility of making wrong choices, it would not be a choice. If this is too difficult for you, just forget it. You make it sound like anything less than omniscience or infallibility is some kind of psychological defect.

Put it this way: there are people who are stronger than you, or who can amass more power than you, by many means (carrying a gun, raising a mob, catching you unawares, waiting until you are old, or sleeping...). Such people often want to make "individual choices" you will find odious or downright harmful to your welfare (like the drug addict who would immediately rob you to get money for a hit, say, or the man who envies you your wife, or would harm your child; and if not them, then the unscrupulous government that would tax you to death -- that one, you surely believe in).

That's a pretty good description of the way life is under every government that has ever existed, which obviously didn't prevent any of those things, and more often than not, was complicit in them. So what's you question?

How do you propose to assert your right to stand against his "individual choice," in spite of his greater power and his willingness to do you wrong? It's just your "individual choice" against his; and on your terms, you lose.

I hope you don't think I'm fool enough to tell you what measures I've taken to protect myself and my own. I've lived and worked with some of the most dangerous people in the world. (Actually you do too, but probably don't know it.) I was actually very rarely under any immediate threat, but did have a few narrow escapes. On a practical level, you are wrong. I haven't lost yet.

I certainly wouldn't rely on any method you would recommend for my protection. I've seen how well the government and police protect people. I'd take my chances with the Mafia before trusting in any government agency to do anything but harm to me.

[RCSaunders]

I am not saying lust is bad, it's not basically immoral it's merely an emotional reaction to stimulus. Love by contrast is not only emotional reaction. Love is compounded of lust, curiosity, courage, stoicism, imagination in the broad sense of imagination, and sympathy. The human is capable of refining and enlarging upon lust.

The word lust only means, "desire." The culture has lent a kind of prurient view to the word lust which it does not really deserve. Unfortunately, since Freud and Kinsey and that whole crowd corrupted the whole idea of sex and sexual desire, totally confusing it with love, it has been totally reduced to the least important aspect of a romantic relationship, the physical.

Love is really an evaluation of another's whole person as the source of one's greatest joy and the objective of their affection, the one that is worth living with and for. Certainly the ability of lovers to give each other physical pleasure is an important aspect of the loving relationship, but it certainly is not the reason for that relationship or even a most important aspect of its expression. Does that get near what you mean?

I agree, and what you say especially your words on the topic of lust. It does get near what I mean except that you seem to be harping on erotic love and not agape which is my main concern, and which I compare and contrast with reactive passions. There is a dynamic tension between reactive passions and agape because agape is not easy to do . Your description of ideal erotic love is a microcosm of agape, just as the passion of a scientist for her research , or a street cleaner for cleanliness, is a microcosm of agape.

Unless your personal background is culturally or racially Greek, I doubt if the word, "agape," is from your own native language. Whether you learned it from religious teachings, (Koine Greek) or the classics (Classical Greek), it is not a word I would use to identify what I mean by love. Agape is, as I'm sure you know, one of four Greek words for love: Eros (ἔρως), Phileo (φιλέω), Storge (στοργή), and Agape (ἀγάπη). Most commentaries roughly distinguish them as erotic love, friendship, family love, and "transcendent" love. In reality, agape love has been described as everything from something mystical to something that amounts to the total submersion of oneself in someone or something else. I think most descriptions of agape love are meaningless bromides.

Oddly enough, since I have no use for religion, one definition of agape is very close to my own view of romantic love, and it is from a Biblical scholar, Thayer's Greek English Lexicon, which describes agape love as something one does or chooses, specifically, “to take pleasure in the thing, prize it above all other things, be unwilling to abandon it or do without it.” The,"thing," of course, in my case would the person one loves.

[Immanuel Can]

Theism generates pseudo-morality that is highly subjective in relation to specific theism.

If this sentence actually meant anything, I might even know how to respond.

The Christian God issued a command 'Thou Shall Not Kill' but,
the Islamic God - Allah, condone Muslims to kill non-Muslims upon the slightest threat to the religion.

Right. So the Islamic "god" is not actually God. I agree: it's not.

That's pretty straightforward.

[Immanuel Can]

No, I'm not trying to refute an argument by attacking character. I'm just saying conservatives are (because conservatism is) immoral. People who subscribe to an immoral political or economic philosophy are themselves immoral. That's not an ad hominem.

It is, because you didn't provide evidence or reasons, but just gratuitously attached the terms "shallow and immoral" to anyone who is "conservative." By any fair assessment, that's an overly-broad, prejudiced and unsubstantiated claim. It's a character assassination, not a refutation.

Now, back to Roger Scruton. You accused him of being an "oppressor" and as such, worthy of being "dismissed" without so much as a look at what he said. I provided for you exactly what he said on the matter of "the heredity principle," and it did not at all justify your claim.

If I'm wrong about that, here it is again: show what's so immoral and oppressive about what he actually said:

"The final argument that impressed me was Burke’s response to the theory of the social contract. Although society can be seen as a contract, he argued, we must recognize that most parties to the contract are either dead or not yet born. The effect of the contemporary Rousseauist ideas of social contract was to place the present members of society in a position of dictatorial dominance over those who went before and those who came after them. Hence these ideas led directly to the massive squandering of inherited resources at the Revolution, and to the cultural and ecological vandalism that Burke was perhaps the first to recognize as the principal danger of modern politics. In Burke’s eyes the self-righteous contempt for ancestors which characterized the Revolutionaries was also a disinheriting of the unborn. Rightly understood, he argued, society is a partnership among the dead, the living, and the unborn, and without what he called the “hereditary principle,” according to which rights could be inherited as well as acquired, both the dead and the unborn would be disenfranchized. Indeed, respect for the dead was, in Burke’s view, the only real safeguard that the unborn could obtain, in a world that gave all its privileges to the living. His preferred vision of society was not as a contract, in fact, but as a trust, with the living members as trustees of an inheritance that they must strive to enhance and pass on."

Well? He wants us to consider the older generations and the generations to come, in our applications of the social contract. Show me the "oppression." Show me the "immorality."

Parties to the social contract? Which contract is that?

Rousseau's. He's explicitly mentioned above. Today, philosophers generally understand the concept as a general heuristic device (see "can be seen" above) for speaking of the terms on which any collocation of individuals gives up parts of its autonomy in order to negotiate social existence. You've never heard of it?

Burke had criticisms of the terms on which the "social contract" could be described. He thought that any fair conception of it ought to include the older generations and the yet-to-be-born ones.

And how can you argue with that? Are you going to argue that political arrangements today are to involve no moral responsibilities to your elders or to coming generations? Isn't that what they young are complaining about today, that the Boomers have destroyed their world ecologically, and left them environmental problems of a very serious order?

But if the social contract only involves people today, not the other generations, then such young people have no case. Is that what you want to say, that our generation gets to do whatever it wants, and our children be damned?

You've been straw-manning Scruton -- hopefully accidentally, not deliberately, but there it is, either way. He never said anything like what you accuse him of saying, at least in regard to the "hereditary principle." And now you're looking at the proof. If you can read, you know.

[Immanuel Can]

Those millions of people in this world who work, do business, and socialize with one another every day without any "legitimate social rules," "bill of rights," "rule of law," or "agreed-upon procedures'...

Identify them. Where do they live?

Why?

Because I know you cannot.

Would you be a murderer if the there wasn't a law against it and a police force to enforce it? Would you be a rapist, a thief, a cheat, a thug, or vandal if those things were not forbidden and enforced by some government?

If morality is subjective or merely a social construct, then you would not be objectively wrong if you were any of those things. In truth, they would all be neutral labels...not even labels worth having at all, since they would refer to precisely nothing objectively real.

But you forget...I'm a Theist, so I believe in objective morality.

Let's see. How did you put it? "Not an answer. Don't duck the question."

I answered.

Let me be even more blunt: secular moralizing is all deceptive. It lacks any ontological basis. So no, you would not be a "murderer," since "murder" is a moral pejorative term, and no such terms have any objective grounding in secularism. There, values are all contingent, relative, and products of mere power.

... it is because there are personal property laws that the government can't simply come in and take your stuff. Absent such a law, they would have the means and power to do it, for sure.

You're kidding, right?

Absolutely not. Are you going to argue that laws protecting your right to property are "codified government oppression"?

I'm not going to argue at all.

You should, if you've got a rational case.

If you are naive enough to believe something on a piece of paper prevents government from confiscating anyone's property whenever they choose to, nothing will save you. No laws prevent government from seizing property

I am not. But I am pointing out to you that without such laws, you have absolutely no recourse. You are on your own. At least those who recognize the rule of law can sue their governments, or protest the violation of their property rights. And sometimes they win.

But the individualist has nothing. His "rights" can be violated anytime, because he has none he can claim. And his objections have no standing to be heard.

If that were so, then pity the wives, friends and children of those people. They don't "compromise."

A compromise is a deal between a highway robber and his victim, and the deal is this: the robber gets your money and you get to live.

As I say, if that's your best exemplar of a "compromise," then you lead a difficult life. Allowing your children to stay up a little later than you want them to, though less than they want to, is a compromise. Agreeing to go with your wife to her parents' house every second Christmas is a compromise. Deciding to show up at work when you'd rather be home in bed is a compromise. I note, in such normal cases, the distinct absence of highwaymen.

Seems bad huh?

Seems bad not to be able to compromise? Absolutely. It makes everyone around such a person dislike him and refuse to make deals with him, because they never get any concessions from him at all. He's actually abusing his wife and children, because he has more power than they do, and controls what happens more than they ever can. He's domineering.

It's a choice.

How do creatures that have no "congenital defect" even make such choices? After all, the defect cannot be theirs, so it must come from outside of them. From whence does it come?

A wrong choice is not a, "defect."

Well, then, why do you call it "wrong'? It can't be, since it has no defect.

If there was no possibility of making wrong choices, it would not be a choice.

I agree with this. But it's not the problem you've created for yourself. You've asserted that "wrong" and "bad" thing, like government's stealing people's property, actually happen -- but you have no ability to explain from whence such impulses originate, because you've said human beings aren't flawed in the first place.

Put it this way: there are people who are stronger than you, or who can amass more power than you, by many means (carrying a gun, raising a mob, catching you unawares, waiting until you are old, or sleeping...). Such people often want to make "individual choices" you will find odious or downright harmful to your welfare (like the drug addict who would immediately rob you to get money for a hit, say, or the man who envies you your wife, or would harm your child; and if not them, then the unscrupulous government that would tax you to death -- that one, you surely believe in).

That's a pretty good description of the way life is under every government that has ever existed, which obviously didn't prevent any of those things, and more often than not, was complicit in them. So what's you question?

My question is very straightforward: since such people can "individually choose" to do such things to you, on what basis do you object? You have no rights, according to your worldview, and no objective moral values you can ground in reality, so on what rational basis do you complain or protest the alleged injustice there?

The story as you're telling it now goes like this: "People are not morally flawed, but somehow they still manage to do intrinsically bad things. I'm an individual, and do not believe in rights or laws, but I believe the government is in violation of something when they take my stuff."

That doesn't add up yet. I'm waiting for the missing piece. Here it is: In your view, how do intrinsically "good' people end up becoming objectively "bad"?