Philosophy Now Forum

as I am going to work shortly, I shall be brief...

there are two tracks in ethics... and stealing
a page from physics, we have the large, macro/ethics
and the small, micro/ethics....

the small is us individually... thou shall not kill or
thou shall not steal.. those are micro/ethical theories...

but try to apply that micro-ethical theory to the state or
to the society, and it fails?

just like we can't work out a united theory in physics
between the macro world, galaxies and the like
and the micro-world which is the very small,
atoms, quarks and the like... we can't work out theory
that somehow combines the both of them...

and the same holds true for ethical theories...
we do have theories about the state and the society, ethically/morally
and we have theories about the individual...ethically/morally...
but how do we unite the two?

Kropotkin

so why do we allow the state/society behaviors,
ethics that we do not allow individuals?

the idea that taxation is theft has been around for a while...
but is it? or why is the state allowed to violate the cardinal
tenet that Murder is unethically wrong...thou shall not kill,
unless the killer is the state... then it's all good?

we allow the state actions that are forbidden to individuals,
but on what grounds? How do we justify that? that rule?, in
which the state can kill/murder and the individual cannot,
is that just another POV understanding of what the state/society
is able to do, or not to do?

I've held that we should hold the state/society with the same
rules/laws that we hold individuals accountable for...
if individuals cannot kill, (a good rule, I might add)
then the state itself cannot kill... the state has
exactly the same rights we afford to the individual...if the
individual cannot do something, then the state/society
cannot do that thing either...
the limits that we accept for us individually, we also
accept for us collectively, within the state....

or should the state/society have exceptions that we don't
give to individuals?

and that comes back to the idea about the POV of what
the value and point of the state actually is? what does the
state do that we can't do individually?

Kropotkin

In my scheme of ethics/politics there are three 'tracks' so to speak.
The individual has priority
The state or authority has priority
The community of society has priority.

Not that those categories are entirely separate or contradictory
They cannot be so in a tripartite or triangular relationship

Elementary values run between pairs of the above.
Such that freedom [from tyranny or the state etc] relates in different ways to the individual and to the community