357. FreeToChoose - Nov. 22, 1998 - 2:53 PM PT
JaDeGoLd
"FritoCheese[sic]
I was pointing out that the SSA was using 1.5% as its
projection for annual economic growth which would lead
to SS running a deficit in 2030, while the fact is that over
the past 75 years we have averaged 2.9%. Understand?"
No, I don't understand. What is the relevance of the past 75 years average growth rate, unless it is an implicit suggestion that similar rates are sustainable in the future?
358. FreeToChoose - Nov. 22, 1998 - 2:58 PM PT
JaDeGoLd
"We know that a 2.2% annual growth is necessary to
sustain SS indefinitely."
Do you have a source for this, other than PE's sayso?
BTW, I'm not disputing it. I frankly hope it is correct, but I haven't seen any evidence of your economic credentials, so I hope you will forgive me for not accepting your assertion at face value.
359. AuNaturel - Nov. 22, 1998 - 3:00 PM PT
Message #336
"Society cannot consume more than it produces."
That may be true globally but is almost never true locally.
The reason putting the money in stocks and bonds is a better deal than any other investment scheme is because that is the most efficient way to make capital available for investment. This investment allows the innovations that increase productivity in the first place.
360. JaDeGoLd - Nov. 22, 1998 - 3:05 PM PT
FritoCheese;
Dispute it. I'll provide a cite if you dispute it.
Frankly, I'm tired of your niggling about assertions you make. Invariably, you make some assertion or dispute some point--only to deny that you ever made any assertion when you are inevitably proven wrong.
So, dispute it or provide a number of your own.
361. AuNaturel - Nov. 22, 1998 - 3:19 PM PT
""We know that a 2.2% annual growth is necessary to sustain SS indefinitely."
We know nothing of the sort. We can assume this *might* be true if the birth rate does this, life expectancy does that, productivity does just so, the producers are willing to pay increased taxes, etc. etc. To claim foreknowledge of so many variables is foolish and arrogant.
What happens if life expectancy grows substantially, but the window of productivity doesn't? Entirely possible, some think likely, because the additional years of life are likely to come at great expense. Does your crystal ball assure you that reproduction will remain constant?
Assuming the last 75 years for a baseline is at best a guess. It is not difficult to find historical periods where productivity dropped over a 30 year period. There is not the slightest guarentee the future will be a mere extrapolation of the past.
Such hubris! Nothing can go wrong - go wrong - go wrong...!
362. FreeToChoose - Nov. 22, 1998 - 3:20 PM PT
AuNaturel
That [society cannot consume more than it produces] may be true globally but is almost never true locally.
Agreed. But some people think that what is true of individuals can also be true of the entire society. Many individuals can save at any one time, but the entire society cannot save now so that it can consume later.
363. PseudoErasmus - Nov. 22, 1998 - 3:21 PM PT
AuNaturel (Message #359)
"The reason putting the money in stocks and bonds is a better deal than any other investment scheme is because that is the most efficient way to make capital available for investment."
Putting money in stocks and bonds may be a better deal, but that is hardly the most efficient way to make capital available for investment.
First of all, as far as the equities market is concerned, it is not a significant source of financing for U.S. businesses. Between 1901 and 1994, U.S. non-financial corporations financed less that 5 percent of their capital expenditures through the stock market.
Second, because of international capital mobility, the entire world's savings pool is available for American capital expansion. (And the world saves a lot more than America saves or the world can invest.) The very existence of chronic trade deficits is proof of this. It's nearly irrelevant, therefore, whether the savings represented by "contributions" to social security are made available for private capital expansion or not (as long as the rest of the world saves more than it can invest.)
"This investment allows the innovations that increase productivity in the first place."
Of course, this is true. But more investment does not automatically lead to enhanced productivity growth. In other words, making more savings available doesn't necessarily mean that the kinds of investment that raise productivity will get made. In fact, it is possible to have massive rates of investment and near-zero growth in productivity. (It has happened before.)
If more savings & investment were the answer to low productivity growth, then the availability of the world's excess savings should long ago have taken care of the problem.
364. JaDeGoLd - Nov. 22, 1998 - 3:26 PM PT
What happens if a large comet lands on NYC? What happens if aliens nuke us into the stone age? What happens if Michael Stipe leaves REM?
365. PseudoErasmus - Nov. 22, 1998 - 3:27 PM PT
AuNaturel (Message #361)
No, of course it's not epistemological certainty that "a 2.2% annual growth rate is necessary to sustain SS indefinitely". However, the assumptions underlying this scenario analysis for 2.2% are identical to the one for 1.5%, which predicts doom.
"To claim foreknowledge of so many variables is foolish and arrogant."
Then to proclaim doom on incomplete knowledge is equally foolish and arrogant.
"There is not the slightest guarentee the future will be a mere extrapolation of the past."
I agree. On what basis do you then claim adequate returns for stocks and bonds for everybody? I guess you are privy to returns on the S&P500 for the next 40 years.
366. FreeToChoose - Nov. 22, 1998 - 3:27 PM PT
JaDeGoLd
"Dispute it. I'll provide a cite if you dispute it."
Huh? I already told you I hoped it was true. It may be true, I just haven't seen the evidence. Because you claimed it was true, I thought you might have seen the evidence. So I was interested in seeing it.
Now let's see if I understand. If I politely ask for the evidence, you won't give it to me. Only if I dispute it, will you help me find the relevant information. Do I have that correctly?
::sigh:: Ok, then I dispute it. If that is what it takes.
"Frankly, I'm tired of your niggling about assertions you
make."
Is it niggling to point out that it is *your* assertion we are discussing? ::sigh:: probably yes, so never mind.
Let's see if I understand what you consider niggling. Many experts have claimed that the SS system is unsustainable. You claim that if we can grow at 2.2%, then there will be no problem. I haven't disputed this number, I've merely inquired as to its source. I don't consider it niggling if it turns out that there is no SS crisis. Do you call that niggling?
367. JaDeGoLd - Nov. 22, 1998 - 3:31 PM PT
Fritocheese;
Dispute it and you get a cite.
368. PseudoErasmus - Nov. 22, 1998 - 3:32 PM PT
The arguments from hybris and incomplete foreknowledge are idiotic. On what basis do privatisers argue that the stock market will provide adequate returns for retirees? It can only extrapolate from past returns (and perhaps from projected growth rates). So don't give me this bullshit about incomplete information.
369. FreeToChoose - Nov. 22, 1998 - 3:53 PM PT
JaDeGoLd
"What happens if a large comet lands on NYC?"
We'd be better off.
"What happens if aliens nuke us into the stone age?"
We'd be worse off.
"What happens if Michael Stipe leaves REM?"
We wouldn't care.
370. CalGal - Nov. 22, 1998 - 3:55 PM PT
FTC,
What are you, nuts? REM would cease to exist without Michael Stipe. It's barely managed to survive the loss of Bill Berry.
371. FreeToChoose - Nov. 22, 1998 - 3:57 PM PT
JaDeGoLd
"Dispute it and you get a cite."
I did.
Just to be clear; the issue isn't whether we can achieve a 2.2% growth rate. We can. The issue is whether a 2.2% growth rate means no other changes to the SS program are needed to maintain solvency indefinitely.
372. FreeToChoose - Nov. 22, 1998 - 3:58 PM PT
CalGal
"REM would cease to exist without
Michael Stipe. "
Your point?
373. FreeToChoose - Nov. 22, 1998 - 4:05 PM PT
Jayackroyd
In an attempt to post on topic, I asked whether you supported PR (because I believe that PR would encourage third parties). Apparently not.
Do you have other suggestions for encouraging third parties? One burden of creating of growing a third party is communication. Will the Internet help?
You said, "The practical
problem we face today is a profoundly corrupt political
system that's gonna remain that way until something
breaks it up."
Did you have something specific in mind?
374. CalGal - Nov. 22, 1998 - 4:34 PM PT
FTC,
Speak not of "we", is all. (g)
375. FreeToChoose - Nov. 22, 1998 - 4:38 PM PT
CalGal
It was a lame attempt at humor. But then "we" all know how good I am at that.
376. AuNaturel - Nov. 22, 1998 - 4:39 PM PT
Message #334
"First, I haven't been talking about abortion. Second, the personhood of the fetus is irrelevant if the mother has no obligation to the child. And that is the question that goes begging: how does she incur an obligation to the child?"
You must be being deliberately obtuse on this.
Suppose I am driving home from work. You happen to be lying in the middle of a narrow road watching the clouds go by and I cannot pass nor can I turn around. (Assume further that you are a person.) Obviously I have never incurred an obligation to you. By your reasoning above, I am allowed to simply drive over you!
The personhood of the fetus/child is the central point in the dispute. A person has a given state that can be wronged. A nonperson doesn't. The harming of a person does not require a restitutable survivor to still be prohibited.
Under every libertarian line of thought I have ever encountered all persons have a mutual obligation not to deliberately cause or threaten harm to one another for ANY reason other than self defense. This includes killing through inaction someone you caused to be dependent on you for their life and has no other recourse.
There is no dispute, I hope, that pregnancy is caused by the actions of the parents. Up until the point at which a fetus passes the personhood test, no obligation. Assume for a minute that personhood occurs in utero. Aborting a 'person' without a clear argument of self defence is exactly like drowning your baby in the toilet immediately after child birth. Or locking your 5 year old oustide in the dead of winter until he/she died. There is no difference between any of these acts.
You keep trying to differentiate between infanticide and abortion of a legal-person-fetus and there isn't any difference.
377. PseudoErasmus - Nov. 22, 1998 - 5:23 PM PT
AuNaturel (Message #376)
"Suppose I am driving home from work. You happen to be lying in the middle of a narrow road watching the clouds go by and I cannot pass nor can I turn around. (Assume further that you are a person.) Obviously I have never incurred an obligation to you. By your reasoning above, I am allowed to simply drive over you!"
You would incur an obligation the moment you ran over me; that is, you would be responsible for the harm you caused me.
"Under every libertarian line of thought I have ever encountered all persons have a mutual obligation not to deliberately cause or threaten harm to one another for ANY reason other than self defense."
But this prior "mutual obligation" is nothing more than the anticipation of the obligation that one would incur as a result of a tort. But since apparently you and Selene have a difficult time grasping this concept, I will acknowledge for your sake that somehow this prior obligation is somehow different from the obligation one incurs as a result of causing harm, damage or injury. It makes no material difference to my argument.
"This includes killing through inaction someone you caused to be dependent on you for their life and has no other recourse."
I don't see how this can be included. Please explain to me how, in a libertarian framework, the parents become obligated to care for their child. As far I can tell, this obligation is not anything like 1) the prior obligation not to deliberately run someone over; 2) the obligation to restitute the owner of a fence I accidentally knocked down (tort); and 3) the obligation to meet the terms of a contract I signed. By the phrase "cause to be dependent", you imply that birth is a tort situation. Is it? If not, then whence the obligation to the child?
"The personhood of the fetus/child is the central point in the dispute. A person has a given state that can
378. PseudoErasmus - Nov. 22, 1998 - 5:25 PM PT
"The personhood of the fetus/child is the central point in the dispute. A person has a given state that can be wronged. A nonperson doesn't. The harming of a person does not require a restitutable survivor to still be prohibited."
The fetus is violating the mother's space and parasitically robbing her of her resources. It's self-defence. She has the right to expel it, unless you can say the mother is somehow obligated to the fetus to allow it to consume her space and resources. To insist that she carry the unborn child to term is socialism pure and simple.
"Aborting a 'person' without a clear argument of self defence is exactly like drowning your baby in the toilet immediately after child birth."
Not really. Even I, a non-libertarian, can see that you can't expel an intruder into your house with all possible force -- only the minimal force necessary would be justified. The same with the uwanted fetus. If it has extrauterine viability, the mother can expel it but can't deliberately kill it. If it hasn't extrauterine viability, it's tough luck for the fetus. Death IS then the minimal force necessary to expel it from the womb.
"Or locking your 5 year old oustide in the dead of winter until he/she died. There is no difference between any of these acts."
I don't see why in a libertarian framework parents can't do that for children.
379. PseudoErasmus - Nov. 22, 1998 - 5:50 PM PT
Let's set aside the question of the child, born or unborn, for a moment and concentrate for a second on what actions and inactions can be considered wrong under libertarian principles.
I think we can all agree that under libertarian principles it would...
• NOT wrong to refrain from feeding a starving homeless person on the street;
• NOT wrong to refrain from rescuing a woman in the process of being raped;
• wrong to steal the food from the homeless person; and
• wrong to rape the woman.
It's clear that inaction is never wrong -- unless a party had agreed with another in a contract to execute some action; or unless the inaction represents a failure to compensate for some harm a party caused another.
Now, first take the case of the born child. How would a refusal by the parents to take care of the child -- an inaction -- be wrong? Why isn't it like the case of the homeless person? Is it because the child was caused to exist in an incapable state by the parents? Is this "causation" then a tort claim?
380. wonkers2 - Nov. 22, 1998 - 6:49 PM PT
PE, aren't you being unnecessarily theoretical? From what I can see their main motivation is a great reluctance to pay taxes and have big brother telling them what to do.
381. CalGal - Nov. 22, 1998 - 7:18 PM PT
Pseudo,
"Is it because the child was caused to exist in an incapable state by the parents? Is this "causation" then a tort claim?"
Well, that is what I said a while ago. I'm not sure why this argument doesn't work for you. It seems logical. I'm not arguing for libertarianism in general, since I don't understand it. But I don't see this as being a big stretch.
382. jkuzmak - Nov. 22, 1998 - 7:59 PM PT
Smith, Smith:
Are you hanging about out there like some libertarian dustmite treading the circumference of the Fringe Politics thread? I have followed many of the libertarian arguments out of the pages of books and find that they shrivel as they approach the cold air of reality. Many of them do go a long way in the mind, however, and I use them as a sort of engine or energy source in other areas. Liberty is, perhaps, something to base a creed upon, but not the infantile American conception of liberty which is now such common currency. Anything worth the attention of the human intellect owes its very existence, not to freedom, but to the many constraints that make it precisely what it is.
383. boohab - Nov. 22, 1998 - 10:11 PM PT
libertarians can only exist in a post-modern bourgie society. i take the rise of libertarians to power very much like i take the rise of starbucks and jamba juice revenues as a percentage of gdp.
we're not going to achieve a third party until we get more glasnost at home, and then that party is only going to be effective after it gets some experience.
we need a new generation of goo goos. maybe their leaders will come from the ranks of successful privatizations when they get it through their skulls that guaranteed revenues are a necessity. perhaps by then the voters will be prepared to ditch their fear of taxation.
at any rate, decentralization is good.
384. AdamSelene - Nov. 23, 1998 - 6:24 AM PT
PE,
"Now, first take the case of the born child. How would a refusal by the parents to take care of the child -- an inaction -- be wrong? Why isn't it like the case of the homeless person? Is it because the child was caused to exist in an incapable state by the parents? Is this "causation" then a tort claim?"
Yes to the causation, irrelevent to the tort claim. Tort claim is a legal implementation of the libertarian principles, not a part of the principle itself. The principle is "do not harm." Once you do, the principle has been violated. You can never undo that harm, you can only alleviate the wrong to some degree. Reparation is not any kind of equalizing principle! The choice of equavilent undamaged states is not yours to make for your victim. Ok?
Regarding your definition of harm, I haven't come up with one which will answer all objections. (But, neither can Wittgenstein define what will constitute a family resemblence, so I don't feel too badly about it.) The one I like the best is #2 in my Random House - "moral injury; evil; wrong." but of course, that's another tautology, so I know it won't satisfy.
Your specific question about this case has been answered many times already. I'm sorry you don't like the answer, but it's out there for you to re-read until you understand what we're saying. I do understand what you're saying, I just disagree. I don't need you to repeat it again.
Jeez - If CalGal can get it, PE, surely you should have no trouble.... (no offense, sweetie! It's PE's opinion of you I'm playing to, not mine.)
385. AdamSelene - Nov. 23, 1998 - 7:29 AM PT
boohab
"libertarians can only exist in a post-modern bourgie society. i take the rise of libertarians to power very much like i take the rise of starbucks and jamba juice revenues as a percentage of gdp."
I agree completely. I propose that we are evolving towards libertarian morals (with some occasional backsliding...) as our ability to meet our own individual requirements for a good life becomes less and less dependent on exploiting others. The perception of libertarianism as some old philosophy that we're going back to (a la conservativism) is very misleading. We're only harking back a couple of hundred years when it was still very new and trying to recover our momentum. (Ok, maybe a thousand years to Iceland, but I don't think that era had much influence on us.)
386. Seguine - Nov. 23, 1998 - 8:06 AM PT
The more I see of uzmak's posts, e.g. Message #382, the more I like uzmak.
And the first sentence of boohab's Message #383 is pretty close to right, except that I'm not sure the bourgie society needs to be pomo and he might have mentioned anarchists as well as libertarians.
AuNaturel: I believe the reason PE is not interested in the personhood argument is that he judges the assignment of personhood to be a wholly arbitrary judgement. I agree, except that I think it's clear even the distinction between species is arbitrary, and biological humanness doesn't completely address what is meant by "personhood".
But in the realm of human affairs there's more-arbitrary and then there's less-arbitrary. Since western civilization has a large base, from which to draw, of judgements about what it means to be human, or a person, it should be possible to determine to the satisfaction of the *majority* of Americans which qualities afford fetuses human rights. The Supreme Court has sort of done that. (Despite Selene's earlier assertion that "no one" is happy with current abortion laws, most people evidently are.)
My question is, if Lib'sm does not provide for lawmaking of the sort that would in practice determine when or under what circumstances a fetus becomes a person (lawmaking that *is* legitimate in a representative democracy), how can Lib'sm be said to address the issue in any meaningful way?
387. Seguine - Nov. 23, 1998 - 8:09 AM PT
PE's question, I believe, is How does Lib'sm establish that the responsibility for creating a human being makes one responsible for not neglecting it? After all, mere inadvertent agency doesn't obligate Libs to take care of ALL people in distress.
EG, imagine that a community of Libertarians is joined by a man new to their region. This man has seen a recent advertisement put out by the community encouraging new homesteaders. Since every other parcel of property on the tiny continent where he lives is crowded with other Libertarians, he heads for his last best hope. However, when he arrives it turns out that all rights to water in the area are already taken and used in full by the existing populace. No one is at fault here: the community was simply so attractive that it drew more residents than it could support. And yet, the community *did* issue an invitation, if not specifically to him than to anyone who might arrive with the same expectations he did. He was not *intentionally* defrauded, nor did he make an unwarranted or irresponsible decision to move to the new community. If everyone in the community will sacrifice just one cup of water per month so that it may be sold to the new man, is everyone so *obligated*?
Of course, the man is legally a "person". He needs water to survive. Is neglecting his need acceptable under Lib law, or isn't it?
If it is not, then there is a basis for the argument that a woman owes a human fetus protection and sustenance. But then Libertarians would have to accept that societies are composed of individuals who do have purely circumstantial obligations to one another, that those obligations must occasionally interfere with personal freedom, and that taxes and welfare and so on must at least occasionally be legitimate.
388. PseudoErasmus - Nov. 23, 1998 - 8:11 AM PT
No, the personhood of the fetus is irrelevant for the same reason that the personhood of the mugger is irrelevant. I explained this in Message #378.
389. PseudoErasmus - Nov. 23, 1998 - 8:13 AM PT
calgal (<MSG NUM=370): IF IT'S A TORT CLAIM, THEN IT IMPLIES THAT THERE WAS A STATE OF CAPACITY TO WHICH THE CHILD MUST BE RETURNED. BUT THERE NEVER WAS SUCH A STATE OF CAPACITY.<BR><BR>Unless you're saying that being caused to come into existence in a state of incapacity is a wrong done to the child by the parents, I don't see that they owe the child anything.
390. PseudoErasmus - Nov. 23, 1998 - 8:14 AM PT
calgal (Message #370): If it's a tort claim, then it implies that there was a state of capacity to which the child must be returned. But there never was such a state of capacity.
Unless you're saying that being caused to come into existence in a state of capacity is a wrong done to the child by the parents, I don't see that they owe the child anything.
391. PseudoErasmus - Nov. 23, 1998 - 8:24 AM PT
AdamSelene (Message #384)
"Yes to the causation, irrelevent to the tort claim....The principle is 'do not harm'. Once you do, the principle has been violated."
You don't seem to understand. Read Message #379 again. Do you agree or disagree that IN EVERY INSTANCE OTHER THAN THE BIRTH OF A CHILD "inaction is never wrong -- unless a party had agreed with another in a contract to execute some action; or unless the inaction represents a failure to compensate for some harm a party caused another"? If you disagree, then please name any mechanism other than contract or tort by which inaction can become wrong.
"Tort claim is a legal implementation of the libertarian principles, not a part of the principle itself."
"Tort" just means something like "damage, injury, or a wrongful act done willfully, negligently, or in circumstances involving strict liability, but not involving breach of contract". It's not necessarily a legal term.
392. teller - Nov. 23, 1998 - 8:24 AM PT
who's the best writer in the fray?
393. PseudoErasmus - Nov. 23, 1998 - 8:27 AM PT
I agree beforehand with the libertarians in this thread that Seguine's Message #387 is faulty.
394. AdamSelene - Nov. 23, 1998 - 8:50 AM PT
PE,
Ok, I see our problem (finally.)
"Unless you're saying that being caused to come into existence in a state of capacity is a wrong done to the child by the parents, I don't see that they owe the child anything."
I AM saying this. I know that I previously said that creating a helpless child to exist is not a wrong which must be righted. This was probably the source of our misunderstanding. I later (unsuccessfully) tried to clarify that it was actually the combination of creating the helpless state and then not correcting it which was wrong - it's the combination of actions, or action + inaction, if you will, which is the wrong that is caused by an abandoning parent.
Do you now see the relevence of my pull-trigger/man-dead analogy? Giving birth is like pulling the trigger. It can be an innocent act or a moral wrong, depending on what you do or do not do next. If you intercept the bullet (a la superman) then you've done no wrong. But if you fail to act to stop the bullet which you sent on its merry way, then you are indeed guilty of murder.
Yes, I know that the bullet case has a feature (a previous healthy individual) which is not analogous to giving birth. But that's not the relevent part of the analogy.
---
Yes, #387 is faulty. I'll let you explain it to him.
395. Seguine - Nov. 23, 1998 - 9:06 AM PT
PE:
"The fetus is violating the mother's space and parasitically robbing her of her resources. It's self-defence. She has the right to expel it, unless you can say the mother is somehow obligated to the fetus to allow it to consume her space and resources. To insist that she carry the unborn child to term is socialism pure and simple."
No. AuNaturel's point (I think) is that the mother participated in creating the fetus and presumably is the only person capable of sustaining it, so is responsible for maintaining its life if it is a person, even if that entails a non-lethal hardship. The mother is not, however, responsible for the existence of the mugger, or for hs need to mug her, and so his personhood and requirements do not entail any obligation on her part.
Your analagy fails to address AuNaturel's contention that responsibility for creating a person entails obligation (an obligation you have recast as submitting to parasitism). If the parasite is a person, and both its parasitic qualities and its existence are caused by the mother's body and her actions, then she has made her own "mugger" and her own mugger's need to take something from her. If her life is not endangered by the person she has created, and its needs are mortal while her competing needs are not, then her right to expell it doesn't exist (as long as that act will result in its death).
What *I* don't see is how, under Libertarianism, the responsibility for creating people implies obligation for caring for them, any more than responsibility for creating other people's mortal hardships entails responsibility for ameliorating them. This is why I asked about how Lib'sm addresses obligations between people which are incurred circumstantially (as opposed to explicitly, and so plausibly contractually).
The issue of torts involves injury of some sort, and so, as far as I can see, requires personhood or some sort of representation that stands in for it
396. AdamSelene - Nov. 23, 1998 - 9:07 AM PT
PE,
Another angle:
I stipulate that it is somehow 'wrong' for a living, sentient person to die. Now, if this 'wrong' is caused by an accident, it's not a *moral* wrong, just a natural occurance. But if it is caused by a sentient being who knows what they're doing (and is not just acting as an agent of the subject, a la Kevorkian,) then it *is* a moral wrong.
Are you with me so far? Nothing inconsistent or incoherent yet?
Now, I maintain that it makes no difference which part of this situation is actually caused by the perpetrator, so long as they are aware of the likely outcome when they do it. If you're the one dropping the rock, then you're morally guilty. And --- if you're the one who actually created the human such that they are under that rock when it falls, you are also guilty. In that case, failing to stop the rock consitutes the deciding factor in the persons death - a most definate moral wrong.
397. AdamSelene - Nov. 23, 1998 - 9:11 AM PT
oops --- it's very hard to keep the semantics precise in this. That last sentence should read:
In that case, failing to stop the rock BY THE PERSON WHO DROPPED IT OR BY THE PERSON WHO PUT THE VICTIM IN IT'S PATH is the final factor in committing a moral wrong.
398. AdamSelene - Nov. 23, 1998 - 9:19 AM PT
Seguine,
At the risk of starting another semantic battle, and with a clear disclaimer that this is my own view and not necessarily that of any other libertarian:
A 'wrong' that would happen even if the libertarian in question had never been born cannot be his moral obligation to correct. Clear enough?
The converse is not necessarly true - a 'wrong' that would not have happened without the libertarian's existence is only their moral responsibility if it was done with their intention or knowledge of the likely outcome of some action they committed. That is, if my new tire blows out and I kill your family, it's not a moral wrong on my part. But if I was driving with 10-year-old tires and had patched 50 zillion previous blowouts, then I am morally guilty of manslaughter.
399. PseudoErasmus - Nov. 23, 1998 - 9:22 AM PT
Seguine (Message #391)
"What *I* don't see is how, under Libertarianism, the responsibility for creating people implies obligation for caring for them..."
I don't see it either, but only because it is inconsistent with every way in which libertarians recognise an obligation to exist.
And, so, if no obligation exists, then the fetus is no different from a mugger.
400. Seguine - Nov. 23, 1998 - 9:23 AM PT
My position on the consistency or inconsistency of abortion with lib'sm, in case it wasn't obvious, is that
- If a fetus is a "person" it has tort rights but not contractual ones.
- Fathers and mothers may have contractual rights with one another, but I haven't thought about it carefully.
- Fetuses which are not persons can have no rights; and
- Lib'sm itself doesn't provide a political means by which more than a minority of people can decide, and know in advance in order to plan future behavior, what a "person" is. And since the whole damned philosophy hinges on that question, libertarianism can never be anything other than anarchism.