Proving Morality

[doodle]

I'm just trying to understand where morality comes from if the universe (which operates according to logical rules it seems) doesn't appear to have any sense of morality. We are part of an amoral yet logical universe....at least it seems so to me

I nominate this post of the thread...

I'm sure in another 20 premises we will just have about proven self-ownership.

The thing that sucks about all this is, even if Kshartle proves self-ownership, we still have a TON of areas that self-ownership needs to wiggle its way through logically that ask some very uncomfortable questions.  Heck, merely admitting the CHANCE that animals have some rights/value could COMPLETELY up-end our entire economy if we were to all of a sudden to start complying with the NAP.

But I won't make K answer all this business until he proves self-ownership.  I'm anxious to see what he comes up with.

Hahahaha! Before we get to ownership, I think we have to clarify what the "self" or "I" is....you know, there are literally philosophical treatises on this alone. I love the original thinking in this thread and the way that the participants are using their own logic and reasoning to battle through the subject matter rather than make appeals to authority, but some of the brightest philosophers have attempted to answer these very questions and failed.... Check out Wittgenstein, or Bertrand Russell who tried to put together a logical argument for truth, goodness, and morality and ended up realizing that it was impossible.

[doodle]

Bertrand Russell...for anyone interested in how he tried to tackle the question of morality: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/russe ... gOpeQueArg

[doodle]

Russell's take:

moral judgments are neither true nor false, since their role is not to state facts or to describe the way the world is, but to express emotions, desires or even commands. This (despite some waverings) was Russell's dominant view for the rest of his life, though it took him twenty-two years to develop a well worked-out version of the theory. He tended to call it subjectivism or ‘the subjectivity of moral values’ though it is nowadays known as non-cognitivism, expressivism or emotivism. He came to think that, despite their indicative appearance, moral judgments — at least judgments about what is good or bad in itself — are really in the optative mood. (A sentence is in the optative mood if it expresses a wish or a desire.) What ‘X is good’ means is ‘Would that everyone desired X!’. It therefore expresses, but does not describe, the speaker's state of mind, specifically his or her desires, and as such can be neither truth nor false, anymore than ‘Oh to be in England now that April's here!’ If I say ‘Oh to be in England now that April's here!’, you can infer that I desire to be in England now that April's here (since absent an intention to mislead, it is not the sort of thing I would say unless I desired to be in England and thought that April was here). But I am not stating that I desire to be in England, since I am not stating anything at all (except perhaps that April is here). (See RoE: 131-144/Religion and Science: ch. 9.) Although this was Russell's dominant view from 1913 until his death, he did not care for it very much. ‘I cannot see how to refute the arguments for the subjectivity of ethical values, but I find myself incapable of believing that all that is wrong with wanton cruelty is that I don't like it’ (RoE: 165/Papers 11: 310-11). It is not entirely clear what Russell took these overwhelming arguments to be. But one of them seems to have proceeded from a Moorean premise. Russell took Moore to have refuted naturalism, the view that although there are moral truths, nothing metaphysically out of the ordinary is required to make them true. Conversely Russell took Moore to have proved that if there were to be moral truths about which things were good or bad as ends rather than means, the truths in question would require spooky non-natural properties, of goodness, badness etc — quite unlike the ‘natural’ properties posited by science and commonsense - to make them true. In the supposed absence of such properties, he was driven to the conclusion that moral judgments (at least judgments about goodness and badness) were either all false or neither true nor false.

[moda0306]

I nominate this post of the thread...

I'm sure in another 20 premises we will just have about proven self-ownership.

The thing that sucks about all this is, even if Kshartle proves self-ownership, we still have a TON of areas that self-ownership needs to wiggle its way through logically that ask some very uncomfortable questions.  Heck, merely admitting the CHANCE that animals have some rights/value could COMPLETELY up-end our entire economy if we were to all of a sudden to start complying with the NAP.

But I won't make K answer all this business until he proves self-ownership.  I'm anxious to see what he comes up with.

Hahahaha! Before we get to ownership, I think we have to clarify what the "self" or "I" is....you know, there are literally philosophical treatises on this alone. I love the original thinking in this thread and the way that the participants are using their own logic and reasoning to battle through the subject matter rather than make appeals to authority, but some of the brightest philosophers have attempted to answer these very questions and failed.... Check out Wittgenstein, or Bertrand Russell who tried to put together a logical argument for truth, goodness, and morality and ended up realizing that it was impossible.

I said somewhere on this thread that we're probably re-hashing a centuries-old debate... and if a philosopher were to fall into this thread he'd probably be face-palming right now at all the little logical inconsistencies we've let fly by.

What is odd, really, isn't the NAP, or anarcho-capitalism as an idea, or the idea of self-ownership... they're imperfect moral/political topics just like any other.  What is so odd, is that proponents of these ideas seem to have locked in a certainty that I haven't seen out of most other groups that are as smart as most of these dudes are.  Most anarcho-capitalists are SMART dudes in some ways.  But they are SO certain they've proven something and all I've seen is garbage logic from their arguments.  It's an odd thing to witness.

But I guess we'll see where this goes.  Perhaps we're not seeing something.

[moda0306]

moral judgments are neither true nor false, since their role is not to state facts or to describe the way the world is, but to express emotions, desires or even commands. This (despite some waverings) was Russell's dominant view for the rest of his life, though it took him twenty-two years to develop a well worked-out version of the theory. He tended to call it subjectivism or ‘the subjectivity of moral values’ though it is nowadays known as non-cognitivism, expressivism or emotivism. He came to think that, despite their indicative appearance, moral judgments — at least judgments about what is good or bad in itself — are really in the optative mood. (A sentence is in the optative mood if it expresses a wish or a desire.) What ‘X is good’ means is ‘Would that everyone desired X!’. It therefore expresses, but does not describe, the speaker's state of mind, specifically his or her desires, and as such can be neither truth nor false, anymore than ‘Oh to be in England now that April's here!’ If I say ‘Oh to be in England now that April's here!’, you can infer that I desire to be in England now that April's here (since absent an intention to mislead, it is not the sort of thing I would say unless I desired to be in England and thought that April was here). But I am not stating that I desire to be in England, since I am not stating anything at all (except perhaps that April is here). (See RoE: 131-144/Religion and Science: ch. 9.) Although this was Russell's dominant view from 1913 until his death, he did not care for it very much. ‘I cannot see how to refute the arguments for the subjectivity of ethical values, but I find myself incapable of believing that all that is wrong with wanton cruelty is that I don't like it’ (RoE: 165/Papers 11: 310-11). It is not entirely clear what Russell took these overwhelming arguments to be. But one of them seems to have proceeded from a Moorean premise. Russell took Moore to have refuted naturalism, the view that although there are moral truths, nothing metaphysically out of the ordinary is required to make them true. Conversely Russell took Moore to have proved that if there were to be moral truths about which things were good or bad as ends rather than means, the truths in question would require spooky non-natural properties, of goodness, badness etc — quite unlike the ‘natural’ properties posited by science and commonsense - to make them true. In the supposed absence of such properties, he was driven to the conclusion that moral judgments (at least judgments about goodness and badness) were either all false or neither true nor false.

I sort of fall between NAP'ers and religious folks when it comes to ethics.

I don't think they can be proven, but I have FAITH that morality exists, or, more specifically, that some states of being are intrinsically better for people (and, to some degree, animals) that have the ability to perceive those states, and that I, as a being with moral agency AND moral significance (the latter of which I would like recognized), ought to seek to value that intrinsic value in others... perhaps not as if it were my own, but to some degree.

I think logic CAN help us with morality, but it can't prove it, as far as I've been able to tell.  Even if there were a God, I would not take it on its face that "whatever God says is morally correct, is morally correct."  I think that our ABILITY to have a moral compass and reason could put God in a position where he's simply a meglomaniac who needs constant recognition.... for instance, if there IS no God, and I created life from a test tube, and it was conscious life, I would not deem myself to have supreme moral authority over this being.

Yeah, we all have a lot of gut feelings, and like Kshartle, I don't think it's good to just stop there... I've read/thought about this a LOT!  I just see no proof of morality.  I have faith that it exists, because if it doesn't, the holocaust was no different that any other event where molecules are manipulated.  I "refuse to believe" that this is the case.  However, if I am to try to prove morality because of this "gut feeling," it certainly wouldn't lead me to "the NAP and nothing else." 

If I saw a guy letting a girl drown in a shallow pool because his silk shirt was expensive, I would be disgusted with his moral center.  If some guy called a black, 19 year-old ex-soldier who was badly burned and in a wheelchair a "ret@rded g!mp n!gger" (I tried to come up with the most infuriating situation possible... sorry to get graphic), I wouldn't consider his father immoral for beating that guy to a pulp.  I mean just think about that.... if your son got called something like that in public... to his face... insulting in so many ways... Mother Theresa would shank that SOB.

I doubt very many anarcho-capitalists would feel much differently if actually put in that situation. 

If we're going to keep thinking about something because our "gut" tells us that there's something more here, why do NAP'ers want to stop at the NAP?  K has even admitted that there's something beyond morality (perhaps, "decency?) that he hadn't really thought about, when it comes to positive obligations and some of these gray areas.  Well when NAP and other "gut feelings" collide, there are a lot of situations that I think NAP would lose (on a gut level).  Perhaps that makes me immoral.  Well... I am a statist pig, so that's probably already a given.

[doodle]

  I have faith that it exists, because if it doesn't, the holocaust was no different that any other event where molecules are manipulated.  I "refuse to believe" that this is the case. 

Why, because it makes you uneasy as a human being to think that? There is a war going on inside your body right now between all sorts of organisms, cells, viruses, bacteria, and creatures yet somehow your organism is in balance. Maybe the same is true on another scale for the events on this earth and in the universe.

I encourage everyone  occasionally to try to leave their human skins with all their conditioned ideas and concepts about how the world works for a bit and instead observe the actions around them in an entirely open and non judgemental way....kind of like trying to see things through a babys eyes again or maybe in the manner in which a scientist would peer through a microscope at cellular activity.  How odd and funny all these wiggles, vibrations, and gyrations are that go on around us. Likewise listen to the noises and conversations but don't try to interpret or classify them, just observe them like you would listen to the noise in a restaurant in a foreign country whose language you don't speak. In other words, observe without thinking, judging, or classifying what you see or hear. Its a bit scary and disconcerting to jump outside of thought and concepts but it puts a new perspective on things....and No, I'm not tripping on acid right now....I promise. :-)

[doodle]

My thinking is that things in the universe just are. There is only natural (all that is possible) and unnatural (that which is not possible). Somehow on our earth and possibly other planets as well, atomic matter began to coagulate and intermingle into more and more complex patterns. These chemical patterns evolved the capacity to react to stimuli which through the process of evolution led to more and more complex chemical combinations that eventually became quite amazing biological organisms like human beings which have evolved some pretty interesting brain gadgetry that is able through all sorts of sensory apparatuses to gather data about the other matter around it. We then classify and organize these data into patterns that impact whether our particular organism (coagulation of "intelligent" universal matter) lives or dies. Because all organisms seem to be imbued with a will to procreate and live, anything that negatively impacts the life of the organism is seen as "bad" from the vantage point of that particular organism. To the gazelle being eaten, that is a "bad" situation. To the lion eating the gazelle, that is a "good" situation. Now humans, have evolved a much more complex computer apparatus that is capable of a lot more computing and this ability has allowed us to dominate all the other coagulations of matter (organisms) on this planet. And over time humans began to evolve language and symbols which they used to band together larger groups and communicate for survival. And these sound symbols began to grow ever more complex to represent ideas and concepts that don't physically exist in nature like gods, and ideas of right and wrong. And then many thousands of years in the future we sit together in online forums arguing about these symbols and concepts as if they really existed  having long forgotten what we truly are and where we came from.

[Mountaineer]

My thinking is that things in the universe just are. There is only natural (all that is possible) and unnatural (that which is not possible). Somehow on our earth and possibly other planets as well, atomic matter began to coagulate and intermingle into more and more complex patterns. These chemical patterns evolved the capacity to react to stimuli which through the process of evolution led to more and more complex chemical combinations that eventually became quite amazing biological organisms like human beings which have evolved some pretty interesting brain gadgetry that is able through all sorts of sensory apparatuses to gather data about the other matter around it. We then classify and organize these data into patterns that impact whether our particular organism (coagulation of "intelligent" universal matter) lives or dies. Because all organisms seem to be imbued with a will to procreate and live, anything that negatively impacts the life of the organism is seen as "bad" from the vantage point of that particular organism. To the gazelle being eaten, that is a "bad" situation. To the lion eating the gazelle, that is a "good" situation. Now humans, have evolved a much more complex computer apparatus that is capable of a lot more computing and this ability has allowed us to dominate all the other coagulations of matter (organisms) on this planet. And over time humans began to evolve language and symbols which they used to band together larger groups and communicate for survival. And these sound symbols began to grow ever more complex to represent ideas and concepts that don't physically exist in nature like gods, and ideas of right and wrong. And then many thousands of years in the future we sit together in online forums arguing about these symbols and concepts as if they really existed  having long forgotten what we truly are and where we came from.

Interesting worldview that addresses "isness".  Have you thought about "Why?",  "Where did it all come from?",  "Why do we die?" to incorporate in your worldview for completeness?  For example, with your stated worldview, it seems a logical extension would be that things woudl evolve to a state of permanence instead of the state of decay that we observe around us (mountains erode away, earthquakes destroy, people die, food rots, stars explode, etc.). 

... Mountaineer

[Mountaineer]

  I have faith that it exists, because if it doesn't, the holocaust was no different that any other event where molecules are manipulated.  I "refuse to believe" that this is the case. 

Why, because it makes you uneasy as a human being to think that? There is a war going on inside your body right now between all sorts of organisms, cells, viruses, bacteria, and creatures yet somehow your organism is in balance. Maybe the same is true on another scale for the events on this earth and in the universe.

I encourage everyone  occasionally to try to leave their human skins with all their conditioned ideas and concepts about how the world works for a bit and instead observe the actions around them in an entirely open and non judgemental way....kind of like trying to see things through a babys eyes again or maybe in the manner in which a scientist would peer through a microscope at cellular activity.  How odd and funny all these wiggles, vibrations, and gyrations are that go on around us. Likewise listen to the noises and conversations but don't try to interpret or classify them, just observe them like you would listen to the noise in a restaurant in a foreign country whose language you don't speak. In other words, observe without thinking, judging, or classifying what you see or hear. Its a bit scary and disconcerting to jump outside of thought and concepts but it puts a new perspective on things....and No, I'm not tripping on acid right now....I promise. :-)

Good advice.  Even more mind expanding when one takes it from the physical observable realm to the unobservable.

... Mountaineer

[doodle]

My thinking is that things in the universe just are. There is only natural (all that is possible) and unnatural (that which is not possible). Somehow on our earth and possibly other planets as well, atomic matter began to coagulate and intermingle into more and more complex patterns. These chemical patterns evolved the capacity to react to stimuli which through the process of evolution led to more and more complex chemical combinations that eventually became quite amazing biological organisms like human beings which have evolved some pretty interesting brain gadgetry that is able through all sorts of sensory apparatuses to gather data about the other matter around it. We then classify and organize these data into patterns that impact whether our particular organism (coagulation of "intelligent" universal matter) lives or dies. Because all organisms seem to be imbued with a will to procreate and live, anything that negatively impacts the life of the organism is seen as "bad" from the vantage point of that particular organism. To the gazelle being eaten, that is a "bad" situation. To the lion eating the gazelle, that is a "good" situation. Now humans, have evolved a much more complex computer apparatus that is capable of a lot more computing and this ability has allowed us to dominate all the other coagulations of matter (organisms) on this planet. And over time humans began to evolve language and symbols which they used to band together larger groups and communicate for survival. And these sound symbols began to grow ever more complex to represent ideas and concepts that don't physically exist in nature like gods, and ideas of right and wrong. And then many thousands of years in the future we sit together in online forums arguing about these symbols and concepts as if they really existed  having long forgotten what we truly are and where we came from.

Interesting worldview that addresses "isness".  Have you thought about "Why?",  "Where did it all come from?",  "Why do we die?" to incorporate in your worldview for completeness?  For example, with your stated worldview, it seems a logical extension would be that things woudl evolve to a state of permanence instead of the state of decay that we observe around us (mountains erode away, earthquakes destroy, people die, food rots, stars explode, etc.). 

... Mountaineer

I think "why" is a very human question that pertains to our organisms need to find purpose and meaning. Unfortunately, I don't think there is any purpose....or at least not one that is known or intelligible to us. We can fabricate all sorts of stories and tales to placate and soothe us but that doesn't mean there is any truth to any of it or any way to prove it. Ultimately, it seems that all of this is just a crazy comingling of energy fields made out the same basic "stuff". Once you get down to the subatomic level things just stop making any sense. Up here at this level of reality we observe patterns and matter, but when you start digging into those you find that physicists really can't seem to find anything material at all...particles function as waves and waves function as particles....it defies common logic.

[doodle]

I just keep coming back to the exercise of observing without thought. In other words stepping outside of yourself and all your acquired judgements, beliefs, desires etc.....losing your ego if you will. Just look at the patterns around you like you would peer through a kaleidoscope. When one pattern dies and another emerges in the kaleidoscope you don't feel any sorrow or emotion you just observe. When you start to observe things in this way it dawns on you that there is no good or bad, there just "is". This is terribly disconcerting, but as far as I can tell....that's all there is....just patterns in the energy field coming and going

I know, I sound like I've lost my marbles :-)

[Xan]

Doodle, you're making some great points.  The wave/particle duality is a fine example of reality defying logic.  I'd like to hear the contingent which believes that everything can be understood by man explain that one.

But, I do disagree with your conclusion.  I believe there's a "vertical" axis that intersects this "horizontal" one, as Mountaineer has alluded to.  Your conclusions may be valid for the horizontal one, but that isn't all there is.  No, I can't prove it.  And since I'm fallible, I could be wrong.  But I think it's most certainly true.

Whatever our philosophical conclusions, reality has a way of intruding right upon them.  "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

[doodle]

I thought this was interesting...worth thinking about...

The Illusion of Right vs Wrong, Good vs Bad


 
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”?

- William Shakespeare

We humans are quick to judge. In the wild, quick judgment could save lives as prey need to ascertain whether or not to flee from potential predators. Most of us, however, judge when there is not much at stake, except perhaps our egos and our need to be right.

One way to stop judging others is to realise that most of our judgments are fallacies. We judge something to be right or wrong, good or bad, when this distinction is actually an illusion, as all dualities are.

What a duality is

A duality refers to two opposing forces, each of which gets their meaning from the other, as what the other is not. For example, day and night are defined with reference to each other. ‘Day’ is the time when it is not ‘night’ and vice versa. When one half of this duality is absent, the remaining word has no meaning.

Other examples of dualities:


 
hot and cold
bright and dark
heavy and light
wet and dry
fat and thin
joy and sorrow
pain and relief
positive and negative
success and failure
right and wrong
good and bad
These distinctions are useful, of course. They are just not real, not out there in the world. They are merely mental constructs we use to make sense of the world, to define things in relation to one another.

Beyond dualistic thinking

Things that do not require their opposite in order for us to understand them would not count as dualities. These exist independently of anything else and are therefore ‘real’. For example, you exist. I do not need to ask what is your opposite in order to give you a meaning.

When you go beyond dualistic thinking, you do not need an idea’s opposite to understand the idea. When you hold your child in your arms, you do not ask what the child’s opposite is. It just does not make sense.

However, the sense of joy that fills you as you look down at the child will suddenly make you realise that life before this child was empty in a way that you only understand now. That is a duality: the fullness and the emptiness.

Judgment is dualistic thinking

When you judge that somebody is ‘bad’ or has just done ‘wrong’, you are engaging in dualistic thinking. He has fallen short of a standard you call ‘good’ and carried out an action that is not the ‘right’ one.

Again, dualistic thinking is not wrong. Sometimes it helps you to define the person you want to be: you may decide you want to be strong instead of weak, brave instead of timid, friendly instead of withdrawn etc. All this is fine.


 
At another level however, realise that all these judgements at some level are meaningless, because all dualities are not actually real. Once you realise this, you will automatically stop judging because you start thinking at another level, where comparison makes no sense.

Beyond judgment

When you stop thinking in a dualistic way, you no longer have to need to fit everything into one of two categories: right or wrong, good or bad. You are more able to see something for what it is, instead of what you think it should be.

Just in case you are now thinking that I am saying that judgment is wrong, I’m not. Because ‘wrong’ itself is already a judgment. I am merely pointing out that one type of thinking – dualistic thinking – lends itself to judgment, whereas not thinking at this level renders judgment meaningless.

[Mountaineer]

doodle,

Interesting post.  It made me think of our heavily postmodern culture where everything is relative to something else, i.e. there are very few, if any, absolutes.  That is in contract to the view, or culture, that believes there really is an ultimate absolute source that can be used for comparison to current actions, behavior or thoughts.  I expect by the definition of dualism you gave, the latter view is a dualistic culture as there are two poles - one is absolute, one is variable and almost by definition somewhat opposed to the absolute.

... Mountaineer

[MachineGhost]

Regarding a central government being the most efficient way to allocate resources to humans....you cannot possibly believe this. I nearly spit out my coffee with laughter reading it. You really think the government is efficient at getting resources where we want them?!?!? You really think it works better than value exchange and private charity?!?!?  OMG man...I don't even know if Moda would agree with that although he might.

I meant that within the context of social security/welfare.  Can you imagine how impossibly difficult it would be to organize social security/welfare to 260 million people if you had to deal with 50 individual state governments and several hundreds of thousands of charitable organizations rather than just doing an ACH transfer from the Treasury's checking account at the Fed?  Such transaction costs are one of the major reasons we evolved to a single currency from hundreds of competing currencies.  And what if there's a systemic market failure such as occured during the Great Depression?

Government excels at centralization, standardization and bringing parties together during market failures, but absolutely terrible at literally everything else.  This IS all a fact, which is why govenrment continues to endure in reality.  You didn't think it was all solely due to continous irrationality, did you?

[MachineGhost]

This is a forum for I think intelligent people. The idea that "That fact is, most humans are caring and worry about others and central government is the most efficient way to allocate resources to them, especially non-secularly." is silly. It's also self-contradicting.

Sheesh, if I had known you were going to nitpick my statement, I would have phrased it more carefully.  Insert "current" before "most efficient" above.

[Stewardship]

Most anarcho-capitalists are SMART dudes in some ways.  But they are SO certain they've proven something and all I've seen is garbage logic from their arguments.  It's an odd thing to witness.

Fortunately the burden of proof isn't on anarcho-capitalists.  It's on the ones doing the taxing, imprisoning, bombing, etc.

[moda0306]

Most anarcho-capitalists are SMART dudes in some ways.  But they are SO certain they've proven something and all I've seen is garbage logic from their arguments.  It's an odd thing to witness.

Fortunately the burden of proof isn't on anarcho-capitalists.  It's on the ones doing the taxing, imprisoning, bombing, etc.

Well if we're going to dig deep, there is no "burden" of proof, unless "proof" is what you claim to have (such as... oh I don't know... proving your moral code is deductively proven).  And even then, it involves a subjective premise such as "If one claims proof in a argument, they have the "burden" to provide it."  "Burden" implies a duty.  A duty is an act that we have an "imperative" to do.  We are in the process of proving that any kind of imperative can actually exist.

Anarcho-capitalists believe that they can "prove" our unqualified duty to not initiate force on someone else.  They state it as such. They use that "proof" to build a series of other assertions... so to the degree that an anarcho-capitalists wishes to have their brand of morality & property norms adopted by individuals, and for those individuals to be certain about their position, the "burden of proof" is naturally on them.

I'm not asking anyone to adopt a rigid moral code.  I'm asking anarcho-capitalists to logically prove what they believe and assert is so obviously logically proven, since it is the premise in their argument that I have a moral duty to not initiate any amount of force on anyone.  I'm not saying that they're "immoral" if they don't or can't.  Just that they are being a bit obnoxious.  This is my subjective opinion.




Now if an IRS agent were to come to my door and demand payment of $20 in taxes (getting a little simple here with operating procedures), and to claim that he could deductively PROVE to me that he was in the moral right, and I was in the moral wrong, then I could build the subjective case that the burden of proof is on him.

But there's nobody on here arguing that.

[Stewardship]

Anarcho-capitalists believe that they can "prove" our unqualified duty to not initiate force on someone else.  They state it as such. They use that "proof" to build a series of other assertions... so to the degree that an anarcho-capitalists wishes to have their brand of morality & property norms adopted by individuals, and for those individuals to be certain about their position, the "burden of proof" is naturally on them.

Having spent some time around anarcho-capitalists, save perhaps KShartle here I've never heard any claim they can deductively prove the NAP.  Please provide supporting evidence.

I'm not asking anyone to adopt a rigid moral code.

Neither are anarcho-capitalists.

I'm asking anarcho-capitalists to logically prove what they believe and assert is so obviously logically proven, since it is the premise in their argument that I have a moral duty to not initiate any amount of force on anyone.  I'm not saying that they're "immoral" if they don't or can't.  Just that they are being a bit obnoxious.  This is my subjective opinion.

Now if an IRS agent were to come to my door and demand payment of $20 in taxes (getting a little simple here with operating procedures), and to claim that he could deductively PROVE to me that he was in the moral right, and I was in the moral wrong, then I could build the subjective case that the burden of proof is on him.

But there's nobody on here arguing that.

The burden of proof is on the IRS agent if he claims to be different from any other kind of robber who steals what isn't his at gunpoint.  If he doesn't make such a claim, then I agree he has no burden of proof.

[doodle]

The burden of proof is on the IRS agent if he claims to be different from any other kind of robber who steals what isn't his at gunpoint.  If he doesn't make such a claim, then I agree he has no burden of proof.

Why does the government have to steal back that which only they have the ability to freely create?

[Stewardship]

Why does the government have to steal back that which only they have the ability to freely create?

+1

[Kshartle]

Government excels at centralization, standardization and bringing parties together during market failures, but absolutely terrible at literally everything else.  This IS all a fact, which is why govenrment continues to endure in reality.  You didn't think it was all solely due to continous irrationality, did you?

It excels at threats and violence.

That is why it endures. There is not enough resistance to the idea that threats and violence are an acceptable way to solve differences..........yet.

[Kshartle]

This is a forum for I think intelligent people. The idea that "That fact is, most humans are caring and worry about others and central government is the most efficient way to allocate resources to them, especially non-secularly." is silly. It's also self-contradicting.

Sheesh, if I had known you were going to nitpick my statement, I would have phrased it more carefully.  Insert "current" before "most efficient" above.

Huge difference between those words. Most efficient and current are definately not synonyms.

[Mountaineer]

Why does the government have to steal back that which only they have the ability to freely create?

Three reasons:  control, control, control.  Include your favorite modifier before control.  All in the name of insuring the peace and reducing chaos. 

The more I think about Kshartle's NAP mantra, the more I appreciate it .... all we have to do is eliminate "sin" from humans; of course mankind has been pursuing how to do that for thousands of years, but there is always the possibility ..... this time will be different, right? 

... Mountaineer

[Kshartle]

Why does the government have to steal back that which only they have the ability to freely create?

+1

The point is the government must steal purchasing power since it can't create it. If it just stole it by creating more money it would lose it's power to destroy what it didn't like (by taxing it away).

However, if it directly stole through taxes the amount that the politicians colletively want to spend on themselves, their friends, vote-buying, attacking enemies etc, it would face a lot of opposition.

Enter the printing press and the stealth tax/theft.

FIAT money has no intrintic value and thus no purchasing power inherent in itself. The government can't create purchasing power with it's presses. It can only redistribute that power away from other holders of the paper. Thus, when they print they are still stealing. The more dollars held overseas the less damaging this theft appears to Americans and the more willing they are to accept it.

If the gubmit maintained it's current level of spending and had to fund it completely though taxes alone rates would shoot up 30-40% maybe. This would further discourage production and be a big problem.

Now you can say "Well, they can always borrow". Sure. But they have to pay it back or at least service it. If they can't print the money then it still has to come from direct theft (taxes).

Think of it as theft diversification. Browne explains very clearly and conciesly in his early works.