Comments Elsewhere

Me: “Bargainer certainly didn’t; what he did say is that there is no open question about the morality of boiling innocent foreigners alive under a libertarian theory of justice.”

Micha: “But this is clearly not the case. The vast majority of libertarians are not pacifists when it comes to war between nations states. Most libertarians believe that war between nation states is sometimes justified, even though war between nation states necessarily involves killing innocent non-combatants.”

Thanks for the prodding, Micha; I deserve it. But surely this isn’t quite the issue. It’s true that there are plenty of undoubtedly libertarian accounts of justice in wartime that allow for knowingly killing innocent civilians in the course of attacking legitimate military targets (if you’re waging a legitimate war, anyway). But I’m going to be a bit of an aprioristic wank here and just stipulate that no libertarian account of justice allows for intentionally targeting civilians for attack. (If an account endorses it, I’d just argue that’s enough to make it something other than a libertarian account.) And the sort of cases that Barganier and Borders are fussing over are clearly in the latter camp—it’s hard to imagine how you’d be boiling civilians alive for the war effort unless you were intentionally targeting civilians to be pitched into the cauldron. And even if you could devise some sort of story to make it fit libertarian strictures, this would be beside the point: Borders’ stated position commits him, afortiori, not only to saying that the possibly-acceptable cases don’t violate any objectively binding moral obligations, but also that the clearly unacceptable cases don’t violate any objectively binding moral obligations, either. Whether or not there are some cases of boiling foreigners alive that can be open questions for deliberation under a libertarian theory of justice, there certainly are some cases of boiling foreigners alive that could not possibly be open for deliberation. But Borders gladly admits that his position means that both the former and the latter are up for deliberation, based on matters of strategy and of personal taste. I don’t think it requires a lot of hermeneutical acrobatics to see that that’s what Barganier’s taking Borders to task over. And I think on that point that Barganier is clearly in the right.

Micha: “Whether you find Max’s argument offensive, at least it is an argument. Barganier’s is a vile form of ad hominem, and terribly bad form.”

I don’t know whether Barganier is acting in bad form or not; his post is insulting, to be sure, and his encouragement of writing to IHS over the issue may be questionable. Fine. But he is engaging directly in an argument; the form is: Max Borders’ position entails a monstrous consequence; in fact, he admits this very consequence; no libertarian theory can involve that consequence; therefore, Max Borders position is deeply in conflict with libertarianism. That’s a straightforward and valid argument (moreover, I think, a sound one); it’s certainly not an argumentum ad hominem, let alone one of a particularly vile form.