Comments Elsewhere

Bob:

“Rad Geek, I am not saying that it is morally permissible. I am denying the existance of this moral sphere.”

Fine, but that is a position different from Max’s; Max holds that rights-claims are significant objectively binding; he just holds that they only have that significance and that force within the context of certain sorts of political structures. That’s the claim that I am responding to; although what I have to say bears on plain moral nihilism, too.

“From where do you get your morality? God?”

Hardly; I’m an atheist, and even if I were a theist I’d still regard divine command ethics as incoherent. I can give you a long account of what I take to be the proper grounds of moral claims if you want but this isn’t the best forum in which to do it. So for the moment let me just point out (1) that there are many ethical theories on offer that ground objectively binding moral claims in the nature of the human person, as either a thinking or a feeling being (or both); and (2) that whatever involved arguments and theoretical frameworks you might get tangled up in the course of having ethical arguments, statements such as “You’re really doing something wrong to innocent foreigners if you boil them alive” is far more obvious than any of those arguments or theories. If it could be showed that some set of premises that I endorsed undermined or failed to support the anti-boiling conclusion, that would be as good a reason as any to reject at least one of the premises—not a reason to start deliberating about whether boiling innocents alive is a good idea or not.

[On premise 2 of my argument, that there really is something wrong with boiling innocent foreigners…] “I still am not convinced.”

But Bob, I’m not interested in whether you’re convinced or not; I’m interested in whether or not you have reason to be convinced. (See my discussion of the here-is-one-hand argument and charges of questions-begging for why that’s important.) My argument is (1) that the burden of convincing is clearly on the person maintaining that you’re really not doing anything wrong to an innocent foreigner by boiling them alive, and (2) that a good reason for convincing someone can’t be made. And certainly this is not that reason:

“Right and wrong are constructs of society; naturally, every man or group of men are free to do whatever they choose insofar as they have the physical power to do it.”

I don’t agree; and the fact that boiling innocent foreigners alive really is wrong whatever you feel about it and whether or not you have the might to force it on someone else without untoward consequences is as good a reason as any to reject such sweeping arm-chair theorizing about moral claims in a state of nature.

“You may argue against the efficacy of boiling people, or argue that it is counterproductive,”

Counterproductive to what ends?

“cruel,”

“Cruel” is a moral term; there’s no good way to distinguish cruelty from fair punishment for wrongdoing except by reference to the question of whether the person does or does not deserve the harsh treatment. And that is just the sort of moral question that you claim to be somehow meaningless.

“or ineffective”

Again, ineffective for what ends?

‘But that is not a reason why it is “wrong.”’

Nobody in her right mind says that boiling people alive (or impaling them on sharp sticks and leaving them to die over several days, say) is wrong because it “undermines society” or some nebulous set of rules. It’s wrong because you’re forcing the most excruciating pain, and ultimately a hideous death, on a completely innocent person. You don’t need some extra theoretical reason to condemn that: it’s horrible enough on its own.

“Proving that too many hippie swine survived the Kent State shootings…” Hey, Sabotta, you are aware that the people shot in the Kent State massacre were murdered by the State, aren’t you? Why not follow up with a crack about the death of Vicki Weaver?

Because, after all, nothing says “primo libertarian comedy material” like cold-blooded murder at the hands of government agents.

“Barganier’s excerpt and interpretation of Max’s comment implies that Max is arguing in favor of torture. He isn’t.” I know Max isn’t; but I have no idea where Barganier says that. In his “express your disgust” post I see where he points out that Borders’ argument leaves the boiling alive question open to deliberation over matters of strategy and whether we find it too gross. I see where he says that any account that leaves it open is, whether right or wrong, not a libertarian account but rather something else. But I don’t see anywhere where he says or implies that Borders condones throwing people into the cauldron. Max’s position is objectionable enough just as he has stated it, without needing any embellishment.

Micha, where and how did Barganier quote Max’s out of context? The boiling alive comment is a direct implication of Max’s own stated position; it’s just as pithy a condensation as you could fear for. Max dropped a mosntrous consequence into Barganier’s lap; Barganier pointed it out.

Micha,

I’d like to set aside the question of forseen and intended consequences for a moment. Not because it’s unimportant or uninteresting, but because I don’t think that it actually bears very much on the issue with Max Borders. There is another important distinction that needs to be made here, and once made I think the question of forseen and intended consequences can be mooted without any effect one way or another on the debate over the permissibility of boiling innocent foreigners alive. There is an important disanalogy between the Eric case and what Borders says about boiling foreigners: in the case of Eric, I think it would be seriously mistaken to conclude that what the Eric case shows is that sometimes you can shoot innocent babies without their rights being violated, or that there are cases where assaulting innocents is not blameworthy. Not so: the baby’s rights are being violated; it is being murdered. What the thought experiment shows is that the blame falls on Eric, not on the shooter. Why? Because it is Eric, not the shooter, who made it so that the baby would be shot. Killing innocent babies is not permissible on any theory of rights that could be plausibly characterized as “libertarian”; what the Eric case is meant to show is not that it’s permissible, but to open the question of who is to blame for the rights violation.

It’s an interesting and important question how far this analysis applies, and whether it applies to some of the different attempted justifications of torture that have appeared (I think it doesn’t apply to most of them; because most of them actually involve a situation in which the torture victim is not innocent, and so have to do more with procedural rights and proportionality than with non-aggression). But however broadly or narrowly it may apply, it doesn’t do Borders any good. His claim isn’t that, when boiling innocent foreigners alive serves American interests, the fault for the boiling might rest on someone other than the boiler (who would it rest on?). His claim is that there just isn’t any question of objective fault at all. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t do anything wrong to an innocent civilian under a foreign sovereign; you could at most do something that would be foolish strategically, or perhaps something that you would find gross. Whereas the question of whether you can shoot the baby to stop Eric hinges on who gets the red card in the human rights game (you or Eric or both of you), the question that Borders raises is whether boiling innocent civilians is even governed by the rules of the game at all. Borders’ stated position is that trying to blame anyone (much less demanding restitution from them) for boiling a completely innocent foreigner alive is like trying to pay with a cheque in a society that has no banks. Those of us who find his position monstrous (and/or anti-libertarian) are concerned with that, not with a disagreement over who properly to blame for the boiling.

Holy mother of God.

“You have to say, ‘Here are the rules,’ and you are firm and fair. That radiates stability,” said Lieutenant Colonel Dave Bellon ….

… Yes, and let’s see who wrote the rulebook:

Under the plans, troops would funnel Fallujans to so-called citizen processing centers on the outskirts of the city to compile a database of their identities through DNA testing and retina scans. Residents would receive badges displaying their home addresses that they must wear at all times.

… Starting off, apparently, with apartheid South Africa and its passbooks for the colored (now with high tech biometrics added to make it even creepier).

“… One idea that has stirred debate among Marine officers would require all men to work, for pay, in military-style battalions. Depending on their skills, they would be assigned jobs in construction, waterworks, or rubble-clearing platoons.”

… And this proposal comes straight from Leon Trotsky and his plan to implement industrial conscription under the regimentation of the Red Army. When he published the idea in 1919, he even managed to horrify his fellow Bolsheviks–no small feat, that.

Thank God our boys are over there to stop the enemies of freedom and democracy in Iraq.

Historical note:

“… the first democratic election in Afghanistan (not post-Taliban, but ever) earlier this year.”

This is not accurate. During the period of the Constitutional monarchy (1964-1973), the Afghan Constitution (which you can find translated online at http://www.dsg.unito.it/dircost/Afghanistan%201964.htm, if you’re interested) provided for universal suffrage and established democratically elected municipal and provincial councils as well as bicameral national Parliament with a democratically elected lower house (Wolesi Jirgah) and direct elections for 1/3 of the members of the upper house (Meshrano Jirgah). Afghanistan’s first nationwide elections were held in September 1965, and a second round was held at the end of the first 4 year legislative term in 1969.

“Max’s point was not that he wanted to boil people, or that he would enjoy it, or that we should.”

But Bob, nobody that I’ve read on this topic yet has claimed that Borders advocates boiling people alive. What Barganier and others have pointed out is that Borders’ own stated position *leaves the question open for deliberation* based on considerations of strategy and personal taste. Whatever you might think of that account, it’s not a libertarian account, but rather something else.

“The point was simply that it was neither moral or immoral. And I challange anyone to prove otherwise.”

The argument has already been taken up elsewhere (at http://radgeek.com/gt/2004/12/05/the_humane among other places). There is no possible non-question-begging argument that Borders could give for the (moral) permissibility of boiling innocent foreigners alive; any argument that shows a set of premises lead to that conclusion is, at the strongest, a reductio ad absurdam of the premises that are used.

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.

Bill Woolsey writes: “So, regardless of whether boiling foreigners alive is or is not in the interest of America, it is neither moral or immoral.

“He went on to argue that he (like most people)
would find boilling people alive distasteful and
that he doesn’t believe that it is in the U.S.
interest.

“In no way was he advocating boiling people alive.”

But Bill, nobody that I’ve read on the matter has suggested that Borders does advocate boiling people alive. 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. Whether he advocates boiling innocent aliens alive or not, Borders leaves the question open for deliberation about its strategic value and our own tastes; and that is monstrous enough from the standpoint of common decency–let alone libertarian political theory–on its own demerits.

As for his own attempt to weasel around this problem by offering our “sentimental” reasons for finding the whole affair ghastly, they are incoherent, as I argue elsewhere. I won’t re-argue it at length here; the bottom line is that the only way we can make sense out of “sentimental shoulds” is by reference to how our emotions do or do not express judgments about what we ought and ought not to do. But that means that the reasonableness of the sentiments has to stand up to reflective judgment or else be dismissed as irrational (and so not giving any “should”). And that seems to tie our sentimental shoulds back into our normative shoulds: the sentiment of horror is only a reasonable sentiment if it expresses a judgment of a real state of affairs (viz. that it is really is horrible to boil someone alive).

There are some further epicycles that you could try to put onto the theory to explain away the judgment as something other than a moral judgment. Some of them I considered and rejected in brief; others can be dealt with elsewhere and at more length; but Borders set out none of them in the course of his argument. He just invoked the sentiments as a sort of magic charm to summon up reasons for action. But it doesn’t, in fact, advance the argument one inch.

As for comparing Borders to Prince Dracula–whether it’s juvenile or not is not something that I’m a fit judge of (since I’m rather partial). But I will say that Max Borders has explicitly stated, and argued at length, that there is no moral difference in principle between himself and Vlad Dracula. He has tried to argue at length and in several different places for a theory that would hold that absolutely any atrocity whatsoever could be committed against aliens without violating any principle of justice–from assault and pillage to impaling and boiling alive. It is his own stated position that the only difference between what he’s willing to do and what Vlad was willing to do is a matter of contingent circumstance, and a matter of personal taste. If that is not a monstrous position to hold, then what is?