Will Wilkinson - Latest Comments in The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

JSBolton — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 01:18:49 -0000

It ought to be asked, how can a prospective immigrant have rights here, just by starting to move this way? Is there some good to the species to be gained by inventing an obligation of the net taxpayers of our citizenry, to extend protection through our government, out to all who say they want it? How do we know that foreigners here have rights and not privileges only? More cooperation of whatever kind is always better? What about cooperation by foreigners in increasing aggression on the net taxpayers of our citizenry, is that part of the dynamic cooperation that generates increased utility as it increases? The intellectually honest and sincere would want to answer these questions, or not?

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

Micha Ghertner — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 07:06:57 -0000

I'm not going to get into citing examples of non-State enforcement mechanisms in this thread; I know you're well read enough and familiar with the arguments already. The question of stability of civil institutions in a statist world is a good and tough one, but again, far beyond the point I wanted to make here, and far off topic.

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

TGGP — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:31:21 -0000

a state is not the only enforcement mechanism of rights.
What are some other ones and why do they matter if the State can just drive them out of business?

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

Micha Ghertner — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:37:40 -0000

Micha, what rights-enforcement mechanism is capable of protecting me from the state?

I don't recall ever claiming I knew of such a mechanism. The lack of such a mechanism, of course, isn't incompatible with my statement that a state is not the only enforcement mechanism of rights.

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

Larry — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:14:28 -0000

You gave two hypothetical claims and said if morality/rights are meaningless they are equally valid, which is to say not valid at all.

That's not what I said. What I did say was that if all moral/rights assertions are thought to be equally reasonable, that leads to a contradiction -- but of course that's only true if you think that any moral/rights assertions are reasonable at all. In your case, then, you can at least escape the contradiction. Whether you can escape harm from the state or anything/one else, being unable to claim protection or help, is another matter.

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

TGGP — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 02:16:08 -0000

what you can’t do, if rights, like morality, are meaningless absurdities, is make any claim. You’re on your own, TG.
You gave two hypothetical claims and said if morality/rights are meaningless they are equally valid, which is to say not valid at all. Where is the contradiction?

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

Larry — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 01:49:18 -0000

The argument that a particular belief entails an absurdity is a refutation of that belief for everyone who's moved beyond Dada.

You can, of course, believe or disbelieve in anything you like. But what you can't do, if rights, like morality, are meaningless absurdities, is make any claim. You're on your own, TG.

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

TGGP — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 23:13:05 -0000

If by reductio ad absurdum you mean proof by contradiction, it is fine and frequently used in mathematics. You gave an argument from incredulity that two opposing statements could be equally reasonable because it was simply absurd.

Micha was the one who brought up rights-enforcing mechanisms. Just because I don't believe in rights doesn't mean I can't also disbelieve in a mechanism that can stand up to the state.

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

Larry — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 22:52:01 -0000

TGGP: Yes, there is no reason at all for any of it.
Micha, what rights-enforcement mechanism is capable of protecting me from the state?

"Rights"? What "rights"? "Any of it" would have to include "rights" too I'm afraid.

Maybe the problem here is that you think the argument from absurdity (reductio ad absurdum) is a fallacy.

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

James — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:34:03 -0000

Will comments:
"Just to be clear, you think Americans ought to get a better shake in life just because they’re Americans?"

First of all, it's not impossible that Americans mostly deserve what they have. Secondly, even if it's just a better shake Americans ought to be able to pass it on, at the national level, to whom they choose.

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

TGGP — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:14:48 -0000

Argument from absurdity
Isn't that a fallacy or something?

if all moral assertions are equally reasonable, then it’s as reasonable to assert that it’s immoral to do that which I’ve agreed to do as it is to assert that it’s moral
Yes, there is no reason at all for any of it.

Micha, what rights-enforcement mechanism is capable of protecting me from the state? Because all the competitors seem to have gotten their asses thoroughly kicked everywhere but the high seas and Antarctic.

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

Micha Ghertner — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:43:02 -0000

I've seen Nozick. Wasn't impressed.

True, it wouldn't make sense to speak of rights if we adopted the logical positivist position. I don't, in fact, adopt that position, but I thought I'd put it out there as a possible disproof of your claim that "not all moral assertions are equally reasonable."

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

Larry — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:32:38 -0000

You are confusing legal rights with moral rights

No, I'm simply talking about what the Constitution, as you point out, refers to as secured rights, or, as I said, viable rights.

But then Larry goes on to say that “there are no states without defensible borders, and definable citizens,” thereby implicitly assuming that a state is the only enforcement mechanism of rights.

I didn't actually say that a state was the only enforcement mechanism for rights, but I probably should have stated explicitly that it's the only just -- i.e., morally reasonable -- mechanism, since alternatives either involve attempts at private enforcement (see Nozick) or are reducible to a state in any case.

... might it be the case that all moral assertions are equally reasonable given that all moral assertions are equally unreasonable, if we reject the possibility of cognitively meaningful moral assertions altogether?

In which case it hardly makes sense to speak of "rights" at all, whether as discussed by the Constitution or by Roderick Long.

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

Steve Sailer — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 05:44:18 -0000

Will claims:

"I am open to serious, empirically-minded arguments about the location of the point at which additional openness to migration leads to diminishing benefits. But, I’m afraid, one sees very little of this."

C'mon, be honest with yourself. You have no interest in "serious, empirically-minded arguments." You don't like numbers and you don't like reality. You like metaphysics.

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

Micha Ghertner — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 04:56:11 -0000

and not all moral assertions are equally reasonable.

Putting on my logical positivist hat for a minute, might it be the case that all moral assertions are equally reasonable given that all moral assertions are equally unreasonable>/i>, if we reject the possibility of cognitively meaningful moral assertions altogether?

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

Micha Ghertner — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 04:44:28 -0000

That said, I do agree with Larry that in order for rights to be viable - that is, respected or enforced - a mechanism is required. Larry offers a state as an example of an enforcement mechanism. But then Larry goes on to say that "there are no states without defensible borders, and definable citizens," thereby implicitly assuming that a state is the only enforcement mechanism of rights. It isn't. It isn't even a very good one. By definition, a state must violate rights in order to even exist. Whether the rights violations necessary for the creation and continued existence of a state are worth the supposed benefits of monopolizing the institutions of legitimized force is a question for another thread, but it bothers me how quickly people skip this step and simply assume that:

1. Rights require an enforcement mechanism to be viable.
2. States are one such enforcement mechanism.
3. ???
4. Therefore, states are the only such enforcement mechanism, and thus all rights come from the government, in which case nothing the government does can ever be said to violate rights. I am above the law!
5. Profit!

[Two South Park references in one post!)

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

Micha Ghertner — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 04:06:57 -0000

But, second, contra Will, there are no viable “rights” without a mechanism — such as a state — to protect them against violation; and there are no states without defensible borders, and definable citizens.

You are confusing legal rights with moral rights, a mistake the preamble to the Declaration of Independence was written to correct:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Or, as Roderick Long more recently put it,

For libertarians, the concept of rights belongs in the first instance to the realm of interpersonal ethics, and applies to the political realm only secondarily. That is because, for libertarians – as for the liberal tradition generally – rights are not the product of a political regime, but are prior to such regimes and constitute a constraint on them. Hence rights cannot without circularity be defined in terms of the purposes of a political regime. If political regimes are constrained by certain pre-existing rights, and indeed have as one of their purposes the protection of these rights, then it must be possible to describe what these rights require without presupposing the existence of a political regime. A crucial feature of libertarian political theorizing is the insistence that not just the precise nature, but the very existence, of political authority requires justification and cannot simply be assumed. If we start from the basic natural rights that human beings would have in any social context, including a state of nature, then the specification of a particular political regime cannot subtract from that array of rights; but then it cannot add to it either, for, as we shall see, the addition of one right always involves the subtraction of another.

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

Larry — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 02:48:52 -0000

First, contra JA, moral reasoning is in fact possible, and not all moral assertions are equally reasonable.
Could you provide some support for that statement?

Argument from absurdity: if all moral assertions are equally reasonable, then it's as reasonable to assert that it's immoral to do that which I've agreed to do as it is to assert that it's moral -- which is absurd. Hence, not all moral assertions are equally reasonable. QED.

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

TGGP — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 01:35:03 -0000

First, contra JA, moral reasoning is in fact possible, and not all moral assertions are equally reasonable.
Could you provide some support for that statement?

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

Larry — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:32:08 -0000

First, contra JA, moral reasoning is in fact possible, and not all moral assertions are equally reasonable. Hence, there can be, and are, moral obligations even without your agreement (and if there were not, then your agreement itself would be irrelevant). But, second, contra Will, there are no viable "rights" without a mechanism -- such as a state -- to protect them against violation; and there are no states without defensible borders, and definable citizens.

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

JA — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:29:05 -0000

Oh man, I just read that you were a philosophy major, so let me clarify this:

"But the point remains: there is no inherent tension between having utility and being false."

I am, of course, speaking about propositions -- "true that" rather than "true how". E.g., it is true that if you are a good boy Santa will bring you presents -- useful, beneficial, but false.

One would be hard pressed to argue that a false technique has more than nominal utility (e.g. showing how not to do it).

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

JA — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:14:13 -0000

I wrote, "This is no mystery, but a natural result of each man judging his world from the inside looking out, using the same repertoire of mental metrics."

Another way of saying this: fundamental conflict in moral judgment is precisely the result you get when you think of each man as a prepared, complex, and adaptable algorithmic singularity.

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

JA — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:03:57 -0000

"If it’s useful, how is it a fiction?"

Surely a distinction must be made between useful and true. Especially given the vulnerability of our neo-cortical world-modeling to conceptual placebos.

There is no inherent contradiction in the idea that a false belief might result in benefits -- to the person, the society, or both -- if, via its subjective force, it leads to the types of "behavioral constraints" you mention. In fact, this must be the case more often than not, since so many ancient and mutually exclusive belief systems abound on this planet. Did they not have some utility, personal or collective, they probably would not still be extant. Of course, given the sheer number of them, it's also possible that human beings, via their more natural virtues, inhabit a state of ecological release.

But the point remains: there is no inherent tension between having utility and being false.

Now, you make a good amount of sense when you talk about the benefits of behavioral constraints. Were everyone to follow their impulses, complex civilization and its attendant benefits would be impossible: the systemic consequence of each person obeying nothing but appetite is maximum entropy. As Omar says, "A man's got to have a code." And as Jesus said, "Depart from me, ye who are lawless." Without the centripetal force of a common ethic, the resulting existential randomization would keep mankind in a very bad way indeed.

But you cannot get from there to the idea of a priori moral obligation. You can speak in terms of ethics; if you define a destination point you can speak in terms of strategy. But morality itself is an illusion; it is an evolutionarily-evolved, subterranean constant of human nature, it operates via intuition and emotion and only belatedly (and tenuously) accords with reason, and as a tool for survival it is unwieldy and highly imprecise.

Instantiations of "moral judgment" are largely inscrutable, heteroglot and discordant, as you would expect from a blunt, evolutionarily derived faculty like the moral instinct. Thus, while it is true that the concept of "justice" is universal in human beings -- not exactly a precise statement but enough for our purposes -- its conceptions can be and often are diametrically opposed to one another. This is no mystery, but a natural result of each man judging his world from the inside looking out, using the same repertoire of mental metrics.

Thus, an argument based on moral rights and obligations is inherently problematic unless you first destroy the distinction between the in-group and out-group, and even then it is less isomorphic to reality than it should be. Much better to find an external standard that is measurable, like, ah, Kolmogorov complexity or something (for society), rather than use the slippery concepts of moral truth.

And believe me when I say I have no intention of out-naturalizing you. My goal was to find common ground that was, ah, actual ground, rather than conduct the conversation on different levels of air. Each of the latter has, over the past few hundred years, been disassembled and reduced to rubble, while the former remains immutable as ever.

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

Will Wilkinson — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:26:25 -0000

"The great disillusionments of human history all had one thing in common: the discovery that Man was not the center of the universe. Moral Truth as the last illusion is more ensconced, since morality itself is an instinct of human nature. But like the Ptolemaic system of cosmology, it too will be replaced by fact, and none too soon."

I can assure that you're not going to out-naturalize me. Maybe we have a different idea about what it means to be fully "disillusioned". There are empirical facts about the conditions for human flourishing. There are sets of norms, rules, conventions, institutions etc. that lead people acting within them to live wealthier, healthier, more satisfying, longer lives. That's what I'm after. It's pretty damn far from magical.

Re: The Moral Claims of Non-Citizens

Will Wilkinson — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:20:56 -0000

"I may be precluding a future political career here, but this is a polite — though useful — fiction."

If it's useful, how is it a fiction? In my book, rights are justified by the likely effects of respecting them. The argument JUST IS that respecting certain side-constraints on action is useful. The flipside is that failing to respect them is harmful.