Тег: Konstantin_Morozov

Conclusion of the discussion of the false dilemma

In previous episodes: my summary of Konstantin Morozov’s article “Anarchism against Anarchy,” and my statement of the key thesis of this article by presenting the reader with a false dilemma.

Next, Konstantin responded to my article on his channel, and in the comments under that post, we had a more or less substantive discussion. This left each party with a feeling of being right, while simultaneously being accompanied by an adjustment by each side—not so much of their previously stated position, but of the approach to presenting it. The final response in the conversation belongs to Konstantin, and I will probably leave the last word to him, so as not to write another update on this same topic shortly.

I don’t know about you, but left-libertarianism has become a bit clearer to me. Not in the sense that I have become closer to it, but in the sense that I now expect less cannibalism from its typical representatives than from some conditional Karl Franco, even if he were thrice right-wing and thrice an ancap.

Konstantin Morozov and the False Dilemma

Let me remind you what this is about. Here is a summary of the first article by Konstantin Morozov—about how libertarians should embrace moral realism and, along with it, agree to certain taxes; and here is a summary of the second article—about how libertarians should embrace moral realism and, along with it, agree to the state and some form of state coercion. For those who doubt whether the articles were summarized correctly, there are links to the original sources that you can review.

In my view, Konstantin is proposing a false dilemma. Here is a chair with the spikes of moral realism; if you sit on it, your desires mean nothing as long as they contradict the only correct objective morality, which will be dictated to you by the state through the mouths of court intellectuals. And here is a chair with the dicks of moral subjectivism; sit on it, and your desires mean no more than the desires of any statist.

Of course, after the marginalist revolution in economic theory, there is no longer any point in seriously talking about the objectivity of values, and moral philosophers can strain every nerve trying to invent syllogisms to prove the opposite—so, without a second thought, I take a seat on the second chair and begin to proclaim from this cozy tripod, trying to do so more coherently than is typical for Pythias.

In my book about ancap, I describe morality as follows:

  • Conflict is a state in which the same object (the subject of the conflict) is viewed as a means to achieve different goals, whereby one use hinders the other or even makes it impossible.
  • Every person develops their own internal settings regarding which behavioral tactic to choose in which conflicts. These are their personal ethical norms.
  • As for morality, it is simply the order of behavior during conflicts that garners the greatest approval in a given society.

Thus, morality is based on the subjective values of individuals, but at the same time, it constitutes an abstract object that can be roughly outlined in some set commandments, while the subtleties of one or another morality can be dissected in hundreds of treatises and thousands of literary texts. In particular, we can describe libertarian morality quite clearly; a considerable number of libertarians accept these norms in general for themselves, though, of course, they will not hesitate to argue over various subtle points.

Naturally, libertarian morality includes a norm on the permissibility of coercion for the purpose of the fair resolution of conflicts (fairness being the sense of proportionality between the value of the object of conflict and the damage caused by the conflict). But at the same time, libertarian morality also requires a person to personally enter a conflict on the fair side, and this completely negates any attempts at a monopoly in the sphere of legitimate coercion. For a libertarian, the value of decentralization is higher than the value of monetary efficiency. All other things being equal, they will prefer a decentralized solution. If a centralized one is significantly more profitable, they may permit its use as a moral compromise and continue searching for a line of behavior that is more morally comfortable for them.

I am not speaking now in categories of “ought.” No one must adopt specifically libertarian morality. But if they do, their actions will be driven by approximately the considerations outlined above. Libertarian desires are better than the desires of statists—for libertarians, because values are subjective. They are also better than the desires of statists for many other anarchists, minarchists, liberals, conservatives, and several other abstract moral types. My task is simple—to formulate these desires and follow them. As for the fluttering of individual moral philosophers around the chair with spikes, I prefer to consider it simply a variety of intellectual masochism. Why not, as long as they don’t pounce on people.

Anarchism versus anarchy, an explication

I read an article by Konstantin Morozov with the beautiful title Anarchism vs. Anarchy.

Briefly, it states that: 1) there is philosophical anarchism, meaning the belief that the state has no moral right to coerce people, and there is political anarchism, meaning the belief that the state should be abolished; 2) political anarchism does not necessarily follow from philosophical anarchism, and one can deny the state the right to coercion without seeking to eliminate the state.

Konstantin claims: principled anarchism requires moral realism—the belief that objectively true moral judgments exist… because otherwise, anarchism itself would be nothing more than a set of someone’s personal desires. Meanwhile, anarchists do not deny the legitimacy of all coercion; they allow it to prevent more terrible coercion. But if coercion is permissible, for example, to prevent even more terrible coercion, then why cannot the state handle this? In other words, if the state behaves well, why should we demand its abolition? And any examples of bad states can always be dismissed as private cases subject to targeted correction.

The article would be incomplete if the author had not taken the trouble to address the obvious question: why does the state suppress its competitors in the matter of legitimate coercion? As a justification, it is argued that a proper state, to which philosophical anarchists should have no complaints, limits competitors for the sake of adhering to uniform, transparent procedural rules—in other words, to exclude vigilantism. That is, self-defense is fine, but dismembering a neutralized offender is not fine (shout out to Alexander Tatarkov and his constant leitmotif “we don’t need state prisons, give me the person who molested my daughter, I’ll sell him for organs”).

In the second part of the article, the author analyzes the question of how one might try to bypass the holes he found in the justification of political anarchism through moral subjectivism. It will not be possible to justify the state’s claim to exercise justified coercion if there is no single and universal standard for the justifiability of coercion. Next, he gallops through Stirner, Svetov, Belkovich, and Hoppe. Konstantin’s objections to the ideas of the aforementioned individuals boil down to the following:

If the individual himself is the final authority in determining good and bad, then why would coercing someone into moral orders to which they did not consent be wrong? Their subjective judgment on this matter cannot carry more weight than the equally subjective judgment of the person exercising the coercion that this coercion is justified.

In other words, in Konstantin’s opinion, if we take the position of moral subjectivism, we leave ideas about the necessity of abolishing the state even more without any support. For some, the state is evil; for others, it is good; everyone is right, let’s move on.

In conclusion, the author states that the most promising direction of work for anarchists is the search for strong practical arguments in favor of the idea that a stateless society will be effective, while any militant rhetoric directed at the state would be better tempered, looking instead at plans for various useful reforms.

I have already summarized Morozov’s previous article on moral realism once, but I never commented on it, and in the meantime, he has written more. In the next post, I do intend to speak out on the interesting questions he has raised.

Moral Realism and the Tribal Customs of Ancaps

I was sent a link to an interesting article on the god-forsaken VKontakte, where a certain Konstantin Morozov discusses the moral justification of taxation, specifically for the purpose of implementing a Basic Income, and other interesting mental constructs of the left-libertarian camp. Without irony, I was interested in understanding their logic.

In short, the author’s argument is as follows. The compulsory nature of seizure is not in itself a criterion for its injustice: this is easily demonstrated by the example of damage compensation. Thus, to speak of the injustice of seizure, one must show that property is being seized to which you have a right. But how do you determine what a person has a right of ownership to? What makes them think they have ownership rights to that which is seized as a tax? Legally, this is state property and is subject to payment. Therefore, the libertarians’ resistance to taxes is rooted not in laws, but in morality.

This raises the question of the objectivity of morality. If we stand on the positions of moral relativism, where one thinks one way and another thinks another, and both are right, then the state is just as right in collecting taxes as the libertarian is in refusing to pay them. Thus, if a libertarian wants to justify to others that he specifically is right, he will have to adopt the position of moral realism.

By tracing the immorality of taxes back to the non-aggression principle, the libertarian relies on the idea that freedom requires no rational basis; it is some kind of self-evident good toward which everyone strives. But what exactly is the freedom being discussed? The libertarian conception of freedom as the absence of coercion is far from the only formulation, not even the most popular one, and certainly cannot be considered self-evident.

Next, the author examines several possible approaches to justifying the morality of compulsory seizures for redistribution in favor of the poor: the Lockean proviso, utilitarianism, Nozick’s compensatory justice, reducing the concept of negative liberty to its republican formulation… The author does not insist on the truth of any particular argument; he merely points out that smart men know how to reason beautifully and competently with logic and facts, while frenzied Eastern European libertarians, having filled their heads with their Svetov and up their asses… remain unconvincing, narrow-minded dogmatists demonstrating an extremely low level of discussion.

I am not going to start refuting the points from the article right now. For me, this is rather a useful warning that will come in handy when writing the brochure on ancap. In particular, I need to figure out what to do with moral realism. I define morality as a spontaneous order of entering into conflicts, and it will, of course, differ in various communities. Thus, the book about ancap acquires a sort of ethnographic character. As in, listen, there is such a people as ancaps in the world, and they have these amazing tribal customs, so unlike what is accepted among civilized people, but attractive in their own way, just as the customs of some Polynesians regarding free love are attractive to us. Will I justify why the libertarian social order is the best? Well, I don’t know. I’m not sure.