Тег: morality

The moral philosopher and children

An interesting dispute occurred here on Twitter between two libertarians whom I quite respect.

On one side, @dobroum presented a universal moral philosophy, one of whose conclusions is the assertion that any violence against children is inadmissible, as well as the rather banal “it is better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick,” meaning that a family should be complete, everyone in the family should love one another, the father should earn enough to support the whole family, and the mother should prioritize raising offspring above any other hobby. And divorces, kindergartens, and single mothers harm children.

He was opposed by @VoiceInTwit, who argued that there are no universal parenting methods, that violence from children is quite acceptable to suppress with forceful means, and that in the real world one has to deal with imperfect situations—and if a moral philosophy with its universal principles cannot handle such situations, then its value is small.

Even from my retelling, it is not difficult to understand whose side I am on in this dispute. However, I should note that although this looks like a confrontation between the theorist Dobroum and the practitioner Voice, in fact, the situation is the opposite: the practitioner Dobroum (has children, raises them non-violently) against the theorist Voice (has no children of his own). Due to my own lack of children, my judgments will suffer from the same deficiency.

Nevertheless, a specific case of non-violent child-rearing only proves the fallacy of the thesis “non-violent upbringing is impossible,” yet this thesis is not being put forward in the debate. Instead, the thesis “non-violent upbringing is not always appropriate” is being advanced, and here the practice must move into the realm of theory to defend the opposing claim that “violent upbringing is always inappropriate.”

Alas, the attempt to justify the non-application of violence to children through a universal NAP runs into two obstacles. First, as Voice notes, in a situation where the NAP is violated by a child, they are deprived of the protection of the non-aggression principle. Otherwise, the NAP proves to be non-universal (violence can be used to suppress violence, but if violence is used by a child, it cannot be). Second, the problem of fuzzy boundaries arises in full force: not being competent from birth, an infant remains a will-less object of manipulation by adults for quite a long time; otherwise, they would not survive. There is no clear line between manipulation without consent and violence. An infant can be undressed without consent, whereas for an adult, this is usually a criminal offense. Meanwhile, universal moral principles should work, shouldn’t they? Unfortunately, with children, the use of crutches is inevitable: no matter how you look at it, they acquire legal personhood only gradually.

At this stage of the dispute, the advocate of non-violent treatment of children must take off the hat of a moral philosopher and become a practitioner again, bringing utilitarian arguments that those who have experienced childhood trauma statistically turn out to be stupider and unhappier by adulthood, after which one can fully immerse oneself in a discussion about how applicable statistics are to individual cases. And here, all the cards fall to the hands of the one who is skeptical of playing with statistics, because it was with those very same statistical arguments that we were fed before the forced COVID vaccination, as well as the stripping of the right to bear arms.

Raising a child is the responsibility of those who are doing it. And everyone does it, from parents to cartoon creators to a random passerby expressing their moral judgment to a child. A parent cannot and should not shield a child from any adverse influence. Likewise, a parent cannot claim an exclusive right to do whatever they please with their child—a random passerby may not limit themselves to rendering a moral judgment, but may also use force if they deem it necessary.

So, about the use of force. I very much hope that even the most non-violent moral philosopher still teaches her girls to use it. This includes explaining in which situations it is appropriate to use force, even if it is not being directly used against you personally right now. Otherwise, there is a danger of raising pacifists or helpless victims instead of defenders of freedom. However, it is not such a great danger, since a parent is never solely responsible for upbringing. And that is a good thing.

Theory of Moral Nativism and Moral Intuition

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Moral nativism is a theory that, in response to the question of where moral intuition, moral judgment, and other important elements of moral psychology come from, provides the answer that they are to some extent innate and emerged as a result of human biological evolution. Moral nativism relies on a two-stage argument. The first argument is that the mind contains a moral grammar: a complex system of principles, rules, and conceptual building blocks that generate and connect various mental representations upon which moral intuition depends. The second argument is that at least some of the fundamental attributes of this moral grammar are innate and are not based exclusively on experience, but rather come “from nature’s hand.” Cultural factors certainly influence the development of morality; nevertheless, a significant amount of evidence suggests that at least some aspects of moral cognition are innate.

How can we confirm the position of moral nativism? Darwin, de Waal, Kropotkin, and other biologists have emphasized that empathetic and altruistic behavior seems to have deep evolutionary roots. Rats experience stress when they hear the cries of other rats and perform altruistic acts to protect them from harm. Great apes experience evident grief over the death or disappearance of those to whom they were attached, and often comfort victims of attacks. Human infants cry more intensely in response to the crying of other infants than to comparable computer-generated sounds or even to a recording of their own crying; this means that “they react to the awareness of another’s pain, rather than simply to a specific pitch of sound.” Human children are also biologically predisposed to recognize and comfort those experiencing emotional distress. In a broader sense, young children are predisposed to help others achieve their goals, share valuable resources with them, and provide them with useful information. Furthermore, clinical and experimental studies have confirmed that specific areas of the brain underlie moral cognition, and that damage to these areas can lead to impaired moral judgments while leaving other cognitive functions intact.

We can also refer to norms that are universal across all societies. Research across hundreds of jurisdictions shows that the prohibition of murder appears to be universal and highly invariant. All known justifications and excusable reasons for committing murder consist of a relatively short list of defensive arguments familiar to everyone. Moreover, the attitude toward intentional killings specifically is even stricter. And a study conducted among ten cultures from different parts of the world, including residents of villages, cities, and even representatives of nomadic peoples, shows that battery, rape, theft, slander, and perjury are assessed as unlawful (i.e., “bad” or “extremely bad”) acts by about 95% of people.

Finally, one cannot fail to mention the theory of the violence inhibition mechanism, according to which many animal species and humans possess strong deterrents against causing harm to members of their own species. In animals, these deterrents are most often expressed through the ritualization of combat. In humans, they consist of unconditioned (innate) and conditioned (acquired during socialization) reflexes, primarily causing a reaction of rejection and internal resistance to witnessing the suffering of other people and performing aggressive actions toward them. Many studies, including anthropological and military ones, confirm that the average healthy individual possesses strong internal resistance to committing violence. And only a few, completely dysfunctional individuals, experience no resistance at all, even to committing murder—these are also called psychopaths.

As a right-libertarian and legal individualist, can I support the Russian Volunteer Corps?

Max Stirner

From the proposed positions, it is strange in general to ask questions about whether one can do something. Of course, one can; the only question is the extent of responsibility.

If we are talking about sanctions from the Russian state, then solving the problem comes down to finding sufficiently safe ways of transferring money, publishing propaganda, delivering equipment, and so on.

However, I believe the question is more about whether other right-libertarians and right-individualists, upon learning of such activity, would feel obligated to obstruct you.

The RDK is a semi-autonomous armed formation within the AFU: in some ways it obeys the central command, it depends on it significantly for supplies, and it seems to be quite autonomous in matters of recruiting and the informational coverage of its activities. But there are other units within the AFU that independently conduct recruiting and crowdfunding. How is the RDK so different that the German Stirner asks about the permissibility of helping specifically the RDK, and not some Azov?

Azov was mentioned for a reason. Both this brigade and the Russian Volunteer Corps face numerous accusations that Nazis serve there. Economic theory tells us that values are subjective. Any person has every right to prefer one nation over all others; this in itself does not provide grounds to condemn them. Do the guys from Azov and RDK exterminate representatives of all other nations for the sake of the greatness of the nation they prefer over all others? No, they exterminate people according to a different criterion, and this criterion is no different from the one guided by other military formations within the AFU.

The only remaining difference between the RDK (and a couple of other smaller units) and other parts is that they physically, on foot, crossed the internationally recognized Russian-Ukrainian border to fight the Russian army on Russian territory. And what, does this make them aggressors? No, they are still participants in a defensive war. Just like the drone operators striking refineries deep in the Russian rear.

Ah, yes, they also have Russian passports, or at least they did at the start of the war. And what, does this somehow change their legal status? No, not even under Russian laws. They still remain AFU servicemen, toward whom all sorts of rights and restrictions associated with the laws and customs of war apply—laws which the RF pledged to observe (but does not). But even if there were a law in the RF according to which any RF citizen who joined the ranks of foreign armed forces was subject to execution without trial, what significance would this have for a legal individualist?

However, I assume that the reader with the nickname Max Stirner is a Russian citizen. Therefore, his question can be reformulated more sharply: does libertarian morality justify war against one’s own state? Actually, libertarian morality justifies war against any state. Even against states led by libertarians, such as Javier Milei, Nayib Bukele, or Hans-Adam II. Fighting against one’s own is even more meaningful, because that is where your main grievances lie, it is that state that causes you direct harm, whereas all others are just some predators roaming nearby, who, of course, should also have no place on earth. However, a successful war requires allies. Most of us do not have them. The RDK does. Let us be happy for them.

An Unusual Look at NAP

In my book about ancap, there is a chapter that I have to reference most often—the one about conflicts, morality, and law. And it looks like I will be correcting it slightly soon.

You know, for a long time now, I have been bothered by the tendency, well-known among libertarians, to call those who initiate violence “NAP violators.” Especially, of course, those who call the NAP a contract.

Let me recall my formulation of the NAP: no one has the right to initiate violence with impunity. This principle is primarily about the fact that there are no privileged individuals who have the right to initiate violence with impunity. So, who violates it? It is violated by those who give people such a right.

Let me recall my definition of rights: rights are claims that have been accepted. In other words, NAP violators are those who have accepted the claims of certain individuals to initiate violence with impunity. To put it bluntly: it is not Putin who violates the NAP, but those who believe that he has the right to give orders for killings.

The only one who has the right to cancel punishment for the initiation of violence without any judicial proceeding is the victim of the violence. Only the victim can forgive the attacker—after compensation for damages or simply so. But even the victim of violence cannot, without violating the NAP, claim that the attacker had the right to attack. Yes, they attacked, and then a reconciliation between the parties occurred. This does not create a precedent. The next attack will similarly require punishment. From everyone who agrees with the NAP.

This is precisely where the roots of libertarian morality lie.

Why is it forbidden to sell children into slavery? And how will private police maintain order if it is more profitable to steal?

Anonymous question

The second question is quite simple, so I will answer it first. For a private security guard, it is also more profitable to steal products from the store than to ensure others do not steal. But only in the short term; afterwards, he is fired, with more or less of a scandal. It is important not to give him powers beyond those strictly required to perform his job duties; otherwise, he will not only steal but also intimidate other staff to cover up the theft by creating fictitious reports for the owners. I do not exclude that such schemes do arise in some places due to the negligence of store owners, but usually, there is a system of incentives that makes such behavior unlikely and prevents it from going too far.

Now let’s talk about children.

To begin with, I will note that even now, under the state, children are quite readily sold into slavery. And I am not even talking about state slavery, such as the forced labor of Uzbek schoolchildren collecting cotton, but about private slavery, which is forbidden by that very same state. Nevertheless, it is precisely under the state that the incentive system for the police, as highlighted in the answer to the first question, is such that it may be more profitable for the police to sell children into slavery themselves or to protect such trade. Private child labor slavery is more characteristic of some part of Sub-Saharan Africa with its rather primitive mining industry. In wealthier countries, sexual slavery is more prevalent.

The question is, why does all this hardly concern the authors of questions about child slavery under ancap? It is easy to answer. Under the state, private child slavery is considered marginal; it takes place somewhere far away and does not catch the eye. The authors of the questions are concerned specifically about a potential situation where such slavery is respectable. When you encounter it on the street and in the information space at every step, and therefore have to put up with the existence of this phenomenon, and if you try to fight it with means of moral pressure, you yourself find yourself in the skin of a marginal who prevents decent people from behaving in their usual way.

Could child slavery become a respectable practice in the ancap community? Of course, it could. According to the principles of libertarianism, restitution is a perfectly legitimate way of acquiring property, and if, for example, a child damaged some expensive property (which children sometimes do), then it is perfectly permissible to demand compensation from the child and even collect it by force, since the child possesses self-ownership, and at what age full legal capacity is assigned is a matter of convention. Restitution is perfectly permissible not only in monetary but also in-kind form; there you have the prerequisite for slavery.

Thus, practices where a child works off a broken neighbor’s window by mowing the neighbor’s lawn are more than likely under ancap, as they do not cause moral repulsion. What could prevent the development of harsher practices, where, for example, something is demanded from a child as restitution that an adult would find humiliating for themselves, such as filming in a BDSM video? It is that very moral repulsion that will prevent it. Too many people would be found who, applying the situation to themselves, would state that they would not agree to this for any amount of money, and therefore, to them personally, such restitution seems unfair (the subject of the conflict is valued as disproportionately less significant than the damage caused during restitution). Libertarian morality requires intervening in conflicts on the just side, so a child in such a situation would easily find defenders.

Well, if that is the case, then the authors of questions about child slavery under ancap can breathe a sigh of relief: it will certainly not get worse than under the state. They can continue to boycott manufacturers of clothing made using forced child labor and leave the ancaps alone.

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.

Innate Non-Aggression Morality: Relation to Moral Realism and Ethical Intuitionism

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Not long ago, I considered the question of morality in the context of the concept of the violence inhibition mechanism (VIM)—a cognitive mechanism that inhibits violent behavior in humans. A healthy person who does not suffer from VIM dysfunction is incapable of committing acts of violence against other people. The manifestation of direct brutal violence is successfully inhibited (restrained) in more than 98% of people. The capacity to commit violence is an aberration and a pathology, not the norm of human nature.

Within this topic, the question of a human’s ability to distinguish between transgressions of a moral and a social (conventional) nature (moral/conventional distinction) is of particular interest. Moral transgressions consist of causing harm to a person, whereas social transgressions consist of violating established norms. A beating, for example, would certainly be a moral transgression, while a student leaving the classroom without the teacher’s permission is merely a transgression of a conventional nature.

When a person encounters experiences that demonstrate moral transgressions, distress signals from their victims, such as a sad facial expression or crying, lead to the activation of the VIM and the emergence of a rejection response. The person develops an association between the moral transgression, the distress signals, and the subsequent rejection; as a result, they become capable of understanding and identifying moral transgressions by analyzing certain actions.

Such an association does not arise in the case of social transgressions, as they do not initially lead to the activation of the VIM in a person. Consequently, people with VIM dysfunction, such as psychopaths, cannot understand the difference between moral and social transgressions, because from a neurophysiological point of view, it truly does not exist for them—they perceive these transgressions identically; more precisely, moral transgressions are perceived by them in the same way as social ones.

The fact that psychopaths and people with violent tendencies are indeed incapable of understanding this distinction is a fact confirmed by a vast amount of evidence and research. Let us also recall the fact that violence is a deviation from the norm of natural human behavior. In fact, the morality of non-aggression is biologically predetermined for humans, which we learned by conducting research into human nature. Thus, this morality can be attributed to moral realism.

But we will not stop there, because it is worth mentioning one more thing—a person with a functioning VIM (which, as previously stated, is the norm of human nature) will become capable of recognizing transgressions of a moral nature, and therefore, a corresponding morality of non-aggression will develop in them absolutely regardless of whether they know anything about their own nature at all. If they are unfamiliar with the concept of the VIM and the notion of a moral transgression, the morality of non-aggression will be perceived by them as something intuitive, self-evident. For the vast majority of people, this intuitive understanding will coincide, and on the issue of violence, they will converge on a single position that committing acts of violence is unacceptable, without conducting any research and without attempting to form any logical conclusions (violent views will originate only from the violent minority). Such a universal intuitive understanding of morality pertains to moral (or ethical) intuitionism.

As we can see, the innate morality of non-aggression is simultaneously an objective fact of human nature, pertaining to moral realism, and an intuitively understood norm, pertaining to ethical intuitionism. Of course, we can see that the latter stems from the former—that is, a person’s intuitive understanding stems from their objective biological nature. Therefore, the innate morality of non-aggression simply unites these approaches to morality, simultaneously corresponding to both of them and deriving one from the other.

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.