Тег: Philosophy

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.

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.