Non-philosophy geeks can safely ignore this post. It arises from a common discussion I have with someone, who sometimes brings it up in contexts where I have argued it was inappropriate.  This is primarily an attempt to clarify my own interpretation of the phrase, to see if it reconciles with hers.

If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice.

--Rush, "Free Will"

What is this lyric saying? Let us analyze an example of where someone may not have made a "decision", but has still made a "choice." The most obvious one is belief in God. Here, there are four distinct choices that one is required to make when faced with the possibility of a God:

1. Theism - Positive affirmation of the existence of a God. You have chosen to believe.
2. Atheism - Affirmation of the non-existence of a God. You have chosen to disbelieve.
3. Strong Agnosticism/Skepticism - You have chosen to believe that the existence of a God is unknowable.
4. Weak Agnosticism - You have chosen not to decide whether or not you believe a God exists.

The last item, what I call "weak" agnosticism, is the point of contention in the Rush song. There are those who deny that inaction is a form of action - that state that passivity is categorically separate from action. I believe (and I first read this in Sartre, though Ayn Rand and Rush have both affirmed it in other ways) that conscious passivity actually constitutes a form of action - a choice not to act.¹ One can thusly be held to be responsible (ethically and practically) for that lack of action.  For example, since they stayed in New Orleans when it was possible to leave, New Orleanians can be said to be at least partially responsible for any harm they suffered due to the flood (since the possibility of flooding was well-known).  Of course, if every region in the world were equally prone to unavoidable flooding, then such passivity could not constitute a choice - outside of the choice of whether to kill one's self before the flood did.

I don't think this should really be a particularly controversial position, but let me know your thoughts.

¹Unconscious passivity must, of course, be analyzed separately, since in it there is no possibility of action; we are only interested in those cases where it is possible (physically and psychically - eg, one is not encased in carbonite, and one is aware of the possible action) for one to act and one does not.

Tags: philosophy, religion
Current Mood: thoughtful

If you learn anything from classical liberalism, it should be that it is worth-while in a society to separate political ethics from personal ethics.  And today, as far as I know, the only consistent modern practitioners of this sort of modal morality are libertarians.

Let me demonstrate by example.  As a Christian, I believe that men bear a spiritual obligation to come to the aid of those in need.  This is my personal ethics - and while I certainly do not practice it perfectly, I believe it is correct and worthy.  However: the fact that I personally believe in this general obligation of mankind does not necessarily have any bearing on my belief in what obligations society should hold men to; ie, it does not bear on my view of political ethics or obligations.  So while I whole-heartedly believe in charity and giving to others, and while I believe in a cohesive and mutually supportive social order, I do not believe that charity should be imposed upon individuals by society without an explicit agreement on the part of the particular individuals.

The reason it is important for me to make this distinction is because a common charge against libertarians is that we are greedy - that all we care for is money.  If you spend any significant time with libertarians outside of a political discussion, however, you should know this is not true; I have known charitable libertarians as well as greedy ones, just like in any other group.  We simply believe that charity should not be imposed - that it must be entered into voluntarily.

It is similarly so with other issues which most Americans have already grown accustomed to.  Blasphemous speech, for example, is morally abhorrent to most Christians - and indeed, the freedom to express it was often denied most explicitly by the law in past history.  However, we have come to the realization as a society that to impose codes of speech on others, even about speech that we find offensive or subversive, is tyrannical.  Others have different standards of speech than we do, and our own valuations if their speech - while not unimportant - are not sufficient to curtail that speech through the force of the State.

Leftists particularly seem to levy the charge that libertarians and conservatives are simply "greedy" and "uncaring" when we oppose redistributive taxation.  But they would likely balk at calling the ACLU, paragon of free expression that it is, a promotor of licentiousness, pornography, and the exploitation of women and youths.  Yet this is precisely how many in society see the acts that the ACLU protects.

So a question for Leftists: does the ACLU protect freedom of expression because they are amoral perverts, or is it because they believe freedom of expression is an ideal worth protecting?  If it is the latter, then I respectfully request that you never again generalize conservatives or libertarians as greedy or uncaring merely because they disagree with your favorite social programs.  They simply hold to a different set of ideals than you do, which do not include the imposition of economic morality on their fellow human beings.

The inverse applies just as well, of course, to conservatives.  Do you support the NRA (or similar organizations) because you're crazy gun nuts who believe criminals should have access to firearms and because you want children to shoot each other?  Or is it because the right to self-defense and personal responsibility are more fundamentally important than any benefits governments can possibly provide in those areas?  While someone like a Quaker may believe it is morally wrong to kill someone in self-defense, that clearly personal conviction should have no bearing on your own right to defend yourself.

The lesson is this: Before supporting any particular government program, be certain that you are not simply imposing your own ethics on others (ie, I believe it is right to give to the poor), but rather that you are applying truly universalizable political ethics (ie, does my belief in charity rightfully extend to forcing my fellow citizens to give to the poor?).

Tags: philosophy, politics
Current Mood: busy

In the interests of updating my blog more consistently, I am attempting to write a series of entries over the next couple of weeks about the various items (quotes and images) on my user info page.  Hopefully this will provide a window into my personality and prove interesting.

Today's Subject:	"Other people are not your property." --Roderick Long

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Tags: life, philosophy, politics
Current Mood: geeky

In the interests of updating my blog more consistently, I am going to attempt to write a series of entries over the next couple of weeks about the various items (quotes and images) on my user info page.  Hopefully this will provide a window into my personality and prove interesting.

Today's Subject:	There's No Government Like No Government

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Tags: life, philosophy, politics

I would like to discuss something that many people do not seem to understand - the concepts of "natural rights" and of "individualism", in the Western tradition.

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But now, I must go pack for Defcon.

Tags: history, philosophy, politics
Current Mood: thoughtful