flink@umcp-cs.UUCP (Paul Torek) (05/30/85)
Lines marked '>>' are those of Richard Carnes's; lines marked '>' are from mck@ratex.UUCP (Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan); the rest are mine. >> They further maintain that the highest good, or >>perhaps the only ethical good, is the maximizing of this particular >>kind of freedom. > That's NOT the Libertarian position either.[...] There > IS a group of philosophers who think that negative liberty can somehow be > maximized, but they call themselves 'neo-libertarian', and are careful to > distinguish themselves from us. Carnes, you're too kind! You have got the libertarian position confused with the neo-libertarian position, but the actual libertarian position is much more dubious than that! (0.01 :->) No, in their view, nothing can outweigh an infringement on negative liberty, not even the gain of even more negative liberty! (Actually, they would probably deny that the expression "*more* negative liberty" even makes sense here.) >> If this isn't perverse it is at least arbitrary; I haven't yet come >> across a persuasive or plausible defense of this view. > To some extent, all ethical theories that I'm familiar with are arbitrary. > In the face of this, we should employ Ockham's Razor (Entia non sunt > multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.); the system making the least number > of assumptions is least at risk. Libertarianism does quite well when > subjected to this test. For someone who claims to "think better", surely McKiernan can think better than this. If anything, Ockham's Razor might be held to support Ethical Nihilism, but I don't think it even supports that. Libertarianism makes *different* assumptions than other ethical theories; there is NO WAY to say whether these assumptions are "smaller". Its assumptions seem like pretty big ones to me. Anyway, I don't think Ockham's Razor is a legitimate tool for theory choice. It would have us refrain from positing new particles in physics, for instance -- "don't multiply entities beyond necessity" -- even when the existence of said particles is implied by (e.g.) conservation of energy. > Here in the United States, the problem is not so much market > discrimination as it is PRE-market discrimination; that is, people are > victimized BEFORE they enter the labor-market, and as a result of this > discrimination are less desirable as workers. For example, girls are > discouraged in any attempts at mastering mathematics, physics, and > whatnot, and are encouraged to develop the skills needed by receptionists. Exactly! Maybe you do "think better" after all. At least in economics. (Speaking of which, when are you going to answer me on "natural monopoly", and electric utilities in particular? Maybe that article didn't get to your site.(?)) --The blooming iconoclast, Paul V. Torek, ihnp4!wucs!wucec2!pvt1047