Tom's PPE Thoughts

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2011-04-22T01:17:00.001+01:00

Not that anyone ever come here anymore, but I have now moved to Liberty in Reality to fight the good fight.

Understanding Liberty, and Biting the Bullet I

2010-12-08T00:08:00.007Z

'Liberty' (in a political sense) is certainly a word that's been thrown around a lot and, over the course of history, used in many different ways. I think the way that it's used now, to mean something akin to classical liberalism, or 'freedom from' is the sense most in tune with our intuitions. But it seems that there is some inevitable 'bullet biting' that has to go on (by which I mean, accepting something counter-intuitive), whatever one understands liberty to mean. I will use the term 'free' interchangably with liberty, but this shouldn't be confused with the concept of 'free will'.

Take the following case

Case 1. John is unable to spontaneously fly, due to his lack of wings.

It seems pretty clear that John is not made unfree due to his lack of ability to fly. John's inability to get from A to B by only conventional means such as walking, does not mean that he has had his liberty infringed. At least, that's my intuition, and I think it would be nearly everyone's.

Case 2. Phil is disabled from the waist down, and has been that way since birth.

Here surely we would say, at least on the first take, that Phil is less free because he cannot walk. Usually, we wouldn't question the reason why Phil is disabled; we would think that his disability is a sufficient reason to say that he suffers from a lack of liberty; he cannot do as others do.

But what is the difference between Phil and John? Both of them are unable to move in certain ways due to that being the way that they were born. How might we try to reconcile this conflict of our intuitions?
I think we have two (quite similar) options open to us:
A. John is free but Phil is not because Phil's cause for lack of liberty can be fixed, whereas John's cannot.
B. John is free but Phil is not because the default position for humans is to have the same abilities and otherwise as John does, whereas the same is not true for Phil.

Let's look at response A first. The argument here is that it is possible to reduce (if not completely remove) Phil's lack of liberty by giving him some sort of operation (or possibly just giving him a wheelchair). Since this can't be done with John, the two are not analogous. However, I think this response gives some very strange results. Consider the following scenario:

Case 3. There are two groups of people, X-ites and Y-ites. X-ites are very primitive and Y-ites are very technologically advanced, especially in the area of medical care. They live on separate islands and do not know of each other's existence. One person in the X-ite group is Phil from Case 2, who is disabled. The X-ites are completely unable to help him, due to their lack of knowledge.

So Phil's lack of liberty cannot be fixed on the X-ite island. Under at least one reading of response A, Phil is free because it isn't possible to fix his disability. Now consider one day when the X-ites and Y-ites make contact. The Y-ites, being very hospitable people, offer free medical treatment for all X-ites. At some point between the making contact and the offering of medical treatment, Phil became unfree. The very contact between the groups, or the very offer of healthcare, infringed Phil's liberty. If calling Phil free was counter-intuitive, then this is extremely counter-intuitive.
But there is another reading of A. This time we say that it is possible to fix Phil's disability; therefore he is unfree. Sure, it might not be possible on the X-ite island. But under a broader understanding of the term, it is possible. I think there are two problems with this reading of response A. Firstly, it questionably links freedom with technological advance. It says that because some people, somewhere in the universe, can fix Phil's disability, he is unfree. Before they could do so, Phil was as free as the rest of us, despite his disability. But at the moment that some scientist discovered how to cure people who are disabled from the waist down, Phil's liberty suddenly dropped. Is it true that mere technological advance renders people unfree (and if so, should we ban such advances?)? Secondly, we might ask why the possibility of some person somewhere being able to fix the disability means that Phil is unfree. Suppose that there are some aliens on a distant planet who can give any creature working wings. Is John unfree because of this fact?
Thus, it seems that neither reading of response A is satisfactory.

I now look at response B. This claims that since the default for humans is to not have wings, John is not unfree; but since the default is for humans to not be disabled, Phil is unfree. There are at least three problems with this response. Firstly, it again has some odd results. Suppose that a virus spread through the human race which affected everybody's DNA such that they all became disabled from the waist down and would forever more have similarly disabled children. The 'default' for humans now is undoubtedly to be disabled. According to response B, Phil has now been made free, since his situation no longer contrasts to that of the default human. Again; very counter-intuitive. The second problem with response B is that it places too high an emphasis on default abilities. The default for humans is to, with a small amount of practice, be able to roll their tongue. I can't. Am I unfree because of this? The third problem is that understanding liberty as meaning that we are free to the extent that we resemble the default human is nowhere near enough of a complete definition, as it only relates to physical attributes of the person. This shall be seen more in future blogs.

As I have shown, to call John free but Phil not is incoherent. The two are analogous; and thus we should call either both free, or both unfree; therefore our initial intuitions are wrong. My instinct is to bite the 'Phil-bullet' and say that they are both free, because to call someone unfree on account of their inability to fly (and therefore possibly endorse coercing the scientist who chooses to research something else when he had the possibility of researching human flight) seems ridiculous.

Next blog on the topic, I will look at the importance of human action and intentionality.

Consent Theory

2010-12-01T15:33:00.004Z

I have not consented to being ruled by any state. Neither have you. Nor has almost anyone.

An important part of a lot of justifications of state action is that we have consented to the state doing whatever it is doing. Even Locke argues for consent theory.

There are two types of consent theory: 'Direct' consent theory, and tacit consent theory.

Direct consent theory is when someone actually directly consents to being ruled by a state, by making some sort of public declaration or signing a contract or something. This more or less never happens. There are a few possible isolated examples; I think ancient Athens had some system of consenting when someone got to the age of adulthood. It could be argued that if someone emigrates to a state that is direct consent, since they could have chosen to live elsewhere. I disagree with this interpretation, because it presumes that living outside of the rule of a state is actually possible, which it pretty much isn't in today's world. If I gave you three options: To give me £5, £10, or £100, and made it such that you literally couldn't choose any other option, then it would be hardly fair to say that you 'consented' to giving me £5. That is the situation with emigration; we can choose (to a degree) which state rules us, but not whether we are ruled. But suppose that there were places we could live which weren't ruled by a state; would emigration to somewhere other than that place indicate consent? This comes under tacit consent theory, for a reason I will explain now

Tacit consent theory argues that by doing some action - living in the geographical boundaries of the state most of the time - we are consenting to the state's rule. By not moving elsewhere (perhaps moving to the imaginary space which is not occupied by a state), we are consenting to the state.
It is true that there are times when 'silence' - not saying or doing anything - constitutes consent. Imagine a board meeting. The chair says, "Ok, next week we will meet at 3pm, any problems?" Here we would say that not saying anything constitutes consent. It wouldn't be a fair defence if you didn't show to the next meeting because you "never agreed to it". Your silence was your consent.
But we can put some constraints on the extent to which silence means consent. Firstly, expressing dissent must not be very difficult to do. If the chair of the meeting said, "Ok, next week will meet at 3pm. If you have any problems with this, complete this scrambled Rubix Cube to indicate so.", we wouldn't think that 'silence' (of not completing the Rubix Cube) meant that you agreed to the time.
The second constraint is that expressing dissent must not be very costly to you. If the chair of the meeting said, "Ok, next week we will meet at 3pm. If you have any problems with this, chop of your left arm.", it would not be fair to say that 'silence' constituted consent.

Both of these conditions of silence as consent are violated in the case of living in the state in question. If tacit consent theory was true, then in order to express my dissent against living in the state, I would have to leave the country, which is likely to be both costly and difficult. Even if there was somewhere to move where there was no state, I would likely lose my job, have to sell my house, and be away from friends and family. That is far too costly to constitute consent.

Some other methods of consent are sometimes suggested. For example, my decision to vote (or not) means that I consent to the government, since I had a chance to vote for them. Again this has the problem of "Give me £5/£10/£100" - you are only choosing between parties, you aren't consenting to governments generally. For whoever wins the election, the government stays in power.

Thus, I conclude that consent theory fails. I have not consented to the government of Great Britain.

Some thoughts on market Anarchism

2010-11-27T18:42:00.007Z

Market anarchism is definitely the most plausible and least utopian of all anarchist theories. Market anarchism, sometimes known as anarcho-capitalism, is the theory that if the government were removed, its functions could be completed to a passable degree by private institutions. So security firms would replace the police, private courts would replace the judiciary, and so forth. The market anarchist might claim that the market would provide these things better than government, or somewhat worse than government - the important thing is that they wouldn't provide them to a terrible degree, with people having their rights routinely infringed. Here are some general thoughts

Market anarchism has been tried before. Well, sort of. Often people say that if a state of market anarchy was achieved, one of the security firms that would emerge would eventually turn into a government and we'd be back to square 1. Anarchists dispute this for whatever reason, but actually I think we have a historical example - in fact, many historical examples - of this being true. States haven't existed forever. I'm not sure when the first state was (it would of course depend on how you define a state), but there must have been a time when we lived under anarchy. Animals live under anarchy, and given that we evolved from lesser animals, we presumably did too. But, communities emerged and eventually states emerged (or perhaps states emerged at exactly the same time as communities emerged, since those communities probably routinely used coercion to stop certain behaviours). If that has happened under anarchy before, why shouldn't it happen if we tried it now? The anarchist might respond by saying that if that did happen if we achieved market anarchy now, we haven't really lost anything since we're back to where we are. But that of course isn't true - infantile states are often brutal, corrupt, undemocratic and have little respect for rights. States had existed a very long time before universal suffrage existed (I don't take ancient Athens as a counter example to this, as only about 18% of the population had the vote). Thus, by attempting market anarchism, we risk returning to terrible statism.

The effect on the poor. A libertarian talking about the effect on the poor! What is this! What I mean here is that if security firms were to emerge, they would of course have to charge a price. They might be able to offer different schemes, where you get more protection for more money. But even the cheapest scheme, which would protect you from being murdered, enslaved, or having your property taken off you, would be pretty expensive, given the amount of administration, detectives and equivalent of beat cops that would be required. The poorest in society who struggle to pay for food would not be able to afford any sort of insurance in the market anarchist world. Thus, they would be open to their rights being infringed with no recourse to the perpetrator at all. I think there is a good case for some degree of egalitarianism with respect to rights - so this result would be unacceptable.

Security company war. Security companies would have to make a profit; to do that, they would need to attract customers. One particularly effective way of attracting customers in any market is to get the competition out of the market. This might be done by predatory pricing, or improving one's product using technology which other firms don't have. But I fear that under a system of market anarchy, there would be a temptation to use another way of getting rid of the competition - to actually kill them. Security companies would have high start up costs and probably large economies of scale, so there wouldn't be that many of them. If there were, say, only 4 security companies in the market (not an implausible number by any means), one company (or perhaps three of them together) could take out the offices and personnel of another company, and (if all companies had an equal number of customers), would increase their customers by an average of a third each. War is expensive, but that would mean a big increase in profits. Now, the market anarchist might say that individuals would desert a company which waged war on another. But I am pretty sceptical of this. Individuals are largely self interested (the market anarchist agrees with me here), and a security firm which has already proven itself in battle is a good one to go with - going with another could be risky as they could be the next target. Furthermore, it seems that the actions consumers take against firms which do immoral things is pretty weak. It is well known that some clothes companies use slave labour - but they don't see much of a reduction in their sales. I suppose some consumers buy Fairtrade products rather than 'unfairly' traded products, but I think this is a pretty niche case, since Fairtrade's success happens only with cheap products, such as coffee, and to be honest some of Fairtrade's goods genuinely are better - whereas a 'fair' security company's goods - providing security - would actually be worse.

That'll do for now.

EDIT: Just noticed that my three emboldened points all rhyme. I should turn this blog into a rap.

Libertarianism and War

2010-11-23T17:59:00.006Z

One thing which appears to be almost universal with libertarians is a pretty hard pacifist standpoint with regards to war with other countries. Ron Paul's main policy which made him stand out against the other candidates in the 2008 US Presidential election was his opposition to both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Libertarian Party in America also support removing the troops immediately, as does (I believe), the LPUK.

The attraction is obvious - war always causes casualties, is always expensive and paid for by taxes, and often leads to a government which does not respect the liberties of its citizens as well as causing instability in the area, and even blowback. But I think we should look beyond those superficial attractions. More specifically, we should look beyond our own borders.

Imagine there is a group of people living in the UK right now. They are armed to the teeth and wish to do any one of the following things:

Massacre portions of the population
Imprison people who oppose them without any semblance of a trial
Steal from the population and spend it on, amongst other things, further armament

Now add to the equation that the government in power is a libertarian one. We would say, without a shadow of a doubt, that the libertarian government should take action against this group, including capturing and imprisoning them, taking their resources, and, where absolutely necessary, possibly killing them (in the example described this would probably be a lot of the time, given the fact that the group are heavily armed).
Indeed, the very fact that Somalia fails to stop people doing these things is why it isn't libertarian. So there's no disagreement from the libertarian camp so far.

But it seems to me that if we think that such things are rights infringements and we are justified in stopping them, then why stop that at the nation's borders? If we see governments elsewhere killing its own people, imprisoning without trial and thieving from them, then aren't we equally fully justified in stepping in to stop such actions?

It seems to me that the only way in which the first example isn't analogous with war is that, of course, the first example existed in defined state borders which the libertarian government had legitimate control over; and the second existed outside such borders.

But I think for the libertarian to give this response to the war question is to make a fundamental misunderstanding of what it is about libertarianism that is good. What is good about libertarianism is that it ensures the maximal protection of people's rights. The only reason why the government is legitimised in infringing rights is to protect more rights. There is nothing 'special' about a state compared to individuals which gives it extra legitimisation in its operation. If it happened that more rights could be protected by the state not existing (as the descriptive anarchist sometimes claims), then, ignoring problems of right-protection-equality, the state should not exist.

Thus, when one state invades another's borders, that, in and of itself, is not bad by libertarianism. Sure, bad things might result from it. But the state only exists to protect rights; it has no rights not to be invaded itself.

Therefore, if there is a country which is invading the rights of its citizens, that is pro tanto a reason for libertarian governments to invade. Now, we have to be careful here. Clearly wars are one of the greatest ways to infringe rights, for the reasons noted above. So whilst it's true that Sweden regularly infringes the rights of its citizens by taxing them through the ass, we shouldn't invade Sweden; because if we did, the lives lost and the taxes required would represent far more rights infringements than if we let Sweden be.

But I think I've shown that from a libertarian standpoint, there is sometimes a good reason for invading countries. We shouldn't reject invading countries because invading countries is bad. We should weigh up whether the invasion would mean a net infringement or protection of rights. Libertarians should not reject war out of hand.

"Cameron didn't pay for his education"

2010-11-22T17:27:00.006Z

Yes he did, you idiot.

That claim was one I saw when I was unfortunate enough to be reading OxStu, the inferior of the two Oxford student papers. It was on a placard being brandished by a demonstrator at the highly intellectual and in no way self interested demonstration by students against the impending increase in fees and drop in government educational subsidies (I'm sure they'd be in an equal outrage if supplements to disabled people was reduced as well, because their views come from nothing other than clear impartial discourse).

The 'argument' which the placard holder was presumably putting forward was that, because David Cameron didn't pay for his university tuition, it is unfair for him to force others to do so.

Aside from the obvious flaws in this argument, I thought that this placard represented a catastrophic, but regrettably widespread, misunderstanding in what it means for government to fund something. Cameron, reported to have a tidy £30 million in the bank, has not only paid for his own education; he has paid for tens, perhaps hundreds of others too. Because he is a tax payer. His earning of money pays for people to go to university, as well as for all the other things the UK government spends its money on.

What the placard represented, I think, is a complete failure to recognise that when the government pays for something, it doesn't create the money out of thin air; it takes the money from the taxpayer and then spends it. When Conservatives reduce the educational subsidy, it doesn't mean that they're 'selfish', and want to keep all the government's magic pot of gold for themselves. It means that (as at least one potential reason), that they don't think that other people should pay for students to go to university. Describing any government as selfish, (unless they are actually paying themselves*), it to entirely miss the point.

Of course, people know that the government doesn't have a pot of money which it can choose to spend or not; they know it comes from the taxpayer. But as soon as there is a threat of a cut to something, that knowledge goes right out the window. Frankly, it would make as much sense for the protesters to go outside rich people's houses and shout and demand that they give them money to go to university; as, by proxy, this is what they're asking for when they do the same outside Westminster (except, rather than the money-givers in question deciding, it's an unrelated third party). If the rich people refused then they would have some reason (albeit not much) to call them selfish. But to call the government selfish for choosing not to move some money from some to others is nothing short of ridiculous.

*As a side note, the coalition government isn't doing this, as they've dropped MPs pay. So they actually are less selfish than the Labour government.

An unusual criticism of Calvinism

2010-10-29T15:55:00.005+01:00

Calvinists of different shapes and sizes are all united on two issues:

(1) God alone chooses who will be saved

(2) We do not know the criteria by which God chooses to save some but not save others

I will also add the further condition, that

(3) Those who are saved manifest it in some way, which includes claiming to be a Christian (claiming to be a Christian is a necessary but insufficient condition for one having being elected by God)

It might be that not all Calvinists would agree with (3), and I'm sure most would grant an exception in the case of infants or the mentally ill, but for normal adults, I think almost all Calvinists would agree with (3).

I think that Calvinism could be proved to be very improbable because of (2).
Whatever God's criteria for election, it presumably isn't down to randomness. Or maybe they are; in fact, that would only further support my hypothesis. But whatever the method for God's decision of election, I posit that a basis which he does not decide upon is who one's parents are, or the geographical location of one's birth.

But if we look at the course of history, Christianity has been hugely successful in some areas in some periods, and hugely unsuccessful in others. Compare now, for example, the prevalence of Christianity in North Korea and South Korea. The number of people who would claim under any circumstances to be a Christian in NK is pretty certainly very, very low. But in SK it is very high. It would be extremely hard to deny that a larger portion of SK are part of the elect than in NK.

What are we to make of this with regards to God's choice of election? It would appear that a primary method of God's choice is where one is born. I would argue that that is one of the least possible just ways of determining who should be saved. And I'm sure that most Calvinists would agree with me. Similarly, the chance of being Christian if one's parents are Christian is much higher than if one's parents are not. Are we to say that God doesn't evaluate people on an individual basis but decides to save, "most of" this family tree, and "a few from", this family tree? Again, this would seem to be an absurd way for God to determine the elect.

Formally I suppose my argument is:

1\ God alone chooses who will be in the elect

2\ The method that God chooses who will be in the elect is not on the basis of geographical location

C\ The elect are roughly evenly spread throughout the world (1, 2)

Since C is clearly false, and is derived logically from 1 and 2 (including one or two background propositions about being born in a certain area not making you relevantly, importantly and essentially different), either 1 or 2 must be false. I posit that 2 simply must be true, and I think most Calvinists would agree with me. Therefore, they must accept that 1 is false, which defeats Calvinism.

Taxation is Theft

2010-09-11T00:16:00.009+01:00

I guess this is a pretty key part to serious libertarian thinking. Anyway:

1. Theft is the taking of someone's property against their will.

2. Taxation is the taking of someone's property against their will by the state.

3. Taxation is theft. (1, 2)

I think that 1 is a perfectly acceptable definition of theft. Clearly 3 is the logical conclusion of 1 and 2. The only contentious premise is 2.
There are several possible responses which claim that 2 is incorrect. I will attempt to debunk them in turn.

The democratic argument
This argument suggests that 2 is false because if democratic means are used to pass legislation which involves taxation, then the property taken is legitimately the property of the state/public, and not the property of the individual concerned. However, here we must ask: why? Assuming no laws were broken in the process of the individual acquiring his property, what did the rest of the voting public do to earn ownership rights? We can also further critique this argument by asking: which democracy? The voting public of my road might decide to take my property; but of my town might not; the public of my country might vote to steal; but the world not.
Furthermore, we might ask that if this rule applies to property, why not more? If the majority vote to kill an individual, does the individual have his right to life superseded by the majoritarian decision? Clearly not; and yet we must ask the proponents of this view why they attribute the majority the right of ownership of property (which was, until the majority decision, clearly owned by the individual), but not the right of ownership of life (which was, until the majority decision, clearly owned by the individual).
The problem with the claim that plain democracy ensures a transfer of property rights can be seen in a micro-example of what actually goes on. There are ten people in a room. One of them proposes that him and eight of the others should take some of the tenth's money. They vote on it; and the vote comes down 9-1. They take the tenth's money against his will. Here, all ten people (including the victim of the 'law') were included in the democratic process; and yet we would all agree that that was theft. However, there is no inherent difference between that situation and what actually goes on in the society the proponents of the democratic argument propose.
Plain democracy clearly does not ensure a legitimate change of property rights; it needs to be buttressed by a belief in society's general right to (at least some of) the property of all - and this is the social contract argument.

The Social Contract
This view says that by the very virtue of being part of a 'society' (that is, a group of people), that group of people, the society has some level of ownership over a member's property, and thus 2 is false because taxation is not the taking of somebody's property at all (it is society's property). In order to not fall to the same problems as the democratic argument, the social contract argument suggests that we, in some capacity, 'sign up' to a social contract, where we agree to follow what the rulers of the society (most commonly the majority), say. It is in this way that the society has some sort of right of ownership over an individual's property.
I have never signed a social contract; in fact, I'm not sure that anyone ever has. And yet - we're all taxed. What social contract theorists propose is that by the virtue of an individual living in the geographical region which the social contract is supposed to reign over, I have (by implication), signed up to the social contract and thus the decrees of the society*. Usually social contract theorists will not say that an individual must abide by every imaginable law the society's rulers come up with (a law to kill the individual, for example, would not need to be abided by), but that generally speaking some sort of level of ownership over each individual's property (and usually liberty) is gained by the state by the implication of the signing of the contract.
What I argue here is that an individual merely living in the geographical region which the state has claimed jurisdiction of is not enough to imply that the individual has signed a social contract which gives away some property rights to the state. For a start, why the state which currently exists? If I was to tell everyone on my street that I have set up a society here, and that by implication of them living in the street they have signed my social contract, and thus I will be taking 10% of their annual income, they would not be best pleased (even if I promised to spend the money on them!). Even if I had a majority of the street behind me, asking the minority for 10% of their income would still be unfair. Them merely living in my street does not give me any ownership of their property - why? - because they never agreed that that would be the case.
The same applies with the state at large. A group of people setting up and telling individuals that they are within the remit of their 'society' does not mean that any of the property rights of those individuals has suddenly been transferred to the state.
Furthermore, it is not as if individuals have been given the option to live in the geographical location which the state has claimed ownership of. If the state tells people that they can leave if they wish to escape the state's remit of property ownership, then people are being unjustly told to move, or be stolen from. This view therefore also does not legitimise the state's claim to some of the property of individuals.
Thus, the argument that society has a right to some ownership of individuals' property merely by the signing of a contract is insufficient. No such contract has been signed, and no implication of a signing can be drawn simply by the living in the area the state has laid claim to.

"It's spent on you"
This argument suggests that 2 is false because the fact that tax is spent on the populous and that thus the average loss of property in taxes is equally made up by public spending on the populous means that there is no theft at all; what you lose, you gain. Clearly we do not hold this principle elsewhere when thinking about theft. If I steal £1,000 from my next door neighbour but place a £1,000 vase in his living room, I have still stolen from him. Furthermore, for many people what they get back in public spending they value at much less than what they lose in taxes. The only way this argument could sort of be made legitimate would be if the way the state spends my money exactly mirrors how I would have spent the money had I not been taxed; in a sense, this would not be stealing; but even if that did occur, the whole process was useless anyway.

"I don't mind paying it"
This argument suggests that 2 is false because the individual proposing it does actually not mind being taxed since he knows his money is going to a good cause - so taxation is not "against the individual's will". In which case, the use of the state was unnecessary - apparently the individual would have spent their money as the state did anyway. At the most, the state simply transferred the money to the right place more efficiently than had a private individual done it ("The state knows how my money is best spent on others"). However, this is not what taxation is for most, (or, at least some) people. Taxation is the forceful taking of their money against their will. There is always an implicit threat of force in taxation; had the individual not minded paying tax, then there was no force needed, and such a process (of an organisation directing one's charitable givings 'most efficiently'), could be done outside the state and without force. If everybody was perfectly fine with being taxed and the state deciding how to spend the money, then there would be no more need for the state to threaten force on those who do not pay their taxes, and it would cease to be stealing. This does not happen, because some people (more or less all, in fact) are not entirely happy to pay taxes, and thus taxation is against their will - so 2 remains true.

The "good ends" argument
This argument suggests that the good results from taxation mean that it is not theft. But, this argument does not actually address either of the premises. That tax and spend might produce good results does not render 1 false (because stealing is stealing regardless of how the money is spent), or 2 (because taxation remains the taking of property against the will of the owner, regardless of the good which comes of it).
However, those who bring up this argument are actually not suggesting that taxation is not theft, at least, not under the current definition (1). They are suggesting that theft for some purposes is morally acceptable. Indeed, it is clear how we could move the current argument to a moral one:

4. Theft is wrong

5. Taxation is wrong (3, 4)

Those who suggest that the good results of tax and spend legitimise it are not (logically) denying that taxation is theft; they are merely denying that 4 is absolutely true, and thus claiming that 5 is not absolutely true. Indeed, many people would argue that a man who steals bread to keep his starving family alive is not doing anything immoral - but his theft remains theft regardless. Thus, people of any political or ethical persuasion can agree with my argument 1-3, that taxation is theft, but still deny 5 because they deny 4. In order to determine that 4 holds and thus that taxation is wrong requires consideration of an ethical code. I reflected on this very briefly and broadly some time ago here, but really a full moral system is needed to determine when theft is and is not wrong; and whatever the answer, the morality of taxation will follow that.

Thus, I conclude that taxation is theft, but not yet that taxation is wrong - that will require considerably more thinking. I also have not considered the argument that no individual has a right to property (see: All property is theft), because it is outside the scope of this essay. If we have property rights, which I think we do, then taxation is theft.

*Here by 'social contract theorist', I mean people who presume that society has some right over an individual's property purely by him living in the geographical area; the actual philosophical theorists like Rousseau and Hobbes did want a more formal contract.

The trouble with British socialism

2010-08-31T17:48:00.004+01:00

Or well, any semi-nationalist socialism.

Socialism, extremely broadly, says that one of the primary (or the primary) objectives of government should be to ensure some degree of economic equality. There has to be a bit of a caveat on this - increasing equality for the sake of increasing equality is not a socialist objective. For example, if we were to score welfare on a scale of 1 to 10, and if there were the following two choices for the socialist:

Poor - 4
Rich - 10

or

Poor - 2
Rich - 3

The socialist would choose the first option, despite the fact that the second is more equal. So really the socialist's objective is to improve the conditions of the poor - and it just happens that this means that economic equality is necessary (or so the socialist thinks). Something like a Rawlsian welfare approach, where we should judge the performance of the government by the lot of the poorest person.

Hence, we see British socialists calling for spending on the NHS, education, the welfare state, as well as legislation to increase the minimum wage, improve working conditions and empower trade unions. Socialists think that this will improve the lot of the poor (and let's suppose they're right), and thus this is what the government should do.

However, of course they're completely wrong! If what we should be concerned about is improving the lot of the poor, then spending on the NHS, education and so forth are the worst things we can spend our money on. The best, by an absolute mile, is foreign aid. Compared to the rest of the world, the 'poor' of the UK are pretty rich. £1 million spent on the NHS will do no where near as much good as £1 million spent on, for example, providing clean water sources in Africa. That will ensure far more help for far poorer people. The same applies for almost all government spending in the UK; if the definition of a good government is one who helps out the poorest in society, the most 'good' can be done almost exclusively by increasing foreign aid at the expense of domestic spending.

But do we see British socialists calling for such spending in foreign aid? No, it literally isn't on the agenda. Instead, we see them calling for more on the NHS, no cuts to education, and so forth. I can only conclude that such socialists are not socialist for reasons of morality or justice, but because such spending is good for them.

The difference between New Atheists and Old Atheists

2010-07-31T23:50:00.006+01:00

I've noticed that 'New Atheists' have been making a bit of a stir in the past couple of years. The New Atheism movement includes people like Dawkins, Hitchens and Dennett. They have attracted a lot of support on the internet with lay-philosophers. What I will term 'Old Atheists' are those philosophical atheists of the past couple of centuries and further who did/do not believe in the existence of God; people like Nagel, Hume and Russell come to mind.

There are several differences between the two atheist groups. New Atheists tend to approach the God question from a scientific perspective whereas Old Atheists usually considered science incapable of answering the God question; New Atheists are far more 'evangelistic' in promoting atheism; and New Atheists generally see religion as actively harmful to society.

But I think that beyond these surface differences, there lies one key difference which leads to the others: New Atheists think that the question of God is easy. That's the difference. They think it's obvious that God doesn't exist and anyone who believes in God has either been brainwashed or exposed to misinformation. Whereas most of the Old Atheist group had great respect for theists (Nagel in particular, who wondered if anyone could objectively answer the God question and truly not care what the answer was), the New Atheists see theists as almost mentally deficient. I think that the reason for this is that the New Atheists have (without exception, as far as I am aware), not had any academic philosophical experience, and are blissfully unaware of the many philosophical arguments for God. I am reminded of Dawkins' God Delusion where he, in the course of a single A5 page, 'disproves' four of Aquinas' five proofs for God. He takes three lines over the First Cause, First Mover and Cosmological arguments combined. I suppose perhaps the New Atheists are not unaware of the philosophical arguments, they just think that science is better placed to answer the question (which is of course a philosophical position!).

It is the fact that the New Atheists think that the answer to the God Question is easy which leads to their choice of science over philosophy as the means of determining the existence of God (as choosing philosophy would no doubt mean that they could no longer think it easy); it is this fact which also leads to their atheistic evangelism, because of course beating the theists will be 'easy'; and it is this fact which leads to their belief that religion is harmful to society, because there is no doubt that it's essentially brain washing.

Regrettably, the New Atheists have managed to raise up a generation of internet 'thinkers' who, well, have no idea what they're talking about.

EDIT: Turns out that Dennett has a PhD in philosophy, although his main focusses are on philosophy of biology, mind and science, not religion. Harris has a BA in philosophy, and Hitchens has a BA in PPE. I wonder which one he dropped... (not sarcasm)

Libertarianism and Selfishness

2010-06-28T20:38:00.003+01:00

I think it is not easy to be a libertarian anywhere in the world. It is much less easy to be a libertarian in the UK; a country with no real history of limited government, and a population which is more or less indoctrinated by the notion of the welfare state. One common criticism I come across, particularly in less academic circles, is that being libertarian means that I am 'selfish'.

Let's explore this further. What do these people mean when they accuse libertarians of being selfish? What I think it meant is that because libertarians do not support much, if any, of the welfare state, then they are selfish; they wish not to give any of their money to the poor.

Whenever I come across this 'critique', I sigh, knowing that the criticiser does not understand libertarianism. It is indeed true that libertarians do not think that the government should give tax money to the poor. But it is that specific practice - the government taking money from some citizens against their will to give it to other citizens - that libertarians take issue with. It is the against my will part of taxation that I believe to be wrong; not the giving to others (Here I must differentiate from objectivists, who believe, as far as I'm aware, that all altruism is not only counter-productive, but is wrong. I do not understand the thinking here).

Giving all your money to charity is totally in line with libertarianism. It may well be that some libertarians are libertarians only because they are selfish, and do want to keep all their money for themselves. But this is not part of the core philosophy of libertarianism; libertarianism makes no comment on selfishness.

It might be argued, by non-libertarians, that they are absolutely fine with giving their money to the government to dish out to those less fortunate. To which I say - good for you! How very selfless. But that doesn't legitimise the government taking money off others. If I was to give money to cancer research, that doesn't mean I should be able to point a gun to the head of my next door neighbour and force him to do the same. If the government were to stop taxing for welfare, those selfless individuals could still give to the poor through private charity.

It could be argued that the sort of individualism which a libertarian society promotes will eventually lead to selfishness. This might be true (although I doubt it - America, traditionally the paragon of liberty, has far higher giving to charity as a percentage of income than most countries), but even if it was, the goal of 'avoiding making people selfish', does not legitimise the use of violence. Furthermore, doesn't the very notion sound ridiculous? The state, that behemoth of the polity, can nurture virtue and banish selfishness. Don't make me laugh.

Ideology IV: Possible problems with Libertarianism

2010-06-24T11:08:00.004+01:00

Whilst I have come to accept libertarianism by and large, I do identify some possible problems with it which as of yet aren't resolved in my mind. I'll just list them off:

-Children and the mentally infirm - Libertarianism argues that, for example, one person cannot force another person to take on a certain job. But what about children? If a five year old child says, "Mummy, I don't want to go to school today", we think it quite proper that the mother can force the child to go to school anyway. But no doubt this is an infringement of the child's right to liberty! Similarly with the mentally infirm - I would think it fine that family or charity force them to not do something (such as, perhaps, not wander around the streets at night), despite the fact that they wish to do it. So how do we reconcile this? Why is it that we should attribute rights to mentally stable adults, but not children and the infirm? And being a child and mentally unstable is hardly a "one or zero" type problem - there are a lot of grey areas. In which case, where should we draw the line? I think I do have any answer to this problem, but I'll have to blog on that another time

-The clarity of property rights - Sometimes, well nearly all of the time, property rights are obvious. But what about in global warming? The exhaust from my car really might cause sea levels to rise and someone else's house to be flooded. I think most libertarians would be against green taxes/cap & trade/etc., but it seems to me that there is a property rights infringement there. I think here libertarians have to grin and bear it - there really are property rights infringements.

-The maximum rights protection problem - This is a little more philosophical. There is a critique of utilitarianism which goes like this. Utilitarianism argues that we should act to maximise happiness. But does this mean maximise total happiness, or maximise average happiness (total happiness/number of people)? In any single moment of society, it doesn't matter of course - to maximise one is to maximise the other. But over a period of time, it can have an impact. This means that if we are to maximise total happiness, we should say that it is better to have a very large but thoroughly miserable society than a small but extremely happy society. So we say, "Oh well then it must be average happiness that matters". But then the problem changes to mean that we shouldn't have children if we think that our child is likely to have a happiness level of below the societal average - because if we do have the child, the average will fall. Both these conclusions seem wrong.
But I've noticed that there seems to be a similar problem with libertarianism. Should the government act to maximise total rights protection or average rights protection or minimise total rights infringed or average rights infringed? I don't want to go through the problems all in detail now, but given the utilitarian parallel, it's easy to see what the issue could be.

-Equality of right protection - Again, a utilitarian parallel is useful. Utilitarianism can be critiqued on the basis that it says that a society in which half the population have 101 units of happiness and the other half have zero is better than a society in which the whole society has 50 units of happiness. This seems intuitively wrong. But with rights theories - should we prefer a society in which half the society has no rights infringed at all, and the rest have a lot of rights infringed, or a somewhere-in-the-middle solution where the total number of rights infringed is just more than in the first society, but everyone has the same number of infringements? It seems to me that the second must be better, that there should be some sort of equality in rights protection. But that would mean endorsing rights infringements.

-Which rights? - Libertarians ask the government to protect only the rights to life, liberty and property. There is actually a pretty good metaphysical defence of these particular rights, and they are all about 'the self' (which the non-aggression axiom is based upon). But I think conceivably the modern liberals have a reasonably good argument that something akin to 'self-realisation' should be a right, even though it would mean infringing upon others rights to property (but then the right to life requires that as well - police)

-How axiomatic is the non-aggression axiom? - Perhaps it could be that the non-aggression axiom is wrong - that aggressing against others is morally permissible sometimes. I find the axiom very compelling, but I can't give any particular ethical reasons that it should be the case. It is in line with orthodox Christian thought, and many philosophical ethical systems, but I haven't considered much on how axiomatic it really is.

-Hurting feelings - One integral part of any free society is the right to free speech. But this hurts others. Potentially it could result in a loss of self-esteem so great that the person experiences severe trauma. We also might slap someone over the face. Now, libertarianism would say that the second action should be illegal (because it infringes the right to liberty, and possibly life), but the first should not be (because it infringes no right). But it is quite conceivable that the damage to the individual by the first action could be much worse than the first. Should this mean that saying something offensive should be illegal?

That's all for now. I'll try and blog on at least a couple of these with possible responses at a later date.

University Funding

2010-06-17T13:00:00.004+01:00

I just got about halfway through watching last week's QT. One topic of discussion was university funding. It was asked whether the government should ensure that tuition fees are not increased in order to make sure that students don't leave university with more debt.

The general consensus amongst the QT audience was, as you might expect, in favour of not increasing tuition fees. But someone on the panel noted that there is not a God-given right to go to university.

This point is so key. Going to university is a rational investment. You earn an average of £100,000 more post tax in your lifetime if you go to university than if you don't. Since university costs approximately £30,000, that's an insanely good return on investment - plus you might factor in non monetary benefits; the academic experience, broadening your horizons, making friends, participating in sport, having three more years to figure out what job you want to do. All of these together indicate that going to university is, for the most part, an extremely rational investment to make.

But perhaps it is too good. In the money market, if a bond pays very highly (a high coupon rate) and there is a very low interest rate, the value of that bond increases. This is to reach an intended equilibrium where all bonds have the same returns (this isn't quite true as there are risks to take into account, but that is unimportant for now). Since there are legal restrictions on university, the investment of university is not allowed to reach this equilibrium. The legal restrictions mean that going to university remains one of the most consistently profitable investments one can make.

So why on earth should we stop the price from increasing? Why should we create a legal barrier to ensure that this investment is so good?

There are three possible replies. One is that it is a form of ensuring that there is relative income equality. Obviously I reject government forced income equality, but in this specific circumstance we must ask the question: why university? If we're interested in ensuring income equality, just make a government subsidised bond which pays way above the market rate, but only the poor can buy it (you could buy the bond from the government at £30,000 and it would pay real £100,000 tax free across the course of your lifetime). That has the same effect, and reduces all the bureaucracy involved.

Then there is the notion that it is 'good for the economy'. It's 'good' to have intelligent citizens because they will be more productive. This is clearly a case of the market being able to ascertain this better than the government. What a laughable idea it would be to suggest that the government knows best how may people should go to university and what courses should be taken in order to maximise economic growth. No; if it is good for the economy to have intelligent individuals, then that must be because it is good for firms to have intelligent workers; and if that's the case, don't even worry about it - the firms will take care of it by paying for university education in return for a few years working at their company.

Lastly, it is argued that not all subjects will pay £100,000 - things like medicine and law are far more likely to pay out than English and Media Studies. This of course is true. But then this really begs the question of why the government should subsidise/limit the price on university anyway. If the person goes to university to study, say, English, not for the future economic benefit but for the pleasure of learning English, it is preposterous to say that the government should limit the price of or subsidise that course just so that the student can enjoy the pleasure of academia. If that's a good enough reason for the government to pay for or regulate something, I'll be lodging my application for a government subsidised trip to Florida next week.

EDIT: Watched the rest of QT. A beautiful quote from Toby Young; "Free university education is not a foundational principle of the welfare state. Getting the taxpayer to pay for university education is effectively saying, '70% of people who don't go to university should pay for the 30% who do', which is the opposite of the welfare state".
Nailed.

LP: Free Market or Social Liberation?

2010-04-18T13:28:00.004+01:00

I have had my first article published in the Libertarian Press, here, on whether British libertarians should push for free markets or social liberation.

In other news, I re-read my last post (Argument from Reason II) and noticed how utterly atrocious it is. I will have to make amendments soon.

The General Failure of Government

2010-03-12T12:04:00.003Z

It would seem to me that, across the course of the last couple of hundred years where political economy has really come into its own, and even in the history of humans before that, there has been a general failure of governments to do what they intend to do.

It would also seem that people in this age expect a lot of government - if something goes badly for them, then they expect the government to fix it. This includes, "I lost my job", "Teenagers have nothing to do", "My employer doesn't pay me enough". People still expect of and ask for these things despite governments' horrible record.
To name various failures of government:
-The national minimum wage (causing youth unemployment)
-The NHS (massively inefficient)
-World War II (explains itself)
-The illegalisation of drugs (bringing huge revenues to drug dealers)
-The war in Iraq (certainly could have been handled far better)
-Nationalised utilities (inefficient)
-Keynesian economics of the post war era (caused the inflation of the 70s)

That's not to say that the governments who passed these laws didn't start out with good intentions; I'm sure they did. But these policies have been failures; some catastrophic ones, others more minor. I should note here that when I'm talking about the failure of government, I mean the failure of government when it tries to play an active role in society; in fact, most of the 'successes' of government have been when the government has decided to stop managing something! But is it possible to name many successes of government when it tries to play an active role? I suppose general laws like those against stealing and murder have been successful, but even this is impossible to tell since we don't know what the situation would be like if no such laws exist, as they always have existed.

Parties often promise various things which it will achieve when it takes power. Obama will bring healthcare for all. Cameron will bring a more efficient NHS. Are either of these claims realistic? Probably not. It just seems extremely difficult for governments to ever actually achieve anything.

I'm not entirely sure why this is. Companies achieve things all the times, and thank God they do. It could be that since the government is not profit driven, it has no incentive to succeed. But this doesn't seem to be true; parties have a great incentive to succeed in order to remain in power, which is after all what they are looking for. If a government is able to be efficient, surely it will attract votes and thus will be able to keep its job. This doesn't seem to be all too different from how the executive board of a company operates. Perhaps the problem lies in the sheer scale of government; trying to run a whole society just isn't possible, regardless of incentives. But I think the reason could be that voters simply aren't interested in efficiency. Do most voters realise how much of a failure the NHS has been? Probably not. Even if the next party was able to amazingly streamline government to make it ultra-efficient, how many votes would that attract? A few, not many. Votes come from making promises (however ridiculous) and having great PR. Perhaps the incentives of government could be fixed with a very educated public, which would finally lead to efficient government.

Governments are bad at doing things. But, whoever wins the election, the government stays in power.

Pascal is still wagering

2010-03-09T22:09:00.009Z

I used to find Pascal's wager a particularly attractive idea. More recently, I have found its attraction again. Pascal wagered that he may as well believe in God; because if he was right, he gained eternal life and all the goodness with that, but if he was wrong, he lost nothing. So long as the chance of God existing ≠ 0, then it must be worth believing in God. This principle seems intuitively compelling, I think.

The first criticism of this argument is that there are lots of religions to choose from, many of which claim that they are the only way to achieve access to heaven. This does not actually damage Pascal's wager at all. It merely means that the probability of snagging the right religion is smaller; but since the payoff is heaven, it's still worth it. This will be explained in slightly more detail below.

The next criticism is that Pascal was wrong when he asserted that if he is incorrect about the existence of God that he loses nothing; in fact, believing in a certain religion usually requires a significant giving up of one's time and money, as well as being bound to follow a moral code. If the benefits of religion in this lifetime (such as satisfaction, lack of despair, etc) are outweighed by the negatives (such as the giving up of time and money and so forth), then, so the argument goes, it follows that if the chance of God existing is pretty tiny, we should not believe in a religion as we risk losing enjoyment in this life. This problem is slightly more damaging than the first criticism, but can be fairly easily sidestepped by some use of basic maths:
Imagine you are at a casino. The game you're playing is flipping a coin. You place a bet, flip a coin and if it comes up heads, then you get your money back + 50% of your bet (so a bet of £10 and a head would mean you receive back £15, a £5 profit - a return ratio of 1.5). Now, on average the amount of money you get back for every pound you put in can be found by this formula:
Average return = Probability of a head x Return ratio
For our example, your average return would be:
Average return = 0.5 x 1.5 = 0.75
So for every £1 you put in, you recieve back £0.75. You're not going to make money in the long run on that game.

However, if the return ratio was ∞, and you could choose to either bet all of your money or none of your money, then it would always be worth betting all of your money on the game (if money had constant returns to your happiness), even if the chance of you winning was 0.000001. In reality we would probably not choose to bet all of our money because we do not finding constant returns to happiness with money, and thus infinite money would not be that much better than our current amount of money, but zero money would be much worse than our current amount of money.

Let's place this strategy into Pascal's wager. Here, instead of betting money, we're betting the negatives of following a religion (time, money, following a moral code etc). The payback is not money but eternal life/heaven etc. This payback will last forever and thus is ∞, which also makes the return ratio ∞. We do experience constant returns to happiness here, because having eternal life in heaven is literally infinitely better than eternal damnation/annihilation (unlike the casino example above, where infinite money is not infinitely better than some money or no money).

Even if we considered the chance of any given religion being true to be very small (let's say 0.0000001), provided we did not consider the chance 0, we can see that it would be worth believing in a religion:

Average Return = 0.0000001 x ∞ = ∞

The average return is infinite; and since we have constant returns to happiness with regard to eternal life, it is certainly worth wagering on any religion rather than no religion, even if believing in the religion resulted in the most awful sacrifices in this world (the sacrifices would certainly not be infinitely bad, but the payoff would be infinitely good).

Thus, both of the first two criticisms against Pascal's wager can be avoided. The third, which for a while had me convinced, is that if we are considering all possible truths, perhaps it is the case that believing in God actually has negative eternal consequences. Any such situation can be dreamed up; maybe God does not like it that puny humans try to understand him and thus will punish them with eternal damnation, and reward atheists with eternal life since they did not commit such blasphemy. This leaves us right back in square one. However, this criticism too can be avoided. What this criticism does is to essentially just formulate another 'possibility', just as Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam etc. are all 'possibilities'. Thus, we can attribute probability values to each possibility, and then act accordingly. Maybe an atheist shall say that Christianity has a 0.0002 chance of being right, and Islam a 0.0001 chance - but he also has to attribute this 'atheist God' possibility a probability value. I'm pretty confident that even the most ardent atheist will not claim that the chance of Christianity being true is less than the chance of there being a God who rewards people who don't believe in him and damns those who do, since the evidence for the former (Evidence of the resurrection, 'religious experiences', historical validity of the gospels) is considerably higher than evidence of the latter (literally none). Thus, even Richard Dawkins himself will have to say that there's a better chance of Christianity than this imagined atheist God.
Therefore, this criticism leaves us only with choosing between another possible option, rather than damning the whole argument.

The final possible argument against the wager, which is no doubt the strongest one, is that in fact it does not matter which alternative we choose (including the atheist God alternative), because they all have infinite payoffs. This can be seen here:
Suppose we attribute Christianity a 0.5 chance of being right, Islam a 0.3 chance, Judaism a 0.1 chance and Atheist God a 0.05 chance*. Their average returns are as follows:

Christianity's Return = 0.5 x ∞ = ∞

Islam's Return = 0.3 x ∞ = ∞

Judaism's Return = 0.1 x ∞ = ∞

Atheist God's Return = 0.05 x ∞ = ∞
*The reason I chose those four religions is that all of them are exclusive. Under Pascal's wager, there's no point believing non-exclusive religions (such as Hinduism or Buddhism), since if they're right you've got eternal life regardless of your belief.

Therefore, it could be claimed that any alternative can be chosen - because the average return is always ∞! This could be a damning indictment of the wager. However, I think here that it would still seem that the best option is to choose the religion which we perceive as having the highest chance of being right. Given that all the religions will have an infinite average return, the only logical way to decide between them is to pick the one with the highest probability of being right.

Of course, the scope of Pascal's wager is limited to only what is rational to do. It is true that an atheist who understands and agrees with Pascal's wager may still be bound to being an atheist, because his belief is based on various factors about what he believes to be the true, rather than what he believes is best for him. We cannot 'choose' what we believe, essentially. This is true, and perhaps thus Pascal's wager is unhelpful as it only shows atheists that they are making the wrong decision, rather than enabling them to change it (as arguments for the existence of God do). Although, one thing can still be salvaged from the wager; its conclusion does show that atheists should do all they can to research and try to understand the arguments for God and religions, since this gives them the best shot at being able to make the most rational choice.

Ideology III: Why I am a libertarian

2010-03-05T12:59:00.004Z

In the third of a 4 part series on ideology, I would like to explain why I am a libertarian.

The basis for my libertarian beliefs stem from the belief in the non-aggression axiom. The non-aggression axiom is defined by Wikipedia as being "holding that 'aggression', which is defined as the initiation of physical force, the threat of such, or fraud upon persons or their property, is inherently illegitimate. In contrast to pacifism, the non-aggression principle does not preclude defense."

This links in with my blog a little while ago on, "What is a Law?" As noted there, a law is the initiation of force. This is key to my libertarian stance. Thus, we must ask ourselves the question: when is it permissable to use force?

It must here also be said that using force by the government passing a law is exactly the same as an individual using force. The government, I posit, does not have any particular legitimacy in using force (although it may well be the most efficient way to go about using force should it need to be used). It is of course the burden of the believer rather than the skeptic to show why the government does have legitimacy in intiating force; but there are a few arguments used which I shall outline:
1. The government has been granted legitimacy through democracy. This argument would say that because the majority of some population have given their assent in a certain way, the government is legitimised to use force on behalf of that majority against the population as a whole. The problem here is that I do not see why a minority should have forced used against them because some (arbitrarily chosen) majority says it's fine to. One way to illustrate this is to imagine a room with ten people in it. Nine of the people decide that they want to be richer. They talk together in a corner of the room, and eventually decide to have a public vote. The bill they are voting on is whether the nine people should steal all the tenth person's money and spread it amongst themselves. The votes come in: it's 9 to 1. They steal his money and give it to themselves. Now, that was democratically decided; so it's fine right? Of course we intuitively know that that is absolutely not fine. There is no reason to believe that the majority of a population holding a certain belief means that, whatever that belief is, that it is morally permissable. The individual holds his rights against the majority as the person who clearly holds the most rights over person X is person X.
2. The government presides over that country; if you don't like the country that's fine, you can leave, but if you choose to live in it then you are part of our society. This argument would suggest that there is some implicit social contract which we abide by when we choose to live in a country. However we must ask; when did I agree to this social contract? If I had agreed to it and signed it then, yes, the government could tell me what to do. But I've never signed such a contract, nor has anybody else. Just because I 'live in this country' does not mean that I'm implicitly part of the arbitrarily defined 'society'. Because if it was that simple, then I could go and set up another government and say, "I run this second government. If you choose to live in this society, you're under my rules too!" That would clearly be ridiculous, but that would have the exact same legitimacy as the government in this current argument puts forth. If I own the land I live on, and if I'm given permission to go on the land other people live on, then how could it be that any government can claim legitimacy in using force over me because I live in 'their property'? Plainly this argument fails.

Thus, I do not think that the government has any inherent legitimacy in using force over me or anyone else.
So we return to the question: When is it permissable to levy force against someone? I will argue that it is only permissable to levy force in order to protect people's rights, because the individual alone has claim to their rights; as noted above, nobody else can legitimately claim to have rights over another person. What rights are these?
I put forward that we exist at three points in time: the past, the present, the future. Each one of these corresponds to one natural right. Ourselves in the future is our life - for we can only exist in the future if we are alive. Ourselves in the present is our liberty - it is our freedom to act, and we can only act in the present of course. Ourselves in the past is our property - it is everything our toils have bought us up until this point. Life, liberty and property, the three natural rights of man. It cannot be said that we have rights over anything else, for then we would start to infringe upon other people's rights. For example, if it was said that we have a right to education - well, somebody needs to pay for that education which will constitute an infringement of the right of property. Or if it was said that British manufacturers need protection from cheap imports, and thus import tariffs should be levied - but that means that the liberty of the importers (and foreign exporters) are infringed upon.

These three inalienable rights are what should be protected. In order to protect them, the non-aggression axiom must be adhered to.
At this point I should state that if I was not Christian, I would not be libertarian. For it is the Christian committment to not initiating force and to taking violence very seriously that leads me to the non-aggression principle. I do not argue that libertarianism necessarily leads to the best outcomes (although I think for the vast majority of situations it does). But it's a committment to morals and means, rather than ends, consistent with Christianity, that means that we must put the non-aggression principle above the actual consequences.

Thus, in summary: It is immoral to initiate force against others, because to do so would be to infringe upon the rights of the person who owns them - that person in question. The government has no special legitimacy to infringe upon rights. The rights which must not be infringed upon and which the non-aggression principle upholds are those to life, liberty and property.

The Argument from Reason

2010-03-04T12:24:00.007Z

EDIT: I prefer Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism now

The Argument from Reason explains why the only reasonable belief in regards to the existence of God is that he exists.

Firstly, it must be admitted by both the atheist and the theist that there are at least some reasonably good arguments for both sides. Perhaps the cosmological argument for the theist; and the evidence for evolution for the atheist. One might conclude that one or both arguments are flawed in some way; but it could not be doubted that they make at least a degree of headway to proving the existence or non-existence of God.

However, what if there was no God? What has evolution bought us? I have eyes which are good for seeing; but they are short sighted. I have teeth which are good for chewing; but they will rot. I have a heart which is good for keeping me alive; but one day it will stop beating. It is clear that, whilst evolution has made us vastly more complex and better equipped creatures than single celled organisms, it has not made us perfect. Far from it. If this is true of my eyes, teeth, heart - every part of my body - then why should I not assume it is the same for my rational faculties - those mental faculties which determine reality using only reason?

Surely we must conclude that if there is no God, then our rational faculties are imperfect just like the rest of us. How imperfect are they? Perhaps we could suggest some sort of test of 'how good' our rational faculties are; but whatever the test is, it is inevitably flawed. In order to find this out, we would have to have perfect rational faculties to design and interpret the results of such a test! No, in regards to us determining how imperfect our rational faculties our a blind leading the blind situation.

Thus, we do not know to what degree we are irrational - but we do not have any good reason to believe that we have perfect rational faculties (in fact, if we were to assume perfection, we would find that evolution has occurred, and thus we are extremely unlikely to have perfect rational faculties!) This means that any argument which disproves, or puts in jeopardy the existence of God immediately defeats itself. Any such argument must rely on having perfect rational faculties in order for the argument to have any epistemic justification. Thus, to actually believe that God does not exist will inevitably be an unreasonable view - we will use our rational faculties to show that God does not exist which shows that we do not have truth-discerning rational faculties.

The atheist may counter that the theist has the same problem. However, I think that the theist's argument is actually strengthened by the argument from reason. Because not only must there be a God in order for us to have rational faculties - he must be an omnibenevolent God. For us to have rational faculties despite the rest of our body being flawed there must be a God who ensured that our faculties were rational such that we might be able to learn more about Him. Thus, the only epistemically justified belief to hold is that there is an omnibenevolent God who gave us rational faculties. Any other belief inevitably defeats itself.

At this point, I return to the initial consideration: that there are good arguments for and against the existence of God. As I believe I have shown, any argument against the existence of God defeats itself. These arguments thus fall away, and the only arguments which remain are arguments for the existence of God.

It would be possible for the atheist to counter that perhaps there is no God and we don't have rational faculties. He can say that if this case was true, then we would not know whether God exists (so the only reasonable position in regards to the existence of God would be "No idea"), and of course we would not know if we had rational faculties. We would be in a state of nihilism, of not knowing anything about ourselves, the universe, science and existence. I suppose that this view is epistemically 'justified' in so far as it doesn't defeat itself in the same way that arguments for atheism defeat themselves. In this way, whilst the person who says, "I believe that God doesn't exist"/"God almost certainly does not exist" is unjustified and his arguments defeat themselves, this nihilistic view is 'reasonable'.

It just isn't very nice.

(And given that there is no reason to choose this view over theism, I'll go with the view that allows me to know and think about philosophy, science, existence, beauty, and so forth, rather than answering any question on anything other than opinion with, "No idea")

A Thought Experiment on Stealing

2009-12-11T18:55:00.001Z

Imagine a future state of anarchism. There is no government, so nothing is provided for ‘free’. Place yourself in the shoes of a poor father with young children. Your oldest child has just turned five, and it is the time that normally he would go to school. Since we are in a state of anarchism, the only schools are private ones. Unfortunately, you, as the poor father, are unable to finance sending your son to school. You ask around family and friends – no luck. The bank won’t lend you money because of your bad credit rating. If you don’t send your child to school, they will simply have to go to work in the local shop when they grow up a bit. They aren’t in any direct danger from not going to school. The question is: Is it morally permissible to steal in order to pay the school fees? I would put it to you that no, it is not morally permissible. Whilst schooling is something nice for the child, it is by no means a necessity, and it certainly doesn’t warrant stealing, which is pretty much universally accepted to be immoral.
Now, imagine the same situation, except this time instead of schooling being the subject at hand, it is paying for fire safety insurance. In this state, protection from your house burning down is that you pay for insurance for private fire services who will come round to houses who have paid for insurance when they get set on fire. Here, would it be permissible to steal in order to pay for fire insurance? I would say again – no. It might potentially save your life, but the likelihood is pretty small, and again it doesn’t seem to be enough of a problem to make stealing morally permissible.
Finally, this time the situation is that you need to pay for an operation. You are unable to afford the heart transplant, and if you don’t pay for it you will die. Here the question seems a bit more unclear – I do not think that there would be a general trend in people's intuitions one way on the other as to the morality of stealing to pay for the operation.

If you accept that the first two situations – schooling and fire insurance – are not problems enough to warrant stealing – then I put it to you that you have already decided that taxation to pay for public schooling and a nationalised fire service is immoral. Because what’s the difference between theft and taxation?

Ideology II: Why I am not a liberal

2009-11-28T12:21:00.005Z

In the second of a 4 part series on ideology, I would like to explain why I am not a liberal.
I am using the term 'liberal' in the American sense; i.e., a general acceptence of personal liberties, but a reasonably high degree of government intervention in the economic sphere.

I could reason against this from an economic basis; the theory (and the past) have shown that high taxation, in the long run, results in poor economic performance as it screw up incentives. But, that's a boring argument and is also one which would require a lot of theory and data finding, neither of which I can be bothered to do.
Instead, it is better to look at the issue of government intervention in economics from a philosophical theoretical point of view. I don't believe that it's morally permissable for the government to intervene in economics in almost any circumstance. I suppose the government can intervene in two ways:
1) Taxation and spending
2) Regulation

Taxation and spending. I am well aware that there are a lot of people who would be on the streets if they didn't have government help. I am also aware that many people would not have a basic level of education. However, I do not believe that we can tax and spend to solve this. Yes, from a utilitarian point of view, it probably is better for the government to intervene here. But given that utilitarianism is a horrible form of ethics, I won't accept the policy on that basis. Instead, it is important to think about what taxation is; much like how I said I think it's important to think about what a law is a couple of blogs ago.
Taxation is literally stealing. To quote Nozick, "Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor". What is the difference between slavery and taxation? We might think, "Hmm, it would be nice if we could help those who don't have a job, let's just tax the rich". And yes, I'm sure that that would create the greatest utility. But is it moral? Is it morally permissable to steal from someone in order to spend it on someone else as you see fit? I think not.

There is only one possible non-utilitarian refutation to this argument that I can envisage:
"We are part of a society, which we have a responsbility towards". Uh, how about no. The individual is an end in himself; you cannot morally take control of some or all of the individual against his consent (which is exactly what taxation does). Unless the individual has specifically chosen to admit himself to this arbitrary 'society' you've decided upon, nobody has any rights over him. The social contract is only legitimate if the individual has signed the contract; if the individual has not signed the contract, then it isn't a contract at all, but it is enslavement.
We probably do have a duty to society. Is it ok to steal from and enslave those who think that they don't?
No.

Regulation. Regulation doesn't appear to be as bad as taxation - I mean, no-one loses anything right?
Firstly, regulation is a lot worse than taxation when it comes to screwing up incentives and making an economy function poorly.
But, more than that, it's immoral. If I make a contract between me and another person, what possible right does the government have to say, "Nope, sorry, you need to change the terms of it"? If I want to pay the person signing the contract X amount per hour, and he is prepared to accept X amount per hour, exactly who loses out, Mr. Government? To quote Friedman, "The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit." The government can't regulate a contract without pissing off at least one person in the contract (and possibly both, such as in the case of "I'll pay you £3/hr", "Sweet", "Sorry, you have to pay a minimum wage of £5/hr, "Oh right I can't afford that, sorry no job for you!")
The government can't tell me what contracts to make with other people whilst maintaining any sort of legitimacy.

Thus, I am not a liberal. Not only does liberal economic policy make for bad economics, it also is simply immoral. Stealing from others, or telling them how to make contracts, is not validated by what you percieve to be 'social justice'

Four Ways to Spend Money

2009-11-28T12:19:00.000Z

There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40% of our national income.
--Milton Friedman (1912-2006)

What is a Law?

2009-10-18T17:01:00.003+01:00

There seems to be an endless amount of crap about what should be illegal or legal. When one says that, "X should become illegal", one must fully take into account exactly what is meant by that. Choosing to make a certain action illegal does not merely mean that you are condemning it; that you think it's wrong. No, legality and illegality goes far further than that.
Illegality has several steps:
1) The legislature deems X action to be 'illegal'.
2) If a man is to continue to do X action, they are subject to the will of the courts
3) If the man is found guilty, he is, against his own will, forced to give up his property, liberty, or in some cases life.

Therefore:
When you say, "X should be illegal", remember that what you're saying is, "If someone does X, they should forcibly have their liberty or property taken off them against their own will."
Substituting possible suggestions into that sentence:
"If someone smokes cannabis, they should forcibly have their liberty taken off them"
"If someone refuses to give money to the poor (benefits), they should forcibly have their property taken off them"

Think about what you're saying. Making X illegal is not the same as removing X from society. It is, however, the same as forcing someone to stop doing X or they get thrown in jail for it.

Ideology I: Why I am not a conservative

2009-06-13T22:05:00.003+01:00

In the first of a 4 part series on ideology, I would like to explain why I am not a conservative.
I am using the term 'conservative' in the American sense; i.e., a general acceptence of the free market, but a certain moral code (usually Christian) to be enforced in social settings.
American conservatives believe that the free market is the best/most efficient/fairest way to deal with the economic problem. They think that people should be given freedom to do as they please in the sphere of business, but they wish for their beliefs on morality to be the standard in law. This is surely contradictary. Why should we grant freedoms when we are acting with our cash, but not grant them when we are acting with our conscience? For a start, this creates an obvious problem - what if a business wants to set up a strip club, but the conservative government has deemed that immoral? If they allow the strip club, they have broken the bond to morality. If they do not allow the strip club, they have broken the bond to the free market. But it's more than that.
Isn't the entire issue with morality a personal one; many people have different moral standards and the concept involved with morality is that a moral decision is one made personally, not one made for you? If we take the example of drunkeness, and look at two different situations this is exemplified. Let's assume that getting drunk is immoral.
-Drunkenness is legal. A man goes out and gets drunk
-Drunkenness is illegal. A man desperately wants to go out and get drunk, but is unable to because he will incur the wrath of the law
Is the first situation a genuinely more moral result than the second? Morality is clearly in the conscience of the individual. Enforcing morality achieves nothing in so far as it is the heart rather than the actions that dictates whether the occurance is a moral one.
Secondly, surely the freedom of the individual to choose his own moral code is better than us imposing a single moral code upon the entire population. Why is it that Person X's moral standards should be forced on the country, and not Person Y's? Because Person X's standards are 'correct'? Nearly impossible to prove. It is the right of the individual to decide what the morally permissable decision is; not the role of the state.

The Anti-BNP

2009-06-11T20:35:00.000+01:00

In the recent European Parliament elections, the BNP regrettably won 2 seats, one of which went to their leader Nick Griffin. It certainly is shameful for Britain that 6.5% of people gave their vote to a party which supports zero immigration, protectionism, and a white only view of what it means to be British.
However, yesterday Nick Griffin was attacked by the Anti-BNP, one of which threw an egg at him. This isn’t the first time the Anti-BNP (I think their official title is ‘Unite against Fascism’) have made an emergence at BNP public appearances. Their tag line is something like this, “Nazi scum! Off our street! Nazi scum! Off our street!”
After the egging of Nick Griffin, a man from Unite against Fascism was interviewed on Newsnight. His style was appalling but as far as I could make out, his three reasons for running anti-BNP marches were as follows:

1. The BNP are anti-democratic
2. BNP members are violent against ethnic minorities
3. The BNP incite violence and hatred

The first point is simply not true. There is no evidence whatsoever that, should the BNP gain power, that they would in any way restrict democracy. If that was the case, then there would be an argument for opposing the BNP and indeed banning them. But they are democratic just as Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems are. They should be allowed to stand in democratic elections just like everybody else
That BNP members might be violent against ethnic minorities is a possibility; I don’t know. It seems likely. However, how is appearing at BNP public events going to change that? Furthermore, is it the BNP party who are violent, or is it the BNP members? The answer is clearly the latter. If there were a spate of murders and it turned out that all the men involved went to a certain café for their tea, should we go and smash up that café? No. We should bring the individuals to justice – and that is the job of the police. The BNP party are not violent (unlike the Nazi party, who as a party organised violence)
There is a likelihood that the BNP do incite violence and hatred. It was this point which the man on Newsnight mostly pushed. He went well over the top, saying that the BNP want to “kill millions of innocent ethnic minorities”, which, as far as I’m aware, is completely unfounded. However, we have a law against incitement of hatred and violence – why does the anti-BNP think they need to take the law into their own hands? If the anti-BNP perceive that the BNP are inciting hatred, then they should inform the relevant authorities, not egg Nick Griffin. They do not serve any function which should not be served by the police.

Above all, when the anti-BNP turn up and cause a fuss, they just attract attention. The offending egg was thrown at a news conference which Griffin was holding in front of the Houses of Parliament. It probably wouldn’t have made any considerable impact on the news, but now because the anti-BNP insisted on showing up, it has made the front pages of the papers and got considerably more air time on the news. Of course, the news wants to get the story from the other side – so they interview the BNP. Result? More air time for the BNP. Congratulations ‘Unite against Fascism’ – you have helped the progression of fascism!

On a side note, apparently Nick Griffin is lodging a complaint against the anti-BNP for being egged, which I think is completely fair, and also hilarious.

Theistic Evolution

2009-06-11T20:32:00.001+01:00

I have become aware of a significant number of (largely American) Christians who follow a strictly literal interpretation of Genesis. This means that they believe that the universe and everything within it was created in 6 literal, solar days. Furthermore, they take the world to be 6,000 – 10,000 years old using the genealogies in Genesis (I have no idea why there is a discrepancy between creationists on exactly how old the universe is, because I would have thought the genealogies would be specific. Anyway, this is irrelevant).
I have become a firm believe in the concept of ‘Theistic evolution’ – the idea that evolution did occur, but it was in a God-centred way. In practice what this means is that God put in place the conditions for evolution to occur, and for modern man to come about. This of course also necessitates an old earth and universe.
The reason I believe in theistic evolution is as follows: It is unclear as to whether Genesis should be interpreted literally or metaphorically. It is written in a sort of ‘story’ format, and the happenings in early Genesis are fairytale-like. But on the other hand, it does not make any reference to being a metaphorical account. However – the Bible is not the only source of truth. If the Bible was the sole source of truth, then presumably it would claim to being so – and it does not. God made the Bible. God made the physical world. They both require interpretation, and neither is greater than the other. But truth can be found in both. If the answer you find in one part of God’s creation contradicts the answer you find in another part of His creation, then you must come to the conclusion that you are interpreting one of them incorrectly. This is the case with evolution.
This can lead us to one of four possible conclusions:
1) Evolutionist science is incorrect; and that a correct reading of the evidence will lead us to believe in creationism
2) God deliberately put the evidence in the world when He made it in order to confuse and test man
3) Science is not as valid as the Bible, as the Bible was made by God but science was made by man
4) Evolution occurred, Genesis is metaphorical
I shall deal with each conclusion in turn

“Evolution never occurred, the evidence does not point to it”. A classic quote from creationists is that, “Evolution takes much more faith to believe in”. I don’t know whether they think this is a funny quip, or they’re just taking the piss, but it’s wholly untrue. I’m not interested in going into the actual science; science is not my forte and I’m sure I would not do the evolutionist argument justice. However, in a Newsweek survey done around the turn of the millennium, of 480,000 scientists (scientists being defined as someone with a relevant degree), 700 believed in creation ‘science’. I think that speaks for itself. If, as creationists claim, the evidence points to a young earth and no evolution, then why do over 99% of scientists accept evolution. The evidence does point to evolution, this must be accepted

“God deliberately put the fossils and so forth in the world when He made it in order to test man”. Or alternatively, “God made the world with age”. The first argument puts a serious question over who exactly God is. Is God a god of confusion? Is He a God which would go out of his way to lead people to believe something untrue? Hardly. The second argument is possible; however, it is paramount to asking, “How do we know the past has happened and we haven’t been created 10 seconds ago with memories and so forth already in place?” This is an unanswerable question of philosophy. It would however still assume a god of confusion.

“Man made science, God made the Bible”. This comes from a misunderstanding of exactly what the word “science” means. Science is, by definition, the study of the physical world. Bible scholarship is the study of the Bible. Both creationists and theistic evolutionists agree that the Bible and the world have been made by God. So what do we have:
God made the physical world
God made the Bible
Man interprets the physical world through science
Man interprets the Bible through Bible scholarship
How exactly is one more valid than the other? Mistakes can be made in both science and Bible scholarship, because man has to interpret both. This is why there is disagreement in both disciplines – in science there (was) disagreement over whether global warming is occurring, in Bible scholarship there is disagreement between pre-destination and free will. In both those cases, only one can be correct, and both have tried to interpret God’s truth but one has failed. It’s just the same with evolution. We can find God’s truth in the Bible and in the physical world, and if our conclusion from reading the Bible (a young earth) contradicts our conclusion from studying the physical world (an old earth), we must be interpreting one of them incorrectly. Since it is anything but obvious whether Genesis is a historical account or merely a theological account, whereas it is completely obvious that evolution occurred, I come to the conclusion that Genesis must be a metaphorical account.
Genesis isn’t a history book, nor is it a science book. It is a book telling us about God’s love and the condition of man. It can achieve this through metaphor better than through literal account.

Oh, and no, they shouldn’t teach creationism in science lessons at school. They should only teach science in science lessons, and creationism is wholly unscientific.

MPs' Expenses

2009-05-16T18:37:00.008+01:00

The past couple of weeks have proved (thanks to information gathered by the Telegraph) that Members of Parliament have been overclaiming on their expenses. Some rather amusing examples include the cleaning of a moat, porn (!), dog food and malteasers. Clearly, the system is broken - MPs obviously require having two homes (it is not practical to be the representative for Aberdeen whilst being an active Member of Parliament in Westminster), and also require expenses incurred whilst living at this second home, travelling to it, etc etc - but this shouldn't go as far as claming for a moat. However, the night before last I watched Question Time, and it was the first time ever that I've watched it when there has only been one question discussed for the entire one hour period. Yep, it was MPs' expenses. There was much heckling from the crowd; various diatribe from the audience included, "But nurses/teachers don't get a second home!" (are you retarded, they work within an hour of where they live), "I think they should just get paid minimum wage with no expenses like lots of people in Britain, so they understand what it's like" (yep, that would get the best quality people for the job no doubt), "MPs who have done this should go to jail, like how benefits cheats do".
This last point is the only one which needs addressing. The difference between MPs claiming over-exaggerated expenses and people claiming JSA when they are employed is that MPs never broke the law. The system was set up so that they put forward a claim, and that it was then approved in some form or other. Some claims were rejected - various claims for child's toys and furniture. But the claims that were authorised were authorised not because the MPs managed to 'get around the system', it was because the system was actually broken. There will be no prosecutions, and nor should there be.

I'm not defending the MPs. Whilst they acted in the letter of the law, they clearly did not act within the spirit of it. But it is no worse than what many other top dogs do in their jobs with expenses and taking advantage of perks. The system needs changing, but MPs don't need sacking.

Above all, much like with the 'Fred the Shred' incident, we do not need to spend more time on this. The time we spend debating this, the time that it takes up on the news, the time spent discussing it in Parliament could be used much better for bigger issues - for the economic crisis, for instance. Whilst we hold the government to account for their expenses, we fail to hold them to account for their inefficiences and misjudgements. The fact is, that all the expenses might end up with a few million quid being wasted.
We waste over £100bn each year on the NHS.

This is a drop in the ocean. Let's discuss real issues

The Post Code Lottery

2009-04-10T18:08:00.002+01:00

The post code lottery is something that has been of a small amount of criticism from the public and media in recent years. Essentially, the way that it works is that each county, or area is allowed a degree of autonomy in making certain drugs free on the NHS and other ones that have to be paid for. This is seen as the "post code lottery", because people who live in Derby are given their drugs for free, whereas suffers of the same disease are not given their drugs for free because they live in Manchester.

However, the post code lottery is actually somewhat essential for the effective running of our NHS. It is clear that some diseases are more prevelant in some areas than others. Lets say that in Derby there are 1000 sufferers of X, and 500 sufferers of Y. In Manchester, there are 500 sufferers of X and 1000 sufferers of Y. The current system ensures that the Mancheter Health Board are able to give free drugs for sufferers of Y, and not X - thus making sure that 1000 people are catered for for free. The Derby Health Board are able to give free drugs to suffers of X and not Y - thus ensuring that 1000 people are catered for for free - a total of 2000. Making all drugs free is not possible because there is only a limited pot of money.

Now, that system sounds thoroughly reasonable. There is not enough money to ensure that everyone is catered for. But because of the decentralisation, the maximum number of people can be given the drugs for free. If we were to enact a system without the post code lottery - say making the drugs for X free and not Y - the result would be thus: Derby would have 1000 patients given their drugs for free, and Manchester would have just 500 having free drugs - making a total of 1500. This system surely is less efficient than the decentralised post code lottery.

Removing the post code lottery in the name of equality is achieving nothing but an improvement in political stature

"Fred the Shred"

2009-03-09T17:24:00.005Z

This is simply ridiculous. 'Fred the Shred', aka Sir Frederick Goodwin, was head of RBS for eight years until losing his job in October last year. Now, his pension pay package stated that he would be paid £700,000 per year for the rest of his life - a huge amount of money I'm sure you'll agree, although a significant pay cut from his previous earnings. However, the media and the public have taken it upon themselves to call for Fred's pension to be taken away from him - either in part or in whole - and the money to be given to those who've lost money as a result of the credit crunch, which Fred 'caused'. Amazingly, Harriet Harman has suggested that the government could be in favour of passing legislation to take away his pension. Her argument - now get this - is that, "The pension may be passable in a court of law, but it is not in the court of public opinion". What? I could rewrite that sentence for her and it would mean exactly the same thing, but sound a whole lot different, look - "The pension may be passable in a court of legal justice, but mob rule would rather take it away from him".
There are three distinct problems with taking away Fred's package through legal means:
1. It is delibrately breaching legal contract. When Fred took the job in 2000, he signed that contract. The directors signed that contract, presumably with the support of the shareholders. There was no-one else involved in the signing, because they were the only people who were affected. Why, all of a sudden, should the government jump in and take charge over a contract which was signed nine years ago and has nothing to do with them? This sets a dangerous precedent - that it's ok for governments overrule binding contracts. (Incidentally, why just Fred? Why not the other Chief Executives of other banks? Hell, why not the middle managers and other staff members who were also involved, in some way, of causing the economic collapse? Perhaps the cashiers at the till? Who knows where to draw the line?)
2. It has zero effect. The total amount that Fred is likely to be paid is something like £16 million. That's roughly 25p per person in the UK. Even if we stole ALL of his pension, it would benefit everyone by just 25p. Woop dee do. The fact is that in hard times people like to look for a victim, regardless of the fact that it will make no difference at all. They feel that they are suffering because of Fred's actions, so Fred should suffer too! The fact that it is an entirely useless measure apparently doesn't concern them.
3. It takes our eyes off the real issue. As stated above, the result of stealing Fred's pension is nil. Thus, the time spent debating this topic on the news is wasted - it could be much better spent discussing the economic crisis and putting pressure on the government to take the right measures against it. More importantly, it's wasting government time. Clearly the cabinet has taken time discussing it for Harman to speak out about it (Labour's ministers literally don't do anything without the support of the cabinet's spin doctors), and if legislation is passed, we're wasting time drafting, debating and voting on the legislation - time that could be spent fixing the dire situation that we've been left in.

In essence, it's illegal, ineffective and indeed immoral to steal Fred's pension from him. I suspect that Harman's comment on the pension is designed to be a distraction from Gordon's failure to deal with the crisis more than anything else.

Democracy: Reloaded

2009-02-13T11:20:00.002Z

I think a bit of a re-visit to my first post on democracy is needed. Since posting it, I have got a lot of negative vibes (dude) from people who read the blog, or who I introduced the idea to. It was posted on my school's forum, which got a fairly large response.
Anyway, what I want to clarify is this. I'm not interested, necessarily, in making it so that richer people get more votes. That may not work. What I am interested in doing, is finding a correlation - read it again - correlation between how informed you are on political issues (as opposed to intelligence, which was my previous objective for finding how good someone was at voting). Now, it is quite possible that richer people will be more informed on political issues, and thus their opinion should be given more weight. It is also possible that people with a higher degree of education are more informed. Hell, it could be possible that people with blue eyes are more suitable to voting. It doesn't matter what the measure is - as long as there is correlation. I'm sick and tired of people pointing out one or two isolated examples of people who are rich and stupid, or left school at 16 and are smart. That isn't important, provided that there is correlation. Of course there will be anomalies. Furthermore, the difference in votes should be equated to the correlation. If there is a very weak correlation between, say, wealth and how informed one is at voting, then perhaps the poorest person could be given one vote, and the richest given 1.01.
I don't particularly care what measure is used (a variety of measures compounded would almost certainly be best), just so long as there is a measure. Of course studies would have to be carried out to find a suitable measure.

Something to think about for those who are still vehemently opposed to my opinion, thinking that democracy is some eternal value or something, is that we already do this system. At polling day, the opinions of those who are under the age of 18 is not considered important in the SLIGHTEST. We do not value the opinion of those under 18 - why? Because they are not informed enough - because they aren't good enough voters. Why stop there?

Abortion

2009-01-30T22:19:00.003Z

I have entered a competition run by SPUC to write an abortion essay titled, "Discuss whether you think that an abortion is an acceptable option in an unplanned pregnancy". Because it's actually a competition, it has a bit of a different style to my other few posts on here (less ranting, more reading over after writing). Anyway:

Abortion is perhaps one of the most hotly debated moral topics of the last few decades. The debate has moved back and forth since 1967 when the Abortion Act was passed in the UK. Since then, just over 6.7 million legal abortions have been carried out. The argument centres around, or at least should centre around, whether the foetus should be attributed the rights of a human being. If it should, then abortion is the largest massacre of our time, claiming over 40 million lives worldwide each year – a number equal to all civilian and military deaths in the First World War. However, the subject of whether the foetus is a human life or not is largely avoided by the pro-choice lobby, who advocate various arguments including the idea that it is wrong to enforce morality, that it is the ‘woman’s choice’ and that abortion must be an option to stop so-called ‘back-street’ abortions. These are the arguments that I will be addressing.

The first point that we must consider is that of whether the foetus possesses human life; or more importantly, whether the foetus should be prescribed the rights of a human being - commonly called ‘personhood’. In my opinion, a foetus is just as human, and just as alive as you or me, and thus is a person.

A common argument against the idea that the foetus is a person is that it is “just a tiny bunch of cells”. However, I do not believe that we can use the size of an organism to justify its right – or absence of a right - to life. If we are going to use size as the determinant, then where do we draw the line? At 10 days? At 15 weeks? At 9 months? The current UK law is that a foetus can be aborted at 24 weeks of pregnancy. The question is therefore, to those who believe that size of the organism is a good measure of right to life – why is it that the size of a foetus at 23 weeks, 6 days and 23 hours is not large enough to deserve rights, but one just an hour later is? It seems illogical to allow mere physical size, or number of cells, to tell us as to whether the organism is a person.

Another frequent argument to suggest that a foetus should not be attributed the right to life is that the foetus is not ‘sentient’ until a certain point in the pregnancy. Similarly, I see little logic here. If sentience is a good measure for deciding if a human should be prescribed human rights, then should we give no rights to someone in a coma? It would appear that the pro-choice lobby decided what answer they were looking for in regard to whether the foetus had personhood and then decided what measure they would use.
One can determine that the foetus is a person because of three factors. Firstly, the foetus possesses human DNA, and so is part of the human race. Secondly, the foetus is a separate organism from his or her mother; they have different DNA. In this way, a foetus is its own organism, and not simply a part of the mother, like skin cells are. Thirdly, the foetus has at least the potential to life. Whether the foetus is ‘alive’ or not is difficult to ascertain, as there is no single definition in medical science of what makes an organism alive. What can be said with absolute certainty is that the foetus has the potential for life. This potential grants them the personhood just like any other human being. They have the potential to grow into a newly born baby, and who are we to remove that potential? Furthermore, if we are unsure as to whether the foetus truly is ‘alive’, it would seem more logical not to kill the foetus – as that is running the risk of the possibility that the foetus does have life. Essentially, we can discern that the foetus deserves personhood because they a discrete human organism, and has, at the very least, the potential to life.
One point often argued by the pro-choice lobby is that to remove the option for abortion in normal circumstances is to enforce morality. They argue that removing a woman’s right to undergo an abortion is equal to removing someone’s right to make a moral decision, such as which religion to follow. They argue that allowing abortion does not force anyone into making any decisions. However, the reality is very different. The fact is that we have hundreds of laws which exist to protect the rights of a human being. The individual human is, in the eyes of the law, seen as an end in himself, and therefore legislation which protects the individual’s rights is legitimate. Exactly the same situation exists with abortion. Banning abortion is no more enforcing morality than banning theft enforces morality. We ban theft because it is infringing upon another person’s right to property. Similarly, we ban murder because it infringes another person’s right to life. No-one would dream of suggesting that banning murder was enforcing morality – so we must apply this to abortion as well. If a foetus deserves the right to life (as illustrated in the paragraph above), then we can treat it just as we treat any other human being – and protect its rights. To claim that banning abortion is paramount to pushing a set of moral values on someone is a misguided understanding of the situation, and fails to acknowledge the true centre of the debate – whether the foetus is a person.
Another argument used by those in favour of abortion is that it should be the “woman’s choice”. This argument suggests that by removing the woman’s right to have an abortion, we are removing some sort of fundamental right from the woman. I remember watching a pro-choice rally where the activists shouted, “Women’s rights are human rights! Women’s rights are human rights!” The implication was that taking away the right to abortion was a gross, sexist injustice against women, in the same way as removing a women’s right to vote would be seen as hugely unfair. However, this is attributing a right to women that is simply unjustifiable. The idea of “my body, my choice” means that one has already decided that the foetus has no rights whatsoever. We must also remember that this ‘fundamental’ right to abortion has only been present in the UK for just over 50 years! It is in no way comparable to other fundamental rights such as the right to appeal (Habeas Corpus), which has been enshrined in the Magna Carta in the UK since 1215. Similarly, even if a woman did theoretically have a ‘right’ to abortion, that would mean that that right was greater than the foetus’s right to life. Once again, this argument deliberately avoids the point of whether the foetus should be granted personhood, and instead tries to blind the debate with an abstract notion of “women’s rights”.
A third argument brought up by proponents of abortion is the idea that to ban abortion is to condemn thousands of women to death through so called ‘back-street abortions’. These are illegal abortions which are said to be unsafe because they are often carried out in an unsafe manner, when compared to legal abortion clinics. Undoubtedly, banning abortion would not prevent the return of this situation and therefore would increase the number of illegal back-street procedures. However, this is not the full story. Prior to abortion being made illegal in the USA, the number of women dying in back-street abortion clinics was around 120 per year. Of course, 120 deaths is a tragedy. But if the foetus is a person, then the death of him or her must be seen as equal to his or her mother. The number of abortions in the USA is currently around 1.4 million per year. This shows that whilst 120 deaths is far from ideal, banning abortion will not result in the number of women’s deaths skyrocketing as the pro-choice lobby might like us to think. We must make a comparison – 1.4 million deaths, or 120 deaths. Neither is perfect, but the figures speak for themselves.
In conclusion, I do not believe that abortion is ever an acceptable option in an unplanned pregnancy. The fact of the matter is that the foetus is alive, is a human, and deserves human rights. All arguments of ‘enforcing morality’, ‘the woman’s choice’, or back-street abortions are simply a smokescreen to obscure the real issue. That real issue is that abortion is the quiet holocaust of the 21st Century.

Gay Marriage

2009-01-30T11:13:00.004Z

In writing this, I suppose I should make it clear first that I am a Christian. However, that doesn’t actually change my view on the situation much. Essentially, I believe that gay marriage – or gay civil partnerships, as it is more accurate to call them, should be made legal.
Firstly, what I think people need to realise about the gay marriage issue is what a legal marriage is. Legal marriage is not Christian marriage. Barack Obama correctly pointed out that it is impossible for a gay couple to be married. Marriage, or at least Christian marriage, is a religious concept, and thus being married depends on the rules according to that religion. So what is a legal marriage? Legal marriage is a contract between two individuals that are mostly down to tax benefits. The contract can be broken (divorce), provided that there is legal grounding. In this way, legal marriage is no more than a contract, and thus should be available between any two members of society.
One point often brought up against gay marriage, or civil partnerships, is that homosexuality is immoral. Let’s assume for a moment that homosexuality is immoral, according to Christian thought. Other things that are immoral according to Christian thought are: divorce, lying, getting drunk, eating too much, not looking after one’s body, and not worshipping God. Should we legislate on these issues too? Should we make it illegal to eat too much, to not keep one’s body in shape, or not be a Christian? If we are simply going to use the Bible as a replacement for the Statute book, we will run into several problems, and severe restrictions of people’s civil liberties. Thus, I believe that to propose that gay marriage should be banned can only be backed up by suggesting a complete theocracy. Otherwise, we run into contradictions – why ban one sin but not the other?
The anti-gay marriage lobby has also come up with an argument that I must admit I think is entirely ridiculous. The argument is something along the lines of, “Allowing homosexual marriage will damage/undermine heterosexual marriage”. How? How on earth does allowing two people to make a contract with one another (which, I might add, happens thousands of times a day in business, it’s just that the contract is to work for someone or sell something, not avoid tax) undermine your perception of marriage? As the couple may not be married in a Christian sense, Christian marriage has not been undermined at all. What the marriage means is entirely dependent upon what the couple involved believe, and how they view their relationship.
This picture rather accurately describes the Christian Right's jump in logic in regards to legalising gay marriage:

Another argument I have heard proposed by the Christian Right lobby is that to allow gay marriage means that we might as well allow three people to get married, or allow a person to marry their dog. For a start, I do think that we ought to allow three people to be married, because as far as I’m aware, there is no legal barrier against three-way contracts. As for a person to marry their dog, that is an entirely ridiculous idea. Marriage is a contract between two members of the state, two citizens. You can’t make a contract between a person and a dog. If someone wants to have a ‘marriage’, and do the ceremony with their dog somewhere, and commit it to their god, then they are, in their perception, married. And there isn’t a law against that, and nor should there be. The only reason that they shouldn’t be able to make the deal legal is because it would be impossible, as the dog is not capable of legal contract.
A third argument proposed by the anti-gay marriage lobby is that to allow homosexual marriage is to essentially promote, or approve of something which they consider to be sin. To an extent, they are correct; it does give the approval to homosexual relationships. But once again, I call back to the point I made earlier – why stop there? Don’t we give approval to divorce by allowing divorce? Don’t we give approval to Muslims by giving them the legal permission to build mosques? And why is it specifically marriage that we single out homosexuals for in terms of giving approval? If we really want to stop giving approval to homosexuals, then we shouldn’t let them sign any contracts at all. Marriage is the only one which they are barred from.
In conclusion, the reason that people are against homosexual marriage is that they don’t understand the issue of what legal marriage is. Once one realises that homosexual marriage is nothing more than a legal contract between two people, the situation looks a whole lot different.

Competition

2009-01-15T21:37:00.002Z

So recently, as mentioned in my post on democracy, a Tesco has set up next to a "Nisa", a small corner shop near where I live. There has been public outcry about this, including a 2000 name long petition to stop it happening. I have heard numerous arguments against the new Tesco's, only one of which comes even close to legitimate.
The first is, "But the Nisa will not be able to compete, and will have to close down, meaning that the people who work in Nisa will lose their jobs!". This is most likely true. Tesco is bigger, is cheaper, offers a better variety of products and most likely a better quality of products. As a result, people will choose to shop at Tesco's - losing custom for Nisa. People seem to think this is unfair, because this means that the two people who run Nisa (and perhaps others) will lose their jobs. Firstly, what they don't mention is the fact that 20 new jobs will be created at the new Tesco's. Secondly, I fail to see why the owners of a particular shop should have their jobs protected indefinately. Almost no jobs at all have complete security in their jobs, although you could probably see extremely high levels of security in many public jobs. It is undoubtedly a shame for the man and woman who run the shop that they will most likely have to start looking elsewhere for jobs. But we must not let this blind us from the greater good. The greater good, basically, is that a better shop will open up. The fact that two people made what might have been a poor investment in opening up Nisa should not give them indefinite job security, just as me deciding to invest in Lehman Brothers before the brown stuff hit the fan for them should not give me security to get my money back. Sometimes we make decisions which turn out to be the wrong ones because of things we could not possibly have forcasted nor influenced. That, is the way of the world. We must not let it stop us from progress. People lose their jobs all the time. There is no reason to protect the who own Nisa.

The second complaint against Nisa is that "Most of the people don't want a new supermarket!". This infact, is the argument heralded by both the MP and the local Conservative candidate. This is the single most ridiculous argument I have ever heard. Plus, I suspect that it's highly selfish on the part of those who promote it. In an article in the Gloucesterhire Echo about the subject, the man who runs Nisa said, "We probably won't be able to compete", and then later in the same article, "Almost all of my customers don't want the Tesco's to set up". This is self-contradicting. When people decide where they want to shop, they are making a choice. They are voting with their money, perhaps the most tell-tale of all surveys. If it is true that "Almost all of [his] customers don't want the Tesco's to set up", then he need not fear. Because everyone will vote for - that is, shop at - Nisa, right?
Except that blatently won't happen, because the majority of the populus prefer Tesco, as it offers a vast range of advantages over Nisa, including choice, price, quality and maybe even speed at the tills. When we decide where we want to shop, we are making a choice based on many different factors, and we balance them all against each other and the one which comes out on top we go to. That is voting with our money. The fact is, most people are going to vote for Tesco. That is why Nisa will shut down. Because they lost the competition.

Thirdly, people argue that Tesco has something approaching a monpoly power. This may well be true, I couldn't say for sure, although they do have a ridiculously large market share seen in all shops in the UK. But this is beside the point. If Tesco does have too much power, then they should be cut down by the Competition Commission. That doesn't have anything to do with the individual deal with Nisa. Truth be told, I imagine people only use this argument because they realise how foolish the other two are.

So in conclusion, the new Tesco setting up can only be a good thing, provided that they don't have monopoly power. They provide choice. And when choice is provided, only good can come of it, because people vote with their wallets and the best firm wins. If the best firm is Nisa, then good for them, they deserve to stay. If the best firm is Tesco, then sorry Mr. and Mrs. Nisa, but you'll have to pack your bags and look for jobs like the rest of us.

Democracy

2009-01-08T22:50:00.003Z

So I suppose I ought to kick this blog off with something thoroughly controversial and what is undoubtedly massively unpopular in the public eye.
So I'm not beating about the bush, I'll cut to the chase. I am against democracy.

My reasoning for this comes partly from something that's happening in Cheltenham near me. There is a little corner shop near where I live called "Nisa". It sells... general corner shop stuff, I imagine, I've never actually been in. Well, recently Tescos brought the shop right next to it and intend to set up a Tesco Metro there. There has been public outcry about this (which I intend to talk about in another blog). Both the local MP and the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate have gone to the press about protecting Nisa and resisting the Tesco set up. The MP got a petition with 2000 signatures in favour of stopping Tesco set up shop. Both the MP and the Conservative candidate will undoubtedly benefit from this in the eyes of the voters.
This is the problem. Tesco should be able to put their shop there. The MP knows it, the Conservative candidate knows it. But because of democracy, they are forced to compromise their views in order to gain votes. Similarly, we see MPs speaking out against things like our jobs going abroad, the Post Code Lottery and industries of Britain moving abroad. Why? Because this is modern politics. This is a pragmatic approach to gaining more votes, not a pragmatic approach to politics, nor a coherant ideology. If we didn't have democracy, but instead a group of intelligent benevolant dictators, we would not have this problem.

Of course, the notion of 'choice' is the one most often brough up in favour of democracy. We can 'choose' who governs us best. But this I still see as a problem, for two reasons. Firstly, people, as touched on above, are incapable of making intelligent decisions regarding the entire population. People will make irrational decisions because at the end of the day, they are not clever enough, and are swayed by emotion and first impression (a particular problem with 'impact' media of newspaper headlines and emotional speeches). Secondly, there is the issue of the tyanny of the majority. Why is it that steel factory workers campaign for tariffs on steel? Why is it that famers campaign for subsidies for farmers? Because it benefits them, but has a negative effect on both the world and the country (there is also the problem of lack of intelligence here too). People will vote for parties who offer them personal benefits, not who will do best for the entire country. Potentially in the coming years of economic hardship, we will see a rise in nationalism and a call for tighter laws on immigration. In an extreme case scenario (although this is highly unlikely), we could see a rise in people wanting to persecute immigrants. This is tyranny of the majority. In this way, I see the notion of choice as being a wholly negative one. It encourages people to vote for those who will bring benefit only to themselves, not to the country or the world. It also puts minorities in a vulnerable position.

The way in which I do see democracy as being a good thing is in that it keeps government in check. It makes sure that the government does not extend itself and stop serving the country. When a government is doing poorly, - theoretically - the people can kick it out. History tells us that very bad governments - Conservatives 1970s, Labour 1970s, for two, do get voted out. But this is generally in situations which are extremely bad. Generally speaking, people choose the party who benefits them.

So, how can we remove the problems of democracy - selfishness, vulnerability of minorities, people being swayed by emotional speeches or newspaper headlines, and a lack of understanding amongst the general populus - and keep the benefits of democracy - scruinty of government.

I propose two potential systems, but they're basically the same. The first, which is probably worse is to give people votes according to their annual earnings. Those who have earnt a lot have proved themselves to be rational and intelligent. They are not the kind of people to be swayed by an emotional speech, or to act just within the interests of themselves. This is especially pertinent in a society with fairly good equality of opportunity - reaching the top means that you're rational, and intelligent. Thus, those people deserve more votes. Those who have hit the bottom of society are clearly less rational, and their opinions are not worth dwindling on. I would propose giving richer people more votes than fewer people, with the very poorest recieving just one (or even no) votes and the richest receiving... a significant amount more. Of course, there are anomalies - Jade Goody, for one - but generally speaking, richer people are more intelligent. This therefore is better than the current system.
Another possibility, working in exactly the same manner, is to attribute people votes in accordance to their level of education. This seems to make sense for a similarly obvious reason. This would probably be a lot more popular with the general public (although still massively unpopular).

So, that's my critique and solution of democracy. If we want effective government who makes decisions for the best of the country, not just putting on a 4 year electioneering performance, we need a significant change of democracy. We will have succeeded when a government who underspends in the first 3 years of their term and overspends in the last performs worse than the government who spends equally across the whole 4 years.

One criticism that people have made when I've suggested this is that it will result in more economically right wing governments. They're right, it will.
Because right wing economics are correct.