Epicurus riddle and libertarianism

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2005-04-30 10:06pm

I recently got in an argument with a libertarian about morality and ethics. I said I would find it unethical to not intervene in a situation where you have the opportunity to do the right thing (for instance, a blind man walking into moving traffic), or allowing a starving child to die instead of giving them your food. This however, is not universal amongst people, since, according to the libertarian I was arguing with, he is under no moral obligation to feed the starving child if he has the opportunity and means. He could, hypothetically ignore a starving child or blind man in danger and be considered ethical under his system.

I cannot grasp this mindset, I've tried, but I don't understand it whatsoever. I imagined it applied to the Epicurus riddle: Evil exists in the world, and God does not prevent it. Is God willing to stop it, but unable? Then he is not omnipotent. Is God able to stop it but unwilling? Then God remains an ethical entity under libertarianism. How the fuck does that work?

Another route the conversation went was forcing someone to do the right thing, and whether that was ethical or not. For instance, if I found a person that had been shot, and for some reason was unable to get to a phone, and another guy was just watching him die, I would order the guy to phone for an ambulance. If he didn't, and the only means I had of making him do it were to point a gun at him, I would do it. I would definately force someone to save someone's life. I don't see how anyone could do differently. The end, in such a case would justify the means, wouldn't it? Sure, forcing to do something against their will is not preferable to having them do it under their own will, but that is not what the situation called for. Sacrificing someone's life for someone's "right to choose" does not seem to me like a fair tradeoff.

His point was that we do not owe the blind man or the starving child anything, and the fact he needs something we have more than us does not give him a right to it. I said that was superfluous to the point of whether or not it was ethical to withold intervention on another's behalf; more it showed an obsession with fairness with regard to one's self, rather than everyone else as well.

Could someone explain that mindset to me? Who got the idea that freedom of choice was more important than actual people?

Castor Troy · Post by **Castor Troy** » 2005-04-30 10:34pm

In terms of God and evil in the world: God allows evil to exist, so that we may make a free decision to accept God or not.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2005-04-30 10:37pm

Which is both irrelevent to my rant about libertarians and bullshit. In christian mythology, Satan knows full well that God exists and still refused him. Clearly knowing he exists has no real impact on one's ability to freely choose to follow him or not. Not to mention the extortion bullshit of eternal hell.

Castor Troy · Post by **Castor Troy** » 2005-04-30 10:40pm

Oh, because I thought the thread was a philosophical question on if God were libertarian. Nevermind, then.

Morilore · Post by **Morilore** » 2005-04-30 10:44pm

All you need to do to grasp the mindset that
WHAT'S MINE IS FUCKING MINE!!!!111!!!1
that these heartless evil bastards base all their ethics off of. Try screaming "PROPERTY RIGHTS" at yourself eighteen million times. That's all it is, in the end: crimes must be renderable into some form of "stealing" in order for these people to consider them crimes. Because they are SELFISH EVIL BASTARDS want to make an entire fucking religion our of holding on to their hoardings. When you force someone to help someone else, you are stealing their time.

Whew. Sorry, but that story of yours made me angry.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2005-04-30 10:52pm

Rye wrote:His point was that we do not owe the blind man or the starving child anything, and the fact he needs something we have more than us does not give him a right to it. I said that was superfluous to the point of whether or not it was ethical to withold intervention on another's behalf; more it showed an obsession with fairness with regard to one's self, rather than everyone else as well.

Could someone explain that mindset to me? Who got the idea that freedom of choice was more important than actual people?

Simple —the man's a moral imbecile and is merely using some half-assed sociopolitical philosophy to cover his own ass.

Kuroneko · Post by **Kuroneko** » 2005-04-30 10:58pm

Early on, I found utilitarianism to be a sensible idea, but I initially rejected it because a number of things about it didn't make sense to me. Here, the most relevant of those things was the case of a person, striving always to do the right thing but accomplishing little of consequence, being less ethical than a greedy, unscruptuluous individual, which, despite ill intentions, accomplishes something of great benefit to humanity. It just didn't make sense to me--my ethical intuition said one's morality should be a function of things one genuinely does, not that happen by accident, and that meant including intent (but not necessarily determined by it, e.g., as in Kant). It turned out that I should have paid more attention, since the utilitarianists already had an answer to this: although such considerations (according to utilitarianism) have nothing to do with the permissibility of an action, they have everything to do with the moral character of the actor.

Rye wrote:I cannot grasp this mindset, I've tried, but I don't understand it whatsoever. I imagined it applied to the Epicurus riddle: Evil exists in the world, and God does not prevent it. Is God willing to stop it, but unable? Then he is not omnipotent. Is God able to stop it but unwilling? Then God remains an ethical entity under libertarianism.

You're right, that makes no sense at all. However, one is still able to take utilitarianist's way out: such an intervention may not be obligatory for God, but inaction can still indicate something about God's character, as long as one also denies the cultivating good character is obligatory (e.g., virtue ethics). That said, personally I do not find such an answer satisfactory, but it is, at least, somewhat more reasonable than the extreme libertarian interpretation. But hey, what was asked was to make the stance more reasonable, rather than defend it.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2005-05-01 12:55am

There is a reason I can no longer consider myself a libertarian...

It is actually one of the issues with rights based ethics, it is that rights are absolute and their results dont matter. The whole point of having rights is to better the lives of people, not give them a way out of helping others.