Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site spar.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!spar!baba From: baba@spar.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Re: Logic, fact, preference [Part 1] Message-ID: <617@spar.UUCP> Date: Thu, 24-Oct-85 22:12:21 EDT Article-I.D.: spar.617 Posted: Thu Oct 24 22:12:21 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 26-Oct-85 06:23:48 EDT References: <306@umich.UUCP> <28200185@inmet.UUCP> Organization: The Institute of Impure Science Lines: 47 >>>>>>libertarianism would bar coercion in "free-rider" (= N-person prisoner's >>>>>>dilemma, for game-theory-ignorant people like Nat) situations even when >>>>>>everyone in the situation DOES prefer the outcome that results when >>>>>>coercion is used, and nobody's preference is irrational. >>>>... >>>>> [But] the libertarian prefers no coercion to himself or others [over] >>>>> the avoidance of the negative effects of the free-rider situation[!] >>>> >>>>... I think such a preference is not just >>>>nonrational, but irrational: it has no basis in observable harm to the >>>>libertarian or anyone else, *and conflicts with preferences that DO*. >>> >>>What "observable harm" is done to someone who is shown a swastika? A >>>parade of Nazis? A mutilated corpse? A retouched photo purporting to show >>>his mother having sex with an elephant? None at all, of course! >> >>Plenty, of course. By "observable" I include "observable to the person >>in question" as well as more ordinary types of observation. Of course, >>you could reply that in that sense, the libertarian can observe harm to >>himself too -- he feels bad feelings when he is coerced. And you'd be >>right. BUT -- and here's the rub -- *qua* bad feelings, that badness >>may be *outweighed* by the good results of solving the free-rider problem. >>So that on balance, even the libertarian is better off. > > Quite possible. It MAY happen, but you've opened the door, certainly > things MAY happen the other way, and if Baba admits that *I* may be so > affected by a coercion as to make it a net loss WHATEVER good is likely > to be accomplished, you certainly must admit that the possibility > exists for things happening the other way, and that therefore > it does NOT follow that the "bad feelings" may be ignored. You rang? What I "admitted" (an interesting choice of words) was that you might subjectively experience coercion as so odious as to negate in your mind any benefits that you might receive from being coerced. I am pleased that you concede that such an attitude on your part has no rational basis, any more than anyone else's "religion" does. But the free practice of your religion can impact others of different "faiths". If you are in a free-rider situation with other individuals to whom the discomfort of coercion is less significant than the benefits accrued, a failure to coerce the lot of you is an injustice to those others in exactly the same way as coercion is an injustice to you. Is there a solution to this dilemma, or is libertarianism a system that can only be practiced in a closed religious community? Baba