How Libertarians Could Eliminate Government Tax Coercion Overnight
Pay your taxes voluntarily. Alright?
Ed Feser: How Hume's "Problem of Induction" Only Arises Post-Descartes
Here : "As Ellis has put it, the early moderns replaced the Aristotelian notion of active powers with an essentially “passivist” conception of nature. For the Aristotelian-Scholastic tradition, by virtue of their substantial forms natural substances exhibit a directedness toward the generation of certain outcomes as toward a final cause. Efficient cause thus presupposes final cause or teleology, which in turn presupposes substantial form. Get rid of substantial form and final causality, and efficient causality in any robust sense -- any sense that entails an active tendency toward the generation of certain effects -- goes out the window with it. That is precisely why Hume’s puzzles about causation and induction followed upon the early moderns’ anti-Aristotelian revolution. What replaced active powers was the idea of natural phenomena as essentially passive -- as inherently directed toward no particular outcome at all -- on which certain “laws” have been imposed from outside.
Odd use of the possessive. How does a government demand become "mine?"
ReplyDeleteI know libertarians hate acknowledging that they are citizens of this country. But nevertheless you are.
DeleteAnother famous libertarian tactic: "your taxes" is a completely normal use of the possessive. But libertarians love to pretend that when people speak the way 99% of everyone else does, they are using words "oddly"!
DeleteGene, this reminds me of the meta-ethical theories of non-cognitivism. Non-cognitivism holds that when we speak of 'x is good', we are really just asserting a psychological emotion (this view is sometimes called 'emotivism') to a statement, akin to saying 'Hurrah for x!' or 'Boo on y!'
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, this is not how people use evaluative language. The non-cognitivist, like the libertarian, uses a new response: calling evaluative statements correct because 'that is how people use these words' is begging the question.
This response does not work (for the non-cognitivist) for several reasons, but I think that libertarians are attempting to use a similar move: just because 'we use language that way' or 'we think of things being this way' does not mean that it is good, or justified, etc.
Who called something correct "because 'that is how people use these words'"?
DeleteNot me Alex. I said it was invalid to claim that how people use these words is an "odd use" of language.
Why would you turn that into a claim about something being "correct"?! Were you not paying any attention to what I actually wrote?
Gene, relax a bit, okay? I was just making an observation. I'm glad to know that I was wrong in characterizing what you have said, but there is no need to be so temperamental. Please be more gracious in your replies, or I will not post on your blog.
DeleteYou were delivering a lecture to me on a philosophical point I have understood for decades.
DeleteKids, how to stop your mom from forcing you to eat liver: start liking liver!
ReplyDeleteMore like: so you don't have to be forced to behave morally, do it voluntarily.
DeleteFrom what I understand, you are trying to ridicule the position of "Remove illegal immigration by removing borders" by flipping it back on libertarians. Yes or no?
ReplyDeleteI don't think this line of argument is a good one.
ReplyDelete