Thank you. It is refreshing to read an article which breaks down the idea of left and right, good and evil etc. So often we are presented with a persuasive view which negates to explore both sides of the complex spectrum of an issue. This article is a tour de force by looking to the questions and issues which need to be the focus of economics today.

“How exactly do we differentiate “simplistic” from “true” moral judgments - if it can be done at all?”

Good question.

“The best approach, as usual, is to work from practical cases…”

That risks assuming what is in issue. Let’s say we look at a practical case, and we approve of what is being done. So we say “these are true moral judgments”. Then we look at a practical case, and disapprove. So we say “these are simplistic, or false, moral judgments”.

The point is, unless we have a principal to distinguish good from bad, then our judgments will be at best arbitrary or confused, and at worst, disguised special pleading.

Fred thinks that the state should guarantee the provision of such and such. But I think the state should also provide friends, socks, and a velodrome. Why do I think this? For “equity”. Ultimately a discussion framed this way is no more than an argument “I want this” versus “I want that”, which ultimately resolves into “Tis’!” “’Tisn’t!” etc.

At the level of theory, it is arbitrary, and in practice, it becomes nothing but a power-grab – an abuse of power.

It seems to me to be mistaken to think there is a divide between ethics and economics. Both of them are about subjective values that humans think should be acted on. But economics allows arithmetic calculation in terms of money prices. In that sense, economics is a sub-set of ethics, the study of values.

A person acts on all his subjective values, both those which can, and those which cannot, be calculated in terms of prices. That’s why we don’t boil down our children to make soap, even if the income would exceed the expenses.

The author talks about redistribution to reduce inequity. But there is no evidence that taxation does that. Taxation aims to take from A who has more, and give to B who has less. Thus the criterion for redistribution by taxation is *inequality*, not *inequity*.

To assert that taxation reduces inequity, we must first conclude that there was something *unfair*, as well as unequal, about the original person’s ownership of his own property that was taken by the state’s threatening to lock him in a cage, which is how they get the money.

The ethical blank on the author’s map has to do with the state’s use of violence or threats. We usually think of coercion as being anti-social. Yet coercion underlies all the state’s revenue, and therefore redistributions. Thus the ethical question of the use of coercion is necessarily imported into the question on the ethics of redistribution.

Ultimately, re-distributionists are denying the proposition that you own your own life. They deny that you own your own labour and the fruits of your labour. They assert that someone else has the right to decide how your labour, and therefore the only thing you have in this life – your time – will be disposed of.

Forced redistributions are demonstrably unethical because they violate the right of self-ownership.

Yet no-one will answer the ethical challenge to show how this compulsory expropriation of labour can be distinguished from forced labour or slavery, apart from the circular arguments of legality or majority opinion.

Majority opinion is not an ethical justification, any more than it would justify a rape. And legality in a democracy merely resolves back into majority opinion.

It is easy to see how both ethics and economics are based in the axiom that one own’s one’s own life. Anyone denying this, must be involved in a self-contradiction. If you deny it, then you deny you have the right to speak for yourself: bring us instead the person who has that right.

If you cannot show the *ethical* distinction between slavery and forced redistributions, then you should be calling for the abolition of forced redistributions.

The minimum content of the principal to distinguish good from bad must be that the good excludes the use of aggression as a basis for social co-operation.

No-one today will dare to assert the ethics of slavery: except the re-distributionists!

Wing Ah Ling,you suppose that the principles of liberty and of ownership are the foundations of ethics. Those are odd claims, given that most moral philsophers have seen a need to justify both of them.

A justification of a principle justifies also some exceptions. For example, Mill's justification of liberty, on the grounds that it increases happiness, justifies compulsion when permitting liberty creates unhappiness. Hence his exception for children, barabarians and the insane. Hence also his exception when liberty is used to cause harm.

Making ownerhip of one's life basic requires others to value your owning it rather than valuing the life itself. That will imply that there is no justification in interfering when a person wants to commit suicide for bad reasons. A better start along your lines is to ask what it is about a personal life that gives it value.

Note too that ownership interferes with liberty; and that liberty is of little value whe there are no opportunities to exercise it.

Ozbib

An appeal to ‘most philosophers’ is
a) an appeal to absent authority, and
b) majoritarian.

The great advantage of asserting self-ownership as the basis of ethics, liberty and property, is that *everyone* agrees, explicitly or implicitly. Even to participate in argument to deny it, you implicitly assert ownership of your own body and speech-act to enable you to participate. Also the argument can be carried through consistently for children, barbarians and the insane - (but not for rugby league players, naturally).

Once we assert another standard – for example what it is about a personal life that gives it value, we are back to the original problem. One person says it’s God, another says it’s soccer, and so on – six billion of ‘em.

John Stuart Mill’s argument on liberty, correct me if I’m wrong, was that the only justification for forcibly interfering with another’s liberty, is self-protection. Thus by definition, the justification of force to defend against aggression is not an ‘exception’ to the principle of liberty: it is an intrinsic part of it.

For that reason, ownership does not interfere with liberty, because ownership does not confer a right to aggress against the ownership of others.

Cases where there are “no opportunities” to exercise liberty do not justify even more oppression; and do not describe any of the circumstances in which property is confiscated from people to fund forced redistributions.

It is true that the principle of self-ownership denies that you have a right to forcibly stop someone else from committing suicide for what you consider a bad reason. What if he considers it a good reason? You are back to denying the principle of self-ownership. Then bring us your owner.

Thus you have not shown any justification for beating people into submission, or threatening them with it, in order to force them into submitting to having their lives and values commandeered, or their property confiscated, which ultimately is the principle for which re-distributionists are necessarily contending.

Let's cut to the chase: how can the compulsory expropriation of labour be ethically distinguished from forced labour?

I don't believe ethics is about self. If a person lives totally alone on an island, without even a pet for company, can any action of theirs be described as 'ethical'?
It takes 2 to tango. Introduce one more person to the island, and inevitably, in some form or other, one will be 'stronger' than the other. How that strength is used will define how 'ethical' that person is.