Quote:
Originally Posted by tore
(Post 1048797)
I haven't responded to your post yet, Dotoar, because I simply have not had the time to do so. When I have had the time, I've spent it elsewhere. There's just a lot of paragraps to pick apart, so I'll do a more general reply.
A crucial argument you have is that the common good is hard to define. I don't really think it's that hard to define. For example, I think people want to be more resourceful. Since I've stated several times that I care about happiness in the long term, that means that f.ex sustainable management (when possible) of natural resources are good political decisions for the common good. F.ex rather than deplete a population of fish to feed 1 million people per year for 20 years, you can better maximize happiness/common good by sustainably feeding 500 000 people per year for 1000 years.
I see you believe that allowing people to spend money on what they want (vs. taxation) is the best way to ensure everyone's happiness. As you know, I don't agree because in such a society, I don't think people are very good at looking out for their long term happiness, either because they don't know how to or because they are not in a position to because they don't have the means/luxury to care about the long term because of the needs of the short term (ex. cheaper fish now). If everyone just pay for what they want, you get a system of winners and losers and you get a system which f.ex encourages selfishness and depletion of resources for larger short-term benefits - which is obviously not good for society's happiness in the long term.
I think in a well educated democracy, the majority will be able to make the best decisions for society; the common good. If a minority like fishers have to fish less and make less money so that we can feed more people in the future, then I think that can be a good decision if it maximizes happiness for the future. Proper management of resources and ways to avoid tragedies of the commons and so on will only become more important the way the world is headed. Ultimately, the way I see it, you're for a society with winners and losers while I'm for a society that maximizes the amount of winners, now and in the future.
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Actually, the hardness to define the general happiness of a given population is not my main issue; it's more fundamental than that and we obviously disagree on at least three levels. The first is that I do not approve of the
moral stance that it's legitimate to sacrifice
any given individual, as in violating his/her fundamental right to life, freedom and property, in order to pursue
any given goal that is not chosen by him/herself. The second is that I do not approve of the
political stance that it is within the legitimate scope of the government to intervene with the doings of the civil society,
regardless of intent, past the mere protection of the fundamental human rights as stated above. The third is that I do not approve of the
practical stance that it is a legitimate objective of any government to act in the benefit of
any given goal by any kind of means that violate the freedom of the people to achieve that same goal,
even if I disregard my two former propositions.
But let's for the sake of discussion bypass all three of them, and consider it a desirable objective for the population P as a whole to pursue a certain level of happiness in a certain area, regardless of the means (and potential side effects, since we've managed to cover these in our calculations of the total yield of happiness). Now, if this alone was the issue it wouldn't really be an issue, since P would seek out for themselves which of the two fishing options they would execute. However, if there's a political implication (which it probably is since it's up for discussion in the first place) fuelled by your highly personal notion that we're facing a dual choice between C1 (feeding 1.000.000 people/year for 20 years) and C2 (feeding 500.000 people/year in 1000 years) and that the rational thing to do is C2, it's actually no longer a question of the happiness of the population P2 (the estimated number of people who will stall at an annual 500.000 in quantity), it's the happiness of exactly one person -
you. Assuming that it's in the interest of
all of P to choose C2 (including P-P2 who will be sacrified) leads to the conclusion that no governmental action is needed since everyone in P will agree upon C2. On the other hand, assuming that it's only in the interest of P2 to choose C2 leads to the conclusion that governmental action will be needed (since P-P2 will equal P1 who obviously are in favour of C1), and in addition it begs the question of why C2 is justified (and yes, the utilitarist will refer to the maximum yield of happiness, but he'll still have to explain why the happiness of P2 is more valued than P1, and moreover why the happiness of P2 is more valued than the whole of P, and all this while also explaining why the happiness is to be considered a value in itself by which C2 is to be justified at all).
And all this is yet still strictly theoretical, not at all considering such circumstances as the multitude of opinions and values among P as well as alternative food sources, the regrowth of fish and reallocation of fishing areas. If we are to look at the pragmatic prospects of governmental intervention by the best of intentions, we still see how people end up better off in a framework not of central-planned goals but of laws of non-aggression in which they pursue their own goals, albeit not intruding on others equal rights to pursue
their own goals. In the case of fishing, if the fishing in a certain area was unregulated, the price for fish caught in that very area would rise as the supply would get more and more scarce, in turn leading the fishermen to other waters as well as motivate fish farmers to breed fish in tanks, or yet other food producers to tip in on the market with what they have to offer in the place of fish. All this happens as we speak with all sorts of commodoties, without any political planning and without any common intent to benefit the masses, but purely by the self-interest of the food producers, be they fishermen or farmers, because the only way for them to gain any personal winning is to satisfy the needs of the common people. And once again, the pricing system gives them information about such thing as the supply of the commodity in question, in this case fish.
All this also applies to your second point, about how people are assumed not to act rationally. That is indeed correct, and that is why I so strongly oppose a system which is so fundamentally dependent of a handful of people doing exactly the right thing, i.e. a big government state. See, what you're saying (and you're certainly not alone on this issue; it's a typically scandinavian notion) is that politicians do our job better than ourselves, which simply isn't true at all. Whenever there is power, there will be abuse of it and anyone who can tip in on the political fringes will do so. That is why we see large corporations spend so much time on lobbying in order to gain their own interests through governmental regulations and subsidies, and in the process stifle the free market. That's probably even more the case in the US, but even small countries like Sweden have their share of vast governmental control over areas which would function much more naturally had they been set free. (I have already given examples about the electricity market).
Furhtermore, it's a common notion among 'intellectuals' (as in supposedly well-read political philosophers, not seldom leaning to the far left) to underestimate the rationality of the common man, and thus leading them to think that they oughta be controlled by firm ideals. Well, any selected common man (or woman) may or may not be thoroughly rational, but one thing is for sure, and that is that he/she is the ultimate measure of his/her own well-being and not even the most elaborate politician will ever be able to fully satisfy, much less evaluate, the needs and fulfillments of that man/woman, especially when he/she is one in 9 millions. And if we go back to the issue of the maximized happiness among a certain population and wether or not it is a righteous ground for any given action (which I, as noted, don't think), the only way to approach such a goal is to set up a framework in which everyone is free to pursue their own happiness, and
not by trying to set up a firm notion of the common good. Thus, I want a society in which everyone can be a winner, and you, however well-meaning your intentions, will end up with quite a bunch of losers, both intentional and unintentional, I'm sorry to say.