Initiation of Force or Consequentialism

[ababba]

I just watch an excellent video of Stefan Molyneux at the New Hampshire liberty forum. The setting was a bunch of clearly brilliant people arguing about how to convince people that the initiation of force by government was wrong. It was impressive, but I wonder why libertarians seem to favor the initiation of force justification for liberty over the consequentalist arguments that seem better to me.
I believe that in most cases the initiation of force and consequentalist utilitarian arguments yield the same outcomes because government is so ineffective. So I think its important to look at the exceptions, where the two systems yield the opposite answers.

One would be a classic thought experiment of whether killing one person is justified in order to save many more lives. For instance, if killing one person and harvesting their organs can save 5 other lives. The utilitarian approach would say this is generally a good idea, the initiation of force argument would say no. I think most people intuitively think this is a bad idea, but the only conceptual problem I see with it is it may be implemented badly.

On the flip side of the exact same coin, there is the classic is it justified to initiate force against art school Hitler. By doing this you kill one person before he committs any crime and potentially save many millions of lives. Many people feel this type of thing is justified but it is a clear initiation of force against someone that hasn't done anything wrong yet. More generally, if Minority Report style precrime was possible although not perfectly accurate, would it be justified?

I look at these and I tend to lean towards both of these things being justified. Most libertarians would say the opposite I think.

In addition, if empirically the government could actually succeed in making the world a better place, meaning if the benefits to government outweighed the costs of the use of force, I would have no conceptual problem with a bigger government. Why do you guys mostly favor the initiation of force argument instead? Meaning, even if the government made society a better place, would you still be against a big government?

[LibForestPaul]

Why do you guys mostly favor the initiation of force argument instead? Meaning, even if the government made society a better place, would you still be against a big government?

Define better? Define society? Who is government?
If a brutal king could make life in America better, why be opposed? Will the king ALWAYS make life better?
Does better mean better a little better for 51% but much worse for 49%?
If you are going to kill me to harvest my organs, would it not be better for me to kill the other five, making harvesting my organs a moot endeavor?

[fisharmor]

I just watch an excellent video of Stefan Molyneux
I love listening to Molyneux and he has some good arguments. I particularly like him because he is a frothing-at-the-mouth atheist, and since I am mostly the antithesis thereof, this forces me to analyze his non-religious arguments, which I might otherwise have simply head-bobbed and gone on with life.


In addition, if empirically the government could actually succeed in making the world a better place, meaning if the benefits to government outweighed the costs of the use of force, I would have no conceptual problem with a bigger government. Why do you guys mostly favor the initiation of force argument instead? Meaning, even if the government made society a better place, would you still be against a big government?

I don't think I ever have gotten this far into the philosophical argument.
For me, the idea that government makes society better is false at practically every turn. I have so far studied mostly the libertarian arguments which state that wherever government intervenes, the situation becomes worse. The empirical examples I see which support libertarianism tend to emphasize the fact that even in cases where the state's interference is trumpeted as success, it is in fact either a dismal failure which has been simply declared success in the best Orwellian fashion, or it is a limited success which, when studying other examples, can be shown to be more limited than what the market would have provided.

If government could claim some success and offer concrete and objective evidence that it was in fact a success, then the question would be valid. Until then, it's simply arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Government can't make society a better place. Every immediate counter-argument to libertarianism which I've ever suffered is pretty easily refuted. It's simply not able.

Once I encounter an example of it doing so, I'll entertain the question. Until then, it will remain a failure.

Now for the tie-in, I realize the fact that government is the initiation of force. It is a monopoly on the use of violence within a geographic area. One can not break it down into simpler terms.

So I suppose I am in the "use of force" crowd because that is what government is.
I claim no particular moral high ground.
Government is the initiation of force.
Government always fails.
Therefore, the initiation of force always fails.

(ETA: I should clarify that by "government" I mean the state. I am not against church bishops, nor do I think that private universities should disband their boards of governors, nor should school buses necessarily have their governors removed.)

[robert68]

Good answers already IMO. For what it’s worth also, a fundamental fallacy of the utilitarian argument is the idea that it’s knowable that “x” amount of “good” will be produced by doing “y” amount of bad. In reality it’s usually not knowable. But it’s certain that “y” amount of bad will have been caused.

Also, the power of the state to do “good” for group “a”, by doing bad against groups “b” and “c”, in one instance, is also the power to do bad against group “a”, in countless other instances. The net bad for most always far exceeds the “good”, and that’s not even counting the unintended consequences, usually bad, which occur in every instance.

[Travlyr]

I just watch an excellent video of Stefan Molyneux at the New Hampshire liberty forum. The setting was a bunch of clearly brilliant people arguing about how to convince people that the initiation of force by government was wrong. It was impressive, but I wonder why libertarians seem to favor the initiation of force justification for liberty over the consequentalist arguments that seem better to me.
I believe that in most cases the initiation of force and consequentalist utilitarian arguments yield the same outcomes because government is so ineffective. So I think its important to look at the exceptions, where the two systems yield the opposite answers.
While unwise, the initiation of force is front & center because people should be allowed to be free to do as they wish without interference from others as long as they do not tread on the rights of others. Why should any peaceful person be forced to do anything if they are not bothering anybody else?

I call it an unwise choice because the real issue is honesty. Why can we not be honest with each other? What is up with that? Trading with honest sound money in our dealings would solve nearly every social ill society endures. If the world simply embraced that one concept (honesty), then limited government and voluntary choices would be simple to solve.


One would be a classic thought experiment of whether killing one person is justified in order to save many more lives. For instance, if killing one person and harvesting their organs can save 5 other lives. The utilitarian approach would say this is generally a good idea, the initiation of force argument would say no. I think most people intuitively think this is a bad idea, but the only conceptual problem I see with it is it may be implemented badly. "Implemented badly" as in: "You might be the one getting harvested?"


On the flip side of the exact same coin, there is the classic is it justified to initiate force against art school Hitler. By doing this you kill one person before he committs any crime and potentially save many millions of lives. Many people feel this type of thing is justified but it is a clear initiation of force against someone that hasn't done anything wrong yet. More generally, if Minority Report style precrime was possible although not perfectly accurate, would it be justified? I look at these and I tend to lean towards both of these things being justified. Most libertarians would say the opposite I think. Why does everyone blame Hitler? Sure he was the leader of many killers, yet he is only one of many. Always blame the leader, but never the followers? In my mind, whoever pulls the trigger is just as guilty as the leader who told him to do it. Hitler wanted to be an artist, not a killer. What if someone had offed Hitler in December 1939? Would WWII have abruptly ended then? I doubt it. The next leader in line would have continued the warmongering because "War Is A Racket".


In addition, if empirically the government could actually succeed in making the world a better place, meaning if the benefits to government outweighed the costs of the use of force, I would have no conceptual problem with a bigger government. Why do you guys mostly favor the initiation of force argument instead? Meaning, even if the government made society a better place, would you still be against a big government?Yes, against big government. Big government is oppressive, destructive and unnecessarily expensive. Before government became large the people were well off mostly without debt or intrusive nanny elite telling them what to do when and how to do it.