Don't know about you, but I don't base all my life decisions around the given effect on my physical health. Alcohol is probably bad for my health, but it makes me happy, sociable and more intellectually acute at times. Tobacco kills considerably more people then alcohol and has more nasty side effects. Thus given my own cost/benefit analysis I avoid it. However, most people are fully aware of the risk and enjoy the perceived benefits. I don't find it morally objectionable for companies to accommodate this, nor even promote it.

I'm not just applying my own value judgments. Technology developed in cahoots with government, with the intention of mass murder, is a different story. Tobacco plants intended for (unhealthy) voluntary consumption is hardly comparable.

The arms company selling weapons to the government is following the profit motive.

So are you going to just ignore my point about all the money cigarette companies spend on advertising? You know better than them right? They'd have just as much business without the marketing $$$.

How many rockstars are complete ****ups in their personal lives due to drugs? You think heroin addicts are happy, functional people? Or are you just going to believe the bias crap you see on the pro-legalization youtube videos. There are a lot of problems with addictive drugs, that doesn't mean they should be illegal, but that doesn't mean there aren't still a lot of problem with them independent of that.

Why is it different for an arms company to do that? On the part of the company, it's a completely voluntary exchange, why should they care where the money comes from or what their products are being used for? They have a responsibility to take care of their own self-interest and follow the profit motive right?

Or is it the fact that the money they are being paid with is stolen from the population of that government? In which case we should equally condemn companies which sell food to governments too.

All citizens?

I assume you wouldn't particularly stores in your community to sell guns to mentally deranged people. How, in a voluntary community, would people be able to ensure guns were not sold to mentally deranged people without some form of ethical condemnation of stores that did that? I thought that's how voluntary communities are theoretically going to work? Ostracism, boycotts and condemnation of voluntary behaviour and exchanges destructive to that community.

Can I step in a a mediator here?

Acists,

NIMN isn't advocating the use of force to prevent these behaviours, ones that surely you must agree are often destructive decisions that have their basis in previous history. He wants to utilise the very AC position of social pressure to change peoples behaviour. That's how AC is going to work with evil DRO's/insurance agencies whatever going out of business due to social pressure (lack of customers) and giving to charity to provide for the poor being a socially desirable thing to do.



NIMN,

When you use words like responsibility, morality, etc you worry people for whom those words are always backed up with a state's guns. Even if that isn't your position. You agree don't you that you or I have no right to intervene in a voluntary transaction with force only that we can adjust our attitudes to the participants based on that transaction and convince others to do the same?

Yeah, if it's helpful you can basically imagine me as an ACist throughout this whole thread since I have not once (afaik) called for the use of force. Nothing I have spoken about here is inconsistent with ACism or would preclude me from identifying as an ACist (even though I'm not).

Agree. Maybe I should moderate my language to conform slightly more with how language is used on this forum, but when I say moral/ethical/whatever, just assume I mean "wrong" like cheating on your wife or being racist is "wrong".

I don't know. It's very complex. Obviously I want Britain and America to have access to the best arms (for defense) and its capitalism and self-interest that will lead our enterprises to provide this. Do you think it was immoral of Einstein to invent the atom bomb?

Well... they're marketing the product based on perceived benefits people enjoy from cigarettes eg. looking good, relaxation, relieving stress and so on. These aren't completely manufactured claims. If people are encouraged to smoke by this marketing, having failed to conduct a cost/benefit analysis beyond the information of tobacco advertising, then that's unfortunate. With smoking, I'd guess the biggest allure is that of peer pressure, culture and so on- as opposed to capitalist marketing.

lol @ youtube videos. Don't assume you are a higher intellectual authority just because you have a different viewpoint. I am from a family of doctors and most take a more radical view than me (such as heroin being less inherently harmful than alcohol). Milton Friedman, Thomas Ssasz and William F Buckley have provided very insightful conservative/libertarian perspectives. I have no sympathy for the left-wing defense of drug legalization (which usually emphasizes perceived medical benefits of drugs) as they completely miss the point.

I'm not sure a rock star is the best example of an otherwise functional personality were it not for their drug use! As I have previously stated, there used to be lots of completely functional heroin using doctors who suffered few problems due to their access to clean low-cost supplies.


Again, this is very complicated. I'm not sure how this would evolve given the abolition of the military-industrial complex in a non-interventionist free market society (which I advocate).

What do you mean by 'mentally deranged'? Gays, those with negritude leprosy, hippies... people society deems as 'different' and thus need to be constrained? ie. precisely the very people who most need to defend themselves. I'm not sure there should be any immediate state-enforced limitations except perhaps for criminals. I would assume gun companies would implement their own policies which would prohibit those with schizophrenia etc. from purchasing guns.

Possibly. It's tricky.

They clearly are encouraged to smoke by the advertising, and part of the purpose of the advertising is to convince them not to conduct a decent cost/benefit analysis beyond the information being given to them by the cigarette companies. "Hey smoking's fun, makes you feel good and it makes you look cool! Don't bother caring about all the terrible health repercussions, think how cool you'll look!" This is clearly the metanarrative running through almost all smoking marketing, and it is consciously designed in this way in many cases.

Ok, points well made, and I don't entirely agree with everything you said, but this is really getting OT.

As things stand now, becoming a heroin addict is a very, very bad idea in general (please let's just be sensible and agree on this). Let's assume for the sake of argument that all the problems come from prohibition. Same situation - your daughter getting hooked on heroin due to the influence of her boyfriend. Are you going to hold him in any way morally responsible for all the problems your daughter subsequently suffers? All the problems might be caused by the prohibition, but it is the boyfriend who influenced your daughter to become addicted to a prohibited substance with such problems attached.

Personally, while obviously my daughter holds most of the responsibility, I'd be so ****ing pissed at her boyfriend, and view his actions as the actions of an immoral scumbag. I think everyone here would too if they thought about it.

We live in the real world, and thus moral judgments are primarily confined to what occurs in the real world. Plenty of companies are doing this right now. I view them as complete scumbags. Do you agree, or are you going to forgo any sort of (non-coercive) moral judgment on stuff like this until a voluntary society just rolls around?

Let's say, for example, possibly dangerous schizophrenics, people medically defined as psychopathic, people with mental illnesses which make them possibly violent. People who, for very good medical reasons, society would not really want to see guns sold to.



No, people who are clearly going to be ****ing dangerous with a gun. Pretty obvious I wasn't asking how we would prevent 'gays' having guns.

See, you actually knew what I was talking about, why did you come out with that nonsense about gays and hippies above?

So why would gun companies not sell to schizophrenics? ACist answer: because society would presumably condemn the gun company who sold to possibly dangerous people and use voluntary kinds of pressure to get a rough agreement on not selling guns to such people.

Masses of people morally condemning voluntary exchanges between two other, consenting parties because they realize that a society in which possibly dangerous, unstable people have easy access to guns is not a healthy society.

Oh noes! Judging other people for their non-violent actions and exchanges! I guess those people would be "being presumptuous and paternalistic in saying [they] know better than the participants of the transaction." [/mjkidd]

One thing that I don't think has been pointed out is that often observers not a party to the exchange do have an advantage in assessing transactions. I'm probably in a better position than an arms company shareholder to decide on whether that transaction is 'right' or 'wrong', precisely because I'm not a party to the transaction. If I were a party to the transaction, then my view starts becoming affected by the financial interest I have in the exchange, which can compromise my judgment. Isn't sort of thing exactly why Rawls came up with the veil of ignorance?

The same thing that causes me to curse at the coffee table? Simple as that for the most part, imo.

And you've got it wrong, the fashionable thing NOWADAYS is the thing you are doing. I'm behind the curve.

That begs the question of how you determine if something is actually ethical or not. If you are saying "something is unethical if x% of the population says it is" then sure. But you have to realize that is also completely arbitrary.

No, they certainly are not. But, as you said, most people would probably frown upon this as it is seen as enabling said brutal dictators to commit compulsory violence against individuals.

The analogy with tobacco isn't exactly accurate, as tobacco companies aren't enabling other people to commit violence on others, only enabling them to choose to harm themselves (second hand smoke issue aside).

Well sure. And also the fact that the US government probably knew exactly what said dictators were going to do with these weapons, but this opens another can of worms.

Yes, very much so. I am not disagreeing or criticizing NIMN's advocacy of using non-violent social pressure to change behavior by any means. My main criticism stemmed from the use of how the options in the poll were worded. I was probably just being a nit.

This was my main issue. Using a broad brush to paint prostitution in of itself as an unethical/immoral act. That is all. This is exactly why I chose the "other" option to begin with.

Agreed.

If it had nothing to do with a medical affliction then yes, I'd hold him responsible and morally condemn him. FWIW, heroin is ironically often used to get people off opiates.

I agree. There is a lot of evil **** which goes on in the real statist-quasi- capitalist world which has no bearing on the merits/failures of pure capitalism.

Sorry, just trying to make the point that using terms such as 'mentally deranged' is subjective and unwise given the recent history of those who have been categorized as such e.g. gays officially until 1980.

I'm not an ACist, but I'd predict gun companies would have regulations concerning the mentally ill. If someone opened shop in your neighborhood without such regulations, people would object and there would be a number of voluntary methods available in taking action such as boycotts and protest. Also, if there was some sort of voluntary regulatory body that oversaw gun shops (which shops had an incentive to be certified by) applying such regulations could be a requirement.

Well, I'm sure you find some non-coercive actions unethical (insert 'wrong' here if you don't like the word unethical). How do you determine if something is ethical or not?

This is an immensely complicated subject as far as I'm aware, there are a tonne of theories, none of which I'm all that clued up about. Some scientists/philosophers have pointed to a morality which is actually 'hardwired' into our genes through evolutionary processes. I find that, on the face of it, somewhat convincing.

Why are they not in any way responsible? The vast majority of the population would disagree with you, for what reason do you believe them to be mistaken?

Oh, yeah I completely agree that the poll options are very imperfect. I could have constructed a poll with better options if I'd actually thought about it, but I was too impatient. I'm not trying to speak in any sort of moral absolutes here, I don't even think such a thing could exist with something like prostitution. I'm mostly talking in generalities, which is pretty unavoidable when we're talking about what sorts of behaviour are preferable and conducive to a good society. I don't think the fact that we must sometimes be a little general and arbitrary makes this a pointless debate though. It certainly has shown some interesting ethical attitudes, and also made me reevaluate my own position on certain things.

So after all that, we're basically agreed

Wait, so knowingly enabling others to commit violence is wrong now?

Also, I thought that "guns don't kill people, people kill people"? Which, if we extend that logic, makes the differences there unimportant.

I think, from an objective/rational standpoint, the non-aggression principle is about as close to one as we can get. From a socio-legal framework it is probably the best way to go, as it can be reasonably be demonstrated to be as close to universally applicable as anything.

Ultimately though, people will act and behave based on their own subjective evaluations of things. I think this is one of the things that makes human beings a unique and interesting thing. Call it the law of self-will. The human law in himself, his own individual will.

For example: Personally, I think the torture of animals is wrong. I have no argument from some sort of objective position as to why it is, but it is just my own intuition telling me this. This intuition may not exist with other people, and since I see no way of logically demonstrating this to be an act that is contradictory or something like that, it cannot be said to be an ethic based in the structure of human reason. I don't know how well I described this idea, but I tried.

No doubt it is a complicated subject. The only thing we have to discover any sort of moral laws is our reason and logic. Which is why I think the legal system/framework should be based on that.

Well, obviously this is a bit of a foggy subject matter. I think that if a weapons dealer knew a dictator would be using the weapons in such a matter that it shows a serious lack of concern/compassion for human beings as they are enabling said dictator, but ultimately, it is the dictator that is responsible for willing the violence committed.

Absent any other extrapolation on the example: For the arms dealer, the design to injure the person or property of another is lacking. There can be no crime without criminal intent. It can be said to show very poor judgment to sell arms to these kinds of people, and such judgment will probably find dissatisfaction with most people (and the potential consequences of such dissatisfaction). It could even be said to be a vice (an act for his own happiness solely, and not from any malice toward others), but vices are not crimes.

For the most part I agree. It isn't a pointless debate by any means. We are clarifying positions, attitudes, and context. That, to me, is one of the most important things in any debate.

No, I'm saying that people are going to frown upon that judgment. See above for more of an elaboration.

Not following you here. Please elaborate.

If they would not be inthe whoring business if not for the abuse... then its not a profession that people from 'normal' backgrounds would choose. Why do you suppose that is? Is it healthy? (mentally? Physically? Dangerous?)

Why do you suppose in the countries that it is legal that it turns out many of the prostitutes are forced into it via human trafficking?

Seems there must be something wrong with it?!?!

Would any of you want your daughters to be whores? I'm guessing not. Why?

Must be something wrong with it.

If a firm is publicly disparaging health claims that they know are true in order to sell its product then they are engaging in fraud.

How does changing the minds of a small subset of prospective Johns regarding the morality of prostitution help the prostitutes at all?

That line of argument doesn't work kurto, one or more people in this conversation have already said they'd be fine with it if their daughter wanted to become a prostitute. Still, it's always great to see people on this forum post that sort of thing with a straight face.

And its kind of a dumb line of reasoning anyway.

NIMN, would you be happy if your daughter married a guy with a massive **** that she worshipped and begged him to **** her with it every second of every day!?!?!? And also she likes to take it in the ass.

You must not like marriage, or heterosexuality, or anal sex, or something right? No, its just gross to think about, and no one wants to consider it. Your response will be "I'd like my daughter to be happy."

But when someone says that about prostitution, you've already begged the question that no woman could be happy doing it. So why ask in the first place? I'll save you the trouble, no, no one here would want their daughter to do something she was miserable doing.

Its not unreasonable to point out that something must be wrong with prostitution if the only women who choose to do it are f**ked up because they were either sexually abused as children or are forced into it.

The evidence shows that prostitution is not making anyone's daughters happy, it does not appear to be a choice that a person raised in a healthy environment is making.

And regarding your counter example... if I had a daughter who was happy screwing her husband with a large piece then that would be fine.

evidence seems to suggest that, with few exceptions, most women would not be happy to be prostitutes. Its the end product of something particularly bad.

But maybe it's the least bad option for some of these girls. Who knows. It's not like everything is going to be rainbows and sunshine for these girls if they get a job at Wal Mart.

I must admit I don't necessarily believe the people saying that. They may be the first people in my 40 years who have said any such thing. I also wonder if any of the people who say so have children and are really taking the question seriously?

Then again, people have different ideas/morals. I think a lot of people don't really empathize with people beyond their immediate friends or family. Perhaps that alone means we'd have trouble understanding each other.

If that's true it's a massive silver bullet against the argument that people will voluntarily take care of the poor in ACland.

I'm not sure it is true though, I think people in general do have far more empathy than is being displayed in this thread. Internet forum posts are not really a good barometer of empathy in human beings in general

But again, how does your empathy and encouraging other people not to frequent prostitutes actually help the prostitutes? Even if you succeed you are only taking away their most decent customers.