Jim Crawford against natural rights
Posted on | August 4, 2010 | by Aschwin de Wolf
Jim Crawford’s autobiographical antinatalist manifesto Confessions of an Antinatalist
Concurrent with our wish to understand the human condition through over-simplification is our tendency to ground human desire and behavior in ‘natural rights.’ Such ‘rights’ are often gleaned, reasonably, from empathic awareness of the human condition. Where proponents get off track is when they assume these rights are imbedded in the very fabric of existence, like the laws of gravity or motion. To really get a grip on the fundamental difference between laws and rights, one only has to ask: when was the last time anyone had to enforce gravity? To understand human rights as something above and beyond a status granted by authority–or, conversely, the refusal of authority to interfere in what people want to do–is simply an attempt to elevate authority to the abstract. In a sense, it’s the canonization of the human condition. “This is it! This is good! There’s nothing more to be said!” It’s not so much a reflection of reality, as an attempt to make reality conform to a particular moral structure to settle ontological questions.
There is nothing more representative of this tendency than Austro-Libertarianism in which both economics and morality are placed outside of the realm of empirical investigation. In such views morality is not something that has evolved from the ground up to facilitate coordination and mutual advantage between people but a set of moral imperatives that is deduced from concepts such as “human nature”, “reason” or “action.” Historically, such approaches have been a formidable obstacle to the development of the natural sciences and experimental investigation of human conduct.
An important question when evaluating moral and political philosophy is whether it can be reconciled with what experimental science has discovered about human nature. It is striking how often the answer is “no” in the case of rationalist philosophy. One of the most notorious and embarrassing examples is Ayn Rand’s discussion of free will. One can only wonder how much progress would have been made if such thinkers would have abstained from scholasticism and would have engaged with the relevant empirical sciences instead.
Tags: Antinatalism > Austro-Libertarianism > Ayn Rand > Confessions of an Antinatalist > Empiricism > Free Will > Jim Crawford > Natural Rights > Rationalism
Thomas Ligotti, Karl Popper and antinatalism
Posted on | July 16, 2010 | by Aschwin de Wolf
In his recently published non-fiction work The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror the contemporary horror writer Thomas Ligotti takes Karl Popper’s “negative utilitarianism” to its [...] Continue Reading…
Tags: Antinatalism > Atheism > Contractarianism > David Benatar > David Gauthier > Jan Narveson > Karl Popper > Mutual Advantage > Negative Utilitarianism > Thomas Hobbes > Thomas Ligotti
The national debt means nothing to us
Posted on | July 6, 2010 | by Aschwin de Wolf
The Tea Party is worried about the national debt.
Public debt is not created by “us” but by the government (“them”) and there is no reason why one should feel [...] Continue Reading…
Tags: Anarchism > Butler Shaffer > Debt Default > J.D. Tuccille > Libertarianism > Murray Rothbard > National Debt > Public Debt > Repudiate the Debt > Wendy McElroy
Nullification: interview with a zombie
Posted on | June 29, 2010 | by Aschwin de Wolf
Important Voices interview with Anthony de Jasay
Posted on | June 1, 2010 | by Aschwin de Wolf
On March 15 2010 The Gary Johnson for President blog (!) featured a brief interview with Anthony de Jasay who “wishes to state, though, that he has no views [...] Continue Reading…
Tags: Anthony de Jasay > Classical Liberalism > Democracy > Gary Johnson > Liberalism > Minimal Government
Anything that’s peaceful
Posted on | May 28, 2010 | by Aschwin de Wolf
Libertarians spend a non-trivial amount of time arguing for the obvious. At best, such arguments are redundant because there is no widespread believe that violence or threats of violence [...] Continue Reading…
Tags: Anthony de Jasay > Ayn Rand > Consequentialism > Contractarianism > Freedom > Jan Narveson > Leonard E. Read > Libertarianism > Liberty > Murray Rothbard > Natural Rights > Non-Aggression > R.W. Bradford > Rights > Robert Nozick > Thomas Hobbes
The liberalization of libertarianism
Posted on | May 24, 2010 | by Aschwin de Wolf
In the aftermath of the Rand Paul civil rights controversy a surprising number of self-identified libertarians have endorsed state-restrictions on freedom of association. In essence, the argument is that [...] Continue Reading…
Tags: Anarchism > Discrimination > Liberalism > Libertarianism > Modern Liberalism > Public > Racism > Rand Paul
Rand Paul and the anti-discrimination paradigm
Posted on | May 20, 2010 | by Aschwin de Wolf
Newsweek features an opinion piece about “The Difference Between Rand Paul’s Libertarianism and Traditional Segregationism.” If one thing has become clear from this piece (and the “civil rights” controversy [...] Continue Reading…
Tags: Ben O'Neill > Discrimination > Independent Review > Individualism > Libertarianism > Racism > Rand Paul > Strict Liberalism
The truth about voting
Posted on | May 19, 2010 | by Aschwin de Wolf
Anti-market bias, unemployment and immigration
Posted on | May 16, 2010 | by Aschwin de Wolf
Economist Bryan Caplan discusses the important topic of market-clearing wages. Why are wages not falling during the recession in order to establish equilibrium and full employment? Caplan gives an [...] Continue Reading…
Tags: Anti-Capitalism > Anti-Market Bias > Bryan Caplan > Immigration > Market Failure > Unemployment
Depressed Metabolism- Buddhism and the scientific worldview
- Ken Hayworth on straight freezing in cryonics
- The low-hanging fruit of technological progress
- Free will versus determinism as it relates to cryonics
- How many neurons need to survive for cryonics to work?
- Chemical preservation and cryonics research
- The presumption of death
- Cryonics and fear of the future
- Hard determinism and the problem of evil
- Ocean power: a new era in energy