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Come now, the idea that principles may need to be traded off against each other in the real world is nothing new, even for Libertarians. Thinking that means people who do that don't actually have principles is just No True Scotsmanning. You see the same thing where people say Christians don't really believe abortion is murder otherwise they would be working harder to stop it. You don't get to decide how other people choose to instantiate their principles.
I love freedom. That doesn't mean I love freedom at any cost. Libertarians who believe a Libertarian nation should have a defensive military funded by taxes certainly understand that. Taxes may be theft but that is cold comfort if your neighbor who does fund their military rolls over your borders.
As for you comment about China if that is some kind of vague swipe about preferring communism, do better. As it happens I have spent significant time in China and it is definitely not a reasonable government by my metrics.
I don't think China is communist, well not in the sense you mean anyhow. Their political tradition is a lot more complicated than that. I think they genuinely value what you call reasonable here above freedom and I think that's a better fit for your revealed preferences of a hierarchy of values. I can also recommend Germany, perhaps Denmark.
The United States was not funded by people who believed in standing armies maintained by income tax. And neither was England.
It just so happens that the allure of power and it's consolidation through exception can erode principle. And not everyone has the moral fiber of a Cincinnatus.
For what it's worth I think it's silly to call yourself a Libertarian if you are a Liberal. Only one of these is fine with imposing moral order violently, at least have the guts to own it.
What you are missing is that there is a spectrum which runs from principles should never be compromised (the one that never works in the real world) to principles have no value. Indeed my experience is that Chinese lradership are less likely to compromise principles than me, they just have very different principles. In that regard they are closer to you than me.
As to how the US was founded, thats kind of my point. In the real world their Libertarian principles lasted all of about 5 seconds or their fledgling nation would have fallen apart. They suddenly were the ones crushing rebellions and imposing taxes. It turns out just like communism, Libertarianism is utopian but actually unworkable. I think Libertarians are fine principled people, and i have some close friends who are, but it is about as naive about human behavior as the communists. And the history of the US shows that perfectly. All men are created equal, except those its profitable for us to enslave, men should be free to rebel against governments they disagree with..until its our government. Those principles are corrupted immediately by self-interest.
But then why pretend to value freedom most of all when you are ultimately a pragmatist?
When I say that we should enact freedom of association, why can't you just say no? Why do this shell game of pretending you actually care about some kind of freedom that isn't actually upholding principle in any meaningful way?
"There is a spectrum of principle" is quite literally the devil's position on the matter. Kant is wrong about a lot of things but he is right about this: if something does not bind you and can be compromised on, then it is not something that provides any moral content to your decision making. It's just an aesthetic.
When did I say I valued freedom most of all? And saying no means I don't value freedom of association at all, I value it, just not exclusively. So my answer would be Yes, but.
Kant is wrong about many many things and this is one of them. It may be the devil's position but if it is, he inherited it from God. The bible explicitly supports justifiable lies. God rewards the midwives who lie to save male children for example. Because they were not lying for themselves but to save lives, and this showed they "feared God" i.e. correctly valued some of His laws over others. God is is not a Kantian.
There is a difference between something not providing ALL the moral content of your decision making and not providing ANY moral content to your decision making that you seem to be struggling to grasp.
I'll admit, I don't understand how you can claim to stand for anything if you're ready to compromise it to practicality.
It seems the utterance is entire inconsequential as it bonds you in no way. What's the difference between this and whim?
Reason and intellect. I prefer people to tell the truth, I also prefer people to be alive. The murderer at the door scenario covers this perfectly. Sometimes one of those is more important than the other. Entirely depends on the scenario in question. I prefer people to be able to act freely, I also prefer people not to murder other people. Therefore some level of balance needs to be there given that some people do want to and will murder others if they are not prevented. They cannot have full freedom, otherwise they undermine others rights to life. So we try to cobble together some kind of set of rules that acknowledges that.
It is not a perfect process by any means, and of course it is open to bias just like anything else. But rigid adherence to principles is simply not how we are built. There are vanishingly few Kantians in the world as far as I can tell, and I think that is simply because it does not work. In some circumstances lying is the more moral thing, in some circumstances it is not. Applying your principles to the circumstances and working through what that means is part of being human. Perhaps you might decide that telling the truth to the murderer at the door is best and I decide to lie. That doesn't mean I necessarily think lying is good, just like doing the opposite doesn't mean you think murder is good.
That's why we have multiple competing schools of moral and ethical thought, because the world is complicated and deciding what is the right thing to do is not necessarily straight forward. Principles can clash, and you have to have some way of deciding which is most important, in scenarios where it is impossible to fulfill them all.
Now of course we are also very good at rationalizing our choices to ourselves and to other people, so it is very difficult to know if people are legitimately trading off their principles and beliefs to try and get the best possible outcome that meets as many of their principles as possible, but that is part of the deal, until we invent mind reading, we are alienated from each others thoughts. We cannot truly know each other, only the outward faces we wear.
But it would only be a whim, if I had no principles at all, and wasn't trying to at least reason through how to satisfy them as best I can in any given situation.
I suppose the question is, if you were in a position where your principles clash, how do you deal with that? If fulfilling one of your deeply held principles means breaking another and vice versa, how do you decide?
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