Via Matt Yglesias a blurb on Free Market Fairness
Unlike traditional libertarians, Tomasi argues that property rights are best defended not in terms of self-ownership or economic efficiency but as requirements of democratic legitimacy. At the same time, he encourages egalitarians concerned about social justice to listen more sympathetically to the claims orinary citizens make about the importance of private economic liberty in their daily lives.
So, this is just a blurb and shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Nonetheless I have seen this question “How are liberty/property rights best defended” bandied about before.
However, the key question is: Why do you want to use reason to defend liberty or property rights or any belief system for that matter?
Presumably reason helps us clarify what we actually believe. However, if you are defending a system then that suggests you have already decided that you believe in it.
In that case the most authentic response is: I believe in it, deal with it.
There is no point to using reason if you have already decided what you believe.
10 comments
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Monday ~ March 12th, 2012 at 2:01 pm
b pmf (@bpmf1911)
You’re correct, when arguing with people who believe in concepts like “democratic legitimacy” its best not to use reason.
Monday ~ March 12th, 2012 at 2:04 pm
david
Strategic political considerations, I think.
Monday ~ March 12th, 2012 at 2:07 pm
Joshua
If my belief is logically inconsistent, or can’t be formed into a broader understanding of the universe, will I actually change it?
Maybe people don’t, but I presume they aspire to.
Monday ~ March 12th, 2012 at 2:44 pm
Matt (@MeCampbell30)
Property rights aren’t defended in the abstract, they are defended against nonbelievers – i.e. people who think that property rights don’t do what defenders claim.
Monday ~ March 12th, 2012 at 3:17 pm
JazzBumpa
“There is no point to using reason if you have already decided what you believe.”
Ah, but there is a point, and it’s a big one.
Such post hoc reasoning confirms the bias.
Still, this is my QotD
Cheers!
JzB
Monday ~ March 12th, 2012 at 3:53 pm
Lord
One doesn’t use reason to arrive at beliefs but to test their limits, and not to assert but to persuade.
Monday ~ March 12th, 2012 at 4:30 pm
Max
The purpose of reason in a social context is to get other people to do what we want.
It’s arguably the driving factor behind human intelligence. You don’t need a high IQ to hunt animals, you need a high IQ to out-reason your fellow humans…
Tuesday ~ March 13th, 2012 at 11:09 am
anon
You clearly know nothing about the immense hunting know-how, tactics, strategy, group action and skill-set that hunter-gatherer tribes were (and some still are) using to survive.
Monday ~ March 12th, 2012 at 9:31 pm
Curt Doolittle
Freshman level discourse.
Best to leave philosophy to professionals. Perhaps politics too.
Friday ~ October 19th, 2012 at 8:31 pm
language is the root of legal claims such as property rights « power of language blog: partnering with reality by JR Fibonacci
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