Tumblr Philosophy Is Trash

One of the primary classical justifications given for the necessity of a society and a state is that it serves to rescue and protect us from the “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” state of nature that would otherwise be the single condition of life. The state of nature is characterized by Thomas Hobbes as being a “war of all-against-all” (or if you like, “WARRE”). Hobbes defines a war of all-against-all as a pre-political condition in which all agents, apparently innately grasping some basic game-theoretic principles, are driven to always act out of their own “rational self-interest” by engaging in anticipatory violence (a “first-strike” principle) towards any individual who poses a competitive threat to their own self-preservation. In the state of nature, so characterized, friendship, family, and any basic cooperative associations exist solely as “covenants” formed out of a mutual interest in self-preservation, and should circumstances change such that the alliance of friendship were no longer maximizing one’s chances of self-preservation, then it would be contrary to our rational self-interest to not immediately betray the other participants in the association, killing them, taking their resources, and eliminating them as competitive threats. On this classical Hobbesian picture of the state of nature, the very idea of altruism, or for that matter, any interest in another that is not actually an indirect interest in oneself, is at best irrational, and at worse incoherent. Instead, humans, as always driven to act in pursuit of only their own self-interest and for only for their own personal advantage, are characterized as essentially separate, independent, isolated, and “atomic” or “egoistic.”

How is it that the liberal state rescues us and protects us from this state of nature and egoistic humanity? The classical answer is that with the power and authority of the liberal state alone it is possible to guarantee to citizens certain rights, which are entirely opposed to and impossible in the state of nature (when man’s egoism is fully unfettered). These rights are (1) liberty, (2) private property, (3) equality, and (4) security. But is the guarantee of these rights actually enough to protect us from man’s egoism, rescue us from the state of nature, and put an end to the warre of all-against-all?

Karl Marx, in his essay “On the Jewish Question”, examines these four “so-called rights of man” by analyzing how they are defined in a wide variety of historical legal documents such as state constitutions. Of (1) liberty, Marx writes: “But liberty as a right of man is not based on the association of man with man but rather on the separation of man from man. It is the right of his separation, the right of the limited individual limited to himself.” Of (2) private property, Marx writes: “[the right of private property] is thus the right to enjoy and dispose of one’s possessions as one wills, without regard for other men and independently of society. It is the right of self-interest.” Of (3) equality, Marx writes: “[equality] is only the right to liberty as described above, viz., that every man is equally viewed as a self-sufficient monad.” And of (4) security, Marx writes: “Security is the supreme social concept of civil society, the concept of the police, the concept that the whole society exists only to guarantee to each of its members the preservation of his person, his rights, and his property.”

Following this analysis, Marx makes his point explicitly:

“Civil society does not raise itself above its egoism through the concept of security. Rather, security is the guarantee of the egoism. Thus none of the so-called rights of men goes being the egoistic man, the man withdrawn into himself, his private interest and his private choice, and separated from the community as a member of civil society. Far from viewing man [as an inherently social and communal organism disposed towards cooperation and altruism]—SOCIETY—rather appears to be an external framework for the individual, limiting his original independence. The only bond between men is natural necessity, need and private interest, the maintenance of their property and egoistic persons.”

In other words, the liberal state does NOT rescue us and protect us from the state of nature and from the warre of all-against-all, but rather, the “rights” that constitute and are enforced by the liberal state, in actuality, serve only to re-express, codify, and institutionalize the very principles that give rise to the myth of the state of nature: the radical “individualism” of man (meaning the radically self-interested man) and the constant pressure to compete for resources due to an artificial scarcity resulting from the protected over-accumulation of resources by one. Capitalism and the liberal state IS a warre of all-against-all, NOT our salvation from it.

The cries of alarm surrounding our economy gradually give rise to the suggestion that perhaps the economy is more valuable than the individuals who might be spared from COVID-19, and that therefore they are a sacrifice worth making. But if the economy is valuable, then FOR WHOM is it valuable? Who would we really be protecting by prematurely ending social distancing? Who really stands to directly benefit from “the economy” returning to normal sooner than later? I am no economist, but I contend that it certainly is not those for whom the previous “normal” was actually a happy condition. Those who were struggling in the warre of all-against-all are NOT those for the sake of whom some suggest prematurely ending social distancing. Rather, it is only for the sake of those pre-existingly powerful and wealthy individuals, fearful of becoming poorer, who now are realizing that it has always been the proletariat that supported the bourgeoisie rather than vice-versa, and that their affluence depends not on any presumed sense of natural Darwinian superiority and mastery over their conditions, but on the continued laboring of their employees (whose only real benefit is that they avoid starvation, and then, only just barely).

Our government has not yet moved to end social distancing prematurely, but it is undeniable that Trump et al. are interested. I ask: would this action appear to be more in accordance with a benevolent government that exists to serve ALL of its citizens and has the mutual advantage of ALL as its purpose for existing? Or rather, would this action appear to me more in accordance with a government—a ruler, if you will—that is the personification of mythical “egoistic” man, finding himself in a warre of all-against-all and for the first time possibly less well-off for it?

A third position (mine): while tech ENABLES us to be better and smarter, we nevertheless become WORSE and dumber because while even though it is possible to go farther with tech than without it, we are by nature lazy and succumb to temptation by the option that is immediately easier and more pleasurable, which tech also supplies. Thus, while we of course could become a super-human being, our humanity fails us and we just watch Netflix and other dumb internet shit.

Brynjolfsson: “the best chess player in the world is not a computer or a human but a team of humans and computers working together”

“Mercy” is a legal concept, not a moral concept. It is when a judge’s sentencing is more lenient than would be PERMITTED by law.

If a law permits a punishment that is greater than deserved, then that law is morally wrong.

If a law is morally wrong, then it is also unjust.

The consequence argument implies that mental states reduce to brain states. That’s the only way that there could be a single and complete set of mechanical laws that allow for all events to be predicted from a single state of the universe at one time.

This is my moral argument for retributivism (which I define as the theory that there exists some actions which deserve punishment, rather than (or at least in addition to) mere rehabilitation):

1. If we are capable of committing crimes horrible enough to deserve punishment, then a retributive theory of punishment applies to us

2. We must think of ourselves as always capable of committing crimes horrible enough to deserve punishment (because it is a fundamental axiom of Kantian ethics that agency necessarily involves the simultaneous capabilities for the greatest evil and the greatest good)