In political discussions, I used to define myself as a centrist, and I did so because I thought that by not putting myself in obvious opposition to the people I talk to, I learn more about their honest opinions,a one-dimensional spectrum between left and right cannot adequately describe a phenomenon so complex as politics,my thinking would automatically be biased by tribalism were I to class myself as belonging to a specific political camp. Today, I prefer to describe myself as … [Read more...]
What It Means to Say ‘Neo-‘
Is criticizing capitalism and campaigning for redistributive justice with an oppressor/oppressed narrative equivalent to endorsing the revival of ethnic cleansing, forced deportations to Gulags, political purges, and terror-starvations for the sake of a classless, communist society? Is preserving one's ethnicity and not wanting increasingly more tax money to be spent on social benefits for immigrants equivalent to wanting to expand the Third Reich by invading neighboring countries while … [Read more...]
6 Reasons Why People Use Moral Language
Why do we use moral language? Hello, I'm Dom and I am a human. Like other humans, I play the language-game of morality. I say things like, "Lying is bad," "You ought not to steal," "Rape is immoral," "Sadistic psychopaths are evil," "Abortion is ethical," "Euthanasia is morally right," and "A government should express the will of the people." But why do I talk like that? What am I trying to communicate with such statements? More generally, what's the use of moral words? Let's look at six … [Read more...]
Are Consequences All That Matter? (Intentions Vs. Outcomes)
The True Will is the chief principle of decision making. A man doing his True Will acts in a way that maximizes eudaimonia. So what matters are the outcomes of his actions, its consequences for well-being. Does this make his intentions, his state of mind, irrelevant? Imagine a man punching another man in the face in an act of self-defense that we assume maximizes eudaimonia. Does it matter whether the man threw his punches out of reactive anger and ill intent or out of mindcoolness? It … [Read more...]
Against Political Equality
In February, I wrote about The Merits of Direct Democracy, and I still believe that direct-democratic tools like initiatives and referenda are essential for any people that wants to do its shared True Will. However, I am also aware that people often fail to vote for what they truly want due to a lack of policy-related knowledge. Although in that blog post I discussed the problem of voter incompetence, showing that the much-bemoaned "stupidity of the common man" is not as problematic as random … [Read more...]
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