I am not of the education level of Mister Holtz.
But in this case, maybe it's to my advantage.
Brian is not advocating killing anyone, much
less the 'innocent fat man' in the trolley problem.
He's using this as an example to teach 'purist'
Libertarians a lesson. Just as the Bible and
other literature uses allegories and other
methods to teach by example, so does Brian
with the trolley problem.
He is making the case that answers to many
problems and situations are not so simply
answered by an imaginary Libertarian
'Biblical' canon.
Rather, Libertarians can (and should) learn
from many sides of the discussion, both
from within, and without, rather than
dismissing anyone who dare disagree as
heretical and plain old wrong.
Of course, I will defer to the sage himself
as to the accuracy of my oversimplification.
In the news and of relevance to this
discussion, from Front Page Magazine:
http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=27231
BC: We live in times that make libertarians
shudder, and, in turn, have caused many
Republicans to abandon the Grand Old
Spending Party. Given these circumstances,
what is your opinion about a flight to quality?
Do you regard the Libertarian Party as being
a viable alternative for conservatives?
DH: Some of my best friends are libertarians
and the greatest intellectual influence on me
was Hayek. However, in practical political
matters, libertarians tend to live in alternate
universe, without regard for the real world
consequences of their actions. Ron Paul
the only Libertarian in Congress is a
disgrace. He has waged a war against
Americas war on terror, in lockstep with the
left, and against the state of Israel, the
frontline democracy in this war.
Harland Harrison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The "Trolley Problem" which Brian Holtz tries to use
to justify aggression amounts to this: Do you push an
innocent fat man in front of a trolley, if killling
him that way would save other people further down the
track?
The fat guy owns his own life; if he wants to stop the
trolley he can jump in front of it. Pushing the fat
guy is legally murder. Yet Holtz advocates pushing
him. Philosopher Judith Thomson devised this problem
because she thought nobody would ever believe you
should push the fat man in front of the trolley.
I don't suggest that anybody needs to argue this
again; and certainly not here. But consider the
points of view. Dictators make their trolleys run on
tiime because they own your life and can kill you when
it is convenient. Libertarians believe you own your
own life, and nobody, not even the government, has the
right to take your life from you.
If you want to read about trolley massacre, see Brian
Holtz site:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marketliberal/message/861
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marketliberal/message/810
The subject has already been explored
Harland Harrison
LP of San Mateo County CA
--- Brian Holtz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes :
> Susan Hogarth wrote:
>
> SH> I think that a person is more or less
> libertarian according to the amount of aggression
> (including taxation) he advocates. <SH
>
> A better metric is the net incidence of aggression
> that would occur if his policies were adopted.
> An even better metric might be to differentiate the
> latter metric over the time variable: the change in
> the net incidence of aggression that would occur
> because of the policy changes he advocates.
>
> Aggression does not end up minimized if
> liberty-lovers merely resolve to promote
> aggression-virginity through the example
> of their chastity. The just-say-no approach of
> aggression abstinence has the virtue of requiring
> less thinking (e.g. about counterfactuals), but it
> fails to minimize aggression in the real world,
> and even runs aground in basic thought
> experiments such as the Trolley Problem
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem> .
>
> Again, the child and her doctor both oppose pain,
> but only one recognizes the necessity of needles.
>
>
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