| | Steve:
Why do you object to the concept of knowledge being hierarchical? Or am I misunderstanding you?
I don't object to that in the least. You are misunderstanding my point. I will trim it down a bit:
If a graduate degree is required to understand the foundation of our body of laws, then few in the electorate are actually going to understand the foundation of our body of laws, and will politically accept anything, even under a supposed constitution of liberty.
It is why, I think, a free nation desperately needs a simple enough axiom at the base of all of that, a principle that is readily grasped and easily understood and easily applied as a litmus to public issues, the most important of which is, "Is this issue a suitable issue for public consideration?"
The closest concepts to that in America used to be the words "Freedom...Liberty."
Recognizing that, totalitarian leaning adversaries directly attacked those foundational concepts in America. A nation no longer able to readily consensus define, and thus apply, the word 'freedom' is no longer able to consensus defend it. Its use as the ready (and honest) shortcut to the graduate degree
e.g., Metaphysics -> Epistemology -> Ethics -> Political Philosophy -> Philosophy of law -> Legal theory -> The body of laws.
has been broadly defeated(IMO.)
I don't object at all to e.g., Metaphysics -> Epistemology -> Ethics -> Political Philosophy -> Philosophy of law -> Legal theory -> The body of laws.
But, spend 15 minutes at any rest stop on I95, and then tell me you think America is broadly up to connecting those dots, and is not in need of a short cut, easily grasped, an honest axiom that lets them make judgements in our political context about those body of laws.
regards,
Fred
(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 4/08, 8:26am)
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"It is my contention that limited government is a floating abstraction which has never been concretized by anyone; that a limited government must either initiate force or cease being a government; that the very concept of limited government is an unsuccessful attempt to integrate two mutually contradictory elements: statism and voluntarism. Hence, if this can be shown, epistemological clarity and moral consistency demands the rejection of the institution of government totally, resulting in free market anarchism, or a purely voluntary society ... Suppose that I were distraught with the service of a government in an Objectivist society. Suppose that I judged, being as rational as I possibly could, that I could secure the protection of my contracts and the retrieval of stolen goods at a cheaper price and with more efficiency. Suppose I either decide to set up an institution to attain these ends, or patronize one which a friend or a business colleague has established. Now, if he succeeds in setting up the agency, which provides all the services of the Objectivist government, and restricts his more efficient activities to the use of retaliation against aggressors, there are only two alternatives as far as the "government" is concerned: (a) It can use force or the threat of it against the new institution, in order to keep its monopoly status in the given territory, thus initiating the use of threat of physical force against one who has not himself initiated force. Obviously, then, if it should choose this alternative, it would have initiated force. Q.E.D. Or: (b) It can refrain from initiating force, and allow the new institution to carry on its activities without interference. If it did this, then the Objectivist "government" would become a truly marketplace institution, and not a "government" at all. There would be competing agencies of protection, defense and retaliation – in short, free market anarchism."
