[ExI] Libertarianism wins again...

Stefano Vaj stefano.vaj at gmail.com
Wed Jul 27 11:00:49 UTC 2011


On 26 July 2011 20:58, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:

> Perhaps, once we have the bandwidth to communicate with all other
> people at more or less the same time, we'll be able to negotiate the
> common moral grounds between individual sentient beings.
>

I am merely speaking of rather trivial, everyday discussions which may
happen at the pub amongst friends, in a Web forum or in a TV talk show.

My - lawyerish? - approach is that unless you have a 100% confidence that
the public shared by you and your opponent takes for granted your value
system, and not that of your opponent, the real (and only) way "rationally"
to put forward ethical, political or aesthetical arguments is to argue ex
concessis, ad hominem. That is, either that your positions are the
unavoidable consequence of something he admits to be true, or that his own
positions are inconsistent with other tenets he also adhere to.

This, besides reflecting my personal "relativist" philosophical position, is
IMHO also a a sound strategic choice in most circumstances, since you are
otherwise at risk of finding yourself in the position of the naivest
fundamentalists who do not even comprehend how the general public may not
share their views about, say, the Bible, and can only ineffectively vent
their frustration at the fact when confronted with an opponent.

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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