I think there are some questions that have to be answered before engaging the question - why is there only this one source of food? Why is the neighbor in possession of it? Why aren’t there other choices? etc. etc.
i.e. it seems to me that your scenario is very extreme to the point that society has broken down to a survival of the fittest model - what’s stopping the neighbor from being reasoned with? Why can’t there be some form of mutually beneficial exchange?
He’s talking about a fallout scenario. Society is over and gone to shit. The people with the most weapons win.
The answer he’s looking for is: “I’d use force to take someone else’s property for my survival”. He’s trying to disprove libertarianism with a scenario with one choice. Life never has 1 choice.
The only way to survive in a mad max anarchist/fallout scenario is to band together with enough people to stand watch and get resources. One family alone will die. Even if they have enough food.
So if you can’t work out a deal with that neighbor, then leave. Someone else is going to come along and murder that neighbor for their food. They’re just as dead as you. You might as well be far enough away when that goes down, looking for other solutions.
Yeah. I see why people over in the philosophy department like these little thought exercises, but I don’t think they’re often effective in arguing a point.
I’d grab the 5-year-old, rather than the fridge full of petri dishes too.
And if there were two 5-year-olds, and one of them is my kid, I’d likely rescue mine. And if it was my 5-year-old and my 75 year-old mom, I’d choose my kid. Not being able to save someone isn’t equivalent to being ok with killing them. Anyway…
This is why these extreme hypotheticals get silly. If you have a desperate survival situation, or something like complete social breakdown, where you have complete lawlessness? Then it may not matter what people’s political ideas are. In a dire situation, I’m pretty sure my neighbors would all be ready to appropriate my food if they were starving. That would go for the commies, and the libertarians.
Well if they are commies, they will likely be starving in a non-extreme hypothetical.
Shit they will be starving and coming for your food by next Tuesday.
Like this? Ha! A lot of superior morality comes out of Hollywood these days.
Four minutes.
Mad Max Scenario.
Two minutes
Just making sure I still had choices and mutually beneficial cooperation was still on the table and reason hadn’t left the planet…There’s no immediate reason in the scenario he gave why I’d have to resort to violence without finding out some other things first.
These scenarios are always silly … as if any libertarian worth his weight in salt isn’t actively preparing for doomsday scenarios … like bruh, I have 96 months worth of RMEs in my attic … whachu got?
I absolutely have not buried rifles and survival gear in the wilderness. You can’t prove a thing.
I do not have a stockpile of antibiotics and other medications and medical supplies hidden somewhere on my property buried beneath all my crops
I’ve already given up that I would be doomed in the apocalypse. I live in a big city and get too hangry for my wife to put up with me, let alone strangers I need food from.
3 to 7 days worth of fresh water at all time under normal consumption levels, so on ration they would last longer. 5-20+ days worth of food, depending on order in which you eat it. Couple hundred gallons of propane at all times, generator is being installed. Enough ammo to weigh down Andre the Giant, and supplies to make at least 4k more and upper ground from every angle but one.
That and a wife that tells me she would eat a bullet before she even bothered to try to survive, and son who may want to follow. My daughter? She’ll likely want to go say hi to the biker gang that is looking to kill me. lol.
Your last two sentences make an important point. It’s hard to imagine a society made up of people like that, and it’s hard to imagine a society made up of people like that lasting any amount of time. But, we must remember, those are people you created. You created the hypothetical with those people. It doesn’t matter how much law and regulation exists if society is full of people that are willing to watch their neighbors starve. Freedom generates wealth, and wealth allows people to share their resources with others.
Think of the way people love child labor laws. Without wealth and innovation, children would starve if they didn’t work. A 40-your work week? The result of wealth generation and innovations that allow people to take time off without dying.
It’s kind of like how smh_23 once asked what libertarians would do if one person bought all of the property surrounding the libertarian’s property and wouldn’t allow the libertarian to leave(or receive items from the outside, obviously). I tried to find out why someone did that and was told it didn’t matter. I then pointed out that same situation could occur in any society and learned that didn’t matter either, because his society isn’t supposed to work that way. I then said something like, “I would use spontaneous generation to create food and supplies. If that doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter; because that(spontaneous generation) is how my society is supposed to work.”
Maybe this question will be easier to answer: you have lost power. Your cell phone is dead. You need to call for an ambulance for a loved one. You don’t have a car so driving her yourself is not an option. You go to a neighbor, his phone works but he won’t call for you let alone let you use his phone. If you decided to just take his phone by force he would not be able to stop you and wouldn’t even try. What do you do?
And for those who have a problem with hypothetical questions you should keep in mind that ideologies are hypothetical.
But is it hard to imagine a society with some people like that? Is it OK for some to be like that because most aren’t? Who gets to get away with being the jerkoffs?
These questions are designed to make people question their beliefs, I get that. But does it really?
Admitting that your principles are one way and the way you’d react in a life or death situation doesn’t really make you a hypocrite, it makes you human. The fundamental instinct to protect loved ones / do X things is hardwired.
Furthermore, anyone that admits they would take the bait on these hypothetical situations is merely accepting they’re human, and shouldn’t feel an ounce of shame for it.
Awesome example.
Really, if people are so lacking in humanity, that they no longer have basic human integrity or any respect regarding their fellow man, then well… That’s hell, no matter how you look at it. There’s no law or regulation, or system of government that will protect you from that kind of thing, certainly not a democracy.
Exactly, so wouldn’t it be better to not have ideologies in the first place?
Society has ideologies because collective cooperation provides for a more stable society. The general concept of “don’t steal your neighbor’s shit” can be taken to the logical extreme of “would you steal your neighbor’s shit to save X life,” but that doesn’t nullify the original point. Society doesn’t want it to be “don’t steal your neighbor’s shit unless it’s a HUGE emergency” because on average, people can suck sometimes, and they’ll abuse things like that.
If? There have been and still are people like that. I’m asking these questions because I’m wondering how people feel about laws, or even moral codes, that are in place to regulate just how much of a jerkoff you can be to your fellow citizens. Should we have a moral code that teaches us to not be inhumane? What happens when someone’s want to be selfish intersects with someone else’s need for self-preservation?
OK. For sure. I’m pro rule of law, and pro sense of Christian morality (do unto others, love thy neighbor, keep the commandments). Is that what you mean?
We can have laws, and some people will break them.
We can have basic ethics about how we would treat other humans with decency, and we will still have some sociopaths.
If we have a lot of people who fall into one of those categories, then we have chaos.