Kind of strange... he seems to be suggesting I'm saying precisely the opposite of what I'm saying.
I'm quoting Proudhon here because it's relevant and it's always a nice flare to quote people. I think I said pretty clearly I don't exactly agree with him. But I do think Proudhon orients us towards and important point.
This is one area where I think Gene and I are basically of the same mind. So if you think Gene is saying something sensible and I'm saying something objectionable, I might be making my point unclearly.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
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This is all silly. You cannot make any interesting point about Locke without first engaging him philosophically. The same can be said about other classical liberals or philosophical libertarians. No one said that property does not include some aspect of coercion, force, control, whatever. The same can be said about the body of a person and self defense. If someone doesnt agree with your theory of bodily integrity, then you are coercing/controlling/forcing/dominating that person. Real philosophers (Locke, Nozick, Simmons, etc.) have all made philosophical and normative arguments that tell a story about *justified* and *legitimate* coercion/force/control. They are NOT making purely conceptual arguments. That is why Locke has something like a self-ownership story. Mentioning Proudhon is silly unless you are implicitly claiming that Proudhon has a better legitimating story. Gene is not saying something interesting, he is simply calling Locke a bad person and an insincere philosopher.
ReplyDelete1. I'm just saying that Proudhon had a nice turn of phrase. I was extremely explicit about whether it made an analytic contribution.
Delete2. "No one said that property does not include some aspect of coercion, force, control, whatever." Well a lot of people casually do talk about this. For those that don't - great! I love consensus.
3. "Real philosophers (Locke, Nozick, Simmons, etc.) have all made philosophical and normative arguments that tell a story about *justified* and *legitimate* coercion/force/control". Right. If you'll read my earlier post this is exactly what I was saying we should do.
4. Gene can correct me, but I really don't think he's calling Locke a "bad person" or an "insincere philosopher". I'm not sure where you're getting this, Hume. The point is, the context of how we think about property is (1.) interesting - it's interesting these changes were happening at the same time we were philosophizing about it, and (2.) important for interpretation.