Glib response: "If you've always been free how can you know what it is to be a slave?"
Serious response: The notion that uninformed happiness is bad is ultimately an arbitrary addition to utilitarianism. The danger of adding new principles is that is specifies your the argument and you need this one to apply broadly (so it can apply to many things and can't be twisted in ways other than slavery).
"Slavery will be more fun this time."
Relevant, yes, but not argument ending.
Felicitific calculus cares about the end result not the ingredients. The presence of a negative does not taint the result. Reality limits even the best system to producing greatest *possible* happiness not the greatest *imaginable* happiness.
1 is greater than -1 but 1+1+2 and 5+(-1)=4
Deontological and rights based principles like "slavery is bad" (which seems to be where this argument is going) are vulnerable from the simple method of being able to "slavery is good" with equal basis. They're weak because they have no buffer between their core assumption and their conclusion.
I think it's interesting that you made this slight changeover. Regular people do not, in my experience, limit themselves to a single moral system. If we want the big picture morals we reach for utilitarianism but when we want specifics we make exceptions based on a new set of sacred principles. I don't believe I've ever encountered a moral system I find both emotionally satisfying and internally consistent (although I've met people who seem committed to their favorite).
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Graffiti outside Latin class.
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
A juvenal prank.
Do you think the psychological mechanics of moving from enslaved to freedman is the same for a person moving from free to enslaved? Do you think the decisions for either would be equally informed of their opposing situation?
This is not about happiness, is it? I thought this was about the ability to maximize freedom and "good".
I don't understand this statement.
I agree that some forms of slavery can be quite awesome for some people. There are lots of S&M clubs. But does that type of "happiness" evaporate when the participant cannot end the "game" at the club? Maybe it would be fun for a bit but after a while, I think the games would lose their "fun" factor.
I think it is.
Unless you need to inject God into it? Everyone likes their big "o" "Objectivity."
This argument is going nowhere. There are far better ways of differentiating why taxes or good or bad other than using the argument that quickly falls into the trap of "time-specific morals".
That's not correct and I outlined why, already. They are definitely not equal. But you're more than welcome to make that argument to a recently freed slave currently paying their taxes. Let me know how that goes. lol
That's also not correct.
The cores are not the same.
Sure, to a nihilist, there is no differentiation because they are all arbitrary justifications.
I don't know what changeover you are talking about. What changeover did I make? And why do you think "normal" people do not limit themselves to a single moral system?
Remember, my argument was against his, not the other way around.
I argued against the following justification:
"Taxes are a lawful, normal part of civilized society. Deal with it."
Taxes are good because they are lawful. That can be rephrased to: "Lawful taxes are good because those taxes are lawful."
That's tautological.
The second portion: taxes are good because they are a normal part of society. That can be rephrased to, "normal taxes are good because they are normal taxes." Also tautological. It can be rephrased in a different way: "Because most civilized societies do X, X is good." That would be argumentum ad populum.
None of those arguments/statements are logically coherent.
Here are some questions for you:
Are taxes better than slavery, morally?
Can people make legitimate moral parallels between slavery and taxes?