Curt Doolittle

Theme: Institution

  • ARISTOCRATIC ORIGINS OF LIBERTY AND THE CIVIL SOCIETY Heroism: Status Through Cr

    ARISTOCRATIC ORIGINS OF LIBERTY AND THE CIVIL SOCIETY

    Heroism: Status Through Creating Change (metaphysics)

    Nation (an extended family)

    Nuclear Family (the organizational unit of society)

    Property (the means of cooperation on means)

    Common Law (the means of dispute resolution)

    Independent Judiciary (the defenders of civilization)

    Monarchy (veto power) (house 1)

    Aristocracy (dispute resolution between nations) (house 2)

    Nobility (commerce with in the nation) (house 3)

    Priesthood (redistribution within the nation) (house 4)

    Militia (ownership)

    Hospitaliers (care taking)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-05-01 05:47:00 UTC

  • Argument, Moral Blindness, and Institutions

    [I] can tell your moral code and political preference by the method you use to argue, as much as I can the moral bias of your arguments. And I’m still surprised at myself, despite knowing that (other than conservatives) people are morally blind, I try to reason with people. Now the fact is, that I know when I’m doing it, that it’s impossible. Like anyone else I hope to do a little education – to provide a light into the moral darkness. But, my objective is actually to learn how to state my arguments in a multitude of fashions, such that they explain those different areas of moral blindness. I know I cannot convince others to change their moral bias. It’s genetic. But I can consistently improve my arguments. My arguments are prescriptive. I know that is impossible. What I can do is construct institutions that allow us to cooperate despite these moral biases. But in the end, we are other than gene-machines, using very elaborate language to justify our reproductive strategies.

  • Argument, Moral Blindness, and Institutions

    [I] can tell your moral code and political preference by the method you use to argue, as much as I can the moral bias of your arguments. And I’m still surprised at myself, despite knowing that (other than conservatives) people are morally blind, I try to reason with people. Now the fact is, that I know when I’m doing it, that it’s impossible. Like anyone else I hope to do a little education – to provide a light into the moral darkness. But, my objective is actually to learn how to state my arguments in a multitude of fashions, such that they explain those different areas of moral blindness. I know I cannot convince others to change their moral bias. It’s genetic. But I can consistently improve my arguments. My arguments are prescriptive. I know that is impossible. What I can do is construct institutions that allow us to cooperate despite these moral biases. But in the end, we are other than gene-machines, using very elaborate language to justify our reproductive strategies.

  • Humans Will Invent Institutions To Fill Ethical and Moral Vacuums

    (important)(insight)(parsimony) [T]he trick is to fill moral and ethical vacuums with rationally adjudicable property rights rather than the state, religious authority, superstition, or some other rule or taboo. The rothbardian definition of property will not produce rational incentives sufficient for the formation of a voluntary polity. Definitions of property, like rules of common law, must evolve with the complexity of the society to reflect all possible ethical and moral constraints such that ALTERNATIVE ethical and moral constraints – of which the state is only one form – do not evolve to take the place of missing moral and ethical constraints. Humans will find a way to fill a moral or ethical vacuum because transaction costs of the moral and ethical vacuum are simply prohibitively high. That is why societies have eccentric moral codes, laws, rules and rituals: they have no method – like the common law – of advancing property rights by rational means. Property is our only rational means of advancing prohibition on unethical and immoral behavior and thereby driving out the high transaction costs they create. [F]or libertarianism to be palatable and rationally preferable for other than a marginally indifferent minority, we must repair the definition of property that is adjudicable under the common law, to reflect the entire scope of moral and ethical constraints. Moral intuitions do vary in amplitude and priority but those that apply to cooperation are instinctual prohibitions on in-group free riding: violence, theft, fraud, fraud by omission, fraud by negative externality, free riding, socialization of losses, privatization of gains, corruption and conspiracy – and every permutation and possibility in between. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev

  • Humans Will Invent Institutions To Fill Ethical and Moral Vacuums

    (important)(insight)(parsimony) [T]he trick is to fill moral and ethical vacuums with rationally adjudicable property rights rather than the state, religious authority, superstition, or some other rule or taboo. The rothbardian definition of property will not produce rational incentives sufficient for the formation of a voluntary polity. Definitions of property, like rules of common law, must evolve with the complexity of the society to reflect all possible ethical and moral constraints such that ALTERNATIVE ethical and moral constraints – of which the state is only one form – do not evolve to take the place of missing moral and ethical constraints. Humans will find a way to fill a moral or ethical vacuum because transaction costs of the moral and ethical vacuum are simply prohibitively high. That is why societies have eccentric moral codes, laws, rules and rituals: they have no method – like the common law – of advancing property rights by rational means. Property is our only rational means of advancing prohibition on unethical and immoral behavior and thereby driving out the high transaction costs they create. [F]or libertarianism to be palatable and rationally preferable for other than a marginally indifferent minority, we must repair the definition of property that is adjudicable under the common law, to reflect the entire scope of moral and ethical constraints. Moral intuitions do vary in amplitude and priority but those that apply to cooperation are instinctual prohibitions on in-group free riding: violence, theft, fraud, fraud by omission, fraud by negative externality, free riding, socialization of losses, privatization of gains, corruption and conspiracy – and every permutation and possibility in between. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev

  • Families as The Unit of Cultural Production In A Civilization.

    While Paternalism (headmanship) has been universal, when insurance and gathering were more important than productivity and warfare, matrilinealism seemed to determine what limited property was important (relations) and what inheritance and therefore ownership. But when productivity became more important than insurance, patrilinealism seemed to develop into the primary social order determining what increasingly complex property was important (livestock, territory, agrarian production, built capital). Now that women can seek rents via the state, we are seeing property return to communalism and men attempt to preserve their control over it. Without families, I do not yet understand how civilization can function any more than I can understand how an economy can function without prices and incentives.

  • Families as The Unit of Cultural Production In A Civilization.

    While Paternalism (headmanship) has been universal, when insurance and gathering were more important than productivity and warfare, matrilinealism seemed to determine what limited property was important (relations) and what inheritance and therefore ownership. But when productivity became more important than insurance, patrilinealism seemed to develop into the primary social order determining what increasingly complex property was important (livestock, territory, agrarian production, built capital). Now that women can seek rents via the state, we are seeing property return to communalism and men attempt to preserve their control over it. Without families, I do not yet understand how civilization can function any more than I can understand how an economy can function without prices and incentives.

  • ALL RELIGIONS NEED A BOOK All religions need a ‘book’. I have been working under

    ALL RELIGIONS NEED A BOOK

    All religions need a ‘book’. I have been working under that premise for over a decade. Once you have a book, philosophy doesn’t float. You have an authoritarian position to refer to. Debate over that position creates invention in the minds of those who are interested.

    If the book is very good, then the results are self organizing. If you have a book and advocates, then you have political means. If you have a book, advocates and members, then you political power. If you have political power you can institute your ideas. If your book morally condones violence in the pursuit of your ideas, you have an eternal irrevocable advantage independent of current circumstance.

    The problem for the west is that we have never had a book. Plato failed. The monarchs ruled by tradition. The church spoke in allegory. Smith Hume and Jefferson wrote advice not rules, and they created the catastrophic error that the near universal aristocratization of the English could have the same breadth of application as the doctrine of the church.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-23 06:20:00 UTC

  • HAIDT ON MORALITY –“Moral systems are interlocking sets of values, virtues, nor

    HAIDT ON MORALITY

    –“Moral systems are interlocking sets of values, virtues, norms, practices, identities, institutions, technologies, and evolved psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate self-interest and make cooperative societies possible.”–

    Haidt, Jonathan. The Righteous Mind.

    We can say that in propertarian terms. 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-22 15:33:00 UTC

  • Politics isn’t Collectivist unless you choose it to be. Um. It’s not ‘Collectivi

    Politics isn’t Collectivist unless you choose it to be.

    Um. It’s not ‘Collectivist’ to pursue a solution to political institutions. It’s collectivist to redistribute. The difference between the philosophical-religious, and the political-institutional, is that diasporic unlanded groups do not require formal institutions, and groups that control land do.

    Libertarians can be very frustrating.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-04-16 17:45:00 UTC