>a claim I think most people would agree with: people are morally required to use an adequate but minimum amount of defensive violence to protect innocent people from offensive violence.
I disagree - I think most people would say even if e.g. it's wrong for someone to hit a dog, you have no moral obligation to go physically stop your neighbor from hitting their dog. If there is crime in your neighborhood, you don't have an obligation to be Batman and go prevent crimes. I'd guess people are more likely to say that society as a whole should coordinate to have laws and enforcement that prevent/address this kind of thing, but not that it's the moral obligation of random people to personally intervene.
I think if there were no government and no one else were dealing with the crime, people would correctly feel like someone somewhere had an obligation to intervene on crime. Maybe your obligation would be to support that effort in some way.
If my neighbor were hitting a dog I would feel some obligation to stop it, probably tell him to stop or get the police involved.
Oh I agree *you* would feel an obligation, and most people would feel that *someone* ought to do something, but I'm not sure most people would feel that they personally have an obligation. Largely because they have an intuition for what you point out would follow: suddenly everybody would be fighting.
“For most of human history states were totalizing and illiberal.”
Strongly disagree with this - for most of human history, states were not totalizing and “Cage of Norms”-style communities had much more autonomy. There wasn’t even a “monopoly on the legitimate use of force” - you could have feudal lords at war with each other, both of whom recognized the suzerainty of the same king/emperor.
Really liked the essay overall. Would be interested in your thoughts on America’s version of liberalism, which does allow some “Cage of Norms” style governance by delegating a lot of power to the states.
Also, our “powerful external institutions” are often not democratically elected - liberals complain about the Supreme Court, conservatives about the deep state agencies.
>a claim I think most people would agree with: people are morally required to use an adequate but minimum amount of defensive violence to protect innocent people from offensive violence.
I disagree - I think most people would say even if e.g. it's wrong for someone to hit a dog, you have no moral obligation to go physically stop your neighbor from hitting their dog. If there is crime in your neighborhood, you don't have an obligation to be Batman and go prevent crimes. I'd guess people are more likely to say that society as a whole should coordinate to have laws and enforcement that prevent/address this kind of thing, but not that it's the moral obligation of random people to personally intervene.
I think if there were no government and no one else were dealing with the crime, people would correctly feel like someone somewhere had an obligation to intervene on crime. Maybe your obligation would be to support that effort in some way.
If my neighbor were hitting a dog I would feel some obligation to stop it, probably tell him to stop or get the police involved.
Oh I agree *you* would feel an obligation, and most people would feel that *someone* ought to do something, but I'm not sure most people would feel that they personally have an obligation. Largely because they have an intuition for what you point out would follow: suddenly everybody would be fighting.
More generally, thanks for writing this up! I never studied political science or philosophy and always welcome a plain-language explainer!
Thanks! Really happy it was useful!
“For most of human history states were totalizing and illiberal.”
Strongly disagree with this - for most of human history, states were not totalizing and “Cage of Norms”-style communities had much more autonomy. There wasn’t even a “monopoly on the legitimate use of force” - you could have feudal lords at war with each other, both of whom recognized the suzerainty of the same king/emperor.
True, should go back and fix. Thanks!
Really liked the essay overall. Would be interested in your thoughts on America’s version of liberalism, which does allow some “Cage of Norms” style governance by delegating a lot of power to the states.
Also, our “powerful external institutions” are often not democratically elected - liberals complain about the Supreme Court, conservatives about the deep state agencies.