Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

In reply to <a href=”https://prosociallibertarians.com/2022/12/14/government-actions-arent-pareto-optimal-they-are-paternalist/comment-page-1/#comment-300″>Mark</a>. Perhaps I should have put in a qualifier. I don’t actually assume government is always trying to make things better. I merely assumed that for the sake of the arguments discussed.

Your assumption is that government, right or wrong, at least tries to make everyone better off. In fact, government is influenced by special interest groups, and therefore acts in their interest. In the result, most of us become worse off.

In reply to <a href=”https://prosociallibertarians.com/2022/12/14/government-actions-arent-pareto-optimal-they-are-paternalist/comment-page-1/#comment-298″>Daniel L. Schmutter</a>. Disagree. If you think this is consent, you can accept the first path laid out in (B) of the post. If I want to want X but do not want X, my wanting to want it does not make your action non-coercive and it does not mean I…

In reply to <a href=”https://prosociallibertarians.com/2022/12/14/government-actions-arent-pareto-optimal-they-are-paternalist/comment-page-1/#comment-290″>Andrew Jason Cohen</a>. “You might not have decided to pay!” With the collective action problem it doesn’t matter if you pay. What matters is that everyone else is forced to pay. The project still happens, and you are better off. Coercing _you_ does not make your situation better. “You might be…

In reply to <a href=”https://prosociallibertarians.com/2022/12/14/government-actions-arent-pareto-optimal-they-are-paternalist/comment-page-1/#comment-285″>Andrew Jason Cohen</a>. I’ll just leave this here: https://twitter.com/platonicchoco

In reply to <a href=”https://prosociallibertarians.com/2022/12/14/government-actions-arent-pareto-optimal-they-are-paternalist/comment-page-1/#comment-278″>Andrew Jason Cohen</a>. “Dan, I agree that Stalin and Krotus didn’t value freedom, but that’s not the same thing as saying that freedom is valuable. People can be wrong.” But they weren’t wrong, Aeon. People like Hitler and Maltuvis were almost certainly better off as dictators than if they had lived…

In reply to <a href=”https://prosociallibertarians.com/2022/12/14/government-actions-arent-pareto-optimal-they-are-paternalist/comment-page-1/#comment-293″>Aeon J. Skoble</a>. Then we agree after all!

In reply to <a href=”https://prosociallibertarians.com/2022/12/14/government-actions-arent-pareto-optimal-they-are-paternalist/comment-page-1/#comment-291″>Daniel L. Schmutter</a>. They weren’t valuable to those horrible leaders. And they were in the wrong. That is part of why we all agree they were horrible! (Btw, they probably would value those things for themselves!)

In reply to <a href=”https://prosociallibertarians.com/2022/12/14/government-actions-arent-pareto-optimal-they-are-paternalist/comment-page-1/#comment-278″>Andrew Jason Cohen</a>. Andrew, you said “So you agree there are objective values. Why not go the extra step and say there are (or at least can be) objective facts about whether a life is (or, given certain choices, would be) better or worse?” I don’t disagree about that.