buybuydandavis comments on Thoughts on moral intuitions - LessWrong

39 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 30 June 2012 06:01AM

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Comment author: buybuydandavis 11 August 2012 08:22:28PM 0 points [-]

that even though the liberals claim to only want to restrict things that they consider really wrong, most of them want to impose just as much control on the lives of others as the conservatives do...

Notice how this statement sidesteps another alternative - that liberals want to impose more control than conservatives do?

That has always been my perception as a libertarian in the US, and I think it is shared by most US libertarians, who tend to lean right because of it.

An even more unfavorable comparison that you don't discuss is the obvious one - that liberals certainly want to impose more control than libertarians do.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 12 August 2012 09:59:30AM *  0 points [-]

The essay was not using the framing of "wishing to impose control", but "wishing to push one's morality on others". These are somewhat related, but different. E.g. libertarians are pushing their morality on others when they say that everyone should be as free as possible, when both liberals and conservatives are likely to say that everyone shouldn't be as free as possible.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 13 August 2012 01:16:48AM 0 points [-]

I got the language of imposing control from you in the quote I gave:

most of them want to impose just as much control

One of the issues that I never got to was how you used "pushing morality" in two fundamentally different senses: 1) persuading others to adopt your moral values (as immediately above) and 2) using coercive force to impose your moral values on others, and you do when referring to numerous cases of using the force of law to impose moral values on other people.

But I wasn't as clear as I should have been. It's not just that liberals want to impose more control, it's that they attempt to impose more control, and are too often successful at it.