[einhverfr]

I have also said we should talk more about first principles and less about the policy arguments at first.

Regarding gun control, the first principles at issue are these:

1. Is life more important than liberty or vice versa? (ooh this reverses vs. the abortion issue regarding political lines)

2. Do we trust the government to fully monopolize force? Do we trust the police? the army? Should the government be there primarily to protect us?

3. What are the implications of one interpretatin of the 2nd Amendment on federal power or another?

(I won't go over my view here, except to say it is not a partisan view.)

The reason is that very often we can find common ground over first principles, and this helps with discussing others without putting the other side on the defensive or shaming.

[nathan_long]

Agreed about "first principles". This is how I'd frame the abortion debate:

1. Nearly everyone agrees that a normal adult has a rights over his/her own body. Eg, a tumor cell has no right to life and the host has every right to kill it. 2. Nearly everyone agrees that the parent of a toddler may not kill the toddler for any reason.

Given these principles, at what point in existence does one qualify as having human rights and on what basis do we identify that point?

Possible criteria include unique DNA (eg, from conception), heartbeat, ability to feel pain, a particular level of cognitive ability, etc.

If a zygote is essentially like a tumor - not yet a human life - then abortion at that stage would be no different morally than having a tooth removed.

If a fetus at 38 weeks is essentially like a newborn, then abortion at that stage would be no different morally than infanticide.

In establishing the criteria for human life, we should consider as many implications as possible. Eg, if humanity is determined by cognitive development, do intelligent people get more right to life than average or impaired people?

If we agreed on these principles and criteria, we could have consistent law. Currently we (in the US) have a hodgepodge; eg, abortion by punch to the abdomen is murder but by scalpel and consent at the same stage of development is just an elective procedure.

[einhverfr]

> Given these principles, at what point in existence does one qualify as having human rights and on what basis do we identify that point?

That's an important piece of the argument. Is personhood innate (in which case it must begin at conception, sicne there are no other bright lines in development that make universal sense across culture and time)? Or is it a social construct (in which case we have no right to see abortion as different from Roman infanticide)?

In other words, is personhood and human rights innate, in which case you must be a pro-life extremist if you are willing to seriously argue that? Or is personhood socially recognized and constructed, in which case you must accept that abortion is infanticide but also that infanticide is ok if the culture says so? The thing is both of these are relatively extreme viewpoints. Very few on the right want abortion to be punished the same as infanticide, and very few on the left are willing to acknowledge that if abortion is ok, then infanticide must be too (but there are some, see NARAL and Planned Parenthood's defence of killing fetuses born alive after failed late-term abortions).

> In establishing the criteria for human life, we should consider as many implications as possible.

Doesn't that mean we should leave it up to local cultures to sort this out for themselves? If Rome wants to mandate infanticide in the case of severe birth defects, bully for them.

[jpadkins]

My thoughts on this topic have also followed this same line of reasoning. My conclusion was to use the existing standard we already accepted for legal death. There is an established standard for when a doctor can declare someone 'legally dead' (absence of heartbeat and brainwaves). We should use the inverse for a legal definition of life. If a doctor can detect a heartbeat and certain brainwaves, then a second is involved and all laws applying to humans are in effect.

[PavlovsCat]

But doesn't the direction matter? Not having a heartbeat because the heart is still forming seems different from not having a heartbeat because, well, the heart isn't beating anymore.

[einhverfr]

But whatever line you grab is a socially constructed line. Legally dead is a social construct, right? We could have said that braindead is not legally dead if we wanted.

[mikeash]

I rather disagree. In my opinion, principles exist as a fallback when you don't have enough information, time, or intelligence to reason something fully. This is because the world is not black-and-white, while principles are, so they will let you down if you rely on them too heavily.

The right answer to all of your questions is, "it depends". For example, a society where everyone is completely free but dies at the age of 5 is not really worth living in, nor is a society where everyone lives to 100 as a slave. Thus there is no one answer to "Is life more important than liberty?"

[nitid_name]

>The right answer to all of your questions is, "it depends". For example, a society where everyone is completely free but dies at the age of 5 is not really worth living in, nor is a society where everyone lives to 100 as a slave. Thus there is no one answer to "Is life more important than liberty?"

I think you're missing the point.

The followup question to "It depends" is "On what?" The answer to that question is where commonality begins to form. We might not agree on the exchange rate between freedom and life expectancy, but we will likely agree that there is one.

It reminds me of an old joke:

A man asks a woman if she'd sleep with him for a million dollars. She looks him up and down, smiles, and says "sure." He then asks her if she'd do it for a dollar. She slaps him, asking what sort of girl he thinks she is. He replies she already told him what sort of girl she is and now they're just haggling.

[randallsquared]

The joke actually makes the opposite point from your point that agreement on substance is easier after agreement that a range exists.

[mikeash]

That sounds OK, but seems like it's getting pretty distant from what I identify as "principles".

[einhverfr]

> In my opinion, principles exist as a fallback when you don't have enough information, time, or intelligence to reason something fully.

OTOH, in Heisenberg's viewpoint, scientific theories are projections of first principles onto data.

> This is because the world is not black-and-white, while principles are, so they will let you down if you rely on them too heavily.

So what about these two principles:

1. Whoever has the responsibility should have the power that goes with it.

2. Since knowledge is local, power should devolve as far as possible towards local households, neighborhoods, and communities.

Do those fit with your critique or are they something else?

[nateabele]

> 1. Is life more important than liberty or vice versa? (ooh this reverses vs. the abortion issue regarding political lines)

The trouble here is that, especially compared to loss of life, liberty is an abstraction, and the effects of removing it are difficult to quantify.

For example, how much violence is prevented by armed citizens, which studies indicate are a major deterrent? (Keep in mind, police are rarely able to do anything more than identify bodies after-the-fact). [0][1]

Or, to put it to the express purpose of the 2nd Amendment, what impact would total gun control have on the probability of the US eventually becoming a tyrannical state?

Reasoning from first principles is definitely a good start. For example, no pro-choice advocate likes the idea of dead fetuses/babies (whichever term makes you feel more comfortable), just as no conservative likes the idea of sick grandmothers dying in their homes or poor people starving.

There's still plenty of disagreement about how to get there, and a lot of it depends on how you define your terms, and how deeply you consider the indirect consequences of each side's proposed solution.

[0] http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/nov/16/burglars-fear-resid...

[1] http://people.duke.edu/~gnsmith/articles/myths.htm

[snowwrestler]

As the article implies, this is exactly the type of argument that goes nowhere in politics, because the questions are too big.

You're right that if we could all agree on these things, political compromise would be easy, or even unnecessary. The problem is, we can't all agree on these things.

Politics works better at the practical level. Not so much "what do you believe," as "what are you prepared to live with" or "what will you give me if I give you something you want."

[einhverfr]

I don't think that at all for a couple reasons.

First the article talks about the need to save honor and avoid shame.

Also full agreement is not needed, just seeking common ground would be helpful.

The problem with political arguments, to be honest, is that our parties, which don't represent our interests, have convinced everyone that they are good and the other guys are evil. I think exploring the common ground in the first principles will help people come together across political lines and clarify where we agree and where we disagree so that the narrow political consensus is not what the big bankers say it is but what the people say it is.

[ds9]

Those are the relevant first principles according to you. As the linked writer indicates, others believe the relevant principle is something like "whatever policy will produce the best outcome, according to statistics such as firearm deaths, is the right one".

I agree that we would be better off eliciting these sorts of underlying assumptions, and acknowledging them openly, and trying to discuss them - instead of stating value-judgment conclusions on the basis of unstated assumptions about principles.

In other words, people talk past each other, failing to address one another's real concerns. Taking gun control again, the "liberal" thinks the statistics (which may or may not be valid, etc.) are dispositive, while the "conservative" sees instead an issue of basic rights, to which the stats are hardly relevant. There is no progress unless each is willing to directly address the premises the other relies on.

[einhverfr]

> Those are the relevant first principles according to you. As the linked writer indicates, others believe the relevant principle is something like "whatever policy will produce the best outcome, according to statistics such as firearm deaths, is the right one".

But that is based on an idea that life is more important than liberty, right? That statement follows from it.

[mistercow]

The problem is that people almost never apply the same reasoning to political issues as they do to non-political questions of fact. There are too many tribal issues in the way, and constructing believable arguments is often more advantageous in a tribal society than being right. See http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/

So you might be able to arrive at a consensus on first principles, but that doesn't mean anybody will update their beliefs. They'll just come up with new reasons to believe them.

[einhverfr]

It doesn't have to be a consensus. The point though is that with some common ground we can talk about issues and over time this can help people evolve their beliefs on both sides.

The problem with the political tribalism is that since we believe we have very little in common we ally ourselves with those who do not share our interests on the basis of manufactured agreement. I think it is only once one can attack that process that we can come together to update beliefs.

I consider myself fairly far right of center (not in a tea-party way, in a Distributist way). One of the most useful things i have found is that if I start off with a critique of the right, I can often get the left to listen to me on the rest.

[jpwagner]

I couldn't agree more with your "first principle" approach.

However with regards to "...this reverses vs. the abortion issue regarding political lines", I'll just gently suggest that you reconsider what your first principle question is (without trying to make this a political debate). Is it possible that your assumption that the political lines are illogical is invalid?

A thought: coming up with the right questions is really hard and maybe arguing about the questions will fall along "political lines."

[einhverfr]

Actually I kind of agree with you. I noted it mostly because it occurred to me that this was odd, and that's an indication that there is something that can be talked about, questioned, and discussed there.

Any organic view of the world will have areas of self-contradiction and these are healthy because they represent points from which change can come. A perfectly consistent view of the world would be a very dismal thing, stagnant and detached from the complexities of life.

[tomjen3]

I am not sure about your point two. Abortion isn't nearly as split along party lines as you may think, except among the leaders of the parties and a few extremists.

[einhverfr]

I said political lines, not party lines.

My point is that people IME who are more likely to see liberty as the winning interest in abortion are more likely to see life as the winning interest in gun control and vice versa.

[nhaehnle]

I would like to point out that nobody really sees liberty in the abstract as a winning interest in the abortion debate. Pro-choicers clearly do not care about the "liberty" of the fetus, while pro-lifers clearly do not care about the "liberty" of the woman.

The whole issue arises because liberty in the abstract cannot have a full victory, because different kinds of liberty collide.

So then you have those who think society's interest in population growth trumps the woman's interest in self-control, and those who think the opposite.

Something similar is true in gun control. If the liberty of gun ownership ends up severely restricting certain people's liberties - after all, you can't really exercise any form of liberty when you're dead - then gun control debate isn't really about liberty in the abstract.

Of course, that doesn't prevent people from phrasing it as such as a matter of rhetorics.

[einhverfr]

Maybe we need to discuss what liberty is, and what the relationship between power and responsibility is (I think these questions are one and the same btw, but others may differ).