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Right, but do you want to use threat of punishment to enforce your personal desires? Do you want to live in a society where that's a thing that people can do? I
by monktastic1 9y ago
Right, but do you want to use threat of punishment to enforce your personal desires? Do you want to live in a society where that's a thing that people can do? If society were headed that way, wouldn't even you want to talk about it? I doubt you'd want to live in the kind of society you want to build.
Assuming you think coercion is a bad idea, your only tool left is discussion and consensus-building about rules. In other words, politics.
(To be fair, I understand the underlying sentiment: I, too, would like to live in a world where my personal desires were somehow the law of the land in such a way that everybody else were also happy with them. But after some long thought (and some good literature) I think that really falls in the "be careful what you wish for" category.)
- throwawayeo5 9y ago> Do you want to live in a society where that's a thing that people can do? We already do. C.f. laws, courts.
- monktastic1 9y agoThe "thing" referred to here was enforcing "your personal desires." In a functioning democracy, it's never one individual's personal desires that are enforced. The question of whether various democracies are functioning is an interesting one but not my intention to discuss here.