Is a system of private ownership and non-aggression flawed? Yes, but not uniquely so. Whatever problems a libertarian world might face will also plague the non-libertarian alternative, but with far greater frequency, and with graver results. — Virgo Avalytikh

Your argument so far does not support this conclusion though. What you have argued is that human psychology has general flaws which make it difficult for humans to act rationally, especially where the "common good" is concerned. That is common knowledge. What you have not argued is why a libertarian system purely relying on self-interest is the best system to address that problem.

on the understanding that a world of peaceful voluntarism is a good and just world in which to live. — Virgo Avalytikh

This claim first requires justification.

The basic argument for liberty is that, in a system of private ownership, individual persons are generally best acquainted with their own situations, and are generally the immediate bearers of both the costs and the benefits of their own actions — Virgo Avalytikh

This, also, requires justification. I would argue that at least the second part is wrong. In an existing society, all actions affect other members of that society. The actions of the father affect the child. The actions of the employer the employee and vice versa. It is in the rational self interest of people to try to avoid the costs while bearing the benefits of their own actions. So it is a natural result of a "market".

It follows that there is no reason to expect political actors to take the actions that maximise net-benefit for all.’ — Virgo Avalytikh

But there is. Humans are not self-interest automatons but social animals. Moral considerations have weight with humans.

How specifically would any of that stop global warming? — frank

I am not going to answer that, since insofar as the question does not require expert knowledge that I do not possess, the answer is obvious.

If your point is that no-one can have a "significant impact" then you bringing the question up with respect to Trump is, at best, a diversion.

Because I am an individual and therefore individuals are undisputably real in a way that concepts such as family, tribe or humanity are not. Morality starts with the self, and therefore the self matters.

What could he do to stop global warming? — frank

For example, put competent and knowledgeable (about the climate) people in charge of environmental protection agencies. Support the work of these agencies via administrative orders. Support legislation aimed at protecting the climate.

He's not leading an effort to protect the earth, true. You'd have to make an impressive case that he's capable of making a significant impact there. Do that and you could chart somewhere on the potential Hell scale. — frank

He's the president (with significant administrative and legislative authority) of the world's largest economy with some of the largest per capita emissions.

In terms of effective power he is the most powerful politician in any western country. If he cannot make a significant impact, who can?

Time dilation is the effect gravity has on devices that measure time - gravity effects matter, it has no effect on actual time. — gater

How do we know what "actual" time is, if it's distinct from what we can measure?

If it is finite, we still got a lot to discover, and there are no boundaries that divide the universe, it might or not exist something else (or Kant did not defined the universe correctly or does not defines boundaries correctly - there is no Canada beyond its' boundaries/frontiers); — James Pullman

The reason Kant says the universe cannot have a boundary is that a boundary can only be perceived between two distinct entities. Do you disagree with that?

- If it is infinite, is it obliged to be understood? Or more, can´t human perception development also not be infinite, and thus open the possibility that it might be understood? Or is it that Kant limits human understanding by its' mind understanding — James Pullman

When Kant talks of the universe in the context of his antinomies, he means the physical universe, i.e. the universe that humans perceive. Since humans cannot perceive infinity, the universe cannot be infinite.

Stalin liquidated his political foes and ex-comrades; exiled, tortured and murdered his countrymen, including soldiers, academics, scientists and anyone he arbitrarily thought was against the State; i.e., against him; moreover, he purged well over 10 million of his glorious proletariat, whom he duped into putting him in charge, while starving half as many.

The moment you can provide a factual analogue between his reign of terror and the GOP qua Trump ( or the reverse)-get back to me. Until then, any historical or rhetorical nexus of the two is at best risible and suited to the empty bark of an ideologue. — Reshuffle

Because things are only bad when you're literally as bad as Stalin or Hitler, right? No such thing as heading down a dangerous path.

Oh, please. The point of such comparisons is to introduce (knee-jerk) well poisoning to compensate for a mindless argument. Trump’s deficiencies are ample enough to excoriate him sans the silly Hitler, Stalin, Lucifer noise. — Reshuffle

The regimes of Hitler and Stalin were the result of long processes. Trump does not need to be "like Hitler" or "like Stalin" in order to lead the US towards such a regime. Refusal to accept comparisons is refusal to learn from history. In 1930s Germany, Jewish immigrants were put into concentration camps, for much the same reasons immigrants are being interned in concentration camps in the US right now (by a left wing government, by the way). in Germany, this would eventually lead to death camps. Does this mean the same is going to happen in the US? Of course not. But it's still valid to bring up the similarity.

Just a guess, but I’ll go out on a limb and posit that Stalin’s crowd would’ve eschewed the due-process based exchanges in the agora and readily escorted Mueller to the gulag, alongside the other 15-20 million sent there during Stalin’s reign.

Perhaps the GOP needs a tutorial on what it means to mimic Stalin. — Reshuffle

Your guess is wrong. Even Stalin could not just take out anyone without discussion. Just look at the conflict with Trotsky.

The point of such comparisons is to draw attention to where we the US is headed if that behaviour is the new normal.

What if I say I know there is no God? Does the lack of evidence provide justification? Maybe. I’m not sure. Negative justification is trickier than positive justification. Furthermore, positive justification deals with the physical world where we can look at the world and draw conclusions. Negative justification is lack of evidence and is much weaker. I can say there is lack of evidence that the multiverse exists, or maybe scanty evidence that is highly controversial. Is it then a justified belief that there is indeed NO multiverse? What if the actual state of affairs in reality is that there is a multiverse, and it turns out there is no way of having a positive justification for it? This example shows that there are many things that could be ultimately unknowable. I think negative justification as the determinant for true belief is weak at best. — Noah Te Stroete

It depends on the context. When it comes to the physical world, you need justification just to positively assert an existence or a relation. This is usually expressed as "you can't prove a negative", and in this case we can say that you don't have to justify negatives. The reason for that is simply that our knowledge of the physical world is supposed to explain and thereby predict that world. Everything not part of any specific prediction - everything without justification - is irrelevant for that purpose.

If we go beyond the physical world, the question of justification is less clear. We probably need to know the purpose of metaphysical "knowledge" in order to figure out what a proper justification would be.

Good article on how (White) Nationalism is becoming an ad hoc conservative intellectualism as a response to Trump. — Maw

Pretty damn scary. Combined with reports of how well Trump's stance on immigration seems to go with swing-state voters, it seems like the most ugly kind of nationalism gains traction in the US. The deadly kind.

If determinism were the case, you couldn't have (conscious) experiences, you couldn't doubt things, etc. because? — Terrapin Station

I think the short answer, in the context of this argument, is that there'd be no you. Without free will, there can be no attribution (of thoughts, experiences etc.) so there is no self.

It's not really an ontological argument the way I understand it. It simply states that free will is as fundamental, perhaps more fundamental, that any other phenomenon.

If this post isn't allowed for whatever reason then feel free to delete it, but I was reading an article online that says watching pornography makes it hard for some men to be satisfied with ordinary sex or hard for them to get an erection. So this seems to suggest that there must be something about pornography in general that makes it more exciting than regular sex, although it's anyone's guess as to what that is. — Maureen

Since it's only "some men", it might be worth looking into the sexual preferences of these men and check whether they are actually still attracted by their partners. It might be as simple as pornography catering to their actual desires.

I have personally never viewed pornography myself, but I have read that it changes people's brain chemistry, which is what initially led me to do this research in the first place, and it appears as if pornography does a lot more harm than good on the surface level. — Maureen

You'd be hard pressed to find any activity that, with sufficient repititon, does not alter brain chemistry. One can get "addicted" to porn much like one can be "addicted" to a range of other activities when your brain comes to expect a certain sensation at certain times. This is potentially harmful (especially to people whose sexuality is not yet mature), but much depends on the specific case.

These kinds of alterations of brain chemistry or "addiction" are essentially "bad habits" that can be cured via behavioural theory. What damage excessive consumption of a wide variety of pornographic material might do to a developing sexuality I don't know. I can certainly imagine it's not healthy to base your expectations on the kinds of things you can see online.

Your concept of "explanation" seems under-defined to me. You reference science, but that's a method that generates a specific kind of explanation. It's hard to judge your premises 4 to 6 without a clear definition of "explanation".

The way your argument is structured right now, I cannot see how premise 4 is justified. Having an explanation is certainly nice, but I fail to see how it would be necessary.

Similarly, your justification for premise 6 does not convince me. For one, it seems contradictory to state that:

So for an infinite being, what-it-is would be identical with that-it-is. — Dfpolis

When you earlier (and correctly, I think) noted that existence is always distinct from essence. But regardless, your premise doesn't really follow from the justification. The existence of a finite being might still be unlimited in time, for example. Or finite beings might explain the existence of each other. These possibilities remain unexplored.

Moving on to the conclusions, you never specify why the explanation for a being needs to be another being, nor why finite beings cannot explain each other. So your conclusions seem to hang in the air.

Ultimately, it looks to me like you are reformulating the "first cause" argument, but I cannot see the advantages of your take.

Weak/negative atheism is lack of belief in any particular deity. I think it falls under the wider category of of agnosticism. To justify weak atheism, nothing is required because it is a negative belief. — Devans99

It's perhaps worth pointing out that "atheist/agnostic" in this context are merely more or less arbitrary groups of related beliefs. They are useful to indicate the direction your thoughts go into, but what ultimately matters are the specific reasons.

Strong/positive atheism is a belief that no deities at all exist (strong atheists assert that "At least one deity exists" is false according to Wikipedia). To justify that belief/assertion, strictly speaking, one has to be sure that no deities exist at all. That requires a proof that no deities at all exist. That is surely unprovable for a deist deity (=no 3Os). — Devans99

I don't really see what you mean by "proof" here. A "proof" in the strict sense only exists in purely deductive systems like formal logic or mathematics. There is no "proof" of that kind for empirical science, and I don't believe very much can be deduced about metaphysics other than that something exists that thinks my thoughts. But since the possibility of metaphysics are essentially unlimited, it doesn't make sense to call this "being agnostic". Because it would follow that one is agnostic towards everything, from naive realism to the simulation hypothesis.

But in the drug trial example, you expect something to happen if the drug is effective and it does not so you can reach the conclusion that the drug is not effective.

In terms of God, it would be a like building a God detection device, turning it on and getting a negative result.

In both cases there is evidence of absence (of drug effects / God) rather than absence of evidence. — Devans99

Well, the quality of the evidence will depend on the circumstances, as I already stated. With God, the problem isn't really about whether the absence of evidence qualifies as evidence of absence but more about how God can even be imagined as a physical entity in the first place and what predictive power such a theory of God would have. Rules such as "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" are only true for purely deductive formal logic, not for inductive empirical science, and are useful shorthands rather than actual rules in the latter.

Disproving the existence of something means ruling out the possibility of its existence. I know what you mean, but still it is strictly speaking a contradiction. — Devans99

It's only strictly speaking a contradiction if possibility of existence is equivalent to actual existence.

There are many arguments for the existence of God. So there is some (debated) evidence of presence and also no evidence of absence. I do not see now on this basis a fully rational person could dismiss the existence of a deist god with 100% certainty - that leads to a conclusion (with the deist definition of God) that there are no fully rational atheists. — Devans99

Arguments are not evidence though. Just the fact that there are arguments doesn't mean one has to agree with them. Without looking at the arguments themselves, you cannot say that disagreeing with all of them is per se irrational.

I think this is a different situation. Here we have changed something (put drugs into a patient) and noted no effect. So we have positive evidence (that the drug is not working). — Devans99

I agree we have evidence of absence. But this evidence is based on absence of evidence - quite literally nothing happening.

So I think what is coming out is that one has to have a clear definition of God to qualify the term 'atheist'. — Devans99

Yes, specifically we'd need a clear definition of a metaphysical entity "God".

Deism is a subset of theism but you could argue that deists are atheistic with regard to a traditional definition of God.

Likewise, because of the more moderate definition of God (no 3Os) employed by deists, you could say atheists are agnostic with respect to a deistic god - in that disproving the existence of such a god is beyond the power of science and reason - so to deny the possibility completely would seem unreasonable. — Devans99

Disproving the existence of things doesn't usually involve ruling out the possibility of it's existence. Rather, it is sufficient to point out that there is no good reason to posit some existence. This is how empirical science goes about "disproving" and I think the same principle ought more or less to apply to metaphysics. Unless there is a reason to posit some metaphysical entity, we might as well consider it nonexistent.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. — Devans99

Depends on the context. If you run a drug trial and detect no difference compared to the control group, that is evidence of absence (in that case absence of a pharmaceutical effect).

The question of whether or not free will would be a physical phenomenon, and therefore subject to an empirical approach, goes to the core of the debate.

There are a number of intertwined issues here. Is everything reducible to physical phenomena and do physical phenomena therefore provide a complete account of consciousness and will? Is it even conceivable that, under physical laws, something like freedom would exist? If so, how would it be distinguishable from randomness?

I do not think "freedom" has any place in the physical world. It's simply not something the laws of physics provide the grounds for. At best, there might be true randomness, but even that is, as far as I am aware, at least heavily debated. Which leads me to conclude that "free will" could, if it exists, not be a physical phenomenon in the first place. Therefore using empirical science to prove or disprove free will is pointless.

I don't think It's as simple as stating that "noone can disprove it". For one, argument would be required as to why "disproving" it is the standard to apply here. It certainly is not if we're talking about a physical God, because the standard there is pretty clear: Whatever has no predictive or explanatory value does not exist. This applies to God or gods (given their common definitions), so in that sense it's entirely rational to be atheistic.

If we're talking about a metaphysical concept of "God", things get less clear. But it doesn't follow that basic agnosticism is therefore the only position one can take. For one, there'd need to be a consistent concept of a metaphysical God in the first place that we can talk about. But that runs into thorny problems, from the basic question of how attributes like omniscience and omnipotence are supposed to be conceptualized to the theodicy issue. I think that, in light of these factors, one can reasonably claim to be not just agnostic, but an atheist.

1. In what ways can we ''improve'' our language (the current state of our language may be already perfect)? — TheMadFool

People have tried to come up with "perfect" languages without misunderstandings, but as far as I am aware they have not been succesfull.

3. Can anyone prove/disprove that language can never remove ALL confusion? — TheMadFool

Perhaps it can be proven, but can that proof be expressed in language?

One thing to consider is that the "imperfections" in language make it more efficient, they increase the information density at the cost of errors. The human brain, for all it's impressive computing power, relies on a number of shortcuts and guesses to operate at the speed necessary for it's survival. Language reflects this. Errors are a price we pay in order to have practical language that can transmit information effectively.

A more formal argument would be that all definitions rely themselves on words which have a definition, leading to an infinite regress. The only way that a language can even transmit information is to rely on the similar brain structure and experiences of it's users. SInce those are subject to individual differences among subjects though, errors are essentially unavoidable. No matter how accurately you define a term, it's always possible for people to misunderstand the elements of that definition.

I fully agree that not everyone should be allowed a gun. And it seems prudent for those who do carry them to keep them concealed in public (I thought people had to by law anyway). But here’s something else quoted by Hitchens from Lott’s book: — AJJ

The problem with such figures is that they don't account for other differences in the areas that they are looking at, such as population density. The places with the strictest gun laws are ususally cities, which have higher crime rates across the board.

Virginia and Texas were basically the same in this respect. So it appears that up until around 2000 at least (perhaps things have changed since) legal gun owners were behaving very well in those states. — AJJ

The vast majority of people behaves "well" insofar as most people respect the law to a wide extend. However, the more guns that are around, the easier those guns end up on the black market. In countries with strict gun laws, acquiring a gun is highly risky, because very few people have access to guns and therefore the avenues are easier to police. Getting a gun (either legally or illegally) requires planning and effort, and this alone provides some amount of protection.

But I think that one of the most important factors, and one that is often overlooked, is culture. In an european country, where guns are rarely seen outside the hands of the police, people simply do not tend to think of a gun as an option or a solution.

Sorry......I’m missing halfs. For my benefit alone, and for no particular reason other than peace of mind....what are the halfs you had in mind? General idea will do; no names needed. — Mww

The one half is saying that there is an existence that is independent of human cognition at all, and that that existence doesn't disappear when humans do.

The other half is realising that, for the reasons you outlined very well, it doesn't follow that specific entities, like "a rock on Mars" exist in and of themselves outside of human cognition. That would be going from one extreme (solipsism) directly to the other extreme (naïve realism).

So the apparent absurdity: "why would this rock wink out of existence if humans died" is something of a strawman. The substrate for both rocks and minds will still exist, but this isn't the same as "rocks" existing. A "rock" is a combination of human perceptions and as such cannot be imagined as mind-independent.

What's stupid about it is that it's believed despite the complete lack of any cogent support for it. It's as bad as religious belief.

Come up with a good reason to entertain it, and then it might be worth bothering with it. — Terrapin Station

By "no congent support", do you mean to say that no idealistic philosopher ever advanced an argument that convinced you, or that they are all fundamentally flawed?

Or is this merely about "good reasons" in practical terms, as in ”why bother"?

If it is presented to us, it is as we understand it; if we are not present, questions about anything are irrational. And foolish. Which is what I think you were trying to show. — Mww

That is indeed where I was going, but I simply wanted to show that simply saying "well obviously the rock still exists, everything else would be stupid", as @Terrapin Station seems to be doing, ignores half the problem.

Edit: one could perhaps say that the simple "obviously rocks won't just disappear if humans die out" treats all idealism as solipsism.

What I was hoping to accomplish was you offering why we'd think that the existence of anything hinges on us. (And that should have been pretty obvious.) — Terrapin Station

The argument for that position is implicit in my question. You could try answering it. You do not seem to be arguing in good faith (belittling your discussion partners is always a bad sign), so I am not offering another angle of discussion.

And I'm asking why we'd think the existence of anything would hinge on human cognition. My suggestion is that some adults never developed beyond the pre-operational stage. Do you have a better suggestion? — Terrapin Station

If you find yourself unable to answer the question, you can just walk away (figuratively). Not sure what you hope to accomplish here other than poisoning the well.

Sometimes it seems like almost everyone here is stuck in an infantile/juvenile preoperational stage of development.

Why would the existence of something like a rock hinge on anything about us? — Terrapin Station

You're not answering the question. And your counter-question doesn't concern me, since I haven't claimed that just the existence of "something" depends on humans. I am asking in what way distinct objects with their specific properties exist outside of human cognition. In a way, I am granting "existence" itself, but asking what (other) properties outlast humans.

Does this mean willfully irrational and unreasonable? — tim wood

No, you're thinking of the terrestrial civilizations.

If no people exist afterwards, there are no categories, there's no one to identify anything, etc. — Terrapin Station

So in what sense can "rocks" be said to exist, if none of the things that make a thing a "rock" exist?

Say that there's a particular rock on a planet a million light years away. It turns out that we're the only technological creatures in the universe, and some catastrophe wipes us out soon. Is that rock on a distant planet just an idea? — Terrapin Station

I think the interesting question is which of the attributes that make up the category of "rock" can still be identified after said catastrophe.

Where is objective truth in science, engineering, philosophy, common sense? Scientific laws change through history. Some philosophers of science say that scientific laws aren't even an approximation to truth, they are just working models. You may assume that there is an underlying objective reality, but if you assume it it isn't objective truth, it is an assumption. — leo

Scientific theories work though. You can fly a plane. So while whatever model was used to design the plane may not have been complete, it was still objective in that it made accurate predictions.

I don’t know what specifically you’re referring to but he exaggerates a lot and often gets facts mixed up. The camera is not kind to Trump nor is he a polished politicians. He’s a wall street / ny real estate broker. That’s how they all talk. — halo

"Exaggerating" and "getting facts mixed up" are euphemisms for lying. There are plenty of very obvious lies to choose from. A simple google search will suffice.

People keep accusing Trump of not being a polished politician while he hates polished (and hypocritical, phony) politicians and real people are tired of the phoniness. — halo

I have literally never heard of anyone complaining that Trump is not enough like a polititian. Unstatesmanlike, frequently, but that's a different thing.

I would agree that there is no such thing as ultimate objectivity - that objectivity is contextual and dependent on underlying factors, not all of which can be spelled out. But that doesn't mean that it is not something to strive for where it counts. — Wayfarer

We could call it something like intersubjectivity, but at the end of the day there doesn't seem to be much point. Calling it "objective" conveys the meaning, even if, in an epistemological debate, you might want to qualify the term further.

But, as Trump does, I use some hyperbole in my rhetoric. I find it funny when I see democrats (not you necessary) in general, get bent out of shape over Trump's obvious hyperbole and the democrats frame it as lying. Give me a break. That' s just his style of speech. — halo

So, lying is okay if it's your "style of speech"?

could you elaborate on this? I would think we are treating their actions as examples, and their punishment as the deterrent, but I'm not sure I quite understand what you meant — MacGuffin

But if your justice system is utilitarian, you aren't really punishing people for their actions. The action is merely the trigger, the punishment then follows utilitarian reasoning.

I wonder what CI and Kant have to do with ethics. Kant and his CI has to do with making everyone happy, and making nobody unhappy.That's not ethics. That is mere Utopianism. — god must be atheist

And what, exactly, do you base this statement on?

I believe I see your point, could it be that a punishment as a deterrent to others resulting from one's actions (even if we don't believe the individual will repeat those actions and aren't a major threat) would also serve as a risk mitigation for the future actions of others? what I'm really trying to imply is a utilitarian approach to a legal response, but there are likely problems with that I haven't thought of — MacGuffin

From what I remember from criminology, the main preventive effect of punishment seems to be in assuring the other members of society that a) the rules are upheld and b) people who break the rules are punished. This serves to uphold peoples trust in and identification with the rule of law.

The problem with basing your system of legal accountability purely on it's effect on other poeple is that it ends up treating the actual criminals merely as examples - means to an end.

even though the idea of free will allows us to dictate morality or blame, I think that treating our actions by the effects they have, as well as treating individuals by the risks they pose to the rest of us, still allows for the same level of legal accountability, just without labeling individuals as having 'good' or 'evil' intentions/actions. — MacGuffin

It's not really the same kind of legal accountability though. The consequences would be vastly different. Being a "danger to society" would warrant the harshest sanctions regardless of what a person had already done. On the other hand, actions taken in unusual circumstances wouldn't have to be punished significantly, or at all.

Without the restraints that the notion of individual guilt establishes, it's easy to see everyone as a cog in the machine of society. And what happens to broken cogs?

There has always been what is now called fake news - propaganda, lies, misinformation, disinformation, but this is not news. — Fooloso4

I'd be fine with calling fake news a form of propaganda - if indeed it is used for propaganda purposes. But fake news is a specific form of propaganda. One that uses specifically the way news propagate via the internet, and more specifically social networks, in order to distribute false or misleading content. At it's most benign, it's merely clickbait, but it can be used for disinformation campaigns.

We are all indignant these days. All the time, with enthusiasm and about almost everything. We live in the age of hypermorality. — Matias

I think that this is selective perception. People have always thought to differentiate their group from others by negative delineation. What's different is that we get to see it all real-time via the internet.

Morality has mutated into the guiding ideology and religious substitute of our post-religious societies (in the West, with the possible exception of the USA, where morality is still a Christian affair for many people). — Matias

This honestly makes no sense at all to me. How can morality be conceptualised as an ideology? And morality is not spiritual. The substitute for religion must take over the functions of a religion, which morality does not do.

Morality as hypermorality has become absolute, it does not tolerate any other discourses beside it. Thus morality becomes the tyranny of values: the cult about minorities; insults and "microaggressions" everywhere; identity politics, ideology of equality... — Matias

How much of this is new? How much is more than some extreme fringe? And more importantly: What is the difference between this supposed new "hypermorality" and the traditional, strict religious morality? Why don't make examples such as the "pro-life" movement, salfist religious morality or russian orthodoxy make your list?

Politics, economics, art - everything is reduced to moral questions. Even consumption must be fair, sustainable and resource-saving. Whoever tries to evade this ersatz religion of total morality will be socially sanctioned. In a moralized world you have to belong to one of the moral tribes and signal your virtue to your comrades 24/7 — Matias

You mean people like to express their allegiance to a specific religious, political or merely geographic group among their peers? I am shocked!

It is a hard time for pragmatists like me who would like to analyze things first (in order to find solutions) before they get charged with moral values. Because once a topic is loaded with morality, it is nearly impossible to have a rational discourse about it. — Matias

True, but I cannot remember the mythical time when our discourse was free of this. When were these supposedly rational times?

There are different orders of infinity, but in your example both are of the same order.

Different orders of infinity are e.g. the Natural Numbers and the Rational Numbers. There is an infinite amount of Rational Numbers "between" each sequence of Natural Numbers.

I think the issue with the Doomsday argument is its claim that each of us is equally likely to find ourselves at any position n of the total population N. As I said here, we're not disembodied souls that are randomly placed inside any one of the human bodies which will ever live. — Michael

I had the impression you thought that criticism applied only to AJJ's version of the argument. But yes, I think that is at least the right track. Since @SophistiCat pointed out this problems similarity with other problems, like "Sleeping Beauty", I wonder if we can apply the same kind of criticism there.

In the Sleeping Beauty problem, the question can be rephrased as whether you are more likely to be an observer in a world that has more observers in total. The result of the view that this is the case (i.e. Sleeping Beauty is more likely to have been woken twice) interestingly enough runs directly counter to the result of the Doomsday argument, since the more humans will ever exist, the more possible observers "you" have to choose from.

But your criticism applies either way, since again assuming that you are more likely to be an observer in a world with more observers assumes "you" are a disembodied spirit that is the randomly assigned an observer "slot". It therefore seems that in these kinds of problems, the copernican principle does not apply.