With this said, given that the basis for a political philosophy lies in establishing moral claims about how individuals should behave, and given that we have no utterly precise system of morality to establish ethical truths reliably, there is no way to determine a correct political philosophy. ]

The goal shouldn't be to determine a correct philosophy, but the best one for the moment...and one will never suffice for all issues or needs.

rickyk95 — rickyk95

Politics is simply the authoritative allocation of resources​.

Economics is supposedly the non-authoritative allocation of resources, but some people will probably tell you that it is another form of politics.

Either way it is about resources and their allocation, not the moral lives of people.

The best way to deal with resources, not a good life, is what politics is concerned with.

"Politics is who gets what, when, and how" -- Harold Lasswell.

There is a component of politics that deals with social issues, but how these issues are dealt with is a mess. The allocation of resources is much more straightforward, the top 1% get the largesse.

Politics is simply the authoritative allocation of resources​.

No, it's not, and that's not even close to any official definition of the word.

Economics is supposedly the non-authoritative allocation of resources, but some people will probably tell you that it is another form of politics.

No, it's not, economics is both "a social science concerned chiefly with description and analysis of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services" or "economic theory, principles and/or practices."

Either way it is about resources and their allocation, not the moral lives of people.

No, either way it is about much more than that, as I have shown.

The best way to deal with resources, not a good life, is what politics is concerned with.

No, politics is very often about a "good life" and working to ensure a good life for the most people possible.

"Politics is who gets what, when, and how" -- Harold Lasswell.

That's just what Harold said, and he's only one person, and he's wrong.

There is a component of politics that deals with social issues, but how these issues are dealt with is a mess. The allocation of resources is much more straightforward, the top 1% get the largesse. — Rich

I would argue that social issues in politics are just another way that who gets what, when and how is decided.

If nobody gains or loses anything--liberty, safety, power, influence, business, etc.--from politicizing abortion, abortion would not be a political issue.

I believe that our definitions are not mutually exclusive. But lets take yours since I think it is more precise. Redifining politics the way you do doesnt free it from its attachment to morality. In other words, there is no way of deciding who gets what resources and who doesnt without involving moral claims. If I say" person A has a right to vote and person B doesnt", or "Person A should be convicted for using drugs", there is an implicit judgement of what is right and wrong.

Economics aside, for many it is a moral issue but the morality gets very muddy.

That is really the best answer I have gotten from this question up until now. It reminds me of Sam Harris's Moral Landscape, wherein he proposes that despite not being able to determine what is good or bad perfectly, we do know that some things are clearly better than others.

Thanks, man...glad to help.

Redifining politics the way you do doesnt free it from its attachment to morality. In other words, there is no way of deciding who gets what resources and who doesnt without involving moral claims... — rickyk95

There could be coin toss. Heads, capital punishment is the law. Tails, capital punishment is abolished.

A disagreement could be decided by a duel (unless you are Governor of Kentucky; the oath of office still includes​ "have not and will not participate in any duels").

Or you could simply use force. Cross the border with tanks and infantry and say "This land is now ours".

And other ways to allocate resources without paying any heed to what is right or wrong, what constitutes a good life, what constitutes a just society, etc.

If say "person A has a right to vote and person B doesnt", or "Person A should be convicted for using drugs", there is an implicit judgement of what is right and wrong. — rickyk95

Not necessarily.

Somebody could subjectively believe or objectively know that a policy is morally wrong but enforce that policy anyway because he/she likes being in a position of power and needs that policy to keep him/her there.

In other words, his/her actions aren't saying "This is right". They are saying "This gets me what I want".

There could be coin toss. Heads, capital punishment is the law. Tails, capital punishment is abolished — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Doing this would implicitly acknowledge that tossing a coin to decide what laws are implemented would be the moral thing to do. In other words, you would be tacitly communicating that the allocation of resources by sheer luck is ethically right.

Or you could simply use force. Cross the border with tanks and infantry and say "This land is now ours". — WISDOMfromPO-MO

It strikes me as fascinating how you wouldnt consider this to carry moral baggage. If I suddenly came to an empty piece of land besides your house with a tank and declared its mine, I imagine you would have something to say about the rightness or wrongness of such an action. Would you not ask yourself if someone needs that land more than I do? Do I deserve that land if I wont use it productively? etc...

Somebody could subjectively believe or objectively know that a policy is morally wrong but enforce that policy anyway because he/she likes being in a position of power and needs that policy to keep him/her there. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Even in that case: if I pass and enforce a policy that I believe to be wrong in the benefit of my own interests, this implies that what Im doing is wrong, and that perhaps some other policy would be right, therefore carrying an implicit moral claim.

Even in that case: if I pass and enforce a policy that I believe to be wrong in the benefit of my own interests, this implies that what Im doing is wrong, and that perhaps some other policy would be right, therefore carrying an implicit moral claim. — rickyk95

I think you may find that right/wrong rarely enters into the equation of policy-makers and their donors.

Among the place, what is right and wrong is diverse as the number of people in the populace. People all have their own views on what is right and wrong.

I think you may find that right/wrong rarely enters into the equation of policy-makers and their donors. — Rich

I think it does enter into the equation implicitly. Whether you have a healthcare bill you want to pass, or a gun control policy, the law youre passing has a specific goal, e.g. "maximize the number of people who have access to healthcare", this implies that the right thing is for the greatest amount of people to have access to health care. Or, for example if the policy's goal was to "improve the quality of healthcare despite diminishing the amount of people who have access to it",then your moral claim is that the right thing is for society to have access to the best quality of healthcare possible, despite not everyone being able to access it. Hell, even if the policy's goal was just to enrich private insurers, it would carry either an implicit assumption that large business owners maximizing their profits ought to be more important than anything else in healthcare, or if the policymaker is doing it dishonestly and knows its wrong, it still carries with it the assumption that large business owners maximizing their profits ought not to be what a health care bill is built around.

Among the place, what is right and wrong is diverse as the number of people in the populace. People all have their own views on what is right and wrong. — Rich

This is precisely the issue to which Im pointing at. We cannot have an ultimately right political philosophy with diverging notions of morality in our way.

There is a difference between marketing pitches and motivations. Money is a great motivator for our leaders. They'll say say what they need to say to get elected.

As for the population, each person develops their own personal philosophy toward life based upon their own experiences, and the differences are enumerable.

Doing this would implicitly acknowledge that tossing a coin to decide what laws are implemented would be the moral thing to do. In other words, you would be tacitly communicating that the allocation of resources by sheer luck is ethically right... — rickyk95

No.

You have two political actors who want something and you have chosen a coin toss as "how" who gets what when.

No moral considerations have been incorporated into the process.

It strikes me as fascinating how you wouldnt consider this to carry moral baggage. If I suddenly came to an empty piece of land besides your house with a tank and declared its mine, I imagine you would have something to say about the rightness or wrongness of such an action. Would you not ask yourself if someone needs that land more than I do? Do I deserve that land if I wont use it productively? etc... — rickyk95

The conqueror may have a moral argument about his/her right to the land. Or he may not.

And if you say that it doesn't belong to him/her and give moral reasons to support your assertion, he/she could reply "Well, it belongs to me now".

There do not have to be moral considerations for there to be political actions.

Even in that case: if I pass and enforce a policy that I believe to be wrong in the benefit of my own interests, this implies that what Im doing is wrong, and that perhaps some other policy would be right, therefore carrying an implicit moral claim. — rickyk95

No, it implies that no matter if it is right or wrong you are going to do it anyway.

If other political actors know that you are going to do it no matter what, they know not to bother responding with moral arguments. They know that diplomacy, military force, a coup, etc. are how they must respond if they don't want you to get what you want.

We cannot have an ultimately right political philosophy with diverging notions of morality in our way. — rickyk95

Freedom of the individual is about as close as one can get to a widely accepted morality, I would say....

No, because much of morality is centered on tailoring harmful individual acts on other individuals and society.

That's merely the inevitable caveat to freedom of choice...

I agree with you that economic is the study of behaviors connected with producing and consuming (GDPs, CPIs, inflation, deflation, money supply, all that dismal stuff).

But politics does seem to be about the allocation of resources--just not directly. Tax law, for instance, is conceived in politics to finance government -- but it frequently benefits one group more than others. For instance, minimum wage laws tend to be ceilings on low wage jobs, rather than floors. Inheritance laws generally benefit people with a lot of plunder to leave to their off-spring or alma maters. It is tax law that has greatly expanded the large share of wealth a very small fraction (1% - 5%) of the population possesses.

I also agree with you

Either way it is about resources and their allocation, not the moral lives of people. WISDOMfromPO-MO
— WISDOMfromPO-MO

No, either way it is about much more than that, as I have shown. — Thanatos Sand

Numerous behaviors are sanctioned in law created in politics. The law may not say that "Fraud is immoral" but it does say that it is wrongful, and deserves punishment. I don't think that morality is cleanly one thing, and that law is cleanly something else. Morality may come first, but law often validates morality and visa versa. Law and morality are entangled.

But... there are many instances of law and morality parting ways. I think it is a moral act for women to abort a fetus during the first 20 weeks. The law may or may not agree. I think the accumulation of material resources (land, factories, rental housing, etc.) is immoral. The law generally does not agree. Whether individuals are free to accumulate as much property as they can get their hands on (they are free to do so, pretty much) is going to be decided through politics. If socialists had their way, accumulation of capital would not be legal. However, the process of developing socialist parties into a force capable of rewriting property law would be entirely political--involving all kinds of speech to persuade, endless organizing, membership drives, demonstrations, etc.

Perhaps were talking past each other. I think what youre trying to say is that in reality, politicians many times dont make any moral considerations when carrying out political actions. I dont disagree with that. It is certainly possible to pass a law or a policy without considering whatsoever what the ethical consequences might be. What Im trying to say, however, is that whether or not you make the moral considerations behind each act, all political acts are inherently moral. Given a hypothetical situation where a righteous group of individuals truly wants to create the best society, they have no way of doing it because the structure of a correct political system relies on the objectivity of the moral claims that sustain it. Sure, you could say "fuck morality" and just go ahead and disregardedly carry out policies and pass laws, but this wouldnt be the correct political system.

[quote"]No, because much of morality is centered on tailoring harmful individual acts on other individuals and society."

"That's merely the inevitable caveat to freedom of choice... "
[/quote]

No, much of morality is centered on tailoring harmful individual acts on other individuals and society; that is the matter and focus of the philosophy, not just a caveat to freedom of choice.

But if so much effort is spent on moderating freedom of choice, then surely that is a sign that freedom of choice is a commonly occurring desire.

No, it's not since so many people's views on freedom of choice vary and clash, and many people want more than just freedom of choice. They want safety, security, culture, health and many other things.

With this said, given that the basis for a political philosophy lies in establishing moral claims about how individuals should behave, and given that we have no utterly precise system of morality to establish ethical truths reliably, there is no way to determine a correct political philosophy.

Leo Strauss called Aristotle "the founder of political science because he is the discoverer of moral virtue". The City/Society, which is natural to man (as a defense against the rest of nature), enables the practice of moral virtue. "The highest good of the city is the same as the highest good of the individual. The core of happiness is the practice of virtue and primarily moral virtue;"

Rousseau thought that virtue is the means by which an individual's will conforms to the general will, which is achieved by love of country and its laws. So while a precise science of political philosophy might not be possible, there is a direction, a description and a goal.

many people's views on freedom of choice vary and clash, and many people want more than just freedom of choice. They want safety, security, culture, health and many other things. — Thanatos Sand

Few people nowadays would not concede that slavery is unacceptable, so at a very fundamental and important level people are agreed on the desirability of freedom. And wanting more than freedom of choice is in no way incompatible with also wanting freedom of choice itself.

Freedom of choice constitutes far more than freedom from slavery, hence the great variations in people's definitions of the phrase.

Nevertheless, the desire for freedom is almost universal, and surely you cannot dismiss it so readily as you have, as being unsuitable as a basis for universal morality.

While we may enjoy the concept of choices, one person's choice is most likely going to interfere with another person's choice. It's tough finding a basis for any morality. The concept is just to fluid among populations.

Freedom is not a fluid concept - what one should be free to do might well be. So there are restraints and caveats. But freedom is a universally acknowledged "good", in principle. I can't believe Rich and Thanatos Sand expect me to accept abandoning freedom as a plank of morality so easily. Perhaps you guys have debated this in depth before and have come to certain conclusions. Well I'm afraid I'm going to have to drag your reasoning out of you.

I put it to you that freedom is a special moral attribute of a society, because no other moral attributes are "moral" unless freely chosen.

But freedom is a universally acknowledged "good", in principle. — Jake Tarragon

Except in countries where they are pretty much going on a different direction. Take a look around this forum and observe how many members are absolutely thrilled with the idea that government can force people to do things. I am sure they are all for from except for those things that they want to force on people. It's just that it's very, very fluid to the point of hypocrisy.