The ‘moral illusion’ of governmental authority
January 20th, 2012
Michael Huemer asks his students to imagine being a neighborhood vigilante. Suppose, he says, you live in a crime-ridden neighborhood, and nothing’s being done about it. So you hunt down criminals and lock them in your basement.
After awhile, you bill your neighbors for keeping the neighborhood safe. You tell neighbors who balk that not paying means they’ll land in the basement brig with the criminals.
“Most people would recognize this as outrageous behavior,” observes Huemer, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Yet in Huemer’s thought experiment, the vigilante’s behavior is that of a rudimentary government, focused on preventing crime and collecting taxes. Read More