Does Catholic political philosophy reduce to practical "anarchism"?

[St_Francis]

“Anarchy” for me, is what you would call “a mess”.

This is due to the Hobbesian definition of “anarchy” being a state of war of all versus all.

I don’t actually believe that all “anarchy” entails literal war, but by simile a mess or chaotic jumble is like a war of all against all and so even a peaceful "mess’ I call “anarchy”.

However this definition is not the true definition of anarchy and it certainly is consistent with government, that is, a form of state (monarchy, aristocracy, etc.). And that is why I put " " around the word anarchy.

And to reiterate, I call justice the opposite of tolerance only inasmuch as they sometimes require opposite actions. Justice requires punishment many times, and tolerance requires that we don’t punish. However again, I am only speaking of justice and tolerance from the point of view of the actions they sometimes entail. It is from the interaction of these contrary actions that I call morality a principle of “anarchy”.

It would be really helpful if you would use words the way they are meant to be used, or be more clear when you put them in quotation marks.

Tolerance is not part of morality.

And the way to win an argument is to prove your point, not mangle everything until you reach the conclusion you were hoping for. So far, you have offered absolutely no evidence for your contention that CST leads to anarchy or a mess, unless by mess you mean a state in which authority is less centralized, according to the level of involvement needed.

For example, there are two towns. In one, they might decide to find a public library; in the other, they might decide that since the rich family in town already lends out its books to people that they do not need to find a library. No problem: different decisions for different situations. This is not a “mess.” And it would be bad for the Federal government to suddenly come down and say that every town had to find a library no matter what their circumstances, wouldn’t it?

OTOH, when cars first started being driven, there were different stop light set-ups for different towns. In some, the lights were horizontal, and the colors could go in either direction; in others, the lights were vertical, but also in different directions. So people would drive from town to town and get confused, esp if they were colorblind (red-green is the most common form of color-blindness). So it makes sense for this to be standardized across the state or across the nation.

 

[fakename]

It would be really helpful if you would use words the way they are meant to be used, or be more clear when you put them in quotation marks.

Tolerance is not part of morality.

And the way to win an argument is to prove your point, not mangle everything until you reach the conclusion you were hoping for. So far, you have offered absolutely no evidence for your contention that CST leads to anarchy or a mess, unless by mess you mean a state in which authority is less centralized, according to the level of involvement needed.

For example, there are two towns. In one, they might decide to find a public library; in the other, they might decide that since the rich family in town already lends out its books to people that they do not need to find a library. No problem: different decisions for different situations. This is not a “mess.” And it would be bad for the Federal government to suddenly come down and say that every town had to find a library no matter what their circumstances, wouldn’t it?

OTOH, when cars first started being driven, there were different stop light set-ups for different towns. In some, the lights were horizontal, and the colors could go in either direction; in others, the lights were vertical, but also in different directions. So people would drive from town to town and get confused, esp if they were colorblind (red-green is the most common form of color-blindness). So it makes sense for this to be standardized across the state or across the nation.

I think certainly a mess is implied in the existence of equity courts, that is, courts that exist mostly to dispense from laws when they are rendered unjust by circumstances. But circumstances are constantly shifting so it seems that a CST-based state would be rather shiftier than normal ( if it were perfect).

But also, tolerance is a part of morality (I think as a part of courage).

But my use of the word anarchy was rather part of the common usage, for anarchy implies chaos and chaos is a mess and so anarchy is a mess. And my use of anarchy was none other than to imply that it was a mess.

The only difference between my use and common use is that anarchy commonly implies lack of a state. But the common use of the word state is, perhaps, incorrect according to what I’ve studied a state to be. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that my view of anarchy and what it entails for states and statelessness should differ from the common one.

 

[St_Francis]

But also, tolerance is a part of morality (I think as a part of courage).

Can you document this? I have never seen it anywhere.

I think certainly a mess is implied in the existence of equity courts, that is, courts that exist mostly to dispense from laws when they are rendered unjust by circumstances. But circumstances are constantly shifting so it seems that a CST-based state would be rather shiftier than normal ( if it were perfect).

Life is messy. It’s not messy because of CST but just because it is filled with flawed human beings.

But my use of the word anarchy was rather part of the common usage, for anarchy implies chaos and chaos is a mess and so anarchy is a mess. And my use of anarchy was none other than to imply that it was a mess.

When people use the word anarchy to imply a mess, they are referring to things other than government. When they are discussing government, the context demands the proper use of the word anarchy.

The only difference between my use and common use is that anarchy commonly implies lack of a state.* But the common use of the word state is, perhaps, incorrect according to what I’ve studied a state to be.*

What do you mean by this?

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that my view of anarchy and what it entails for states and statelessness should differ from the common one.

If you are going to use words in an uncommon way, you must be clear about that and the definitions you are using at the beginning. Using quotation marks is not sufficient.

 

[fakename]

Can you document this? I have never seen it anywhere.

Life is messy. It’s not messy because of CST but just because it is filled with flawed human beings.

When people use the word anarchy to imply a mess, they are referring to things other than government. When they are discussing government, the context demands the proper use of the word anarchy.

What do you mean by this?

If you are going to use words in an uncommon way, you must be clear about that and the definitions you are using at the beginning. Using quotation marks is not sufficient.

newadvent.org/cathen/14763a.htm

Tolerance is,
“the magnanimous determination not to interfere with the evil, but to allow it to run its course without molestation.”

newadvent.org/summa/3.htm

As seen here, magnanimity is classified as a part of fortitude or courage.

So tolerance must be courage.

Now to the other points:

(1) That’s an astute observation. So let me correct myself by asking do you think that CST is consistent with a messy world? I think it is.

(2) I’ve had different experiences with how I’ve sen others use the word,.

(3) Actually I asked a priest for some clarification and it turns out that I was wrong about this (I might ask for more though later). Basically in every definition of state I’ve read the state is a thing which does good things for the sake of the community. So there is no state which is bad -a bad state is not a state at all. So again I was wrong apparently, but would you know why? Perhaps somehow, a state’s can be good even though it doesn’t do anything for the community and does evil stuff too?

(4)I’ll be more explicit about how I use words from now on.

 

[St_Francis]

newadvent.org/cathen/14763a.htm

Tolerance is,
“the magnanimous determination not to interfere with the evil, but to allow it to run its course without molestation.”

Yes, it seems that tolerance can be a virtue, in a narrow sense. I had not heard that before. If you read further in the article on tolerance, you find that tolerance, like other virtues, can turn into vice by being either too much, or too little.

Tolerance in a court of law sounds to me like a judge letting a serial drunk-driver off because he is convinced by an argument of different strokes for different folks.

The action of mitigation by a judge wrt say, giving a lower sentence because the person was young, the person has made restitution, etc. is called *mercy. *Legally, I guess it’s also called clemncy.

So tolerance must be courage.

Just remember that like courage, toleration can turn into vice both by a lack or by an excess.

Now to the other points:

(1) That’s an astute observation. So let me correct myself by asking do you think that CST is consistent with a messy world? I think it is.

CST is consistent with reality. That the world is messy is reality. Therefore, CST is consistent with a messy world.

(3) Actually I asked a priest for some clarification and it turns out that I was wrong about this (I might ask for more though later). Basically in every definition of state I’ve read the state is a thing which does good things for the sake of the community. So there is no state which is bad -a bad state is not a state at all. So again I was wrong apparently, but would you know why? Perhaps somehow, a state’s can be good even though it doesn’t do anything for the community and does evil stuff too?

Hmmmm, this is an interesting point.

Let’s consider this: the definition of a wife is that she is a woman who is faithful to one man, her husband…

But we know that some women don’t do all these things. Are they then not wives? No, they are *bad *wives.

The Church teaches that there are inherently bad forms of government, but overall that government is good and necessary to a human society, human nature being what it is. Therefore, government is a necessary good, a-narchy (in its most formal sense) is bad.

So I would say not that a government (which is slightly different from the state itself) is merely by virtue of its existence doing good things and that if it is not doing good things it is not a government, but that one can have good governments and bad governments, just as we can have good wives and bad wives.

(4)I’ll be more explicit about how I use words from now on.

It can be tough, sometimes our thoughts seem so clear to ourselves, but they just don’t come across in writing.

 

[fakename]

Yes, it seems that tolerance can be a virtue, in a narrow sense. I had not heard that before. If you read further in the article on tolerance, you find that tolerance, like other virtues, can turn into vice by being either too much, or too little.

Tolerance in a court of law sounds to me like a judge letting a serial drunk-driver off because he is convinced by an argument of different strokes for different folks.

The action of mitigation by a judge wrt say, giving a lower sentence because the person was young, the person has made restitution, etc. is called *mercy. *Legally, I guess it’s also called clemncy.

Just remember that like courage, toleration can turn into vice both by a lack or by an excess.

CST is consistent with reality. That the world is messy is reality. Therefore, CST is consistent with a messy world.

Hmmmm, this is an interesting point.

Let’s consider this: the definition of a wife is that she is a woman who is faithful to one man, her husband…

But we know that some women don’t do all these things. Are they then not wives? No, they are *bad *wives.

The Church teaches that there are inherently bad forms of government, but overall that government is good and necessary to a human society, human nature being what it is. Therefore, government is a necessary good, a-narchy (in its most formal sense) is bad.

So I would say not that a government (which is slightly different from the state itself) is merely by virtue of its existence doing good things and that if it is not doing good things it is not a government, but that one can have good governments and bad governments, just as we can have good wives and bad wives.

It can be tough, sometimes our thoughts seem so clear to ourselves, but they just don’t come across in writing.

On Judges and Tolerance:

I think that the judge who say, refuses to allow someone to execute a law because it would cause more harm than good, is a judge who is exercising tolerance, for he tolerates an evil to avoid a larger evil.

And also a judge that gives a lower sentence to someone who is perhaps to young to have acted with restraint is, I think, properly acting justly and not mercifully since he is not forgiving an offense by giving a more appropriate sentence but is rather allowing the punishment to fit the crime. That’s my two cents such that they are.

On the wife example, I tend to think that your solution is correct but that I’m not entirely sure from whence it is deduced.

For the same reason I think that your solution to the problem of the state is true. But again why?

Here’s my attempt to answer why. Sometimes a wife is called faithful not because she is actually faithful in this instance but rather is habitually faithful that is, she has been faithful as a matter of history. The same applies to a good man, for a man is good even if he is evil in one particular instance as long as he has been habitually good and intending good historically.

So a good state is a state that is habitually good or perhaps is aiming to be good. Do you think this is an adequate solution?

It could be but for the problem of what a habitually bad state would be. For one could say that perhaps a habitually bad state is not a state. And indeed, it is said that lawful rebels are in fact the true state while the tyrant is the chiefest anarchist. So really, it seems that sometimes at least, the de jure state is not the defacto state.

Comments?

 

[St_Francis]

On Judges and Tolerance:

I think that the judge who say, refuses to allow someone to execute a law because it would cause more harm than good, is a judge who is exercising tolerance, for he tolerates an evil to avoid a larger evil.

And also a judge that gives a lower sentence to someone who is perhaps to young to have acted with restraint is, I think, properly acting justly and not mercifully since he is not forgiving an offense by giving a more appropriate sentence but is rather allowing the punishment to fit the crime. That’s my two cents such that they are.

I can see what you are saying, and I think I have heard of a rare instance in which a jury may think someone is guilty of breaking a particular law, but they are against that law so they can somehow nullify the law itself, and certainly higher judges can rule against laws.

However, I do not see how all this leads to what you call a mess, unless by “mess” you mean the mere differences between various entities?

On the wife example, I tend to think that your solution is correct but that I’m not entirely sure from whence it is deduced.

For the same reason I think that your solution to the problem of the state is true. But again why?

Here’s my attempt to answer why. Sometimes a wife is called faithful not because she is actually faithful in this instance but rather is habitually faithful that is, she has been faithful as a matter of history. The same applies to a good man, for a man is good even if he is evil in one particular instance as long as he has been habitually good and intending good historically.

Hmmm, I don’t know. for example, a man lives for 50 years without breaking a law, then he robs a bank. Possibly they might give him a lesser sentence because it is his first offiense, but does it make him a good man? Maybe here we are able only to consider the outer part of a person, all the actions we know of that he has done, but we do not know his heart, so we can’t be sure.

So a good state is a state that is habitually good or perhaps is aiming to be good. Do you think this is an adequate solution?

It could be but for the problem of what a habitually bad state would be. For one could say that perhaps a habitually bad state is not a state. And indeed, it is said that lawful rebels are in fact the true state while the tyrant is the chiefest anarchist. So really, it seems that sometimes at least, the de jure state is not the defacto state.

This is a very interesting question, for two reasons.

The first is that you bring it up in the context of asking if CST leads to a “mess,” and yet, CST, *if followed, *would lead to a very good state, no matter the structure.

Americans tend to think that monarchy is a bad thing, when in reality when we have had monarchy, the government did not intrude that much on the people, and in theory it was well set up who should care for whom.

The second is the question of “bad” governments, by which I mean *thoroughly *bad, where the person who is in charge thinks and acts like everything belongs to him, and he has no responsibilities towards those under him.

***If ***a government needs to be good in order to be legitimate, ***then ***a tyrannical government would be no government at all, as you say. And this may be why, in the Middle Ages when the Church had more power, the Pope was able to release people from their fealty to their lord, and why we currently have in the CCC standards for civil unrest.

And a third interesting point arises: the most “orderly,” least “messy” governments seem to be those which are more tyrannical, where CST is applied the *least. *

Which leads me to wonder if you see the “mess” as an arbitrariness that people should not have to deal with, whereas if the mess is based on good moral principles, then it is not the same as a mess caused by a corrupt government and is actually a good mess.

 

[fakename]

I can see what you are saying, and I think I have heard of a rare instance in which a jury may think someone is guilty of breaking a particular law, but they are against that law so they can somehow nullify the law itself, and certainly higher judges can rule against laws.

However, I do not see how all this leads to what you call a mess, unless by “mess” you mean the mere differences between various entities?

Hmmm, I don’t know. for example, a man lives for 50 years without breaking a law, then he robs a bank. Possibly they might give him a lesser sentence because it is his first offiense, but does it make him a good man? Maybe here we are able only to consider the outer part of a person, all the actions we know of that he has done, but we do not know his heart, so we can’t be sure.

This is a very interesting question, for two reasons.

The first is that you bring it up in the context of asking if CST leads to a “mess,” and yet, CST, *if followed, *would lead to a very good state, no matter the structure.

Americans tend to think that monarchy is a bad thing, when in reality when we have had monarchy, the government did not intrude that much on the people, and in theory it was well set up who should care for whom.

The second is the question of “bad” governments, by which I mean *thoroughly *bad, where the person who is in charge thinks and acts like everything belongs to him, and he has no responsibilities towards those under him.

***If ***a government needs to be good in order to be legitimate, ***then ***a tyrannical government would be no government at all, as you say. And this may be why, in the Middle Ages when the Church had more power, the Pope was able to release people from their fealty to their lord, and why we currently have in the CCC standards for civil unrest.

And a third interesting point arises: the most “orderly,” least “messy” governments seem to be those which are more tyrannical, where CST is applied the *least. *

Which leads me to wonder if you see the “mess” as an arbitrariness that people should not have to deal with, whereas if the mess is based on good moral principles, then it is not the same as a mess caused by a corrupt government and is actually a good mess.

I think there is such a thing as a good mess. Certainly early medieval Catholic society was decentralized too; it wasn’t always King Louis XIV and indeed the Habsburg monarchy was similarly decentralized.

What I mean by mess is that a higher authority decreed something (all robbers should pay a fine) and a lower authority had to act outside the letter of the law (given a lesser sentence for a young robber).

I see the mess as sometimes being bad though. So sometimes it’s an arbitrariness that should be removed and other times it is something that is praiseworthy. However life will always have certain (IMO) arbitrariness and I think that we shouldn’t be too perturbed by that.

As I said before a monarchy can be good since it is the best government but even a monarchy can be decentralized as the Hapsburg monarchy was and as all early feudal monarchies were.

In summary I suppose that the mere fact that any power to some degree ensures order, is reason enough to maintain that power. And perhaps that’s why any government is called a government because it still does more good than harm. But that’s my hypothesis, perhaps you have some further comments or better conclusions?

 

[St_Francis]

I think there is such a thing as a good mess. Certainly early medieval Catholic society was decentralized too; it wasn’t always King Louis XIV and indeed the Habsburg monarchy was similarly decentralized.

What I mean by mess is that a higher authority decreed something (all robbers should pay a fine) and a lower authority had to act outside the letter of the law (given a lesser sentence for a young robber).

I see the mess as sometimes being bad though. So sometimes it’s an arbitrariness that should be removed and other times it is something that is praiseworthy. However life will always have certain (IMO) arbitrariness and I think that we shouldn’t be too perturbed by that.

yes, like everything else, there is a happy medium.

As I said before a monarchy can be good since it is the best government but even a monarchy can be decentralized as the Hapsburg monarchy was and as all early feudal monarchies were.

In summary I suppose that the mere fact that any power to some degree ensures order, is reason enough to maintain that power. And perhaps that’s why any government is called a government because it still does more good than harm. But that’s my hypothesis, perhaps you have some further comments or better conclusions?

Oh, yes, and this point is reflected in the idea in JWT that one must have a good prospect of success, so as not to tear something down leaving only anarchy or a huge mess in its place. very interesting.

 

[fakename]

yes, like everything else, there is a happy medium.

Oh, yes, and this point is reflected in the idea in JWT that one must have a good prospect of success, so as not to tear something down leaving only anarchy or a huge mess in its place. very interesting.

Having thought about this more I can more profitable re-ask the same questions and a few new ones.

Here they are: Is the authority of the state derived from two sources (1) it’s ability to provide the means of life and (2) it’s ability to provide the means of moral improvement?

Also do you think that there are certain rights which are equal among all men and that these include the right to food, property, health (as opposed to rights like honor or good birth or positive rights)? Or can one believe that not everyone even has the same degree of even the former rights though they all equally have the same quality of rights (by quality I mean that they are all human rights and potentially (at least) equal)?

That is, do people have equal rights and if they do, do they have equal degrees of rights?

 

[Matilda_Bennett]

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