Friday Fun Thread for February 14, 2024
What is this place?
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A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently,
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originally identified by
philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial
but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens
this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for
the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired
propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."
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Notes -
Define yours then -- as you say there are many. For the record I would not self-describe that way, although there's some intersection and I'm probably on average more likely to agree with a libertarian than not.
I’m a classical liberal or a right neoliberal or a state capacity libertarian. I’m not a deontological libertarian or an anarcho-capitalist, though like Scott I find David Friedman to be a very interesting thinker.
Rule utilitarianism and humanism are my underlying moral philosophies.
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