RE: Political philosophy - inheritance tax

["Bernie Doeser" <bernie@doeser.org>]

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Peter,

I am not sure whether or not this was aimed at my earlier contribution, but
as I think it may have been I should perhaps add to the clarification.

If your argument was only supposed to hold true in a "liberal democratic
system" then this was not clear to me at the outset. In my experience
placing constraints such as these throttles debate to the point where many
will consider it of little value to participate. If one is not "permitted"
to challenge certain tenets, then it is not a free debate. Also one has to
be able to explore theoretical situations.

Pretty much any word can have multiple meanings or interpretations, and we
do need to be careful when using terms (not only, left/right/rich/poor but
also liberal democratic system ....). So we struggle on using the words we
have to hand to try and better understand the argument.

>From your earlier contribution I surmise that you do not feel any need to
question the "right" to own property, indeed this alludes to the other can
of worms, i.e. do "rights" exist, or are they merely a pragmatic cultural
convention? Personally, as you will have gathered, I find all "rights" open
to challenge.

I would like to see a more detailed explanation of your premise that the
property of a dead person should pass freely to their next of kin. Arguments
that it is "natural", convention, legal, obvious are somewhat empty. I would
treat the situation of a person passing their property on to a relative
prior to death differently, and perhaps exploring the difference between
these two scenarios would be fruitful. You might argue that a will is simply
an instruction entered into during life for execution after death. But if
you pass property onto someone before your death you experience the "loss of
property" yourself, and this is then one of the true properties of giving.
When the last pope died I recall that on his deathbed he gave his personal
property to his close friends, and so died with no property, which seemed
fair. OK, so you don't know if you are going to be hit by a truck, and you
want to prepare. Indeed I myself have a will, but if I knew that my kids
would get none of my property on my death, I'd probably give more of it to
them now, which I am actually considering. This raises the earlier issue of
constraining debate to within the realms of our current culture, we then
lose some of the questions we should be asking.

Hope this helps.

Bernie Doeser
Sandiway, Cheshire, UK.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-bups-dis@purplepancake.com
[mailto:owner-bups-dis@purplepancake.com]On Behalf Of pmaniati
Sent: 14 September 2005 01:53
To: BUPS-DIS@bups.org
Subject: Political philosophy - inheritance tax

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BUPS-DIS@bups.org


Fellow thinkers

Please re-read my argument and pay particular attention to the key words and
phrases. Most importantly the argument, I presumed, was within the perimeter
of the present liberal democratic system. In a communiterian system or
communist system for that matter. This argument would never have risen in
the first place.

1. Once we place labels such as left and right (meaningless terms) we
prejudice the argument.
2. Justifiably acquired wealth - emphasis on just
3. liberal democracy
4. Rich versus Poor debate (logical fallacy) These words are loaded and they
distort clear philosophical thinking

Cheers

Peter




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