one additional piece of advice: split the discussion. Talking about desiderata of moral theories really should be separated from discussion of any specific theory, unless you’re using multiple theories as examples of points your meta-theory makes.
The mixing makes it come across as “here’s a metatheory I came up with, and oh, hey, look! my preferred object-level theory is the only thing that fits it.” It’s not clear if you’re supporting your metatheory with the fact that libertarianism is “correct”, or supporting libertariasm with your metatheory, but it IS clear that you’re not being rigorous with the levels.
On the other hand, doing it this way at least provides a bit more transparency. If ArisC had first of all posted a lengthy and apparently abstract discussion at the meta-level, and then later turned out to be a partisan of the one object-level theory that (allegedly) fits the meta-criteria, then I think some readers would have concluded that the meta-discussion was not being conducted in good faith.
You are right—already this comment thread is getting a bit confusing, because some people are sort of disputing libertarianism, and using this to discredit the evaluation framework...
one additional piece of advice: split the discussion. Talking about desiderata of moral theories really should be separated from discussion of any specific theory, unless you’re using multiple theories as examples of points your meta-theory makes.
The mixing makes it come across as “here’s a metatheory I came up with, and oh, hey, look! my preferred object-level theory is the only thing that fits it.” It’s not clear if you’re supporting your metatheory with the fact that libertarianism is “correct”, or supporting libertariasm with your metatheory, but it IS clear that you’re not being rigorous with the levels.
On the other hand, doing it this way at least provides a bit more transparency. If ArisC had first of all posted a lengthy and apparently abstract discussion at the meta-level, and then later turned out to be a partisan of the one object-level theory that (allegedly) fits the meta-criteria, then I think some readers would have concluded that the meta-discussion was not being conducted in good faith.
You are right—already this comment thread is getting a bit confusing, because some people are sort of disputing libertarianism, and using this to discredit the evaluation framework...