The examples of objections to the non-central fallacy above rely, essentially, on utilitarian (consequentialist) argumentation.
This itself is a logical fallacy, as it presumes that some form of utility function implied in the utilitarian argument is the same as that of the person’s who is supposed to be convinced by the counter-argument.
The real big problem with all forms of utilitarian arguments is that they assume both definition of utility and some arbitrary time horizon.
For example: “taxation is theft” is a moral argument (based on aversion to using offensive violence on moral grounds) which may imply some loss of “social value” (which is quite vague) due to lack of government, but may end up being much better for humanity in the longer term (governments are known to start wars). I.e. as we start exploring further consequences of continuing existence of governments beyond obvious functions of facilitating peaceful commerce and suppression of small-scale crime (or whatever else governments are supposed to do) we may come to the point of view that existence of governments will eventually result in nuclear war exterminating the humanity. Which is a much worse outcome than living in some “wild west” style anarchy.
The examples of objections to the non-central fallacy above rely, essentially, on utilitarian (consequentialist) argumentation.
This itself is a logical fallacy, as it presumes that some form of utility function implied in the utilitarian argument is the same as that of the person’s who is supposed to be convinced by the counter-argument.
The real big problem with all forms of utilitarian arguments is that they assume both definition of utility and some arbitrary time horizon.
For example: “taxation is theft” is a moral argument (based on aversion to using offensive violence on moral grounds) which may imply some loss of “social value” (which is quite vague) due to lack of government, but may end up being much better for humanity in the longer term (governments are known to start wars). I.e. as we start exploring further consequences of continuing existence of governments beyond obvious functions of facilitating peaceful commerce and suppression of small-scale crime (or whatever else governments are supposed to do) we may come to the point of view that existence of governments will eventually result in nuclear war exterminating the humanity. Which is a much worse outcome than living in some “wild west” style anarchy.