> To think that this turns out well displays either staggering ignorance or the naïvete of an infant.
Unfortunately, so does thinking that the alternative, trying to have governments spell out everything in advance and dictate outcomes from the top down without being able to take into account the circumstances of individual cases, turns out well.
The unpleasant truth is that if you live in a community whose members are not good people, you won't have good outcomes, no matter what kind of system you design.
The unpleasant truth is that if you live in a community whose members are not good people, you won't have good outcomes
Again, the quandary is that if you live in a community whose members are "good" people, you also won't have good outcomes. That's the nature of people. They are not "bad" or "good". They are just humans. Their actions are sometimes "bad", sometimes "good", but rarely are their actions consistently the one or the other. That's just the nature of being human. In fact, it's the entire reason we talk about "justice" in the first place.
> if you live in a community whose members are "good" people, you also won't have good outcomes
I disagree. Historically there are plenty of examples of communities that have managed to get along for extended periods with reasonably good outcomes. What we humans don't (yet) have a good handle on is how to protect such communities against invasion from outside--other people outside the communities just won't leave them alone, but insist on trying to make them part of some larger social experiment.
There is definitely such a thing as moral virtue or character. Maybe "bad" and "good" are too simplistic but there are definitely more virtuous and less virtuous humans
Unfortunately, so does thinking that the alternative, trying to have governments spell out everything in advance and dictate outcomes from the top down without being able to take into account the circumstances of individual cases, turns out well.
The unpleasant truth is that if you live in a community whose members are not good people, you won't have good outcomes, no matter what kind of system you design.