And Although It Might Be Best Of

Our Main Conclusions About The State Are That A Minimal State, Limited, To The Narrow Functions Of Protection Against Force, Theft, Fraud, Enforcement Of Contracts, And So On, Is Justified, But Any More Extensive State Will Violate Persons' Rights Not To Be Forced To Do Certain Things, And Is Unjustified; And That The Minimal State Is Inspiring As Well As Right.

Philosophical Argument, Trying To Get Someone To Believe Something Whether He Wants To Believe It Or Not, Is Not, I Have Held, A Nice Way To Behave Towards Someone; Also It Does Not Fit The Original Motivation For Studying Or Entering Philosophy. That Motivation Is Puzzlement, Curiousity, A Desire To Understand, Not A Desire To Produce Uniformity Of Belief. Most People Do Not Want To Become Thought-police. The Philosophical Goal Of Explanation Rather Than Proof Not Only Is Morally Better, It Is More In Accord With One's Philosophical Motivation.

It Is, From Another Angle, An Attack On Requiring Proof In Philosophy. And It's Also The Case, I Guess, That My Temperament Is To Like Interesting, New, Bold Ideas, And To Try And Generate Them.

Suppose There Were An Experience Machine That Would Give You Any Experience You Desired. Superduper Neuropsychologists Could Stimulate Your Brain So That You Would Think And Feel You Were Writing A Great Novel, Or Making A Friend, Or Reading An Interesting Book. All The Time You Would Be Floating In A Tank, With Electrodes Attached To Your Brain. Should You Plug Into This Machine For Life, Preprogramming Your Life Experiences?...of Course, While In The Tank You Won't Know That You're There; You'll Think That It's All Actually Happening...would You Plug In?

One Way To Determine If A View Is Inadequate Is To Check Its Consequences In Particular Cases, Sometimes Extreme Ones, But If Someone Always Decided What The Result Should Be In Any Case By Applying The Given View Itself, This Would Preclude Discovering It Did Not Correctly Fit The Case. Readers Who Hold They Would Plug In To The Machine Should Notice Whether Their First Impulse Was Not To Do So, Followed Later By The Thought That Since Only Experiences Could Matter, The Machine Would Be All Right After All.