[doucy]

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If your stance is "I am against A because it is coercive, and because the values gained from using coercion are low" that's not the same as "I am against A because it is coercive." I don't see any problem with assuming that lack of coercion is the only good thing relevant to the discussion.

[/ QUOTE ] Well than the statement "I am against A because it is coercive" simply begs the question: In basically all cases of coercion, somebody is coerced for/in order to bring about something that many other people think is valuable, and usually correctly so (positive liberty, stability, equal substantive self-ownership, efficiency, art, education, defense, safety, public health, protection from human rights abuse abroad, utility etc.) and sometimes even for things that the person being coerced themselves think is valuable (this is the case during coercive actions that solve prisoner's dilemmas, coordination problems, weakness of will problems, tragedies of the anti-commons, etc.). That's why they are coerced!

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I disagree with the point you're making. Let's use the example of public education.

Some authority charges you $x for public education. You are willing to pay $y. If x > y, then you are being coerced into paying for something that you don't want to pay for. Sure, you are still getting something "good" in that you will benefit from the education, but it is coming at a cost that is not worth it to you. In this way, your net utility decreases.

But then you might ask "but what about all those people for whom y > x?" Those people would pay for the education whether the authority mandated it or not. So although the authority is still requiring those people to pay for it, they really aren't doing any coercing, since the people would pay for it anyway.

In this way, coercion cannot be a good thing under any circumstances, because coercion must ALWAYS decrease the individual's net utility, regardless of the other values at stake.