[Raak] To add to that, I typed up the relevant bit of the Singer argument, which is here for a short while.

er... and hopefully your browser will word wrap that.

Brad DeLong's follow-up to Belle Waring's post is pretty good, too.

[Breadmaster] Am I right in presuming you will be in the philosophy department at NUS? I ask as a big fan of the John Holbo/Belle Waring blog...

Raak recommending C.S. Lewis? There's a thing. For what it's worth, I was under the impression that libertarianism was a political stance, not a moral philosophy.
[CdM] That's right. But what is this blog? Actually, right now I'm mired in indecision, wondering whether going to Singapore would be the right thing to do or not. I'm not certain I want to be an academic, but that's what it would basically channel me into. Plus, of course, being away from my girlfriend for a long time would be a bad thing. I hate making decisions!

[Projoy] Singer is advocating relativism about property. Property is whatever local custom and law says it is. If local custom and law says the government owns your whole salary, why, that's just how it is. They can own your firstborn, or you yourself. That's the social contract you somehow accepted when you got born, and any silly idea you have about owning things that the government says you can't is just an illusion. The government owns everything it provides, and it owns everything it needs to take from you to provide it. Lest you think I'm exaggerating, I have actually heard someone argue (before the Wall came down) that East Germany was perfectly justified in shooting people attempting to escape, because such people were stealing the upbringing and education that the state had given them, and which therefore gave the state a property interest in their person. Singer even comes straight out and says "A system of government is conceptually prior to property rights." Who's ignoring human nature now? I mean, most larger animals behave like they have some sort of idea of "my stuff", never mind human beings, and they don't have governments to enforce the idea, they do it themselves. In just about any political philosophy but Singer's, governments are instituted to secure pre-existing property rights.
       A key concept in discussions of libertarianism is, "Utopia is not an option", so when Belle Waring brings in "libertarian utopia" I pretty much lose interest, even though she's recounting a discussion involving David Friedman. The wishful thinking can be found just as much on the other sides. Look here to see what you can do to Make Poverty History: email the PM, send postcards, sign a petition (of breathtaking fatuity), wear a white ribbon, and "call for change and make it happen"! Let's wish for government to give everyone a pony! At least Singer gives 20% of his income to charity.
       [CdM again, re Brad deLong] Go back to those earlier writers and ask them to imagine a world without servants. Go back earlier and ask people to imagine a world without slaves, or (say, in mediaeval Europe) a world without Christianity. You would get the same incredulity as you do at present asking most people to imagine a world without government.
       [Bm] I see it as a political stance grounded in the moral philosophy that everyone has a duty to take responsibility for themselves and their actions, and to make the very best of what they're given by fate, nobody else owing them anything but what they freely choose to give. That is not by any means the whole of morality -- it is largely disjoint from the Tao admirably expounded by C.S. Lewis in the book I mentioned -- but I regard it as an essential part of the whole.