On Voluntaryists III

A popular ethical thought experiment is the question of given the ability to time travel, would you kill baby Hitler? Allow me to nip this supposed quandary in the bud. The voluntaryist approaches this differently than a coercivist. Killing baby Hitler would prevent Hitler’s involvement with the Third Reich, but so would many other actions toward baby Hitler. For starters, you could simply kidnap and relocate him to an orphanage in America, or to the future. No bloodshed necessary. But further, consider his childhood, and the typical childhood of Germans at the time. They were filled with violence. No doubt this was a major contributing factor to the horrors that would come. Where did violent child rearing practices start in this culture? Alice Miller points to the 1860s, and the multi-edition parenting literature recommending violence. Sabotage the first and subsequent printings of these books, so that they never disseminate, and instead start peaceful parenting campaigns. I’m sure we can brainstorm all sorts of less to non-coercive solutions to the problem of Hitler (which probably followed the problem of Wilson). And that’s today’s two cents.