sc94597 said:
Ethics is used to justify decisions. So the key word is indeed "justification", which theory of ethics enables one to create a state? For example, one can argue on a utilitarian basis that the existence of the state benefits more people than there would otherwise be without a state. That is an normative claim, yes, but still falls within normative ethics, and if we speak of a specific situation it would fall within Applied ethics. |
While ethics are used for justifications, that doesn't mean you can have an intelligent discussion about justifications. What this would end up being is a back-and-forth about whether something is or isn't.
What any intelligent discussion on this topic will be about will NOT be about justification. It will be about the finer details themselves, which also somewhat disappears when there's no real defined state. Not everyone agrees on what constitutes a state. There is, at some point, a blurry line between state and non-state actors. That, in my opinion, becomes the second problem when trying to talk about this topic intellectually.
What are we using as the basis for defining a state? This quote from your OP is the reason why it's hard to even give an intelligent answer to the question in the OP to begin with.
"So my question is: how do states form, who is able to form them, and why do they represent the opinion of all individuals residing in a land, not only at the time of creation, but for generations afterwards? "
I'm thinking maybe your question really isn't about states themselves, but more about governments in general.
