Making the argument for about baby/toddler rape so casually, without mentioning the consequences (psychological trauma/humiliation and physical mutilation followed by re-constructive surgery) might have something to do with it. No, no we must justify such a position through technicalities and moral equivalence fallacies.
Use this thread for reference, see if it answers some of your questions. I think Baawa adressed this topic proficiently.
a foetus on its own will never in the future be able to give consent, since it requires shelter in a womb (not on its own) and material sustenance(food/oxygen i.e. not ‘on its own’).
so the challenge is to amp up the sophistication of the argument. to make finer distinctions.
What about a 20-year-old whose body you dismember? Obviously, she can’t bring a case to the court. Is that also not illegal?
you are estopped against claiming rights against being dismembered/otherwise killed by others. (since historically your person violated the rights of a rational 20-year old person)
In other words might makes right.
I do not understand.
yea I was hoping to know what conclusions Spidey came to on that regard. Also how social contract is still unjustified where raip is somehow.
No, but either side would think one of the outcomes was just and the other unjust. The state gives them a possibility of changing the rules to the “just” one, while a lack of state will mean that the final answer depends on the arbiter.
Also, a few people have said that morality is subjective. If that is so, then what right have we to limit another person’s aggression? If I think there is no moral objection to enslaving someone, then I can do so and unless you are the one enslaved you have no right to stop me.
They could subjectively not accept your actions.
Very persuasive, I agree. [;)]
LS - the Block / Kinsella position that Daniel is talking about is nuanced, but I believe it is a sound argument. I will try to put it in my own words but I implore you to read Kinsella and Block on this issue. I believe this uncomfortable area of libertarianism - parental obligations - has been solved, from a practical, legal perspective. Child rape is illegal, and so is child neglect, under libertarian law.
Abandonment / Continual Homesteading Theory
Imagine a land area made up of numerous allotments. Each one is being tended carefully by their owners, growing food. Except one allotment. This allotment is overgrown with weeds and litter and is a disgrace to the neighbours. The owner is a man named Bob, and no one has seen him for 5 years. The neighbours have tried to contact him, but he has vanished. One neighbour, Alice, decides that enough is enough, she is going to assume ownership of Bob’s allotment, clear it up and grow food on it. Is this an act of aggression by Alice? If Bob turns up the next day and accuses Alice of aggressing against his property, is Alice guilty, under libertarian law?
Maybe, but maybe not. If Bob’s absence had been 5 days, rather than 5 years, clearly this would be aggression. But what if it had been 20 years, or 100 years? What if Bob’s grandson suddenly appears to claim his land? Does the libertarian court award the allotment to Bob’s grandson, or to the current owner, Alice’s granddaughter? There has to be a boundary somewhere; there has to be some time when we say ‘this allotment has been abandoned’. Determining exactly how long it takes for an allotment to be abandoned is a continuum problem, to be solved by market competition between courts.
In some sense, then, Bob has a ‘positive obligation’ to maintain his land - otherwise he may lose it if someone else is claiming it. In a way, he must continually homestead his property - otherwise he loses his rights to keep the land.
Applied to Children
Block applies this idea of abandonment / continual homesteading (I think that’s my term, not Block’s) to children. Parents own the rights to bring up their child, because they homesteaded that right. But if a parent abuses or neglects the child, it may lose the right to bring up the child. The parents must continually homestead the right to bring up the child, if they want to keep it. If someone else is claiming it (for example a ‘Friends of Babies’ organization), they may have a better claim to the upbringing rights of the child. Specifically, when a libertarian court declares ‘this child has been abandoned’.
“The only way to attain homestead rights to the child after giving birth to it is to bring it up in a reasonable manner. Were the parents to instead abuse their child, this would not at all be compatible with homesteading it. If so, they would lose all rights to continue to keep the child”. (Block, bold mine)
The libertarian courts will have to work out a boundary delineating what is reasonable and what is not. This is no different to a court determining what is a reasonable claim to have homesteaded an allotment, or how long before an allotment is to be considered abandoned. Neglecting a child for 10 minutes does not constitute abandonment, but neglecting it for a week while it starves to death certainly does. The courts will decide, and since the courts are competing for customers, no reputable court will set the boundary at the extremes of 10 minutes neglect, or one week neglect, because most people (I conjecture) believe that the proper time when a child should be rescued from neglectful parents woud lie somewhere in between these extremes. No court will want to have a reputation for taking abused or neglected children from their parents too soon, or too late, or when the abuse/neglect is only mild.
The Scenario
So here’s how things would go:
- Bob rapes his 3 year old daughter.
- Evidence of the rape is discovered, by chance, by a nursery nurse.
- The nurse calls the ‘Friends of Babies’ organization.
- ‘Friends of Babies’ knock at Bob’s door and start asking him questions. Bob starts getting nervous, but denies it. Friends of Babies are confident in their assessment that Bob’s lying, so they break into his house and forcibly remove the child from him.
- Bob calls his PDA, telling them an evil gang has taken his child away from him, for no good reason.
- Bob’s PDA investigates. There’s a trial. If Bob is found innocent, ‘Friends of Babies’ are guilty of child kidnap. If Bob is found guilty, the libertarian court declares that, by raping his child, Bob loses the right to continue bringing it up. Rape is not consistent with homesteading the right to bring up a child, so Bob’s right to bring up his daughter is declared abandoned. The court awards the right to bring up the child to the other claimant: the Friends of Babies organization.
- The Friends of Babies organization rehomes the child, perhaps with a relative, or finds adoptive parents for it.
- Friends of Babies publicizes the fact that Bob is a child rapist. He is added to all the (privately-produced) sex offenders registers. Voluntary actions, such as boycotts of Bob, make Bob’s life a misery.
The rest of the scenario I have not read about anywhere, but I think the scenario would continue thusly:
- Bob’s daughter grows up and claims self-ownership.
- If she wants restitution or retribution for being raped as a child, she may bring a claim against her father. The libertarian court will decide on a suitable punishment for Bob, for the crime of child rape.
- The burden of proof to show that the sex was consentual (should Bob wish to make this defense) will be prima facie on Bob. He will have to prove that his daughter made an informed decision to have sex. No sensible court would be convinced of this in the case of a 3 year old.
If ethics are subjective, what meaning do (normative) “rights” have? Normative rights being universally valid - as your question supposes - necessarily implies that ethics are not subjective.
To get to the bottom of this, take it back to a desert island with only three people. “What right does A have to limit B’s aggression against C?” Forget about normative “rights.” The question is, if you were A, what would you do? Whatever your own morality and self-interest dictate. In that situation, thinking in terms of normative rights just complicates the issue, unless we are thinking in the context of there being a monopoly State. Then rights are a very useful persuasive concept! (e.g., Declaration of Independence) The concept of normative/objective/natural rights is useful for rallying people to petition their overlords for redress, or as persuasive concepts for inciting them to revolution, because most people are prone to believe, “What’s right is right. End of story!”
AJ. Stop pulling out red herrings. I don’t even necessarily defend or attack objective or subjective, but to demean what you fail to understand is only making things worse. You are NOT helping - AT ALL - with statements like this. This is the kind of shit that does make me angry, and why people that swing in here making these off the cuff comments in posts do nothing to help liberty - at all.
Ahem. Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.
trulib, that is pretty good, but I think that the court can go further. I wrote out half a response to spidey when I was at work today and will try to finish it out now and explain. The problem with his “theory” is that he has no basis for distinguishing between a man who is asleep, or a child, or a man in a coma, or a concious, rational man who can protest his rights being violated right then.
I’d like to see you tackle his thought, rather than evading. Please do so. I’d so enjoy watching you flail around.
That’s still not the argument from authority fallacy. Quite frankly, you should know what Block’s position is, after being here for quite a while. If you do not, more’s the pity for you that you haven’t picked up anything in this length of time.
What is there to tackle? Daniel Muffinburg simply begged the question as to whether there is a responsibility for parents to maintain their child.
No, he didn’t.