Then the PL would have to demonstrate it, rather than Merely Asserting and Merely Asserting In Different Words.
It can’t spontaneously order the orbit of planets.
The prisoners dilemma is the explanation as to why we even have a sense of justice. The principle that the the prisoners dilemma is based on is that if you have a system which entails reputation (our’s does), and there’s a likely chance of repeat interactions with the same individual (our’s does), then the best solution is to not defect if unprovoked (read: don’t initiate force), defect if provoked by previous defectors(read: retaliate) and forgive every once in a while so that you don’t enter a death spiral with someone else who uses the same strategy as you happens accidentally defect. This works even while the benefits of defecting while your opponent is cooperating because the benefits of cooperation over the long run will make you better off, and the cost of the increased likelihood of people defecting against you offsets any gains you made by defecting against others. This lines up perfectly with the NAP. The NAP is most beneficial strategy to my life, and it’s been baked into my genetics for good reason, and if you also want you’re life to benefit, you should use it as well. That is the basis of justice.
Rothbard claims no such thing as the preborn baby not owning itself. He merely says that it indeed does not own the mother. An abortion would consist solely of the mother disconnecting the baby from itself and dispelling it. she wouldn’t have the right to stab it in the process.
It can’t order the planets, you are correct. Neither can a government, which I also brought up. My point is that the proof of a minarchy is to find a situation that a government CAN resolve that a free market CANNOT. The situation I brought up was an attempt to do so, but I feel it has been refuted. While this isn’t the only situation I have thought might fit the bill, it is the only one I feel like posting tonight.
I’d hate to think my first post was responsible for a flamewar, esp. given the top story on the mises.org main page the day I posted it. Can we tone down the personal attacks?
Welcome to the forums! I was a devout minarchist just about a year ago too, please don’t be embarrassed.
What does “he takes measures to prevent her from doing so” mean? Killing the abortionist? Would he have to kill the entire abortionist staff, plus any police officers that show up during this rampage? After he kills the abortionist, then what? He can’t let the mother go, because won’t she seek another abortion? Would he kidnap her and hold her in a dungeon until the baby arrives? Does he provide medical services himself? What kind of doctor would come to the dungeon to deliver the baby? Then, does PL raise the baby?
I am pro-life, but if we expand on what it means to “take measures” to prevent an abortion, it gets rather sticky, doesn’t it? I believe we can counsel the person (if the woman is open to it), and then grieve for the dead baby if the abortion occurs anyway, but “taking measures” as noted above cannot be justified, even outside the anarcho-cap framework, can it?
The government solution is to simply annihilate all those who oppose it. That is not much of a solution.
Hi and welcome
I wouldn’t go with that argument. C has no claim whatsoever to initiate force against A unless B agrees in some way, thus making C his agent. B has every right to not agress against A and C would violate B’s right to do so by agressing against A in the name of C or whomever.
First of all, murder is physical force that kills another human being that has not initiated aggression against the murderer. There are several other ways a second person can suffer harm from another human being, that is not murder. Think of someone drowning and a person, standing on a bridge, does not throw a life belt down to him. Morally that might be evil, but it is by no way murder. You as a rich person, compared with a peasant in, say, Somalia, are not responible of his starvation, even if you have the means (money) to safe him.
In short, not acting is never aggression, it might be morally wrong though, but this question has to be dealt with at another level, not the rights/violation of rights level.
A fetus can not survive out of itself. It needs resources of a third person. This person might be willing to share, or might not be willing to share. If the person declines to share, the fetus will die, which. I believe is morally wrong, but that is my private believe.
The idea that someone, once initated an aggression, becomes free prey for any other human being is absurd and leads straight to violent collectivism. If I am aggressed against, I, and no one else, decide what the appropriate reaction is. Shooting a kid in the back for stealing a bubble gum is not, because the property a kid has in its own life is worth more than the loss of a chewing gum.
Fortunately all those made up examples lack one important aspekt. Men are not devils kept out of constant murdering only through a strong benevolent and superior power, but social beings that do not usually strive to extinct themselves. There is always a force inside men that pulls them into the ways of social bonds rather than mass murdering.
To me, as a christian, Aquinas made the point very well, we are creatures of god and therefor good at the core, though with the capability to be evil. The bible states that when god made the living things, one category a day, he looked at his work each evening saying it was good what he’d done. On the sixth day, when he created men, he looked at his work and said it is “very good”. No need for any Hobbesian Leviathan to be our superior preventing us from killing off mankind.
I’d suggest you listen to Walter Blocks lecture on Abortion (Evictionism) which takes further steps to elaborate on his position, and ultimately reaches the proper Libertarian one. Also this.
Having attended a variety of births, I guess the price must be pretty high, given the pain inflicted. And here the free market would kick in. The more women get pregnant only for money (supply) the less the price eventually will be. So we wouldn’t see a breeding surplus I guess.
Oh and regarding the PL argument that a fetus has a right to live parasitic. The libertarian position to rights is, that there are no positive rights - means rights to life etc.- there are only negative rights like the right not to be aggressed against.
Yes, and you should have noted by my example that there simply isn’t an such situation. Trying to carve out a place for government is the same as carving out a place for faith; both are trying to escape facts.
There are some things that are fundamental problems of the human condition. For example, if I am on an island and a buff guy controls all the water, I am completely screwed government or no.
Instead of asking “how will anarchy handle X” we should be asking “how would anarchy handle X compared to how the state would handle it”. Notice I say would and not could. Obviously it is physically possible for both paradigms to achieve anything; after all we have free will. An anarchy could dissolve into total chaos or become a technological utopia. Similarly with a state. The real issue is how likely these outcomes are given certain organizational structures.
The case for anarchy has already been given, but let me point out that the state is never the solution to anything. You can’t trust an entity which is judge in its own case, especially if that entity has a monopoly on legislation (the foundation of society) and enforcement. Would you ever agree to a contract in which the other person had the right to interpret the contract however they wanted? No one in real life ever agrees to this sort of thing…
Note that the state doesn’t really solve any of the problems people typically point out in anarchy, such as that PDAs will do battle… there are good reasons why they probably won’t, but we can turn around and say that states might do battle too. The deciding factor is which one is more likely to fight. The organization which has to pay for all its costs and can lose customers, or the folks who can externalize their costs and have a captive consumer base?
First of all, it is up to the two parties how to resolve the difference. If they went to arbitration, and I was the arbitrator, I would say that person A has no standing, since the baby has no rights, in my opinion, and that the mother is the owner of the baby, and as such has the right to terminate its life.
BTW, I think the idea that there will be PDAs is ridiculous.
I’ve been over your ridiculous position that children have no rights before. Lay this out clearly for me please. Why do you (or the mother who wants to rape/kill her child) have rights in the first place?
I have rights because I have the ability to think critically and to communicate with other humans. Same with the mother.
Regardless of what you think philosophically, wouldn’t you pick a PDA that gave some rights to babies even if they were just the result of human instinct an emotion? Or would you say beep I am a robot. I will follow my interpretation of libertarianism to a T. beep.
Why would I fund an organization that might take away my rights as a parent?
So, you have no rights when asleep?
It is a trade off. You are hiring private police, not a personal mafia. It is a shared protection or distribution of risk.
As an arbitrator, I would say one does not lose his/her rights just because s/he is asleep.
Yeah but, you’re not going to exercise all your libertarian rights to their fullest extent. So if you would never pound your fists into your stomach if you were pregnant, you wouldn’t mind if they took that right away from their clients…