Just because someone finds something is abhorrent, do you think it should be illegal?
Your question does not follow. You said violating the rights of someone else is abhorrent to some. And then, “Does this mean it also shouldn’t be illegal”? Which is the same as, “does this mean it also should be legal”? I did not say that because someone finds something is abhorrent, it should be legal.
You are correct, I got my negatives mixed up. Let me try to re-explain.
Killing animals, gay sex, and rights violations are all considered immoral by some people and moral by others. Is there some reason why the first two should be legal, while the third should not be? And if we grant that all should either be legal or illegal, since they are simply moral judgements, then we must either restrict the killing of animals, forcibly separate two men having sex, and uphold people’s rights… or we must allow people to kill animals, allow men to have sex with each other, and allow violations of people’s rights. Who draws the line?
By “abhorrent,” I meant to include things that most people (even libertarians) probably think should be illegal.
Thanks for that, but all axioms are of course dependent on definitions. All logical systems are axioms + definitions. The NAP can be interpreted as a guiding principle OR as an axiom. My comments are meant to apply to the instances when it’s interpreted as an axiom.
I would say that “immoral” is included in the definition and concept of “violating rights.” Rights are here generally being discussed in the normative sense, rather than the de facto sense or the legal sense (except Spidey, who I think may be speaking of rights in the legal sense).
If that’s Spidey’s starting point, as well as “Things and people that can’t think critically are homesteadable as property,” then - with the definition of “owning property” including the idea that an owner can rightfully do anything he wants with his property - we arrive at his infamous conclusions which need no elaboration from me.
Including themselves, I assume…right?
So how is majority opinion relevant to truth? Or do you think the market panders just to the majority?
Let me put it this way: Start from any absolute, universal axioms you like and reason validly from them, and you will eventually arrive at something YOU yourself find morally heinous, awful, unthinkable, absurd. I cannot prove this, for obvious reasons (I have no idea what you value - maybe there is nothing you find absurd), but that is essentially what I’m suggesting.
Spidey, the market doesn’t pander to the majority, but not everybody will find a service they feel fits what they want. In order for a business to be economically feasible, it has to provide products or services at a price marginally lower than its customers value them, but marginally higher than the costs of supplying them. Because of the U shape of cost curves, there are points where the costs outweigh the consumer value of something - at these points, businesses will not produce. This is why you don’t have, for example, a roasted skunk restaurant - while some people would be willing to pay for them, it wouldn’t be enough to make it economically feasible to offer on the market. Only if enough people wanted roasted skunk, or those that did were willing to pay extremely high prices, would the market provide it.
So, while it is feasible that an arbitration service would arise that would favor infanticide, you probably couldn’t afford it.
Do you have any empirical evidence? Or is that just conjecture? Are you sure it is not just because there is absolutely no one that values eating roasted skunk? Is that why no one eats feces? Just too expensive to serve?
Really? And the reason again as to why it would be so much more expensive to defend infanticide in a court as opposed to anything else would again be? Or is this just more conjecture on your part to “prove” your point?
Spideynw has applied conditions to Rothbard’s axiom of self-ownership, one of two axioms used to develop the NAP.
Spideynw’s two conditions:
The being may be any sentient being rather than just human.
The being must be able to reason.
Rothbard has covered children under “potential self-ownership”, conceding that children are not able to reason as well or not at all compared to adults. He has not, however, stripped the child of self-ownership. Parents act as agents of the child, and must not aggress against the child.
Some suggest that disciplining a child, bathing a child, or any number of things that may cause the child to cry or to resist from the action, such as feeding, is aggression. How does a reasonable parent know whether or not an action is agression?
One simple method of determining whether an act is agression is to apply the act to an adult human. Murder is aggression, killing may or may not be aggression depending on the circumstances. Rape is involuntary by definition - as is having sex with someone who is unconscious. Sex must be consentual. Force or the threat of force is aggression. And so on.
The parent, in the capacity of agent, has also voluntarily accepted a role that requires more that just the application of the NAP. Incest, whether it’s consentual or not, is wrong. This is a moral rather than a legal concept. As agent to the child, the parent has voluntarily accepted the role of developing both the logical and moral character of the child in order that potential self-ownership may develop into self-ownership with respect for the NAP and having some form of morals.
The argument then goes to what morals are deemed suitable. This depends a lot upon the culture, and may even be subjective. If incest is not immoral in a culture, then parents would be permitted to have sex with their own offspring as long as it is consentual.
So you do not agree that consent implies reasoning abilities? If you do agree that consent implies reasoning abilities, are you saying babies can reason? If you do not agree, then is it not just as wrong to do things to animals without getting consent? I mean, they can consent to being pet and stuff. So how is killing them, without getting their consent, just as wrong?
Would you agree forcibly bathing another adult is aggression? What about forcibly changing another adult’s clothing? What about forcibly locking an adult in a room? How about forcing another adult into your car?
This would be aggression, but parents are allowed to do things which would be otherwise illegal because they aid the child in reaching a state of moral agency.
Bathing children is helping them.
Changing their clothes is helping them.
Confinement can be justified for various reasons.
This is very simple.
And it is not subjective how?
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Yeah, I think there is a lot of “being arbitrary” going on in this thread, and in these types of discussions on the forums in general. It seems to me a necessary consequence of trying to reason from simple but absolute starting axioms.
When you paint human moral interactions with a broad brush you’re bound to need to go back and make corrections - in this case that would be all these ad hoc, arbitrary, and/or subjective revisions and additions to the basic axioms. And you will have to keep on doing it, over and over again. 20 years of hard revision later there will still be logically necessary results of your theory (a theory, let us remember, that is intended to be absolute) that will revolt even you. Either that or at some point you will call it good, live with the implications and maybe even fool yourself into thinking you don’t find them so abhorrent. That’s simply the nature of the program of trying to design absolute ethical precepts.
We can reason that they want short term needs alleviated, such as hunger and sleep. And no babies cannot reason, that would imply they could know why they are hungry or why they are tired, or see differences in degrees of hunger and so forth. The axiom I’m assuming is that a baby cries when it doesn’t get what it wants, this allows for empiricism. So its a slam dunk when you agree with what the baby wants. When you don’t agree such as the case of a bath, you need a moral argument. I should wash the baby because cleanliness is a requirement of health and health is in accordance with my role as a gaurdian.
Well I would say its wrong to eat a pet which possesses a similar guardianship element.
Arbitration has arbitrary elements to the proceedings. Is that all you have as an objection? Go ahead and show me some “non-subjective alternative”, if that is your bone of contention.
There are continuum problems for sure. Rape and murder of innocent children is clearly evil though. It could be a more interesting discussion if you concede that children have rights. Also, this whole argument of yours assumes that the pedophile father doesn’t have a wife or she doesn’t care about his actions, making your hypo even less important.
But they do as self-property.
No. Two people provided the material for the child, and one person carried the child. There is simply no possible way that a community could own the child.
This would be aggression, but people are allowed to do things that are otherwise illegal because they aid others.
Bathing adults is aiding them.
Changing an adults clothes is helping them.
Confinement can be justified for various reasons.
This is very simple.
Indeed. You’ve fabricated this question about defining an obvious line of when a child’s rights are violated. It is entirely a strawman design to allegedly prove a point. It is a question you constructed which supposedly disproves the “Guardianship” camp. The question does not prove or disprove your thesis however. What it does prove though is that you subscribe to a dichotomy that children’s rights can either be violated or that they cannot, by either existing or not. The belief that there is a distinct line in every child related action which can be defined as a violation of rights or not.
Inter-human relations are not so clearly defined so it seems a double standard that you expect inter-human-child relations to be so clearly defined.
Your whole argument fumbles however when the logical application of property rules are applied to human beings. Such is, the right to homestead non-rational agents by your criteria.
First the criteria is arbitrary, and homesteading people is arbitrary. Your mindset in this regard seems primitive and you are so stubborn about the discussion you seem unwillingly to see how other alternative views may accommodate you further in your personal conflicts about raising children.
The truth of the matter is your entire premise is built apon an assertion. You may call it axiomatic but it is simply an opinion you hold. It is not self evident as Human Action is. It is simply an assertion, that you will be incapable of proving to be correct logically. Since, in this regard, you desire to work outside of the realm of logic. I cannot continue to debate it.
The truth is I do not have the logical aptitude at defending the “Guardianship” concept and I don’t even know if that is the correct answer. I am not stuck on this notion that there is a single absolute in the way of raising children. Still I know that your entire premise is just as much of an assertion as mine. So for the reasons I cannot argue my own assertion, I cannot accept yours. Both ours are simply assertions, and I would prefer to live in a world where chiildren are respected. Disciplined, and addressed accordingly as children yes, but respected and loved.
Despite your warm heart your premise paves the path of a world where humans can be discarded proprerty and dealt with as much. You cannot claim that children are property, by your premise, without also accepting that various mental states of humans of all ages could be subject to homesteading as property.
Further more your criteria for a rational-agent is entirely arbitrary as man has not the tools for measuring ones competency of various sorts. Modern testing is some of the most arbitrary testing around. There are 8 year olds who are more adept than 23 year olds. There are 40 year old adults who have less mental, and responsible capacity than their 18 year old cousins. Not to say that those 40 year olds are not intelligent and do not offer something of value under the division of labor, but that they were raised fostered under a different environment.
If we hold your premise as a truism our decisions of who is and who is not homesteadable becomes entirely arbitrary. It also becomes un-economical if alleged non-rational agents are removed from the division of labor.
So while I may not be able to argue much more for the “Guardianship” camp, I can at least say that your premise fails far more in nearly all aspects. In definition, and in practice. Your whole argument makes little sense.
I only hope you understand my concerns about your thesis and would be willing to address them. Though I have asked about these concerns numerous times and you have been quick to skip them.