Let us begin with a thought experiment and then proceed to discharge its potential ramifications on legal theory.
An individual hires another individual to act as though they are undergoing an immense amount of pain via their employer. The hired individual thus acts in a manner that would fool any observer into thinking they are actually undergoing an enormous amount of pain up until they perform a certain, prearranged, action (like giving up their wallet, etc). The individual perpetrator then gingerly turns to an unknowing observer and asks if they may “have their wallet”. The observer yields to the request under the false assumption that if they do not they will be harmed (as the actor was). What crime, if any, has been committed? There is much to unpack within this simple analogy and has much potential for libertarian theory. Much has been written on the cause and determination of what constitutes a threat. It is my opinion that the term “threat” is unrealized and weightless concept that has no bearing on libertarian legal theory… From here the libertarian mind may begin asking which situations of threat carry accountability. For example, if I point a gun at you we have ventured into a realm of higher threat. After all, who would blame an individual who killed an individual who was pointing a gun at them? Surely any arbitration company would sympathize with such a decision given the proximity of immediate concern. Yet, again we are left unsatisfied…Let us take for example the fact that a gun must, by definition, point at something. The mere fact that it points at the individual is as much a function of the individuals’ position as the guns position. Given a direct line of site at any point within a three-dimensional sphere there are only but so many ways a guns direct line of sight may point. Let us imagine a room of a many individuals (one of them particularly over weight), if we imagine a gun within the room also, of the finite ways upon which to point the gun, the overweight individuals is proportionally more likely to have the gun pointed at them. Forgetting the gun, let us imagine a knife and a multiple individuals within proximity. Again, there is only but so many places upon which to point the knife without directly being within a direct threatening manner. This is as true for the back alleys as it is for the dinner table. Think of how many time a steak knife is pointed at the various individuals within company of a dinner table. If one were to say that a steak knife is by definition used for cutting steak and thus should be allowed such movement, then I will say that a buck knife presented in such a manner has just as much to be within a back alley given its various purposes. Again, the source of such a threat (the gun, knife or clown costume) comes second to the will of the property owner. It is the property owner’s decision of what constitutes a threat, what action is unacceptable that is relevant to legal theory…
You need paragraphs, and it was hard to parse your scenario with your choice of words.
I don’t see any problem naming both A and B as threat makers here. They presented a situation where B seems to be ready to inflict pain if C doesn’t do what A asks. You even included B performing the action of handing over his wallet. B might not be culpable if he was lead to believe that he was acting in a movie, but I am assuming that nobody else is around.
Thank you for the referral to the Kinsella article, it is printing as I type
You stated,
“I don’t see any problem naming both A and B as threat makers here. They presented a situation where B seems to be ready to inflict pain if C doesn’t do what A asks. You even included B performing the action of handing over his wallet. B might not be culpable if he was lead to believe that he was acting in a movie, but I am assuming that nobody else is around”
I’m not sure I am explaining my analogy very well. Can we agree that there is no crime in individual A hiring individual B to pretend that he is being hurt? Can we agree that no one else needs to be aware of such an agreement, namely individual C? Therefore, we have individual B putting on a dramatic show, playing the part of a victim, for any surrounding viewers. Individual B relinquishes his wallet to individual A as planned, at which point the “supposed” pain ends. Individual A then turns to individual C and asks if he may have his wallet. Individual C feels threatened, and gives it to him.
Simply asking for someone’s wallet is not an infringement upon their liberty (at least not in the strict sense of this scenario), so what is the crime?
The knife, gun portion of the essay is but a fraction of the rambling that goes into my ruff draft writings
I’m not sure I am explaining my analogy very well. Can we agree that there is no crime in individual A hiring individual B to pretend that he is being hurt?
Sure, nothing seems wrong with this by itself. It still sounds like A is trying to depict a mugging of B in order to in turn mug C, whomever it is that walks onto the scene. When a dispossession can be proven to have taken place, the intentions of the disseisor must be called into question.
Can we agree that no one else needs to be aware of such an agreement, namely individual C?
I am assuming that after C walks into the threatening scene, A does in fact accept C’s wallet and watch him scamper away. C is not made aware that A and B are just playacting.
If A immediately breaks from character and says, “My apologies sir, B and I were just practicing our drama and you happened to step into the place where our other actor will be.”, it would be hard for C to then make a case that A (and maybe B) threatened to rob him.
Simply asking for someone’s wallet is not an infringement upon their liberty (at least not in the strict sense of this scenario), so what is the crime?
It doesn’t matter if you get on one knee and ask in a very nice manner for someone’s wallet if you are still pointing a gun at them. In this case, you are again giving the appearance of having the intention to inflict injury if the victim doesn’t agree to give up his property.
Simply asking for someone’s wallet is not an infringement upon their liberty (at least not in the strict sense of this scenario), so what is the crime?
It doesn’t matter if you get on one knee and ask in a very nice manner for someone’s wallet if you are still pointing a gun at them. In this case, you are again giving the appearance of having the intention to inflict injury if the victim doesn’t agree to give up his property.
I don’t like this scenario. There will be some disputes over choice of language but, I’m not sure that someone has the right to feel threatened if that threat translates into coercion. To feel threatened is of course subjective and conditional on many levels of the human physique. But it would be considered positive obligations on our part to guarantee another human being not feel threatened by our action or to cease an action because another human being feels threatened. Given this, I know there are some extreme situations where this theory would seem a disappointment, like the one you mentioned where a gun is being pointed. Even this, I believe I have a solution (as arrogant as that seems).
Under a theory of Absolute Rights to Property and Explicit Contracting (though longwinded, see here and here) i think we could eliminate the bulk of these loop-hole-thought-experiments.