Agreed.
-Jon
And the jury would mostly likely agree with you. Good reason to have jury nullification, I suppose.
Suppose there was a world where noone would have to act to survive, everything is just available at the blink of an eye, so how many socialists, capitalists, environmentalists, bees, flies, humans, would engage in barter?
In short, the whole thought experiment is a fallacy. If you suppose something that is not existent -like the famous teacan that orbits around the sun- you can not prove anything. It is just absurd. Exaggeration does not change the basic principles at all.
The non-aggression principle holds as long as there is no paradies and if there is one it becomes obsolet. [:)]
Does that make sense?
Would you kill the holder if necessary?
No. More realistic examples have been given such as the boat example. It’s not hard to come up with them. Hiding from them doesn’t solve anything.
In order for the NAP to be some absolute universal truth, you would have to take the position that it would be wrong to save the guy’s life. If you are not willing to take that position, then you must admit that the NAP is not an absolute. You cannot say that it is right to save the guy’s life and that NAP is an absolute. That would be a contradiction because NAP says it’s wrong to save the guy’s life. It doesn’t get any more basic than this. So far, I have not seen this refuted. I’ve seen avoidance and obfuscation but I have not seen this refuted.
NAP is defeated as an absolute until someone takes the position that it is wrong to save the guy’s life and can defend that position. If there are no takers then, NAP remains defeated as an absolute. It doesn’t mean NAP is a bad thing or shouldn’t be used, it just means it’s not an absolute and really I thought that was always common sense.
The boat example? Well Rothbard, I think it was him… yes he was, explained the libertarian view on that pretty clear, so please look it up.
The problem is, giga, that intellectuals, such as those found here, are actually more comfortable being hypocrites in the system they espouse than they are having a less settled and simplistic system. Being a bunch of talkers who like to give snappy answers on forums and such, the response, “I don’t know, I’d have to think about it” is just unacceptable to them. They want to appear knowledgeable and principled, the things they, as intellectuals, value in people.
But seriously, I love you guys. I dis on you a lot, but I hang around because the level of discussion really is high. I’m just saying, on this one, you’re full of it. I did a thread just like this one awhile ago, and it pretty much came back to the same thing: everyone believes in the NAP, but noone would follow it in a situation where it was truly tested.
Giles, the problem of resistance to punishment is not isolated to this example; it is involved in any view which acknowledges that force may be used in some instances in order to enforce justice.
Niccolo, would you mind directing me to Kierkegaard’s discussion of the suspension of the ethical? I’m not sure that this example strikes me as such a situation, but I’d want to read exactly what Kierkegaard has to say about this sort of thing, since I’ve only heard about the idea from other people.
Nhaag, could you also direct me to the passage you’re talking about? I made up the boat example myself, so it would be pretty interesting to discover that Rothbard had already written about it!
Folsom, as one of those intellectuals, I take offense to that! [:D] Actually, I don’t think the problem you’ve cited is endemic to moral or political philosophers so much as people who aren’t actually moral or political philosophers, but who have read certain works in those disciplines and believe that they therefore know the Truth of the matter. Within the community of intellectuals who actually deal with these sorts of questions, you’ll find a whole lot less certainty than you tend to on these message boards, and for good reason: these questions aren’t simple! What this example illustrates is a scenario in which two of our deepest-held values are in direct conflict with each other. On one hand, the boat owner is acting despicably, and the consequence of that action, if force is not used, will be the death of a child, which would be extremely regrettable. So we feel a very strong desire to do something to save the child, and we are mortified by the boat-owner’s callousness. But on the other hand, we are faced with a situation where saving the child would require us to infringe upon the self-determination and property claims of the boat-owner, both of which he most certainly has a right to. Accordingly, we should feel conflicted. Does the significance of the negative consequences of inaction constitute a morally weighty enough reason to infringe on the rights of the boat owner? Some people would say yes, and others would say no. But I would argue that we don’t have a very good way to determine which of these is correct, since libertarian philosophy has no solid theory which deals with this question (implausible “you can never do anything like that ever!” and “you can do whatever you want as long as you compensate the victims” theories aside).
Donny, I actually don’t think the boat example is that controvertial. I think a vast majority of people would, if it were the only factor restraining them, violate the man’s property rights to save the boy. The actual expressed morality of humans (one might even say, the inherent [!] morality) seems to be unambiguously in that direction. Words are nice, but actions speak louder.
Well, certainly not all intellectuals, but yeah, I’ve seen the type. So apparently, the fear of not having an answer outweighs the fear of being a hypocrite for them. Unfortunately, it does not result in the person looking intelligent or knowledgeable and makes anarchism less convincing since you see a clear hypocricy and have to assume there may be other hypocricies if this one is allowed.
Maybe what the NAP absoluters are missing is that you don’t really lose anything when you admit the NAP is not absolute. Few ever believed it was anyway. It only made ancap harder to accept since everyone intuitively knew that it was not an absolute. People aren’t usually convinced of ancap by moral argument alone, anyway, as Donny likes to remind us. They need the practical side. Once they get the practical side, it seems like the rest almost falls into place automatically.
So really, NAP absoluters, you just need to let go.
There are NO situations – zero, zip, zlitch, nada, bupkis – were you will ever find it morally right to violate the rights and property of another UNLESS it is for self-defense against an AGGRESSOR. The man dying on a mountain is a sad situation indeed but that does not give his friends the right to steal something from someone else that might save his life. It is no more morally right to steal from the owner of the transporter than it is to let the man die. Only the property owner has the right to decide how their property is going to be used even in life boat situations where lives are at stake.
As asked by others how far are you willing to go to save this mans life? Theft? Assault? Murder? Fine. Go ahead and take the transporter. But when you steal that transporter from its owner, assault him and/or possibly murder him you could and should be held liable for your actions. If in the course of stealing that mans property you end up pushing him off the mountain then you and everyone responsible should be tried for murder, convicted, and executed for justice to be served.
The non-aggression principle is absolute, it is definite, it is unbendable. You do NOT, under ANY circumstance, have the right to violate another persons rights or property, UNLESS and this is the only exception, it is for SELF-DEFENSE against an AGGRESSOR.
If you try to steal that transporter from its owner he has the right to pull out a pistol and shoot you dead to protect his property and his life. The would be thieves are the aggressors not the man who refuses to allow them to use his transporter.
I know people want to use the emotional argument that “oh, but this man would have DIED if we didn’t knock that guy out and take his transporter!” but that does not prove that the NAP is false. All it proves is that you are a criminal and should be punished for your crimes.
Bad argument. It can be right to try to save someone’s life but wrong to aggress against anyone in the process. As Socrates would say, it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it.
I’m not an intellectual by any means but anarcho-capitalism is very simple and easy to understand. It all rest on property and the non-aggression principle.
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My property is my property and I alone have the right to decide how it is used.
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You do not have the right to violate my property, no matter the situation or the excuse, and if you do I have the right to protect my property with violence if need be.
That’s not very difficult to understand.
Your argument based off of emotions does nothing to disprove the NAP as being absolute. All it shows is that there are situation were you are willing to violate the rights and property of another. But justice demands that when you violate another’s property, even for a good and noble reason, you ought to be punished for your crime. Unless, of course, the person whose rights you violated decides to forgive your transgression, which is totally and completely their right.
There is no hypocracy there. It’s very consistent. Very absolute.
So, monkey, are you saying then that you would not take the transporter? Because, you are in the vast minority, if that is so. Also, you would be in the vast minority of people who would convict someone for doing so. And, I wonder, what is the value of a morality that almost no one will follow? Seems kinda silly to me.
The non-aggression principle does not argue that it is wrong to save the mans life. It argues that it is wrong to violate the property of the owner of that transporter. No one would say that when given the chance to save a life it would be wrong to do so. But if in the course of saving that persons life you aggressed against another person you MUST be held accountable for your actions. That is what the NAP is dealing with – aggression. You aggressed against his property, even if it was for a just and noble reason. You are a criminal, even though you saved the mans life. You must be held accountable for your crime.
To declare that there are situations where aggression against an innocent person is justifiable for good and noble reason opens the world up for any number of tyrannies. If we “absoluters” conceed that the NAP is not absolute then we must also agree that at times conscription, theft, enslavement, murder, assault, spying, etc., etc. all have excusable reasons for their existing. If the NAP is not absolute then the government stealing from me in the form of taxes, then conscripting me into military service and shipping me to some region of the world were people are being butchered by their own government is justifiable. We must also conceed then, that the state has the right to spy on me, assault me and jail me indefinitely if I should actively campaign agaisnt their war to stop, say, the government of the Congo from murdering its people. In essence, if the NAP is NOT absolute then the existence of the state is justifiable and you actually have no rights except those the state allows you to have.
Life as we know it would come to a standstill if we have to re-think every issue every time we take an action. Consider it a limitation of being imperfect humans. Do you have to think who’s in the wrong if you see a man pointing a gun at a convenience store clerk? Even if you think there’s the slight possibility that he’s engaged in self-defense or is otherwise in the right, the chances are very good that he’s an aggressor/robber.
Of course, it’s possible that you might have a secondary rule or principle that says it would be better to disarm him and avoid anybody getting shot until more information can be discovered to consider the issue in greater detail. Naturally, this is a dramatic, less common example, and considering it after the fact could well guide you in future similar events.
More common examples are the very things we don’t think about very much. Do you have to worry about being an initiator of force every time you buy a newspaper or magazine? Do you worry about violating the NAP when you play a rough sport like football? Do you worry about what harm you may be causing every time you eat fried chicken?
This is not to say that we should never reconsider our principles, only that we don’t need to reconsider them all the time. We need a reason, such as an uncommon event, or a persuasive argument, to make us think twice about them.
Well, yes of course I would take the transporter. And yes, if I was in a jury I would convict someone for doing so. So I suppose I would be in the minority there. Just because the “majority” would do it doesn’t make it right. That’s like saying if the “majority” thought it was ok to burn Jews at the stake then it would be ok. I mean, what is the value of a morality that almost no one will follow, right?
Not that this justifies aggression, but the aggressor in this case probably wouldn’t be looking at anything more than having to pay a little restitution. We’re not talking about long prison terms or harsh retributive punishment here. Meanwhile, the reputation of the transporter/boat owner will probably suffer and this could have major effects on his daily life, business/empoyment, etc.
Nonsense. Life would not come to a standstill. Honestly, how often are we really faced with terrible moral dillemas? I know I don’t deal with them that often. Again I say, only large institutions need to work by principles and rules, because they are inefficient and removed from the actual situation. I am actually fortunate enough to never have had to take something by force to help another, but if such a situation were to occur, I would have to make a decision based on the best information I had at the time.