Adam, this is just the confused rantings of an amateur and not representative of “libertarian opinion” in the slightest. Spidey doesn’t have the cojones to show this thread to his wife or discuss his “theory” with his daughters, and Spidey, you are deluded if you think this might become as divided an issue as abortion. These ideas are very similar in the way they are flawed to racist ideologies and polylogism. They are anti-human and retrogressive.
I didn’t explain my point well, sorry. I think I was thinking about something related to commanding “specific performance”. Let me try to explain the ethical-aesthetical vs. the moral-legal again.
An important basic corollary of the non-aggression principle is that of free-association. Given no preexisting arrangements, a boss would be justified to, one day, say to his secretary, “Blow me or you are fired.” Likewise, he could legally dismiss her for any reason and she could choose to quit for any reason. What we might call legal, others might call unethical. Also, when we hear of people facing “ethics charges” we might assume they could go to jail for it. Then there is the reference to the “moral of the story”, which mustn’t in every case compel the social interactions of those listening to the story. Finally, Hoppe’s argumentation ethics would be something that could apply as a nomothetic moral law. The way people use these words is completely screwed up.
For someone to be “within their rights”, we might say they are legally justified. Telling your worker, hired under the premise that she is to be a secretary, then asking her to become a prostitute is going to be unpopular. As the boss has the right to ask a woman for sex, no matter as out of place and completely inappropriate as it may seem, women have the right to boycott this company or expose his behavior. An appeal to public opinion is not a valid moral statement though. These personal values about social interaction, stated as ethical propositions, are nonetheless important. Women, preferring not to be denigrated in scenarios like the above, are justified to withhold their labor from companies known to engage in such behavior. Moreover, they could organize a movement to require clauses in their working agreement which limit the acceptable conduct of each other.
This is an example of what I am describing as extra-juridical action in this post.
Originally, you stated that the implicit contract in familial arrangements meant that people owned other people. (If I am misrepresenting your opinion a bit, I apologize.) I don’t know how I feel about calling this arrangement a contract even. A paper like Kinsella’s would probably be good to review.
I see what you are saying but this kind of goes to the broader theory of detrimental reliance and what one might expect from service providers. If I am selling my airplane service, I can refuse certain customers. Once I have let you aboard, you have the right to expect to not be thrown out over the Atlantic. This idea is related again to what I said about “rule-following” any why the conventional libertarian requirement of “ability to consent” is flawed. If what a requirement of cooperating socially, and thus “earning rights”, is is to not initiate aggression, infants generally follow this rule.
There is something to this, yet there are problems with putting children, say 5-year-olds as in your example, on equal ground with all adults. One thing we are looking for in investigating a crime is the intentions of the criminal, given that we have established the facts of what was done. Still it is very hard to guess at the content’s of another’s mind. In terms of applied legal theory, I think that we wouldn’t see a lot of executions or life imprisonments of the very young.
Regarding putting a 5-year-old in jail for life, see also this post of mine.
The fact that we might say that everyone, adult and child, has some amount of basic, negative rights in natura doesn’t mean that they are inalienable or expressed with the regularity of the laws on the natural science, such as that of gravity. They arise from our understanding of the process of Man’s civilization. Jones can’t grow an orchard if Smith is backed by force to “justifiably” chop down the trees and grow potatoes. Jones can’t proceed to consider what his 10 bushels of apples will get at market if there is no objective, intersubjectively ascertainable regard for human rights.
Even the fundamental, negative aspect of rights are contingent upon how the actor coexists with other actors. When I say that, “A guardian only ‘owns’ a child insomuch as he aids the child in reaching a status of moral agency.”, this is exactly the same as, “You only own your landfill insomuch as the waste doesn’t contaminate my yard.”, or, “You only own yourself and the gun you are holding insomuch as you don’t threaten to kill me with it.” This does not entail “positive rights”, a euphemism for the suspension of justice itself. This only recognizes the borders between individual actors and their things.
The basis of the “two teeth for a tooth” aspect of proportionality is similar to the catallactics of praxeology. On this see Mises’ chapter in Human Action: The Delimitation of Catallactic Problems.
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If a child stones another to death, a “transaction” has been forced upon the victim. A life has been destroyed. It would be acceptable to refer to this metaphorically as a person’s “flame being extinguished” and think of a spent lump of charcoal becoming useless ash. In the case of homicide, the lump of charcoal was not fully utilized. It was doused with water, still rendering the substance equally useless. We could say that the same results from someone being struck by lightning, or a boulder, or dying from tuberculosis, or a bear attack. Lifeless molecules or natural forces do not act. Other animals act on instinct, but society and the human family are results of purposive human action.
Very young children, although the potential is certainly there, do not have the same logical structure as rational actors. As they may very soon be able to generally tell right from wrong, they still don’t necessarily have the ability to be a productive member of society, and the content of their minds may be quite different. These facts may limit arbitrators in attempting to pursue both “teeth”. The initial “tooth” is, in a sense, looking toward the victim of transgression. Regardless of what the intentions of the other actor were, we might still say that a wrong has been done. The second is looking at the transgressor’s actions, who might even be a victim himself.
If you have any questions or criticisms of this please tell me. I am tired of writing for now. If I haven’t explained well enough where I am getting some of these ideas from, this paper is good.
I’m just jumping in, and admittedly have not read the thread beyond the first and last page. I was directed to this thread after starting a related thread. This is my post:
After reading the 14th chapter of The Ethic of Liberty for the second time, I’m still unclear about some things:
Rothbard makes somewhat of leap to an assertion, albeit a seemingly reasonable one, that children, although owners of themselves, are bound to the rules of their parents until they voluntarily take responsibility for themselves, essentially by moving out. Does this mean that a parent who forcefully prevents his 6 year old child from running away from home is in essence enslaving the child, and could rightfully have legal action taken against him? Should parents be obligated to let their young children free to roam dangerous streets because the child wishes to? Maybe i am missing a crucial prerequisite for reaching adulthood.
Additionally, it is suggested that a mother has a right to abort her fetus, as well as allow her children starve to death. I would agree that both assertions are consistent with one another, and I understand the arguments made against the cases where creation is not applicable, but what of the cases where it is? What is to be said for the mother who willingly engages in sexual activity, whether she intends to have a child or not. Is she not at the very minimum, taking a risk of creating another life? Is there to be no consequence for this? Rothbard seems to dodge this, and instead act like the fetus is an uninvited guest; an intruder.
I suppose an analogy could be drawn between this and inviting a guest into your home, but I’m not sure the analogy holds since the creation of life is a unique occurrence; and one that seems to have some drastic implications that don’t necessarily apply elsewhere. Any thoughts? Clarifications?
Conceding the point that room locking and car seating may violate negative rights in no way makes the right to be free from violence a positive right. The right to be free from violence is always and in all cases a negative right, which was the point of my post.