Right, like everyone has essentially the same ethical intuition, or that it is somehow inviolable.
Casey,
Look on this very site, look how much people disagree over “rights” then look at modern politics, then 1000’s of years of philosophy, very few people have agreed about rights. So its impossible for one to understand them as they aren’t set in stone. (With the sole exception being myself, as I am, in fact, completely 100% correct about rights)
Who cares? When people are rationalizing blatant child abuse and slavery in the name of property rights, it should be pretty clear that a reductio ad absurdum has been made out of a particular political theory. It simply goes against the whole implicit reason why one would be a libertarian in the first place - presumably, because one doesn’t like people arbitrarily being pushed around and abused. A libertarian that has no qualms with parental totalitarianism (or, to use the Randian application of the same or similar notion, the full-scale genocide of other cultures) should logically be in a state of cognitive dissonance.
lol[:P]
Who cares? Just throwing around highly contended ethical statements is fine by you?
You are just starting from the position “X is wrong” and working from there (X being child abuse, slavery, assault, etc..). Again, saying the parent is acting “arbitrarily” and therefore un-libertarian is just an assumption (at least, as far as its been presented) as the posters here are clearly arguing otherwise.
Can you explain to me where you got that from?
Other than that, I agree with what you said about some posters here experiencing cognitive dissonance. I’m wondering if they’re even being honest.
That child abuse is wrong isn’t a highly contended ethical statement, at least in this culture (and we’re talking explicit child abuse, not something that would normally be up for debate). The posters in defense of this are argueing from a theory of rights that is rejected by libertarian political theory. One can certainly argue for the initiation of violence, but not via libertarianism. That I should even have to tell you this is mystifying to me.
What consists “child abuse” is completely arbitrary, and is only a projection of your property rights upon a child, not the child’s self-ownership.
The child has no way to determine if it is being “abused”.
There is a position held by some hardcore Randians that, for example, it is justified to kill off primitive or less “civilized” cultures and take their land on the grounds that they don’t have a concept or the right concept of property rights. In this view, by virtue of having a better culture, it is reasonable (indeed, a moral right) for “the west” (and this includes the associated states) to take over foreign lands with force if necessary.
You’re insane. The child’s clear signs of resistance and pain-behavior, and the sheer fact that a parent is outright beating it to death, are enough to know that it is being abused. This isn’t a controversial definition of child abuse I’m using here - I’m not even talking from the anti-spanking perspective, but a matter of things much more serious than that. You’re making a theoretical mistake in thinking of people as things to have absolute property rights over in the first place. What is a projection of dubious “property rights” upon a child is your claim that a parent can do whatever they want to them. This is just a sacrifice of reasonability to the altar of a contrived theory of absolute property rights.
At least in this culture, what culture? What about everyone’s “ethical intuition?” And looking at American culture in particular that statement is obviously false, as some 75% of American boys are circumsized, mutilated. Libertarian political theory isn’t singular nor set in stone, and many libertarians are quite fine with the initiation of violence in circumstances of property, like trespassing.
Those so-called “libertarians” are also wrong and should be in a state of dissonance. This is just conservative propertarianism taken to absurdity. It’s exactly this kind of insanity that lead me to stop posting at these forums.
No wonder they aren’t exactly taken seriously.
Yet that is a large number of them, perhaps you should reconsider the label at this point, instead of just using it (and ethical assertions) in place of argument. Further, I’m not sure how “conservative” applies - famous conservatives, like Edward Feser have argued against the acceptability of child abuse as well.
(Note: I don’t even agree that children are property at all, just that contentions such as these are meaningless)
What I already have considered is that the anarcho-capitalist movement is half-filled with authoritarians and conservatives that don’t have a coherant concept of human freedom. I don’t think that this is a reason for me to reconsider the use of the word “libertarian” for myself, but a reason to subject the libertarian movement to severe internal criticism, which is exactly what I have been doing for the past few years.
The contention that child abuse is questionable and does not cohere with personal freedom is not “meaningless”, it’s an entailment of rejecting aggression and authoritarianism in the first place. If some people call themselves “libertarians” without rejecting aggression and authoritarianism, that just means that they’re confused at best.
It seems to me that you’re just appealing to moral non-cognitivism to nullify any ethic-laden discussion of this.
Please everyone try to stay on topic just a little bit. I want to have time tonight to respond to all of this. My main focus was on how children become free if parents hold this absolute ownership of children. Stranger has shown that he can’t answer simple questions on this.
There is some manner of being arbitrary in determining what is child abuse. I have explained this before to them in this way. A parent only “owns” a child insomuch as the parent aids the child in reaching a state of moral agency, or realizing their potential as an actor-producer.
It should be pretty clear to say then that raping or murdering a child does not work toward this goal. It might be argued that spanking, or causing temporary fear and harm, can be used as a proper method of teaching a child right and wrong. We can’t investigate this continuum problem under the assumption that parents can do anything to a child.
Still BP, I don’t understand how you develop any system of law from it being impossible for anyone to own anyone else absolutely. Please don’t go off into the talk about dualism. People are afforded a certain amount of basic negative rights, along with a set of contingent rights upon having demonstrated the ability to reason. These all depend on respecting the rights of others, and when this is not done a criminal can’t coherently object to having what he has done done to him. A good post by Kinsella on the primacy of punishment over restitution is here. If I am understanding you position correctly, what is the punishment in your world for murder? I assume that the murderer can’t be killed. If he can’t be owned (controlled and other would be owners repelled), as in imprisoned, how does this not lead to chaos?
(see also Block’s Toward a Libertarian Theory of Inalienability: A Critique of Rothbard, Barnett, Gordon, Smith, Kinsella and Epstein)
You’ve misread, you should reconsider using the term “libertarian” to make a point, as the label is clearly being contended. Your contentions have been nothing more than vapid ethical assertions, tossing around the terms “absurd” and “arbitrary” and using some libertarian label. By all means, all may be correct, but you haven’t substantiated any of them. Meaningless.
No, no. I wanted you to substantiate your claim of everyone’s ethical intuition, you didn’t.
You have lost all base with reality.
Children exhibit signs of resistance and pain-behavior if made to eat broccoli.
You clearly have no experience dealing with children.
That is just an opinion, not a theory.