I was thinking about NAP and juveniles. And had a few specific questions.
In your austrian society, can parents use coersion to correct bad behavior in children? If so, does it violate NAP?
At what age or condition are children full cupable for their actions? Of if they are always cupable, what happens when a 2 year old burns down a house or uses a gun to kill a person?
What prevents, if anything, of 70 year old men from marrying 9 year old girls and/or boys? If marriage doesn’t exist, what prevents them from having ‘consensual’ sex with minors? (example: Lawyer "Susie your only 8, but do you consent to sex with the old guy? Susie “Yes”)
At what age or condition are children able to give consent? If always, can you ask a child “Can I throw you off this building or sell you to my neighbor?”… and provided they indicate yes verbally or marking a contract can you then ‘legally’ do it?
I imagine the results are going to vary wildly based upon your level of ‘extremeness’ in liberatarianism. But I see the NAP being violated in all of them, maybe I am wrong.
I can think of no child psychologist who thinks that using violence against children is beneficial or necessary at any time. Nor any decent human being who does use this violence against defenseless children. There is no reason for you to believe different standards should be applied to children than adults. That doesn’t take libertarianism to figure that out.
Marriage in the market is a contract. Meaning there is no forcing. Even if this happened, the reputation of the 70 year old would have him ostracized the same as pedophiles are currently. Meaning no business and probably a life of ruin – similar to Gary Glitter. The fact that you think it would even get to the point of a lawyer intervening is pretty funny.
Austrian economics applies to all societies. That’s sort of the point, no? I think you mean “libertarian society.”
Can they? Yes, they have the ability to do this. Does it violate the NAP? In my view, yes, it does.
Children are fully liable for their actions when they have sufficiently developed rationality. However, it is my opinion that the burden of proof always falls on those who wish to deny a human has rationality, so we would start with the assumption that if a two year old commits arson or murder, he’s liable. However, it seems unlikely that a court would find a two year old liable in any case unless his rationality was thoroughly demonstrated, and so it seems that a community standard for deciding when a person becomes liable for crimes they commit would emerge.
Nothing prevents that, except perhaps parents. Again, if rationality is not disestablished, I would assume that a child can make up his own mind and be responsible for his actions. However, once again, community standards and restrictive covenants would likely be what deals with this sort of thing.
As with the other cases, I’m inclined to assume the answer is yes, but I am also inclined to believe that a libertarian society would have these sorts of problems dealt with in a voluntary manner beforehand. And, if not, economic sanction and ostracism are both superb tools for punishing those who violate the expectations of a community.
Why do people have rights but not, say, mice or plants? Most answers go back to rationality. If a child has a developed rational capacity, their age should be irrelevant.
The relationship between parents and children is generally a private matter for the parents and the children unless somebody involved asks somebody else to become involved.
Then again, if somebody believes a child is in a terrible situation and believes the child would support being rescued and wants to attempt it, then the dispute between the rescuer and the parent is generally a private matter between them, again unless somebody involved asks somebody else to become involved.
IMO, if you think using coercion against children is a violation of the NAP, then you absolutely have to believe abortion is the same.
Market justice can probably establish this, and take into account circumstances which vary from situation to situation.
In general, if I see a child unattended, to me that child is emancipated. However, if a two year old is left alone and burns down my house, then I’m not going to get much justice from the two year old, and I ought to pursue the negligent parent in a free market court.
Parents.
IMO, if parents consent to a marriage, then the child may marry or choose emancipation. (The parents are implicitly agreeing to emancipation by consenting to marriage.)
It’s nobody else’s business.
Other cultures have thought marriage was appropriate at far younger ages than our immature culture does. Free the culture to evolve, and we might become more mature again.
When children are able to support themselves, they may become emancipated and give consent.
Where on earth are these children’s parents? Parents who want their children to survive ought to bear the cost of protecting them.
Is throwing a child off a roof permissible if the child “consents”? Probably not in most cases. (Again, I’d like to see what market justice establishes.) But the cost of enforcing that ought to fall on the children’s parents, not be socialized to all of society in the form of a law that we all have to pay to support.
If you take all of these questions and ask, “Okay, assuming this is a violation of the non-aggression axiom, on whom does the burden of enforcement fall,” the answers may be very revealing, and probably point to things being a lot more private and variable than most of us are comfortable with.
In reference to children being punished by their parents, I suppose it does violate the Non-Aggression Principle(if the child didn’t aggress, but just disobeyed or something like that), but as I see it, the child chooses to deal with the punishments/guidelines his parents give him, in return for food/shelter/care/etc. If the situation is overly abusive, then the child should be able to emancipate himself, but if it’s not, then they can recieve the advantages of the child-parent relationship, along with the disadvantages.
No they don’t. That’s just the social contract bullshit people use to justify the state.
If they’re 18 and over and still need mom and dad’s food and whatever, then sure. But no child even asks to be born. Responsible parenting is about facing up to the choices you made yourself (without anyone else but your partners input) and having 100 percent duty to the child.
Just because you can squirt out children doesn’t mean you have any dominion over them. Any idiot can get a woman pregnant. Automatic authority = a recipe for dumb and nihilistic parents. And you guessed it: the output of similar kids.
I would say no. However, you are going to get a wide variance of answers on that.
That is what is called a “continuum problem”; there is no good a priori answer, as the problem relies on too many different variables. The best solution is for a common law precedent to evolve for there to be a cut-off age, at which the burden of proof shifts; that is, a person below a certain age is assumed to be not fully responsible for their actions, and they must be proved to be responsible, and vice versa for someone above that age. Also, the issue of responsibility is irrelevant when considering restitution.
Same thing as above.
Again, same thing as above, as far as consent goes. And you can’t contract with anyone to throw them off a building or sell them, so…
With a free market in adoption those who couldn’t afford or were not emotionally capable of raisng children could sell nurture rights to those parents better able to raise a child. We’re working on the premise of people being self-interested right? If people are willing to beat their kids, their value for these children is probably low vis a vis the value parents who might not be able to conceive would be. Those parties to whom these children are more valuable, those who are much more likely to take care of their children will be the ones who have more children. Once more the market can serve a corrective function.
No it’s not. Love it or leave it is a perfectly fine argument, but only in reference to legitimate property ownership, which is the case of the parent-child relationship.
Parents are the childs custodians. That means they wield the childs self-ownership for him. They have this role because a child is not able to wield it himself, certainly not to the best of his interests. In some ways it is a similar relationship to a manager and an owner of a company (particularly if the owner has been deemed insane and stuffed into an assylum). They manage the child how they see fit until the child does not need them to anymore and can take over himself. Or until they abuse their position as managers (parents) to the detriment of the owner (child) in which case the custody is transfered to a third party.
That is really as far as libertarianism goes. The specifics of what constitutes abuse and when exactly is a child fit to take over and manage himself have little to do with libertarianism. They are personal outlooks and cultural norms. Libertarianism isn`t an utopia, it does not claim to have all the anwsers. It just claims it is the best platform to allow such issues be brought closer to resolution by society itself.
You are right. What parents get by having a child is not authority, it is obligation. Obligation to do what is best for the child. However what is best for the child may very well include an occasional spanking or grounding.
On what basis do you conclude that parents have a duty to a child? Mere conception? So can I presume that you are consistent and believe that parents do not possess the right to end the life of their children in the womb?
Here is a question to ponder. How would children defend against parental abuse? They do not pay for a PDA, so who would be the arbitrator in enforcing the rights of young people that do not have the means to have their own defense?
my pda defends kids who come and claim ‘refuge’ as sovereign individuals; and the charities i fund offer them a choice of foster-families; or; cheap accomodation and an apprenticesip to get them started.
Most children have other relatives besides their parents. They can always raise objection at a relevant court on behalf of the child and ask for a transfer of custody. In other cases it can be special dedicated charities should they get notified by neighbours or teachers.
EDIT: Currently we have an absurdity where we have people who can take a child away from their parents, without obliging themselves to care for it in parent`s place. Ie a social worker can take away a child from the parents, but then does not care for it himself, but instead stuffs it into a state programme or institution of this or that sort. It leads to a situation where children get neglected because they are left without a real caretaker.
A would be caretaker should have to prove not just wrongfull behaviour by the parents, but also prove beyond doubt that transfer of custody would leave the child better of and that would be hard to do if he could only provide a very crappy enviroment himself of the sort provided today by the state for the children it takes away. So these charities would, unlike the state, be forced to maintain high standards of care.