Dealing with lifeboat scenarios. This Week in Liberty, Episode 2. Guest: Rob (Autolykos) - My thoughts

[gotlucky]

Get ready for a wall of text. Autolykos and I were going to chat about this in a pm session, but I suggested that we should post this in the forum.

Nielsio and Autolykos had this discussion about Lifeboat situations and other situations. Some of my comments may be out of order in relation to the video. They made a lot of great points, and here are my thoughts about their conversation:

Nielsio and Autolykos talk about what right and wrong mean. Nielsio states that he sees right and wrong in terms of what is good for himself. This also carries over to even when he is a third party – he doesn’t like muggers even if they don’t mug him, and this is because he doesn’t want “muggers to roam free”.

Autolykos states that the terms justifiable and moral concern coercion (the use or threat of physical force). Specifically, he stated, “For something to be considered justified or moral…I’m not going to respond to it with coercion…And if something is unjustified or wrong or immoral, I would, if I’m able, I would respond to it with coercion.”

Here is where I want to insert my own opinion on the matter. Statements regarding rights can only be stated positively or normatively. And the normative statements can be broken down into two different categories, though there can be overlap depending upon an individual’s values. I call these categories “moral rights” and “just rights”. Just rights concern what ought to be the law, and moral rights concern anything regarding right and wrong behavior.

Not everyone uses moral in this way – Autolykos has told me that he prefers to use the word ethical in that way, so that he can reserve moral for behavior concerning coercion (I believe he originally told me aggression, but in the video he said coercion, so I’m going with his most recent statement).

Anyway, there was one point that they did not make about the lifeboat situations that Murray Rothbard makes: “These are the implications of the NAP in a lifeboat scenario. I’m not saying what would be the moral choice, only that these are the rights the NAP implies in such a horrible situation.” As Rothbard stated:

For we are not, in constructing a theory of liberty and property, i.e., a “political” ethic, concerned with all personal moral principles. We are not herewith concerned whether it is moral or immoral for someone to lie, to be a good person, to develop his faculties, or be kind or mean to his neighbors. We are concerned, in this sort of discussion, solely with such “political ethical” questions as the proper role of violence, the sphere of rights, or the definitions of criminality and aggression. Whether or not it is moral or immoral for “Smith” — the fellow excluded by the owner from the plank or the lifeboat — to force someone else out of the lifeboat, or whether he should die heroically instead, is not our concern, and not the proper concern of a theory of political ethics.

Regarding the Railroad example (around 17 minute mark, give or take): Autolykos takes the position that whoever flips the switch to kill one group over the other is guilty of murder, as he took an active role. Nielsio takes a different position, that whoever set up this horrible scenario is the person guilty of murder.

I want to take a slightly different approach. First, we must look at what law is. Law concerns disputes that would otherwise turn to violence. If a dispute would not turn to violence, then it has nothing to do with the law of any given community. For example, if two people have a dispute about what movie to watch at the theater, so long as this dispute doesn’t involve violence, it has nothing to do with the law. But if it does turn to violence, then if the parties to the dispute don’t resolve it on their own, they can take it to court, and it will be in the sphere of law.

So what does this mean for the railroad situation in a libertarian society? Well, someone dies in the scenario. The family of the victim wants justice. Who is their dispute with? Is their dispute with the criminal mastermind or the person who ended up flipping the switch? It is my belief that this depends entirely upon the context of the situation.

What if there are robbers who have taken hostages within a bank? What if the police just blow the bank up? Who is liable for the deaths of the hostages? The bank robbers instigated the situation, but the police are the ones who are obviously liable for the deaths of the hostages. Most likely, the family of the victims would take the police to court.

But what if we are in a less obvious scenario? What if, as in one of the scenarios Nielsio posits, a criminal holds a gun to your head and orders you to murder someone else or die? Well, Nielsio and Autolykos take the position that you can’t trust the words of a psychopath (which is very true, as psychopaths tend to lie a lot). But let’s suppose arguendo that the psychopath isn’t lying. So, who would the family of the victim take to court?

Well, we can’t know until it happens, but it may be that the family of the victim might very well forgive you for the murder and take the criminal mastermind to court. After all, it is within the family’s rights to forgive any criminal for their transgressions, and it is also very true that the criminal mastermind is also very guilty.

But, we can always complicate it further. Suppose you kill the victim, but what if you stalled for another 30 seconds? What if a sniper was in position to save the day if only you waited? Well, maybe the family of the victim won’t be so forgiving. Maybe they will.

So, my point is, you are certainly liable for your actions, but in a libertarian society, that does not necessarily mean that a family of your victim will press charges against you.

Nielsio and Autolykos steer the conversation towards reputation. “How do we deal with crazy people?” They make some great points about reputation. However, this section lacks examples, so I thought I would provide some for people to think about (and feel free to post any other examples you think of, we always need more!).

Example 1: When I was in Ireland, I found out from one couple that ran a bed and breakfast that instead of having police (garda) patrol the highway, they have vans that monitor the highway and keep track of who is speeding. So instead of being pulled over, you just get a ticket in the mail.

Example 2: Costco. You have to buy a membership to shop there. Not just anybody can walk into one of these stores. Costco is not a secretive elite store. The idea is that you buy a membership and you get cheaper goods throughout the year (Costco buys stuff in bulk). So maybe the corner store won’t make you buy a membership to shop there, but the point is that there are stores now that do require a membership. In a libertarian society, a shop owner in a bad neighborhood might require a membership of some sort for you to shop there. He may or may not make you pay for it. The point is, he would be able to keep better track of people entering his store. And maybe, as Nielsio pointed out, a group of stores might share this information. So you could buy a membership to the neighborhood stores. Store owners in a bad neighborhood would be able to know that you cannot enter if you aren’t trustworthy (or you are trying to rob them, but they will have a heads up).

Example 3: The Better Business Bureau. In a libertarian society, organizations such as the BBB would actually gain more power, as the government would not be providing a “safety net”. (Ha! Because that’s what the government does, right?)

Autolykos made the point that it would be difficult for store owners to share information about thieves. But as Costco demonstrates, stores might take a more proactive approach. “You can’t shop here unless you can show that you are trustworthy or someone can vouch for you.” Middle-class towns might not bother with this, but in a more dangerous neighborhood, store owners can better know the people in the immediately vicinity and just make it so that you need to display some card as you enter the store (this is what happens at Costco).

Anyway, these are just some examples I could think of off the top of my head regarding some of these ideas already being practiced.

Re surveillance: I completely agree with Autolykos that there might very well be more surveillance in a libertarian society while on other people’s property. And Nielsio points out that in a libertarian society, we know that these people are here to make things safer. But the state does not do this. A lot of their surveillance is just about making more revenue, whether it is about your income or just trying to milk people at speed traps (he didn’t use those examples, but the point applies). Great points from the both of them on this subject.

Autolykos brought up a situation about where you come across a drowning man. If you do not help the drowning man, are you liable? Autolykos says no, and he “considers it a huge dick move” to not help. I agree. Nielsio’s response is great. Not helping people in this type of situation is a huge red flag, just as when someone kicks his dog. He may not legally a criminal, but he is displaying dangerous tendencies, and this hurts his reputation.

I just wanted to add, how is society supposed to even find out about this kind of situation? Presumably, you are the only person with a boat in the area, as this man could always swim to another boat if this were not the case. So, you let this man drown, and how is society supposed to find out. So, I just want to point out that if someone presents you with this scenario, head them off and ask what is the point of the question? Are we trying to determine law based off such a scenario? Society will never find out, so why are you asking what the law ought to be?

I highly suggest that people listen to the segment starting at 56:20. Very good points.

Regarding welfare and charity (58:25): Excellent points by Autolykos. I recommend this section as well. It lasts several minutes. Worth the listen.

Re flagpole: Very interesting points by Autolykos. Removing the person from the flagpole means violating his rights more than he has violated your rights. You would be liable for murder. Nielsio and Autolykos make great points about proportionality and the purpose of property rights. Worth the listen.

I want to add to this section the function of norms. Nielsio states that if a farmer doesn’t use his farm for 20 years, then he has abandoned his land. This number is entirely arbitrary. This is where norms and law regarding abandonment are useful. In some communities, it may take only a few years to constitute abandonment, while in other communities, property might not be considered abandoned until the death of the owner. We can’t know what the optimal number is from armchair analysis. We find out the answer to this question through the process of law, specifically decentralized law.

[Autolykos]

Thanks for starting this thread!

I won’t respond to the entire thing, just the parts where I’d like to clarify my position.

@gotlucky

Nielsio and Autolykos talk about what right and wrong mean. Nielsio states that he sees right and wrong in terms of what is good for himself. This also carries over to even when he is a third party - he doesn’t like muggers even if they don’t mug him, and this is because he doesn’t want “muggers to roam free”.

Autolykos states that the terms justifiable and moral concern coercion (the use or threat of physical force). Specifically, he stated, “For something to be considered justified or moral…I’m not going to respond to it with coercion…And if something is unjustified or wrong or immoral, I would, if I’m able, I would respond to it with coercion.”

Here is where I want to insert my own opinion on the matter. Statements regarding rights can only be stated positively or normatively. And the normative statements can be broken down into two different categories, though there can be overlap depending upon an individual’s values. I call these categories “moral rights” and “just rights”. Just rights concern what ought to be the law, and moral rights concern anything regarding right and wrong behavior.

Something else I haven’t pointed out is that, for me, “rights” also concern coercion only. That is, if I say someone “has the right” to do something, then that means I don’t expect coercion to be employed against him to (try to) stop him from doing that. But that doesn’t mean I necessarily think it’s good for him to do it.

For example, I think a person has the right to skip the funeral for a close family member (parent or siblling). But I don’t think it’s usually good for him to skip that funeral. If he skips the funeral anyway, I would still say he’s acting “rightly” in the sense that I don’t expect anyone to coerce him in response.

Anyway, I think my usage of “moral” is identical to your usage of “just”, and my usage of “ethical” is similar to your usage of “moral”, except I think we define the term “right” somewhat differently.

@gotlucky

Not everyone uses moral in this way - Autolykos has told me that he prefers to use the word ethical in that way, so that he can reserve moral for behavior concerning coercion (I believe he originally told me aggression, but in the video he said coercion, so I’m going with his most recent statement).

If I originally said that I reserve “moral” for behavior concerning aggression, then I don’t think I was being accurate there. I consider aggression to be a type of coercion, namely illegitimate or immoral coercion. So what I call “morality” concerns coercion more fundamentally than just aggression, because the question that I think is for morality to answer is whether a given instance of coercion is justified/legitimate.

@gotlucky

Anyway, there was one point that they did not make about the lifeboat situations that Murray Rothbard makes: “These are the implications of the NAP in a lifeboat scenario. I’m not saying what would be the moral choice, only that these are the rights the NAP implies in such a horrible situation.” As Rothbard stated:

For we are not, in constructing a theory of liberty and property, i.e., a “political” ethic, concerned with all personal moral principles. We are not herewith concerned whether it is moral or immoral for someone to lie, to be a good person, to develop his faculties, or be kind or mean to his neighbors. We are concerned, in this sort of discussion, solely with such “political ethical” questions as the proper role of violence, the sphere of rights, or the definitions of criminality and aggression. Whether or not it is moral or immoral for “Smith” - the fellow excluded by the owner from the plank or the lifeboat - to force someone else out of the lifeboat, or whether he should die heroically instead, is not our concern, and not the proper concern of a theory of political ethics.

If I understand Rothbard correctly, then I completely agree with him here. I don’t consider libertarianism/anarcho-capitalism/voluntaryism to concern what I call “ethics”, which concerns behavior that people simply like or dislike. Where Rothbard uses the term “political ethic”, I prefer to use the terms “moral theory” and “moral philosophy”. You’d probably prefer to use the term “theory of justice” instead, which is fine by me. I’ll bring up a Roman dictum that I think expresses this notion in another way: De gustibus non est disputandum - which means “Matters of taste are not to be disputed.”

That being said, however, I disagree with Rothbard that whether it’s moral (i.e. just) to force someone else out of a lifeboat is not a proper concern of a theory of “political ethics”. As I see it, “political ethics”/“moral theory/philosophy”/“theory of justice” concerns coercion - which we agree means “the use or threat of force”. Since forcing someone else out of a lifeboat is certainly a use of force, it therefore constitutes coercion under our agreed-upon definition, and therefore I consider it to be within the realm of “political ethics”.

@gotlucky

Regarding the Railroad example (around 17 minute mark, give or take): Autolykos takes the position that whoever flips the switch to kill one group over the other is guilty of murder, as he took an active role. Nielsio takes a different position, that whoever set up this horrible scenario is the person guilty of murder.

I’d like to clarify my position here, because I don’t think it was very clear in the podcast in retrospect. If I were to throw the switch to divert the train so that it hit and killed the other group of people, I would consider myself at least complicit in their deaths. Were I to do nothing there, I wouldn’t be taking an active part in the situation, so I wouldn’t bear any responsibility for it. That would remain solely with the person who set it up in the first place. If I do throw the switch, he’s still just as liable as before, but now I’ve taken on some liability for myself as well. So I think the notion of complicity is very important here.

The same goes for the situation where someone’s holding a gun to my head, threatening to kill me unless I kill someone else. If I go along with it, then I’d consider myself to have murdered that other person. Just because I had a gun to my head in no way meant that other person deserved to die.

Perhaps a more realistic moral dilemma in this vein is presented in the Danish film Brothers. One of the eponymous brothers is captured by insurgents in Afghanistan, along with a fellow Danish soldier. His captors threaten to kill both of them unless he kills the other soldier, which he ends up doing. In that situation, I’d consider him to have murdered the other soldier. Whether the other soldier would’ve died anyways is irrelevant to me.

In these last two situations, I think the person(s) who threatened my life could be considered complicit in the murder, but I’d be the one who actually pulled the trigger or otherwise killed the other person. Likewise, under the presumption that the one group of people would live if the railroad switch isn’t thrown, I’d be directly responsible for their deaths if I throw the switch. So it’s really a question of causality.

@gotlucky

So, my point is, you are certainly liable for your actions, but in a libertarian society, that does not necessarily mean that a family of your victim will press charges against you.

I completley agree. At other times, I’ve used the example of a madman shooting up a shopping mall. I see a chance to stop him, but it requires taking one or more guns from a gun store inside the mall. Technically I’d be committing theft, as I didn’t have the store owner’s prior consent before taking the gun(s). So if he wanted to hold me liable after the fact, that’s his right and I think I should respect that. In all likelihood, though, I think the store owner wouldn’t want to hold me liable. In effect, he’d then be giving retroactive consent to me taking the gun(s) from his store.

@gotlucky

Nielsio and Autolykos steer the conversation towards reputation. “How do we deal with crazy people?” They make some great points about reputation. However, this section lacks examples, so I thought I would provide some for people to think about (and feel free to post any other examples you think of, we always need more!).

Those are some great examples you give. It’s a shame the situation with Costco never came up, as that really is a great way to address this issue. Sam’s Club is another store with the same kind of policy as Costco, by the way.

Another thing we didn’t really discuss is more people being armed in a libertarian society. I think pretty much everyone would be armed in some way as he went about his business. That includes store employees. All other things being equal, I think that would make it much more difficult for someone to come in and try to rob a store at gunpoint. (Real-life example here: not too long ago, there was an armed robbery of a pizza place in the same shopping center where my dad works a second job. Afterwards, he went out and bought a small 9mm pistol and obtained a concealed-carry permit. He now has the gun with him whenever he works there.)

[Marko]

You can rest easy. It is not a wall of text if you use paragraphs.

[Marko]

I want to add to this section the function of norms. Nielsio states that if a farmer doesn’t use his farm for 20 years, then he has abandoned his land. This number is entirely arbitrary. This is where norms and law regarding abandonment are useful. In some communities, it may take only a few years to constitute abandonment, while in other communities, property might not be considered abandoned until the death of the owner. We can’t know what the optimal number is from armchair analysis. We find out the answer to this question through the process of law, specifically decentralized law.

That is just wrong. Only abandoning land constitutes abandoning land. There is no X years of not farming a given piece of land that constitutes abandoning it. What you are talking about is rules that would develop when the community would start treating the land as if abandoned. Eg, after what number of years would there be no social stigma of hijacking/squatting attached to moving onto, and start treating as your own, land that was previously cultivated, but has not for some time been left uncultivated and may therefore be abandoned. However even so, if a farmer returned after X+Y years he could easily reclaim his land if the new cultivator were not able to show that he had not only been absent for X years, but that in his absence he had abandoned his land (the burden of proof is on him).

Example 1: When I was in Ireland, I found out from one couple that ran a bed and breakfast that instead of having police (garda) patrol the highway, they have vans that monitor the highway and keep track of who is speeding. So instead of being pulled over, you just get a ticket in the mail.

Which is very henious and would never take off in a free market.

But what if we are in a less obvious scenario? What if, as in one of the scenarios Nielsio posits, a criminal holds a gun to your head and orders you to murder someone else or die? Well, Nielsio and Autolykos take the position that you can’t trust the words of a psychopath (which is very true, as psychopaths tend to lie a lot). But let’s suppose arguendo that the psychopath isn’t lying. So, who would the family of the victim take to court?

Who the family of the victim would want to take to court is irrelevant. Who could they get a conviction against is what is relevant. Obviously in your example only the criminal is guilty of murder, having forced you to act as his tool to do something that was against your will. You wouldn’t get a conviction for a knife would you? This is very much libertarian basics (seeing libertarianism deals with the political only and not with the whole of morality there is no libertarian requirement to be a martyr) and is not a lifeboat scenario (In a lifeboat scenario there isn’t a criminal, but a force of nature, an asteroid that is coming your way, but you may reroute it to hit someone else instead. Of course if the asteroid is not heading your way, but the way of Planet X, and you reroute it to hit a less densely-populated Planet Y then it again isn’t a lifeboat situation anymore, but a very straightforward criminal case where you are liable (but may perhaps not be sued by the aggrieved on grounds of compassion.)) To make it a challenge you should say the criminal is only threatening to whipp you, eg do something to you short of killing you.

[Marko]

The same goes for the situation where someone’s holding a gun to my head, threatening to kill me unless I kill someone else. If I go along with it, then I’d consider myself to have murdered that other person. Just because I had a gun to my head in no way meant that other person deserved to die.

That is a beyond silly explanation. Whether the other person deserved to die has nothing to do with the question of whether it was you who brought this upon it or not. We are trying to determine if the fact it was you who pulled the trigger means it was also you who murdered this person or not.

So the other person did not deserve to die. What about it? People have things happen to them they do not deserve all the time. What does that have to do with the question of your responsibility for this taking place? Are you god and in non-stop control of every single thing that takes place in this existence? How cocky of you!

Fact: That day somebody who didn’t deserve to die was going to, whatever you did or did not do. It was in no way your fault that this was so. It was also not your fault that you, and only you, were put before a choice to decide who that someone was going to be, would it be you, or would it be another person. You feared death and chose it would not be you, but another person, and now you consider yourself a murderer for it. Ha! Perhaps only now I realize that behind Tolstoyanism and its mandatory martyrdom there may lurk — a profound lack of humility! You’re not a murderer for that, Bozo! Stop bigging yourself up! The high opinion you hold yourself to aside there isn’t an objective requirement you make a martyr of yourself in a situation of this kind.

[Autolykos]

@Marko

That is just wrong [sic]. Only abandoning land constitutes abandoning land.

But what do you think constitutes abandoning land?

@Marko

There is no X years of not farming a given piece of land that constitutes abandoning it.

Why not?

@Marko

Obviously in your example only the criminal is guilty of murder, having forced you to act as his tool to do something that was against your will.

No, I would’ve had a choice in the matter. If he physically manipulated my hand to pull the trigger of a gun, in spite of any resistance I gave, then I think you’d have a valid point. I maintain my belief that having a gun to my head doesn’t absolve me of murder.

[Autolykos]

@Marko

That is a beyond silly explanation [sic]. Whether the other person deserved to die has nothing to do with the question of whether it was you who brought this upon it or not. We are trying to determine if the fact it was you who pulled the trigger means it was also you who murdered this person or not.

That was actually my point. For a homicide to be considered murder means that the person who was killed is considered not to have deserved to die.

@Marko

So the other person did not deserve to die. What about it? People have things happen to them they do not deserve all the time. What does that have to do with the question of your responsibility for this taking place? Are you god and in non-stop control of every single thing that takes place in this existence? How cocky of you!

That’s quite a strawman you’ve built up. In the situation presented, I’m certainly in control of whether to pull the trigger of a gun that I have aimed at someone else’s head.

@Marko

Fact: That day somebody who didn’t deserve to die was going to, whatever you did or did not do. It was in no way your fault that this was so. It was also not your fault that you, and only you, were put before a choice to decide who that someone was going to be, would it be you, or would it be another person. You feared death and chose it would not be you, but another person, and now you consider yourself a murderer for it. Ha! Perhaps only now I realize that behind Tolstoyanism and its mandatory martyrdom there may lurk — a profound lack of humility! You’re not a murderer for that, Bozo! Stop bigging yourself up! Your high opinion of yourself aside there isn’t an objective requirement you make a martyr of yourself in a situation of this kind.

Actually, I really don’t think I’d choose to murder the other person if I were in that situation. But pulling the trigger would be my action, wouldn’t it? No one else willed me to pull the trigger but myself.

[Marko]

But what do you think constitutes abandoning land?

Well what do you think constitutes loving someone? For example how do you know that you love someone. Answer: if you do, then you know it.

Same with the question of ‘how do you know you have abandoned something’? Well, if you have, then you know it.

Now, how may people other than you know that you love someone, or have abandoned something? Answer: only with great difficulty. In fact unless you take steps to convince them of this it is possible they may never know for certain. In fact didn’t Block in some essay of his dealing with abandoning children predict that in a libertarian society the only fire-proof way of un-homesteading something would be to take out an add saying you’re abandoning it?

Why not?

Because it’s arbitrary, and if it’s arbitrary it isn’t objective, and if isn’t objective it’s something other than natural law.

No, I would’ve had a choice in the matter. If he physically manipulated my hand to pull the trigger of a gun, in spite of any resistance I gave, then I think you’d have a valid point. I maintain my belief that having a gun to my head doesn’t absolve me of murder.

That’s great. Then seeing the government you pay taxes to has at times taken illegitimate action that has negatively affected the circumstances of my life, I will be expecting a check from you to appear in my mail shortly. Unless of course you make the claim that the US government makes you pay your taxes by physically manipulating your wallet? (That would be funny!) The fact that you had been coerced into doing your share of financing the US government with your own freely-wielded hands is not good enough because apparently we, libertarians, do not believe coercion means making people act against their will. We believe coercion means to physically manipulate someone’s hands or property against the physical resistance they offer for them not to be manipulated.

But pulling the trigger would be my action, wouldn’t it?

Your action in a situation that you did not place yourself, but were placed in against your will. What if the criminal instead told you to save yourself you must kill him and not a third person. Would it make you a murderer to blow his head off and why not? Is it because he ‘deserves’ to die? Does he ‘deserve’ to die? Why does, or doesn’t he?

What if the criminal instead told you that to save your life you must only beat up the third person and you did. Would it make you guilty of assault and a batterer? Would you consider yourself a huge a huge moral failure had you done so? Would you consider yourself a tiny moral failure? Would you consider yourself to have failed morally at all?

Also what if the third person ran away from you thus preventing her death and ‘causing’ your own. Is that person a murderer? Should it not have stood still so that you would not die, since you do not deserve to? Was it not her action to use her legs to run away and was it not her running away that doomed your fate? And what if this third person that ran away, ran away not from her death, but from a beating as per the latter scenario I offered? Did she in such a case have the objective moral responsibility to not run away, but to take a beating from you so that the criminal would be satisfied and would not kill you?

Also is the criminal in question also a murderer. He did not shoot the gun, what makes him the murderer?

That was actually my point. For a homicide to be considered murder means that the person who was killed is considered not to have deserved to die.

How do you go from: there was a murder, to: I am the murderer. It isn’t clear. OK, so there was a murder, OK so it was you who put the bullet in the victim’s head. What makes you the murderer of the murdered person that you blew their head off??

Another thing, do you ‘deserve’ to die in the situation you have been put in?

Actually, I really don’t think I’d choose to murder the other person if I were in that situation.

Actually as I said the arrogance isn’t believing you would do so, I have no problem believing you would. The lack of humility is in believing this is expected/demanded of you.

That’s not really a problem as there isn’t a law against holding yourself to a set of rules that more demanding that just that of natural law. Problem would arise should you try to hold other people to this standard and go after them with force for failing to do so. In such a case, should you try to “punish” someone who has decided to pull the trigger in the situation we have talked about you would be in conflict with the actually valid-for-all law.

[abirkmanis]

What if, as in one of the scenarios Nielsio posits, a criminal holds a gun to your head and orders you to murder someone else or die?

Well, what if other people will die if you do not comply?

A semi-realistic scenario - a president issues an order to his general to invade some helpless country (it is implied that the president holds a metaphorical gun to the general’s head, though with non-negligible probability of missing). If the general rejects the order, it is quite expected that part of the army will take his side, and the other part will remain loyal to the president. Quite a lot of life loss is expected. Would general be guilty of these deaths? They would be caused by his action.

[Autolykos]

@Marko

Well what do you think constitutes loving someone? For example how do you know that you love someone. Answer: if you do, then you know it.

I think I can provide a serious answer to this question, if you’d like one, but I think you meant it as a rhetorical question. In any case, I reject the notion of “I know it when I see it” as “constituting” love.

@Marko

Same with the question of ‘how do you know you have abandoned something’? Well, if you have, then you know it.

I also reject the notion of “I know it when I see it” as “constituting” abandonment.

@Marko

Now, how may people other than you know that you love someone, or have abandoned something? Answer: only with great difficulty. In fact unless you take steps to convince them of this it is possible they may never know for certain. In fact didn’t Block in some essay of his dealing with abandoning children predict that in a libertarian society the only fire-proof way of un-homesteading something would be to take out an add saying you’re abandoning it?

I’m not sure, but if he did, I’d be interested in reading that essay. Anyway, we could say that the only fire-proof way of un-homesteading something would be to do that, but I think the question is whether “good/close enough” must be the same as “fire-proof”.

@Marko

Because it’s arbitrary, and if it’s arbitrary it isn’t objective, and if isn’t objective it’s something other than natural law.

Apparently I don’t believe in natural law the same way you do. I don’t think natural law is objective in the sense of being dictated by some rule(s) of the universe. So that’s one big impasse between us.

@Marko

That’s great. Then seeing the government you pay taxes to has at times taken illegitimate action that has negatively affected the circumstances of my life, I will be expecting a check from you to appear in my mail shortly. Unless of course you make the claim that the US government makes you pay your taxes by physically manipulating your wallet? (That would be funny!) The fact that you had been coerced into doing your share of financing the US government with your own freely-wielded hands is not good enough because apparently we, libertarians, do not believe coercion means making people act against their will. We believe coercion means to physically manipulate someone’s hands or property against the physical resistance they offer for them not to be manipulated.

Indeed, in choosing to comply with the tax policies of the US government, with some understanding of what that tax money will likely be used for, I am to some degree complicit in “its” actions. The question is, how complicit am I? Concerning you alone, how (do you think) has the US government negatively affected the circumstances of your life?

As I’ve stated before, I define “coercion” to mean “the use or threat of force”. That definition says nothing about the outcome - for example, whether the person being coerced ever complies with any demands being backed by the coercion.

@Marko

Your action in a situation that you did not place yourself, but were placed in against your will. What if the criminal instead told you to save yourself you must kill him and not a third person. Would it make you a murderer to blow his head off and why not? Is it because he ‘deserves’ to die? Does he ‘deserve’ to die? Why does, or doesn’t he?

Even if I’m placed into a situation against my will, my actions are still my own. But I wouldn’t need the man holding a gun to my head to demand that I kill him to save myself in order to use potentially lethal force against him. After all, I think he’s clearly threatening my life simply by holding a gun to my head. Would I think he deserves to die? If that’s what it takes to end the aggressive threat he’s making against my life, then yes.

@Marko

What if the criminal instead told you that to save your life you must only beat up the third person and you did. Would it make you guilty of assault and a batterer? Would you consider yourself a huge a huge moral failure had you done so? Would you consider yourself a tiny moral failure? Would you consider yourself to have failed morally at all?

Yes, I would consider myself to be guilty of assault and battery in that situation. I haven’t come up with a good way of quantifying moral failure, though. Sorry.

@Marko

Also what if the third person ran away from you thus preventing her death and ‘causing’ your own. Is that person a murderer? Should it not have stood still so that you would not die, since you do not deserve to? Was it not her action to use her legs to run away and was it not her running away that doomed your fate? And what if this third person that ran away, ran away not from her death, but from a beating as per the latter scenario I offered? Did she in such a case have the objective moral responsibility to not run away, but to take a beating from you so that the criminal would be satisfied and would not kill you?

The third person running away from me wouldn’t have caused my death - the man with the gun to my head presumably would’ve. As I see it, her running away in no way doomed my fate. So I don’t think she would have any moral responsibility there. The choice of whether to pull the trigger still rested with the man holding the gun to my head.

@Marko

Also is the criminal in question also a murderer. He did not shoot the gun, what makes him the murderer?

Nothing makes him the murderer. But him holding a gun to my head could make him guilty of attempted murder.

@Marko

How do you go from: there was a murder, to: I am the murderer. It isn’t clear. OK, so there was a murder, OK so it was you who put the bullet in the victim’s head. What makes you the murderer of the murdered person that you blew their head off??

In my opinion, I was the one whose action(s) directly led to the person’s death. That is to say, the fact that it was me who put the bullet in the victim’s head is what I think makes me the murderer.

@Marko

Another thing, do you ‘deserve’ to die in the situation you have been put in?

I don’t think so.

@Marko

Actually as I said the arrogance isn’t believing you would do so, I have no problem believing you would. The lack of humility is in believing this is expected/demanded of you.

At the very least, I expect/demand it of myself - “it” being choosing to not kill (and thus murder IMO) the other person if I were in that situation.

@Marko

That’s not really a problem as there isn’t a law against holding yourself to a set of rules that more demanding that just that of natural law. Problem would arise should you try to hold other people to this standard and go after them with force for failing to do so. In such a case, should you try to “punish” someone who has decided to pull the trigger in the situation we have talked about you would be in conflict with the actually valid-for-all law.

This “natural law” or “actually valid-for-all law” you’re talking about doesn’t exist as an objective phenomenon.

[gotlucky]

@Autolykos

Something else I haven’t pointed out is that, for me, “rights” also concern coercion only. That is, if I say someone “has the right” to do something, then that means I don’t expect coercion to be employed against him to (try to) stop him from doing that. But that doesn’t mean I necessarily think it’s good for him to do it.

For example, I think a person has the right to skip the funeral for a close family member (parent or siblling). But I don’t think it’s usually good for him to skip that funeral. If he skips the funeral anyway, I would still say he’s acting “rightly” in the sense that I don’t expect anyone to coerce him in response.

Anyway, I think my usage of “moral” is identical to your usage of “just”, and my usage of “ethical” is similar to your usage of “moral”, except I think we define the term “right” somewhat differently.

Agreed. Though I don’t think our definitions of “right” are all that different. I think the main/only difference is that I use it also in what you call ethics, and you reserve it only for what you call morals. Maybe I am missing something else though.

@Autolykos

If I originally said that I reserve “moral” for behavior concerning aggression, then I don’t think I was being accurate there. I consider aggression to be a type of coercion, namely illegitimate or immoral coercion. So what I call “morality” concerns coercion more fundamentally than just aggression, because the question that I think is for morality to answer is whether a given instance of coercion is justified/legitimate.

Makes sense.

@Autolykos

If I understand Rothbard correctly, then I completely agree with him here. I don’t consider libertarianism/anarcho-capitalism/voluntaryism to concern what I call “ethics”, which concerns behavior that people simply like or dislike. Where Rothbard uses the term “political ethic”, I prefer to use the terms “moral theory” and “moral philosophy”. You’d probably prefer to use the term “theory of justice” instead, which is fine by me. I’ll bring up a Roman dictum that I think expresses this notion in another way: De gustibus non est disputandum - which means “Matters of taste are not to be disputed.”

I do like Rothbard’s terms, but I’ve become attached to my terms in this case. :\

@Autolykos

That being said, however, I disagree with Rothbard that whether it’s moral (i.e. just) to force someone else out of a lifeboat is not a proper concern of a theory of “political ethics”. As I see it, “political ethics”/“moral theory/philosophy”/“theory of justice” concerns coercion - which we agree means “the use or threat of force”. Since forcing someone else out of a lifeboat is certainly a use of force, it therefore constitutes coercion under our agreed-upon definition, and therefore I consider it to be within the realm of “political ethics”.

I think you are misreading Rothbard. Rothbard is not using moral in the same sense as you. He is saying that whether someone personally considers forcing another out of the lifeboat right or wrong is irrelevant to law.

@Autolykos

I’d like to clarify my position here, because I don’t think it was very clear in the podcast in retrospect. If I were to throw the switch to divert the train so that it hit and killed the other group of people, I would consider myself at least complicit in their deaths. Were I to do nothing there, I wouldn’t be taking an active part in the situation, so I wouldn’t bear any responsibility for it. That would remain solely with the person who set it up in the first place. If I do throw the switch, he’s still just as liable as before, but now I’ve taken on some liability for myself as well. So I think the notion of complicity is very important here.

The same goes for the situation where someone’s holding a gun to my head, threatening to kill me unless I kill someone else. If I go along with it, then I’d consider myself to have murdered that other person. Just because I had a gun to my head in no way meant that other person deserved to die.

Perhaps a more realistic moral dilemma in this vein is presented in the Danish film Brothers. One of the eponymous brothers is captured by insurgents in Afghanistan, along with a fellow Danish soldier. His captors threaten to kill both of them unless he kills the other soldier, which he ends up doing. In that situation, I’d consider him to have murdered the other soldier. Whether the other soldier would’ve died anyways is irrelevant to me.

In these last two situations, I think the person(s) who threatened my life could be considered complicit in the murder, but I’d be the one who actually pulled the trigger or otherwise killed the other person. Likewise, under the presumption that the one group of people would live if the railroad switch isn’t thrown, I’d be directly responsible for their deaths if I throw the switch. So it’s really a question of causality.

One of the things that irritates me about such hypotheticals is that they seem to lead into situations like my bank example. It’s like they are trying to say that the police were not guilty of murdering the hostages as the bank robbers were the ones who created the situation. And again, what if you waited 30 seconds and a sniper took out the madman demanding that you murder another person? People who use these hypotheticals are trying to obscure what is moral and then go on to try to make law about it.

That’s the thing. What is moral? If the threatened man wants to live, he has to murder someone else. Well, that is certainly not moral. But so what? Because the only way for him to live is to acting immorally, we are supposed to be okay with this? I can understand it, sure. And depending upon the circumstances, I could forgive someone who acts this way. I think most people could. But I would never say that it was the moral thing to do.

@Autolykos

@Autolykos

Something else I haven’t pointed out is that, for me, “rights” also concern coercion only. That is, if I say someone “has the right” to do something, then that means I don’t expect coercion to be employed against him to (try to) stop him from doing that. But that doesn’t mean I necessarily think it’s good for him to do it.

For example, I think a person has the right to skip the funeral for a close family member (parent or siblling). But I don’t think it’s usually good for him to skip that funeral. If he skips the funeral anyway, I would still say he’s acting “rightly” in the sense that I don’t expect anyone to coerce him in response.

Anyway, I think my usage of “moral” is identical to your usage of “just”, and my usage of “ethical” is similar to your usage of “moral”, except I think we define the term “right” somewhat differently.

Agreed. Though I don’t think our definitions of “right” are all that different. I think the main/only difference is that I use it also in what you call ethics, and you reserve it only for what you call morals. Maybe I am missing something else though.

@Autolykos

If I originally said that I reserve “moral” for behavior concerning aggression, then I don’t think I was being accurate there. I consider aggression to be a type of coercion, namely illegitimate or immoral coercion. So what I call “morality” concerns coercion more fundamentally than just aggression, because the question that I think is for morality to answer is whether a given instance of coercion is justified/legitimate.

Makes sense.

@Autolykos

If I understand Rothbard correctly, then I completely agree with him here. I don’t consider libertarianism/anarcho-capitalism/voluntaryism to concern what I call “ethics”, which concerns behavior that people simply like or dislike. Where Rothbard uses the term “political ethic”, I prefer to use the terms “moral theory” and “moral philosophy”. You’d probably prefer to use the term “theory of justice” instead, which is fine by me. I’ll bring up a Roman dictum that I think expresses this notion in another way: De gustibus non est disputandum - which means “Matters of taste are not to be disputed.”

I do like Rothbard’s terms, but I’ve become attached to my terms in this case. :\

@Autolykos

That being said, however, I disagree with Rothbard that whether it’s moral (i.e. just) to force someone else out of a lifeboat is not a proper concern of a theory of “political ethics”. As I see it, “political ethics”/“moral theory/philosophy”/“theory of justice” concerns coercion - which we agree means “the use or threat of force”. Since forcing someone else out of a lifeboat is certainly a use of force, it therefore constitutes coercion under our agreed-upon definition, and therefore I consider it to be within the realm of “political ethics”.

I think you are misreading Rothbard. Rothbard is not using moral in the same sense as you. He is saying that whether someone personally considers forcing another out of the lifeboat right or wrong is irrelevant to law.

@Autolykos

I’d like to clarify my position here, because I don’t think it was very clear in the podcast in retrospect. If I were to throw the switch to divert the train so that it hit and killed the other group of people, I would consider myself at least complicit in their deaths. Were I to do nothing there, I wouldn’t be taking an active part in the situation, so I wouldn’t bear any responsibility for it. That would remain solely with the person who set it up in the first place. If I do throw the switch, he’s still just as liable as before, but now I’ve taken on some liability for myself as well. So I think the notion of complicity is very important here.

The same goes for the situation where someone’s holding a gun to my head, threatening to kill me unless I kill someone else. If I go along with it, then I’d consider myself to have murdered that other person. Just because I had a gun to my head in no way meant that other person deserved to die.

Perhaps a more realistic moral dilemma in this vein is presented in the Danish film Brothers. One of the eponymous brothers is captured by insurgents in Afghanistan, along with a fellow Danish soldier. His captors threaten to kill both of them unless he kills the other soldier, which he ends up doing. In that situation, I’d consider him to have murdered the other soldier. Whether the other soldier would’ve died anyways is irrelevant to me.

In these last two situations, I think the person(s) who threatened my life could be considered complicit in the murder, but I’d be the one who actually pulled the trigger or otherwise killed the other person. Likewise, under the presumption that the one group of people would live if the railroad switch isn’t thrown, I’d be directly responsible for their deaths if I throw the switch. So it’s really a question of causality.

Another thing we didn’t really discuss is more people being armed in a libertarian society. I think pretty much everyone would be armed in some way as he went about his business. That includes store employees. All other things being equal, I think that would make it much more difficult for someone to come in and try to rob a store at gunpoint. (Real-life example here: not too long ago, there was an armed robbery of a pizza place in the same shopping center where my dad works a second job. Afterwards, he went out and bought a small 9mm pistol and obtained a concealed-carry permit. He now has the gun with him whenever he works there.)

Yes. Exactly.

[gotlucky]

@Marko

That is just wrong. Only abandoning land constitutes abandoning land. There is no X years of not farming a given piece of land that constitutes abandoning it. What you are talking about is rules that would develop when the community would start treating the land as if abandoned. Eg, after what number of years would there be no social stigma of hijacking/squatting attached to moving onto, and start treating as your own, land that was previously cultivated, but has not for some time been left uncultivated and may therefore be abandoned. However even so, if a farmer returned after X+Y years he could easily reclaim his land if the new cultivator were not able to show that he had not only been absent for X years, but that in his absence he had abandoned his land (the burden of proof is on him).

I see that Autolykos has responded, but I have a few things to say too. The question is not “Did someone abandon his property?” The question “What are the criteria for abandoning property?”

One way to abandon your property would be to sign a legal document, have it notarized, publish an ad in the paper, put out a commercial, and staple your legal document to your property. This would be a very obvious way to make it clear to everyone that it can be homesteaded. Maybe that is practical for very valuable pieces of property, such as land or an airplane, but must we really do this for everything? Of course not.

Consider trash. Trash is property that you are abandoning. How often do you sign and notarize documents saying that you are abandoning your trash? I can’t recall a time I’ve ever done that, and as far as I’m aware, I don’t know anyone who has ever done that. There is a custom regarding trash, at least in America, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it were more or less universal. In America, when we put our property in a dumpster or on the side of a road, we are signalling to the community that we are abandoning this property. It is trash and can be homesteaded. Most of the time, this trash just gets taken to the dump. But sometimes people abandon sofas or television sets, and people end up claiming and homesteading these things.

So, the question is, as Autolykos pointed out, what constitutes abandonment? Surely no one needs to staple a notarized document saying that the trash on the side of the road is abandoned? There is a custom already for this purpose. So, the question is, what constitutes abandoning land? As I pointed out, in the case of expensive and valuable property, the customs regarding abandonment would probably be much stricter. But there is no objective reason why someone can’t abandon their property without formally saying so.

Consider marriage. A couple can have a ceremony and sign some documents stating that they are married. Or they can live together for X number of years and have what is called a “common law marriage”. Certainly they are married in either scenario. Making a formal statement only speeds the process up and makes it more obvious to the community. But a common law marriage is still a marriage.

@Marko

Which is very henious and would never take off in a free market.

Needless to say, I completely disagree. Is it heinous that many stores have security cameras? Of course not. They have the security cameras there for security. If you steal or otherwise disrupt the store, they will use those cameras as evidence and throw you out and maybe even press charges.

It is the same with private roads. If you want to continue to drive on these private roads, you have to pay a fee for speeding. Otherwise, go find another road to drive on. It’s a private road, and you don’t have a right to it.

@Marko

Who the family of the victim would want to take to court is irrelevant. Who could they get a conviction against is what is relevant. Obviously in your example only the criminal is guilty of murder, having forced you to act as his tool to do something that was against your will. You wouldn’t get a conviction for a knife would you? This is very much libertarian basics (seeing libertarianism deals with the political only and not with the whole of morality there is no libertarian requirement to be a martyr) and is not a lifeboat scenario (In a lifeboat scenario there isn’t a criminal, but a force of nature, an asteroid that is coming your way, but you may reroute it to hit someone else instead. Of course if the asteroid is not heading your way, but the way of Planet X, and you reroute it to hit a less densely-populated Planet Y then it again isn’t a lifeboat situation anymore, but a very straightforward criminal case where you are liable (but may perhaps not be sued by the aggrieved on grounds of compassion.)) To make it a challenge you should say the criminal is only threatening to whipp you, eg do something to you short of killing you.

You’ve missed the point completely. I suggest that you read What Law Is and A Praxeological Account of Law by forum member Clayton.

[Nielsio]

Hi gotlucky,

Thanks for the write-up.

1. You mention Rothbard. I personally believe Rothbard is a confusing mess regarding rights. I regard myself a Misesian consequentialist egoist. I would regard him as an ‘axiomatic libertarian’, the philosophy of which I think doesn’t translate well to real-world situations. I do like that when you’re thinking about the situation, you’re trying to bring it into real-world consequences and solutions.

I discuss the issue of land abandonment and axiomatic libertarianism here: http://nielsio.tumblr.com/post/12618682679/crusoe-morality-and-axiomatic-libertarianism

And as a follow-up of that, I have a critique of Rothbard here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGahZSS_T8w

Have you seen my How Could A Voluntary Society Function?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE9dZATrFak

I just wanted to add, how is society supposed to even find out about this kind of situation? Presumably, you are the only person with a boat in the area, as this man could always swim to another boat if this were not the case. So, you let this man drown, and how is society supposed to find out. So, I just want to point out that if someone presents you with this scenario, head them off and ask what is the point of the question? Are we trying to determine law based off such a scenario? Society will never find out, so why are you asking what the law ought to be?

The assumption of the question is that people are aware of what’s going on. If nobody would know, there would be no consequences, except in the mind of the person doing it.

If you have any further comments or question, I’d be happy to respond. But at this point it seems better for me to point you to the critiques I have made, and see if that brings the discussion any further. It doesn’t seem like we’re thinking very different at all, in realist terms, but the links I gave may make it easier to discover if there is some disagreement.

[gotlucky]

I’ve seen the How Could A Voluntary Society Function, but it’s been a while. I’ll check out the links and get back to you.

Thanks.

[gotlucky]

Hey Nielsio,

I finished watching your links, so I’ll respond now.

@Nielsio

1. You mention Rothbard. I personally believe Rothbard is a confusing mess regarding rights. I regard myself a Misesian consequentialist egoist. I would regard him as an ‘axiomatic libertarian’, the philosophy of which I think doesn’t translate well to real-world situations. I do like that when you’re thinking about the situation, you’re trying to bring it into real-world consequences and solutions.

Well, there is a soft spot in my heart for Rothbard, but I do not agree with him about natural rights (I used to, but it’s probably been a year since I have had that point of view). I still think most of Rothbard is useful, as most of his writings take the NAP as a premise instead of natural rights.

@Nielsio

The assumption of the question is that people are aware of what’s going on. If nobody would know, there would be no consequences, except in the mind of the person doing it.

Yeah, it’s just one of those weird questions where people are supposed to be aware without having been present, because if they were present, they could have helped the drowning man themselves. My point was to just throw the ridiculous premises back in the face of whoever is presenting it - I was imagining some statist being the person to present it.

@Nielsio

If you have any further comments or question, I’d be happy to respond. But at this point it seems better for me to point you to the critiques I have made, and see if that brings the discussion any further. It doesn’t seem like we’re thinking very different at all, in realist terms, but the links I gave may make it easier to discover if there is some disagreement.

I think that we agree for the most part. There might have been a few small things in your videos that I disagreed with, but I can’t remember what they are now. I do have one question though, do you support the NAP? I assumed you did, but after seeing your videos, it seems like it might be the case that you don’t. It seems like you are anti-state for economic reasons.

[Nielsio]

I do have one question though, do you support the NAP? I assumed you did, but after seeing your videos, it seems like it might be the case that you don’t. It seems like you are anti-state for economic reasons.

What reasons besides economic reasons could one have?

I think the ‘NAP’ is an oversimplified shorthand, which anarcho-capitalists tend to not understand deeply, making them less efficacious.

[gotlucky]

Well I support the NAP for moral reasons. The NAP is one form of the golden rule, also known as the ethic of reciprocity. The NAP is a form of the golden rule that is meant to apply to law. I think most people understand and support the idea of reciprocity, as is fairly obvious from the fact that actual criminals represent a very small percentage of society, but people have developed a massive blind spot towards the double standard that is the state. So, while most people consider theft and murder wrong, they are okay when the state does it. It’s either doublethink or cognitive dissonance - it just depends if they are comfortable or not in their acceptance of state aggression.

In one of your videos, you stated that people are against theft because they realize it would not be good for them if they were stolen from. And in the podcast, iirc, you stated something similar about muggers. You might not personally get mugged, but you are against muggers because you don’t want them wandering around society - they do pose a threat. So, you might have arrived at the golden rule through economic means, but I have arrived at simply because I believe it is moral. I am against murder - not because if I’m not against it, it might happen to me, but because I simply find it to be wrong.

[Nielsio]

Well I support the NAP for moral reasons.

Morality concerns social rules. The NAP is an example of a social rule. So saying you support the NAP for moral reasons is not an explanation.

You might not personally get mugged, but you are against muggers because you don’t want them wandering around society - they do pose a threat.

Because of the economic insight of the division of labor, I don’t want my trading partners to be stolen from. If somebody steals from my the supermarket I go to, that is bad news for me. All trading partners benefit from getting rid of non-trading partners.

So, you might have arrived at the golden rule through economic means, but I have arrived at simply because I believe it is moral. I am against murder - not because if I’m not against it, it might happen to me, but because I simply find it to be wrong.

What is morality except what you are for and against as far as social rules? What I’m reading from you is: “I am against murder because I am against it”.

Do you think morality is anything except social rules that we come up with, for our own benefit? For example some external thing that we choose to abide by, which is not grounded in our own benefit.

[gotlucky]

@Nielsio

Morality concerns social rules. The NAP is an example of a social rule. So saying you support the NAP for moral reasons is not an explanation.

Morality concerns a lot of things. Specifically, morals concern right and wrong behavior. Social rules are one aspect of right and wrong behavior. I consider it wrong to aggress against other people. There are other people who do not share this belief. When I say that I support the NAP for moral reasons, I am saying that I support the NAP because I consider it right instead of wrong.

It is true that morality doesn’t make much sense without more than one person, but you can have a monk go off into the woods and become a hermit and take a vow of silence and believe that it would be wrong for him to masturbate. Even if he shuts himself off from society, he might still think it is wrong to masturbate and to break his vow of silence. In my opinion, it would be an incredibly silly position to take, but that doesn’t stop him from deciding it is wrong.

For the most part, what is considered right and wrong behavior requires more than one person, but there are situations where someone can consider something right or wrong without needing a second person.

@Nielsio

Because of the economic insight of the division of labor, I don’t want my trading partners to be stolen from. If somebody steals from my the supermarket I go to, that is bad news for me. All trading partners benefit from getting rid of non-trading partners.

Right, you would consider yourself better off, and people who prefer to behave criminally consider themselves better off. I also agree with you that most people will take your position.

@Nielsio

What is morality except what you are for and against as far as social rules? What I’m reading from you is: “I am against murder because I am against it”.

Do you think morality is anything except social rules that we come up with, for our own benefit? For example some external thing that we choose to abide by, which is not grounded in our own benefit.

Exactly. I am against murder because I am against it. I consider it wrong. But more generally, I am against aggression because I am against it. I don’t need a reason. I do believe that a society based off the NAP would be a more peaceful and prosperous society (well, I guess that kind of goes with the whole non-aggression part, but I think you know what I mean). Here’s the thing, we are both for the golden rule, the ethic of reciprocity. Your position is, “I do not want to be aggressed against by others, so I think all people should not aggress against others”. This is the golden rule. My position is, “Not only do I not want to be aggressed against by others, but I don’t want others to aggress against others, so I think all people should not aggress against others.”

There really isn’t much difference between the two statements. They are both the golden rule. Certainly my position is circular, but it’s really an axiom. It’s my starting point. I am against aggression. Not all people will take this position for the reasons I do.

I suppose the main difference between Rothbard and me is that Rothbard felt he had to reason his way to the NAP, whereas I simply accept it as a starting point. More precisely, I accept the golden rule in general as a starting point, and I arrive at the NAP because it concerns violence. Instead of being about reciprocity of all actions, it is reciprocity regarding aggression only. **[**EDIT: Really, I should say that the NAP is reciprocity regarding violence, not aggression. After all, the person reciprocating is not aggressing.] For example, you might insult me, and if I were to reciprocate, I would then insult you. Anything more than that (i.e. violence) would go beyond reciprocating, which would violate the golden rule. Law concerns disputes that would otherwise turn to violence, so the NAP is more specific and relevant to law than the golden rule in general.

There is a bit of rambling in this post, but I think I was accurate in what I wanted to say.

[Nielsio]

Exactly. I am against murder because I am against it. I consider it wrong. But more generally, I am against aggression because I am against it. I don’t need a reason.

So, the NAP as religion? An unquestioned position?

Here’s the thing, we are both for the golden rule, the ethic of reciprocity. Your position is, “I do not want to be aggressed against by others, so I think all people should not aggress against others”. This is the golden rule.

My position is not a peace-making deal (“let’s all not fight each other”). My position is a cooperation-deal: “let’s work together under the division of labor for mutual benefit”.

More precisely, I accept the golden rule in general as a starting point, and I arrive at the NAP because it concerns violence.

Libertarianism Is Not ‘No Gun In The Room’