Earlier today I was having a mini debate/argument with a friend/schoolmate which delved into a few different topics (he asserted that the UK of today is fine because that is “what works”), however there was a particular question which came up, to do with a thought experiment, and I was wondering if anyone could help me think of a slightly more satisfactory answer to it.
His question was: “If there was a situation in which stealing someone’s fountain pen would save 1,000,000,000 lives, would you take that action?” (Obviously this situation is near-impossible, but as a thought experiment, it is still useful as a theoretical and logically possible scenario).
I said “No” arguing (while this may seem stupid) that no utilitarian calculation can be made, despite my instincts, because there is no way of totalling the pains of those who are to die, and comparing them with the pleasures the person derived from his/her pen. Moreover, in order to save the 1,000,000,000 people, I would have to initiate aggression through theft and trespass. Finally, “letting die” and “killing” cannot be equivocated.
“Yes.” I’m comfortable defending myself in court, having to make the victim whole, not being able to argue without hypocrisy against having my own pen stolen in turn, etc. It’s a billion lives, and the question isn’t even “Is the theft therefore not a rights-violation?” or “Would you otherwise be murdering them?”
You could be justified in stealing the pen. This doens’t mean that property rights aren’t absolute or valid; just that they have a proper context and that they are derived from deeper ethical concerns. You would, in effect, be putting yourself at the mercy of the owner of the pen afterwards. Unless the owner is a total tightwad, then I find it unlikely that they would do anything if you explained the situation to them. And even then, he would probably have some difficulties in finding a court that would actually try the case, given the circumstances.
Personally I would steal the fountain pen, knowing very much that the action that I took was unlawful in society’s eyes. The laws by which society functions do not have to be the morals one lives one’s life by, and sometimes one must do something that society would frown upon as wrong, yet is a must for obeying one’s morals.
So…you steal the pen and then pay damages. Maybe $10 ? And in exchange for that you have the gratitude of 1,000,000,000 people ? Maybe out of these 1,000,000,000 ten or twenty people will happily give you $10 each ? So, you spend $10 paying damages and make $100 ? Sounds like a win-win situation. Or maybe 1% of the people you saved give you one cent ? That would be 10,000,000 times 0.01 = $100,000 ? Not bad.
As far as life-boat scenarios go, this one is especially dumb…
To be sure, stealing the pen is in fact a crime. If I could save 1 life by doing so, I would commit that crime for sure.
The other question is if the owner of the pen asks me to recompensate him for stealing his property. He, and he alone, is the only one to decide about that. No society no court - unless he wants me to sue for the crime to find a proper recompensation.
So where is the issue?
It seems to me that we often think of a crime as somthing society has to judge about. This is a fallacy. The only one that has any claim in any crime is the victim. Full stop.
Now, let me ask you another question, would you want to be recompensated for stealing your pen by a man that saved a life by taking it? Sure, you are eligible for this. Yet, what about your moral values?
a pen is owned by A and a million people are not hurt in any way. or that pen is owned by B and it so happens a million people die.
EITHER
the ownership of the pen has no causal relation in determining what happens to a million people. (i.e it is just coincidence that in one world i own hte pen and people live and the other you own it and they die) in this case ownership of the pen doesnt determine life or death. its calls into question the quality of the story. but the million people dying in earth 2 and those staying alive in parallel earth 1 didnt live or die because of a pen but for other reasons. so we will have one court case to determine who should be acknowledge as the true and rightful owner of the pen, and another to determine who killed the million people of earth two
OTHERWISE
2)ownership of the pen CAUSES the death of a million people. it is the owner that does the killing. as the owner is directly responsible for his continued ownership of the pen.
although, the question is stated so as to implicity set up an assumption that the reason that the million people die is unkown, yet we have deduced (on this horn at least) that it is the active ownership of a particular pen by a particular person directly and primarily causes the deaths of innocents, havent we therefore made a case that the supposed orginal owner is the killer, and that his owning the pen initiates force. We are more used to seeing guns and bombs initiate force. but im sure pens can be used to kill people. and the question imagines that a pen is used to kill people. so i say indict the killer
No prob. Anything I can do to spread the words of great libertarian thinkers.
The question you pose is a common one presented as an objection to the non-aggression principle. The terms HAVE TO be extreme and ridiculous to focus on the transgression. However the question is a non-sensical obfuscation of reality. The real question you are posing is more accurately asking: “If there was a situation in which you could predict the future… blah blah blah… would you take that action?” The extreme details are actually a red herring.
Nobody can predict the future. Why would anybody believe that stealing a fountain pen could save lives???
I do not believe advocates of the non-aggression principle should feel obligated to answer that absurd question. We should throw that question back and ask: “If there was a situation in which you believed that stealing someone’s fountain pen would save 1,000,000,000 lives and after you took that action, how should your crime of theft be arbitrated when reality kicks in and those 1,000,000,000 people die anyway???”
would be theif thinks SomeGuy owning pen will cause millions to die.
thief steals SomeGuy’s pen.
it is discovered later that thief having stolen SomeGuys pen has caused millions to die. (and that they wouldnt have died if SomeGuy had had his property respected)
Ok, same kind of question posted at RonPaulForums, would like to share my answer, which is also releveant to yours.
Question was:
Hypothetical Question on Rights: Kill Someone Through Inaction?
100 people are stranded on a deserted island, with no possibility of escape. There is only one source of potable water on the island. One person controls that water absolutely, and there is no way to get drinking water without him. This one person refuses to give water to the other 99 people on the island. His intention is to have them all die of dehydration.
What are the 99 people ethically and morally able to do? Is it within their rights to get that drinking water?
I usually refuse to respond to such hypos, because they’re deliberately vague and acontextual. Until the person presenting them fleshes them out, they’'re not worth entertaining.
Problems of a moral theory in such an extreme situation do not invalidate a theory for normal situations. In any sphere of moral theory, we are trying to frame an ethic for man, based on his nature and the nature of the world — and this precisely means for normal nature, for the way life usually is, and not for rare and abnormal situations. It is a wise maxim of the law, for precisely this reason, that “hard cases make bad law.” We are trying to frame an ethic for the way men generally live in the world; we are not, after all, interested in framing an ethic that focuses on situations that are rare, extreme, and not generally encountered.
I would’ve gone with Rand’s The Ethics of Emergencies (“The Virtue of Selfishness”, Ch. 3), if only because it was published earlier, but Rothbard is more to the point here [Y].