That’s why people invest in investment firms. A forced monopoly on investment is the last thing you want determining what a “good” investment is.
I disagree. Socialism is based, at least in Venezuela, on that very idea.
Now that is actually quite funny. And sad.
The reason they won’t accept your challenge, is that they are intellectually bankrupt. While you got a similarly rough welcome here, you will find no shortage of people who will debate you, provided you stay honest to the topic. That’s because what many of us believe can be rationally and objectively defended.
A group implies inclusiviness, a club, exclusivity.
Ruben, if that is the case, then Venezuelan “socialism” is not truly socialism, but rather is egalitarian collectivism, in the same way that “liberals” in America are egalitarian collectivists, and not liberals.
I was suggesting that “social efficiency” is one consideration in determining what counts as an inherent principle of justice, at least at the political level, pertaining to which obligations of ours are legitimately enforceable by law. Rasmussen and Den Uyl’s distinction between normative and metanormative principles may be helpful here. Respect for persons may be the ethical (normative) justification for rights - rights being a legitimately enforceable moral claim against the prior obligation of others not to threaten or use initiatory physical force against you - while “social efficiency” may be a major metanormative justification for the moral claim to non-aggression being a right, i.e., being legitimately enforceable by law. Now, I’m making a distinction not a separation here between normative and metanormative aspects of rights; the two sides are internally related and mutually adjusted to one another.
I happen to think that the latter will result in the former and vice versa. There’s more than one reason to adopt the non-aggression principle. Either to the two alternatives you list is incomplete by itself.
I don’t think there is an issue here at all. Ethically speaking it is quite clear whether there is coercion or not. If the gun-owner forces the boat-owner to do something then there is coercion.
I think you are confusing the ethical argument with the moral argument. We can be in complete disagreement with the boat-owner from a moral standpoint, but in agreement ethically. Such is the case with drug use, for example. One’s system of morals might abhor (certain types of) drug use, yet ethically speaking there is no problem - as the act of a person taking does not negatively affect the rights of the one who disagrees with drug use.
Going back to the the ‘boat scenaro’, the moral standpoint is just subjective. Just as you and I might find the actions of the boat-owner ghastly, others might be in agreement with his actions and say that the kid has taken the decision to swim out into the lake thus must bear the consequences of that decision. The ethical argument does not change - the boat-owner hasn’t coerced and effectively doesn’t owe anyone anything, so to coerce him would be wrong.
Geoffrey, it would seem to me that respect for persons would follow directly from the notion that people are intrinsically valuable ends-in-themselves, and are not to be sacrificed on behalf others without amply justificatory reasons. I think that in a limited sense, and in extreme situations, aggregate consequences can serve as justification for infringing upon rights (that is, treating people in ways that they would ordinarily be morally entitled against). But I’m not sure I think that the reason that we ought to respect others can be understood by reference to the consequences of doing so (though I acknowledge that consequences will play a role in our thinking about exactly what we think is entailed by having respect for persons).
As for your latter point about the interconnectedness of the respect-basis and efficiency-basis for accepting the non-aggression principle, I’ve always found this kind of stance puzzling. If you found out that there were more efficient ways to order society than the non-aggression principle, would you continue to advocate it? Or have you defined social efficiency in such a way (i.e. in some kind of Paretian sense) that the non-aggression principle is simply implied by your concept of efficiency?
FreedomIsYellow, I think you’re quite right to point out that there’s coercion. In fact, I used the term myself. But if you’re using the word “coercive” to be synonymous with “morally impermissible,” then you’ll beg the question.
As for your disjunction between ethical arguments and moral arguments, I’m guessing that what you mean is that ethical issues govern the use of force between people, and moral issues have to do with what would be right or wrong? Provisionally accepting this distinction, I think you beg the question in the same way you may have above by claiming that my point is a moral one and not an ethical one. Obviously if coercion is always wrong, then my argument incorrectly makes an ethical claim out of a moral one. But my argument is that many people do believe that the issues in question could justify force, and therefore we would need to move into the realm of ethics. You would again need to demonstrate why coercion is always morally impermissible, particularly in response to morally monsterous actions which produce deadly consequences for other people.
I think you may find that the distinction you’ve accepted between morality and ethics presupposes the non-aggression principle, and does not establish it. But I may be wrong, and would love to hear how you can make this work.
I derive the NAP from the fact that we control our bodies, own them and can’t control or own others’ bodies by virtue of the fact that doing so would negatively impact on their control and ownership. This negative impact is how I define coercion.
From this I define coercion to be ethically wrong, based on the NAP, so yes I do presuppose this. Whether or not the NAP as described above is valid is for a different discussion.
I define morals as being subjective beliefs or preferences for what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’, so therefore depending on the individual this may or may not coincide with what is ethically 'right or ‘wrong’.
I understand your point, but ethics are not decided by majority consensus. Rather, they are empirically derived as described above. What we see in the boat example is that many people’s moral beliefs might not coincide with the logical conclusions drawn from the NAP, in some extremely unlikely real-world examples.
If we do not have a personal/subjective conviction that murder is wrong or bad, how can we ever perceive it to be ethically wrong?
Counter question: if we don’t own our own bodies, then who does own them? Or are they “unowned”, waiting to be acquired?
I thnk it’s unfortunate that the term “self-ownership” is used (though I admit I haven’t come up with a better term), precisely because it implies that owning one’s body is like owning anything else, like a TV set or a house. There’s one big difference, though: you cannot alienate your will (or mind or spirit or whatever you want to call it) from your body. It’s not merely that you can control your body, but that you cannot NOT control it, except by the most extreme methods, up to and including death.
Thus, “self-ownership” is a self-evident axiom, unless you want to argue semantics.
If self ownership is not possible, it’s not feasible for anyone or anything to be able to acquire and legitimately claim, ownership.
The problem is, self-ownership does not lead to a condition where aggression is invalid, it’s merely an expression or description of the identity of the self. That the self is the only thing capable of completely and totally using the self, therefore the self owns the self. That doesn’t imply other’s can’t try to own or control or aggress against you.
Macsnafu, my point is that “ownership” is a pretty specific concept, implying pretty specific things about what can and can’t be done to or with us legitimately. Treating self-ownership as if it were a fact of nature obscures the vagueness of the notion of individual rights, and suggests that there is nothing on which people could reasonably disagree. The question is not whether we are owned by ourselves or by other people. Clearly if that were the choice, there would be no dispute. The question is whether “ownership” is an appropriate description of the issue. Once we say that people own themselves, we imply a property rights system, and we will come to think of owned objects as extensions of the self – the same way that people ought to treat us will naturally extend to our property. But this, I think, is a semantic trick, and ultimately fails to provide the kind of foundation that its proponents seek. It seems to me that the relationship between our property and ourselves is not at all identical to the relationship we have with ourselves, and that to identify these relationships would either improperly elevate the status of property, or devalue the status of the individual.
But as for the self-evidence of something like “self-ownership,” I can only point out that control of oneself need not imply any normative notion, and ownership is inherently a normative idea. As I suggested to FreedomIsYellow, you might be interested in this and this.
Banned, I’m not sure I agree. If ownership is a relationship which applies between individuals and property, but not individuals and themselves, then it would be possible to not be able to own oneself, but to own property.
That’s why I said “self-ownership” is an unfortunate choice of terms. I’m open to different descriptions, if anyone thinks they can do better.
I disagree. The normative notion of ownership is not inherent, but a logical deduction of what is inherent: use and control. The implication is in the logic, not the description.
Of course others can try to own, control, or aggress against you, but since they cannot alienate your will, this contol is always imperfect, and often inadequate. But I see that I’ve jumped into the defense of self-ownership without fully considering my own position on it.
Self-ownership, by itself, does not show that aggression is invalid or immoral. However, it does hold if a given premise or context is accepted. If, for example, your goal or desire is for someone to be happy and productive, then self-ownership clearly shows that aggression is a poor way for achieving this goal. However, you could have an entirely different goal, one where aggression is appropriate for achieving your end. In that case, self-ownership may matter little to you, or it may even show why aggression is the appropriate means for your goal.
This contextualization idea, the correlation of means to ends, is something that’s been bubbling on the back burner of my mind for some time now, and isn’t yet fully realized, but I think it holds promise for a more substantial natural law theory.
I don’t think that we need another term for “self-ownership.” Libertarian conceptions of justice, as I understand them, are based on the idea that individuals are inviolable, and are not to be sacrificed on behalf of the interests of others. To do so would be to fundamentally disrespect them as individuals. It has nothing to do with ownership; ownership of property is a derivative of this concept. The way I’d get to a right to property would be to acknowledge that individuals not only plan and order their lives within their minds, but also in the material world. To do so, they make use of objects, which become integral to their identities and goals. Society, then, needs some way of acknowledging this, and of assigning the “right of way” in the use of material objects, so that individuals can plan and organize their lives without uncertainty or fear of dispossession. This is embodied in the idea of property rights.
Could you explain why you believe that the normative notion of ownership is logically entailed by the positive fact of control and possession?
That is how Rasmussen and den Uyl defend the right, incidentally.
-Jon