10,000 dollars is all fine and good, but how does your system handle the problem of land theft?
If the fact that the hermit is no longer on your property means that he is no longer stealing from you, then all he has to do is steal not just the 10,000 dollars, but also your land. Then he can not be shot even if he is running over what was your property, since the theft is now over.
So if the hermit comes onto your land with a forged title to your land you must now leave, or else be guilty of aggression. That is according to your system.
This is what I don’t quite buy… because it hasn’t been effectively demonstrated to me. This is the core of my issue. Is it really just an a priori assumption on the part of NAP adherers that violating a violator is not considered “aggressive?” I have yet to see anyone give me a real reason other than “it just is.”
Well, if you dug my previous sentence*: as long as a thief didn’t bring the stolen property to the rightful owner, the thief is commiting an act of agression and it is justifiable for a victim under the principle of the NAP to seek a restitution from the thief.* Then what don’t you understand? Or do you disagree with that?
Because I am not quite sure what your position is. Violating a violator is quite ambiguous. Taking your property back from a thief is not a violation (of a NAP). Violation would be smahing thief’s head, or burning his house for example. Here I fully agree with you, that this is an act of agression and is unnecessary. But simply even using force (if necessary) to take your property back is not a violation of NAP, it is a core of the NAP in my opinion. It’s a part of self-defence, because as I mentioned previously, as long as a thief has stolen property, he is agressing against the victim and victim is fully justified in taking back what is his. You agreed with that, as I understood.
Maybe it was just mine poor choice of words (using agression out of context, don’t know).
By saying, that NAP “wouldn’t work”, I meant, that it couldn’t be used no longer to justify a restitution process. What if a thief doesn’t want to bring back victim’s property or pay the damages? Then any DRO’s (or victim’s) action would be an act of agression. If victim has no right to his property just because crime is already done and any action after the crime is violation of the NAP, then what follows from this? I mean here assuming thief doesn’t want to negotiate and peacfully bring property back.
First, it’s not “my system,” per se. It’s an idea I’m toying with in hopes of coming to logical conclusions about how people would or should interact in the absence of state, and even!!! to determine whether or not living in the absence of state is, itself preferrable. It’s a hypothetical for the purpose of argumentation. Nothing more.
Real property isn’t something you up and take with you. I would consider it a different animal. As long as you rightfully own that property, i.e. rightfully purchased it from the previous rightful owner, anyone’s presence on that property without your permission is an act of aggression. Every shred of the being of the would-be thief is in violation of your property for th entirety of his stay. When he pilfers a television from you and retreats to his own property, you are then forced to violate his property in order to reacquire your television. The situations are not, as far as I can tell, comparable.
This, of course, rests upon the idea that you are not alone in your moral compass and ideas of things like property ownership. There is a lot more I could say here but I don’t want this to grow too long. Let’s just suffice it to say that I don’t think it at all unreasonable to believe that your neighbors would find it in their interest to help enforce your ownership of property versus the thief’s ownership. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to have a thief in that sort of proximity to me and my family.
I’m going to cut to the chase and I hope you don’t mind. I think if we clear this up here, the rest of it will all fall into place.
I don’t necessarily assume that all violation is morally questionable… As opposed to aggression. Saying aggressing against an aggressor would have had far more moral implication. I was trying to avoid that.
Can you provide support, logical or otherwise, for this statement:
I’m not trying to be difficult or obtuse, I promise. But up to this point, every answer to the question of support for this statement has come in the form of more statements of the same. It’s like saying “the sky is orange.” I’m asking you to demonstrate that the sky is orange, and the only response is, “But the sky is orange.” If, as I said before, there is no answer other than that, “I/we assume that x is not aggressive,” I would be happy with that answer. However, up to now, no one has come out and say so.
This is how I understand NAP, but I can’t provide you sources to some article or book, because I didn’t get this information from them, just my own reasoning, sorry.
NAP - initiation of the use of force is immoral except in self defence.
So I think we have a disagreement about what is self-defence, right?
I already stated my opinion above: as long as a thief has a stolen car (suppose he stole it from me), he is in the act of agression upon my private property (which is just an extention of my own private property in my body so to speak, self-ownership I mean). And as long as he is agressing, I am justified in taking action against him and trying to get back my stolen car.
Why is it a violation of the NAP? You seem to think, that only in the act or physical violence NAP is justified (I mean here defence and using violence against criminal). But if that was the case, then NAP simply would become void, because we all by our own NATURE defend ourselves, like all animals do. We don’t have to have a divine right to act and use force, for example, against murderer who trying to kill you.
Forgive me. I had a huge reply and like a silly lost it when my submit failed. I should know better than to submit without copying what I’ve done. That’s why I’ve taken so long to respond.
I’m happy to hear your own reasoning, if you would be so kind as to provide it.
I would argue that it is not an initiation if the force is used for defensive purposes.
Possibly.
So the theif is in a perpetual state of “aggressive behavior” as long as he possesses stolen property, no matter where he is or how much time has passed? Just asking for clarification here, I’m not making any value judgements.
Forgive me. I’m having a hard time understand what you mean here. Could you restate it for me?
I don’t argue that it isn’t in the nature of man to defend ourselves. Nor do I believe we require any sort of explanation or justification other than the fact that we do exist in order to justify defending our existence against aggressors. What I question is where the line is drawn as to what is aggressive and what is defensive. That’s all I’m trying to work out here.
I think if we clear this up here, the rest of it will all fall into place.