not a good example since its a public street which throws the property calculus kind of out of whack. if we consider it unowned property , or the property of a criminal elite, then it must be returned. in a private street the original analysis would obtain, not this one.
That is what I am referring to. I say they can either let it sit or agree to a deal, but cannot flat out take it.
Of course. If they appropriate and use any hitherto unappropriated resource, they ought to be considered the resource’s rightful owner. They may use tools to appropriate this unowned resource, just as you may use a leaf blower or jetpack to appropriate your lost soccer ball.
Also, if anyone gives a quadriplegic a piece of property as a gift, or in a voluntary transaction, the quadriplegic comes to own that property.
However, if the quadriplegic not only loses ALL levels of physical control over something, AND has no ethical claim against others to return it to their control, what use is it to say that they “own” that thing any more? What use is the concept of a title in that thing any more? If they can never get to it or use it again, unless someone else gets it for them, but no one else is ethically obligated to get it for them, what use is such a notion?
Granted, this is all testing of the boundaries in the extreme. This situation will be very rare, as most people will be more than willing to let a kid retrieve a ball from their lawn and such.
if the ball did not land on the grass but rather in the neighbours arms, did he take it? and is he a thief?
if the ball did not land on soft grass but on a rake ,and pop and destroyed, is he liable for destroying the ball?
the answer is no since he is the victim of the leakage of negligent material onto his property. the lack of care on the part of the loser is not
to be held against the neighbour as a point of pure moral law, if the neighbour gets pleasure from a clear swathe of grass on his lawn, with no balls obstructing the fine view, why does he become a criminal, because someone else negligently littered his lawn?
i put my faith in market law that will crystalize around natural law but would conventionalise ‘softer’ ‘negotiated’ outcomes through the mutual obligations of law service purchasers.
The title implies an ‘ethical’ claim. I’m not sure why you are making it more complex than it really is.
Well yes. I’m saying that if Smith has physical control of something but doesn’t have an ‘ethical claim’ he’s probably a thief…unless he’s willing to return the time to the owner. What’s controversial about that ?
Well, the ethical law dictates that if you accidentally get ‘physical control’ of something which you don’t own, then you still don’t own it. So you must return it to the owner.
I see that Nir wants to turn this on its head and pretend that the finder/keeper is under no ‘positive’ obligation to return lost items, but I’m not buying that.
Ethical claims, ethical claims…
I kick the soccer ball on the edge by accident. I have physical control to get it. I have an ethical claim to it.
I kick the soccer ball in the middle by accident. I do not have physical control to get it. I still have an ethical claim to it.
So do I require physical control to have an ethical claim? I do not think so.
juan, do i oversimplifiy your position? : if some material lands in your lap, although you did not aggress to get it in your lap, you would be stealing it to keep it, if the person that owned it previously, (and had not been separted from it up to this point in time by any act of aggression on anyones part),asks you to give it back and you dont. then you ‘become’ a thief . is that your position?
Yes.
Physical control with an ethical claim: my property
Physical control without an ethical claim: stolen property
No physical control or ethical claim: fair game for homesteading
Ethical claim with no physical control: unreachable, but still my property
your ethical claim is only that 'because you came to own it by legitimate means, hence no-one can positively aggress against you to seperate it from you"
this is different to saying that “because you came to own it by legitimate means, hence no-one can passively receive it or manipulate it should you become seperated from it through no-one elses fault”
Wait, so are you saying that the neighbor should return it now? I’m losing my mind here lol
i didnt formulate that well since aggress against you was loosely defined encompassing in a ciruclar fashion the very notion of property which was in dispute. my bad.
Not if you find it on a public street, then place it in your private pocket.
The finder is under no legal obligation to find the owner(maybe he’s dead), but if the owner sees you pick it up and demands it back, you’re a thief to keep it.
yes, i think i made that exact point earlier, but things would be different on a privately owned street, (or place)
Let me wipe this thing clean and go back to my NAA system, which I have renamed NUI:
Property can be coerced in three ways:
-
Naturally
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Unintentionally
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Intentionally
Natural coercion can not demand restitution or retribution.
Unintentional coercion can demand restitution, but not retribution, for the person(s) responsible.
Intentional coercion can demand restitution and/or retribution for the person(s) responsible.
I have committed #2 upon my neighbor’s lawn and I owe restitution to my neighbor.
If my neighbor refuses to either let me get it back (I pay them for access), give it back themselves (I pay them for service), or buy it, they have committed #3. They owe me a soccer ball + retribution.
That’s it. I’m done arguing. This system works nicely, no one loses property by force, and everything is handled in the end by good ol’ supply and demand.
what is the precise ethical claim? that at one point you did own it, and that the only change from then to now is the physical loss of control that has occured over it. a loss not involving any positive act of aggression on anyones part.
in losing the property on anothers property, and claiming an ethical right over it (i.e. against the damage of it), you limit the ‘finders’ property rights in his own property (i.e. the lawn, his own body etc) perhaps this ‘aggression’ against the ‘finder’ can be dealt with by ‘self-defence’ even to the point of destroying the aggressing ball. yes, the ball owner would have a right to have his property unharmed, if it was in a no-mans land, (i.e. no-one could come along and harm it), but on the private property it is the very article that by its unwelcomed presence constitutes an aggression, (if the landowner consideres it to be so).
rather than restitution, and retribution which both come after the fact, where does susceptability to being defended against fall on your 3 note scale?
whilst intentional acts of egress can be selfdefended against until the point where the aggression ceases, and then any damage incurred by the defender must be restituted; does the right to self-defend diminish as the intentions of the aggressor evaporate?
Glad you asked. It is a modified form of the NAP, in that it only applies in response to initial coercion or threat of coercion. I do not see how the intentions of the aggressor can evaporate: they are either claiming control over your property or not. Unlike the NAP, it also accounts for the fact that “accidents happen”, and, in a way, automatically applies proportionality to itself. I posted an example about a child stealing candy earlier and showed how effective it was over the plain old NAP in making sure restitution is paid without being able to blow the kid’s head off if one felt like it. I am very proud of my idea 
EDIT: here it is:
One more thing I wanted to note about my system is that it covers children, such as Rothbard’s candy-stealer, very well. Let’s examine it under my “NUI” rule:
The two most common cases are:
(1): The child knew that taking the candy constituted as aggression
(2): The child did not know any better and was acting on impulse
In both cases the child owes the shopkeeper restitution.
If (1) is the case, then the shopkeeper is justified in using force to get it back, though how he handles it may hurt his business.
If (2) is the case, then the shopkeeper’s use of physical force would be aggression and he would have to pay for the harm done to the child.
Because it is a child, the shopkeeper really has no good way of knowing whether it is case 1 or 2, so he would be inclined to err on the safe side and not physically hurt the kid.
the response to someone who ‘accidentaly’ puts their knife in your chest, is to ask them kindly to remove it good sir and please be sure to restitute me when you are done?, or is it to take the knife out, or if you have a knife-breaking weapon to use it etc?
I’m pretty sure under most circumstances the stabee would know very well if he has been intentionally or unintentionally stabbed If not, then he can do what he wants and let a court decide.