Say this mountain man who doesn’t trade with anybody, does not receive any charity, and does not have any protection agency that he patronizes and then he goes out and murders someone. How is consent maintain while bringing this man to justice?
Consent of what?
I think you are saying that crime should be defined as breach of contract. Like an implementation of an explicit version of a social contract. That would be the case for people who are a party to contracts, but that need not apply to everyone.
Once the murder takes place, those close to the victim will have justice done (whatever that is). If the mountain man and the family choose to enter arbitration, they may contract a settlement. But absent that, they will likely have conflict.
Um, simple retribution? If a family member of the murdered goes to the mountain man’s cabin and just kills him in retribution, who’s going to say anything about it? The mountain man’s relatives??
Clayton -
I hope you are not implying that the current system of law actually punishes the murders and removes them from society? Because there are lots of very public instances where people are beyond the law like Barak Obama. Furthermore the people murdered by the Bad LA ExCop were not very well protected by the extremely expensive law enforcement and defense institutions that exist today. And I am sure that you are not fond of the current situation where 1/3 of murders go unresolved, 49% of property crimes go unresolved and 25% of rapes get proven not to have happened or the victim recants.
But even if you are, in a free society this person would have a difficult time hiding in the wilderness as just about everybody else would not want to be harmed by this person. Then the insurance and protective businesses would go crazy trying to find this guy as the last thing they want would be their customers to fear for thier lives. Furthermore, prevention is cheap and clean up is expensive so unlike law enforcement these institutions would have huge incentives to predict who would be a security risk and to deal with this before there is an incident.
So disassociating from society gives people MORE rights?
Fuckin’ voluntaryism, how does it work?
So disassociating from society gives people MORE rights?
Wha? I don’t follow… Rights are natural, it doesn’t matter where you live, your rights are the same.
If this mountain man doesn’t trade with anybody and apparently wishes to be alone, why would he suddenly decide to kill someone (assuming that all they’ve done is left him alone in kind)? And even if we assume that there’s a good explanation for that, how would this man have just happened upon someone to kill without first encountering their property rights in some way? A protection agency would most certainly be aware of someone who doesn’t have any agreements in place and has no intention of entering into any.
Now, accepting that everything to this point somehow makes sense, let’s think about this a different way: You happen upon a burglar in your home, and when you point your gun at him and tell him to stay where he is and put his hands up, he refuses and starts walking towards you. Are you obligated to let him do as he pleases based on the fact that he did not consent to your proposed action?
I don’t understand why the family of the murdered can’t just go kill him in retribution. The scenario posited that the mountain man is completely disconnected from society. If so, then he is the one who is at risk, not us. We’re connected. If he ventures down out of his hideout and commits a murder, he’s the one who can be killed without repercussions precisely because he is unconnected. How can you get this backwards?
Clayton -
You don’t need the murderers consent to bring him to trial. Anyone can murder a murderer, or detain him and bring him to trial. Of course if you falsely murder a murderer who wasn’t really a murderer then you yourself are a murderer and anyone can murder you; this way there will be a great incentive to make sure vigallantee justice is used only when the evidence is compelling.
I think he means like in a Murder Nebulae.
How would they go about doing this, i.e. being proactive, like the government does today?
see chapters 12 and 13 of ethics of liberty
although i don’t think that’s the passage i’m thinking of and it contradicts me by saying or implying that only the heirs can murder / have the murderer murdered
edit : page 90 I think
essentially the point being, you do not have to wait for a guilty verdict to punish a criminal (for example murdering a murderer) or to use force to aprehend a criminal (perhaps to bring him to trial) BUT if you do use force against someone on the assumption of guilt, or to punish a criminal and they are later exonerated or there is not enough evidence against them, then you yourself are not exempt from prosecution.
@Meistro: You do understand that the word “murder” means criminal homicide? If someone kills your brother, and you “kill him back” in retribution, if the law does not view your actions as criminal, then it’s not murder.
Clayton -
That’s true, I used murder in some places in that sentence where I should have used kill. Imprecision of language, certainly but you would think from the context it was obvious what I meant.
Still, can we not say, for example, that the state murders me if I am killed unjustly by an agent of the state? Even though all state killings will likely be ‘legal’, since of course that is determined by the state.