You said “The important thing to realize is that any “voluntary slavery” contract requires constant consent from the slave.”
That “voluntary slavery” you’re talking about in this sentence is called employment. Slavery by selling oneself is not employment, it’s real slavery. Slavery by selling oneself has nowhere and never in history had the “constant consent” clause.
That’s another thing - how does voluntary slavery necessarily require constant consent from the slave?
I’d say it comes from Rothbard’s “The concept of ‘voluntary slavery’ is indeed a contradictory one, for so long as a laborer remains totally subservient to his master’s will voluntarily, he is not yet a slave since his submission is voluntary; whereas, if he later changed his mind and the master enforced his slavery by violence, the slavery would not then be voluntary.” in EoL, which is (as I mentioned) about some theorethical slavery based on metaphysical view of it, rather then being concerned with the slavery by selling oneself (as oppossed to slavery by direct coersion- kidnaping or being takes as a PoW) which is not theoretical, but historical/ real.
No, that contract still does not transfer title. Suppose they are boxers. When boxer A signs a contract saying that boxer B may hit boxer A under certain conditions, did that constitute a transfer of title? No, it did not. All the contract says is that B may hit A under certain conditions, and that his actions would be considered rightful. It does not mean that B now has title to A’s body.
I consider it to be the same in your scenario. Certainly, there could be a society where it is legal for B to do this if A no longer consents, but I am saying that it is not compatible with the NAP.
Well, I was not under the impression that that is all the NAP says. Block has defined it (this is a paraphrase) as no aggression against a person or his rightful property. If you take away the rightful property aspect, then you are in the realm of Laotzu del Zinn.
and
I am going to requote my response, but I will add some annotations:
So, since you have stated that one can talk about male/female rights without making these distinctions, I request that you provide an example. It is my contention, and I will requote again:
Obviously I consider Rothbard’s argument sufficient, and obviously you don’t. I’m curious as to what you think about Kinsella’s argument.
Okay.
I’m not sure I see the distinction you are making. Could you rephrase?
Yes, I know. What my point has been, I think all along, is that there are many situations that cannot occur in the real world. They can occur logically, but not in the real world. So you can claim that you have a right to levitate. And we can say that should you actually be able to levitate, here are the rights regarding this ability. But in the real world, you cannot levitate. So it’s a moot point.
Yes. I know this. This is not my point. My point is that there are claims that may be logical but not physically possible. The claims about rights that do not have to do with what are actually possible are moot points. You can claim whatever you want about impossibilities, but they have no bearing on the real world.
Strictly speaking, some rights are dependant on reality. Legal rights in particular. I am going further and saying that claims about impossible rights are a moot issue. Claim them all you want, but they have no bearing on the real world. The scenarios do not occur.
Well it seems that you missed my point too. Perhaps this post clears it up.
Clearly you have read through my posts, since you found that little nugget. Anyway, you have taken that quote out of context, and it is clear that you are not representing my arguments accurately.
I have tried to articulate them many times, and I believe they are clear if you actually read what I wrote. Perhaps you should just quote entire sections at a time in the future, until you know how to paraphrase someone’s argument accurately.
Until then, I will respond to Autolykos’ question about this, as I can understand why he didn’t read through my bickering with Minarchist. But you did read through it, and you have no excuse for misrepresenting my arguments.
I’m not going to go through this exact problem again with another person. Restate my arguments accurately, or I will just continue to give responses like this.
Sincerely,
gotlucky
I did explain this earlier in the thread, but since I know you are not trolling me, I will explain it again for you and in more depth (I am not saying that I am explaining it a second time to you, just that I am explaining the idea a second time):
No master can force his slave to do anything. I used the example of Frederick Douglass, but he is not the only possible example. There were times that Douglass refused to do certain things for his overseers and masters. Nevermind his running away, there was actually an occassion where he beat up one of his overseers.
The point is, that a master can order his slave to pick cotton in the field, but the only way the slave will actually pick the cotton is if he consents. This consent may be coerced consent. The slave can be threatened. Whatever. The point is, the master cannot make his slave do anything without consent from the slave.
Even if the master forcibly picked up the slave’s arm and made the arm pick cotton, it is not the slave that is doing this. This is what I mean by the master requiring constant consent from the slave.
That is all true but on a metaphysical level, but not applicable.
If we were to introduce the metaphysical theory that (as long one is of a clear mind) freedom of choice is always present - into the practical level, that would make all roberies valid contracts, because the one being stolen from had the choice to not agree to the theft. It would still probably result in theft happening (along with the robbed being hit, shot or killed) but there’s always a choice between “ok, ok, take it, just don’t shoot me” and “f* you, i don’t want to give you my wallet”.
Eg. I put a gun to you head and ask for your car. You give your car to me. It is obvious that you value me not shooting you in the head more then your car, and I value the car more then not shooting you in the head, and voila- you have sold be your car on the price we both agreed and we had trade to which we both agreed to by our own choice, it was a meeting of minds and a valid contract, we both got what we value more, otherwise we wouldn’t have agreed, bla bla bla.
The point is that the metaphysical is not that much important here, but the physical, not the freedom of the will, but existence of threats and coercion.
That physical, which is the point here, at least IMO, is pretty obvious, Rousseau wrote near the beggining of the Social contract- “To yield to force is an act of necessity, not of will - at the most, an act of prudence” and that “force does not create right”. Being that no slavery is slavery if it has “cancelable by lack of consent of the slave” clause- all slavery is illegitimate, even if the slave voluntarily sells himself into it.
In the comments that you’ve posted since my last post, you have made no attempt whatsoever to advance a serious discussion. I made several comments and criticisms, and asked several questions: you respond with nothing substantive (not to mention that you’ve been extremely rude throughout). As a result, I have no intention of responding to you in future.
I see that you erased this, so I am quoting only so that it is documented.
Look, Minarchist, I can say many of the same things about you. In you second post to this thread, you made straw men of my beliefs. I asked you to read the thread so that you could see what I though. You did not do this. It is true that I have been rude at times, but so have you. You have accused me of not knowing the difference between truth and validity, but on multiple occasions you have called arguments “true”. I think that you actually do know the difference, but that you were just sloppy. The reason I hounded you on that was because I wanted you to realize the absurdity of throwing around that type of accusation when you can’t keep your jargon straight.
Furthermore, of all the posts to respond to, you pick that one. After that post, I stated:
In the post immediately following that, you will see that it was actually quite polite, and that I really tried to start over with you. What’s more, is that in posts following that, you continued to straw man my arguments, even after I had stated explicitly that I did not believe those things. And what’s more, even though you created straw men, I was not rude in my response to that post. And in the following post again, I was very polite, even though I had to point out more straw men. And in the post after that, when I said I was not mixing up is-ought, I was still polite. And in the posts following that, I was still polite. It was not until you accused me of not understanding the difference between validity and truthfulness that I because rude again. Now, perhaps you don’t consider what you did to be rude, but it is a very rude thing to do, especially because nothing I said had merited such an accusation.
I even put together a post demonstrating why you cannot just insert your own definitions into other people’s arguments. But instead of you responding to it, you try to opt out by calling me a fool.
Look, we had started getting along, and it was lasting for several posts. Maybe even 10, more or less, between the two of us. But then you started patronizing me, all the while demonstrating that you did not understand the difference between what you were accusing me of not knowing.
You will notice that I do not have these problems with Autolykos. Do you know why? That is because he does not repeatedly create straw men or attempt to patronize me.
I also linked an essay by Kinsella for you. It was another attempt to try to reconcile with you. But from the way you “debate”, I don’t think you are here to be honest. An honest debater might create a straw man once by accident, but you make it a practice to make them. You also make it a practice to lie. You lied when you said you read this thread. The reason I asked you to read it was so that I wouldn’t have to rehash everything for you. And then you lied about it. There is no reason to do this.
The only reason you are opting out of this debate by calling me a fool is so that you don’t have to face the fact that you are dishonest. You want to be able to prove people wrong by inserting your own definitions. Well, have it your way. From now on, I will make it a practice to do this to you.
It’s not trolling if you think it is a legitimate debate technique. Let’s see how you like it.
Good day.
Slavery is not defined by the use of physical force, but of coercive force.
It is impossible to grant anyone the right to force you into something. However it is perfectly acceptable to invite someone to use physical force on your body — eg in the case of masochists.
By the definition of “title” given by Wikipedia, it seems to me that e.g. a rental agreement involves a transfer of title over the property to be rented. The same is true when e.g. paying someone to wash your car, or paying someone to give you a massage. Do you agree or not?
Yes, I understand that’s what you’re saying. What I don’t understand is how it’s necessarily incompatible with the non-aggression principle. Maybe the issue is about what constitutes “consent”?
Any male right can be a legal right, a moral right, or both. The same goes for any female right. The point is that the distinction between male and female rights is orthogonal to that between e.g. legal and moral rights.
I haven’t read the essay yet, but my understanding of Kinsella’s argument is that he simply asserts that the body is inalienable. I guess the question is, are you alienating your body in any way by e.g. letting someone hit you?
I’ll try.
It seems to me that saying whether one is acting rightfully in a given situation requires that situation to be occurring or to have occurred. I guess the difference is between saying whether one is acting rightfully in a given situation and saying whether one is or would be acting rightfully in a given situation. Does that make more sense?
It’s a moot point as far as what is concerned? I’ve kept bringing this up because, with all due respect, you keep using language (such as implying objective existence to rights) that makes it sound to me as though you believe an “ought” can be derived from an “is”. Regardless, to say that it’s a moot point whether one thinks everyone has a right to levitate (for example) is different from saying that no one has or can have a right to levitate because levitation is impossible. Maybe it’s not so much an attempt at deriving an “ought” from an “is” as it’s an implicit switching back and forth between what you call “legal rights” and what you call “moral rights”.
How do you think any claim has any bearing per se on the real (presumably for “external”) world? I don’t see how that’s ever the case.
How do you think legal rights are dependent on reality?
Thanks, that does clear things up for me. It seems that you’re using a definition of “slavery” that’s different from “the condition of one’s will being owned by another”, but I’m not sure what definition you’re using. But I think your point is that obedience can’t be compelled (in the sense of literally controlling another’s will). I certainly understand and agree with that. So to me “slavery” isn’t about some sort of right to compel obedience, because such a right is impossible to exercise (but not to believe in regardless). However, it is about having certain rights over someone else, such as the right to hurt him (perhaps only in certain ways) if he disobeys. That would be coercion if the slave withdraws his consent, but the question then is whether the coercion is nevertheless legitimate.
Ehm, on a second thought I’m wrong. Should read: Short of initiating aggression against them it is impossible to grant someone the right to force you into something.
What?!?!? What did I just say? False accusation? Strange. What could I mean? I know what it is! You have falsely accused me of calling you a fucking troll. And you have accused me of calling Autolykos a fucking troll. But I have not done this. I reread the thread (okay, okay, I actually did ctrl + f and searched for troll), and guess what? The only person I accused of being a troll was Minarchist.
I have not falsely accused you. Just because I advise you to do x instead of y doesn’t mean that you have already done y. And I merely used that particular example to indicate the approach you were taking.
Well, seeing as you have yet to actually accurately restate Rothbard’s argument, I couldn’t care less what you think of it. You have inserted your own definitions in place of Rothbard’s, and that is dishonest. But I see that you are a dishonest person, as you have falsely accused me.
OK, let me make an honest attempt to restate Rothbard’s argument (sorry if it’s a bit wordy). First, the non sequitur interpretation:
One ought not have a legal right to do something that one cannot do.
One cannot alienate their control over their body.
Therefore, one ought not have a legal right to give someone the legal right to unrestricted access to one’s body.
And here’s the begging-the-question interpretation:
One ought not have a legal right to grant someone the legal right to unrestricted access to something over which one’s control is inalienable.
One cannot alienate their control over their body.
Therefore, one ought not have a legal right to give someone the legal right to unrestricted access to one’s body.
There is nothing question begging in what you quoted. I am not assuming that voluntary slavery is aggression because it is. That is not my argument. I am stating why I believe it is aggression. That you disagree with my argument in no way makes it question begging. For it to be a circular argument, I would have to state in my premises that voluntary slavery is aggressive.
Maybe the reason you think I keep inserting my own definitions is because you keep changing yours. At one moment, you say that “voluntary slavery” is a contradiction, and at another you say that it is aggressive. Clearly, it doesn’t make any sense to say something is aggressive if it’s impossible.
I don’t know what approach you are indicating, as you have just stated that I have not actually done anything. Can’t have and eat your cake at the same time.
This is not a non sequitur. The conclusion does follow from the premises. Anyway, I don’t believe this is Rothbard’s argument, though I have certainly said something along these lines. gotlucky != Rothbard
This is not circular. Consider:
This is the same form. Another example:
Same form. The argument you stated does the same thing. You are drawing a conclusion from a general statement and a specific statement.
I have never changed my definition of slavery. I have always said that it is involuntary servitude. You cannot have something be voluntary involuntary servitude. It is a contradiction. It is either voluntary servitude, or it is involuntary servitude. If it is voluntary, then you are not a slave. If it is involuntary, then you are a slave.
However, one might be able to make the argument that not all slavery is aggression. For instance, if someone has kidnapped and enslaved another person, well, as Rothbard says, “Two teeth for a tooth.” The aggressor may be enslaved legitimately. But that is the only exception to slavery being aggression, and that is specifically in the case of punishment.
Anyway, I don’t really care to continue this conversation with a troll. When Autolykos wishes to continue our conversation, or if someone new comes in and displays honest tendencies, then I will continue. But you and Minarchist have displayed dishonest tendencies, and I do not wish to carry on a conversation with people who are dishonest.
Feel free to respond, but I’m just going to continue to have answers similar to this one.
This is not a non sequitur. The conclusion does follow from the premises. Anyway, I don’t believe this is Rothbard’s argument, though I have certainly said something along these lines. gotlucky != Rothbard
No, it doesn’t. One certainly can have a legal right to unrestricted access to another’s body. It’s certainly possible to guarantee that person X won’t be punished for punching me in the face whenever he wants to. If you still can’t see this, just replace “one’s body” with “a horse” and you’ll see how invalid the conclusion is.
Same form. The argument you stated does the same thing. You are drawing a conclusion from a general statement and a specific statement.
So am I right that this is Rothbard’s argument? Wikipedia says, “The fallacy of petitio principii, or ‘begging the question’, is committed ‘when a proposition which requires proof is assumed without proof’.” The proposition “One ought not have a legal right to grant someone the legal right to unrestricted access to something over which one’s control is inalienable” requires proof. The examples you gave go from universals to particulars, but this one really doesn’t–it only pretends to. Ask yourself, how many things would Rothbard consider to be inalienable? Exactly one, the human body. So the conclusion is already the premise.
You should always obey me. Why? Let me give you an argument:
All posters who have made the fourth post in the thread titled “Inalienability of the self” should be obeyed.
Fool on the Hill has made the fourth post in the thread titled “Inalienability of the self.”
Therefore, Fool on the Hill should be obeyed.
It’s the same bogus argument that Rothbard makes. He clearly just conjured up the premise to justify the conclusion. It has no application anywhere else.
Anyway, I don’t really care to continue this conversation with a troll. When Autolykos wishes to continue our conversation, or if someone new comes in and displays honest tendencies, then I will continue. But you and Minarchist have displayed dishonest tendencies, and I do not wish to carry on a conversation with people who are dishonest.
Feel free to respond, but I’m just going to continue to have answers similar to this one.
I was going to respond with a witty comeback. But that’s really counterproductive, isn’t it?
You are missing the keyword “ought”.
The conclusion follows from the premises. It seems like you have a problem with the premises, which is fine. But it is incorrect to say that the conclusion doesn’t follow from the premises given.
But you see, the conclusion still follows from the premises. You have a problem with the premises, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is not a non sequitur.
No. There are in fact 2 things considered inalienable: the mind and the body. Rothbard talks about the will, so you could make it 3, but the will does not exist in the same way as the mind and body. So there are particulars. The problem here is that you are making a claim about Rothbard that he never actually claimed. I would give you the benefit of the doubt, but I don’t think you are here for honest reasons.
So what? It’s not begging the question. It appears that way because you already knew who made the fourth post. Suppose:
Once the ace of spades has been drawn, that cannot change. Whenever we refer to that event, it was the ace of spades that was drawn. Yet this is not question begging. This is modus ponens, and it is essentially what Rothbard uses. I don’t recall him using categorical syllogisms.
Regardless of whether or not the argument has been conjured to fit the conclusion, the argument itself is not question begging.
Could be. All I know is that I have no intent of sharing what I actually believe with you anymore. I will clarify if you are posting straw men, but I don’t think it’s likely I will state why. Like I said, I have no problem having this debate with Autolykos.
Right, but I thought I had said that earlier too. So I think my confusion is that I can’t tell if you agree with this statement or if you only agree with part of it.
It’s a moot point in that you can claim you have a right to do whatever you want, but if you can’t nobody can do it, so what? Nobody can levitate, so while it might be interesting to determine who would be acting rightfully should levitation be possible, it has no bearing on the real world. That’s all. It’s not an ought from an is. It’s just stating that certain situations are impossible, so while it might be well with Superman’s rights to fly around Metropolis, there is no Superman and there is no Metropolis. So it’s a moot point.
Well, you can claim that it’s your right to fly around Metropolis, but you cannot fly and there is no Metropolis. But if you were to claim that it’s your right to own a gun, then we are talking about real world possibilities.
I probably didn’t state that well. What I mean is that legal rights are positive claims about the world. Legal rights are what the law is, not what it ought to be. They may be abstract in the way that math is abstract, but it doesn’t make them any less true. Essentially, it is a fact that murder is prohibited by law in America, with the glaring exception of state sanctioned murder. This is a positive claim. I might make the normative claim that it ought not be the case that there should be exceptions to this law. But I am not making a claim about the world as it is, I am making a claim about the world as it ought to be.