Irrational principle of non-violence?

[JCFolsom]

@Len Budney

You’re arguing that, if you need my stuff badly enough, you have a “right to rob.”

Pretty much.

@Len Budney

For starters, does my “right not to be robbed” empower me to resist your robbery with lethal force? I.e., am I justified in killing you for doing what you claim to be justified in doing? And what if you and another starving man find me simultaneously? Are you obligated to split the proceeds when you’re done killing and robbing me? Or are you then justified in robbing each other, since both are starving?

Yes, in a situation where there are three people, and there is only food enough for one, than the one who holds it is justified in using lethal force to defend it, and the other two are justified in using lethal force on one or both of the others in trying to acquire it. It is possible for people to be within their rights while having competing interests. Indeed, the incredibly grim situation is available for contemplation, that the “food” available IS the other person. We are made of meat, after all.

@Len Budney

And the thorniest question of all, of course, is: who decides?

Alas, in such a brutal situation, brute force decides. If I’m better at killing you than you are at killing me, I win. That simple.

@Len Budney

So who defines the point at which you’re officially in a “life or death” situation? If you’re allowed to decide, you’ll err on the side of robbing me prematurely; for example, when you’re actually days away from death.

Indeed, I would need to do so, lest I lose the strength to in the future, and in any case, you’re eating the food I need while I wait. If I have a reasonable level of belief that no further aid or opportunities will come, that is a decision I may have to make.

@Len Budney

If we pick a third-party arbiter to avoid conflict, we’ve reinvented government: as the official arbiter of life-and-death disputes, he is de facto empowered to declare which disputes are life-and-death. From this, as Hoppe argues, dictatorial power follows inevitably.

No third-party arbiter, that is, someone not involved in this struggle for life and death, has any right to interfere. It is the dire necessity of imminent death which gives one the right to use the tools of death, and the third party does not have this.

What I’m seeing here is an argument from a utilitarian (which is bad) and collectivist (which is worse) place, that the non-aggression principle is best because it leads to the most smooth-running society (and one where rich people don’t have to fear being overrun by mobs of starving poor). It is overly simplistic and intellectually lazy. I think a better starting point is:

One may only act to harm another to the degree and in the way (physically, economically, etc.) that one would be harmed onself if one did not, and then only if no other means are available.

Just one sentence, albeit a long one. However, it covers both attack and defense.

[Inquisitor]

Aggression can be logically justified. For example, if I’m trapped on a raft and the other person with me is hoarding a large quantity of water, refusing all offers, I have two choices (1) die of thirst or (2) agression - overpower the other person and/or steal the water through stealth and drink the water I want. If I estimate that I’m strong enough or sneaky enough, then #2 has a good chance of success and would be considered a reasonable choice by most people. Aggression carries with it social stigma, innate shame (for those with a conscience) and a risk of retaliation and legal penalties, making it usually a poor choice; but in the situation proposed it’s the superior choice. I think this example shows how the principle of non-agression is not a good choice in all cases.

This is not a proof. It would only succeed if you can prove the alleged right to survival supercedes the right to one’s property. Does your right to survival entitle you to coerce me into providing you with medical aid if you can not do so personally? The two principles rise or fall together. I say they fall.

[pauled]

@JCFolsom

I have been troubled of late by a question of ethics. It is the case where one might be acquitted of murder because they were under duress.

In a situation where survival needs are immediate and scarce, might violence be a rational option? If I am in a lifeboat on the ocean for an unknown period of time with one other person, who has water, and I don’t, is not the rational action for me to try to take the water, by force if necessary? The non-aggression principle would seem to forbid my attack, but if such action is rational, is not then the non-aggression principle irrational?

Stealing the water or murdering a person may be the rational thing to do in terms of your goal of surviving. It maximizes your source of water. However, in no circumstances could it be justified and you would logically be a thief and murderer. After all, it is scarce means and conflicting ends that are logically at the root of the need for the institution of a property ethic in the first place. There is nothing categorically different from the lifeboat scenario and any other issue of conflict over scarce means. Ultimately, if we live by a “might makes right” ethic, our lives truly will be ugly, brutal and short. It might be rational for the homeless to murder a home-owner, hide the body, and take over a home - if he can do so without detection. But it is only recognition of justice, either in the conscience of the potential perpetrator, or by the coercive measures of a justice enforcing society, that keeps life tending towards the civilized, just, and prosperous.

[Len_Budney]

Alas, in such a brutal situation, brute force decides. If I’m better at killing you than you are at killing me, I win. That simple.

Sure. As it is today. Bush is better at killing Iraqis than they are at killing him. But the question that raises is, why are we bothering to talk about ethics at all, then? If you’ve decided to live by the law of the jungle, then discussing ethics with libertarians is pointless. You’re no different than any other jungle creature: sometimes useful but potentially dangerous. If you try to aggress, you must be stopped by force. That simple.

Indeed, I would need to do so, lest I lose the strength to in the future, and in any case, you’re eating the food I need while I wait.

So it’s OK to rob me, not because you’re starving, but because you MIGHT starve. Even if you have some food, there’s a danger that, when you run out, I’ll have eaten all mine. Etc. Welcome to the Hobbesian war.

**One may only act to harm another to the degree and in the way (physically, economically, etc.) that one would be harmed onself if one did not, and then only if no other means are available.

**

Just one sentence, albeit a long one. However, it covers both attack and defense.

Except that “harm” is impossible to meaure. Again, welcome to the Hobbesian war.

–Len.

[CaptainMurphy]

@Len Budney

I’d point out that you’re now the proud owner of a contradictory ethics: if people have the right to secure “the bare minimum necessary,” and people also have the right to their own persons and property, then those two rights will flatly contradict each other.

I am aware, which is why I said in my first post that the right to survival trumps the right to property.

Libertarian ethics apply to human-human relations only. Not anima-aminal, animal-human, human-deity or deity-deity relations. In short, “justification” is a meaningless concept with respect to foxes and rabbits.

Ethics can be applied to any situation one chooses to apply them to. Just because the animals don’t think about ethics, doesn’t mean we can’t think about ethics in relation to them, or to other people who don’t consider the morality of the choices they make. To answer my own question, I think it is a situation where the fox is justified in killing the rabbit, and the rabbit is also justified in defending himself. Morality, I have recently come to believe, is subjective.

[Len_Budney]

I am aware, which is why I said in my first post that the right to survival trumps the right to property.

Which brings us back to Hobbesian war, since “survival” is hopelessly subjective. Victim disarmers honestly think their survival depends on confiscating my firearms.

Ethics can be applied to any situation one chooses to apply them to.

Well, if the foxes and bunny rabbits are willing to discuss it with you, more power to you. But there’s no a priori reason that a human ethical system would be useful to bunny rabbits, and it’s guaranteed that you won’t be able to convince many bun-buns to adopt your suggestions. And I for one have no interest in making a hard problem harder by demanding an ethical system that embraces humans and bunnies both.

Morality, I have recently come to believe, is subjective.

It is utterly so. The best one out there is nonaggression. If you don’t like it, that’s OK with me–as long as you happen not to aggress against me. Otherwise, it’s fair to point out that I’m armed and believe in self-defense.

–Len.

[pauled]

@CaptainMurphy

Morality, I have recently come to believe, is subjective.

I agree.

But justice, on the other hand is not. Justice is grounded entirely in reason and its validity cannot be disputed, as to dispute justice is to argumentatively justify, which is to logically commit to that which it is that one would be attempting to dispute.

So the worst one can do is claim he doesn’t subscribe to justice, accepting that he has decided to live in a world of contradiction and confusion. But accept it or not, an initiator of violence can justifiably be treated as an aggressor, and dealt with accordingly.

[gplauche]

@pauled

@CaptainMurphy

Morality, I have recently come to believe, is subjective.

I agree.

But justice, on the other hand is not.

I don’t see why. Justice is a subset of ethics/morality. What justice demands may be easier to determine than the rest of ethics, but what makes them so radically different?

[JCFolsom]

@Len Budney

Sure. As it is today. Bush is better at killing Iraqis than they are at killing him. But the question that raises is, why are we bothering to talk about ethics at all, then? If you’ve decided to live by the law of the jungle, then discussing ethics with libertarians is pointless. You’re no different than any other jungle creature: sometimes useful but potentially dangerous. If you try to aggress, you must be stopped by force. That simple.

The war in Iraq has nothing to do with us surviving, and you know it. Try again.

@Len Budney

So it’s OK to rob me, not because you’re starving, but because you MIGHT starve. Even if you have some food, there’s a danger that, when you run out, I’ll have eaten all mine. Etc. Welcome to the Hobbesian war.

Judgement must, of course, be used, as it must in all things. If you want a rule where you don’t have to think or be just, a set of three nice I, Robot rules, you will be disappointed. Besides which, are you then saying that, if you were starving, and there was a frail someone holding the last scrap of bread, someone you knew to be a total prick, you wouldn’t knock him down and take it? Because words are just words. Ethics only have meaning in practice.

I believe that it has already been established, that most people follow an ethic closer to the one I propose anyway. Just becaue people are justified in doing something, doesn’t mean they will. There is mercy and other intangibles to deal with, before you make that decision. Even starving, one might choose not to rob a child.

Property, ownership, basically says that you are holding something at the time. If you expect the vast majority of people, ever, to think that your right to keep holding it matters more than their survival or that of their families, particularly in situations where you actually have more than enough but still refuse to share or trade, you are naive indeed.

[pauled]

@gplauche

I don’t see why. Justice is a subset of ethics/morality. What justice demands may be easier to determine than the rest of ethics, but what makes them so radically different?

The answer to your question is actually implied and interwoven within the fact of your question. You are asking for a justification for the logical basis of justice. But your attempt to question the validity or logical grounding of justice – justification - implies you must already actually logically subscribe to justice. Your participating in truth seeking dialogue asking for justifications, presupposes truth, and justice. And this also applies to anyone else who participates in argumentation. There is no way to avoid it, other than to abstain from asking for justifications in the first place. But that too confirms that the validity of justice and all that is logically implied in it, is simply indisputable.

Morality, on the other hand, important as i hold it to be, does not hinge on the observation of dialectical contradictions. Between the statements “I should not swear”, and “i should swear, damn it”, there is no contradiction apparent in the making of either of them. But still, one might strongly hold to the one or the other, as a matter of one’s subjective opinion, values, or priorities.

[gplauche]

All of what you said can and has been contested, Paul. But you didn’t answer my question. Why is justice objective but the rest of morality isn’t? Objectivity does not rest in performative contradictions.

[JCFolsom]

Which brings us back to Hobbesian war, since “survival” is hopelessly subjective. Victim disarmers honestly think their survival depends on confiscating my firearms.

“Survival” is not hopelessly subjective. If you survive, you’re still alive. If you don’t, you’re dead. Pretty clear cut. As per the “Victim disarmers” comment, I don’t think anyone here is going to say that it’s ethical to aggress against someone because it is necessary for you to survive because you are planning on aggressing against them in a way that is not for your survival. If that is what you mean. The term is a bit odd.

Morality, I have recently come to believe, is subjective.

It is utterly so. The best one out there is nonaggression. If you don’t like it, that’s OK with me–as long as you happen not to aggress against me. Otherwise, it’s fair to point out that I’m armed and believe in self-defense.

Morality is objective, just really difficult to figure out. It can be logically derived from the nature and purpose of the universe. I know the majority (?) atheists around here are in love with their post-modernism, but really.

[CaptainMurphy]

@JCFolsom

Morality is objective, just really difficult to figure out. It can be logically derived from the nature and purpose of the universe. I know the majority (?) atheists around here are in love with their post-modernism, but really.

So in the scenario of a fox killing a rabbit to feed his pups, is the fox morally justified in doing so? Is the rabbit morally justified in defending itself?

[gplauche]

@CaptainMurphy

@JCFolsom

Morality is objective, just really difficult to figure out. It can be logically derived from the nature and purpose of the universe. I know the majority (?) atheists around here are in love with their post-modernism, but really.

So in the scenario of a fox killing a rabbit to feed his pups, is the fox morally justified in doing so? Is the rabbit morally justified in defending itself?

Morality doesn’t enter into their relationship. Morality is for rational beings like humans.

[JCFolsom]

@CaptainMurphy

So in the scenario of a fox killing a rabbit to feed his pups, is the fox morally justified in doing so? Is the rabbit morally justified in defending itself?

Yes. The pups will die, otherwise. As will the rabbit, if it does not defend itself. Both are quite justified. We are lucky, in that our situation has become less horrific. Nature is an ugly thing, in many ways. There are horrors to easily match the nightmares most imaginations can provide.

[pauled]

@gplauche

All of what you said can and has been contested, Paul. But you didn’t answer my question. Why is justice objective but the rest of morality isn’t? Objectivity does not rest in performative contradictions.

All that i have already said is all that i can say towards answering your question. From my perspective, i’ve answered it twice in two slightly different ways in the two previous consecutive posts. The problem is not that i haven’t at least tried to answer your question. The problem is that my answer appears to have absolutely no meaning to you. Now it may be that this is because what i am saying is, in fact, meaningless and absurd. To this I can only answer that i at least sincerely believe that there is more to it than that, but one way or the other, it’s the best I can do, especially given the dismissive nature of the rebuttals to it, such as, it “can and has been contested”, and “Objectivity does not rest in performative contradictions”.

But for completeness of this post, I will answer the question one more time: justice is objective, in the sense that logic is objective - you can’t attempt to argumentatively cast either of them into doubt, without implicitly demonstrating a logical commitment to both of them. They are therefore, both indisputable. It is an “I think therefore i am” sort of logic. You can’t claim you can’t make a claim without making a claim and proving the content of that claim wrong; you can’t ask for a proof of logic without implicitly accepting logic in the asking; and you can’t ask for a justification without acknowledging the value of a justification. In other words, all of these things are indisputably true. No more solid basis for knowledge can there be.

Similarly, it also follows that you cannot dispute anything that is implicitly implied in the act of disputing whatever you intend to dispute. And a commitment to life, peace and cooperation and ultimately justice, is certainly one of the many things implied in participating in argumentative justifications – especially of any property ethic.

Other kinds of moral questions, on the other hand, are simply not of this nature, unless you would care to show how they are. I’m open to this.

If you are wondering why i still refuse to answer your question, I must point out that the above was it, and i think you are looking for a radically different kind of answer which I can’t provide.

[Inquisitor]

Property, ownership, basically says that you are holding something at the time. If you expect the vast majority of people, ever, to think that your right to keep holding it matters more than their survival or that of their families, particularly in situations where you actually have more than enough but still refuse to share or trade, you are naive indeed.

Then does coercing someone into providing you with help make for a valid ethic? I still want to know the answer to this.

[CaptainMurphy]

@gplauche

Morality doesn’t enter into their relationship. Morality is for rational beings like humans.

Foxes and rabbits are both rational beings. They take actions to maximize their chances of survival and procreation.

[CaptainMurphy]

@JCFolsom

Yes. The pups will die, otherwise. As will the rabbit, if it does not defend itself. Both are quite justified.

But if morality is objective, then the action of the fox killing the rabbit is either moral or immoral; You can’t have it both ways. If you believe, as I do, that both are morally justified in their actions, then you must admit that morality is subjective.

[JCFolsom]

@CaptainMurphy

But if morality is objective, then the action of the fox killing the rabbit is either moral or immoral; You can’t have it both ways. If you believe, as I do, that both are morally justified in their actions, then you must admit that morality is subjective.

I need do no such thing. It is possible for both of us to act morally, even though our purposes are at odds. They are both acting as they ought in the situation, according to a single objective moral rule. It is not the outcome, but the actions themselves that bear the morality.