Great reply. OK Sorry for the lack of clarity. You are right, it is unclear.
Let me try it another way.
You wrote with respect to this statement:
“I or we do not desire that Y occurs.” That it is a proposition of normative ethics.
For the sake of discussion, let’s agree that this is not strictly correct. Because if I make the statement: “I do not desire that Y occurs” or “I desire that Y occurs,” this is simply an “is” statement. It is the statement of a fact—i.e., that I desire that Y occur.
I was getting ahead of things with my original question.
So stepping back for a moment, my revised question is now: If we assume that the statement “I desire that Y occurs” is an “is” statement, the statement of a fact, then, in what sense did you mean that this statement is the subject of normative ethics?
I think that I atleast clouded the issue or atmost completely erred when I called it a proposition of “normative ethics”.
1.1. If X occurs, only A occurs.
1.2. If Y occurs, only B occurs.
1.3. If Z occurs, only C occurs.
2.1. I or we desire that A occurs more than that B or C occurs.
2.1. I or we should desire that X occurs more than that Y or Z occurs.
The first three lines, 1.1., 1.2. and 1.3., are propositions of valueless economics. The second-to-the-last line, 2.1., is a proposition of _____. The last line, 3.1., is a proposition of _____.
In the sequence above, what, then, is the role of “ethics”? I think that the role of “ethics” may be, in any case where the desires of one or more individuals contradict the desires of one or more other individuals in such a way that the actualization of one or more of the desires would prevent the actualization of one of more of the other desires, to determine which desire is the more “important” desire. But I think that such antagonism can develop only when atleast one of the individuals involved threatens the vitality of the division of labor and therefore the vitality of most or all of the other individuals.
I do not know whether you read my posts from the thread “Ayn Rand and Libertarianism”. But I will reproduce one of them below because it provides a good continuation of this post.
In that thread, Justin Spahr-Summers responded to my post above with these passages from Ayn Rand:
In other words, if the statement: “I or we do not desire that Y occurs.” on its face seems to be simply a statement of a fact, then what part of this statement were you intending to mean is a normative question? Or, what aspect of this statement, aside from its simple factual content, does normative ethics deal with, as you were originally intending? That’s what I’m trying to clarify.
What about the courts that don’t agree even to the basic law code? Is there a difference between a) how two libertarian courts who merely have different interpretations of the basic legal code (e.g. different views on capital punishment) interact, and b) how a libertarian court and a court using a completely different legal code (i.e. different principles for assigning property rights) interact?
You miss the point. Maybe the court is using a code that says the rightful owner of water is “whoever is thirstiest” or “whoever is poorest” or whoever is tallest" or some other crazy criterion. Such a court may exist; we are not all libertarians. In Rothbard’s conception of anarchy, if A belongs to such a court, and helps himself to libertarian B’s water stock, and their two respective courts agree entirely as to what events took place, how is this situation resolved?
Friedman describes a bargaining process for such situations, so if libertarians are a minority, they may indeed have to pay for the “privilege” of doing something that we think we should be able to do without paying - i.e. owning our own water. It’s not what we as libertarians would like to see - but if we are the minority we may not have a choice.
Is Rothbard’s conception any different to Friedman’s, and if so how?
This presupposes that the majority of people are libertarians, and know the absurdity of such a crazy property assignment rule. The majority of people aren’t libertarians, and I can imagine the majority of people would buy the idea of water belonging to “whoever is thirstiest” - after all, most people buy into statism, which is far more stupid. A court like this may very well survive - and we should think about a world of anarchy where libertarian legal codes are not widespread.
Understood. I should have made my absurd scenario at least comprehensible. I think I have done that now - the water is awarded to whichever disputant was thirstiest at the time. (And further presume that there is no disagreement that A was thirstiest).
Is there some meaning to the designation? i.e. does a court flagrantly not upholding the libertarian version of property rights have a different status to those that do or at least try to? Or is it only an outlaw court from a libertarian perspective, no different to how a non-libertarian court might regard a libertarian court as an outlaw court, flagrantly not upholding their version of property rights?
OK. You use the term private property rights to mean the same things as my libertarian property rights where property rights are defined by libertarian principles. And when you say simply NAP you mean the same as when I say libertarian version of the NAP. OK.
We are all in agreement here I think that a legal code not based on property rights is inconceivable. In other words, that all legal codes are based on property rights. So the term “property rights” (in this discussion, at least) always needs a qualifier of some kind so we are not talking past each other.
Wilderness - does the above sound OK to you?
Is the answer to this now clear to you?
Then please explain what this difference-in-kind means in terms of how courts will interact with one another.
Nir -
What if libertarians are not in the majority, and the bribe is flowing the “wrong way”? What then?
I should have worded this better. I meant do you see a difference in kind, or merely degree? And if the difference is in kind, what are the implications for how courts will interact under anarchy?
“I think that I atleast clouded the issue or atmost completely erred when I called it a proposition of “normative ethics”.”
OK Then my intended chain of reasoning loses its ground…
I see you as working through a theory of ethics, or a theory of the basis of ethics. In your re-post above, you make good insights and pose good questions. Looking forward to seeing more of your posts and ideas in the future.
yes; and you say, “…needs a qualifier of some kind…” I would say this “qualifier” sounds like theory or knowledge of (in which I was referring to); so yes sounds good
Also the difference of kind or degree seem to be signifying “qualifier” as well, which has to do with the theory or in other words, the kind of knowledge about property rights. After understanding this, then an individual may pursue which theory is best.
That there isn’t another law (of justice) other than property rights?
overall what do you think, not only the last sentence but what I said in the whole post here. thanks.
That’s right. Property is inescapable. All law is about assigning property rights; there are a number of different ways of assigning property rights. The sentence “I am in favor of property rights” is quite meaningless. Replace it with “I am in favour of libertarian property rights”. (Or private property rights, though I don’t like this term myself… I reject the term “public” so I must reject the term “private” too).
I can’t find anything you’ve said that I disagree with, though its taken us a long time to understand each other. This thread has been enlightening for me… and it’s not over yet…
I largely agree with AJ’s interpretation of Rothbard, in that I do think he was making a slight and subtle conceptual error. Perhaps you could answer the questions I posed for Conza above? Such as the status of unlibertarian courts versus ‘almost’ libertarian courts, and how they will interact, particularly in the case when unlibertarian courts are more popular than libertarian courts. Or whether you think there is any substantive difference between Rothbard’s conception of law as opposed to David Friedman’s.
I appreciate your directness. I agree: “Property is inescapable.”
You may have no idea! (referring to underlined phrase). This kind of conversation has been near a year in this forum and that’s only referring to when I came here. I mean there are many that agree on this issue, but there have been those that haven’t and I think the topic is turning around for some of the latter, which I will not doubt will dodge still but it’s becoming obvious. Well that’s old hat for the most part.
I especially want to thank AJ for his braveness and calmness through the process. Conza has been particularly very strong in his understanding and I want to publicly point this out for he has introduced details that I have not fully thought out. Nir has helped in this conversation too. I’m referring here to the current thread in my compliments. I think trulib you came into the discussion at an opportune time to help converge the topic. I. Ryan and Adam I think might be getting into another topic at the moment, not sure, but it is a becoming discussion.
I don’t know if Rothbard has to do with these questions for instance you state, “…when unlibertarian courts are more popular…”. That’s a current event. Rothbard advocated the NAP and the free market and so he has contributed a stance in how to deal with the current problem. I have not read all of Rothbard’s books and articles to know if he has a full-length or more systematic answer to: “What to do now?”
I don’t know Friedman’s works. I focus on natural law, thus, it involves my own thinking. Rothbard isn’t natural law, but he helped provide the intellectual tools when I first came to this site to begin thinking on my own in regards to this. In other words, I have more to comprehend and I haven’t read Rothbard only. He’s not my only source of reference in regards to any further reading, etc… that I can point out in which have been particularly enlightening to me.
I’m coming to the conclusion that there is no such thing as ownership in the traditional sense, only control. If people don’t recognise your claim to control a certain thing, then you lose control of the thing. Ownership implies something else entirely.
The more popular ones would win. Luckily, un-libertarian laws are quite costly to enforce. The difference between Rothbard and Friedman is that Friedman describes legal systems in plain old anarcho-capitalism while Rothbard describes courts in [his] libertarian anarcho-capitalism (or libertarian anarchy), I don’t think he made any conceptual error.
When I said poor Murray was “not quite an anarchist”, maybe I was being a bit harsh. But I do get the general impression that Rothbard wasn’t quite envisioning a world where there is free entry into the field of providing legal codes. I think he envisioned free entry into interpreting the agreed upon basic legal code, and applying it to specific cases. But any court which did not agree to the basic legal code (and he did not make clear how much room the basic legal code has for interpretation) was simply an outlaw court to him. I believe he thought of an outlaw court as “not really a court” and so he did not analyze how interactions between an outlaw court and a libertarian court might take place. He did not apply his economic insights to the industry of providing basic legal codes.
Thus, his conception of anarchy was incomplete.
I see a poetic parallel between Rothbard and Mises. Mises did not apply his economics to the industry of security; he took government provision of security for granted. Rothbard - in his conception of anarchy - took libertarianism for granted. Perhaps he did this because of his passion and his greatness as a libertarian, and his confidence that libertarian ideas will win out.
Not only are they costly to enforce, but they shouldn’t be enforced in the first place because such violates the very premise of libertarianism, namely the non-aggression axiom.
Please explain to me how Friedman’s system isn’t ‘his’ and how it is ‘plain old anarcho-capitalism’ while Rothbard’s is defunked for conceptualize a different one that is ‘libertarian anarcho-capitalism’…whatever that means.
I’m not really sure what you are asking. How “Friedman’s system isn’t ‘his’” what does that mean? “Defunked for conceptualize” what does that mean?
But if you want to read the difference read “Is Anarcho-Capitalism Libertarian?” by Friedman. Basically, a purely private system of police and courts constitutes anarcho-capitalism- a system - its the laws enforced (or not enforced) that makes it libertarian (or not).
I don’t think he made the same error as Mises. Mises believed security had to be provided by the state, Rothbard just seemed to prefer a libertarian agreement on all laws. I don’t think he held it as a necessity just optimal.
If you challenge what the terms “private,” “purely private” and “libertarian” mean have at it. To make this simpler “its the laws enforced (or not enforced) that makes it Rothbardian-libertarian (or not).”
I agree with much of what you write in this and previous posts.
However:
“The right of self-determination in regard to the question of membership in a state thus means: whenever the inhabitants of a particular territory, whether it be a single village, a whole district, or a series of adjacent districts, make it known, by a freely conducted plebiscite, that they no longer wish to remain united to the state to which they belong at the time, but wish either to form an independent state or attach themselves to some other state, their wishes are to be respected and complied with.”
“It is not the right of self-determination of a delimited national unit, but the right of the inhabitants of every territory to decide on the state to which they wish to belong.”
“However, the right of self-determination of which we speak is not the right of self-determination of nations, but rather the right of self-determination of the inhabitants of every territory large enough to form an independent administrative unit. If it were in any way possible to grant this right of self-determination to every individual person, it would have to be done.”
“If however, one seeks to determine their political fate against their will by appealing to an alleged higher right of the nation, one violates the right of self-determination no less effectively than by practicing any other form of oppression.”
(Mises, Liberalism, p.109-110)
“To the princely principle of subjecting just as much land as obtainable to one’s own rule, the doctrine of freedom responds with the principle of the right of self-determination of peoples, which follows necessarily from the principles of the rights of man. No people and no part of a people shall be held against its will in a political association that it does not want.” (Mises, Nation, State, and Economy. p.27)
“The idea of liberalism starts with the freedom of the individual; it rejects all rule of some persons over others; it knows no master peoples and no subject peoples, just as within the nation itself it distinguishes between no masters and no serfs.”
“Whoever wishes peace among people must fight statism.” (Mises, Nation State, and Economy. p.65 and 63, respectively)
Two points I believe are important:
Mises’s conception of liberalism was based on individual political self-determination, which the above passages make clear. Though he was opposed to the idea of anarchism, conceived as a total absence of government (however government may be conceived), he was an advocate of political self-determination of the individual, so that in principle, every individual may choose the political association (government) to which he/she belongs.
Perhaps the idea didn’t occur to Mises that political association need not necessarily be based on geographical location. Or maybe he briefly considered it, but believed such an idea was impractical and thus not worth mentioning. But it is clear from the underlined passage above that Mises believed that “if it were in any way possible to grant this right of [political] self-determination to every individual person, it would have to be done.”
Thus Mises advocated the following:
Political self-determination, largely conceived in territorial terms and in terms of minority groups seeking their own political ideals. (a vision based on contemporary political realities as he understood them)
In the event it becomes possible to grant political self-determination to every single individual, then this must be done, since then, “No people and no part of a people [would] be held against its will in a political association that it does not want.” (a vision for a future in which it might become pratical and possible for every individual to choose his/her political association)
Mises believed that the latter idea:
“…is impractical only because of compelling technical considerations, which makes it necessary that a region be governed as a single administrative unit and that the right of self-determination be restricted to the will of the majority of the inhabitants of areas large enough to count as territorial units in the administration of the country.” (Liberalism, p.110)
Thus, Mises argued that in principle, political self-determination must be granted to every individual, but that for practical reasons, in his estimation, that could not be done at that time.
Thus to some degree, Mises’s vision of individual political self-determination anticipates the Internet era, since with the evolution of technology, with each passing day it becomes more feasible to base our various associations not on our geographical locations, but on our individual choices, something Mises is arguing for.
I think it is important to keep these ideas in mind when contrasting the political visions of Mises, Rothbard, and other libertarian social thinkers.
I think it’s fair to hold that in the Rothbardian vision or system, libertarian laws are based on natural-rights/natural law, as per The Ethics of Liberty.
And thus, the Rothbardian vision or system of libertarianism is a combination of a natural-rights legal code and a purely “market-anarchic” private system of administering it (the capitalistic component).
Since in the Rothbardian system as he conceived it, “anarchy” does not refer to the “anarchic” intersection, interaction, or intermingling, of various legal codes (the legal code is only natural-rights as per TEoL), but rather to the market that administers the legal code, I proposed referring to the Rothbardian system as essentially natural-rights capitalism.
Nir - I want to come back to this earlier post of yours, and hopefully my answer will address your last question to Angurse as well.
The distinction between ‘rogue’ and ‘legitimate’ only makes sense if we take a position about what is legitimate. You and I are both libertarians, so we would agree roughly on what to call a rogue court. Non-libertarians would have a different view about what they call a legitimate court and what they call a rogue court.
As Wilderness has said, the subjective/objective debate is a red herring in this discussion. You can say legitimate and mean objectively legitimate, and a subjective ethicist can say they consider it legitimate based on their personal values. It doesn’t matter.
Government courts are examples of rogue courts from our perspective. As libertarians, we call government courts rogue courts and illegitimate because the legal code they use is not libertarian, as we would like. On the other hand, statists consider the legal code that government courts use to be legitimate and (in some cases) exactly as they would like. They might say a libertarian court is a rogue court, because of their strange beliefs about how property rights are justly assigned… for example if a statist believes “the government” is the rightful owner of all roads, then a libertarian court awarding ownership of a road to someone else would be illegitimate from the POV of the statist.
The defining characteristic of government is that a government isan organization preventing de facto libertarian property rights in the field of providing legal codes. It prevents the emergence of alternative providers of legal codes. Anarchy is precisely the absence of government, so anarchy means free entry into the field of providing legal codes.
So Friedman’s description of anarchy assumes de facto libertarian property rights in the field of producing legal codes only. This is necessary for the market process to function. But the legal codes produced by the competing providers of legal codes may be libertarian or not. Rothbard’s description of anarchy assumes that most courts will use a libertarian code (or interpretation thereof).
Think of it like this - if the government were to collapse tomorrow, we would have de facto libertarian property rights in the field of producing legal codes. And since most people aren’t libertarians, it is likely that many legal codes will at first be quite un-libertarian. So we would be in Friedman’s world. If Friedman is right, libertarian legal codes will triumph, and before long, we’ll be in Rothbard’s world where all courts (except a few rogue courts) use libertarian legal codes.