the subjective/objective debate is a red herring.
He’s not being inconsistent. You are being inconsistent. sorry mate, but that’s what’s happening.
What other law conflicts with property rights? Tell me. Otherwise this eruption of yours is a disruption - a red herring.
It is an interpretation. Property rights is the meta-concept here. The knowledge about what entails property, thus, a violation thereof is episteme - not metaphysics.
It is, but some interpretations due to an individual(s) current knowledge are NOT even debated anymore. In some parts of the world they still might be debated though. If dialogue and market forces can filter out all the bads, then good. If any number of people find it necessary to skip dialogue and skip free market competition is sell their product ie. coercion, then bad.
doublespeak here. You say monopolisitic involves freely defining “the options”. Needs clarification due to illogic.
No. Because natural law is discovered. To know what natural rights are is to apply the intellect. These rights may be based on how a particular person feels, but the mind needs to know. It is reflexive. Without a mind knowing anything, the mind knows nothing and thus the individual is blind unintelligable. Humans are not worms and respond strictly instintively. Humans are deliberate ie. praxeological. To understand and then to give knowledge about what justice is or what morals are, and to be able to share in dialogue what a person means by these terms it is optimul to apply what a person thinks about any issue logically. Humans starting from babies out of the womb need to learn. The mind absorbs context but it also has to learn how to speak, to learn definitions of terms, and to apply and interpret reality correctly. A debate about reality between 8 year olds will be a totally different debate about reality between 40 year olds. What the 8 year olds are dialoguing about the 40 year old may already know for certain the answer to. Some answers are passed on to children from their parents and their community without controversy and so they learn them early on. Others might be more debatable but give it a generation or two and that debate might be resolved and therefore there is no debate about the topic anymore.
I don’t even know what you are trying to get at with your interpretation of property. Property is merely the legitimization of jurisdiction in regards to action, nothing more. The allocation of or metaphysical aspects related to property are not bound up in the concept alone.
The state has said that it owns all - thus their legal code regarding property rights. Bob down the lane says he should own my garden, because he tills it - thus his legal code regarding property rights. Humans act in spite of natural law, not because of it.
Another facet to the debate. The whole definition of anarcho-capitalism is destroyed if there is not a monolithic legal code. In fact, the legal code must contain two parts - one regarding the nature of anarcy (no-rulers, i.e. no coercion) and the other regarding the nature of capitalism (the process by which property becomes property). These both must be setteled beforehand inside a monolithic legal construct if there is to be anarcho-capitalism.
I agree. And I know what I said doesn’t disagree with you here. Understanding metaphysics is to understand, in this instance, that property exists. It is a fact. There IS property. That’s a metaphysical statement. Metaphysics deals with “Is” or “being”. It answers the question: ‘What is?’. I was merely pointing out that sometimes people debate over what is, in this case, I was pointing out that sometimes people argue over if there is property. Once it is understood that property exists (that property is), then logically it entails defining what property is. This is how knowledge is expanding upon. This is therefore leaving metaphysics and getting into the episteme or knowledge of property.
Sometimes the arguments are NOT taken to their logical outcome and people end up arguing that natural rights can be protected by a government ie. 8th or 9th amendment of the U.S. Constitution. But other times these arguments are taken to their logical outcome and it’s understood that property and thus liberty consists of NOT having a government.
Yes. It is the communist form of property rights which has been debunked many of times over by various fields of science including Austrian economics for one.
‘Your’ garden. ‘You’ gave Bob permission to till ‘your’ garden. If Bob doesn’t recognize it’s your garden and you gave him permission to till it, though you did, then thereafter Bob is trespassing. Sometimes humans become violent and initiate aggression. They become illogical, but simply because one person piles up 1 orange, then a second orange and states while pointing at the pile of oranges 1+1=3; it’s a fact that there are only 2 oranges even though he points and moves about these oranges and states there are three.
good statement!
JackSkylark:
I think some of us are trying to say the same thing or make the same point, and it’s not getting across to some extent.
Another possible way of saying it:
As I mentioned before, I might refer to Rothbard’s vision as “natural rights capitalism.” It is a capitalistic system with natural rights legal code.
Based on what Trulib posted, I might refer to Friedman’s vision as “market based law provision.” It is a system that envisions law arising out of “consumer demand,” this conceived mainly along traditional market/exchange lines. (perhaps this is not the completely accurate, but for the sake of discussion…)
For both of these systems to come into existence, some people must come to agree on a specific natural rights legal code (for Rothbard’s system), or, some people must agree to allow laws to be decided by a market process (for Friedman’s system [again, assuming for the sake of argument that this is his system])
If all people do not agree on either system—if there is not complete unanimity—then the question naturally arises as to the legal status of those not agreeing with the system in question (the legal status of outsiders, as defined by the AnCap legal code or system we are referring to).
If they are to be considered outlaws in the legal sense (not just the non-binding moral sense), then the legal system inflicts consequences which involve some form of coercion.
If the outsiders are not considered outlaws in the legal sense, but are allowed to proceed unharmed, then we have some kind of legal coexistence.
The current system we might describe as poly-centric with respect to inter-national membership defined in terms of geography, and monopolistic with respect to intra-national membership defined in terms of geography. People who try to set up legal compounds within national territories face severe consequences. Members of other territorial nations though, receive special cards that allow them to pass through, co-mingle, and exit.
I think the current debate and discussion shows that libertarianism as a movement is still grappling with this situation. As a movement, libertarianism hasn’t come to terms with how to approach monopolism versus polycentrism, and I believe that the notion of separating political association from geography will play a part in solving this dilemma, or at least moving us toward some form of libertarian future.
But regardless of each person’s political beliefs and convictions, I think clarity in the discussion helps move the discussion forward whereas ambiguity and lack of clarity is harmful and leads to needless acrimony. So thank you for your clarity in this discussion and in other posts you have made.
that’s a red herring; same as objective versus subjective. it creates division where there is no division and therefore leads the dialogue off-course. The red-herring is not necessarily of your making Adam. It might be a preconception from who knows where that you picked up on and have conveyed here, but it doesn’t offer anything to the dialogue from what I make of it.
Again, interpretations can vary widely. In Sharia law, the property rights are such that wives are the property of their husbands.
If people that believe in Sharia law move into your community, what are you going to do?
lol are you agreeing with me?
As someone else noted, pretty much all legal systems are based in their conception of property rights, so I find your objection curious.
You’re not really making sense to me in the last few posts and/or your responses don’t seem to refute what I wrote, so I’m happy with letting them stand as they are.
1 - I said that (underlined), except I didn’t say “pretty much”. I said I don’t know of one that is outside of property rights and if it does to let me know what one. I’ve been asking you and Adam since you are talking about poly-law, meaning more than one law outside of property rights.
2 - I asked if you are agreeing with me - a question - so how are you misconstruing that as an “objection”?
Because you are now agreeing with me. I know it might be disturbing[:P]
what do their victims want me to do? and what do these people do to me?
If a bunch of people have agreed to subscribe to a Sharia court, then any disputes among them will be dealt with internally, and no opportunity for third-party involvement will arise. Such cases will never be brought before the other courts, and so the other courts have no reason to care enough to call the Sharia courts “outlaws.”
Do you think that there is no chance that these disputes will ever be resolved? Will debating these issues bring us (libertarians/anarchists) any closer to an agreement?
Who is “I”? What Rothbard is saying is that the legal code can be deduced logically in some non-arbitrary manner, so there does not need to be a decreer-from-on-high in order for there to be an agreement. Like Nir was saying earlier, for example, mathematicians all agree on the statement “there are infinitely many prime numbers,” not because some Authority has promulgated such as dogma, but because there is a sound proof of this fact. So it is with the legal code, at least according to Rothbard.
The subjective/objective debate is crucial. If it is indeed impossible to deduce a non-arbitrary legal code, then the only possible legal codes will be those determined by someone’s arbitrary decree/belief. And in that case, it really would be impossible to distinguish, on the one hand, adherence to a particular legal code, from allegiance to a particular authority or institution on the other hand. A monopolistic legal system then becomes the only one in which universal agreement on a legal code is possible.
Don’t subscribe to the Sharia court?
I’m wondering: do you think that the institutional structure of a society, apart from the individual beliefs of its members, can have an effect on the outcome? So, say, a pure democracy might require 50% anti-redheadists before the mass killings start, an oligarchy 30%, and an ideal anarchist society might require 70% support of the project before anyone can be convinced to actually get out and spend the time and money necessary to accomplish it. It may be worth thinking about.
S and O in and of themselves get into semantical word games. I’m saying these concepts are red herrings without context. Yet the context can be discussed without referring to S and O. I think property rights are absolute and that can be understood as a subjective and an objective statement. Subjective because it is I, as in individual upon my free-will, realizing the axiom. Objective because it is an axiom and doesn’t necessarily have to do with “I” but is discovered by an I (Homo sapiens) having this kind of intellectual grasp that much is for sure (meaning if some other species of machine or biology can intellectually grasp what is metaphysically a fact, then such a creature has the intellect too).
It is possible to find this out without having to refer to S nor O each and everytime. For instance your sentence here is completely clear and not once did you refer to S or O.
I think we need to throw out “legal code” from this discussion as it hasn’t moved the dialogue forward at all. It turns into trying to scalpel what Rothbard meant out of a half-sentence without considering all his works. It’s like trying to find out if Bob is in the closet about being a homosexual.
Arbitrary decree’s are not logical and thus logic is necessary. If a community, though, wants to say the grass in their yard must be 5 inches tall and no higher and all that move into this community sign onto this contract about grass height, then that’s their arbitrary decision. But that community to go out and arbitrarily coerce other individual(s) that do not sign onto the contract is to violate property rights and I think unjust. It’s when people coerce others into their schemes that the danger arises.
What I like about Rothbard is his logical identity of what property rights are. He took property rights (A) and identified logically what A is. His knowledge of A and all else that is A, in other words, I don’t know of anything that Rothbard included in A that isn’t A. His logic is sound. A is A with him. His theory of property rights, his knowledge of property rights, thus his interpretation of A is A - logically. I know there is some debate on what might actually be considered property rights and that knowledge is debated, but I don’t know if I readily disagree with any of the knowledge Rothbard has. I would live in a community similar to theorizing. Each individual logically can aspire to the property rights that neatly fits with liberty. That would be the goal of any liberty lover I would hope. If any piece of knowledge contradicts what property is, then I’m willing to throw that knowledge in the trash heap.
Yes and as somebody of the NAP I wouldn’t initiate aggression against anybody until such another person(s) violates my property rights and if I have the power I will in self-defense protect my property.
Zavoi, when I focus on what I find to be the significant concepts in this discussion I find total agreement.
You’re right, it does all hinge on whether there is actually a logical basic for objective ethics (and certain other closely-related concepts).
Very well put!
So my comments about Rothbard’s conception being monopolistic only have force to those who reject objective or a priori ethics. This means that the debate we’re having in the other thread is in fact a very important one.
I think that is exactly correct. My thinking on this is that, if a group of people with no monopoly on force among them has X level of tendency to “kill redheads” (or whatever), such tendencies would be strengthened and/or enabled by having a monopoly on force among them, because the “redhead killers” would merely need to get into office to be able to exert their will over others far out of proportion to their numbers.
Remember logic is A is A. So all you said here is ‘it does all hinge on whether there is actually a(n) A is A…’
maybe you meant another term. another other than “logical”?
A priori ethical statements are the same thing as objective morality (whatever that actually means) now? Oh, how surprised I am that the discussion always returns to this silliness. Is this really even important? Show where any alternative has an advantage.
The only beef I have with Rothbards quote is his word choice, “outlaw”. People are reaching faulty conclusions from either a lack of imagination or a desire to sling mud at poor Murray.
People here’s use of “monolithic” is hilarious. Stop please.
I can find nothing to quarrel with in your post except a very minor issue that might not even be what you meant at all.
If somebody does violate another’s property I think they are an outlaw. But that determination happens in accord with the individuals interpretation of what property rights entail. For instance, if I sign up to an agency that enforces ‘don’t walk on my lawn’ and somebody else belongs to one that allows for ‘walking on lawns’ well they better understand I don’t tolerate walking on my lawn. if they do walk on my lawn, i give them T-minus whatever seconds to get the hell out of dodge.
You may have meant that if I believe in not walking on lawns and somebody else thinks it’s ok to walk on lawns - even though they don’t walk on my lawn if I try to enforce my idea of property on them that would be coercion and completely against the NAP. I would have no legitimate stance of self-defense cause they didn’t walk on my lawn. they merely think it is ok. they can think it’s ok all the want as long as they don’t think that while on my lawn.
hopefully the logical extent of what property rights mean is very far in the minds of people so the conflicts are very far and few between. I think there are pretty clear cut identities of what entails property.
good post. it does get silly. I highly agree with that!![Y]
Here again is the quote by Rothbard… without, the most important points removed and strung together so you can try make your fallacious point.
Furthermore, law and the State are both conceptually and historically separable, and law would develop in an anarchistic market society without any form of State. Specifically, the concrete form of anarchist legal institutions- judges, arbitrators, procedural methods for resolving disputes, etc.-would indeed grow by a market invisible-hand process, while the basic Law Code (requiring that no one invade any one else’s person and property) would have to be agreed upon by all the judicial agencies, just as all the competing judges once agreed to apply and extend the basic principles of the customary or common law.13 But the latter, again, would imply no unified legal system or dominant protective agency. Any agencies that transgressed the basic libertarian code would be open outlaws and aggressors, and Nozick himself concedes that, lacking legitimacy, such outlaw agencies would probably not do very well in an anarchist society.14
- Cf., Bruno Leoni, Freedom and the Law (Los Angeles: Nash Publishing, 1972), and F.A. Hayek, Law, Legislation, and Liberty, vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973).
- What you explicitly left out:
*What the basic law code would actually be. “(requiring that no one invade any one else’s person and property)”
*An historical example of what is meant. “just as all the competing judges once agreed to apply and extend the basic principles of the customary or common law.13”
*An acknowledgment that some people would attempt to call this a unified legal system, although it is clearly not. “But the latter, again, would imply no unified legal system or dominant protective agency.”
The judicial agencies voluntarily agree to the BASIC law code. Got a problem with that? “Basic” implies there would be an advanced aspect, no? i.e interpretations & everything else. The implication is that the market process would sort itself out after that, i.e the advanced aspects - as he states at the start of the paragraph; that which you deliberately left out:
“Specifically, the concrete form of anarchist legal institutions -judges, arbitrators, procedural methods for resolving disputes, etc.-would indeed grow by a market invisible-hand process.”
This whole scenario is beyond absurd.
First - the only way a court would ever get to hear or make a ruling on a dispute is when two individuals (or organizations), i.e an plaintiff and a defendant seek a third party to settle the dispute.
So, there exists the water. Plaintiff believes it was his water. He brings case against the defendant, who took the water and is now being sued. They both agree on a third party to settle the dispute, or leave it up to their respective DRO’s to choose one on their behalf.
They choose the court above, the one you mentioned. It determines the water is always “the property of the Earth”. The plaintiff, goes “wtf are you retarded? the Earth cannot own anything, it is not human.. it’s not a person, it’s not even alive. So every time someone drinks water, it is stealing from the Earth? Well why doesn’t the Earth take everyone to court! [8-)]” And appeals the decision. The defendant does the same thing. For logically it follows that if the Earth owns the water, then both of them would be criminals.
Nope. I don’t think he would, given his previous quotes. That court would be laughed at, no-one would go there ever again when it comes to property disputes regarding water, because the court decided in favor of something that cannot own anything and is not alive. It’s reputation is tarnished and should it make descisions like that in other areas, not just water - it will quickly go bankrupt and perish.
But what if Jones challenges the finding? In that case, he can either take the case to his X court system, or take it directly to a privately competitive Appeals Court of a type that will undoubtedly spring up in abundance on the market to fill the great need for such tribunals. Probably there will be just a few Appeals Court systems, far fewer than the number of primary courts, and each of the lower courts will boast to its customers about being members of those Appeals Court systems noted for their efficiency and probity. The Appeals Court decision can then be taken by the society as binding. Indeed, in the basic legal code of the free society, there probably would be enshrined some such clause as that the decision of any two courts will be considered binding, i.e., will be the point at which the court will be able to take action against the party adjudged guilty.[4]
Every legal system needs some sort of socially-agreed-upon cutoff point, a point at which judicial procedure stops and punishment against the convicted criminal begins. But a single monopoly court of ultimate decision-making need not be imposed and of course cannot be in a free society; and a libertarian legal code might well have a two-court cutoff point, since there are always two contesting parties, the plaintiff and the defendant.
Except it can’t. It must decide in favor of the Plaintiff, or the Defendant - either separate individuals, or organisations. It can’t then go decide in favor of “the earth” lmao! Or any other entity separate of those present. “A and B are present, they wish me to settle this property dispute. So I find in favor of C!” That is precisely the scenario above you stipulated. Within the ‘Rothbardian’ system, it allows for appeals process which is clearly stated above.
It is those that do not accept the NAP, nor attempt to apply it. You’ve never heard of the constant and standard objections by statists that; “But a PDA / DRO will buy guns, tanks and weapons, then take over society!”.
As I posted earlier, because I thought it might clear things up - well hopefully it does a second time round:
"Furthermore, the purely free-market, stateless society would contain within itself a system of built-in “checks and balances” that would make it almost impossible for such organized crime to succeed. There has been much talk about “checks and balances” in the American system, but these can scarcely be considered checks at all, since every one of these institutions is an agency of the central government and eventually of the ruling party of that government. The checks and balances in the stateless society consist precisely in the free market, i.e., the existence of freely competitive police and judicial agencies that could quickly be mobilized to put down any outlaw agency.
It is true that there can be no absolute guarantee that a purely market society would not fall prey to organized criminality. But this concept is far more workable than the truly Utopian idea of a strictly limited government, an idea that has never worked historically. And understandably so, for the State’s built-in monopoly of aggression and inherent absence of free-market checks have enabled it to burst easily any bonds that well-meaning people have tried to place upon it. Finally, the worst that could possibly happen would be for the State to be reestablished. And since the State is what we have now, any experimentation with a stateless society would have nothing to lose and everything to gain."
Yes, it is a theory of PRIVATE property rights.
Communism has a legal code, it deals with property rights as all systems have to do… but not all respect or adhere, or even attempt to apply the NAP - which is based on PRIVATE property rights. Only those that are 100% full self ownership, do.
The key to the theory of liberty is the establishment of the rights of private property for each individual’s justified sphere of free action can only be set forth if his rights of property are analyzed and established. “Crime” can then be defined and properly analyzed as a violent invasion or aggression against the just property of another individual (including his property in his own person). The positive theory of liberty then becomes an analysis of what can be considered property rights, and therefore what can be considered crimes. Various difficult but vitally important problems can then be dissected, including the rights of children, the proper theory of contracts as transfers of property titles, the thorny questions of enforcement and punishment, and many others. Since questions of property and crime are essentially legal questions, our theory of liberty necessarily sets forth an ethical theory of what law concretely should be. In short, as a natural-law theory should properly do, it sets forth a normative theory of law-in our case, a theory of “libertarian law.” While the book establishes the general outlines of a system of libertarian law, however, it is only an outline, a prolegomenon to what I hope will be a fully developed libertarian law code of the future.
Hopefully libertarian jurists and legal theorists will arise to hammer out the system of libertarian law in detail, for such a law code will be necessary to the truly successful functioning of what we may hope will be the libertarian society of the future.
- Preface Ethics of Liberty
After all, although self-ownership is more fundamental than rights in external resources — one must own oneself in order to own other things — self-ownership is rendered meaningless if the right to own private property is not also respected. This is why Murray Rothbard insisted that all “human rights” are property rights — ownership rights in scarce resources, whether self-ownership rights in one’s body or property rights in external objects.
Now as the example above shows, all political theories advocate some form of property rights, since they specify certain owners of various types of resources. State policies that tax, conscript, or imprison or fine individuals for failure to comply with various regulations in effect assign partial ownership in the subjects’ bodies or property to the state. The state claims a partial ownership right in these resources.
All political systems assign owners to resources according to some assignment rule. What sets libertarianism apart is its own unique property-assignment rule: the rule that specifies that individuals, not the state, are owners of their own bodies and property. - Kinsella
You said Rothbard was “not quite an anarchist.”
One is based on an attempt to conceptualize PRIVATE property rights, whilst the other is not. The other denies self ownership (private) ownership and property.
The difference is of kind.
“our aims”
- Whose aims? Ahh the utilitarians.. where did individualism suddenly go, eh?
Is Utilitarianism Viable? Robert P. Murphy
Hi, my name’s Bob, and I’m a recovering utilitarian. It’s been a few months now since I admitted the truth to myself. You see, I used to believe that all moral issues could be reduced to a simple maximization of utility. Many of my closest friends told me I had a problem, but I refused to listen. They meant well, but they just didn’t get it. Or so I thought.
The fundamental problem with utilitarianism is this: Despite a succession of ingenious proponents, its advocates have yet to explain why the individual should behave morally. The fact that we are all better off if we all behave morally is utterly true and utterly irrelevant. (Such an argument violates the cherished Austrian precepts of marginalism and individualism.)
…
In other words, if you pause to wonder why you should ever die for a cause, then the honest utilitarian must admit: You should not.
This candid admission, in my opinion, is fatal to utilitarianism. There are all sorts of situations—i.e., not simply the soldier being asked to take a hill—where conventional morality requires an individual to forego genuine (i.e. long-run) gain. References to the benefits of a virtuous character will not convince someone who is lacking such a character in the first place.
Moreover, if everyone agreed with Yeager and other utilitarians that it were foolish to sacrifice oneself in these rare instances, an element of doubt would arise in all social interactions. Although pangs of conscience might be a wonderful evolutionary byproduct, it would be in the interest of everyone to steel himself against such “irrational” feelings (while still behaving in accordance with them under normal circumstances). One’s very life might one day depend on it.
It doesn’t really matter whether my conjecture is empirically true. The decisive issue is that, if it were true—that is, if the level of conventionally moral behavior did in fact deteriorate over time, until everyone viewed each other as a potentially deadly enemy—the utilitarian would have nothing much to say. He might lament the trend, but only in the way an astronomer would lament a comet hurtling toward Earth. Throughout the process, the utilitarian could not condemn anyone’s actions as immoral.
…
Although providing a thoughtful tour of previous work and offering a few novel arguments, Leland Yeager’s Ethics as Social Science ultimately fails in its attempt to rescue utilitarianism from its many flaws. Precisely because thinkers of the caliber of Yeager, Mises, and Hazlitt were unable to expound the doctrine in a satisfactory way, I have come to conclude that such an exercise is impossible.
Except it’s not. This may make it clearer what is meant. It becomes fairly obvious there is no non sequitur. Policy deals with law, yes?
Law as a Normative Discipline - Murray Rothbard
If ethics is a normative discipline that identifies and classifies certain sets of actions as good or evil, right or wrong, then tort or criminal law is a subset of ethics identifying certain actions as appropriate for using violence against them. The law says that action X should be illegal, and therefore should be combated by the violence of the law. The law is a set of “ought” or normative propositions.
Many writers and jurists have claimed the law is a value-free, “positive” discipline. Of course it is possible simply to list, classify and analyze existing law without going further into saying what the law should or should not be.[2] But that sort of jurist is not fulfilling his essential task. Since the law is ultimately a set of normative commands, the true jurist or legal philosopher has not completed his task until he sets forth what the law should be, difficult though that might be. If he does not, then he necessarily abdicates his task in favor of individuals or groups untrained in legal principles, who may lay down their commands by sheer fiat and arbitrary caprice.
Thus, the Austinian jurists proclaim that the king, or sovereign, is supposed to lay down the law, and the law is purely a set of commands emanating from his will. But then the question arises: On what principles does or should the king operate?[3] Is it ever possible to say that the king is issuing a “bad” or “improper” decree? Once the jurist admits that, he is going beyond arbitrary will to begin to frame a set of normative principles that should be guiding the sovereign. And then he is back to normative law.
Modern variants of positive legal theory state that the law should be what the legislators say it is. But what principles are to guide the legislators? And if we say that the legislators should be the spokesmen for their constituents, then we simply push the problem one step back, and ask: What principles are supposed to guide the voters? Or is the law, and therefore everyone’s freedom of action, to be ruled by arbitrary caprice of millions rather than of one man or a few?[4]
Even the older concept that the law should be determined by tribal or common-law judges, who are merely interpreting the custom of the tribe or society, cannot escape normative judgments basic to the theory. Why must the rules of custom be obeyed? If tribal custom requires the murder of all people over six feet tall, must this custom be obeyed regardless? Why cannot reason lay down a set of principles to challenge and overthrow mere custom and tradition? Similarly, why may it not be used to overthrow mere arbitrary caprice by king or public?
As we shall see, tort or criminal law is a set of prohibitions against the invasion of, or aggression against, private property rights; that is, spheres of freedom of action by each individual. But if that is the case, then the implication of the command, “Thou shall not interfere with A’s property right,” is that A’s property right is just and therefore should not be invaded. Legal prohibitions, therefore, far from being in some sense value-free, actually imply a set of theories about justice, in particular the just allocation of property rights and property titles. “Justice” is nothing if not a normative concept.
Notes
[2] Ronald Dworkin, however, has pointed out that even positive legal analysis necessarily involves moral questions and moral standards. Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977), chaps. 2, 3, 12, 13. Also see Charles Fried, “The Law of Change: The Cunning of Reason in Moral and Legal History,” Journal of Legal Studies (March 1980): 340.
[3] The Austinians, of course, are also smuggling in a normative axiom into their positive theory: The law should be what the king says it is. This axiom is unanalyzed and ungrounded in any set of ethical principles.
[4] Again, these modern, democratic variants of positive legal theory smuggle in the unsupported normative axiom that statutes should be laid down by whatever the legislators or the voters wish to do. [Or market? Like redheads, eh? For what are consumers but more than one vote eh?]
Who said it did? Who is “we”? Whom else are you speaking for?
Why Be Libertarian? - It’s not so much a hatred of the state & status quo, but a love of liberty & freedom - a passion for justice!
Are you a Libertarian AJ? Why are you one? Is it for the “intellectual parlor game” perhaps?
Except it’s not [only his opinion], aren’t [only persuasive concepts], are [logically necessary], not [flawed proofs] and don’t [do a disservice to the libertarian cause].
Thought it was worth pointing out that Rothbard would have acknowledged he was wrong. [28:45 - 30:35]
Except again, the word ‘monopolistic’ is completely devoid of reality and correct wordage when attributing it to the Rothbardian ‘system’.
I’m guessing some folks don’t believe in absolute truth? And as such, call systems that profess as such to be “monopolies”.. on truth - would that be correct?
It seems like it is, to me at least.
You mean what happens when they reject self ownership? - I’m guessing they are in a performative contradiction? If they don’t have a right to control, or own themselves, then who does?
“It may well be asked why life should be an objective ultimate value, why man should opt for life (in duration and quality).(5) In reply, we may note that a proposition rises to the status of an axiom when he who denies it may be shown to be using it in the very course of the supposed refutation.(6) Now, any person participating in any sort of discussion, including one on values, is, by virtue of so participating, alive and affirming life. For if he were really opposed to life, he would have no business in such a discussion, indeed he would have no business continuing to be alive. Hence, the supposed opponent of life is really affirming it in the very process of his discussion, and hence the preservation and furtherance of one’s life takes on the stature of an incontestable axiom.” - ETOL
(5)On the value of life not depending on whether it is perceived as one of happiness, see Philippa R. Foot, Virtues and Vices (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), p. 41.
(6)Elsewhere, I have written: “if a man cannot affirm a proposition without employing its negation, he is not only caught in an inextricable self-contradiction; he is conceding to the negation the status of an axiom.” Rothbard, Individualism, p. 8. Also see R.P. Phillips, Modern Thomistic Philosophy (Westminster, Md.: Newman Bookshop, 1934-35), vol. 2, pp. 36-37.
And if they reject property rights? - Well then they would have no political ethical objections to when they get killed, assaulted, or have their property stolen.
And should they reject them so they can rob and steal from others, then they again could have no objections when the same is done to them - as they would thus be guilty of special pleading.