AC as in anarcho-capitalism
This I can address, but I don’t see how any of the rest addresses what I was saying.
Now, natural justice (de facto enforcement of natural law) may be necessary in order to have free markets. I accept this. I also agree that if everyone accepts natural law as Rothbard conceives of it, then there will most likely be natural justice, resulting in free markets. What I don’t agree with, is that this implies that natural law must be accepted in order to have free markets. In other words, it’s possible to have an enforcement situation that happens to coincide with natural justice without people actually accepting natural law. Rothbard seems to imply this is not the case. That’s all I mean to point out.
Do you mean an individual doesn’t explicitly accept natural law, but they affirm it by their actions anyways? That’s still an affirmation. It doesn’t matter if a person knows it or not. If any person doesn’t initiate physical aggression against another ie. property, then such a person knowingly or not has followed what natural law of human nature is. Such a person does not need to think it through, but those that know would be able to point out that such a person hasn’t violated property rights, ie. said person has instead affirmed property rights. The person hasn’t refused nor rejected property rights they have affirmed their existence. Again whether they know it or not.
For instance, I may not know that such and such a rock is sandstone, but a geologist is able to say it is certainly a sandstone. It’s what a person knows and focuses upon in their endeavors in life. That’s the whole point of liberty for any person that wants to live. To be able to live their life no matter what division of labor the individual partakes in or what leisure time they have and pick and choose to do with it.
I’m really trying to dialogue with you on this. Please don’t think I’m being confrontational on this point. Understand what you are saying beats around the bush a lot from where I sit.
Good. [:)]
And yet… Rothbard has acknowledge this - so really… you’re not pointing out anything at all.
"A great defect in Leoni’s thesis is the absence of any criterion for the content of the judge-made law. It is a happy accident of history that a great deal of private law and common law is libertarian – that they elaborate the means of preserving one’s person and property against “invasion” – but a good deal of the old law was antilibertarian, and certainly custom can not always be relied on to be consistent with liberty. Ancient custom, after all, can be a frail bulwark indeed; if customs are oppressive of liberty, must they still serve as the legal framework permanently, or at least for centuries? Suppose ancient custom decrees that virgins be sacrificed to the gods by the light of the full moon, or that redheads be slaughtered as demons? What then? May not custom be subject to a higher test – reason?
The common law contains such antilibertarian elements as the law of “conspiracy,” and the law of “seditious libel” (which outlawed criticism of the government), largely injected into the law by kings and their minions. And perhaps the weakest aspect of the volume is Leoni’s veneration for the Roman law; if the Roman law provided a paradise of liberty, how account for the crushing taxation, the periodic inflation and currency debasement, the repressive network of controls and “welfare” measures, the unlimited imperial authority, of the Roman Empire?"
What don’t you understand? You profess to be utilitarian and value free, yet within that contains normative and value statements - which you won’t acknowledge, nor even address.
“Oh no, the excerpt DOES address that. Every de facto/ legal right has a set of NORMATIVE “ought to” propositions within it. Here it is again, to refresh yours and others memories.”
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?]
"De facto law (rights) refers to law (rights) that are actually enforced."
Why must the law be obeyed or enforced? If the law requires the murder of all people over six feet tall, must this be obeyed regardless? Why cannot reason lay down a set of principles to challenge and overthrow mere custom and tradition? [or legal positivism] Similarly, why may it not be used to overthrow mere arbitrary caprice by king or public?
Within those statements are normative ones.
Wilderness, I honestly want to understand you, but sometimes it feels (to me) like you speak a language from another planet. Judging by your “understanding” of my arguments and positions (above), it seems that the situation is mutual. Sadly, we may have to consider that, perhaps, some dialogues were just not meant to be.
Z.
Austrian Economics is explanatory - if x happens, y will happen. Libertarianism deals with political philosophy and answers the question; what should be law.
But even the utilitarian economist who attempts wertfrei (value free) “or at the least to confine their advocacy to the processes of trade and exchange, cannot be maintained.” !
"For if myself and the retailer are indeed to be free to trade the dollar for the hula hoop without coercive interference by third parties, then this can only be done if these economists will proclaim the justice and the propriety of my original ownership of the dollar and the retailer’s ownership of the hula hoop.
In short, for an economist to say that X and Y should be free to trade Good A for Good B unmolested by third parties, he must also say that X legitimately and properly owns Good A and that Y legitimately owns Good B. But this means that the freemarket economist must have some sort of theory of justice in property rights; he can scarcely say that X properly owns Good A without asserting some sort of theory of justice on behalf of such ownership.
Suppose, for example, that as I am about to purchase the hula hoop, the information arrives that the retailer had really stolen the hoop from Z. Surely not even the supposedly wertfrei economist can continue to blithely endorse the proposed exchange of ownership titles between myself and the retailer. For now we find that the retailer’s, Y’s, title of ownership is improper and unjust, and that he must be forced to return the hoop to Z, the original owner. The economist can then only endorse the proposed exchange between myself and Z, rather than Y, for the hula hoop, since he has to acknowledge Z as the proper owner of title to the hoop.
In short, we have two mutually exclusive claimants to the ownership of the hoop. If the economist agrees to endorse only Z’s sale of the hoop, then he is implicitly agreeing that Z has the just, and Y the unjust, claim to the hoop. And even if he continues to endorse the sale by Y, then he is implicitly maintaining another theory of property titles: namely, that theft is justified. Whichever way he decides, the economist cannot escape a judgment, a theory of justice in the ownership of property. Furthermore, the economist is not really finished when he proclaims the injustice or theft and endorses Z’s proper title. For what is the justification for Z’s title to the hoop? Is it only because he is a nonthief?"
- Justice and Property Rights, Egalitarianism a Revolt Against Nature
By the way this isn’t just directed at you.
I suggest asking questions, even if you private message people. If you don’t understand what other people are talking about sadly that will not help you.
I didn’t judge what you said. I repeated near word for word what you have not only said recently but have been working up to. Here’s one of your last posts:
“With or without a state, there is not ONE human being that has ever lived on this planet toward whom force hasn’t been initiated. Force/aggression WILL be initiated, period. Take it as an axiom, if you prefer.”
maybe you use concepts you don’t understand. that doesn’t help out at all. if you don’t understand others and then don’t understand what words you are using, again, sadly that doesn’t help.
How does liberty initiate physical aggression against you when the very term liberty is the contrariety or opposite of initiated coercion? How does liberty threat you?
You are giving up in life way too easily, especially when the other person - me - is all about dialogue and wants to be on the side of justice in which initiated coercion against humans is looked down upon as something to live without and thereby to a more properous, enjoyable civil society.
peace
If I punish someone for stealing, do I affirm natural law? Or do I also affirm Sharia law, Moses’s commandments, Masai tribal law (which all may prescribe the same enforcement and punishment for the same act)? I say I affirm none of these. My actions simply happen to coincide with their prescriptions.
Do you mean #1 cannot be maintained ?
He implies that he understands the concept here, but that makes it all the more puzzling that he would say, “Any discussion of policy is inherently normative. You can’t have free markets unless you have property rights*.”* In particular, why would a policy discussion have to be normative in order to allow for free markets, when all that is necessary for free markets is for the policy to actually enforce property rights? This is my only point, and I don’t see it being addressed. It may be a fluke, and it may be that he was speaking in an interview and simply misspoke. I just found it a curious thing to say.
I do?
…
The rest you quoted talks about why legal rights imply normative rights, but I haven’t mentioned legal rights. I’m talking about de facto rights. I’m not saying “Legal rights don’t imply normative rights”; I’m saying “de facto rights don’t imply normative rights.”
Punish, and if you think it is wrong that is affirming natural law.
maybe. It doesn’t matter if it’s called Sharia Law, etc… If these laws ie. Moses’s, etc… denounce initiating physical aggression then any one person practicing these again ie Masai, etc… are affirming natural law.
Coinciding is affirmation so you do affirm natural law.
“prescriptions” is a red herring
Also don’t be disingenuous, unfortunately like Adam Knott. I respond to your statements directed towards me, and have always answered your questions to keep a good dialogue going. Please answer this question from this earlier post.
That’s because he does.
It’s not puzzling at all when you realise what is meant. It is clarified and crystallized it all of his writings… (i.e Law as a Normative Discipline), yet you attempt to use one sentence from an interview, as a basis for refuting it? It’s most amusing. Much like the attempt by others to call it “monopolistic” / “unified legal code” / “monolithic”.. but that didn’t last too long, did it? lol
“You can’t have free markets unless you have [PRIVATE] property rights”
“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.” - Preface Ethics of Liberty
How is that not addressing it? What is to address? Is your curiosity satisfied? "You cannot have free markets without [private] property rights" - Rothbard… you can have markets with property rights, but they are not free! "Any discussion of policy is inherently normative." - Rothbard. True and still stands.
You don’t?
Ahh… lol
Yes and my point is de facto rights necessarily DO imply normative propositions - and everything above addresses that. That which you are still yet to address. I mean, should I post it again? Do you have anything to say about the ‘Justice and Property Rights’ excerpt above?
Why must the law be obeyed or enforced? If the law requires the murder of all people over six feet tall, must this be obeyed regardless? Why cannot reason lay down a set of principles to challenge and overthrow mere custom and tradition? [or legal positivism] Similarly, why may it not be used to overthrow mere arbitrary caprice by king or public?
No.. and why that is, is covered here; Praxeology, Value Judgments and Public Policy
And I quote:
To our contention that the sciences, including praxeology, are in themselves value-free, it might be objected that it is values or ethics that direct the interest of the scientist in discovering the specific laws of his discipline. There is no question about the fact that medical science is currently far more interested in discovering a cure for cancer than in searching for a cure for some disease that might only have existed in parts of the Ukraine in the eighteenth century. But the unquestioned fact that values and ethics are important in guiding the attention of scientists to specific problems is irrelevant to the fact that the laws and disciplines of the science itself are value- free. Similarly, Crusoe on his desert island may not be particularly interested in investigating the science of bridge building, but the laws of that science itself are value- free.
Ethical questions, of course, play a far smaller role in applied medicine than they do in politics or political economy. A basic reason for this is that generally the physician and his patient agree—or are supposed to agree—on the end in view: the advancement of the patient’s health. The physician can advise the patient without engaging in an intense discussion of their mutual values and goals. Of course, even here, the situation is not always that clear-cut. Two examples will reveal how ethical conflicts mayarise: first, the patient needs a new kidney to continue to live; is it ethical for the physician and/or the patient to murder a third party and extract his kidney? Second, is it ethical for the physician to pursue medical research for the possible good of humanity while treating his patient as an unwitting guinea pig? These are both cases where valuational and ethical conflicts enter the picture.
In economic and political questions, in contrast, ethical and value conflicts abound and permeate society. It is therefore impermissible for the economist or other social scientist to act as if he were a physician, who can generally assume complete agreement on values and goals with his patient and who can therefore prescribe accordingly and with no compunction. Since, then, praxeology provides no ethics whatsoever but only the data for people to pursue their various values and goals, it follows that it is impermissible for the economist qua economist to make any ethical or value pronouncements or to advocate any social or political policy whatsoever.
The trouble is that most economists burn to make ethical pronouncements and to advocate political policies—to say, in effect, that policy X is “good” and policy Y “bad.” Properly, an economist may only make such pronouncements in one of two ways: either (1) to insert his own arbitrary, ad hoc personal value judgments and advocate policy clearly on that basis; or (2) to develop and defend a coherent ethical system and make his pronouncement, not as an economist, but as an ethicist, who also uses the data of economic science. But to do the latter, he must have thought deeply about ethical problems and also believe in ethics as an objective or rational discipline—and precious few economists have done either. That leaves him with the first choice: to make crystal clear that he is speaking not as an economist but as a private citizen who is making his own confessedly arbitrary and ad hoc value pronouncements.
Most economists pay lip service to the impermissibility of making ethical pronouncements qua economist, but in practice they either ignore their own criteria or engage in elaborate procedures to evade them. Why? We can think of two possible reasons. One is the disreputable reason that, if Professor Doakes advocates policy X and basically does so as an economics professor, he will be listened to and followed with awe and respect; whereas if he advocates policy X as plain Joe Doakes, the mass of the citizenry maycome to the perfectly valid conclusion that their own arbitrary and ad hoc value judgments are just as good as his, and that therefore there is no particular reason to listen to him at all. A second and more responsible reason might be that the economist, despite his professed disbelief in a science of ethics, realizes deep down that there is something unfortunate—we might even say bad—about unscientific and arbitrary value judgments in public policy, and so he tries desperately to square the circle, in order to be able to advocate policy in some sort of scientific manner.
While squaring this circle is impossible, as we shall consider further, I believe that this putative uneasiness at making arbitrary value judgments is correct. While it is surely admirable (ethical?) for an economist to distinguish clearly and carefully between the value-free science and his own value judgments, I contend further that it is the responsibility of any scientist, indeed any intellectual, to refrain from any value judgment whatever unless he can support it on the basis of a coherent and defensible ethical system. This means, of course, that those economists who, on whatever grounds, are not prepared to think about and advance an ethical system should strictly refrain from any value pronouncements or policy conclusions at all. This position is of course itself an ethical one. But it relates to the ethical system that is the precondition of all science; for, even though particular scientific laws are themselves value-free, the very procedures of science rest on the ethical norm of honesty and the search for truth; that norm, I believe, includes the responsibility to lend coherence and system to all one’s pronouncements including valuational ones. I might add in passing that anyone conceding the necessity of honesty in science ipso facto becomes willy- nilly a believer in objective ethics, but I will leave that point to the ethical subjectivists to grapple with. 2
…
More usual is an attempt by the economist to place himself in the status of the physician of our foregoing example, that is, as someone who is merely agreeing to or ratifying the values either of a majority in society or of every person in it. But even in these cases, it must be remembered that the physician is in no sense value- free, though he is simply sharing the value of his patient, and that the value of health is so deeply shared that there is no occasion for making it explicit. Nevertheless, the physician does make a value judgment, and, even if every person in society shares the same value and goal, the economist who goes along with such a value is still making a value judgment, even if indeed universally shared. He is still illegitimately going beyond the bounds of the economist per se, and his value judgments must still be supported by rational argument.
Why? Do you think the economist can “escape a judgment, a theory of justice in the ownership of property” in the example from the post you quoted? If so, how? [:)]
In short, we have two mutually exclusive claimants to the ownership of the hoop. If the economist agrees to endorse only Z’s sale of the hoop, then he is implicitly agreeing that Z has the just, and Y the unjust, claim to the hoop. And even if he continues to endorse the sale by Y, then he is implicitly maintaining another theory of property titles: namely, that theft is justified. Whichever way he decides, the economist cannot escape a judgment, a theory of justice in the ownership of property. Furthermore, the economist is not really finished when he proclaims the injustice or theft and endorses Z’s proper title. For what is the justification for Z’s title to the hoop? Is it only because he is a nonthief?"
Also, “Value Implications of Economic Theory” - Rothbard, makes it clear.
By the way Adam, did you mean to skip my last post addressed to you? Would be good if you could also address it thanks.
What if I just punish because I think it will be in my interests to do so?
…
About being disingenuous…I don’t think not responding to something that doesn’t make sense to me is disingenuous. It’s just me choosing not to defend my position. The question you asked earlier was leading, and it also was among set of similar questions that I did address even though I didn’t see the point of them. I try (not always succeeding) to only write when I can say something productive, and sometimes I have nothing productive to say - either because there is no content worth responding to or because I have no insight worth taking up thread space for.
yes; Who’s else interest would it be?
It is disingenuous when I’m right here talking to you.
Who said answering a question has to do with defending your position? That’s seems to be a leap.
It’s not leading. You are actually ‘leading’ when you say there are other laws, when in fact, you have not given other laws, other than property rights. So are property rights the only law I ask or are you not being upfront about something?
it was a yes or no question. You could say I don’t know or respond with something else. I mean I’m right here and you ignore what is being discussed in this on-going dialogue. I would understand it more if you dropped the topic altogether and moved on, but you bring up the same issues over and over again. Repeating yourself and when a dialogue with other people is on-going, cause remember you are not the only one in the dialogue fiddling through this, to not handle issues directly but yet to bring them back up when answers or questions are introduced to get through the impasse it isn’t appropiate. Something isn’t right about what you are doing. It seems dishonest. Maybe it’s not simply disingenuous, maybe it’s rude. I hope you understand.
As I said, maybe he misspoke, I just found it a curious thing to say. As for the monopolistic debate, what do you mean it didn’t last too long? The points were made by both sides, and it turned out that the legal code is monopolistic unless you accept objective natural law, but if you accept objective natural law then in some sense it is not monopolistic. I wouldn’t say either side was wrong on that one; it just collapses back into the natural law debate.
De facto rights. He’s not referring to de facto rights here. Or if he is, he contradicts his observation that much of common law throughout history has been libertarian. You keep saying and emphasizing private, but what does that have to do with whether the rights are actually enforced or not?
I do value my own pursuits.
- That quote doesn’t address this notion that de facto rights imply normative propositions. 2. I’ve addressed this notion several times already in this thread. I think what I wrote above is the clearest example of why this isn’t the case: If I punish someone for stealing, does it imply Rothbardian property rights, Xeer law, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster Handbook of Moral Precepts (all of which may say that stealing should or can legitimately be punished)? Bottom line: Actions don’t necessarily have or imply propositional content.
To further illustrate: If I pet a cat, it’s not a statement that I like the cat, that cats are good, etc. I might just be teasing it, or trying to build up static electricity, or practicing for a play, or maybe my hand just accidentally brushed against it in a petting motion. Likewise, if I punish someone for stealing, I might be trying to encourage them to steal more using reverse psychology, I might not actually think stealing is wrong but I just had a bad day and took it out on the thief, I might have just accidentally punished him, or I might have punished him solely out of the desire to discourage him from stealing again (because I don’t like being stolen from). None of this is normative, at least not in the sense I presume you intend.
It doesn’t matter. “All… may say that stealing…” and that’s natural law. Natural law doesn’t necessarily entail a person to know he or she is holding a sandstone when they in fact are holding a sandstone.
You haven’t said how that affirms natural law.
If you look at my thread history you’ll see I often have the last comment at the end of the thread. That means a lot of what I write receives no answer. It doesn’t bother me. Conversation will intersect when both parties are interested in that specific content, and both parties have something they consider valuable to say.
It seems like we’ve been through this. I recall already answering this question by saying that the question misses the point, because any set of laws could be defined in terms of “property rights.” If I give a law that is not explicitly related to property rights, you or me or anyone could respond with a reason why that law is really about “property rights” of some sort, and I would not disagree with that. I would simply say that the type of “property rights” are not always libertarian ones, so it’s not relevant to this discussion. I’m pretty sure I already gave the example of how in Sharia law adulterers are to be stoned, and yes that can be defined in terms of the property right that “a woman is her husband’s property.” But how is that relevant? Even if all laws can be expressed in terms of “property rights” by some oddball definition of them, that doesn’t seem to add anything to the present discussion. If, on the other hand, all laws could be expressed in terms of Rothbardian property rights, then that would be relevant point, but that’s clearly not the case - Sharia law is one counterexample (among many).
I assumed your question was rhetorical, as an attempt to refute my position. Or did you just ask me that out of curiosity? [:)]
All that’s happening is I’m allocating my time toward the posts and threads I feel I have the most to contribute to, and/or seem most likely to lead to productive discussion. If someone pointed out a weakness in my position, I would respond to it, and if I don’t respond to it then it really just helps my opponents look good, does it not?
Wilderness,
To your edit of the above, I’m sorry if I missed more than a couple of your previous posts while responding to later ones. I felt the content was similar enough that my answer to the latter posts would sufficiently answer your questions. And in some cases I just found the content to be beside the point (and/or already covered) and you posted again, so I only responded to that latter post. If there are any other points I failed to address or answer, feel free to post them.
yes I have and you have to
You and I are in a dialogue. Various other posters are in this dialogue, Conza for one. We are responding to each other. This isn’t a summary at the end of a thread.
No it doesn’t miss the point.
And why is that?
and why is that?
it is relevant
Because it is derived as a theory from property rights. Contradictions in a person(s) theory doesn’t refute the principle. It refutes the theory.
yes it does
And that is why way back when, maybe before you came to this forum, there was an original poster and then others that began an attack on Rothbard and then began to call some posters Rothbardian and/or would call certain interpretations of natural law Rothbardian when in fact Rothbard is only a voice, one person amongst many that have studied and voiced what they have learned and discovered about natural law. Natural law isn’t Rothbardian. That’s a strawman on natural law. Rothbard may have one of the best theories on property rights with little or no contradictions in his theorizing. He may have worked out one of the largest ever systematic anaylsis of natural law, but again that doesn’t make natural law his. He simply put a lot of time and effort into this field. Like a DNA biologist may in DNA. Doesn’t make the DNA the biologists.
I will state this from over a long anaylsis of posts with you and others that polycentric law is ill-properly named. It should be named polycentric theory on law.
Please stop assuming. Dialogue throughout human history gets stopped, confusion reins, and to the extreme conflicts arise when dialogue stops and assumptions grow. Questions involve answers. Questions are asked to fill the void in which an answer is being called upon. Yes - curious.
one word - dialogue