I’ve learned a lot from these forums and the mises.org website in general these past few months, and for this, and other, reasons I’m extremely grateful. Now that I’ve gotten this out of the way, I have a few questions regarding the Libertarian ethos.
Libertarians do not believe in positive obligation (if Walter Block is right). The fundamental building block of Libertarianism is the Non-Aggression Axiom/Principle (NAP)(again, feel free to correct me at any point if I’m wrong, I want to learn).
With these two stipulations, my questioning is going to delve into when it is okay (and I’m not really sure what I mean by “okay” I guess “good”, “moral”, or “morally justifiable”) to violate this principle. Obviously one is allowed to violate it in self defense or in defense of property (should gentler means fail), but my questioning regards other people.
If a family member is threatened (but you aren’t in anyway) is it justified to violate the NAP? To attack those who are threatening your family? I think the answer is a clear yes, not because of positive obligation… but for something else. I know its covered in the Libertarian ethics, but what is it that makes it okay to violate the NAP in protection of other individuals? Does it still apply to individuals we do not know?
Let me put it differently: There is an evil dictator who is going to kill 1 Million people, and you have the opportunity to shoot him (consequence free, in terms of your own safety/well being). To do so would violate the NAP, but he obviously shows no regard for the NAP. Is it morally justified, or even a violation of the NAP, to take his life to prevent the life of 1 million others from being taken? I’m not asking whether you have a positive obligation to do this (the answer is a resounding: no (or at least I think)), but whether you are violating your ethos by taking this action?
What about the situation where someone is a past murderer, and you come across him (he is no threat to you at that moment). What does the NAP say in that situation? Take him captive, bring him to the police? What if this man murdered your family, are you in violation of the NAP to take his life? Please, tell me if I’m using the NAP in situations where it does not apply, I’m here to learn.
Finally, the situation is set up thusly: Lets say a man steals property from you and your family and enslaves you (no one will ever find out about this) and you work and work for this man. One day he dies and his son takes over (you and your family are still alive, and you have children now too) and keeps you enslaved and makes you work the property (it is farmland). Are you justified in taking the land back in this case? Are you justified in killing the son? Lets extrapolate this further. 100 years from the point of enslavement your descendants are still working for the original enslaver’s descendants; is it still justifiable for your family to take back your property (assuming for the moment that slavery isn’t the moral issue)? At what point does an illegitimate claim to property become legitimate, if ever? If an illegitimate claim is never legitimate, than does that not obligate us to go back and only allow people who legitimately (whatever that means) claimed property to be able to dispense this property?
I’m lost here, and I’d like to be found if at all possible, thank you.
I am sure in a free society the NAP would be violated plenty of times. It would be up to the victim and the aggressor to determine a resolution to the conflict. That could include getting an arbitrator and an investigator to help out.
Block is wrong. Libertarians take the NAP to rule out the enforceability of positive obligations. As Long writes:
Because libertarians acknowledge only negative and not positive rights, critics often assume that libertarians must also, bizarrely, acknowledge only negative and not positive obligations. But of course libertarians acknowledge both kinds of obligations. It’s just that libertarians understand negative obligations to rule out the enforceability of positive obligations; the ban on positive rights derives from conceptual constraints inherent in our negative obligations, not from any privileging of negative obligations over positive ones. (The libertarian is not, for example, committed to regarding freedom from aggression as more important than any other value.)
think of the usual justice investigation. in the civil society today usually the question is asked: Who initiated the physical aggression? (emphasis given). In a just society the scientific evidence can be collected, the perpetrator found, etc… (the CSI stuff if that show’s still on TV). For the most part, in everyday life the people I meet are innocent and understand who initiated coercion and who didn’t. The gov’t places itself outside of the usual going-on’s of current civil society. It follows different rules. The bigger the gov’t, then the more individuals in the society who are living a life that follows different rules. When the distinction between mine and thine degenerate to the point of not only interventionism but socialism, then clear, logical lines of boundaries become hazy and vague. Justice is sacrificed in the name of all kinds of special pleading.
Ask who initiated the physical aggression and don’t forget to ask yourself: Is it a threat? These all can be haggled over by interested individuals as to ‘was it a threat or not’ and ‘who really initiated it’, and that’s why natural law is experienced in the real world. The knowledge that any given individual has, supported by logic (or illogic but logic none-the-less), therefore will pass judgment on the conflict over scarcity. It always happens, because the resolution over the conflict doesn’t simply include any witnesses or armchair natural law theoreticians. The resolution in the conflict is being judged by the very individuals challenging and struggling each other over the scarce good.
The conflict and any preventive measures for any potential conflicts (knowing the difference between thine and mine for instance) will either be settled by violence or reasonable people communicating to avoid or minimize any potential disputes. So the question of who’s right in the dispute for any reasonable individual is to (1) figure out these conflicts; (2) stop them from happening again if necessary by containing or expelling the perpetrator(s) in some way; (3) the optimal goal is to minimize conflict. To avoid any potential or actual conflicts that only perpetuate harm rather than elevate harm. Basically civil society, from what I gather, demands safety and voluntary exchanges in the free market. Now to maintain that demand and avoid any errors that may deviate from such a demand seems to be what some people choose, ie. due to their present actions. And if people want to tear society apart, well, I think those that desire to sustain justice look to prevent that from happening cause it is about self-defense even if you are stepping in to stop somebody from initiating physical aggression against a family member.
Could you back that up please? I fail to see how what Long has said refutes / contradicts what Walter has. (It would be a good idea for the OP, or you to outline this)
Or how you are taking to mean “positive obligations”.
offtopic but The term defensive coercion seems oxymoronic to me. Either your coercing or defending. One is an aggressor, the other is a defender. You cannot have both defenders, and both aggressors.
Coercion and aggression aren’t the same thing; the latter is always the former, but the former is not always the latter. Coercion is control via force, which can include forcing a mass-murderer onto the gallows or a burglar out of your house at gunpoint. Aggression is initiation of force.
Furthermore, if every man has the right to defend his person and property against attack, then he must also have the right to hire or accept the aid of other people to do such defending: he may employ or accept defenders just as he may employ or accept the volunteer services of gardeners on his lawn.
How extensive is a man’s right of self-defense of person and property? The basic answer must be: up to the point at which he begins to infringe on the property rights of someone else. For, in that case, his “defense” would in itself constitute a criminal invasion of the just property of some other man, which the latter could properly defend himself against.
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It follows that defensive violence may only be used against an actual or directly threatened invasion of a person’s property – and may not be used against any nonviolent “harm” that may befall a person’s income or property value.
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Defensive violence, therefore, must be confined to resisting invasive acts against person or property. But such invasion may include two corollaries to actual physical aggression: intimidation, or a direct threat of physical violence; and fraud, which involves the appropriation of someone else’s property without his consent, and is therefore “implicit theft.”
Thus, suppose someone approaches you on the street, whips out a gun, and demands your wallet. He might not have molested you physically during this encounter, but he has extracted money from you on the basis of a direct, overt threat that he would shoot you if you disobeyed his commands. He has used the threat of invasion to obtain your obedience to his commands, and this is equivalent to the invasion itself.
It is important to insist, however, that the threat of aggression be palpable, immediate, and direct; in short, that it be embodied in the initiation of an overt act. Any remote or indirect criterion – any “risk” or “threat” – is simply an excuse for invasive action by the supposed “defender” against the alleged “threat.” One of the major arguments, for example, for the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s was that the imbibing of alcohol increased the likelihood of (unspecified) people committing various crimes; therefore, prohibition was held to be a “defensive” act in defense of person and property. In fact, of course, it was brutally invasive of the rights of person and property, of the right to buy, sell, and use alcoholic beverages.
So this person has not killed anyone yet? We’re assuming they are going (might) kill, or give orders to kill people? And as such, can justifiably be killed?
“I propose another fundamental rule regarding crime: the criminal, or invader, loses his own right to the extent that he has deprived another man of his. If a man deprives another man of some of his self-ownership or its extension in physical property, to that extent does he lose his own rights.[5] From this principle immediately derives the proportionality theory of punishment – best summed up in the old adage: “let the punishment fit the crime.”[6]”
If he’s killed someone, he in turn - loses his right to life. As such, there would be no initiation of violence. The issue becomes, if he turns out to be innocent - then whoever killed him, is now to be deemed a murderer - and liable as such.
Block, Walter. 2002. “Radical Privatization and other Libertarian Conundrums,” The International Journal of Politics and Ethics, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 165-175
"Libertarianism is limited to political philosophy; it does not include ethics [here he means personal morality / ethics. Essentially though, political philosophy is a subset of ethics]. It takes no view whatsoever as to the moralitv of pornography, prostitution, homosexuality, gambling, drugs, etc. It states only that, given that these acts take place between consenting adults, they should not be proscribed by law. When prohibited they are victimless crimes, and thus should be legalized.
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Even more narrowly, libertarianism may properly be construed solely as a theory of punishment. If someone uses coercion, then it is proper to utilize physical force against him, with the goal of rectifying the injustice, compensating the victim, as much as possible7.
Who were the victims next of kin etc? How do you know he was a murderer? Has he already been “dealt” with? i.e the grieving family, accepted money / his remorse and forgiveness? Or is he still at large? Read the self defence article, touches on this.
Reparations, yeah. Burden of proof rests with the person making the claim though.
I’m going to answer the questions from the standard Rothbardian POV.
The use of force for defensive purposes is not a violation of the NAP. This is true with regard to both self-defense and defense of another person. This is true because the potential victim can grant others agency, that is, the right to act as his proxy.
This would just be serving justice to a criminal. It would not constitute aggression. It only becomes aggression if the justice is more than proportional.
The property legitimately belongs to the slaves or their descendants. The current owners are completely innocent of the crimes of their ancestors. They are however, in possession of property whose title was not legitimately begot unto them. It ought to have been given to the slaves as compensation for the crimes visited upon them, and assuming that they would have passed it on to their descendants, it rightly belongs to them now.
If you want to sort all this out, you should read The Ethics of Liberty by Murray N. Rothbard.
This seems like quibbling. Block, and others like him, are concerned only with enforceable obligations, not because they think that nothing else is important, but because that’s just what the scope of their inquiry is. Libertarianism isn’t supposed to be an all-encompassing worldview that influences every single action you make.
Do you think that the victim’s next-of-kin (or any living person, for that matter) has the standing to forgive or accept reparation from the murderer? I can’t imagine many people wanting to be a position such that someone else can forgive your murderer after you’re already dead.
This proposition is false. Libertarianism holds that obligations are created by voluntary agreement (contract). Every agreement (contract) creates a right for one party and an obligation for the other party (and the reverse). When you agree to sell me a cheeseburger for $10, I have a right to a cheeseburger and you have an obligation to give me a cheeseburger (also, you have the right to my $10 and I have the obligation to give you $10). Helping families and strangers isn’t an obligation (unless you agree to it); it is a duty. Obligations are legally enforceable, but duties are not. When someone fails to do their duty they are morally blameworthy, but not a criminal. Vices are not crimes.
I hope that helped.
Suppose I hire Hitman A to kill Hitman B. Next, I hire Hitman B to kill Hitman A. They both agree to the job and search each other out. They meet in an empty warehouse and draw their weapons when they see each other…
That’s exactly why most people would write into their will, what they want done to their ‘killer’ (should they ever be unfortunate enough to be done in).
Say however - the family bread winner was killed. The wife lost her husband and the children their father. I believe the wife can justifiably enact punishment - (up to the “maximum proportional level”) but she may consider it more in line with justice, or beneficial to not support the “eye for an eye”, but instead - the killer should work / provide as much monetary support for them as possible.
Sure, if that’s what the will said, but otherwise, the victim’s own wishes must take precedence over anyone else’s, or else their self-ownership is incomplete.
What about a case where someone is killed without a will? I’d say that the default should normally be the maximum proportional level of punishment, and anyone who tries to prevent someone from carrying this out would be aggressing against that person.
I’d say it lies in the next of kin. Wife, immediate family etc. Those admittedly, I’m not particularly clear on this. Have we got any works / more in depth analysis from anyone?
I’m trying to remember a passage from Rothbard - somewhere, where he mentions ‘the dead shouldn’t be able to hold sway over the living’ ? Anyone know what I’m referring too?
No worries. This may also help clear up your question about “morality” “good” “bad” etc.
“For we are not, in constructing a theory of liberty and property, i.e., a “political” ethic, concerned with all personal moral principles. We are not herewith concerned whether it is moral or immoral for someone to lie, to be a good person, to develop his faculties, or be kind or mean to his neighbors. We are concerned, in this sort of discussion, solely with such “political ethical” questions as the proper role of violence, the sphere of rights, or the definitions of criminality and aggression. Whether or not it is moral or immoral for “Smith” — the fellow excluded by the owner from the plank or the lifeboat — to force someone else out of the lifeboat, or whether he should die heroically instead, is not our concern, and not the proper concern of a theory of political ethics.[5]” - Chp 20 TEOL
That’s where you’ll find your answers. I basically went off of the knowledge that that book offers and others in this thread seem to not detract from what that book offers either. If anything remember initiating and threat which that book covers, too.
By positive obligations I mean positive moral duties towards other people. My point is that the NAP only rules out enforceable positive obligations; it doesn’t rule out unenforceable ones.
Yes, this would be the thin/thick debate. Thinlib argues that libertarianism is only concerned with rights, with what is enforceable, whereas thicklib argues that justice has commitments beyond merely opposing rights-violations.