Also, thanks for posting the insightful links and references in this thread up 'till now. I’ve found them pretty helpful. I think I agree with Rich for the most part.
The conflict seems to be in defining “Normative” rights. I personally do believe in property rights and liberal social laws (not “liberal” in the way you might interpret, but in the old-school definition, meaning “hands-off”). However, I have yet to find one convincing case that such “rights” can ever be more than subjective wishes and preferences. In the past, the source was God. Today, it’s the State. In the future I think it will be the Individual, but that doesn’t give it any more of an objective basis than it has today. It just means you will have a convergence between the sets of all beliefs and values held by man depending on which society you live in.
“Man’s reason is objective, i.e., it can be employed by all men to yield truths about the world.”
Psffff… sorry, but the evidence is clearly to the contrary. If this was true we wouldn’t even need to have this discussion (we would already be living in paradise – or as close to it as man can get at the current level of technology – and doing all kinds of cool things) and the Mises institute wouldn’t even need to exist.
The 7th sits on top of someone else and presumably they begin sinking from excess weight. They can sink for all I care. If everyone wants to live, they can all die.
I don’t see how you can presume that. Perhaps there became a hole in the boat that leaked water for some reason. Anyway, I think we’re proving that my case. The scenario was worded poorly, and that is what originally threw me off.
Apparently not. I get no respect for my klingon-sharia law which, by the way, is as natural as they get. I mean, which is more natural? Homesteading by “mixing your labor” (i.e. touching the boat, in this case) OR spitting on the boat (AND urinating in the ocean) like I was diligent enough to do ahead of everyone else? My klingon-sharia court is going to have a ball with this case after we make it back to land. I feel as if my normative rights are being trumped by ‘de facto’ mob-rights whose only claim to naturalness stems from being listed in Chairman Murray’s “Little Blue Book”.
And it is thus guilty of the begs the question fallacy.
It’s what the labels represent. You do not care for Liberty it seems and you are rejecting a profoundly powerful tool - the argument from morality. You have logical objections to that of the status quo then? Just preferences? lol
If, then, the natural law is discovered by reason from “the basic inclinations of human nature … absolute, immutable, and of universal validity for all times and places,” it follows that the natural law provides an objective set of ethical norms by which to gauge human actions at any time or place.[37] The natural law is, in essence, a profoundly “radical” ethic, for it holds the existing status quo, which might grossly violate natural law, up to the unsparing and unyielding light of reason. In the realm of politics or State action, the natural law presents man with a set of norms which may well be radically critical of existing positive law imposed by the State. At this point, we need only stress that the very existence of a natural law discoverable by reason is a potentially powerful threat to the status quo and a standing reproach to the reign of blindly traditional custom or the arbitrary will of the State apparatus.
In fact, the legal principles of any society can be established in three alternate ways: (a) by following the traditional custom of the tribe or community; (b) by obeying the arbitrary, ad hoc will of those who rule the State apparatus; or (c) by the use of man’s reason in discovering the natural law – in short, by slavish conformity to custom, by arbitrary whim, or by use of man’s reason. These are essentially the only possible ways for establishing positive law. Here we may simply affirm that the latter method is at once the most appropriate for man at his most nobly and fully human, and the most potentially “revolutionary” vis-à-vis any given status quo.
Another common charge is that natural-law theorists differ among themselves, and that therefore all natural-law theories must be discarded. This charge comes with peculiar ill grace when it comes, as it often does, from utilitarian economists. For economics has been a notoriously contentious science – and yet few people advocate tossing all economics therefore into the discard. Furthermore, difference of opinion is no excuse for discarding all sides to a dispute; the responsible person is the one who uses his reason to examine the various contentions and make up his own mind.[22] He does not simply say apriori, “a plague on all your houses!” The fact of man’s reason does not mean that error is impossible. Even such “hard” sciences as physics and chemistry have had their errors and their fervent disputes.[23] No man is omniscient or infallible – a law, by the way, of man’s nature.
No, it doesn’t. I objected; with this - and you haven’t exactly addressed it.
You make no distinction between “rights” and privileges?
You don’t make a distinct between negative rights and positive rights?
How on earth do you determine what “rights” society will be “expected to be respected and enforced.” - Vote?! You choose not reason to arrive at what constitutes rights, but the mob?
These appeals to “society” are growing tiresome.
“They don’t exist without force to back them up” - We have been over this already. Why are you muddying the waters between normative rights, and defacto / legal rights?
It is indeed puzzling that so many modern philosophers should sniff at the very term “nature” as an injection of mysticism and the supernatural. An apple, let fall, will drop to the ground; this we all observe and acknowledge to be in the nature of the apple (as well as the world in general). Two atoms of hydrogen combined with one of oxygen will yield one molecule of water – behavior that is uniquely in the nature of hydrogen, oxygen, and water. There is nothing arcane or mystical about such observations. Why then cavil at the concept of “nature”? The world, in fact, consists of a myriad number of observable things, or entities. This is surely an observable fact. Since the world does not consist of one homogenous thing or entity alone, it follows that each one of these different things possesses differing attributes; otherwise they would all be the same thing. But if A, B, C, etc., have different attributes, it follows immediately that they have different natures.[18][19] It also follows that when these various things meet and interact, a specifically delimitable and definable result will occur. In short, specific, delimitable causes will have specific delimitable effects.[20]
The observable behavior of each of these entities is the law of their natures, and this law includes what happens as a result of the interactions. The complex that we may build up of these laws may be termed the structure of natural law. What is “mystical” about that?[21]
In the field of purely physical laws, this concept will usually differ from modern positivistic terminology only on high philosophical levels; applied to man, however, the concept is far more controversial. And yet, if apples and stones and roses each have their specific natures, is man the only entity, the only being, that cannot have one? And if man does have a nature, why cannot it too be open to rational observation and reflection? If all things have natures, then surely man’s nature is open to inspection; the current brusque rejection of the concept of the nature of man is therefore arbitrary and apriori.
The owner is not their to impart rules for the use of his property. Thus the relationship of the officer must be put to question. It is much like the example Rothbard gives:
An even starker version of the “lifeboat” case — and one where there is no question of someone’s prior ownership of the lifeboat — occurs when (to cite an example mentioned by Professor Eric Mack) two shipwrecked men are battling over a plank that can only support one. Does the concept of aggression and property right apply even here? Yes, for again, our homestead principle of property right comes into play: i.e., the first person who reaches the plank “owns” it for the occasion, and the second person throwing him off is at the very least a violator of the former’s property and perhaps also liable for prosecution for an act of murder. Again, neither of the persons may use force against the other in preventing the latter from reaching the plank, for this would be an act of physical aggression against his person.[4]
It may well be objected to our theory as follows: that a theory of property rights or even of self-ownership is derivable from the conditions by which man survives and flourishes in this world, and that therefore in this kind of extreme situation, where a man is faced with the choice of either saving himself or violating the property rights of the lifeboat owner (or, in the above example, of the “homesteader” in the boat), it is then ridiculous to expect him to surrender his life on behalf of the abstract principle of property rights. Because of this kind of consideration, many libertarians who otherwise believe in property rights gravely weaken them on behalf of the “contextualist” contention that, given a choice between his life and aggressing against someone else’s property or even life, it is moral for him to commit the aggression and that therefore in such a situation, these property rights cease to exist.
The error here on the part of the “contextualist” libertarians is to confuse the question of the moral course of action for the person in such a tragic situation with the totally separate question of whether or not his seizing of lifeboat or plank space by force constitutes an invasion of someone else’s property right. 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]
That is for de-facto rights, not normative rights. Again, completely missing the point. So you have no logical objections what so ever to the Patriot Act? Or anything “society” sets up? It’s ok to rob you, they say they have a “right” to your property… you have no problems with that? Absurd.
If he is to be consistent he has no right to it, he doesn’t own it. He merely possesses it at that point in time.
What is his objection to that? His feelings were hurt? lol
So you have no logical objections what so ever to the Patriot Act? Or anything “society” sets up? It’s ok to rob you, they say they have a “right” to your property… you have no problems with that?
Since you’ve taken to asking for him, maybe he should answer. Or maybe you could respond to the questions I raised if you take the same position?
What’s your logical objection to your stuff being stolen, if you do not believe you have a natural right to property, which you have justly acquired?
That much is obvious. Maybe you should start by answering the questions?
You’ve changed the terms and tried to inject emotion.
The error here on the part of the “contextualist” libertarians is to confuse the question of the moral course of action for the person in such a tragic situation with the totally separate question of whether or not his seizing of lifeboat or plank space by force constitutes an invasion of someone else’s property right. 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]
Regardless for your sidetracking;
On whose property?
Do you own your girlfriend?
Have you read How I found Freedom in an Unfree World by Harry Browne?
Since you’ve taken to asking for him, maybe he should answer. Or maybe you could respond to the questions I raised if you take the same position?
What’s your logical objection to your stuff being stolen, if you do not believe you have a natural right to property, which you have justly acquired?
I guess you missed where I said you’ve been reading too much into my words. When did I ever say that I have no problems with that? Of course I have problems with both of those, although I don’t live in the U.S. However, if I have a “right” to not get robbed, it’s because I live in a society which can enforce that (courts to prosecute the robber, laws against robbery, etc…) If I do not like getting robbed and I do not want to get robbed, that has nothing to do whatsoever with my “right” to get robbed or not. It is either up to me to defend myself or to avail of the laws and justice systems in place.
In all honesty I think if ideas like seasteading come into reality in the future and competitive and dynamic law & government plays an increasing role in the future, then we will see a convergence toward liberterianism in general. I do think that force is going to continue to play a role, though its source will be less centralized over time. For example, I don’t think that any society is going to ever tolerate, say, unrestricted proliferation of nuclear arms, so there are always going to be some “violation of ‘natural’ rights”. I believe this because I doubt any individuals would tolerate this, and in the end it will be individual’s subjective preferences that will drive the market and thus the law and rights that will be derived.
No, I didn’t miss that part. And I’m not, I’m simply taking your positions to their logical conclusions. You have problems with it, but that means jack squat.
Again, ‘society’ - It does not enforce anything, people do, individuals do. Of course you know that, yet keep using it as if society does things. (“enforce that”)
You do realise that those courts rob people to fund themselves? Or I guess you’re referring that you live in an anarcho-capitalist society? lol
So again - you no have legal or ethical objections to theft, or any other initiation of violence within any community… only value preferences, which are subjective?
And again, you are equating normative rights with de-facto and legal rights.
Individuals do though. So individuals may tolerate it and they may not, and they can do things within their rights and by not violating others. They can refuse to deal with anyone who has such a weapon / object and they can refuse to allow them on their property, or use their roads etc.
Sorry to get over dramatic here, but I am interested - what is your legal / ethical objection to the Holocaust? Do you have one? (The German people were made to feel the Jews were the problem, and their “society” reflected it as such. Their courts did too!)
… So a minority of people being persecuted by the ‘society’ they live in, their only recourse of actions is to defend themselves, or try use the system to their benefit? lol. Or “take it or leave it” fallacy?
No, you’re not. You’re just using your own framework as the yardstick, but I just don’t agree with you on natural rights so we’re not even using the same coordinate system or language. You believe that your yardstick is “objective and true” the same as a physical yardstick would be, but it is simply not so.
Which proves my point exactly! By the way, your trap doesn’t work because it doesn’t exist – I never said I don’t have morals or that I don’t believe in ethics. I just don’t agree with you that there is an objective, core set of natural “rights” that exists, nor that that set is “right” and all other sets are “wrong” (which is what you have been implying, yet have no proof for without a yardstick of comparison). We determine morals and ethics because it helps us to live together in a society, and because people see value in certain rights. Part of it is instinctual as well ( we are products of evolution, after all ). It is not because it’s part of nature or God or whatever, even though many people feel lost without having a belief in a “higher” system. What is so hard to understand about that? Why does it even have to have an objective basis? It doesn’t, and it works fine without it. By the way, the Holocaust personally disgusts me, just as it disgusted and shocked most people, including the Germans once they found out what their beloved Fuhrer was doing.
Let me ask you something; how do YOU think morals and ethics are going to be determined in a polycentric society?
Yes, now you’re finally getting it. If you’re a minority being persecuted, then you have to defend yourself, and use the system as far as you can to change things, and if that doesn’t work and they can’t live within the existing system, then to try and start a new system someplace elsewhere. This has been the history of humanity since the beginning.
Prove my yardstick is wrong. I’ve proven yours is and refuted your objections. The post is still waiting.
What?
What trap? I want to know - “what is your legal / ethical objection to the Holocaust? Do you have one?” I’m not seeing it. You don’t believe in an objective set of political ethics, i.e natural law, natural rights.. so if it’s subjective and rights are determined by society and the legal system - just as happened in Germany, then you - if you wish to remain consistent with your previous declaration - you have no legal or political ethics objections, you would not do anything to those who committed genocide. After all, they were just following orders!!! What they did was not illegal.
So your only objection to the holocaust is personal disgust? Personally, that disgusts me.
Personal morals are subjective - they are influenced by culture, nature, nurture, friends, family, community, whatever…
Ethics (Political) on the other hand is objective.
"Consider the universal status of the ethic of liberty, and of the natural right of person and property that obtains under such an ethic.
For every person, at any time or place, can be covered by the basic rules:
• ownership of one’s own self,
• ownership of the previously unused resources which one has occupied and transformed; and
• ownership of all titles derived from that basic ownership -either through voluntary exchanges or voluntary gifts.
These rules -which we might call the “rules of natural ownership”- can clearly be applied, and such ownership defended, regardless of the time or place, and regardless of the economic attainments of the society. It is impossible for any other social system to qualify as universal natural law; for if there is any coercive rule by one person or group over another (and all rule partakes of such hegemony), then it is impossible to apply the same rule for all; only a rulerless, purely libertarian world can fulfill the qualifications of natural rights and natural law, or, more important, can fulfill the conditions of a universal ethic for all mankind." Ethics of Liberty - Rothbard
“Murray N. Rothbard had a nice phrase that he used to summarize this position: universal rights, locally enforced. Those two principles are frequently in tension. But if you give up one of the two principles you risk giving up liberty. Both are important. Neither should prevail over the other. A local government that violates rights is intolerable. A central government that rules in the name of universal rights is similarly intolerable. Heaven on earth is universal rights, locally enforced. No, it’s not here yet. That’s why libertarians exist, to work for the ideal.” - What we mean by Decentralization - Rockwell
Thus, and I elaborated on this recently in some thread I can no longer find - that individuals and “society” may use various means to condemn such actions as immoral, for eg. in India the cow is a sacred animal. In a Libertarian society, there is nothing unethical about homesteading the cow and doing what you want with it, as long as it doesn’t violate the NAP - it doesn’t violate natural law / political ethics, then the law should have nothing to say about it.
In India, that doesn’t mean the individual who slaughtered the cow - won’t be ostracized, condemned, boycotted, ignored, barred from certain private property, his reputation attacked etc. (All acceptable, as they do not violate the NAP) Some people will refuse to sell him items, while others will take pity and do so. He can use reason and persuasion to convince them that their beliefs are absurd and illogical etc. But he cannot initiate violence against them, and they cannot to the same to him.
Oh no, I completely understand (“get”) your position. It is just absurd & pathetic. Your assumption is that the state “system” justly owns the property. That’s an easy mistake to make of course, since you have no theory of property rights. As utilitarians often do - they accept the status quo as starting point. For that I’d recommend Rothbard’s - Justice and Property Rights.
You are also guilty of the ‘take it or leave it fallacy’.
Why are you blaming the victims? Let’s say the issue was over taxation in this “system”, and you propose 'take it or leave it".
Answer me this; the principle is that taxation is theft, so why blame the victim? Why, in effect, tell the victim of assault-by-taxation “if you don’t like it you can leave”? That position simply affirms that opposition to the violence of taxation will beget more violence. Why not say the same things to victims of physical and sexual assault? No doubt you would, or am I wrong?
The burden of proof’s on you to prove that yours is correct. Otherwise you’re just another evangelist. As I said, I don’t believe in an objective yardstick so I have nothing to prove.
Wrong. I simply said that whatever objections I have would be based on my own sense of morality and ethics, which I cannot pretend is universal to all humans and obviously has not been. What’s your argument, that your objection is because of some system which “tells” you that it is “wrong”? To me, that is far more contemptible than objecting to it due to personal disgust, personal morals and personal beliefs!
You are the one guilty of fallacies, as you presuppose what I believe and don’t believe and conflate a lack of objectivity with a lack of any morals/ethics whatsoever. I apologize if I haven’t been able to make myself clear, but since you either are unable to understand what it is I’m saying or you are deliberately misrepresenting my position (i.e. blaming the victim? When did I ever say that? I said that if a victim wants to ensure their rights are enforced, they need to use force / leverage existing force to do it. Can you disprove that instead of rambling on about things I didn’t even say?) and since I now apparently disgust you, I don’t really see the point in continuing this discussion with you; it’s like arguing with a religious fanatic.
Without even knowning the topic at hand here these back and forth “you prove it”; “no you prove it”, etc… are ridiculous. Conza doesn’t have to prove anything to you. It’s proven to him. He has therefore gone through a constructive argument to a supposed proof. And if you don’t believe it, then you don’t, but your non-belief in whatever isn’t a refutation of whatever. In a way, it is you simply holding your ears going, ‘la, la, la, la, la, la’ unless you actually have an argument. Otherwise the dialogue has dropped and time to move on.
But first let me make a point about the burden of proof. Most critics of Natural Law assume that the burden of proof lies with the proponent of Natural Law — presumably because they see Natural Law as something bizarre and implausible, something one couldn’t sensibly believe unless there were a knock-down argument for it. But in fact, to believe in Natural Law is simply to believe that there are moral standards that transcend the practices and customs of any given community — that there are rational grounds for condemning the Nazi regime as immoral, that it is possible to be justified in so condemning it, even if we assume that what the Nazis did was perfectly in accordance with the values of Nazi culture. When we condemn Nazism, we don’t ordinarily take ourselves to be expressing a purely personal, subjective preference, like the preference for chocolate over vanilla; rather, our ordinary practices of praising and condemning seem to implicitly assume that there are objective moral standards, i.e., that there is a Natural Law to which manmade laws are answerable.
Now of course the fact that ordinary practices implicitly assume something is no guarantee that what they assume is true. But such a fact does seem to shift the burden of proof.
Consider: the fact that it seems to me that I am sitting in front of my computer typing these words doesn’t guarantee that I really am doing so; I might be dreaming, or hallucinating, or I might be trapped in an incredibly realistic virtual-reality program. Now a philosopher like Descartes would say that I have the burden of proving that I’m not dreaming, hallucinating, etc. — that I have to be able to rule those alternatives out before I can be justified in thinking I really am here, awake and typing.
But if Descartes were right — if we couldn’t be justified in believing anything unless we first ruled out all possibility of error — then we would never be justified in believing anything, since whatever evidence we pointed to in order to prove our starting beliefs reliable would in turn have to be justified by appeal to further evidence and so on ad infinitum. And if that were so, then we couldn’t be justified in holding the
belief that started us down this infinite regress in the first place — namely, the belief that in order to be justified in believing anything we must first rule out all possibility of error. So Cartesian skepticism ultimately undermines itself: if everything should be doubted, then the claim that everything should be doubted is itself one of the things that should be doubted — and once we go doubting that, we lose our original reason for doubting everything else.2
What that means is that we are, after all, justified in accepting the way things initially seem to us as a true picture of the world, despite the possibility that those beliefs are mistaken. Now that doesn’t mean we’re justified in clinging to our beliefs with blind faith, defying all evidence to the contrary. But it does mean that those who oppose these ordinary beliefs are the ones who have the burden of proof; we’re justified in accepting our initial beliefs as true until we find convincing evidence that they’re false. This must be so, because the contrary position, as we’ve seen, is rationally incoherent. So if our ordinary practice of moral judgment commits us to believing in Natural Law, then Natural Law is part of our picture of the world, and we’re justified in accepting it until someone gives us good reason to reject it. The burden of proof thus rests with the opponents of Natural Law.
That is not to say that I think there is no positive case to be made for Natural Law. On the contrary, much of my own philosophical research is devoted to making such a case, relying on the insights of the Aristotelean tradition combined with the philosophical discoveries of the last thirty years. My point is simply that the justifiability of accepting Natural Law as part of one’s picture of the universe does not require that the positive case for Natural Law be established first.
Now let’s turn to some of those common objections to Natural Law theory.
Actually… that means I am right. All you have is personal disgust, which stems from your own sense of morality. Since all personal morality is subjective, it is meaningless. Political ethics on the other hand is not, as I explained above, and that which you chose not to respond to.
Oh no I am disgusted regardless, the difference is mine is founded on logic and is axiomatic, whilst yours is merely a value preference. You would do nothing to those who committed genocide, and I would hold that they are punishable to the extent they violated anothers rights.
No I don’t. I asked questions, you responded to some and completely ignored others. I’m not conflating anything and your lack of objectivity is obvious. Are you ever going to go address my previous post that refuted your objections to Natural Law? Eh?
A women is attacked. Their normative rights have been violated. In this society, the legal and de-facto rights say it is ok and legal to do (for women to be raped for eg.) The “society” says so. You are fine with this, you have no legal / political ethical objection to it.
The woman can try defend herself, but she is beaten back by the law. Your response is in essence “take it or leave it”.
Why should the victim leave? Why? Are you not blaming them if you ask them to leave? If you don’t blame them, then again - why the hell should they leave their home and property?