Morality of arrest?

[Autolykos]

@Minarchist

That’s entirely non-viable, and increasingly so as the crime becomes more serious. No (guilty) person accused of murder, facing a possible punishment of execution, would ever prefer trial to “outlawry” (whatever that means).

I don’t think a person accused of murder would face a possible punishment of execution in a libertarian society.

@Minarchist

If a person chooses not to attend his own trial, so be it I say, they will be tried in absentia, which is of course to their disadvantage. And it would be justifiable to then enforce the verdict against them. But if the verdict of a court is only justifiable when the defendant has agreed to abide by it in advance, there can be no functioning legal system at all.

What exactly do you mean by “functioning”? I’m finding it hard to make sense of such a vague term.

@Minarchist

That’s beside the point.

No, I don’t think it is.

@Minarchist

The question is what should be the standard for determining whether or not a person has committed the act in question and/or whether said act was a violation of the NAP.

No, that wasn’t your question. You asked whether it was justifiable for Bob to use force against Mike in order to get restitution. That question had nothing in it about any standard for determination.

@Minarchist

A judge is useless if all he says is “if he did it, he’s guilty, if not, he’s not.” We already knew that! The entire problem is how to determine whether he is or not, because we don’t already know. And the issue in this thread in particular that I’ve been pressing is what kind of standard of guilt we should use: absolute certainly, some degree of probability, what degree, etc? And I’ve made the argument that the absolute certainty standard is non-viable, because absolute certainty of guilt is impossible.

There are currently three standards of guilt used in American jurisprudence: beyond a reasonable doubt, clear and convincing evidence, and preponderance of evidence. All three originated in English common law. The former applies to criminal cases, while the latter two apply to civil cases. I’m honestly not sure which of these three would be used in a libertarian legal system, or in which cases they’d each be used. However, I agree with you that the absolute certainty standard is obviously unworkable. My point was in no way to challenge that assertion.

@Minarchist

EDIT: I might add, if you think that it’s unjustifiable to punish someone unless that person has consented, then self-defense is out of the question, is it not? If someone attempts to mug you, you cannot use violence to defend yourself unless he has consented, correct? If not, what’s the distinction you’re making between retribution/restitution through the legal system and “self-defense?” It seems to me that it’s just a question of how much time elapses between the violation of the NAP and the retribution/restitution, which seems a shaky basis for making such a moral distinction.

Again, your question was simply about justifiability. So I figured you were asking a moral question, not a legal one. Furthermore, I never said that it’s never justifiable to use defensive violence against someone unless he’s consented. That’s a pure strawman of what I said. And as an aside, I personally don’t like using the term “punish” in this context, as I view that term as meaning “imposing pain for its own sake”. In other words, I don’t see “punishment” as involving restitution.