“Personal/Cultural intuition is not a substitute for reason. A zygote or fetus cannot be considered a self-owner without contradiction. Sometimes conclusions are non-intuitive to some, than social sanctions replace direct violence. (I adress this in my post above)”
More strawmen. No-one has claimed it is. The claim is that it has the potential, and as such gets ‘guardianship’ or ‘trustee rights’ are given to it for those have a best claim to them.
The quote you provided is very clear (as is your writing in general)
I’ve written:
So, given that a fetus will most likely become a moral agent, can he be considered a sleeping man?
You’ve written:
“Go forth and provide this specific contravening evidence that a fetus is not a potential human, and that it is not part of its nature.”
Surprising. I think you are missing my point here. The question is which specific moral agent owns the body of the fetus i.e. who has a better link to it. Ownership is, of course, not grounded in the immediate present, and so even if you are out of your home or car (or in a coma) and as long as you are not finally dead, ownership can still be objectively be traced to an existing moral agent capable with goals relevant to the use of the object. The property title claim is in principle always traced back to an agent. Only tracing to the future will assign a non-existing hypothetical agent ownership. To do this is to claim that a future late-comer objective link is more important than a presently ascertainable link grounded in well-known past. In any specific instance it is invalid to assign a present property title to a moral-agent who has yet come to existence, on the basis that someday in the future he probably will have a better link. To argue so (this will someday belong to someone so you cannot use it) is inconsistent.
“The question is which specific moral agent owns the body of the fetus i.e. who has a better link to it.”
You do not & cannot legitimately own another actor producer.
It is worth mentioning that the ownership right stemming from production finds its natural limitation only when, as in the case of children, the thing produced is itself another actor-producer. According to the natural theory of property, a child, once born, is just as much the owner of his own body as anyone else. Hence, not only can a child expect not to be physically aggressed against but as the owner of his body a child has the right, in particular, to abandon his parents once he is physically able to run away from them and say “no” to their possible attempts to recapture him. Parents only have special rights regarding their child - stemming from their unique status as the child’s producers - insofar as they (and no one else) can rightfully claim to be the child’s trustee as long as the child is physically unable to run away and say “no.”[8]
Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, n.9 to ch. 2, on p. 212; emphasis added.
It is not your property. If you contend as such then you must also contend it is justifable to kill children who have yet to prove their full-self ownership, to kill babies, to end the life of those in coma’s etc.
If you do not, then you absolutely concede another category (of ‘possibility’) that is which these ‘coma patients’ individuals not able to engage in communication, as well as babies (who it is assumed will.. much like children) enter the category of ‘guardianship rights’ where they remain until eventually they display and confirm their full self-ownership.
“Ownership is, of course, not grounded in the immediate present, and so even if you are out of your home or car (or in a coma) and as long as you are not finally dead, ownership can still be objectively be traced to an existing moral agent capable with goals relevant to the use of the object.”
Those ownership rights are ‘guardian ship’ or ‘trustee rights’. They are not full absolute ones. If you contend so, again as above, you must agree that you have every right to end the life of a child, coma patient etc. and it is justified.
The objective link is still present, just not of the nature you have suggested.
“The property title claim is in principle always traced back to an agent. Only tracing to the future will assign a non-existing hypothetical agent ownership.”
Yeah, the parents - who have best claim. There is no tracing to the future. You still don’t get it. The fetus is in the same category as a child essentially, it has yet to assert it’s full self-ownership. The child is far advanced, the fetus at the very beginning… on the path towards self-ownership. The primary difference is of degree, not kind.
“To do this is to claim that a future late-comer objective link is more important than a presently ascertainable link grounded in well-known past. In any specific instance it is invalid to assign a present property title to a moral-agent who has yet come to existence, on the basis that someday in the future he probably will have a better link. To argue so (this will someday belong to someone so you cannot use it) is inconsistent.”
Lmao. You still don’t get it. I’m hard pressed to understand where it’s coming from… clearly from a misunderstanding about reading Hoppe, because his position is what I am defending, what the author I just quoted is defending… you’re the odd one out here, not my, nor his take. It’s not inconsistent, your position is. And assign a property title of what exactly?
You are still yet to provide any specific contravening evidence. Whether the fetus makes it to be able to claim full-self ownership, or if it dies at any stage prior to doing so is irrelevent. Just as a coma patient may die before re-awakening. The fact is that they are to be treated in the same manner, as they are in the same category of ‘guardianship’ and ‘trustee rights’.
“I think you are too quick to denounce things without asking for clarifications. When referring to by reason, I’m referring to Hoppe’s Argumentation Ethics. If what counts for you is a cultural value-judgment, no sense in arguing about that. We just make different value-judgments. I think reason based arguments most-certainly can be made (not saying everything is based on reason). If you feel good with using violence solely based on what you feel like- again, all the best.”
But since we both agree you cannot base anything of value on pure logic, in the end of the day, every conclusion you can establish about the world derives from some sort of feeling. The problem is that for complex decisions you have to sort out different feelings they may entice. And that requires effective logic and some patience. Maybe your first analytical attempts have not succeeded in carrying on all the implications involved, because you’ve left out important feelings that are associated to the issue.
The first intuitive guess will not necessarily be right. Most likely, you haven’t yet made all the distinctions of implications on feelings produced by a certain decision, and you jump on a hurried conclusion.
You can think that eating KFC will make you feel good, because you think fried chicken tastes really amazing, but then again, when you think of the medium or long term effects on your mind and digestion and weight and skin and overall health, you may see things otherwise and reconsider.
Eating KFC or not is a rather simple decision. And its effects are only felt by the individual that takes it. Abortion is far more complicated.
I can tell you that, because my first intuitive feeling on that matter was to regard fetuses as organic matter without any rights. So I felt that the power to get rid of such burden should be an essential freedom for women.
For many years I have espoused that view of things. But what are the non-trivial implications of thinking like that? How those level-two implications make me feel?
And that’s what I’m talking about here.
And after some consideration an horrible scenario unfolds.
That’s because embedded on that view lies the presumption that human beings can redefine themselves regarding some convenient criteria. That personal responsibility is something relative to our choices of lexicon, and that it suffices to change peoples language to proceed into the extermination of whatever we want to exterminate. That human dignity is something open to be debated and redefined by the eugenicists in vogue.
That’s the precise idea that is creeping beneath all abortionist ideologies. I say creeping because most of its defenders have not carried on their analysis to the depths required in order to reach those implications. And they would probably reconsider their views were they aware them.
The thing is that whatever you may call Justice it is nothing but a general moral feeling. It is the feeling that you live in a social environment where pre-established rules are somewhat well understood and accepted by people and they are generally applied, up to acceptable approximations and margins for errors. Systems of Justice are devised in order to satisfy such feeling.
You can call upon any libertarian principle, say the non-aggression axiom, which I generally agree with. It is nothing but a feeling of what is good and can work as basis of a justice system. It is understood that if many a people take up that principle and if mechanisms of enforcement of that are put into work, a better feeling of justice can be achieved.
But don’t fool yourself. No system of Justice is perfect or free of complicated conflicts, because it will always be based on somewhat imprecise feelings about a reality that in a certain degree will escape. And we never know how we are gonna feel about situations that have not yet manifested. What we can do is think of two imperfect alternative worlds, one where people are if necessary forced to carry on their responsibilities towards those affected by their consequential actions, and one where they are not required to; and than decide whichever one feels more just.
Thank you for the detailed reply.
First, I replied to Toxic Assets and not to you, in what you refered to as “more straw man”. So no straw man intended.
“You do not & cannot legitimately own another actor producer.”
I actually didn’t claim otherwise, and with regards to children I completely agree. See:
I will also note that a child does not go from having no rights to being a full moral agent in an instant. As a baby grows older and develops some cognitive ability to respect the rights of others, he also gradually gains rights for himself. Once the child has shown he is able to fully respect the rights of others and maturely resolve disputes, he must be considered full moral agent, and has all the rights of a grownup himself.
If you will see my treatment of animals I ground the categorical imperative in argumentation:
"Normative distinctions based on skin-color, height or sexual preference is trivially arbitrary, as people of any skin-color, height or sexual preference can deny them in argument with no implied contradiction. Such a distinction has nothing to do with their ability to respect the rights of others, and implied in that, to resolve conflicts in discourse. They are fully capable moral agents.
However, what about the removal of moral distinctions, that is, broadening the category of moral agents to include animals, for instance? It can be shown that this is not the removal of a moral categorical distinction, but in fact the introduction of one. It is because animals are cognitively “blind” to the notion of rights and the rights of others; they cannot then be logically held accountable for committing rights violations any more than a blind man can logically be punished for bumping into someone, after taking all possible precautions. Therefore, to claim that the rights of animals should be respected by man is not to claim that animals are equal to man, but rather that animals are superior to man. Man will be punished for spitting in the face of a lama, but the lama will not be punished for spitting at his*. (*Again, to argue the lama should be punished is a clear reductio ad-absurdum)"
This is very important to my point. Catergorical distinction in the resolution of an actual conflict are based on symatry, not invented presumptions. From this, a child with some cognitive ability is indeed not like a fetus (i.e. they are not in the same category): I agreed:
" I will also note that a child does not go from having no rights to being a full moral agent in an instant. As a baby grows older and develops some cognitive ability to respect the rights of others, he also gradually gains some rights for himself. Once the child has shown he is able to fully respect the rights of others and maturely resolve disputes, he must be considered full moral agent, and has all the rights of a grownup himself."
That is, a child capable of expressing “no”, verbally or otherwise, has some rights over his body and cannot be killed. It’s a scale, not all or nothing. You are right that a fetus is also on that scale but since inclusion in a moral category for some right relies on you cognitive ability, it is on the zero of the scale. In case of the mother wanting to put the cells, or body, of the fetus to some use-
So when you said:
The fetus is in the same category as a child essentially, it has yet to assert its full self-ownership. The child is far advanced, the fetus at the very beginning… on the path towards self-ownership.
I disagree, the category is not some “bucket” but a scale, when you acquire some conative ability to express one-self and interact with others, some of your rights must then symmetrically also be respected, but before that-none what so ever. So I agree you cannot own an actor producer, children included, but a fetus is not an actor producer. The categorical distinction grounded in argumentation relies on symmetry, not on some potential for the future (the reason Block got to this is that he does not explicitly build upon the APoA).
There is no imaginary “guardianship” agreement, this is just completely made up. There is a conflict and its resolution. There is only property rights grounded in inter-subjectively ascertainable claims. I deny there is any need for a special category for man in coma- this is completely regular ownership. Unlike a man in a temporary comma, a fetus’s cells ownership cannot be traced (in any real terms) to any moral agent other then its mother. A man in a coma’s body can be traced to him. This is not the same at all. What you are essentially claiming here is that non-human matter incapable of any rationality cannot be harmed because someday in the future it will be a part a human body (which indeed cannot be externaly owned)- then this has no objective grounding. The fetus’s body is currently nothing but an organ of the mother. There is not even a clear physical distinction (due to the umbilical cord). Even conceding this invalid rule of ownership for resolving conflicts over what is essentialy a part of the mother’s body, by prohibiting the mother from harming cells in her body, there is still an invented “presumption” introduced about what the future agent would want, which is also not grounded on anything. This is very artificial. Again, my problem with this is that unlike a man in a coma here you are resolving the conflict over the fetus’s body using ownership based on a future event (which other than being special treatment, is inherently hypothetical).
Actually, you have perfectly summarized the objective grounding. The fetus is a potential rational agent. That is an objective fact. The question then becomes, do potential rational agents have the same rights as actual rational agents?
All biological evidence, especially DNA, contradicts you. DNA shows that the fetus is a separate organism, and not at all part of the mother. If you had described it as a parasite, I might have agreed with you, but an organ? That flies in the face of biology.
Further, it is very clear to all but those with extremely poor eye sight where the umbilical cord ends and the fetus begins. By your logic, “There is not even a clear physical distinction,” between a mosquito and your arm, due to its elongated mouth piercing your skin.
i think it can be agreed that a 10 year old child is not fully reasoned as an adult, nor can he provide a life for himself. though one day he will. but we all agree this 10 year old child cannot be raped by his “owners” (parents). so where is the line drawn? when the baby leaves the womb? why is one “potential rational agent” more deserving of rights than another? my view is that you have the freedom to have sex with whomever you please. but a baby is not a choice. it’s a consequence. you INVITED that baby onto your property. if you invited a friend over, then decided he was a nuisance, you couldn’t just abort him from your home, violently, fatally in this case (unless he was doing harm to you or your property, which a baby is not doing to its mother). and don’t say it’s different, because that friend could survive after being kicked out. the baby doesn’t need its mother to survive. it needs A mother. this whole choice movement is sickening, not so much for the disregard for human life (because some people don’t claim fetuses are human life), but because it teaches, necessarily, irresponsibility. not taking responsiblity for your actions. after roe/wade the abortion rate went up, but so did teenage pregnancies and out-of-wedlock babies. history has proved these two situations are prohibiitive of the child reaching full capacity of faculties (knowledge, values, what have you).
"But since we both agree you cannot base anything of value on pure logic, in the end of the day, every conclusion you can establish about the world derives from some sort of feeling."
The problem with this debate is a conflation of values with natural rights. I love my baby more than any rights-capable entity I can imagine. But it is a matter of fact that I observe my baby to be incapable and therefore devoid of any rights whatsoever. The only rights that are relevant to my baby, are the rights of those I surround him with, which will help determine if my baby will thrive and mature into a rights-capable entity himself. It may, or may not happen, that my baby will one day have rights. If it happens, then my interactions with him will include his consideration of my lasting actions toward or against his development during his pre-rights period. But if he never reaches that stage, such considerations never happen, and rights never become an issue.
In just about any abortion debate, the only rights truly under consideration, are those of the debators, not the fetus–which has none.
Natural rights are a behavioral trait of an entity. Like a Turing test, you know something has rights by how it reacts to you. Any possible knowledge of biology is completely irrelevent. Rights behavior in a nonhuman would still be rights behavior. The purpose and advantage of rights is to allow a nonviolent option of affecting the behavior of another entity, in defense of your values. Whether the other entity is incapable of rights, like a fetus or very young child or tornado, or chooses not to respect them, like a criminal aggressor, makes no difference when it comes to you determing what your options are for responding to that entity.
Normative questions like, “Should you abort a fetus?” are not solved by eliminating the confusion between rights and values, or by recognizing the fact that a fetus has no natural rights, since rights-capable individuals will still disagree from a personal values standpoint. The only thing you can peacefully do is to try to pursuade someone to embrace your values.
But in reality, almost every abortion debate comes down to “Is violence a justified reaction?” Those who say that a stranger is justified in violently prohibiting a woman from aborting her fetus are claiming property owership of the fetus and/or mother. It is impossible that they are acting according to the wishes of the fetus, since the fetus cannot, and never could, wish anything. There is no allying with an entity incapable of ever having entered into an allegiance.
I can get much more emotional and defensive over a fetus or Monet as compared to a mother wanting to abort or a collector wanting to destroy for insurance. Frankly, I couldn’t care less, in most cases, whether the latter live or die. But natural rights are mundane features of the natural world. The latter have them (or are at least capable of them), the former do not. I have to decide if I am willing to aggress againt the latter, violating their rights, in defense of the former, which are my greater values. As a libertarian, my calculus includes an even higher value–the nonaggression principle–which restrains me from automatically treating everything that I value as my personal property. I know that such behavior cannot come in defense of civility, because violating the principle gaurantees conflict and is the unravelling of civility.
but you’ve just said (implied), that a fetus isn’t actor or producer. So it’s fully possible for a woman to own a fetus in my book. Fetus gets all the rights once he is born. Until that, it is the property of the woman (an probably a man… not sure yet about it)
MaikU,
I don’t see how phisical birth is any more than a change of location. Moral status is determined via the agents ability to respect the rights of others.
then you have problems with biology, man. Actually, location is the same, maybe a few centemeters away from the host, but the point is, now the creature is sole owner oh his body and is not dependent on the fluids of its previous host. Birth is a first step towards independence and the beginning of rational human being.
In my thread on abortion, I’ve challenged anyone to attack a few points, citing sources and using quotes. To this day, nobody has. I feel convinced my position is the only unique and consistent libertarian position.
• A fetus doesn’t meet the requirements for property rights. Therefore abortion is strictly legitimate.
To attack this point, the opposition must note that rights are property rights in scarce resources, requiring action which implies a rational individual. A fetus isn’t an individual, it can’t be proved to be rational, it can’t communicate about abstract concepts with us, it can’t act in the economic sense—purposeful behavior towards scarce resources—nor does it need to (it’s critical to note that a fetus doesn’t need to act; the concept of rights is about justice concerning the needs of individuals in an environment of scarce resources upon which they can act in competition). To top it all, nothing about the entire concept of property is relevant to a fetus—whether from the fetus’ perspective outward, or another’s perspective toward the fetus. A fetus doesn’t need property, nor can it to acquire any through trade or homestead. To talk about the property rights of a fetus is to ignore the very foundations of the concepts of property, rights, and property rights (and action, scarcity, and the role of ethics, which deals with the just allocation of resources in an environment of scarcity and competition).
• In abortion, nobody (if not the mother) has a property right such that they can legitimately retaliate.
Self-evident, needs no commentary. If the fetus isn’t considered an individual, there is no concern for whom it belongs to; the fetus is a part of the mother. If the fetus can be considered property, certainly it is nobody’s if not the mother’s, so if she murders it, nobody has any legal recourse.
• OK, enough about fetuses, what about the case of babies? Once a baby (individual, ex-fetus) acts it becomes a self-owner—this is as opposed to a fetus, which is neither a self nor capable of owning or even fathoming no less communicating about the concept of ownership. As a self-owner, nobody has a property right in it, so nobody can legitimately retaliate against someone who murders the baby. This is for a baby who has just become a self-owner, not a 2, 3, or 4 year old etc who can rationally contract for defense or insurance.
Maiku: “but you’ve just said (implied), that a fetus isn’t actor or producer. So it’s fully possible for a woman to own a fetus in my book. Fetus gets all the rights once he is born. Until that, it is the property of the woman (an probably a man… not sure yet about it)”
Yet. It has the potential. Which is a part of it’s nature. It has begun the process, it is on the continuum.
No. Until then it is “on” / in the property of the woman, as a guest. Should it be ‘uninvited’ then it must be removed in the most gentlest means possible. Evicted. Not killed (aborted).
Can you have some damn decency and make at least a basic level of effort to educate yourself by reading the actual content of the journal article before bumbling in, in a massive state of ignorance?
There is a reason why you’re “not sure yet about it”.
Hashem,
Exactly the position I advocate here. I believe it is perfectly grounded in Argumentation Ethics.
Gumdy, how ironic, then, that we should fight an already-won uphill battle among our purported peers. I imagine this is how Hoppe feels with his argumentation ethics. He’s got it figured out from the ground up, yet his own peers attack the up and ignore the ground.
Hashem: “Gumdy, how ironic, then, that we should fight an already-won uphill battle among our purported peers. I imagine this is how Hoppe feels with his argumentation ethics. He’s got it figured out from the ground up, yet his own peers attack the up and ignore the ground.”
Nope. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuoepBsv3ZE
Nice backslapping. I’ll address both your objections when I have time.
hashem, have you ever felt a “fetus” kick? is that not an action separate from its mother’s? in any case, “action” is not the threshold for personhood. sorry, that is just dumb. plenty of people replied to, and excused your thread. you didn’t reply to my post. the baby isn’t violating the mother’s property. the mother INVITED the baby into her property.
Conza,
Given this was in Poland I think Hoppe was simply assuming the fetus is alive. He said “even so”, and “even if”. He did not seemed decisive. 
We are not objectivists of cours and we can have an interesting debates instead of a party line.
It was an easy / natural rejection of Hashem’s charachterization. I’m not sure what Poland has to do with it. He said the same thing in Australia.
As I’ve said elsewhere:
I don’t think there’s any conflict between Hoppe’s position -he is simply giving the private law framework- and Block’s, where he is specifically giving what he considers to be the ‘libertarian law code’ response. Here’s a great diagram that encapsulates what is meant. There need not be just one ‘law code’ that individuals voluntarily sign up to adhere by, but the libertarian principles of ‘self-ownership’ and ‘original appropriation’ naturally lay the foundation.
And yes of course. It’ll be interesting too see some what ‘new ground’, it’s definitely been awhile. I look forward to the exchange gentlemen :).
Interesting video Conzaa, not sure I have any idea what you meant by it…
I do have one thing to say of it, though I’m sure this has nothing to do with whatever you were trying to say:
Even Hoppe says he has “no clear answer”, but that the situation should be resolved in the order of people who are most involved (he lists family). In my understanding, what he means is that the mother should make the decision and nobody has any say in the matter LEGALLY, but if people want to treat her differently than that is their right.
Aderwent: I have requested only objections that cite sources. I’m sure your feelings are very important to you, but when life and limb is concerned I’m more focused on the logic and justice. If you are aware of any important libertarians that reject my case, I’d love to see what they have to say about the origin of property rights—but I’m not interested in a 10 page emotional landfill.
