Most libertarians would agree that human beings have rights. These are derived from self-ownership. The concept is philosophically sound and ready to be applied.
However, rights are non-material goods. We do not “own” them, we merely have a claim to them. But if I understand libertarian theory correctly, we do not have a claim to their enforcement.
I understand that “what about the poor?” arguments annoy some of you, but seriously: of which value is a supposedly “inherent” good if you need sufficient funds to access it? As soon as I can violate someone’s ‘rights’ and the person can’t bring me to justice for lack of funds, these alleged rights have become privileges.
However, the socialized provision of rights also contradicts the idea of rights per definitionem, since socialized provision means taxation which means coercion and collective theft.
Is the idea of natural rights thus a contradiction in itself?
But how is a right of any use if it can be arbitrarily violated? Isn’t the “right to life” as much a right as a “right to a Mercedes” if I need enough funds or power (state coercion) to maintain/gather both?
You know, if hear this silly, misconceived objection to NR one more time I think I am going to bash my head into the wall. Rights are not shields, they are not guarantees. They are claims one has. If one violates them, the aggressor may be punished. That is the point of them, to articulate what may not be done to the individual. That is it, nothing more. They are normative constraints on legal systems. You’re right that enforcement of them is up to the individual, though, as in there is no right to socialized provision of rights-protection. So what? Ooh a tiger doesn’t respect my NR, now what!? [:O]
So the claim that in a free market anarchy “the strong would rule the weak” is true to the extent that “the weak” must compete financially with “the strong” to defend their alleged rights, and since “the weak” are more likely to run out of funds than “the strong”, rights of persons with non-equal status will have non-equal priorities?
Srsly, every time I read this, I keep thinking of the cretinist “evolution is false because it says we came from monkeys, and there are still monkeys”.
Man has inherent rights, but no inherent right to right enforcement. Thus, right ultimately relies on superior firepower. This benefits the strong who are more likely to hire superior firepower than the weak.
Please note that I don’t argue in favor of statism because I realize the inner contradictions of the idea. I just want to make this clear, right ultimately rests on superior force?
You own yourself. If you own yourself, then you own your labor. If you own your labor, then you own anything you “mix your labor with.” If you own anything you “mix your labor with,” you can have exclusive ownership over land, sea, etc. This makes taxation immoral. Instead of taxation (extortion), you have the right to hire your own defense/police/court agency to protect you. Is this that hard to imagine?
Rothbard defines a right as a legitimately enforcable claim. So I don’t see how what you said makes sense.
The person can use their own body to do so if they wish. Moreover others can homestead the case. I don’t see what your point is. You’re confusing rights with power.
If you want to get down to the bottom of it, there are no such thing as natural rights, they are all artificial abstractions made by humans for whatever purpose.
No. What would lead you to believe this? This isn’t the law of the jungle. Politics is for the purpose of ordering human communities so as to achieve a common end for its participants, i.e. a peaceful, harmonious and prosperous order. Doing that incorporates respect for natural rights. Failure to respect them will lead to dysdaemonic political orders. It just so happens that statist political orders suck hard at actually respecting rights because they begin with two false assumptions: 1) the ruling class somehow should enjoy superior rights and 2) that protection of rights is to be socialized. From there on it just gets worse. If anything, the strong rule the weak right now, via the state.
And thus, I lack a guarantee that my rights will be restored once they have been violated. If I find, for some reason, noone who is willing to restore my rights for me and I can’t do it by myself, I’m basically screwed. In that situation, rights have become unreliable entitlements instead of inherent and unalienable claims.
Not quite. I’m trying to demonstrate that rights are not inherent, but must be claimed by superior power.
For example: You live in a valley with 100 other inhabitants. Now these other inhabitants decide that their valley shall become a communist society, and you better participate or get ready for punishment. Whether or not their actions are philosophically coherent or sound according to the categorical imperative doesn’t really matter, force matters. Your only means of defense is to hire, again, a superior force to strike back.
All the while, you may possess a claim to restitution from the communist pillagers, but once again, this is non-material, you do not own it, it depends on recognition from society. If society thinks your darn private property ain’t worth a continental, what are you going to do?
And as I said, I’m perfectly aware that states violate the very premise of their existence, the protection of life, liberty and property, and are thus out of the question already.
However, even in the absence of a territorial monopoly of force with taxation powers, natural rights may not always be respected in the sense that I elaborated on above. Natural rights remain a postulate that is dependent on the understanding and support of your fellow men. You can try to explain to them the benefits of a property-based society or the ethical contradictions in their expropriation schemes, but at the end of the day it’s superior force that decides who owns what and not an normative system of rights, even if it’s perfectly consistent and the only just way to structure human society.
Discoveries and inventions are both “made by humans” but are not the same thing. Even before gravity was discovered it existed. Stepping off the roof of a building back then still resulted in pain. It may be an “abstraction” but it is an expression of an inherent law that exists in the world. There is nothing “artificial” about it.
Similarly, I see the concept of natural rights to be the discovery of an iron-clad law concerning human interaction and not simply an invention. One can disregard the concept but the result is going to be strife - emotional, economic and political pain. Were all to respect this law it, by itself, would secure our Liberty, Property and Peace.
Well, maybe you are a contradiction of yourself? Not meant offensive,really. But, following your “argument” which is full of fallcies, to much to get into in fact, that would be the conclusion.
I would suppose you take a good book on the topic, like “for a new liberty” to start with and get your definitions straight. A right, for example, is no good. Goods are things you need as means to achieve your goals. Rights are at bottom a concept. If you like they are consequences out of the fact that humans are free and therefor own themselves. The reason why human beings are free is in their nature, that means it is a systemic attribute of humans. Freedom is an attribute of humans, like mass is an attribute of a rock. Freedom is the fact that no other human can possibly make a third human do something. The only entity that can make you do something is yourself. No none else. You always decide how to act. Whatever you do it is YOUR decision.
Out of freedom follow property rights. They are nothing but a bunch of facts that derive from the fact that humans are free. Like the physical law, that you will inevitably fall down from a building and not up. Accepting those rights increase survival probability, denying them increases risk.