Obviously this thread has uncovered a wide ranging diversity of opinion over how actions might be classed as permissible or impermissable. central to the disagreement is a question of proportionality.
Somehow we have to square the contradiction that only the bare minimal force is legititmate to counter some minor ‘non-life threatening’ tresspass/theft/violence (perhaps to counter momentary tresspass on a lawn nothing greater than a verbal request to step off would seem decent)
on the other hand, it should be clear that a defender responding to an attack of more serious property damage or violent attack might be expected to have greater freedom to escalate their violent response even above the level of violence that they are offered (as otherwise the defender might always be bound to lose out in a confrontation).
As a further example; in the case of a non-life-essential bodypart being threatened, it would seem perhaps more natural for a greater degree of potentially life threatening violence to seem appropriate in response.
However,
this issue of seemingness, and our ‘moral intuitions’ is helping me make my point. All these boundary conditions, all these whefts of feelings, the empathy for accidental aggressors, the sympathy for the self-defender; could not possibly be resolved by appeal to a universal ethic. Such a Universal Ethic would have to be clear as day to every rational moral agent, requiring only such an agents performance of rational analysis to determine permissable and impermissable action.
This is a fine demonstration that our analysis here has moved beyond ascertaining what the raw ethical rules are for all moral agents Universally; and that we are now playing the losers game of second guessing what set of rules , codes of conduct, and judicial law, various moral agents might find that they have bound themselves to being judged by. Such bodies of law, encoded in a text of law, would provide a solid framework for addressing the aforementioned contingent,temporary,episodic, particular cases which we have here together struggled with.
i put it to you that whilst the law that anarcho-capitalist firms would generate must define issues of proportionality, must codify this into their law; this is a definite and substantial step beyond the mere scribbling down of what ‘the natural law is’ .
Re-Emphasis
‘the natural law’ or ‘fundamental universal rational law’ is different from the Produced Law (whatever flavour, be it explicit, or even the ‘implicit law’ (*footnote), that agents might bind themseleves to)
One might characterise the first as being rawrer, as it does make less fine grained distinctions, and it looks much less like the law we are most familiar and intimate with, that law being the prevailing common law of our societies(which has suffered greatly by being squeezed and distroted by the state).
I suggest to all of you that have been following this thread that Proportionality Doctrine, is putting the cart before the horse.
It can have no rational place in a rational universal ethics. because the opinions of human-beings (merely a subset of logically possible rational beings) are widely divergent from individual on questions of proportionaly. None of us are non-human rational beings, so none of us are qualified to give the extra-human perspective on matters of preference, though we are well qualified to talk about core rational ethics.
Hence Proportionality is not a universal principle such as the AXIOM of private property and the AXIOM of non-aggression. (these axioms drop out simple and well formed, from analysis on what it is to be a moral agent, and so could be derived by all rational beings be they humans or otherwise; but perhaps more needs to be said of this)
Obviously,. charges of ‘psycopathy’ must fail under this understanding. psycopathy is not a generic failure of a rational being failing to uphold to some universal rational standard of behaviour. it is precisely again, a human condition characterised by idiosyncracies.It is of acting other than the kind, merciful, human empathy and sypmathy standard that we all as humans appreciate (or would appreciate if we werent psycopaths but emotionally rounded).
If the point is not clear by now i should reiterate:
a conversation about what law human beings would like to live under is one thing, and the question of universal rational ethics for humans and non-human moral agents alike is definitely another.
the two are to be confused at ones peril, such confusion leading to contradiction and absurdity.
sincerely, your friendly neighborhood psycopathic-rational-agent NirGrahamUK
*e.g. in a boundary case where judge WhatsHisName has a history of ruling in a way to satisfy his consumers both defending and prosecuting despite an explicit law code not existing to cover the dispute; one might bind oneself to accepting the judges ruling in these rare cases , the idea to build a body of precedence where explicit law making heretofore has been insufficient