To clarify something: it’s not that I think rights are in a heirarchy so much as an interconnected network. Rights are always contextual upon the consistant respecting of other rights in the network. Otherwise, one’s definition of right A is going to conflict with one’s definition of right B, and the overall social theory starts to fall apart. So it’s not that the right to life is necessarily “higher” than property rights, it’s just that property rights cannot violate the right to life. Both property rights and the right to life should consistantly be upheld, and if they start to contradict eachother in your framework then you have misdefined something along the way or made some mistakes in the process of concept formation. The sense in which there is a heirarchy is in terms of the order in which the concepts logically derive or follow.
My objection to thin/plumb-line libertarianism is that it actually selectively puts property above the NAP and misdefines property rights in a way that contradicts the right to life and liberty. The logical result of my approach does not get rid of property rights or their enforcement, but puts them into the proper context of the non-initiation of violence, rather than treating the NAP as a floating axoim without much in the way of specification and little to no concern for proportionality. Normatively, property rights do not require violence to be enforced. Violence is only required in the process of enforcement given conditions of escalation and a threat to life. Ultimately, I think that philosophy and incentives protects rights more than violence.
You’re misrepresenting him again, despite him repeating OVER and OVER that he is not advocating against self-defense. He is arguing against using ASYMMETRICAL force against someone. If you believe your life is being threatened(like it is in your scenario), then you absolutely have the right to protect yourself, even if that means killing that person. It is all about proportionality. When a person violates your rights, they are forfeiting their rights in PROPORTION to how much they have violated yours. Like BP has repeated ad nauseum, DIVORCED FROM ANY CONTEXT(this is important because everyone keeps adding context and going “If 27 rapist/murderers were on my property armed to the teeth, would I be justified in killing them BP?”), a violation of property DOES NOT mean a person has forfeited his right to life. The context is what determines how much of their rights have been forfeited. In a free society, arbiters would decide if the force you used was legitimate in regards to the context(if the person/person’s family felt that you used disproportional force).
Or do you subscribe to the Daniel Waite school of rights, where simply stepping onto a person’s property(even if invited, as in the case of a business) immediately removes ALL of your rights, and you are able to be raped, murdered, or even locked into a cage, all at the owners discretion?
Thankyou for helping to clarify this. I keep clarifying repeatedly that I’m talking about scenarios involving incomplete information or when there is clearly not a threat to life and the person on your property is cooperative, and then people keep bringing up scenarios that are more clear-cut cases of self-defense. And yes - that “Daniel Waite school of rights” is the ridiculous implication of the viewpoint I’m opposing.
Pretty soon, my property has to meet some standard that protects invaders at my expense, because heaven forbid the barbarians can’t pass safely through the gate.
Wombie, I like you a lot, which is why I try not to flame you. Too much. You make me laugh a lot.
There’s a small difference between a pool and a rabid dog. But as I said before, many of these issues are continuum problems. Only a free market or common law court, within the context of specific cases, will be able to give good answers.
Why? Can there be no justice in the absence of a court? It isn’t my belief that courts make law, but rather judge law. So what is the underlying law here?
If I equip my perimeter with poisonous sprayers and someone walks across my lawn and dies, am I at fault?
It is my property, and where I can do as I wish, yes? If not, who exercises a higher claim on my property?
I think proportionality is a wonderful moral idea. Like rescuing all of the runaway animals at the shelter. I don’t think it’s realistic to expect people to always use proportionate force, when you admit, the correct proportions can only be determined ex post facto.
I’m not misrepresenting him, I asked him two questions to give him a chance to clarify his position. But he hasn’t answered. He doesn’t have the decency, he’s wrong and he knows it.
im at a loss to understand you perspective. What you derisively call ‘thin libertarianism’ , you say suffers from poor concept formation, and needs to be moderated for utilitarian purposes so that the danger of rigidly adhering to the ‘thin’ doctrine,.that of freedom, self ownership, and private ownership, axioms ‘great crimes’ arent caused. e.g. the deaths of trespassers, the death of those guilty of supposed misdeameanors.
I think a society living under ‘thin libertarianism’ would leave much to be desired, I would exhort those people living in it to voluntarily, ‘thicken’ their standrards and opt into market produced private law, such that would give leeway to trespassers, and set rules of thumb for conflict resolution. i would do this by appealing to their rational self interest, in a sense it would a be a utilitarian appeal, but thats the wrong word, it would be a purely practicle appeal, one of preferences. It would not have moral force. They would not be morally wrong to avoid the softening, they would only have a different worldview. Thin libertarianism is moral as it stands. It sets the hard rule. you obviously dont like hard rules. if you want to soften them, you have to allow people to opt into the softened system that you offer, and you also have to maintain their freedom to opt out, less you risk moral inconsistency, lest you prejudice your entire project.
as far as our non-aggression axiom being incompletely formed. can you give concepts of archetypal well formed concepts and improper formed concepts. if theres not a rule you can specify for categorisign the one from the other, perhaps increased familiarity will allow the pattern to emerge, and i might have some hope of agreeing with you.
finally, this thread moves so fast that i laid down a challenge, and no-one responded to it. i will try not to get into the habit of repeating everything twice, but i wouldnt want you to not respond to it just because you hadnt seen it. (stating that you feel it is not worth addressing would be all the acknowledgement i need)
is it misrepresenting your argument to say that : >
you assert that when a property owner applies any more aggression than a trespasser has initiated, then the descriptive label ‘Initiator of Aggression’ cross over from the body of the trespasser to sit comfortably on the forehead of the landlord.
yet
if we consider a pickpocket thief who brushing past a gentleman, with quick fingers takes the wallet, and walks on. The gentleman has a momentary doubt, and patting his pockets determines that he has ben fleeced. his 50$ and picture of his wife and kids is heading up the road with that man who had brushed past him on this otherwise empty street mere moments ago. the gentleman turns t follow the thief, he begins to run, the theif hearing the quickining footsteps breaks into a run. yet the gentleman is more athletic than the thief, he tackles him to the ground. overpowers him. takes his wallet. goes home .
financially the debt is squared away. private property has been restituted. but the pickpocket had used minimal ‘force’ and the gentleman brutally knocked the thief to the floor bruising him. whilst neither theif nor gentleman have financially more or less than they started with. the one is injured the other not. clearly the gentleman has initiated aggression. he is the Greater Trespasser.
i might be prioving not to have followed the subtlety of brainpolices argument but it seems to me that he would not agree that
if you believe your life is being threatened(like it is in your scenario), then you absolutely have the right to protect yourself, even if that means killing that person
one assumes as a ‘thick libertarian’ he must also bake into the justification that the belief be a justified true belief (plato!) and that you also have further justified true beliefs that there arent alternative ways to remove the damage or threat of damage to oneself (or ones property) Im afraid he might be in a real gray area though. with the sharp line he has drarawn between the insignificant trespass of propoerty weighed against the heavy sacred property of bodily health and integrity. brain police remains to explain whether a use of physical force against a thiefs body, is justifiable whne the thief is not using violent aggression, but aggression of a more subtle kind. a la the pickpocket.
Actually your repetition of the same questions over is completely ridiculous because I’ve spent this entire thread already clarifying the matter, and you’re asking questions that assume a premise I’ve already clarified. I’ve already more than sufficiently answered you, I’m not opposing genuine cases of self-defense, I’m distinguishg self-defense from ex-post facto violence and pre-emptive violence. My views on this are similar to this: http://royhalliday.home.mindspring.com/a2.htm#a2
Your concern has already been addressed pages back. Your questions are misleading because they assume I’m opposing self-defense when I’m not. The scenarios you bring up aren’t the kind of scenarios I’m talking about.
with the nap being timeless, ex pos facto, wouldnt seem to go into it. and punishment seems tangential as no one proposing ‘thin libertarianism’ as you called it has described their self defence acts as due punishment. perhaps we have different emphasis on the meaning of punishment, typically punishment is decided on and delivered against an aggressor at a state of time distinctly after any acts of defense, or restitution have taken place, and would constitute any ‘extra’ costs that the criminal may bear within the moral or legal system that uses such concepts.
but the issue has never been what should the landowner be able to do the the trespasser, a solid week after the trespasser had stopped trespassing and where the trespasser and landowner meet both as invited guests of another in the territory of a 3rd party.
im making the point that being an active ‘trespasser’ in the state of trespassing is different than being an agent who is previously committed an act of trespass (that may at this point have been compensated for, or not, as the case may be)
If trespass is a crime, like assault, then it should be dealt with in the way that crimes like assault are dealt with. Trespass on its own, is (in my opinion) not as bad as assault, and is not even as bad as theft; theft is the illegitimate appropriation of property while trespass is merely the effective renting of property without consent or payment. Unless we are to decide that victims of thieves have complete control over the course of punishment or restitution handed to the thieves who wronged them, then we cannot argue that the victims of trespass have that right. Surely the punishment handed to a trespasser would be wrung out between the two individuals’ justice agencies, or at a mutually accepted court - the victim does not have the right to summarily punish the transgressor.
I believe the analogy is sound, but I am open to criticism.
well, i dont know how helpful that is juan, but nevermind/
perhaps we can try to get some closure, as the saying goes.
giles questions where posted many pages back. I will try to answer them as i see fit. and if brain police or anyone else wants to they can feel free. I think the questions can be answered with yes, no, or ‘that depends on’.
so here goes.
If I live in downtown Freetown and a number of houses have been broken into recently in my area, and the people inside murdered, do I have the right to shoot somebody if they break into my house?
as i am playing the part of thin libertarian, in a raw state of mutal libertarian anarchy where all that the agents are bound to respect is NAP and private property rights then. YES, you can fire your bullets in your home. dont let stray rounds impact on others buildings.
otherwise:
in a well functioning town where the agents concerned have (by paying their dues to various private defence agencies and insurance companies) commited themselves to following various standards of self-restraint, tamed their natural rights to defense in exchange for like consideration.
so this is an open question under this branch, maybe yes, maybe, no, depending on the codes and the agents relationships to those codes.
Secondly, am I right in thinking that if somebody is hanging on a flagpole outside my window, do they have the right to break my window to save themselves? Am I right in thinking that your position is that they do since the right to life and liberty comes above that of property?
whilst in raw anarchy, No, they have not the right to break the window. but in a similar market law scenario as described above the landowner might have previously obliged himself to show some degree of tolerance.