TheDesaloteOne
a) I agree, being prepared to pay the cost of being wrong, does not make it right for one to choose to do, and go ahead to do the wrong.
good post jon
I didn’t say that. But who determines the repercussions, even to say if it is wrong or not is an inquiry into repercussions. I have a son. Sometimes I make him sit in time out. Sometimes I look at him and say, “That’s wrong.” In any of these cases it’s about repercussions even if it is simply saying something is wrong, slapping their hand, or ignoring somebody for a couple of minutes. Anybody can violate a property due to physics (big strong dude kicks in the door), but if it was wrong or not and thus the inquiry of repercussions is after we’ve established who’s property it is. I really think people are conflating the two, at times: property and repercussions.
and I agree with you here… This is why I think to state what is right or wrong, to bring in ethics, is also the repercussion inquiry. I think rights are absolute, but the repercussions of mercy can bring justice just as much as restitution or other consequences. These latter, including saying if it was right or wrong, are repercussion inquiries. Cause we have already established who’s cabin it is - it’s naturally Tom’s, and thus we’ve established due to recognition property rights.
I agree here too with your position on non-aggression. Without NAP, then society is warped by violations of liberty and thus a less than reasonable society becomes the degenerate norm, unfortunately. It’s like any coercion in the free market. It will create bubbles in the social life that may not be society wide, but they expand in one sector, effects linkages in other sectors, and soon the whole of society is basically warped and humans aren’t flourishing.
Fantastic Post Jon
By the way, there are plenty of preventive measures as well. It is Tom’s property so any repercussions that come along ones way, it can be taught, are up to whom? Again an inquiry into repercussions. Is it wrong? Can we think of this preventively, yes. But somebody can think preventively about situations that might include what’s right about somebody breaking into a cabin. But which Tom is the invader going to get? The Tom that throws him out or the Tom that doesn’t. The Tom that says pay restitution or the Tom that says just go on your way and never come back again, etc…
How we are, as individuals, to handle any property invasion, infringement, violation, pick your verb, is all an inquiry into repercussions. Can we say, well I thought we all agreed that a homeless Klemm shouldn’t have any repercussions? We could but if say Tom doesn’t recognize this, then he has every right to reinforce his property right with a consequence/repercussion. I think a community deciding upon moral decisions (outside of rights) as something permanent is a problematic risk, anti-liberty, and is bias. A society that recognizes property rights recognizes liberty and therefore an unbiased, diverse flourishing of activities by humans will occur, including, how a Tom ought to react to somebody coming onto his property. This diversity happens in the latter due to an umbrella of liberty.
Keep in mind the whole time though if we recognize it’s Tom’s cabin, then we have recognized the natural right of Tom to do with his labor achieved and thus work in liberty without coercing our moral opinions upon him. We’ve set up scenario’s and such for Tom to intellectually exercise, but in the end, if our inquiry of repercussions involves Tom having a say in what is to be done on his property, including inquiring repercussions upon an aggressor, then we’ve left Tom’s free-will intact.
Thedesolateone, you write:
Basically I base ethics on my intuition that humans are individuals and should be respected as such. I think complete non-aggression is the only way to properly respect individuals’ individuality. I take self-ownership as unprovable but axiomatic.
Given that you take your particular conception of self-ownership as unprovable but axiomatic, I’m not sure how I could possibly argue with you. I deny your axiom, and contend that it is unfounded. But since you claim that it’s unprovable and you nevertheless believe in it axiomatically, I think that’s pretty much the end of the conversation, isn’t it?
Jon, you write that when someone else homesteads something, the people who do not end up with a claim to it move “From a situation of non-ownership to a situation of non-ownership.” But before the appropriation takes place, the sense in which they do not own the object is that they do not control it and have no right to exclude others from using it, but they are still morally justified in making use of it at any time if they so choose. After the appropriation, they still do not control it, and they still have no right to exclude others from using it, but now they are apparently no longer justified in doing what they previously would have been justified in doing. Why?
You then point out:
Before putting someone on my ignore list they were at liberty to talk to me, afterwards they are not. So what? There’s no “right” to this.
And this is true enough. But the libertarian is not simply pointing out that when an appropriator builds a wall around a piece of land, people are no longer able to use it. He is contending that even if the appropriator doesn’t build a wall, and other people are still perfectly capable of making use of the land, there is a normative constraint imposed on all other people to respect the appropriator’s claim to the land. Again, why? Why should people respect this?
Nozick notices that when the constraints are irrelevant to people’s ability to pursue their own goals, or the constraints actually benefit the people whose liberty they restrict in an all-things-considered sense, it will be more or less uncontroversial that they should be respected. The person who invests herself in the object in question has a personal stake in it, and no one else is being made worse off by respecting that person’s claim, so it would seem like as long as people minimally valued other people, the property claim would be appropriately founded. But you contend:
So it reduces their opportunity to take something they didn’t even have a right to to begin with (a right which would obtain if and only if they forged the right sort of connection with it)? Do they have a positive right to appropriate things? If not (like if it’s a negative right, i.e. the right to appropriate is construed as an injunction of anyone interfering with the homesteading of unowned resources), no harm has taken place and no right was violated.
But this, I think, misunderstands the problem. The issue isn’t that people have a right to use certain objects. The issue is that people have a presumptive right to do whatever they want, and we need to give reasons for restricting their liberty. This, I take it, is at the foundation of liberal theory. What Nozick is noticing is that if your appropriation imposes normative restrictions on me that limit my capacity to do what I want, then it seems like you would have to justify to me why I should respect those restrictions. Simply pointing out that you invested yourself in the land doesn’t prove that you are exclusively entitled to it; I could very coherently say that you shouldn’t have invested yourself in that land if you were going to have a problem with other people trying to use it too, and say that just as you were entitled to use the land, so too should I be entitled to do so. It’s not any right to the land that’s in question; it’s a right to self-determination which you seek to restrict with your property claim.
Now, it would be true if one could justify the claim that homesteaders forge “a connection of the appropriate sort with the resource in question, which anyone seeking to violate it must offer reasons for doing so, putting the burden of proof squarely on them to answer that they have a better claim to the resource,” then we would have made substantial progress towards where we’re trying to go. But obviously the latter two clauses depend entirely on the notion that there is an “appropriate sort” of connection that homesteaders “forge” between themselves and material objects, and it still remains to be shown why investing one’s efforts into an object forges such a connection.
And they say WOW rots the brain, guess thats false
If you do not respect my negative rights, I will not respect yours. It’s as simple as that. If you attempt to take my life, I will attempt to take yours. If you attempt to take the fruits of my labor, I will do my best to to cause you as much pain as I can until you stop. If you damage the fruits of my labor, I will attempt to force restitution.
Excuse me for not finishing this massive thread, but if it hasn’t yet been pointed out, a legitimate violation of rights is by definition a contradiction, as right is an ethical term regarding legitimate action.
I’m surprised Donny has been here for so long and hasn’t yet grasped such a basic tenent of ethics.
Jack, that’s fine, but then if I’m Klemm I’m still breaking into the cabin. I mean, what are you going to do to me that would be worse than not breaking into the cabin?
Zefreak, that’s true, but a legitimate infringment of rights is not a contradiction.
Danny you fail to grasp, and I’ll speak for myself but I know how others will respond as well, that Klemm breaking into the cabin is possible due to physics. I can’t deny this and I never have. But why call it “breaking into the cabin” if it’s not Tom’s, unless, you recognize it is Tom’s property. You trip over yourself here. Since it is Tom’s property, then this is not an issue of property rights. It is established it is Tom’s property and therefore the inquiry is of repercussion.
Then you are no longer acting under a system of ethics. (or you are, but its a might makes right based ethic)
As for your comment directed at me, how does a “legitimate violation of a legitimate action or entitlement” not result in contradiction? If there is a circumstance where a violation is legitimate, then it follows that the action or entitlement was not legitimate - not a right - at all.
I agree. In fact, you are paraphasing at leat two of my posts in this thread. That does not mean that you are not wrong for doing so. You are simply caught between a rock and a hard place - you can either violate the property rights of the owner of the house or you can die. After weighing the potential consequences of the rights violation, you have determined that they will be less severe than the alternative.
I respectfully disagree. An infringement of another’s rights is by definition illigitimate.
Good god, wilderness. Repercussions follow moral wrongness. Right? We punish because it is wrong! The wrongness is primary; the punishment secondary. You beg the question by moving it into the realm of repercussions, because in order to talk about repercussions, we assume that it’s wrong!
That is, you’re begging the question unless you’re talking about merely legal repercussions which are designed around instrumental and not moral considerations. But if that’s the case, then you’re still not talking about morality!
Zefreak [and Jack], you appear to be using a controversial definition of “right.”
Jack, you haven’t given any content to your claim that the action is “wrong.” You say that the only way that rights should enter into our reasoning is in thinking about about what people will do if you do certain things to them, no? In this case, you are denying that there are moral reasons that should also play into our reasoning. Therefore, the claim that the action is “wrong” (even though its wrongness is not being held to be relevant in informing action) is empty. You have built your position around “wrongness” not mattering!
It’s a good thing you got banned from the other forum so you could grace us with more of this. Not one single refutation to any point I have posted.
I will repeat,
Thick libertarianism and Respectarianism are complete BS. They are based on the premise that people have positive obligations.
Now go back and read my post, “quote bomb” me and prove me wrong. Start with disputing
Thick libertarianism is based on the premise people have positive obligations
or by proving
Positive obligations are necessary and rational.
Otherwise, take a cue from Giles, and cut your losses. You’re running out of places to engage in this sort of rhetoric without purpose or meaning. And I have already made clear that the wall of text response style leads to intentional or accidental misrepresentations. Based on your post history, they are intentional, so again, spare us the sophistry.