Self defence maybe, but surely no libertarian legal system would violently force individuals to accede to judges’ rulings, and thus there would actually be no violation of negative liberty in defense of property and enforcement of contracts.
i disagree. i would say libertarians generally believe that all sorts of things are not infringements upon someones negative freedom; self-defence, defence of property, and enforcement.
i think you have defined negative freedom too widely, and this allows peoples negative freedoms to conflict. it is possible to have a narrower definition of negative freedom so that two peoples negatives freedoms can never logically conflict.
I disagree with this.
There are no needs for justification. There are voluntary allowances, but no needs.
Could you explain exactly what you mean?
Donny and I have discussed lifeboat scenarios before. His position was that it was ok to take the boat to save a life (a need for that life to not be prevented from being saved), and face consequences (or perhaps there would be no consequences) later.
I disagree. Rights have to be absolute to have value. Yes, there will be rights violations. But when we start off with the premise that rights are not absolute, then they are meaningless.
So where there is a voluntary allowance to consent or defer a right, I am ok with that. Like joining a commune and willfully giving up ownership of any property at the individual level. But to accept the premise that the right to property was never the individual’s to defer in the first place (a need for property to be shared), then we’re back to square one IMO.
Thedesolateone, your use of the word “surely” in saying “surely no libertarian legal system would violently force individuals to accede to judges’ rulings” might be a little hasty; that’s certainly not a position that’s endorsed by even the majority of libertarians. That’s not to say you’re wrong; it’s just that it’s not as obvious as you’re making it sound. Even Rothbard, in talking about purely private enforcement and appeals processes, wrote (FNL):
Even if purely voluntary arbitration is sufficient for commercial disputes…what of frankly criminal activities: the mugger, the rapist, the bank robber? In these cases, it must be admitted that ostracism would probably not be sufficient–even though it would also include, we must remember, refusal of private street owners to allow such criminals in their areas. For the criminal cases, then, courts and legal enforcement become necessary.
And in discussing the right to appeal a ruling:
But suppose Brown [the defendant] insists on another appeals judge, and yet another? Couldn’t he escape judgment by appealing ad infinitum? Obviously, in any society legal proceedings cannot continue indefinitely; there must be some cutoff point.
Obviously, I’m the last person to think that something matters because Rothbard said it. But when you say that “surely” a libertarian legal system would be a certain way, and when that claim is in disagreement with someone like Rothbard, I have to cry foul.
More substantively, as long as you agree that self-defense would justify imposing a constraint on someone else, that’s enough for my point.
Nirgraham, I should hope that that’s not what libertarians generally believe, because if they did, it would mean that they don’t understand what the term “negative liberty” means. Remember, the term comes from Isaiah Berlin’s Two Concepts of Liberty. And in his discussion, the traditions concerned with negative liberty focus on the proper range in which a person should be allowed to do what he wants without interference from others. The negative sense of liberty was merely the absence of interference, and the philosophical question relating to negative liberty asks when interference can be justified. The non-aggression principle is a certain answer to Berlin’s question (and not a very good one): when someone has aggressed. Sterba’s answer is another one (one that’s also not very good, but for different reasons).
It’s possible that you could redefine what “negative liberty” means in order to make libertarian conceptions of justice a mere application of that definition, but what would be the point? That’s not what the term means, and any argument proceeding from such a redefinition would simply beg the question.
Liberty student, it’s simply not true that “Rights have to be absolute to have value.” In fact, I’d argue that rights have to be properly nuanced in order for us to actually consider respecting them. If we define rights in an absolute and rigid way, and we acknowledge that reasonable, morally upstanding people will nevertheless choose to violate them in extreme situations, then we open up the door for things like “This is no time for adhering to abstract principles; we need action!” When we understand that rights can be legitimately infringed, but that moral justification needs to be offered for doing so, then we place the focus on what happens to the victim and open up the possibility of discussing the kinds of reasons that people might offer.
But perhaps more to the core of the matter, it almost seems like you’re arguing that we should accept a false position because it might be more valuable than a truer but more complex (and therefore more hazardous and confusion-prone) position. You can do that if you want, but I don’t have any interest in defending an obviously false position.
I know that is your argument. I think it is typical of the thick/thin debate, which I disagree with.
Why would a moral and reasonable person violate a right just because a situation is extreme? This is the same justification that we only need taxes to fund the war, or we only need a draft for the war. I don’t think reasonable and moral people must violate rights under extreme circumstances, and I don’t think extreme circumstances justify compromising the interpretation of rights. That to me, is too close to the statist justification for the abrogation of every right.
We can’t.
Morals vary. To whom is the justification offered? Who validates the justification? If it is anyone except the person whose rights were infringed, you have no justice.
No. I am arguing for consistency. You are arguing that under different circumstances, all bets are off. You’re taking a position only more complex in that you are obfuscating principle for convenience.
Then why reply? Your position is blatantly false. It’s the exact same rationale the state uses. Rights can be violated based on circumstances. Which ultimately means, there are no rights.
According to my position, a moral and reasonable person wouldn’t violate a right, because rights would be defined in such a way that they would identify boundaries that couldn’t be crossed without sufficient moral justification. This means that in the situation where justification can be offered, the moral and reasonable person would not be violating any right by crossing the boundary. In your absolutist view, rights are boundaries that must never be crossed, even if impartially compelling justification can be offered. That view, I take it, is implausible.
If I’m freezing to death and I see that your empty cabin could give me lifesaving shelter, I would feel justified in breaking in, and I wouldn’t think myself immoral or unreasonable for doing it. My need would be impartially sufficient to justify infringing on your right. According to your view, your right to your cabin would require me to sit down and die. But I’m claiming that a morally upstanding and reasonable person would not think themselves evil if they broke into the house, and would not think of themselves as required to sit down and die. Rights simply don’t represent absolutes, and a theory of rights built on the idea that they do will simply be false.
Your claim that my position is the same one that is used to draft people for war is also false. I have never in my life heard of a justificatory liberal arguing on behalf of a draft, and if you can find me an example of one doing so, I will literally eat a hat and make public the photographic evidence. What is true is that when drafts are called for, the argument is based on the idea that circumstances justify the draft. What isn’t true is that the form of the justification is, “Individuals have the right to live their own lives free of coercion and conscription. However, our political body’s decision to go to war impartially justifies our infringing upon this right by going around capturing young men and women around our country, pressing them into forced labor regardless of their belief in the cause for which they’re fighting, and sending them to kill people from other countries at their own mortal peril in the face of any protestations they may have.” If the argument were phrased that way, the immediate response would be, “No, the political body’s decision does not impartially justify that. A totally reasonable person could very certainly arrive at the position that that’s a horrifying way to treat individuals and a gross abuse of the role to which those politicians have been appointed.”
As for the question of what justifications can be offered and to whom, that’s where the action is right now in the world of political philosophy. Most people (that is, besides radical libertarians) believe that situations like the cabin example demonstrate that clearly there must be some justifications for infringing rights, but that clearly there must be some notion of rights as well. So trying to better understand how justificatory reasons work is the logical next step, and that’s what a lot of people are doing right now.
But all of this is beside the point in this discussion, since even you would argue that we are justified in imposing constraints on others at least in situations of self-defense, right? If that’s true, then you are supporting the view that infringements upon negative liberty can be justified. And that’s all I’ve been saying here.
Correct me if I’m wrong but, Isn’t the “justification” of violating a negative right that the other party violated your negative right first?
Sorry, that’s nonsense. If I prevent you from hurting/killing me (self-defense) I’m not constraining your ‘negative liberty’. I’m constraining your non existent ‘right’ to aggress and upholding my right to not be aggressed upon.
Right, I think we’re all clear on that.
You didn’t answer my question. To whom must justification be provided? Who decides if the justification is sufficient?
You’re proposing a strawman.
I know that boundaries will be crossed. I do not believe rights violations can be justified to anyone but the person whose rights were violated.
You claim there are needs to violate rights, that in extreme circumstances people must violate rights. I think this is incorrect.
I agree; the State already does this (quite well) via a sense of perpetual emergency & constant fearmongering (communism, terrorism, & soon enough, economic crisis).
I cannot agree with this entirely subjective thick / thin nonsense if the argument for “nuance” allows for somebody to continually declare a perpetual emergency (therefore, requiring the violation of rights).
As for somehow consistency being not fluid or too static (which is more or less what I read from Danny’s posts), what the hell happened to: arbitrators, mediators, polycentric law, etc.? I wouldn’t want to fly into the free-market blind without such services, at least not without my bungie chord.
My interpretation of Donny’s position, is that liberty is the right to do whatever is physically possible. i.e. that a hill can be climbed, you want to climb it, and you have a right to not be interfered by others who might oppose you decision to climb.
similarly, one might be able to monitor a hill, one might want for no-one else to climb it, and one has a right to have the hill to oneself and not be interfered with by others who might wish to embark on climbing.
now if two such people should meet, one has to curb the others liberty, the one to do this will have the superior moral claim, (perhaps a property right in the hill) and this ownership fact would determine which one is morally right to curb the other. then we step back and say, oh, one persons liberty was infringed. but is ok. it should be this way. Donny does further to suggest that sometimes ownership facts would not be the determining factor, but perhaps, emergency need for things to help someone live (lifeboat style) facts would be the mportant ones. but the end result is the same, someones negative liberty being justly infringed.
my claim about this is that defining liberty as simply the right to do whatever is physically possible, is designed to entail the circumscription of individuals liberties. it would seem odd for libertarians to adopt an understanding of liberty that they themselves agree demands limiting, minimizing, etc.
i propose that libertarians should be true to their name, have a theory of liberty, that does not entertain the possibility of circumscribing liberty. the us libertarians will really be liberty maximizers. the way to do this ? circumscribe the definition of liberty, make it sophisticated. put in the part about ownership facts determining which way conflicts go, into the definition of liberty, and then you can avoid a conflict stage.
thus, liberty is the right to do whatever is physically possible without aggressing on the property of others.
yay! both the hillwalker and the hillguarders liberties only extend as far as is moral. this is excellent for the libertarian project. it put things in the proper relief. neithers liberties are curbed, since neither had improperly extended liberties, (liberties so wide open that they allow fhe commision of moral crimes, i.e. property transgressions).
i claim that you are no-less free, if someone owns a hill and therefore you may not walk it, than if someone didnt own the hill but also the hill wasnt there and so you could not walk it.
Matthew, you’re right; that is the justification. But it’s no less a constraint on someone’s liberty if you’re doing the constraining in response to the fact that their actions placed constraints on you first. It may not be an unjustified constraining, but that’s a different from not being a constraint at all.
Juan, thank you for the apology. But no, it’s not nonsense. And yes, if I “prevent you from hurting/killing me (self-defense)”, I am constraining your negative liberty. The problem here is simply that you don’t know what “negative liberty” means and I do. And the reason I know that you don’t is that I’ve read the essay where the term comes from, and in that essay it says that I’m right and you’re wrong. However, I would absolutely love if you could find me a direct quotation from Berlin that proves me wrong. I extend the hat-eating offer to you as well.
Hint: To say that something infringes upon “negative liberty” does not imply that it infringes upon rights.
Liberty student, I think it’s you who’s proposing the straw man. I never said that people need to violate rights, or that people must violate rights. I said that there are certain situations where people’s needs can justify infringing upon rights, and because they are justified, these infringements are not violations. Because the definition of a violation of rights includes the notion that a violation of a right is morally unjustified, I could not coherently argue that a person must violate a right. That would be like saying that I’m morally required to do something that I’m morally required not to do.
Nirgraham, that’s not exactly correct. Negative liberty is not a right. It’s simply the absence of constraints imposed by others. There’s nothing inherently normative about the concept of negative liberty (though since we value the absence of constraints, it makes sense to value it). Maybe this will help: “My negative liberty is uninfringed” means “No one is imposing any constraints on me.”
Now, you can argue that libertarianism needs to be based on something like “maximizing liberty,” and clearly libertarians don’t believe in maximizing negative liberty, so libertarians ought to identify a different kind of liberty with which to be concerned. That would be fine. It’s just that you’d have to keep the following two things in mind: a) the alternative concept would not be “negative liberty,” which is a term that means “the absence of constraints imposed by others”; b) the alternative conception would not be what Sterba was talking about here, and so if you based an argument on it, you’d end up talking past him.
Hi Donny,
very interesting, I wonder that there is not accepted jargon for the liberty i describe. Im wondering whether there might be a paper in it. Im thinking i’d be happy talking past Sterba if it took me somewhere worth being…
thanks for your insight.
Just to hopefully bring an end to this, this is what Isaiah Berlin said in the essay in which he defined the term “negative liberty”:
The first of these political senses of freedom or liberty (I shall use both words to mean the same), which (following much precedent) I shall call the ‘negative’ sense, is involved in the answer to the question ‘What is the area within which the subject - a person or group of persons - is or should be left to do or be what he is able to do or be, without interference by other persons?’
And this is from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s article on “Positive and Negative Liberty”:
Negative liberty is the absence of obstacles, barriers or constraints. One has negative liberty to the extent that actions are available to one in this negative sense.
You guys can argue with this all you want, but you’re simply wrong. There is an objective truth about what this term means, and it is the meaning I’ve offered here. If you’d like, I can go find some other definitive proof that you don’t know what you’re talking about, but I think this should suffice. [Not aimed at you Nirgraham]
a normative slip?
Nirgraham, the essay is “Two Concepts of Liberty” by Isaiah Berlin. You can read it for free online here.
Notice that he says that negative liberty is involved in answering that question.
thanks Donny, I will read your links and give weight to your comments; im entertaining the idea of expanding my little essay into something more formal.
as for Sterba
Let us begin by interpreting the ideal of liberty as a negative ideal in the manner favored by libertarians. So understood, liberty is the absence of interference by other people from doing what one wants or is able to do. Libertarians go on to characterize their political ideal as requiring that each person should have the greatest amount of liberty morally commensurate with the greatest amount of liberty for everyone else.[53]
if im reading the last two sentances correctly, he is in the first of them giving the wide open traditional ‘Berlinian’ concept of negative liberty (descriptive adn not normative). and then in the second, he admits that libertarians advocate a circumscribed notion, which is ‘toned down’ to avoid ‘conflicting liberty’(i assume this would be the way i approached the topic)
if so, hasnt Sterba talked passed us, we recognised as he did that ‘Berlinian’ negative liberty is not the ‘be all end all’, but rather the notion of liberty that I am trying to find a name for, might be, but this is not critiqued by Sterba…
(apologies if the quality of my posts start to fail, im an insomniac at the moment and should be at least trying to sleep by rights of what the time is here…)