It is melted …and a rather depressing book…but the communist background is real experience…she paints the beginning of the communist era in Russia and it is accurate. I grew up in a communist country…
I think that it is a must read for anyone…it puts all the human values in the right place…
The entire point of my “intellectual excersizes” were part of an argument against liberty violations! I have already explained this to you repeatedly, so it’s nonsensical for you to make the charge again. You’re being dense again.
I have not made any error or admited to any. You have yet to comprehend my philosophical point. The error is yours: the error of jumping to knee-jerk reactions without fully comprehending people’s philosophical arguments.
I spent pages trying to show you why an incoherant theory of absolutist property rights leads to justifications for coercion of all kinds, so it is especially absurd for you to try to make this accusation that I’m trying to justify coercion. Instead of accusing people of trying to justify coercion without knowing what you’re talking about, you should pay attention to people’s arguments and respond to them on their merits. Half my point is that the approach to libertarianism I’m argueing against isn’t consistently opposed to liberty violations - the whole argument I’ve presented is one against coercion.
Very interesting. I need contrast at times. It really helps to show just how good, let’s say, the free market really is. And I like when real accounts are put into a story form. I think it reaches the depth and complexities of what is really going on. Thanks for letting me know. I wouldn’t mind having a private conversation someday about your experience in a communist country. I am a very culturally curious person.
Thanks again![:D]
Wilderness, as I tried to explain to you for pages, it is nonsensical to reduce “property rights” to a question of “who’s property it is” - as I’ve said, it is just as much a question of “what scope of decision-making power does owning something legitimately grant?”. Likewise, it is nonsensical to conflate the moral question of “is it morally permissible to do X?” with “are there legal reprecussions for doing X?”. This has been clarified for you ad nauseum, yet you continue to use this confused language. Your attempt to keep on shifting this to a question of reprecussions when people are trying to talk about the broader question about what’s moral in the first place is astounding. For example, in the original scenario of this thread, the fundamental question at hand is not “are there reprecussions for breaking in the cabin”, the fundamental question has been “is it morally permissible to break into the cabin?”. And the scenarios that I have brought up have likewise been a question attempting to define what is morally permissible to begin with in the context of property rights, not a question of what can be done once a property right has been breached.
Oh my sweet merciful Jesus.
Look. In most cases, rights represent boundaries that ought not to be crossed, even if compensation can be paid. Usually, it’s not okay to just smash into someone’s house and leave some money on the table for the repairs plus any emotional anguish. Right? I mean, if I wanted some iced tea, and I saw some sitting on your porch, it wouldn’t be okay for me to just take it and leave you a couple bucks for your trouble. To make the illustration more vivid, it’s not normally okay to punch someone in the face and say, “Hey; relax. I agree I damaged your face, but there’s no reason to get upset. Let’s go see an arbitrator and I’ll gladly pay you whatever’s fair.”
The point is that we need reason to justify infringing upon property rights, regardless of whether compensation is paid. It’s my contention that Klemm’s circumstances do that; they justify breaking into the cabin where generally it would not be okay to do so even if compensation were paid. The question of compensation is a separate issue entirely. That is a question of whether legitimate infringements of rights generate duties to compensate, which is the subject of the debate between duty-of-care standards and strict liability standards of liability to which I alluded earlier on multiple different occasions. A duty of care standard would say that if we don’t think that Klemm should have sat outside and died, then he is off the hook. A strict liability standard would say that it doesn’t matter whether Klemm’s choice to break into the cabin was justified or not; he still has to compensate Tom.
That was the point.
Let me ask you this, cause I know where Danny and Sage stand on these grounds.
Would you force Tom to comply with Klemm’s needs?
Alright… I’m taking a step back to reflect. I apologize if I have made an error.
So you do admit that “justifications for coercion” happen in your intellect.
Cause I see no reason for coercion. I take notes from the NAP.
I think your premise of what property rights are leads to conclusions of coercion - which means your intellect leads to coercive conclusions where reasonably this need not be.
As Jack clearly pointed out property doesn’t merit coercion. His example of, let’s say Bob, sitting on the porch of his house (property), and firing his bullets (property) into the neighbors window is counter to NAP. When the premise is NAP this moral value conflates to the right of liberty. So in liberty only a criminal would use their property to justify coercion upon another.
Rights should not be crossed, but compensation restores harmony. Compensation is a form of justice for a good society. And just because a property should not be violated, physics shows I can run across my neighbors yard. Just because I run across my neighbors yard doesn’t mean it’s not my neighbors yard. It still is my neighbors yard. It is still my neighbors property.
yeah, but this doesn’t negate the owner from owning his or her house.
Their you go. Trying to justify coercion…
Yeap, separate issue. Called inquiry of repercussions.
And Tom can decide this. You don’t have to for Tom, and thereby rid liberties.
Did you even read the dictionary definition of mercy that I posted in this thread, I think, three times.
I think the question doesn’t even come up precisely because the way that the scenario has been put foreward: it’s only a question of whether or not Klemm is justified in breaking into the cabin. Tom isn’t even present, so there is no prospect of anyone “forcing” Tom to do anything. I think Danny has already clarified this ad nauseum as well. The question isn’t about Tom, it’s about Klemm.
No, my point is that justifications for coercion logically follow from a particular conception of property rights that I’m argueing against. Again, why you are trying to insinuate that I am trying to justify coercion is incredibly bizarre. If you’d put 2 and 2 together, it’d become evident that I’m argueing against justifications for coercion by questioning the underlying property theory that leads to them. I am not providing reasons for coercion, I’m argueing against them.
Again, you’re repeating an absurdity by trying to turn this around on me. I am not “reaching coercive conclusions”, I am making a reductio ad absurdum argument. I am not trying to justify coercion, I’m argueing against what I see as justifications for coercion that logically follow from an incoherant property rights theory. I’m not talking about what my premise of what’s property rights are, I’m argueing against a particular premise of property rights that I don’t hold (and hence, it’s not me who is “reaching coercive conclusions”, whatever that means, it is me who is pointing out the inevitable coercive conclusions that results from a deontological, axoimatic property rights theory)! I’m not argueing against property rights as such, I’m argueing against a specific theory of property rights with consequentialist arguments. Are you really this confused?
Juan: The thing is, you are just another ideologue (as per Vichy’s idiotic (and marxist?) definition).
Marxist? What are you smoking and where can I get it? And do you even know what a Marxist is? I suspect not.
Brainpolice: When was I dealt “a crushing blow”?
Probably when Hans Hoppe proved the non-agression axiom 
Nihilism is a word with multiple meanings, I would use it in reference to normative (for valuative) statements; which is to say that there is no such thing as ‘value’ except as a property of an observing entity’s actually instantiated interest and valuation. Cosmological and epistemic nihilism are quite untenable, in my view.
And as for Danny, he can defend himself, and since he’s a moral fictionalist the only relevant question for me are whether it’s practically tenable for his purposes (of which I have some doubts). Since I feel no inclination to be ‘moral’, however, his fictionalism remains unconvincing to me (which he has acknowledged).
I’ve seen 3 pictures of Vichy and I am not sure any of them look like the same person.
They were all cute though.
I’m gonna write a blog post on this. It’s related to market strategy which I suspect most of the people getting liberal arts degrees don’t spend much time thinking about. After all, in the post -state world, they can just break into other people’s houses when they are in need of something.
palmface
Wilderness, noone is questioning the owner owning his or her house. That’s completely beside the point. In fact, the owner has almost nothing to do with this question, because the question is a matter of what it is morally permissible for Klemm to do. Tom’s ownership of their cabin isn’t what’s being questioned.
Wow… 500 posts and counting. This must be a new record!
Perhaps this is relevant:
“How many a dispute could have been deflated into a single paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms.” - Aristotle
Good advice for a debate, but it presumes all of the participants know what they’re talking about.
Giles,
I’m just curious. How does this:
lead to this conclusion?
But let’s move on.
No one is saying letting children die is moral. They are saying stealing bread is immoral. Insisting that the immorality of one implies the morality of the other is a logical falacy. They can both be immoral. Otherwise:
All shapes are either circles or squares. All circles are red. Therefore, all squares are not red.
As for BP, he is arguing that the NAP is incomplete and needs some sort of thickening, especially regarding property rights. I was willing to at least consider his position.
One does not have the right to aggress upon another’s person or property.
So what is incomplete? Obviously, there’s already a hard line drawn on what one cannot do with one’s property. As one cannot aggress upon another, logically one cannot use his property to aggress upon another. Curiously missing are definitions of property and aggression, and what is permissible to defend those rights or when ones rights are actually violated. Since BP was focusing on property, I naturally (to me) assumed he was attempting to discuss either what constitutes property or what forms of defense/repercussions are acceptable. Man was i wrong…
This is where he completely lost me. He wants to talk about the incompleteness of property rights deriving from the NAP. Then he focuses on the only aspect of property rights that is clearly defined by the NAP.
Which that decision-making power is a question of repercussions.
Who said these had to conflate? I never did.
All’s I’ve ever said is don’t force your morality onto an owner of property. I think you don’t understand what I’m saying, but go on.
And Danny concludes that Tom must be coerced into thinking this. I’ve said repeatedly that Klemm breaking in versus dying, is a good call and physically can be done, but Klemm also can’t say the cabin is now his. It’s still Tom’s property. So Klemm breaking in needs to face Tom and restore what has been done due to Klemm ill-preparation to deal with nature. How does Klemm breaking in negate the cabin from being Tom’s? It doesn’t.
And nobody has said Klemm couldn’t (physics) break in or the father feed his children as far as I know. This does not negate the ethical call that breaking in and stealing are wrong. A compassionate person, such as Tom, would understand the context provide merciful homage to Klemm. But it’s still somebody elses bread as well. It’s still Tom’s cabin as well. And since Tom is compassionate I would hope that Klemm is reciprocal in compassion and pay for any damages to Tom’s cabin. I really don’t see what’s difficult about this.
If we’re going to stick to some, uh, objectivity, I think it must be pointed out that Brainpolice’s position is not the same as Danny’s (as far as I can tell).
At some point Brainpolice brought up the shoot-the-gum-stealing-child scenario, which is definitely different from what Danny is talking about.
I don’t think Brainpolice is trying to justify attacks on property in the name of some ridiculous intellectual game ? Or is he ?
LOL. What qualifies as wholly irrational, Giles, are your conservative rantings while at same time being a drug user. You might want to delude yourself into thinking that some drugs are [i]good/i while other drugs are [i]bad/i but you have no rational basis for such distinction.
The quotation doesn’t prove much. Let alone that the style stinks.
“Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue;”
Good. A great philosopher has told us that ‘untrue’ theories must be rejected. I think I’ve learnt something today…I’d be lost without such insight…
"likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. "
Well, the market is usually described as ‘efficient’ and poverty as ‘unjust’. The whole quotation is meaningless unless he defines ‘justice’.
Actually it is not clearly defined by the NAP. Take the statement above "One does not have the right to aggress upon another’s person or property," for example. It begs the question of justifying precisely who’s property is who’s and on what basis it is justified (if we assume that the state’s property claims are justified, for example, the NAP would lead us to conclude state legitimacy). In and of itself, it is vague. In fact, most people would agree to the statement on some level, yet have vastly conflicting views on who’s property is justly who’s. The non-aggression principle by itself is incredibly vague.
To act as if your own property rights theory is inherently implied by a mere single sentence statement of the NAP makes no sense because the statement begs precisely that question, I.E. it does not specify a property rights theory. Another question the NAP inevitably begs is where the distinction between initiating aggression and defense is. All of these are complex philosophical questions that are not encapsulated in a mere statement of a single sentence. People can read practically anything they want into it depending on what definition of “property” and “aggression” is presumed.
This is why I say that there is a need for a broader philosophical investigation and a wider palette of values. Libertarians often act as if the statement of a few maxims that hardly anyone really disagrees with at face value and on a personal level is a sufficient case for libertarianism, but it isn’t. That’s way too simplistic and it begs all of the relevant philosophical questions that should be asked in the first place.
Ah yes, the “libertarians are bad” ticket. Where have I heard this before?
Strawman
You have been beating the objectivist drum for days now, posting homo economicus over and over and it is very funny. It doesn’t seem to me that you know what objectivism is, or where objectivists would place themselves in these debates.
Have you read anything written by Rand?