Stranger, then what about people in coma? Do they not have rights?
This is an almost perfect misrepresentation of natural rights. Here’s a hint: There is no natural right to murder. Here’s another: Because natural rights are negative rights, they never conflict. It is impossible by definition.
A community does not have values. Individuals have values. A number of individuals may share similar values. They may even impose those values on others. That impossition is a violation of rights. Most members of a community may decide that rape is preferable to courting. That in no way implies that a rape victim’s rights are not violated.
The current legal system is rather off topic for this discussion.
One again, you bring up the strawman of excessive force. Do you actually read the words to which you’re replying? I am not taking about excessive force. We agree that excessive force is actionable. I’m not talking about throwing someone down the stairs or using a crowbar. Stop strawmanning and adress my actual arguments:
You either support the right of an owner to to evict a trespasser using the minimal force necessary to do so, or you support slavery. There is no other option. The fact that a “community” support slavery in no way makes slavery a non-violation of rights.
You hold the opinion that slavery is not a rights violation because the slave owners say so.
Rights are absolute in all cases. A “society” is only civil if it recognizes this.
no, that is your misrepresentation of natural rights. It is a modern libertarian misconception that people do not have a natural right to murder whoever they please in the state of nature. “Rights” in the modern sense, mean obligations, the permission to do something or not to do something, as such they are dependent on the value judgments of those around you. When Hobbes and Locke talked about natural rights, what they meant was not the permission, but rather the ability, the liberty of people to do whatever they desire regardless of others’ opinions. I quote, from Leviathan:
"The right of nature, which writers commonly call jus naturale, is the liberty each man hath to use his own power as he will himself for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life; and consequently, of doing anything which, in his own judgement and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto.
By liberty is understood, according to the proper signification of the word, the absence of external impediments; which impediments may oft take away part of a man’s power to do what he would, but cannot hinder him from using the power left him according as his judgement and reason shall dictate to him.
A law of nature, lex naturalis, is a precept, or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same, and to omit that by which he thinketh it may be best preserved. For though they that speak of this subject use to confound jus and lex, right and law, yet they ought to be distinguished, because right consisteth in liberty to do, or to forbear; whereas law determineth and bindeth to one of them: so that law and right differ as much as obligation and liberty, which in one and the same matter are inconsistent.
And because the condition of man (as hath been declared in the precedent chapter) is a condition of war of every one against every one, in which case every one is governed by his own reason, and there is nothing he can make use of that may not be a help unto him in preserving his life against his enemies; it followeth that in such a condition every man has a right to every thing, even to one another’s body. And therefore, as long as this natural right of every man to every thing endureth, there can be no security to any man, how strong or wise soever he be, of living out the time which nature ordinarily alloweth men to live. And consequently it is a precept, or general rule of reason: that every man ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war. The first branch of which rule containeth the first and fundamental law of nature, which is: to seek peace and follow it. The second, the sum of the right of nature, which is: by all means we can to defend ourselves."
In a free society, a community’s values are reflective of the values of the individuals that comprise it. Sure they may differ on a few things but most of the differences would be purely academic in nature. No “impossition” of values would be needed in a libertarian society as people have the freedom to come and go as they please. It would be nonsensical for a communist who deeply resents private property to remain in a capitalist community. A rape victim’s “rights” won’t be recognized in a rapist community where the “right to rape” is upheld. So for all practical purposes the victim does not have a “right” to not being raped in that particular community, even though such a “right” is acknowledged elsewhere. Volenti non fit injuria. Being free to rape and be raped is part of the social contract of the rapist community, if you don’t want to be raped, then don’t sign the contract - don’t settle there, or leave if you’re already there.
No, legal principles such as proportionate force, presumption of innocence and volenti non fit injuria etc etc…are derived from reason, you know, the same place libertarianism comes from. They are tried and true and some of them are even older than libertarianism itself. It’s erroneous to assume that the legal system in a libertarian society would depart far from the one we have today.
facepalm
“oh lookie here, ima gunna respond 2 an alleged strawman with a strawman of mai own1!! ur eithr wif mi or u supor slavery!1!!u vile creature1!1!”
You just don’t get it or you don’t wanna get it? Your right to evict is subject to the rules laid down by your community. If your community said that you have the absolute right to evict then you have the absolute right to evict, if it said you don’t then you don’t. If you don’t like it, you can either convince them that they’re wrong or leave but it would be juvenile for you to accuse them of supporting slavery or that they offend against nature.
If the slave truly voluntarily sold himself into slavery in a community that recognizes his right to do so then no “rights” have been violated. Sure you might not understand why someone would sell themselves into slavery but who are you to deny him his liberty to decide what he wishes to do? Nobody was even harmed in the process.
Wow really? When did I ever say that? I’ve never even implied such a thing so don’t put words into my mouth. All I said was that people in a coma and people with mental disabilities etc are “partially sovereign” as their right of liberty is delegated to their caretakers the same way the right of liberty of the above mentioned drunk is delegated to the good samartian who chances upon him. Suppose that we were to grant them your version of “rights”, then how are we supposed to care for them if their right of liberty is absolute? How do we interpret their wishes if they can’t express themselves? What should we feed them? Should we feed them at all? If they refused to eat, are they trying to commit suicide or they simply just don’t want to feed themselves? What happens when they’re sick? What treatment, if any, should we give them? Surely such a sordid approach would lead to their death?
Really the only way for your silly concept of absolute “rights” to be enforced is through the oppressive organs of the state. Libertarianism is morally universal but not morally absolute. It’s never black and white; you only have absolute rights when your neighbors think you do. If you believe in the non-aggression principle, then you cannot seriously say that rights are absolute in all cases. A civil society is formed when its citizens voluntarily relinquish their natural right of arbitrary murder and subject themselves to reason, not when they’re forced by some moral crusaders to adopt a set of static, absolute, and dogmatic “rights”. Absolutism breeds tyranny. For fuck’s sake, go read a book on political philosophy and you’ll see how your ridiculous absolutism goes against what libertarianism really stands for – the liberty to choose how you want to live your life.
It actually hurts. I’ll not respond point by point, but a few thoughts:
The search for the meaning and origin of natural rights did not stop with the writing and publication of Leviathan.
Negative rights don’t conflict.
The recognition of a right, or the failure to recognise a right, presupposes the existence of the right. A rape victim’s rights are violated even if those rights are not recognized by others. I understand, and generally agree with, your use of the phrase, “for all practical purpose.” However, I think it’s important to distinguish between the extistence of a right and the recognition of a right. At times, one’s rights may be violated, and no one will ever do anything about it.
There is no such thing as a social contract.
It’s funny you brought up the NAP. The NAP is inconconsistent with non-absolute rights. All agression conflicts with the NAP. Said another way, one has the absolute right to be free from agression. For fuck’s sake, go read ANYTHING regarding the NAP or the concept of negative rights and see how ridiculous is your claim that sometimes agression isn’t in conflict with the Non-Agression Principle.
Stranger, then what about people in coma? Do they not have rights?
Why don’t you ask them?
Stop confusing natural rights with legal rights.
The origin of the natural rights of life, liberty and property is reason, aka, the “law” of nature, which states that if you want peace, you would respect each other’s rights. There is no deeper meaning.
Negative rights do conflict. When you act against another person’s (absolute) negative right to be free from violence and violence was used against you to assert the person’s right, your (absolute) negative right to be free from violence would be in conflict with his. If the negative right of violence was absolute, it would lead to the absurd situation of you suing each other for the violation of your respective “right”. How do we resolve this conflict? According to the non aggression principle, your negative right to be free from violence is revoked when you act against another individual’s right to be free from violence, thus resolving the conflict.
For the last time, you have the absolute natural right to anything and everything in the state of nature but whether you have such a right in a free society is contingent on the acknowledgement of the right. The distinction between the existence of a right and the recognition of a right is what I’ve been stressing on this whole time. From a libertarian point of view, the rape victim’s rights had been violated, but from the point of view of a rapist living in a rapist community, no rights had been violated. The rape victim’s “rights” won’t be enforced in the rapist community as those "rights’ aren’t recognized there. The end.
Yes there is, if the only rule in your community was the non aggression principle, the the nap would be the only term in the social contract of your community. Your community may require you to sign an actual piece of contract before you move in, the contract you sign would be the codified social contract of the community, which explicitly set down your rights and responsibilities in writing. If you violated the terms of the social contract, and your community decides to punish your violation in accordance to the terms set forth by the contract, there’s nothing you can do, the community is upholding their end of the contract. You knew you will be punished for contract violations when you signed the contract. You can’t go to a pda and tell them that your “rights” are being unjustly infringed, no pda will enforce your “rights” as you voluntarily signed the contract, they’ll just tell you to piss off.
No, according to you, rights are “absolute in all cases”. According the the non aggression principle, rights are not absolute in all cases. Your right to be free from violence will be ignored when you act against someone else’s right to be free from violence. Only your right to be free from aggression is absolute under nap ie no one can initiate violence against you in all cases, not your right to be free from violence or even your right of life. How can you say that your rights are absolute in all cases when the nap specifically states that you don’t have the absolute right to life and to be free from violence once you initiate aggression? Your rights are non absolute at least in this instance. In truth, your rights are only “absolute” in so far as the exercise of your rights doesn’t interfere with someone else’s rights. eg your (negative) right of life is not absolute, when you threaten the right of life of another individual, he can justifiably violate your right of life. Neither is your (negative) right of liberty absolute, when you intrude on someone’s right of liberty, whether on purpose or by recklessness or negligence, your right of liberty can justifiably be intruded on as well. You know what the hell I’m talking about, stop grasping at straws.
Stop confusing negative rights with positive rights.
Then we may be in agreeement. I know it’s something I’ve been stressing the whole time, and I thought you were disagreeing. Either I’m too thick to see it in your posts or you didn’t get it across well, or somewhere in between. Looking back, I see a lot from you along the lines of rights only exist when other recognize them. That’'s pretty much not making the distinction, which is why I (possibly misatkenly) challenged you on it.
A contract that is actually signed by the parties affected, as you suggest here, certainly falls outside the standard meaning of social cotract. Such a contract does not require the special “social” modifier.
Did I mention any rights aside from the “right to be free from aggression” absolute or otherwise? There is no negative right to life, or to be free from violence, aside from the right to be free from aggression.
Maybe it’s a bit of both. Either way it doesn’t matter. I’ve never denied that rights exist. But in pratice, indeed, rights only exist when others recognize them. We’ll be wasting our time screaming at somebody for violating our “rights” when those “rights” are not even recognized by the community.
Contract can be implicit or explicit. I feel the adjective “social” is apt as it is a contract between individuals in a community whether they actually signed it or not. Just because football/soccer is called differently doesn’t mean it’s not the same sport. The idea of a social contract had been misappropriated by statists to justify the legitimacy of the involuntary state, I don’t blame you for rejecting it.
well you did say that rights are absolute in all cases. If by “rights” you meant specifically the right to be free from aggression then yes under the non aggression principle your right is absolute in all cases. You should have made it clear from the start, but it doesn’t matter now.
Is it not possible that there be special natural laws that apply directly to the creation of a new human being? Is it really necessary for consistency of your theory that you treat a newly created human being as if it were an adult in a civil lawsuit? The baby is trespassing inside of the mother? Are you kidding? Pregnancy is not a case in which a person magically appears from thin air and happens to warp inside of a random woman’s body. If that were the case, I believe you may have a solid foundation in that the baby is trespassing. Is it not possible that natural law dictates that a mother has responsibilities to a baby that “belongs” to her? Whether she “planned” or “wanted” the pregnancy or not? I think it is possible. Actually, I think that it is true. If for no other reason, my attempt to deduce the rights of the parties involved through observation of the circumstances and consequences of the various possible actions.
Natural law isn’t really ‘hot’ on these forums. On a mechanistic worldview, you cannot move from descriptive to perscriptive.
However, I do agree generally with your objections to abortion.
It’s not as if pregnancy is somehow a random, uncaused, unprovoked event. If, say, you allow someone on your property and make an oral contract with them to the effect that they can stay unmolested on your property for the same amount of time as any regular pregnancy takes, then I fail to see how you can evict the ‘trespasser’ from your property.
You consented, did you not? Even more abject would be if the ‘trespasser’ is dependent on remaining unmolested on your property to even exist. If you were to evict him and break your oral contract, he would die, let’s say.
I think this is comparable to pregnancy. Of course, a case could probably be made for eviction in the event of a rape, for example.
Thoughts?
Natural law was not a good choice of words, then. To rephrase the question in a way it may be more ‘correct’, Is it not possible that there be ‘special’ ‘rights’ that apply directly to those involved in the special circumstances of a pregnancy, which may not normally apply outside the context of pregnancy? I’ll admit, it’s hard even for me to consider this. It’s just what popped into my head as I was skimming through this thread. I’ve always been one to believe that “all men are created equal” and it may come across as if this consideration is contradictory to that, but it’s really not. At least, I don’t think. I just think that pregnancy is an extremely special circumstance and so special ‘rights’ or ‘responsibilities’ may apply to those involved. I don’t think it makes a lot of sense to treat the baby and the mother as if they’re a defendant and a plaintiff in a lawsuit.
There is certainly no contract, oral or otherwise, in the case of pregnancy.
And in your guest example, what are the penalties for breaking your alleged contract? Are you saying if I invite guests over for a few hours, and fifteen minutes after they arrive, I get called into work, I’m obligated to allow them to stay for the few hours? I can’t say, “Sorry folks. There’s an emergency at work. You have to leave.”?
Due to the “contract”, this isn’t really analogous to pregnancy. Absent a contract, I don’t see how the tresspasser’s problems are of any concern of the home owner’s. It would be a nasty thing to do, sure, but it would be even more nastty to force the homeowner to allow the tresspasser to stay (slavery)
No contract? You mean a woman by engaging in sexual intercourse does not implicitly agree to the possibility of fetus development?
Your counterexample is a little odd. I’d compare it to this: if you agree to have your three year old young nephew over to your cottage in the wilderness for nine months, then you can’t just turf him off your property when you feel like it.
If you agree to have him on your property, whether in the house or in some sort of ‘tent’ or any other structure still on your property, then you have an obligation to him.
It’s not comparable to having guests over. With ‘dinner’ guests, there is no expectation, there is no extended stay, and there is no loss of life if you ask them to leave.
No contract? You mean a woman by engaging in sexual intercourse does not implicitly agree to the possibility of fetus development?
I just want to point out that there is no obvious connection between your 2 questions. contracts arent between moral agents and parts of nature, they are between moral agents. presumably a moral agent has to exist in order to contract with you. When a man and a woman are in coitus, any baby that may one day be born as an outcome of the chain of events was certainly not present during the act of their own conception.
You can’t possibly profess to be a Libertarian and endorse abortion period. You can’t sit around and and vent about your liberty and inalienable rights and then endorse a persons right to take the life of an innocent child born or unborn. You are intelligent enough to know that a fetus is a child, that is the end result. Just because you may not want a child doesn’t change that fact. It’s not a religious issue it’s a matter of right and wrong. That child is not your property, As you are not the property of your parents.
That is a good point, Nir.
I don’t think it necessarily must be a contract between the woman and the fetus. That would indeed be odd.
Instead, I think it’s some sort of implicit ‘performance agreement’. An agreement that the woman enters into by nature of her reproductive system to ‘house’ a living being for nine months.
For instance, in the nephew example I gave above, presumably the contract would be made not with your kleine Neffe, but with your nephew’s legal guardian.
I’m not entirely convinced of that. It seems parents do exercise a tremendous amount of control over their children. If this is the case, then the child is not sovereign.
If it is not sovereign, then it is owned by the parents. If it is owned by the parents, then the parents can do what they want with their own property without interference.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t exactly compare a human being to a lump of matter that can moved and manipulated by the whims of the owner.
I agree, this appears to be a real problem.
So following the nephew example; presumably the contract in the case of the fetus is between the woman on the one hand and the legal guardian of the fetus ( the selfsame woman?).
Is that a contract with oneself? like when you make a new years resolution?
I see the trouble with this view. I’m going to try and avoid it.
Let’s say the woman implicitly creates a trust upon conception.
The woman is the grantor, the trustee, and her physical body is transferred to ABC trust as a result and becomes trust property.
According to the implicit trust agreement, the woman voluntarily surrenders her body as a vehicle for the fetus for the full birth cycle. Oh, and the grantor always makes sure to include that the trust agreement cannot be modified by that old mischevious trustee.
Now I’m just grasping at straws. This is pretty silly. I’m going to see if I can’t come up with something better than this.
I’m not entirely convinced of that. It seems parents do exercise a tremendous amount of control over their children. If this is the case, then the child is not sovereign
So your point is that you are not sovereign. Your parents are free to do with you"their property" as they wish. You better hope they don’t have a big life insurance policy on you. Might have to sleep with one eye open.