What is property?

[MrSchnapps]

Identity theory: Mental states really do exist. Propositional attitudes can be linked to certain brain states.

EM: Mental states do not exist. They are completely illusory. Propositional attitudes cannot be linked to brain states.

Apply Leibniz’s law of the indiscernability of identicals. Ergo, identity theory is not equivalent to EM, since IT possesses properties that EM does not and vice-versa.

They are both obviously types of materialism, but my response was to the claim that ‘Identity theory = eliminative materialism’. This claim is false. If the writer didn’t mean it, then he should have been clearer.

[Minarchist]

Identity theory: Mental states really do exist. Propositional attitudes can be linked to certain brain states.

EM: Mental states do not exist. They are completely illusory. Propositional attitudes cannot be linked to brain states.

Apply Leibniz’s law of the indiscernability of identicals. Ergo, identity theory is not equivalent to EM, since IT possesses properties that EM does not and vice-versa.

They are both obviously types of materialism, but my response was to the claim that ‘Identity theory = eliminative materialism’. This claim is false. If the writer didn’t mean it, then he should have been clearer.

IT:

1. mental states exist

2. physical states exist

3. mental states are identical to physical states

This can be taken in one of three ways:

(a) M and P are different names for or aspects of a third kind of thing

(b) M is a name for certain kinds of Ps

(c) P is a name for certain kinds of Ms

I take them to mean (b).

Consider if I say:

A exists

B exists

A = B

So then A and B are the same thing: what what thing? Either A, or B, or something else.

[jodiphour]

I think people misunderstand the “inseparability of will” concept. It is a statement that you actually control the body. Meaning that when someone orders you to act, you still have to execute the necessary nervous system action. You can choose not to obey.

We could easily imagine a surgical procedure and/or device that connects to the brain which severs an individuals control of the legs and arms and thus the individual becomes and observer while another remote controls the body. Would it be legal to sign a contract and submit to such a device? What if that contract clearly indicated that there is no option to cnacel the contract for any reason? And that violence can and will be done to the body regardless..

[Malachi]

@Minarchist

because if you change your mind and want to leave then we have to coerce you into staying

To what does “you” refer in this sentence? To my body? My body is not my property anymore, it is the master’s. It is not aggression for the master to use violence against his own property. To my will? How can one use violence against the will? Is that like punching ghosts?

Are we going to have to play this stupid game again? you cannot alienate the will. It is aggression for the owner to use violence against the body/will that you already acknowledged are inseperable. Youre trolling, get off gramma’s computer and wash the fleas out of your hair

[MrSchnapps]

Consider if I say:

A exists

B exists

A = B

So then A and B are the same thing: what what thing? Either A, or B, or something else.

Of course. But EMers deny A completely, so there is nothing for it to be identical with, in contrast to ITers. So there is a substantive difference. ITers think mental states really are real, since all mental states are brain states, but not all brain states are mental states. This is why ITers don’t just ‘do away’ with mental states. For them, the quantifier doesn’t work both ways.

[Minarchist]

Of course. But EMers deny A completely, so there is nothing for it to be identical with, in contrast to ITers. So there is a substantive difference. ITers think mental states really are real, since all mental states are brain states, but not all brain states are mental states. This is why ITers don’t just ‘do away’ with mental states. For them, the quantifier doesn’t work both ways.

Yes, I understand your point. But I’d say the difference between the two is semantic only.

[Minarchist]

@Malachai

Your argument:

1. The will and body cannot be physically seperated

2. Therefore the body cannot be sold without the will

3. The will cannot be sold

4. Therefore the body cannot be sold

1-2 is a non sequitur. The fact that the will and body cannot be physically seperated, means that the body cannot be sold without the will, WHY?

[katokato]

Ive always thought that, if you can deny x’s use, then it is your property.

[Minarchist]

I’ll repeat this, since it didn’t sink in:

If you can own a car without having the ability to will it into motion, then you can own a human body without the ability to will it into motion.

“Control” is not a requirement for ownership.

[gotlucky]

@Minarchist

The underlined passage is a problem. Suppose I homestead a piece of land. I spend years improving it and living on it. I decide to sell it to a man living 3000 miles away, while I am still living on it. Who has the “best link” to this property? I do, obviously. Yet I don’t own it anymore, the man I sold it to owns it.

Firstly, “best link” is a matter of opinion. When you have relinquished ownership of land and traded it to another, you have demonstrated that you consider the other person to have the best link. But you cannot relinquish ownership over your body. Unfortunately, I addressed this in the post that is pending moderation, so my full response is in limbo…

@Minarchist

So the special link between myself and my body cannot be broken voluntarily by myself, the owner of my body, but it can be broken if I commit aggression. This distinction seems both arbitrary and intuitively unjust. What’s the reasoning behind this?

The NAP. Estoppel. But with “voluntary” slavery, the slave does not aggress against his master by disobeying, so the master acts wrongfully when he uses violence against the slave.

---

The point is that libertarianism is based off of the NAP, which in turn is an specific application of the golden rule to law. Another name for the golden rule is the ethic of reciprocity. This is why the title-transfer theory of contracts is so important to libertarianism. If you insult me, and I insult you, there is reciprocity. But if I assault you or damage your property, I have gone beyond reciprocity (this is also why the theory of proportionality is so important to libertarianism).

And we can explain libertarian theory of property and homesteading too. If you don’t take my apple, I won’t take your apple. If you claim this unowned apple tree, I won’t violate it if you respect my claim for this other unowned apple tree. So we can see the origin of homesteading as a foundation for property rights. And we can see how estoppel works too. If you don’t respect my claim to own the apple tree, well then I won’t respect your claim to your apple tree, and you cannot complain, as you have demostrated that you do not respect other’s claims to their property. There has been reciprocity.

So how does title-transfer theory apply in these cases? Well, I relinquish ownership of my apple tree. You can now claim it as your own. This is what Kinsella is talking about (I sort of went into this in my limbo post, but vive has told me that he can’t find it, so I may end up having to rewrite it or something). Kinsella is saying that you abandon (relinquish) ownership of your property, and now it is unowned, and someone else can claim it. This is what happens in an exchange. You relinquish ownership over something, and in an exchange, it is under the condition that the person you are exchanging with (or gifting to) has the legitimate claim to the unowned property.

You can go out into the world and exclaim, "I relinquish ownership over this apple tree! Anyone can come along and claim it as their property. This is in line with the ethic of reciprocity. You have said that you will respect anyone else’s claim over the apple tree.

But you cannot relinquish ownership over your body. You cannot go out into the world and exclaim, “I relinquish ownership over my body!” What happens next? Can anyone just come along and claim your body as theirs? What if they do? Is this in line with the ethic of reciprocity? What happens when you don’t care to respect his claim of ownership over your body? What is the reciprocation to this? You have done nothing to him. You are merely saying that you do not respect this aspect of “ownership”.

If I don’t respect your apple tree, then you won’t respect mine. If I don’t respect your claim to own my body, then you won’t respect my claim to own yours. This is the ethic of reciprocity, the golden rule. The NAP is the golden rule applied specifically to law. It is what libertarianism is based on. There is no way that “voluntary” slavery can be compatible with libertarianism.

---

Sorry if this is so rambly, as I have not had to explain it in this manner before. For those of you who have read my posts, you have probably noticed that I talk about the golden rule a lot. As you can all see, libertarian principles (e.g. NAP, homesteading, estoppel) all are derived from the ethic of reciprocity, the golden rule. I have not had to explain it in this way before, so I have usually relied upon Rothbard’s arguments, but I think the one I just made may make more sense. I did not go back and edit it, so it may seem a little unordered (it is). I’ll get better at it with time.

[Minarchist]

Firstly, “best link” is a matter of opinion. When you have relinquished ownership of land and traded it to another, you have demonstrated that you consider the other person to have the best link. But you cannot relinquish ownership over your body. Unfortunately, I addressed this in the post that is pending moderation, so my full response is in limbo…

I’ll wait for your full response, as I’m not sure I follow your reasoning here.

The NAP. Estoppel. But with “voluntary” slavery, the slave does not aggress against his master by disobeying, so the master acts wrongfully when he uses violence against the slave.

The underlined part is only true if the master does not own the body of the slave: i.e. if he does own it, then he is not acting wrongfully, he’s just doing what he pleases with his own property.

So how does title-transfer theory apply in these cases? Well, I relinquish ownership of my apple tree. You can now claim it as your own. This is what Kinsella is talking about (I sort of went into this in my limbo post, but vive has told me that he can’t find it, so I may end up having to rewrite it or something). Kinsella is saying that you abandon (relinquish) ownership of your property, and now it is unowned, and someone else can claim it. This is what happens in an exchange.

You say an exchange occurs when property is abandoned by A, becomes unowned, and is then homesteaded by B.

I say an exchange occurs when property is transferred from A to B: with no intervening abandonment, lack of ownership, and then homesteading.

Does the difference between these two concepts of exchange manifest in physical reality? No, the exchange of a car, house, tomato, etc can be imagined your way or my way. In other words, it is a legal fiction. And it makes no difference whatsoever in any case of property exchange EXCEPT for the body, and only if you assume that the body cannot be abandoned.

Kinsella’s concept of exchange strikes me as tailor-built to justify his argument against voluntary slavery (VS), as that is the only instance in which it has different implications from the usual concept of exchange (whereby there is no abandonment intervening between A’s owning the thing and B’s owning the thing). I’d be curious if any other libertarian thinkers use this concept of exchange? And other than the desire to disprove the validity of VS contracts, is there any reason to adopt K.'s concept rather than my own?

A general comment: I feel like this entire debate over VS has suffered from an overly mechanistic view of property rights and property exchanges. Remember that it has nothing to do with physical-spatial relationships. The seller and buyer aren’t proteins locking into receptors. They are people. Property is an idea. If I own property, and I say “now you own it” (and you agree) then you own it - poof! As if by magic. There are no physical laws in operation. Whereas, I feel like this idea that abandonment is necessarily involved in exchange is like imagining I must physically drop the property, walk away from it, and let you pick it up or something like that.

You can go out into the world and exclaim, "I relinquish ownership over this apple tree! Anyone can come along and claim it as their property. This is in line with the ethic of reciprocity. You have said that you will respect anyone else’s claim over the apple tree…You cannot go out into the world and exclaim, “I relinquish ownership over my body!” What happens next? Can anyone just come along and claim your body as theirs?

Yes, like the apple tree.

What if they do?

Then it is their property, like the apple tree.

What happens when you don’t care to respect his claim of ownership over your body?

He might use violence against his property: i.e. my body.

You have done nothing to him.

Makes no difference, as he’s not doing anything to me either: he’s doing something to his property (my body), which used to be my property.

You are merely saying that you do not respect this aspect of “ownership”. If I don’t respect your apple tree, then you won’t respect mine. If I don’t respect your claim to own my body, then you won’t respect my claim to own yours. This is the ethic of reciprocity, the golden rule.

The whole point is that it isn’t “your body” anymore (i.e. not in terms of ownership, though it’s still yours biologically of course). By doing whatever he does with his property (“your body”), he is not violating your property rights.

[Minarchist]

@gotlucky

Re the idea that abandonment is necessary for property exchange, I’ll add this:

Abandonment was originally very literal. I own a farm in the wilds of Kentucky in 1769. I move West. Two years later, Fred finds the farm. It’s obviously been abandoned. He moves in, fixes it up, lives there. He’s homesteaded it, it’s now his property.

…And now, I mean this in an entirely non-snarky way, but don’t you think it’s a bit of a stretch to say that an analogous process occurs when I fork over a buck to the cashier at Unimart? Doesn’t that strike you as artificial, unnecessary to explain what’s going on: conceptual baggage, so to speak?

[Papirius]

@"**[John

(https://forum.freecapitalists.org/members/John-James/default.aspx)**"]The whole point is nothing you say (i.e. promise) prevents you from simply deciding to not do what you are ordered. So then what.

Then you’re still someone’s property, because you sold yourself. It the same as if sell you a product of my labor, I take the money, and then I change my mind and take that product back. That’s theft, because you payed for the products. The same is with my body- you bought it, and you can do whatever you want it, if anyone takes it away from you- that’s theft.

It might sound nonsensical, I see it sounds so to you, it sounds so to me, too, but you cannot say it is in contradiction to self-ownership or non-aggression, because it’s not. It might be wrong because of some reason, but that ain’t one of them. If I’m the owner of my body, I can do whatever I want it- destroy it or sell it, and I’m not aggressing against anyone in doing either.

Basically you’re alleging that one can surrender control of (i.e. alienate) something that is inalienable from him…control over his own will and person. You cannot “sell” (that is, transfer ownership of) your will because you cannot alienate yourself from it.

You’re selling you body, not your will, and also, if you can’t sell your body, then you shouldn’t be able to sell your labor, because labor is also something that can be exclusively under the control of oneself, making employment illegitimate.

Of course you can be physically forced or coerced into obedience, but by definition this means this is obviously not voluntary on your part. This is when it becomes “slavery”

Slavery which one has agreed too (by selling oneself). Just like I can agree to be beaten or killed by someone in the present, I can agree to being beaten or killed by someone at any point he choses to.

[Malachi]

The fact that the will and body cannot be physically seperated, means that the body cannot be sold without the will, WHY?

because the enforcement of such a contract woukd constitute aggressive violence, as I said above. Please learn to pay attention.

[Papirius]

The body cannot be sold because only I can control my body, but also, only I can control my labor, yet employment (selling of one’s labor) is legitimate, is it?

[Malachi]

It might sound nonsensical, I see it sounds so to you, it sounds so to me, too, but you cannot say it is in contradiction to self-ownership or non-aggression, because it’s not. It might be wrong because of some reason, but that ain’t one of them. If I’m the owner of my body, I can do whatever I want it- destroy it or sell it, and I’m not aggressing against anyone in doing either.

it constitutes aggression against the occupant of the body. You admit that your position is nonsensical, perhaps thats a clue?

You’re selling you body, not your will

They cannot be separated therefore ownership rights over the body cannot be exercised without affecting the consciousness.

if you can’t sell your body, then you shouldn’t be able to sell your labor, because labor is also something that can be exclusively under the control of oneself, making employment illegitimate.

nonsense. People sell labor every day, there is no libertarian objection to this. Please explain your position.

Slavery which one has agreed too (by selling oneself).

and when/if the slave changes his or her mind, what then? Enforcement of the contract constitutes aggression against a person, this is obviously unacceptable from a libertarian perspective.

[Malachi]

How is an employment contract enforced?

[Papirius]

They cannot be separated therefore ownership rights over the body cannot be exercised without affecting the consciousness.

Yet ownership rights over one’s labor can be separated?

People sell labor every day, there is no libertarian objection to this

People sold themselfes into slavery every day, it happend for centuries, some still do, google debt bongade.

Please explain your position.

You say that slavery is illegitimate because ownership over one’s own body is unalienable because only I can control my body. But also, only I can control my labor, and thus ownership over my own labor should be unalienable, too, making employment illegitimate.

and when/if the slave changes his or her mind, what then?

When selling oneself into slavery you waive your right to change your mind, and give your owner the right to own you body even if you change your mind on a later point.

How is an employment contract enforced?

How is a contract of buying/selling a product enforced? By force. If you say that it’s not aggressive force because if was a reaction to theft- because the guy bought the product of another, and it’s his; one can also say that the force used to enforce the slave contract also is not aggressive, because it is a reaction to theft- because guy bought the body of another, and it’s his.

.

The point:

If you say that slavery by selling oneself is illegitimate because self-ownership is unalienable, and it is unalienable because people can control only their own bodies, it follows that ownership over one’s own labor is also unalienable, because people can control only their own labor, thus making employment illegitimate.

If you say that slavery by selling oneself is illegitimate because force must to be used if the seller would change his mind and take back what he sold, then it follows that selling any product is illegitimate, because in those cases, too, force must be used if the seller would change his mind and take back what he sold.

[Autolykos]

At the risk of derailing the derailing, I’d like to respond to the OP.

@Papirius

Another one is the pure Lockean theory of property, the one that liberals hold on to, which is similar, but different in the detail of property right not being absolute but being bellow the (positive) right to life.

IIRC, Locke didn’t consider the right to life to be a positive right. So I don’t see how this is the pure Lockean theory of property. Also, I don’t see how the Lockean-Rothbardian theory of property considers property right to be absolute. It simply considers the (negative) right to life to equate to a property right in oneself.

@Papirius

Another is the [Rousseauian]-Proudhonian theory of property. Land ownership is illegitimate [according] to it, because land is not a product of labor; employment, rent, interest are viewed as illegitimate for the same reason.

Interestingly enough, individual land ownership isn’t required for high levels of wealth inequality to arise in a pre-industrial economy. All that’s required is individuals having alienable usufruct rights over parts of the commonly owned land.

@Papirius

All have their arguments. I don’t see the libertarian concept of property being sequitur to the self-ownership axiom.

Self-ownership to me means that the actions of an individual are legitimate, so long as they don’t interfere with the legitimate actions of others. If an individual takes possession of something that no one has taken possession of before, that action is therefore legitimate. If an individual later consents to someone else taking possession of it, that action is also legitimate.

[Autolykos]

@Papirius

While giving those stuff a glance, I saw an interesting point- that Rothbard was not a voluntaryist. If it’s consensual, it’s doesn’t mean it’s ok, concretly, slavery by selling oneself is not valid, no matter the consent. I agree with that. But Proudhon argued that just as it is illegitimate to sell oneself, it is illegitimate to rent oneself, and just as “You can only give away your property, not yourself.” (as it says in the Private Property’s Philosopher article) you can only sell your property, not your labor (which is, as opposed to it’s products, a part of yourself). So, two conflicting theories of property stand.

I understand “usufruct” to mean “ownership of the products of one’s use of something”. So usufruct is a relation between a person and a thing. The question then is, does a worker necessarily have usufruct over the tools and other equipment he works with? My answer is no. Does he even necessarily have absolute rights in the mere use of those things? Again, my answer is no. If he’s only been given specific rights in the mere use of those things, who reserves the rest? My answer is the person who gave him those specific rights. One must assert that a worker necessarily has usufruct over what he works with as an additional premise.