What do you find wrong with advocating the NAP for the sake of advocating the NAP?
Logically speaking, though, I don’t have any justification for the NAP. I consider the NAP to be a premise, not a conclusion.
Since I equate “justice” with “adherence to the NAP”, anything else would be unjust IMO. But for a person who thinks that e.g. current employer-employee relationships are unjust, he might consider it legitimate to use force to render those relationships just. I, on the other hand, would consider that use of force to be aggression and therefore unjust. Does that make sense?
I still don’t see why “justice” must be defined more broadly than e.g. “adherence to the NAP”. Also, logically speaking, why should one subscribe to a theory of justice that he finds inconsistent?
Well, praxeologically, it doesn’t work out that way. Consider some scenario, where you can either advocate the NAP or some other theory. Lets say you choose the NAP – okay, but why did you choose it? It can’t be for its own sake, because choosing to advocate x over y is an action, and an action is using means to acheive an end. Maybe you choose the NAP because you believe it makes your a good person, and that’s your end; or maybe because you think it will help teach others about libertarianism, and thats your end. Whatever it is though, the NAP is not both means and end.
Now, of course you can use the NAP as a premise in a logical proof, and say “starting with this, we end up with a, b, c, etc.” I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, and so long as we can agree on the premise (maybe for different reasons), then we can agree on the conclusions. But as a value, the NAP isn’t free floating and unsupported. Its either constitutive or instrumental to some more fundamental value.
It makes sense, but there’s no reason why a broader conception of justice would necessitate such a position. I mean, if I said “that relationship is unjust” it doesn’t follow that I then say “therefore its legitimate to use force to change that relationship.” Its equally reasonable to say “therefore we should educate those involved” or “therefore we should boycott their establishment.” There’s no reason why one can’t see the NAP as a primary principle of justice, but also hold secondary principles, and do so without violating the NAP.
It only has to be defined more broadly than the NAP if the NAP appeals to justice. If you support the NAP because Walter Block is blackmailing you to do so, then justice has nothing to do with it. But if you are saying “I support the NAP because it is a just rule,” then yeah, justice has to be broader than simply the NAP. I picked justice as the example in this thread, because I think it is the primary driver of most deontological libertarians.
He probably shouldn’t… I’m not sure what you are referencing here. If you mean that there are cases where it isn’t clear what the just course of action is, or that it might vary from one situation to the other, I don’t think this makes the theoery itself inconsistent.
I think choosing to advocate the NAP over some other theory is different from choosing to advocate the NAP over choosing to not advocate it. Does that make sense? I don’t see how, if I advocate the NAP, that means I made both choices simultaneously.
This seems to suggest that there’s either one ultimate value, or there’s no ultimate value at all. In the latter case, the notion of “more/less fundamental” becomes meaningless.
Again, that depends on the definition of “justice” used. But I don’t see where I said that a broader conception of justice would necessitate such a position - I only said that such a position could come about from a broader conception of justice. That is, the possibility exists that a person with a broader conception of justice holds such a position.
What kind of definition do you think can be given to the word “justice” such that it allows for primary and secondary principles thereof?
Sure, if the NAP appeals to justice as something outside of itself, then yes, “justice” must be defined differently (if not more broadly) from the NAP itself. But I don’t see how this problem arises if one defines “justice” as “adherence to the NAP”.
Well, people bring up issues like abortion, children, etc. because they claim that those issues cause inconsistencies in the NAP.
I think you are losing scope of what I’m talking about here. There’s a general notion floating around this thread that left libertarians don’t really support the NAP or property rights because they also care about equality, fairness, etc. That is, if a socio-political philosophy tries to incorporate those things, it can’t simultaneously be a libertarian theory because they are thought to be incompatible with property rights. The other notion floating around is that if they are made compatible, it isn’t enough to warrant designating this philosophy as something else than just plain old libertarianism.
What I’ve tried to show, is that neither of these ideas are necessarily true. A politcal philosophy can be rooted in a theory of justice such that it entails commitments to concepts besides property without violating the NAP; and that it warrants distinction from general libertarianism because those commitments are not merely aesthetic considerations – they are part and parcel of the same theory which leads to the support of property and the NAP in the first place.
So, yes, you are correct that people can hold all sorts of positions incompatible with libertarianism. It’s likely that most people concerned with equality and social justice don’t support property in any consistent way. But I don’t care about them. I’m only defending the left-libertarian position of people like Roderick Long.
Could you provide an example of a theory of justice that makes commitments to concepts besides property without violating the NAP? Or have you done so already and I just haven’t seen it?
This is starting to go beyond my knowledge on the subject. I imagine it would look like some combination of Aristotle, Rawls, and Nozick, but I don’t think you need to have some complete and perfect theory of justice in order to make the points that I did.
But you do have an interest in asserting that a theory of justice that makes commitments to concepts besides property without violating the NAP can be constructed?
Again, this is going beyond what I’m trying to say in this thread. I’m not asserting that the left-libertarian position is correct, only that it is an actual position which is coherent given their premises. Whether or not such a theory of justice is correct is not something I’m going to publically defend because I have no idea – its not something that I’ve put significant thought into.
But this doesn’t invalidate what I’ve said in the context I’ve said it. If the argument was about gnostic Christians not counting as real Christians because of their rejection of the trinity (or whatever it is they believe), and I appealed to how they believe God is such and such to point out why they really are Christians, I don’t need to then go on and defend the existence of God.
I’d much rather be correct than coherent. And what’s more, what good is being coherent (or even “correct”) "given your premises", if your premises are incorrect?
If you’re implying the Left-Libertarian premises are wrong, then it would be far more productive if you pointed out why you believe them to be wrong, simply implying that they are wrong does nothing to help move the conversation forward.
I have read every post in this thread. The only criticisms you put forward were that you don’t know what left-libertarianism means and/or that you see no difference, or no need to distinguish between left-libertarianism and “regular” libertarianism.
People throughout this entire thread have explained the differences between “left libertarians” and “right libertarians”. “Thick” vs. “Thin”, different value priorities, and different lifestyle preferences. If all of these things still don’t justify the distinction between the two then nothing ever will. What this disagreement seems to come down to is that people just don’t like the qualifier “left” because they believe that it means Statism or a disposition towards Statism. Unless you can somehow prove that “left” must equal “Statism” I see no rational reason why you have such hatred towards it. Liberal is another word that is typically associated with Statism, you have no issue with the term classical liberal though. Just because “left” is usually thought of as Statist doesn’t mean that it actually means Statist.
John James:Please identify someone who simultaneously accepts the ideas that value is subjective and objective.
Kevin Carson would be one. Proudhon, though not explicitly.
Evilsceptic: Markets Not Capitalism, for example, really is a great book, especially to give out to lefties to show them we don’t want to eat the poor, and Kevin Carson, while economically ‘challenged’, has made some solid contributions to history and analysis of state intervention that are worthy of study.
John James:I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that term “Markets Not Capitalism” before. Pardon my french, but fuck that. Enough perfectly great words have been co-opted by socialists already. I’m not content to just surrender one of the most important, (and arguably a cornerstone) of the entire free-market philosophy (“capitalism”) and let them fully mutate its understood meaning into what is actually the opposite.
Interesting. You are obviously not familiar with the history of the term “capitalism.” Either way, it’s a poor reason to dismiss an entire work.
Forgive me for citing wikipedia:
In politics, the Left, left-wing and leftists are people or views which generally support social change to create a more egalitarian society. They usually involve a concern for those in society who are disadvantaged relative to others and an assumption that there are unjustified inequalities (which right-wing politics views as natural or traditional) that should be reduced or abolished.
Now, allow me to take liberty with this description:
In politics…left-libertarians are people who generally support free markets to create a more egalitarian society. They usually are concerned for those in society who are disadvantaged relative to others and assume that there are unjustified inequalities artificially created by the state (which right-wing politics views as natural or traditional) that can be reduced or abolished nonaggresively by market forces, mutual aid, and direct action.
Then Kevin Carson is an idiot. And so is Proudhon, though not explicitly.
What is this obsession with what words used to mean? If you’re using a definition that is no longer largely held, and doesn’t appear in current dictionaries, then you should identify that somehow. Otherwise (for probably the fourth time) you are doing nothing to help further clarity or understanding, but are in fact clouding and confusing it.
Hey that looks fun.
In politics…communists are people who generally support statelessness to create a more egalitarian society. They usually are concerned for those in society who are disadvantaged relative to others and assume that there are unjustified inequalities artificially created by capitalism and the state (which right-wing politics views as natural or traditional) that can be reduced or abolished nonaggresively by market forces, mutual aid, and direct action.
What is this obsession with what words used to mean? If you’re using a definition that is no longer largely held, and doesn’t appear in current dictionaries, then you should identify that somehow. Otherwise (for probably the fourth time) you are doing nothing to help further clarity or understanding, but are in fact clouding and confusing it.
What I’m saying is that the term can’t be coopted by socialists because they invented the word. That would be like a contemporary liberal saying classic liberals (who identify as such today) hijacked “liberal.” Nonsense.
Anyway, “laissez faire” doesn’t figure into the “largely held” definition of capitalism. Most are perfectly comfortable describing the current system as “capitalism.” The current system, according to austro-libertarians, is crony capitalism or corporatism. I don’t like to waste my time fruitlessly explaining this to everyone I talk to. If I did, I would be “doing nothing to help further clarity or understanding” because I would be using an unpopular definition.