Re: “From this principle, many libertarians believe, the rest of libertarianism can be deduced as a matter of mere logic.”
= Not for those in the Rothbardian tradition. It’s actually from the concept of self-ownership, and original appropriation which necessarily leads to the NAP.
[1] Re: “The NAP implies that all of these activities must be prohibited, no matter how beneficial they may be in other respects, and no matter how essential they our to daily life in the modern industrialized world. And this is deeply implausible.”
= No it doesn’t. In short;
“…a) the polluter has not previously established a homestead easement;
b) while visible pollutants or noxious odors are per se aggression, in the case of invisible and insensible pollutants the plaintiff must prove actual harm;
c) the burden of proof of such aggression rests upon the plaintiff;
d) the plaintiff must prove strict causality from the actions of the defendant to the victimization of the plaintiff;
e) the plaintiff must prove such causality and aggression beyond a reasonable doubt; and
f) there is no vicarious liability, but only liability for those who actually commit the deed…”
For those that would be violations of the above and constitute aggression it then imparts an onus on businesses to develop ways (often innovative technological solutions) of not violating the rights of others. Furthermore it indicates owners can set forth rules regarding their property… be it “smoking is allowed”, or “smoking is not allowed”. Consent here being the obvious clincher. The alternative is disastrous:
The Friedmanites concede the existence of air pollution but propose to meet it, not by a defense of property rights, but rather by a supposedly utilitarian “cost-benefit” calculation by government, which will then make and enforce a “social decision” on how much pollution to allow. This decision would then be enforced either by licensing a given amount of pollution (the granting of “pollution rights”), by a graded scale of taxes against it, or by the taxpayers paying firms not to pollute. Not only would these proposals grant an enormous amount of bureaucratic power to government in the name of safeguarding the “free market”; they would continue to override property rights in the name of a collective decision enforced by the State. This is far from any genuine “free market,” and reveals that, as in many other economic areas, it is impossible to really defend freedom and the free market without insisting on defending the rights of private property.
— Murray N. Rothbard, For A New Liberty, p.325
[2] Re: “No amount of aggression, no matter how small, is morally permissible. And no amount of offsetting benefits can change this fact. But suppose, to borrow a thought from Hume, that I could prevent the destruction of the whole world by lightly scratching your finger?”
= See: Sacrificing One for the many?
“…Once again, we are concerned in this theory with the rights of the case, not with whether or not a person chooses voluntarily to exercise his rights. In our view, the property owner or the heir of the killed would have a right to prosecute and to exact proper punishment upon the aggressor. The fallacy of the contextualists is to confuse considerations of individual, personal morality (what should Smith do?) with the question of the rights of the case. The right of property continues, then, to be absolute, even in the tragic lifeboat situation…”
— Murray Rothbard
[3] Re: “But, to borrow an example from David Friedman, what if I merely run the risk of shooting you by putting one bullet in a six-shot revolver, spinner the cylinder, aiming it at your head, and squeezing the trigger?”
= It’s called intent. FYI Hoppe differs from Rothbard and Block here. I strongly recommend the brilliant article:
"…Clearly, while “objective” (external, observable) criteria must play an important role in the determination of ownership and aggression, such criteria are not sufficient. In particular, defining aggression “objectivistically” as “overt physical invasion” appears deficient because it excludes entrapment, incitement and failed attempts, for instance. Both the establishment of property rights and their violation spring from actions: acts of appropriation and expropriation.
However, in addition to a physical appearance, actions also have an internal, subjective aspect. This aspect cannot be observed by our sense organs. Instead, it must be ascertained by means of understanding (verstehen). The task of the judge cannot-by the nature of things-be reduced to a simple decision rule based on a quasi-mechanical model of causation. Judges must observe the facts and understand the actors and actions involved in order to determine fault and liability."
— Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Property, Causality, and Liability
There’s also: “Ethical Entrepreneurship”
[4] Re: Fraud:
“Under our proposed theory would fraud be actionable at law? Yes, because fraud is failure to fulfill a voluntarily agreed upon transfer of property, and is therefore implicit theft. If, for example, A sells to B a package which A says contains a radio, and it contains only a pile of scrap metal, then A has taken B’s money and not fulfilled the agreed upon conditions for such a transfer-the delivery of a radio. A has therefore stolen B’s property. The same applies to a failure to fulfill any product warranty. If, for example, the seller asserts that the contents of a certain package include 5 ounces of product X, and they do not do so, then the seller has taken money without fulfilling the terms of the contract; he has in effect stolen the buyer’s money. Once again, warranties of products would be legally enforceable, not because they are “promises,” but because they describe one of the entities of the agreed-upon contract. If the entity is not as the seller describes, then fraud and hence implicit theft have taken place.[13]”
— Murray Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty, Chapter 19.
[5] Re: “Even if the NAP is correct, it cannot serve as a fundamental principle of libertarian ethics, because its meaning and normative force are entirely parasitic on an underlying theory of property.”
= Right… which is why its not presented as such. For the legitimate basis see: argumentation ethics.
Re: “Thus, “aggression,” on the libertarian view, doesn’t really mean physical violence at all. It means “violation of property rights.” But if this is true, then the NAP’s focus on “aggression” and “violence” is at best superfluous, and at worst misleading. It is the enforcement of property rights, not the prohibition of aggression, that is fundamental to libertarianism.”
= Potentially. It’s a simplification. It’s a marketing aide by and large.
“If … an action is performed that uninvitedly invades or changes the physical integrity of another person’s body and puts this body to a use that is not to this very person’s own liking, this action … is called aggression … Next to the concept of action, property is the most basic category in the social sciences. As a matter of fact, all other concepts to be introduced in this chapter - aggression, contract, capitalism and socialism - are definable in terms of property: aggression being aggression against property, contract being a nonaggressive relationship between property owners, socialism being an institutionalized policy of aggression against property, and capitalism being an institutionalized policy of the recognition of property and contractualism.”
— Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, pp. 12, 7.
[6] Re: “the NAP implies that there is nothing wrong with allowing your three year-old son to starve to death, so long as you do not forcibly prevent him from obtaining food on his own. Or, at least, it implies that it would be wrong for others to, say, trespass on your property in order to give the child you’re deliberately starving a piece of bread.”
= Walter Block cleared this up and properly added to the analysis “Libertarianism, positive obligations and property abandonment: children’s rights”. Excerpt:
"…But in the present case what is being shielded from homesteading is not land, but rather a baby. This would be equivalent to murder, and those responsible for be treated very severely[19]. Second, take the case where the parents who are abandoning the baby place no physical barriers against the entry of would be homesteaders of it to their home, but instead fail to notify anyone of their intention. Again, a similar result applies: the parents are guilty of murder.
Their position is an intellectually incoherent one[20]. They claim to be abandoning the baby, but, as we have seen from the case of the sweater considered above, they have succeeded in doing no such thing. Rather, they are in a situation with regard to the baby where it is still in their care, but they are not caring for it. That is the paradigm case of child abuse, a serious crime indeed, and if it persists until the death of the child they are guilty of murder also…"
Finally, sure there needs to be a Thomas Khun paradigm shift of sorts. The answer however is a stronger focus on praxeology, a sharper lens when it comes to indicating the fields of knowledge under examination… not an ever more blurring effect - which is what the author of this article and website “Bleeding Heart Libertarians” would hope to achieve.