As with everything else, it would up to the market of juridical and insurance services to decide, but I can guess that it would not be punishable. On the other hand, as Rothbard point out, I agree that should children run form their houses no one would have a right to get them forcibly back home.
When I take a car out for a joyride, my purpose is to have fun, not to cause damage.
Yes Zavoi, our purposes conflict intersubjectively, which is why we have a coherent system of property rights. We can very well change “joyride” to “driving to work” and “have fun” to “get to work”.
Am I any less responsible for the damage?
Driving to work is very much like sailing a ship. The road or waterway is “unowned”, even if it is truly privately ‘owned’, in that the car or ship has some sort of easement right to travel through a certain area. So when “damage occurs” there are three possible scenarios (looking only at the culpability of the driver):
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[2 teeth] I’m driving to work with my buddy Jimmy, and he says, “Hey, I’ll give you $20 if you hit that old bum wandering across the street”. The bum could be stumbling across the sidewalk, out of where one expects a car to be driven, and the case remains the same. Not only do I cause damage by negligient behaviour(1), but I also intend to cause harm to the victim (1). So even if we suppose that “abortion” is “killing an innocent”, and again this position reduces to absurdity, we’re not talking about “murder”, rather “manslaughter”.
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[1 tooth] Jimmy and I are driving to a concert, drinking some beers. I’m pretty drunk and pass out, sideswiping a row of cars alongside the road. Alternatively, there could be a red light or merge and I fail to stop or yield then crash into some cars. I cause damage, and my actions are teleologically negligible(1), but I had no intent of sideswiping bums or anything (0).
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[no teeth] I am driving to work, sipping coffee with Jimmy. We’re talking about how Ray Allen went so cold in game 3 of the NBA finals after his record game 2, and arguing about who will win game 4. It gets pretty heated, but I am still basically focused on another thing I am intending to do, drive to work. So, I am driving to work along Rockaway Blvd., under the LIE, and some wino comes out from behind a beam, meets my bumper, and sails over my roof.
There is no substantive difference between this case and a birth control accident. So, besides the whole factor of rape, whose enforcement in relation to abortion has so far been ignored by my opponents, there is this further question. Not only do I not intend to have children as a result of my sexual escapades, but I’ve also taken some drug which relatively promises 99% efficiency in stopping pregnancies.
Since I’ve been on “the pill”, and I also wasn’t trying to get pregnant, I think you have another problem in trying to interfere with womens’ property rights. You are going to have to prove that sex was consensual, and that I was not, at that time, taking a birth control pill, or else your position reduces to even more incredible absurdity.
Rather than try to twist words and craft more pathological hypos, I want a pragmatic economic argument from you people. The answer isn’t here (indeed, I’m confident any arguments will be flawed), but you should read this, not for the answer, but for the type of requirement necessary to advance your position.
@E. R., gay sex isn’t technically sex. “Sex” is sexual intercourse. Sexual intercourse is the act of mating. You can’t mate with someone of the same sex, therefore you can’t have sexual intercouse with someone of the same sex. Society calls it “sex” but it’s really just touching genitalia and feeling pleasure. Male/female sexual intercourse will naturally lead to pregnancy. That is it’s primary purpose. Pleasure would be secondary.
Consider a car. It’s primary purpose is to move someone from point A to point B. If I park my car on a hill, and proceed to use it as a bed for the night, am I liable for any damage my car creates when the brakes fail while I’m sleeping and I damage another car or run someone over? I wasn’t using it to move me from point A to point B, but I still parked it on a hill and sat in the driver seat. If someone is responsible for their “negligence” in this case, why wouldn’t they be responsible for their “negligence” in getting pregnant?
Either way this debate goes, I agree that it’s not something that would be easy to enforce in a free society, and it probably wouldn’t be. But abortion also wouldn’t be given the green light by a state, producing a sort of entitlement mentality that women are free to concieve and abort, and how dare anyone criticize or ostracize them for it. It certainly wouldn’t be state incentivized (as in China), but neither would it be culturally acceptable without a state saying it’s okay. You know?
“So, would the parents be legally justified if they were to simply neglect or abandon their own child?”
Yes. No one has positive rights. If you cannot take care of yourself, no one is obligated to take care of you, unless you have contracted with them in the first place to do so. And just because someone decides to have a child, does not imply a contract. Contracts can only be made with reasoning beings. Otherwise, taking in a dog would be considered an implied contract with the dog to take care of it.
@ER
I remember in another thread about child rape you were arguing that since very young children would eventually have rights (even if they are too young now to claim them) it is wrong to do whatever you please with them. If you buy that argument how can you put forth a pro-choice argument? If a fetus will eventually become a human and have rights how can you logically say that you can do whatever you wish with it (like aborting it)?
@E. R., gay sex isn’t technically sex. “Sex” is sexual intercourse. Sexual intercourse is the act of mating. You can’t mate with someone of the same sex, therefore you can’t have sexual intercouse with someone of the same sex. Society calls it “sex” but it’s really just touching genitalia and feeling pleasure. Male/female sexual intercourse will naturally lead to pregnancy. That is it’s primary purpose. Pleasure would be secondary.
Who are you to declare what the “primary purpose” of having sex is for every human being? The women who end up having abortions were not having sex for the purpose of procreation. This is exactly how bad laws end up being made. Some “lawmaker”, in between their campaigns of lies, has nothing better to do than force their subjective valuations on another person. The process of making foie gras or the sight of a junkie revolts them, or some study comes out on the health risks of soda, and a new victimless crime is born.
Like I said before, this is some sort of naturalistic/moralistic fallacy. It’s “natural” that humans have sex for pleasure, and don’t just mate in the springtime. The two purposes sit beside each other and neither is superior.
Consider a car. It’s primary purpose is to move someone from point A to point B. If I park my car on a hill, and proceed to use it as a bed for the night, am I liable for any damage my car creates when the brakes fail while I’m sleeping and I damage another car or run someone over? I wasn’t using it to move me from point A to point B, but I still parked it on a hill and sat in the driver seat. If someone is responsible for their “negligence” in this case, why wouldn’t they be responsible for their “negligence” in getting pregnant?
I don’t see what sleeping in the car has to do with it. Unless you knew that your brakes needed fixed and parked on a hill anyway, this is an accident and there is no negligence. Good luck proving that a condom wasn’t used and a mother just recklessly had sex and planned to abort any possible baby.
Either way this debate goes, I agree that it’s not something that would be easy to enforce in a free society, and it probably wouldn’t be. But abortion also wouldn’t be given the green light by a state, producing a sort of entitlement mentality that women are free to concieve and abort, and how dare anyone criticize or ostracize them for it. It certainly wouldn’t be state incentivized (as in China), but neither would it be culturally acceptable without a state saying it’s okay. You know?
Right, the economic argument is that practice will trend toward the correct answer anyhow. I’m ethically opposed to abortion as much as anyone, but consistently applying private property as law is the only solution. Those who really care about the “intrinsic value” of every life, just like the enviro-communists with whales, need to put their money where their mouth is.
In a free society, there is no barrier to adoption. With no child labor laws, raising kids could be a profitable venture. Some monastery that churns out baked goods could pay mothers who consider abortion to carry the fetus to term. Also, women could agree to all sorts of wacky laws, like compulsory head-scarfing or to be punished should she abort a baby. Then again, these women would want these rules. It’s completely libertarian to agree to odd cultural mores, but not to force them on outsiders.
@ER
I remember in another thread about child rape you were arguing that since very young children would eventually have rights (even if they are too young now to claim them) it is wrong to do whatever you please with them. If you buy that argument how can you put forth a pro-choice argument? If a fetus will eventually become a human and have rights how can you logically say that you can do whatever you wish with it (like aborting it)?
I’m not saying that a woman can do whatever she wants with it. I’m saying the rights of self-ownership a woman has over her body, to determine what grows in it, is superior to any other claims to the uterus. For the actual topic of young children, there is no justification of positive rights as well. You can’t just abandon the responsibility of guardianship, lock a child in a secret room, and forestall other would-be guardians.
Block isn’t wrong in his position on abortion (video); however, two things I have been saying recently need to be added to the explanation.
A fetus, like any young child, has a certain amount of negative rights due to it being a potential moral agent. This has been discussed at length in many threads, including the child slavery thread.
Evictionism, as opposed to “pro-life” or “pro-choice”, is timeless in its correctness. Scientists have begun to attempt to raise children from adapted pig uteri. Parents can’t just abandon children in any way they see fit. It may be customary to drop an infant off at a hospital or fire station. One day we might not have these things, rather Star Trek like handheld healing modules and advanced sprinkler systems, and some other measure will be deemed “reasonable”. The question of what is reasonable is a matter of jurisprudence and not legal philosophy.
Before analyzing the consequences of adopting the pro-life doctrine into libertarianism, it’s necessary to understand how the provision of justice in a free society would work. There is an analogous relationship between economics (praxeological catallactics, not mainstream pseudo-science) versus econometrics (applied economics) & law (praxeological legal philosophy) versus Austro-libertarian jurisprudence (human law put to action). The former of each group uses the axomatic-deductive method along with verbal logic, and the latter of each can draw on an array of relevant nomothetic fields (military strategy, geology, meteorology, psychology, blood spatter analysis, and many more.) This is the quality-quantity dichotomy between the disciplines of social science and natural science. (See also what I wrote here.)
So the same requirement of “reasonable measures” being taken applies to the eviction of a fetus. If there was some researcher wanting the fetus to do his research, a mother would have to hand it over, rather than the procedure of vacuuming it into a wood chipper type device. The latter procedure is technically not acceptable, even if there is no way to keep the baby alive. Technological means is one consideration of jurisprudence though. So, Block conflates these two and just assumes what a judge would do. It’s a good assumption, but even with a good theory there has to be a person willing to act to carry it out. See what I wrote about the via negativa here.
@E. R., thank you for the response.
You’re welcome. I didn’t mean to be harsh if it the start seemed that way.
Abortion is an irritating issue since it comes down to when a fetus becomes a child.
Frankly though, Rothbard’s analogy is flawed. When you eject a person from your house, you give them the options of going to another house, living on the street, etc. When you eject a fetus, you kill it with no chance of survival. It is less kicking out the person living in your house and more shooting at them wildly with a shotgun while they sleep.
Abortion is an irritating issue since it comes down to when a fetus becomes a child.
It is irritating that I already said once in this thread why this issue is utterly irrelevant. Also your analogy is flawed, try reading what I wrote.
Personally I don’t consider fetus a human, unless it has born and no longer “uses woman’s resources”. However, I am stuck in between, seeing abortions as necessary evil and just usually practice. I dislike it, yes, but it would be wrong to force woman to have an unwanted child. It’s her body after all. But I am not strict propertarian, so any analogy with landlords (one user made it above) seems stupid to me.
But hey, maybe in future, as technology develops further, we will be able to just “extract” fetuses from women (so that they didn’t need to carry it for 9 months) and just grow it in incubators. Why not, lol? It’s 2525, ffs.
P.S. also I like Olovetto’s arguments.
Rothbard’s position (from Ethics of Liberty) is that parents may at any time repudiate their child, that is, refuse to care for it any longer.
Murray Rothbard: sociopath.
Followers of Murray Rothbard: also sociopaths?
“Lacking in conscience and empathy, they take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without guilt or remorse”.[8] He previously stated that: “What is missing, in other words, are the very qualities that allow a human being to live in social harmony”[9]
- Dr. Robert Hare, on Sociopaths
Libertarians also think children are not bound to their parents. I.e. they can choose who to live with. This is superior to simply chaining children and parents together, coercing parents if they don’t love their child enough.
Libertarians also think children are not bound to their parents. I.e. they can choose who to live with. This is superior to simply chaining children and parents together, coercing parents if they don’t love their child enough.
Ha, so a six year old can go off and find new parents? How about a 2 year old? Admit it; that’s just stupid.
If they cannot, then they cannot, would you make it worse by making laws and institutions against them so doing even if they could?
Its the best check and balance against domestic abuse. Would you really let parents force their children to stay with them? Admit it, that’s just slavery.
If they cannot, then they cannot, would you make it worse by making laws and institutions against them so doing even if they could?
Seriously? No one’s advocating laws against children, only a sociopath would advocate laws against children.
We might be talking about two different things here, but children can’t survive on their own, are you sayin that parents should be free to leave their unwanted children on a rock to die? Like in Sparta?
“When babies were born in ancient Sparta, Spartan soldiers would come by the house and check the baby. If the baby did not appear healthy and strong, the infant was taken away, and left to die on a hillside, or taken away to be trained as a slave…”
So replace “soldiers” with “parents,” and everything’s Kosher?
What if the baby signed the slave contract?
We might be talking about two different things here, but children can’t survive on their own, are you sayin that parents should be free to leave their >>unwanted children on a rock to die? Like in Sparta?
why does being left on a rock in the modern world mean ‘left on a rock to die’, particularly when there are hospitable people like yourself who can care for the child (if you want to).
When a baby is left on the church steps, ‘they are left on a rock to die’… ok…
As a biochemist and molecular biologist, I have a bit different view on several of these arguments. To frame my statement, I need to clarify a few points.
- Fetus as a parasite: While intuitive, this argument is not entirely true. A woman and fetus are actually a kind of chimera–two creatures fused into one. Two organisms with a singular intertwined body and will.
- Life begins at birth vs conception: Life must begin at conception. To argue otherwise is to claim that you yourself are not alive as you read this. The same biochemical reactions occuring in a newly concieved fetus are really no different than those in your finger tips right now.
- Non-Aggression Principle (NAP): Only applies to sentient, concious life interacting with other sentient, concious life. Human vs. Non-human is irrelevant.
The Unborn
Every person (remember the distinction of person versus human) has the right to protect thier person, property, and liberty. If the fetus is unwanted, it may be removed because it is not a person. While it can exert will over the mother (hunger, distress, etc.), it does so in no more a fashion than any other recognized non-sentient, non-concious life. Late term aboritions are contentious, as the physiological condititions for conciousness and sentience exist, but have not been conclusively proven to be held (to my knowledge). Should it be proven, and at what point in the development, then the NAP must refute abortion at that point.
Infants
While no explicit contract between concious sentient beings, that does not dismiss obligation under the NAP. Should an individual’s actions directly result in another person not being able to care for themselves (paralyzation in an auto accident for example), then the responsible party is beholden to compensate them to satisfaction. As the willfully conceiving parent is responsible for the infant’s condition of being unable to care for itself, the willfully conceiving parent must accept responsibility until the child is considered capable. However, there are two flaws with this reasoning.
- Many psychologists/biologists/physicians do not consider infants to possess conciousness/sentience until about 8 months old. This complicates person-hood.
- The infant would be responsible for alleging damages, or securing a party to represent it in alleging damages that it cannot care for itself due directly because of the conciever. The premise is self-contradictory, and cannot be satisfied with conventional law. Assumptions implicitly must be made.
Childhood & Adolescence
The parent is beholden to care for the child, though the method of doing so was never stipulated. Therefore, while under the care of the parent, the child must accept absolute authority of the parent. However, should the child feel that the parent is not acting in its interests of protetion & care, then it may appeal to a third party for ajudication. This is not a one way street though. In doing so, the child may demonstrate ability to provide for its own interests to a satisfaction where parental care is no longer obligated.
Divergence into Adulthood
A child at any point may claim that its right to self determination. In revoking the authority of the parent, they also end any obligation of the parent. Likewise, a child unwilling to move out (26 year old dead-beat) could be forced to after an alleging parent proves that the child has the faculties capable of providing for itself.
This is how I regard the entire matter. The issue of the fetus being alive or human is irrelevant. The sole argument of importance is on personhood.