Donny with an A:Monkey, an important distinction needs to be made between punishment and restitution.
Semantics. One mans restitution is anothers punishment. I stole your property and was ordered to pay you X amount of dollars to you as resitution. I pay you the money, which I don't really have in the first place (thus the reason for the theft) which I preceive as a punishment for my crime. They are one and the same as far as I'm concerned.
"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds. " -- Samuel Adams.
JCFolsom:I think, to be able to create a coherent and consistent morality, we need to be willing to approach actions a little less... empirically?
But you've already said that we should take these things on a case-by-case basis, i.e., empirically: doesn't that rule out creating a rule or principle to follow?
Donny with an A:No, I'm saying that the right to self-determination is presumptive, and legitimately overrideable in certain situations. I think that self-defense is one kind of example in which it is permissible to infringe upon someone's right to self-determination, but I don't think it's the only kind of example (shoving an aimless drunk out of the way of an oncoming bus, for an uncontroversial example). It seems to me that the child's life provides us with a morally significant reason for infringing upon the boat owner's right to self-determination, and so it would not be unjust to do so.
The problem with this is that in the case of self-defense you are being aggressed against and pushing the drunk out of the way of an oncoming bus presumable he would consent to it if he could and will later endorse your action. In the transporter/boat case, there is no aggression and no consent and presummably no later endorsement. The transporter/boad hypos are not analogous.
Donny with an A:I'm not saying that the boat owner has an enforceable obligation to save the child (I'm not sure that I completely accept the view that no such obligation exists, but that's not important for the example we're talking about).
Well, moral obligation and legally enforceable moral obligation are two different things. Are you saying you're not sure if the latter doesn't exist?
Donny with an A:An enforceable obligation to save the child would mean that I would be justified in forcing the boat owner to save the child himself.
Not necessarily. It could also justify you using his property to save the child.
Donny with an A:I'm saying that the boat owner would seem to need to call upon a standard of justice in order to complain about my infringing upon his rights which would almost certainly condemn his own actions.
Well, no, I think at a minimum the burden before the law is on the one who "borrows" the transporter/boat without consent. Innocent before proven guilty, sure, but once proven that he took the transporter/boat without consent I think he needs to show he had a justifiable reason for doing what is normally illegal.
Donny with an A:That's not to say that it follows that both parties aren't acting unjustly; maybe they are (two wrongs don't make a right). It's just an observation. It just seems to me that if you have a duty to do X, and wrongfully fail to do X, then I may be able to justify doing things which involve harm being done to you in order to bring about X.
It certainly seems you've abandoned libertarian rights. It also seems you're confusing two or three different senses of justice here. I think if you go this route you open the door to statism.
Yours in liberty,Geoffrey Allan Plauché, Ph.D.Adjunct InstructorBuena Vista University
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"(Who watches the watchmen?)-Juvenal, Satires VI.347
macsnafu:But you've already said that we should take these things on a case-by-case basis, i.e., empirically: doesn't that rule out creating a rule or principle to follow?
I still hold to the case-by-case basis thing, I'm just having a bit of trouble putting this concept into words. Indeed, what I'm really saying is, no action can be evaluated outside of its context and the perceived motivation of the actor. Take the example of your disarming the man pointing the gun at the store clerk. There are at least four possibilities here.
1. The man was a robber. You did the right thing by disarming him.
2. The man had just taken the gun from the clerk, who had been threatening him for some dispute over a girlfriend. You were wrong to take the gun, but you acted in good faith.
3. The clerk is the actual robber who had the gun taken by the nimble customer, and you took the gun because you are the clerk's accomplice.
4. This man is actually just showing the clerk the gun, and the clerk is not alarmed, and you know this, but you take the gun to stop an assault outside.
Certainly, an identical action here should be treated differently, no?
kingmonkey: Donny with an A:Monkey, an important distinction needs to be made between punishment and restitution. Semantics. One mans restitution is anothers punishment. I stole your property and was ordered to pay you X amount of dollars to you as resitution. I pay you the money, which I don't really have in the first place (thus the reason for the theft) which I preceive as a punishment for my crime. They are one and the same as far as I'm concerned.
Well, no, there is an important and very objective distinction in libertarian legal theory between restitution (monetary compensation) and retributive punishment. We often use 'punishment' colloguially and sloppily to refer to both, but the two are distinct. A number of libertarians subscribe to a restitution-only model of justice.
JCFolsom: I still hold to the case-by-case basis thing, I'm just having a bit of trouble putting this concept into words. Indeed, what I'm really saying is, no action can be evaluated outside of its context and the perceived motivation of the actor. Take the example of your disarming the man pointing the gun at the store clerk. There are at least four possibilities here.
I guess my example was a bad one. It's morally ambiguous because of a lack of information, not because of a true moral dilemma. Each of your possibilities is clear enough once understood. Unless the moral dilemma is the one of how to act when one lacks enough information to be fully aware of the situation.
In each case, the motions are the same. In each case, you are aggressing someone and taking their gun for a reason other than self-defense. Yet, in only one would I think they were being villainous, and thus that punishment would be appropriate.
macsnafu: JCFolsom: I still hold to the case-by-case basis thing, I'm just having a bit of trouble putting this concept into words. Indeed, what I'm really saying is, no action can be evaluated outside of its context and the perceived motivation of the actor. Take the example of your disarming the man pointing the gun at the store clerk. There are at least four possibilities here. I guess my example was a bad one. It's morally ambiguous because of a lack of information, not because of a true moral dilemma.
I guess my example was a bad one. It's morally ambiguous because of a lack of information, not because of a true moral dilemma.
Most moral hypotheticals are, I think.
JCFolsom: In each case, the motions are the same. In each case, you are aggressing someone and taking their gun for a reason other than self-defense. Yet, in only one would I think they were being villainous, and thus that punishment would be appropriate.
I think it is mistaken to say that you are aggressing in all four cases. Version 1 is not aggression. Version 2 is not intentional aggression (intentionality is important for ascribing moral blame; legal penalties may still be incurred from unintentional aggression). Versions 3 and 4 are cases of intentional aggression.
No, the actual problem here is that very few individuals on these boards have done the basic reading on ethical matters, let alone so much as read Rothbard's contributions on the topic. So, it is then easy to say anarcho-capitalism falls because the NAP is not absolute. Well, the latter has already been noted by libertarian theorists, and is far from sufficient to undermine the system. And it is not like the books exploring these topics are obscure - they've been mentioned a hundred times over.
-Jon
To darkness I condemn you...
nhaag: Another fallacy. As always when morale and rights intermix. The NAP states that it is a crime to start aggression against another party. Now a crime is not a moral entity (what is good and what is bad), but it is a violation of anothers right and voilation of rights means the aggressed has the right to get compensation. So taking the position that NAP is an absolute right - which it is as it gives the aggressed the absolute right to have him replaced into the state he was before the aggression took place - does not a bit force me to say it is right or worng in a moral sense to save the guys life. It only means, that if i agress against the owner of your cool device,I am commiting a crime. Yet, remember, a crime in the libertarian sense does not have a moral dimension. So yes, if i choose to act in that way, i have commited a crime against the guy with the gadget and he has a right to be compensated for my crime. Isn't that easy? So NAP is an abslute right, but rights are not moral categories in any way. Something is not right or wrong, because I believe it to be ethical to act in a certain way. Bottomline, if I have to commit a crime to survive, the buck stops here, and I might cmmit that crime, but it has consequences. Again the fallacy is to intermix property rights with morality and ethics. Does that make sense and refute the claim?
Another fallacy. As always when morale and rights intermix. The NAP states that it is a crime to start aggression against another party. Now a crime is not a moral entity (what is good and what is bad), but it is a violation of anothers right and voilation of rights means the aggressed has the right to get compensation. So taking the position that NAP is an absolute right - which it is as it gives the aggressed the absolute right to have him replaced into the state he was before the aggression took place - does not a bit force me to say it is right or worng in a moral sense to save the guys life. It only means, that if i agress against the owner of your cool device,I am commiting a crime. Yet, remember, a crime in the libertarian sense does not have a moral dimension.
So yes, if i choose to act in that way, i have commited a crime against the guy with the gadget and he has a right to be compensated for my crime. Isn't that easy?
So NAP is an abslute right, but rights are not moral categories in any way. Something is not right or wrong, because I believe it to be ethical to act in a certain way.
Bottomline, if I have to commit a crime to survive, the buck stops here, and I might cmmit that crime, but it has consequences.
Again the fallacy is to intermix property rights with morality and ethics.
Does that make sense and refute the claim?
The point remains that NAP is not an absolute moral or ethical system as you so expertly pointed out. The reason this is even brought up is because NAP is often said to be the moral argument for ancap. Those that use it say that they need not explain the practical considerations of ancap because the moral argument alone is enough. But the moral argument is not absolute. We can't expect people to change over to a system because of some principle that, as a moral system, does not always lead to the most moral decision. They need more than that and they should need more than that. It must be about the practicality, the viability of the system. And it is no coincidence that that is what it normally takes to convince most people to adopt ancap. They need to know that it would work and NAP does not prove that it would.
You have definately identified the fallacy of the anarchists whose sole argument for ancap is morals :)
It can be morally correct to take the boat and morally correct to require the hero to pay compensation. If not paying compensation upsets the social order and opens the door to all kinds of problems associated with not having a consistent legal framework, then requiring the payment of compensation would be the morally correct action. If there are not a lot of unintended consequences, then not requiring him to pay compensation would be the morally correct thing to do. This is all based on the survival framework that I posted earlier. Now, in ancap, I think it is extremely likely that the hero will pay any compensation or that the boat owner will suffer a loss. Think about it, the boat owner's insurance company has to pay him whatever compensation and then they can go after the hero to reimburse them. But why would they? This would be a major story in that town and if the insurance company was suing the hero, that would be incredibly bad PR. The insurance company would absorb the costs and life would go on. It would just be an operating cost for the insurance companies in handling these situations. The extra cost would be added to everyone's premium in form of perhaps a hundredth of a penny. Now this resolution is even more moral than the other solutions above. See how nicely things get solved in ancap? This is an excellent example of how ANCAP != NAP. Even though NAP is not absolute in a moral sense, it is still blatently obvious that ancap would solve this very same situation far better than statism. In statism, things may or may not work out this nicely - it depends on the jury because you could certainly be tried. In ancap, the hero's free and clear as he should be.
One thing to keep in mind is that if the transporter owner were not there, you would not be worse off. His denial you the use of the equipment is equivalent to his nonexistence. E.g., we can speculate that he may have agreed to climb the mountain with you only on the condition that he would not be robbed even in a lifeboat situation. If he had known that you would break your promise (or contract), he might have not come with you at all, in which case, again, absolutism with regard to the non-aggression principle is the same as acknowledging that the transporter is a lucky accident but one which you just as accidentally have no right to use.
Second, if we are utilitarians, then this is a conflict between rule and act utilitarianism. If we are deontologists, then this can be cashed out as a conflict between strict deontology and deontology with thresholds. In other words, there are moral theories that allow you to seize the transporter.
gigaplex:The point remains that NAP is not an absolute moral or ethical system as you so expertly pointed out. The reason this is even brought up is because NAP is often said to be the moral argument for ancap. Those that use it say that they need not explain the practical considerations of ancap because the moral argument alone is enough. But the moral argument is not absolute.
I fail to see how you or anyone else has provided the death knell for NAP as being absolute. The NAP IS absolute and will always be absolute no matter the cause for violating it. The only thing that is not absolute is peoples willingness to abide by it. You NEVER have the right to initiate force or violence against anyone. But you always have the right to self-defense. That is the basis of the NAP. You might THINK you have the right to initiate force or violence against another person but in reality you do not, under any circumstances, have that right. The scenario of a dying man on a mountain presents no proof that the NAP is not absolute. It only shows that people are willing to violate it which is where you go wrong. You seem to believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, that if people are placed in an extreme situation then the non-aggression principle fails and is thus a false concept. But that is the furthest from the truth! In fact it is in these situations where the NAP is the strongest! It is in the extreme examples, the life boat situations, where the NAP is most needed!
The Titanic is sinking so who has the right to decide who gets in the limited amount of life boats? Every man for himself? Sure you could do that. But the NAP provides the ABSOLUTE answer to that question -- the person who owns the Titanic or their representative. That means if that ship is sinking the captain, as the representative of the owners, has the right to determine who can get in the life boats. The capatain could say that women, children and one man may get in the boats and that is the end of the story. Now, whether or not people choose to obey those orders is another thing but that doesn't mean the principle is false or not absolute. I will absolute get a speeding ticket if I go 110 in a 30 mph zone. I don't have to abide by that rule but if don't I will be subject to the penalties of breaking it -- even if I'm rushing a man to the hospital who is about to bleed out.
Is it morally justifiable to save a mans life? Yes. Is it morally justifiable to steal someone elses property in order to do it? No. Would I do it? Yes. Should I be punished for it? Yes, if that is what the property owner wants. Without the NAP you cannot have freedom. The NAP is one of the basis for freedom because without it you open up the possibility for all manner of tyranny and oppression (like we have today). That is the absolute truth.
kingmonkey:Is it morally justifiable to save a mans life? Yes. Is it morally justifiable to steal someone elses property in order to do it? No. Would I do it? Yes. Should I be punished for it? Yes, if that is what the property owner wants. Without the NAP you cannot have freedom. The NAP is one of the basis for freedom because without it you open up the possibility for all manner of tyranny and oppression (like we have today). That is the absolute truth.
No, without the NAP, you won't always have freedom. But you can still have a lot of freedom. But then, in a sense, the NAP is itself a restriction on freedom. Nor is restitution truly self-defense. Nor is punishment.
As for the "all manner of tyranny and oppression", I never said that you should be able to steal from/assault someone because that's how you earn a paycheck. All my scenarios involve immediate, high-stakes situations. A government agent, going to collect taxes or the like, has no such justification. Third-party, well-planned actions will almost never carry the characteristics that justify aggression.
kingmonkey: Is it morally justifiable to save a mans life? Yes. Is it morally justifiable to steal someone elses property in order to do it? No. Would I do it? Yes. Should I be punished for it? Yes, if that is what the property owner wants. Without the NAP you cannot have freedom. The NAP is one of the basis for freedom because without it you open up the possibility for all manner of tyranny and oppression (like we have today). That is the absolute truth.
For a moral system to be correct ALL the time, it must lead to the correct decisions ALL the time. It's the "all the time" part that makes it absolute. What part of this has got you confused?
This doesn't mean that we should get rid of it or not use it across the board, it just means that the NAP is not some absolute secret of the universe.
gigaplex: For a moral system to be correct ALL the time, it must lead to the correct decisions ALL the time. It's the "all the time" part that makes it absolute. What part of this has got you confused? This doesn't mean that we should get rid of it or not use it across the board, it just means that the NAP is not some absolute secret of the universe.
The NAP IS correct ALL the time. Your choice to violate it doesn't make it incorrect in extreme situations. You cannot take my property = you violating my property if you steal my transporter. Correct, all the time, no matter what the reason. A person dies because I would not hand over my transporter = not my problem. I wasn't the cause of his death. That is the correct answer ALL THE TIME. No matter what the reason is you CANNOT violate another persons property and still be right. I don't have to hand over my transporter to save that man and afterwards you don't have to talk to me anymore and you can tell everyone that I allowed that guy to die up on that mountain but his illness doesn't give you the right to steal my stuff.
What you are trying to do is make it seem like the person who owns the transporter is making the wrong decision by not allowing you to use that device. It cannot be the wrong decision because that person living or dying is not the owner of that transporters problem since he is not the cause of his death. You might think it is his problem but I assure you it is not. The "right" thing to do is to try and save the mans life. The wrong thing to do is to violate my property in order to do it. You can choose to do the right thing or the wrong thing but either way the NAP is correct ALL the time. If you are one of the ones trying to save the mans life and I am the owner of the transporter and you steal my transporter you have made the WRONG decision even though you think it to be the right one. You might have saved a persons life but you have also violated my property. The NAP is correct all the time whether you want to abide by it or not.
Its always fun when people frame their situations to be devoid of consequence.
So lets say you steal the transporter but when you get off the mountain I shoot you for mugging the transporter's owner. Would you still do it? Is violating the NAP still such a good idea?
The point is that utility over rides the NAP. But if the NAP can be violated when the gain is great, why can it not also be violated when the gain is somewhat less? Why should the NAP not be violated if any gain at all is to be had? Of course that is exactly what we have today. NAP is violated whenever the state can gain at all. The State is doing the violating so only the State's utility is considered.
gigaplex:The point remains that NAP is not an absolute moral or ethical system as you so expertly pointed out.
I don't think that has necessarily been shown. In any event, I've argued that it doesn't matter.
gigaplex:You have definately identified the fallacy of the anarchists whose sole argument for ancap is morals :)
Uh...no, the argument for ancap does not rely solely on the non-aggression principle, much less on it being absolute.
JonBostwick:So lets say you steal the transporter but when you get off the mountain I shoot you for mugging the transporter's owner. Would you still do it? Is violating the NAP still such a good idea?
Ah, but your shooting the "mugger" after the fact is a murder, because your action does not achieve an end for someone else equal to or greater than what is lost by the person you shoot. It's just vengeance.
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