General

Re: Is it required to be of sound body and mind to contract?

Jon Irenicus — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 18:48:34 GMT

There are two major beliefs about the role of judges in a libertarian society. One is that judges should play the role of mediator between the parties of a dispute. The other is that the parties of a dispute agree beforehand to abide by the ruling of a judge. There are other views, but these two seem to be the most common among ancaps.

I favor the first, but I don't necessarily consider the second to be wrong or without a place in a libertarian society. The main reason I favor the role of mediator is that the judge is meant to help resolve the dispute. It also helps cut down the time it takes to find a "neutral" judge that both parties can agree to. After all, it's easier to shop for a judge when you know he isn't going to rule against you.

My view on this is that it would depend on the nature of the dispute. Commercial disputes, neighbourly arguments etc. could be resolved by arbitration. Situations in which you're being accused of murder etc. might require a more adversarial setup and therefore a judge who is willing to favour either one or the other party. Bearing in mind that what judges and the system they are part of do is deliver a stamp, of sorts, that shows that you went through the correct procedures to have your claim examined. So it's a social signalling mechanism, in addition to anything else it is.

I think the topic is interesting. Personally, I would only consider consent not to be present if a) there was mind control, b) lack of consciousness or c) a mind-altering substance that literally made the recipient party unable to comprehend to what exactly they were agreing. Some people might have conditions, such as senility or mental retardation, that make them inherently incapable of such an understanding, so they'd fall under the rubric of c), too. Children may also arguably fall under c) until their brains mature sufficiently.

With Bill, I favour the answer given by Gotlucky. He can dispute the doctor's fee based on what would be "reasonable" to incur in such a situation. On the other hand, I don't think that until Bill has actually haemorrhaged to the point that he is out of his wits is he incapable of granting consent. With Lorraine again it depends on whether she was drugged to that point.

I don't find the "norms" thing very convincing. It doesn't seem very libertarian to me. Just because something is a norm doesn't mean you consent to it. What if I think the "norm" is unfair, and would refuse to follow it if I was of sound body and mind? Too bad, I guess.

Courts aren't going to reinvent the wheel for every case. They have to work to an evidentiary standard and deal with what they have in front of them. If someone claims the doctor "ripped" him off whilst in a vulnerable state, they're doing so with a particular idea in mind as to what would've been a fair price for the transaction. Also, in the name of efficiency and to more easily deal with routine cases (or elements of them in more complex ones), courts will likely resort to norms. Now, as was said, you don't have to consent to the court's ruling or abide by it but that may have adverse reputational consequences unless you succeed at appealing the decision with another court or otherwise show how the court's conduct was flawed.

Things like norms of appropriation (i.e. what you need to do to appropriate something), abandonment, age of consent etc. are inherently "grey" areas and will require judicial norms to be dealt with fairly and efficiently.

Re: Is it required to be of sound body and mind to contract?

Autolykos — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 21:53:58 GMT

QuisCustodiet:
Right. I kept testing my answer vis-a-vis yours. It depends on how you understand "debate". As in, try to convince you I'm right and only that, then no. If as in deliberative discourse, then yes, it kept going.

Au contraire, you seemed to still be trying to convince me that you're right in your next-to-last post before last week.

QuisCustodiet:
The other thing I could refer you to is this other post that was set up as a question. I obviously leaned a certain way when posting this. However, in the thread I was pulled away from my position. The only difference is that in the thread we're commenting on now, I ended up going even more in the direction of where I was leaning, and now I've reached a convinction that differs from yours.

http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/32011.aspx

I'm sorry but I'm not going to deterred by any red herring you throw my way. I maintain that the conclusion that you claim to have reached in the middle of this thread was actually one you had reached before you even started this thread.

Re: Is it required to be of sound body and mind to contract?

QuisCustodiet — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 20:36:34 GMT

My point is that you didn't stop posting in the middle of the thread, as was implied by these two statements of yours:

Right. I kept testing my answer vis-a-vis yours. It depends on how you understand "debate". As in, try to convince you I'm right and only that, then no. If as in deliberative discourse, then yes, it kept going.

The other thing I could refer you to is this other post that was set up as a question. I obviously leaned a certain way when posting this. However, in the thread I was pulled away from my position. The only difference is that in the thread we're commenting on now, I ended up going even more in the direction of where I was leaning, and now I've reached a convinction that differs from yours.

http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/32011.aspx

Re: Is it required to be of sound body and mind to contract?

Autolykos — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 20:13:49 GMT

QuisCustodiet:
Yeah. It kept going for a while to develop/test the answer. My point is it didn't keep going until you agreed.

My point is that you didn't stop posting in the middle of the thread, as was implied by these two statements of yours:

QuisCustodiet:
I actually reached a conclusion in the middle of the thread after considering a comment about any interaction with Lorraine.

and

QuisCustodiet:
If my purpose in starting the thread was to convince everybody to accept a conclusion I already had, I wouldn't have stopped debating you and gotlucky when I found a solution to my question.

So you claimed that you stopped debating us when you found a solution to your question, but you also claimed to have found that solution in the middle of the thread. That means you effectively claimed that you stopped debating us in the middle of the thread, which is patently false. You seem to be an intelligent person, so I find it very hard to believe that you'd trip yourself up so easily.

Furthermore, I still don't believe that you reached a conclusion in the middle of the thread. As I see it, your (predetermined) conclusion was presented in the OP. As evidence, I present the way in which you worded your concluding questions in the OP, i.e. "Is this not theft?" and "Is this not rape?" Questions of the form "Is this not X?" are typically meant to imply that whatever's being referred to by "this" is indeed X. In other words, I consider your concluding questions in the OP to be decidedly non-neutral in form.

Re: Is it required to be of sound body and mind to contract?

vive la insurrection — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 05:56:46 GMT

It's probably implied in the defintion of "contract" that one is under the expecations of the relevant society to be of sound mind.

Re: Is it required to be of sound body and mind to contract?

QuisCustodiet — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 22:40:33 GMT

@gotlucky

Fine.

@Autolykos

Yeah. It kept going for a while to develop/test the answer. My point is it didn't keep going until you agreed.

Re: Is it required to be of sound body and mind to contract?

Autolykos — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 22:38:08 GMT

QuisCustodiet:
Like two months ago. I think you're just paranoid.

You seemed to be claiming that you stopped well before gotlucky and I stopped posting in this thread. That's just not true.

Re: Is it required to be of sound body and mind to contract?

gotlucky — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 22:31:45 GMT

You're just a troll.

Re: Is it required to be of sound body and mind to contract?

QuisCustodiet — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 22:27:41 GMT

Like two months ago. I think you're just paranoid.

Re: Is it required to be of sound body and mind to contract?

Autolykos — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 21:52:44 GMT

QuisCustodiet:
If my purpose in starting the thread was to convince everybody to accept a conclusion I already had, I wouldn't have stopped debating you and gotlucky when I found a solution to my question.

What are you talking about? You didn't stop.

Re: Is it required to be of sound body and mind to contract?

QuisCustodiet — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 21:20:43 GMT

If my purpose in starting the thread was to convince everybody to accept a conclusion I already had, I wouldn't have stopped debating you and gotlucky when I found a solution to my question.

Re: Is it required to be of sound body and mind to contract?

Autolykos — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 21:03:26 GMT

QuisCustodiet:
Obviously an exaggeration.

You don't consider the definition of a word or phrase to be the same as the meaning of a word or phrase?

QuisCustodiet:
Wrong. I actually reached a conclusion in the middle of the thread after considering a comment about any interaction with Lorraine.

I don't think so. Your position hasn't changed from the OP.

Re: Is it required to be of sound body and mind to contract?

QuisCustodiet — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 21:01:00 GMT

"I don't have [a definition for "of sound body and mind"]. Ability to understand the consequences of your actions?"

If you don't have a definition for it, then that means it's a meaningless phrase to you.

Obviously an exaggeration.

Indeed, I see your entire behavior in this thread (as well as others) as simply attempts to lead people to a predetermined conclusion under the guise of "open-minded investigation".

Wrong. I actually reached a conclusion in the middle of the thread after considering a comment about any interaction with Lorraine.

Re: Is it required to be of sound body and mind to contract?

Autolykos — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 20:08:20 GMT

QuisCustodiet:
I don't have [a definition for "of sound body and mind"]. Ability to understand the consequences of your actions?

If you don't have a definition for it, then that means it's a meaningless phrase to you. So then why are you using it at all?

QuisCustodiet:
Even if she explicitly "agreed" to it, it doesn't matter because she's been roofied!

Are you expecting me to agree with that just because you said it? Or what? To me, this is the whole point of contention. I don't see how you've offered any refutation of my position. You've just been dismissing it out of hand.

QuisCustodiet:
What if government A force fed the population of Ruritania with mind-altering drugs and glued their eyes open to watch pro-state propoganda, and after government A packed up and moved to an island in the middle of the Pacific, every citizen signed a contract to establish the new government B? Everyone would have "agreed" to this state, and so long as the effects of the drugs from government A stayed in their systems, government B would be a completely voluntary state -- IF Lorraine's explicit "yes" means she wasn't raped.

Why do you see those two scenarios as necessarily equivalent? I think you're deliberately glossing over essential differences. Indeed, I see your entire behavior in this thread (as well as others) as simply attempts to lead people to a predetermined conclusion under the guise of "open-minded investigation".

Re: Is it required to be of sound body and mind to contract?

gotlucky — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 02:08:07 GMT

I'll repost for you:

What Law Is

A Praxeological Account of Law

Crusoe, Morality, and Axiomatic Libertarianism (this one I didn't post)