In a libertarian society, what can a victim demand from the aggressor? First of all he can demand restitution. So for example if the aggressor killed the victim's dog, and if there was a magical way to restore the life of the dog, the victim could demand that the aggressor did that.
What else can the victim justly do after the restitution process? He can do the same thing to the aggressor that the aggressor did to him, that would most certainly be just, or at least not unjust. So the victim can do the equivalent of killing the dog of the aggressor.
Do you agree with this basic flow?
If restitution can't be made, some kind of reparation is determined and paid. I think Rothbard went over this in the Ethics of Liberty, 2 to 1 was the rule I think. If someone steals your TV, you get the TV back plus his TV or something of equivalent value. The TV restores you, his TV is the payback for victimizing you.
Okay, a few questions:
1. If a thief stole a necklace but he didn't know that the necklace carried an enormous emotional importance for the owner, should he compensate for the emotional damage as well? What about retribution in this case, can the victim of the theft make the aggressor suffer as the victim suffered as the result of the loss of the necklace, or is he just permitted to steal something random from his house?
2. Let's assume an adult killed a street kid (a kid has no parents). That kid has a very dear friend, an old lady. She is not his guardian, but the kid is very important to her. Can the lady bring her case to court? What the restitution and retribution be in this case?
xahrx:If restitution can't be made, some kind of reparation is determined and paid. I think Rothbard went over this in the Ethics of Liberty, 2 to 1 was the rule I think. If someone steals your TV, you get the TV back plus his TV or something of equivalent value. The TV restores you, his TV is the payback for victimizing you.
I disagree with Rothbard and Block on this issue because (1) its not clear that "2 teeth for a tooth" is a rule that can actually be deduced from other libertarian ideals and (2) there are problems quantifying the values involved.
Getting the original TV seems just, but the second TV isn't automatically going to be valued the same as the original by the victim. It also seems weird that justice would mean having duplicates of things that you already have, or selling those duplicates for less than the cost of the original good in most cases. So then we turn to monetary compensation. But saying something like, "well he can receive something of equivalent value" is another mess because the victim would necessarily have to choose what is of equal value to him as the TV. No judge would be able to say "that TV is worth $500 to you, so the defendant will return the TV and give you $500 dollars."
The end result of this is that valuations have to be cut out of the equation altogether. But taking a strict materialist approach wouldn't fit in with the idea that the victim is the one who chooses whether or not he has been violated. The difference between you taking a hair from my head and my TV is a matter of my personal valuations. I don't care about that hair enough to make a claim against you, and I don't really want my hair back plus one of yours.
I think its just best to assume that a libertarian society, like any other, will develop rules or carry over rules that dictate how these things will be handled. 2 teeth for a tooth might be one such rule, but trying to create a priori justifications for it in all cases leads to a lot of absurdity
they said we would have an unfair fun advantage