Thus, we have to see that even if we say “action X shall not be punishable”, all we mean is that “if you do X, your company will try to convince whoever you wronged not to punish you”. Yet your action could still convince your company that you’re an unworthy risk in the future. And discontinuance of the policy will cast you as an outlaw. Whether people decide, according to their personal values, to kill you for what you’ve originally done, it will be outside the market and hence, besides the scope here.
Okay, I see now where you are coming from. My vision may somewhat differ, but with this part I agree.
Technically the wronged party has entered no contract with you, hence there is no transfer of guilt possible.
I like the sentence. So all the members of a group can be considered guilty and hence liable.
Still, I would not hold anyone besides the ‘soldiers’ liable. Good for the Don if he’s so smart (and his soldiers so stupid) as to operate a criminal empire without blooding his own hands.
If it is in your view a matter of whom the victim chooses to sue, we can seamlessly integrate our opinions. I would sue the whole gang, and demand that they return to me all of the money stolen, plus damages. I consider that a better form of justice (incidentally, one might get higher reparations in this way, since there are more people involved. For once the organized crime pays for the victim! :) ) I'd also sue the contractor of a hitman, if one attempted to kill me, or killed someone close to me.
Whether this becomes an 'accepted' form of justice supported by insurers and defense contractors in a given society is a different matter. However, if you choose to sue only the robbers/hitman is absolutely acceptable to me.
Seems to me like we agree on something after all!
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So not only do we get rid of conspiracy laws, we add emotion/conflict-of-interest into the punishment.... Why don't we just go a step further and reinstitute an eye for an eye?
I will certainly agree that “an eye for an eye” is way superior to what we have now (though it would be precisely what the market would try to discourage under anarcho-capitalism). So going back to that is not a threat, retaining what we have would be a threat.
There are not enough palms for the face I want to deliever into them.
Planning and funding are actions as well as physical action. The conspirer, if intent in his involvment, is just as guilty as the one you percieve to be the only actor.
Seriously, this has to be a joke....
In States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it. ... In short, a law everywhere and for everything!
~Peter Kropotkin
Whether people decide, according to their personal values, to kill you for what you’ve originally done, it will be outside the market and hence, besides the scope here
Good for the Don if he’s so smart (and his soldiers so stupid) as to operate a criminal empire without blooding his own hands.
Your views are dangrous to civilized society. I prefer my punishements laid out before the crime is commited against me, tyvm.
No, wait, my community sees math as witchcraft and punishable by death. I better just live in ignorance.
There is no cruel and unusual punishement in your view, only what the people will allow at any subjective moment compared to the next. No, people won't find the murder of black people as more justified than whites...no... that would never happen. White man steals, eh, victim of circumstance, charge him a fine. Black man steals, dangerous jungle monkey intent on uprooting the fabric of white society, off with his head... but that would never happen right?
I dont know whether to laugh, cry, or go hit the punching bag.
If it is in your view a matter of whom the victim chooses to sue, we can seamlessly integrate our opinions. I would sue the whole gang, and demand that they return to me all of the money stolen, plus damages. I consider that a better form of justice (incidentally, one might get higher reparations in this way, since there are more people involved. For once the organized crime pays for the victim! :) ) I'd also sue the contractor of a hitman, if one attempted to kill me, or killed someone close to me. Whether this becomes an 'accepted' form of justice supported by insurers and defense contractors in a given society is a different matter. However, if you choose to sue only the robbers/hitman is absolutely acceptable to me.
This is an interesting theory of justice, but it just brings us back to the problem of how is the pool of guilty people from which the victim can choose to seek compensation determined? When you say "the whole gang", does that include everyone under the umbrella of the organization that was responsible for the crime? Could the victim demand compensation from their chauffer? their cleaning lady? or even the gun manufacturer? Or would the pool be limited to those determined to be "directly" involved with the crime. Since this can be a subjective determination, what would be the acid test to determine whether or not someone was "directly" involved?
It sounds good to say that it's up to the victim's discretion from whom to seek damages, but at some point there needs to be some kind of objective or procdeural test to make sure the person selected is objectively responsible for the crime. The idea of proportionality would suggest that each guilty individual along the chain would be liable for a % of the damages, depending on the extent of their role, but good luck determining that. I can't even begin to imagine the difficulties involved assigning individual shares of responsibility out of a constant whole, even in a jury trial. I keep coming back to the trigger man bearing 100% of the liability as the only fair way. And in a way that makes sense because in the end it's his decision to kill or not to kill.
Note I am not suggesting that it's OK morally to hire a hitman or to plan a murder. I would imagine that anyone known to have been engaged in such activities would be blackballed from society, certainly by people like myself as well as, I would think, most others. However, in libertarian law, which focuses not on deterrence, not on crimes against "society", but rather on restitution to the individual victim(s), it becomes difficult to justify holding conspirators responsible for actions which are ultimately those of the individual hitman.
Was the conspirator intent in his involvement, meaning, did he intend his actions to bring about the death of the victim?
What more acid test do you need?
Was the conspirator intent in his involvement, meaning, did he intend his actions to bring about the death of the victim? What more acid test do you need? Well I would say that intent in and of itself is irrelevant. I could intend to kill someone by stabbing a voodoo doll of them, but I wouldn't be liable even if they were to die. What counts are means and causality. No matter what sort of voluntary dealings the client has with his hitman, in the end he cannot vicariously cause the death of the victim. Only the hitman himself can ultimately do that. A hitman is different from a missile or an attack dog or a robot assassin because those do not act purposefully and cannot be held legally liable for their actions. In a libertarian system of justice, a conspiracy is no "crime against society", and all that counts is the damage done to the individual, so when the client is held responsible it means that the hitman is absolved of responsibility to a corresponding degree, which I find extremely difficult to justify. | Post Points: 5
Well I would say that intent in and of itself is irrelevant. I could intend to kill someone by stabbing a voodoo doll of them, but I wouldn't be liable even if they were to die. What counts are means and causality. No matter what sort of voluntary dealings the client has with his hitman, in the end he cannot vicariously cause the death of the victim. Only the hitman himself can ultimately do that. A hitman is different from a missile or an attack dog or a robot assassin because those do not act purposefully and cannot be held legally liable for their actions. In a libertarian system of justice, a conspiracy is no "crime against society", and all that counts is the damage done to the individual, so when the client is held responsible it means that the hitman is absolved of responsibility to a corresponding degree, which I find extremely difficult to justify.
here is no cruel and unusual punishement in your view, only what the people will allow at any subjective moment compared to the next. No, people won't find the murder of black people as more justified than whites...no... that would never happen. White man steals, eh, victim of circumstance, charge him a fine. Black man steals, dangerous jungle monkey intent on uprooting the fabric of white society, off with his head... but that would never happen right?
If enough people find the murder of blacks is justified in a free market, I can certainly tell you that in a statist society it would be far, far worse. There is nothing, nothing that can be done at that point. Whatever pesky moral view one has, if 99% of the people think otherwise (because that is what you need in a free market to leave not even a niche to those who think as you do) there is nothing on earth stopping them form killing black folk. This, I believe, is a very basic insight that we must bear in mind before starting to fantasize on how would a free market decide this or that issue.
You're taking the idea that collectives don't act to far. No, a collective doesn't act, but people do act in collectives. That is our greatest benefit and most grave threat, the prime mover of history, if you will. And we have since the start; we've never been like orangutans.
Laws are devised to stop men/women, from transgressing against other individuals/groups. I would go as far as to say that is the foundation of the right to free expression and our current 1st ammendment. Governments don't usually stop one lone nut with a cause.. Liberal Democracy even tolerates fairly large groups. It is groups that have to be protected to express their right to say no.
Or, we can only value customers, and not entrepeneurs. I think that's a simplistic way to look at things, but.. to each his own.
The free will of the hitman is irrelevant (I don't believe in free will I believe that it's inherently contradictory but that's actually besides the point in this case). While you're right that the "chain of causality" (I thought that was a very good way of putting it) becomes muddled, the fact is that the person who highers the hitman believes his actions will directly lead to the death of the person who the hitman intends to kill, just as when he pulls the trigger. It is, as with all action, a means to an end, and he must belive that his actions would lead to the intended ends, otherwise he would not do it. Furthermore the hitman would not kill the victim were it not for the actions of the man who hired the hitman. In this case, when approaching the question of whether or not the man who hired the hitman is guilty (the matter of the hitman's guilt is another matter) the free will of the hitman is irrelevant, the only question is as a tool, or a means, whatever you wish to call it, on the way of achieving the end. This is to say it doesn't matter except in the matter of how his free will might mean that the murder is not completed. However, this is irrelevant in that one can NEVER be totally certain his actions will result in the intended ends. When firing the gun one might miss, the round might be a dud or a blank. When programing your robot assassin of doom (bwahahaha) you might leave in a flaw that causes it to malfunction before it reaches the victim. You perform an action which you know will, with your support, lead to the murder of an innocent individual.
In this case, when approaching the question of whether or not the man who hired the hitman is guilty (the matter of the hitman's guilt is another matter) the free will of the hitman is irrelevant, the only question is as a tool, or a means, whatever you wish to call it, on the way of achieving the end. This is to say it doesn't matter except in the matter of how his free will might mean that the murder is not completed. However, this is irrelevant in that one can NEVER be totally certain his actions will result in the intended ends. When firing the gun one might miss, the round might be a dud or a blank. When programing your robot assassin of doom (bwahahaha) you might leave in a flaw that causes it to malfunction before it reaches the victim. You perform an action which you know will, with your support, lead to the murder of an innocent individual.
@ The Late Andrew Ryan, sorry I missed this reply earlier. This does make me wonder, would this analysis extend to someone who voted for a political candidate who campaigned on waging aggressive war? Since you can never be certain that your vote will not be the deciding vote in the election, and since your intended end is to install the warmonger into power, would the voter share legal cuplability for damages done to innocent civilians during the subsequent war? I realize this may be a reductio ad absurdum, but in a way voting for such a candidate would only differ from contracting a hitman in terms of perceived degree of certainty of result. i.e. If you hire a hitman you may be 90% confident he will follow through, but if you vote for Candidate LeMay, you are only 0.00001% confident that you will cast the swing vote in his favor. Is the difference only one of degree of certainty? If so, how should the cut-off point be determined?
The sooner we, as Americans, recognize our complicity in the attrocities commited in our name around the world, the better imho. Legal recourse would be very problematic. But on a personal note, we cannot absolve ourselves of actions states have taken in our name.
Complacency != complicity, but it certainly is close.
"This does make me wonder, would this analysis extend to someone who voted for a political candidate who campaigned on waging aggressive war? Since you can never be certain that your vote will not be the deciding vote in the election, and since your intended end is to install the warmonger into power, would the voter share legal cuplability for damages done to innocent civilians during the subsequent war? I realize this may be a reductio ad absurdum, but in a way voting for such a candidate would only differ from contracting a hitman in terms of perceived degree of certainty of result. i.e. If you hire a hitman you may be 90% confident he will follow through, but if you vote for Candidate LeMay, you are only 0.00001% confident that you will cast the swing vote in his favor. Is the difference only one of degree of certainty? If so, how should the cut-off point be determined?"
Your reasoning is fallacious. You are saying that just because you interact or assist with an individual in any way that if this individual performs any sort of crime that the individual who assisted them is responsible. With this reasoning mothers should never give birth, as their children may become axe murderers. Food suppliers should not sell food, as the food may be consumed by rapists and therefore assist them in their crimes. Such is indeed a possibility but it is not a likelihood. I would argue that if the person performs an act with the intention and knowledge that it will cause that person to perform a crime, then that action is a crime for not only does it allow for the criminal to perform the crime but it is also intended to cause the crime to be performed.
So the intention must be a want for the crime to happen, no one would maintain that if a man inadvertently steps on an invisible switch on the ground that causes the death of a random individual, that the man who stepped on the switch was a criminal. If however the man stepped on the switch with the knowledge that the switch was there and with the intention to press the switch then that person is a criminal.
I hope this clears things up