I'm pretty sure his comments were satirical, and showed fully the ridiculousness of opposition to discrimination.
edavismail: The restaurant owner has no right to exercise his property rights in a way that does not respect another person as one who should actively seek happiness.
The restaurant owner has no right to exercise his property rights in a way that does not respect another person as one who should actively seek happiness.
Let's assume the restaurant owner is actively seeking his own happiness by only serving white people and a black person walks in the restaurant getting refused service. Should we haul them both off to jail for preventing each other from actively seeking their own happiness? Seems a bit contradictory.
Forget equality, it can never be achieved without coercion, what works is letting everyone pursue their own best interest (as long as they don't initiate force).
Isaac "Izzy" Marmolejo: it is a claim held by a lot of 'left libertarians'
it is a claim held by a lot of 'left libertarians'
Left libertarians? To be frank, the left is always best at getting under my skin.
edavismail:I don't expect you to explain everything, but I want to ask you ***why you think the NAP should be upheld?***
I know you didn't mean this question for me, but I'd like to take a stab at answering it. I think the NAP should be upheld because 1) I don't want to be aggressed against, and 2) I think it's hypocritical for me, in that case, to think it's okay for me to aggress against others.
edavismail:The moral basis of civil rights is the same basis for property rights. Property rights are a necessary but not a sufficient basis for upholding a person's rights. The basis for the property rights is that we should respect every person as one who should actively seek happiness.
Disregarding (for the moment) the issue of what you mean by "respect" and "happiness", why is that the basis?
edavismail:The restaurant owner has no right to exercise his property rights in a way that does not respect another person as one who should actively seek happiness. Therefore, in so far as he applies his property in a public accommodation, he has *no moral basis* for forcefully removing a peaceful black person from the restaurant simply because the person is black.
If you're claiming that rights exist objectively (that is, as phenomena), then you're wrong. I challenge you to provide reasoning and/or evidence that rights are necessarily things that we find out in the world.
With that said, I'd like to hear your explanation of what you think does not "respect another person as one who should actively seek happiness", because I really don't know what you mean by that phrase.
By "public accommodation" do you mean "a building or other structure that is open to the public"? If so, that would include any and all businesses, wouldn't it?
There's also the tricky issue of determining whether one is discriminating against another because of the other's racial background (for example) or because he sees the other as being incompetent, unruly, etc. In other words, it's often very difficult to distinguish discrimination based on actions from discrimination based on non-actions.
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Wouldn't you have the same problem with people pursuing their own best interest? Let's assume the restaurant owner is actively seeking his own best interest by only serving white people and a black person walks in the restaurant getting refused service. Should we haul them both off to jail for preventing each other from actively seeking their own best interest?
Every person should respect every person as one who should actively seek happiness. This entails that one should respect oneself as one who should actively seek happiness, according to the principle of individuation; and that one should respect every other as one who should actively seek happiness, according to the principle of liberalization. One should actively seek happiness only because every person should be respected as one who should seek happiness, therefore one should neither define nor bring about one's happiness in a way that does not respect other people as ones who should also actively seek happiness. Stated positively, one should bring about and define one's happiness in a manner that respects other people as ones who should also actively seek happiness, according to the principle of collective individuation: every person should respect every person as one who should actively seek happiness.
p.s. I really wanted to save this for another thread, but the example remains relevant to civil rights, so I guess it's okay.
Eric080:I honestly differ from most libertarians about this. I think racism would have lasted much longer without the Civil Rights Act than with it.
How does fricking government regulation diminish racism? Racism is a disposition, you can't ban it, you can't force people to not be racist. If anything, the constant ethnic-based class warfare has hampered colorblindness.
Gero:Rand Paul had it right. Neither mandatory segregation, nor mandatory association, is appropriate in a free society.”
You don't have to be a libertarian ideologue to understand that one is basically a continuation of the other.
"racism and sexism would be just as prevalent as it was before the act."
This is a loaded question. Racism and sexism should not be illegal. You are free to do what you want with your private property.
How do racism and sexism deprive someone of their life, liberty or property?
edavismail: Wouldn't you have the same problem with people pursuing their own best interest? Let's assume the restaurant owner is actively seeking his own best interest by only serving white people and a black person walks in the restaurant getting refused service. Should we haul them both off to jail for preventing each other from actively seeking their own best interest?
No, but the black person would have to leave if he is not welcomed there. The black person has the same right to discriminate if he was the owner and refused to service whites. NAP serves all people....
you are stuck in this 'happiness philosophy' that wouldnt be consistent if put into practice. Law and rules cannot make people happy. I got you to admit that you like the consistency of the NAP, but it looks like you are actually opposed to the it.
On a further note, you misunderstand individuation because it has nothing to do with happiness.... or atleast that was not what Carl Jung, the originator of the term, thought at all. This deals with accepting yourself, in the sense that one should accept their own characteristics that are hidden by the unconscious mind.
My Blog: http://www.anarchico.net/
Production is 'anarchistic' - Ludwig von Mises
@edavismail
Would it be safe to assume that by "respect" you mean "refrain from interfering with"? So if I respect your seeking of happiness, that means I refrain from interfering with your seeking of happiness? In that case, the issue then becomes what constitues "interference" and what doesn't.
Autolykos: By "public accommodation" do you mean "a building or other structure that is open to the public"? If so, that would include any and all businesses, wouldn't it?
Is there even really such thing as a privately owned "public accommodation"? The terms seems very broad, my house could be a "public accommodation" if I invite some friends over and their friends show up right? But as long as I own property I will always discriminate in regards to who can enter the establishment.
The only public accommodation I can think of is some kind of publicly recognized community/shared space that no single individual really owns. I think Block was talking about this when the whole community mixes its labor with some plot of land it becomes "public" land. Even then, it's still sort of in the hands of the local community and not some kind of "global" domain.
freeradicals:Is there even really such thing as a privately owned "public accommodation"? The terms seems very broad, my house could be a "public accommodation" if I invite some friends over and their friends show up right? But as long as I own property I will always discriminate in regards to who can enter the establishment.
Your example reveals the typically fuzzy nature of the phrase "public accommodations". The only non-fuzzy way to distinguish "public accommodations" from "private accommodations" is to say that the former allow (or have allowed!) any non-owner to enter and the latter don't.
freeradicals:The only public accommodation I can think of is some kind of publicly recognized community/shared space that no single individual really owns. I think Block was talking about this when the whole community mixes its labor with some plot of land it becomes "public" land. Even then, it's still sort of in the hands of the local community and not some kind of "global" domain.
The thing is, what constitutes "the whole community" is also fuzzy, because there's typically no clear line where one community ends and another begins. Communities can also be contained by other, larger communities.
I think what you're talking about is actually joint ownership, which is still a form of private (i.e. exclusive) ownership. And really, when "private" is used in the sense of "exclusive", rather than in the sense of "individual", all ownership is necessarily private.
However, I think that a lot of land might be formally unowned in stateless societies - at least in an individual sense. Instead, a group of individuals may have certain use-rights in a piece of land. Such use-rights would be the equivalent of easements in today's world. The idea is that pre-existing (homesteaded) use-rights could not be legitimately interfered with by anyone else.
Autolykos: I think what you're talking about is actually joint ownership.
I think what you're talking about is actually joint ownership.
Yes, I have a hard time seeing the need for a "public" land, it's either unowned and can be homesteaded or it's owned by someone or some group. Simple. Anytime someone tries to claim you "ought" to serve someone (on the grounds of equality or whatever) they are presupposing a certain level of ownership you have over your own property.
Autolykos,
Yes, you understand me well.
As a preliminary clarification, we can understand happiness as the ongoing attainment of one's needs and desires. Needs can be food, clothing, shelter, and companionship; while desires can be anything from travel to trying out a new food. For a preliminary clarification of respect, we can understand another person in terms of her body, property, and authority. Her body is quite simply that, her corporeality; her property is matter or energy that she has applied toward the ongoing attainment of happiness; her authority is her ability to create original literary or artistic works, to enter and exit relationships, and to give or refrain from consent. We respect another person by acknowledging that her body, property, and authority are meaningfully situated with respect to her ongoing attainment of happiness; that is, they are involved in her ongoing projects. Insofar as we legitimately interact with another person, we maintain her consent with regard to actions involving her body, property, and authority, just as we maintain mutual understanding of them. Rape is an example of the failure to respect another person's body. Theft is an example of the failure to respect another person's property. Forgery—such as "identity theft"—is an example of the failure to respect another person's authority. In all three cases, an illegitimate disturbance of the person's ongoing attainment of happiness takes place; and such a disturbance entails a failure to respect another as one who should actively seek happiness.
I would hope so, but I'm actually not sure that it does.
My use of "public accommodation" is a reference to Title II of the Civil Rights Act. http://citizensource.com/History/20thCen/CRA1964/CRA2.htm
I'm also thinking the feds should investigate American citizens who turn down job offers from (or fail to apply at) minority-owned businesses. Imagine you're of Chinese extraction, live in San Francisco, and own a laundry. Your business is booming, you need additional personnel, So you place an ad in the newspaper. Don't you deserve to receive an equal number of inquiries from all races? What if a Mexican guy who knows everything there is to know about laundry discriminates against you by not applying? It's a good bet he has bad feelings about Chinese people, and he must be punished. We're letting a LOT of discrimination pass when we look only at employers and not at potential employees (which we all are) who outnumber employers at least 100 to 1.
It's actually easier for me to envision a working private system of roads with civil rights than it is without them. For example, in a racist area in a system of private roads, it could well be impossible for a black person to get from one place to another, whereas where civil rights are enforced for the public accommodation of roads this would not be a problem.
<< It's actually easier for me to envision a working private system of roads with civil rights than it is without them. For example, in a racist area in a system of private roads, it could well be impossible for a black person to get from one place to another, whereas where civil rights are enforced for the public accommodation of roads this would not be a problem. >> Wouldn't private roads require the paying of a toll? I work near a privately-owned toll bridge in Detroit, and I've never heard of black folks being denied the opportunity to pay the toll and cross the bridge. (There was a guy who got shot about halfway across, but that's another story.) What worries ME is that people don't go to the right areas when they drive. They tend to discriminate against places they don't like, and against the roads that go to those places. I'm especially suspicious of their REAL reasons for avoiding certain "high crime" neighborhoods and "no decent motel" towns. Anyway, that there's a lot more discrimination out there than most people realize.
Can you explain to me how, in your view, A forcibly removing B from A's property because of a factor presumed to be outside of B's control (e.g. race, gender, sexual orientation) interferes with B's seeking of happiness?
I think your clarification has a problem, namely it doesn't seem to take intertemporality (i.e. timespans) into account. For example, in your view, if I defend myself from someone who I believe is trying to kill me, I'm not respecting that person's seeking of happiness. Of course, he's certainly not respecting my seeking of happiness, but you've provided no way to determine whose seeking of happiness takes priority. However, the other person definitely stopped respecting my seeking of happiness before I stopped respecting his. I think this is an important distinction and part of the basis for the Non-Aggression Principle.
edavismail:I would hope so, but I'm actually not sure that it does. My use of "public accommodation" is a reference to Title II of the Civil Rights Act. http://citizensource.com/History/20thCen/CRA1964/CRA2.htm
"Serves the public" in Title II seems to mean the same thing as "is open to the public" in my post. Although there are qualifications to this in Title II, that of "affecting commerce" seems to provide no distinction at all - as far as I can tell, any establishment that serves the public can be said to "affect commerce".
<< "Serves the public" in Title II seems to mean the same thing as "is open to the public" in my post. Although there are qualifications to this in Title II, that of "affecting commerce" seems to provide no distinction at all - as far as I can tell, any establishment that serves the public can be said to "affect commerce". >>
Congress included the wording about commerce only because they were using the "commerce clause" as an excuse to force their will on citizens who were simply minding their own business.
Nobody should be forced to "serve the public" any further than he intended to when he made himself available for business transactions, and he should have the freedom to decline further business at any time. There's no reason to take his service of one person as a promise to serve the next. For example, my selling of one car (such as my own) to another person shouldn't obligate me to sell cars for the rest of my life to everyone who comes to my house and demands one.
Thanks for your post.
Autolykos: Can you explain to me how, in your view, A forcibly removing B from A's property because of a factor presumed to be outside of B's control (e.g. race, gender, sexual orientation) interferes with B's seeking of happiness?
Imagine A owns a toll road, which is now suddenly open to whites but not to blacks because A has decided he is a racist, and the road is the only way for B --who is black--to get home. It is obvious that this--in a racist, arbitrary way--interferes with B's peaceful seeking of happiness. It is a different matter if A refuses passage because B won't pay the toll, because the toll is a legitimate--non-racist--consent condition for B's passage through A's property. This is a legitimate constraint on B because B must respect A as one who should actively seek happiness.
Autolykos: I think your clarification has a problem, namely it doesn't seem to take intertemporality (i.e. timespans) into account. For example, in your view, if I defend myself from someone who I believe is trying to kill me, I'm not respecting that person's seeking of happiness. Of course, he's certainly not respecting my seeking of happiness, but you've provided no way to determine whose seeking of happiness takes priority. However, the other person definitely stopped respecting my seeking of happiness before I stopped respecting his. I think this is an important distinction and part of the basis for the Non-Aggression Principle.
I definitely believe in self-defense, and that it is compatible with what i've said thus far. Non-distorted interaction is preferable to the confusion the applies once intervention in another's property, body, or authority take place. Nevertheless, I believe that one can defend one's body, property, and authority against interventions that are against one's consent where one is defending respect for oneself as one who should actively seek happiness (in a way that respects others as one's who should seek happiness). The principle of collective individuation is recursive: one should respect every person as one who should actively seek happiness (in a way that respects others as ones who should seek happiness (in a way that respects others . . . At the same time, I think it's impossible to defend oneself on the basis of this principle where one is being a racist with regard to providing public accommodations.
it is against homesteading principle for someone to block someone elses property, especially if B was there first. second, if B bought property knowing that A has a road that surrounds the property, well then B must be stupid to have bought the property
Izzy: it is against homesteading principle for someone to block someone elses property, especially if B was there first.
it is against homesteading principle for someone to block someone elses property, especially if B was there first.
It's perfectly possible for all surrounding landowners to refuse passage, regardless of the homesteading principle. B may well be stupid, but need not be; one of the owners may have a radical change of mind or may have transferred ownership to somone with differing views.
Why should a citizen be required to provide what you call “public accommodations” when perhaps he prefers to provide a service to only a limited and select group of people? Do you think Women’s Workout World and Curves should be required by law to accommodate men? A citizen should not be forced into making his property any more “public” than he wants it to be. I should have the freedom to serve only Japanese midgets, if I notice that particular market is under served. Japanese midgets will benefit, I might benefit, and nobody else be worse off than before I opened my business.
well, real estate would be different in a free society. Because not only must agree with the contract for his/her property, but he/she must take in consideration the surrounding roads. As I said before, it would be really dumb for A to buy a piece of property if A knew that the surrounding roads would not allow A to the property. So an agreement should be made between A and the people owning the private roads . So to take your first point here, the owner randomly just changes his mind about A, then he/she would be breaching a contract or agreement. Even if he/she transfers ownership to someone else, the company as a whole would still be the same and the contract would still stand.
But then lets say that the private road company got bought out buy another company that refuses to provide services to A. Well, nevertheless, an agreement has to be made because A would be has to access his/her property.
This explanation is pretty vague but here are a few pages that you should look at that deals with this "blockade" problem:
http://mises.org/books/roads_web.pdf page 283
Dustin Jussila: Many modern liberals will claim the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended discrimination against women and minorities and without it, racism and sexism would be just as prevalent as it was before the act. They also hold the Civil Rights Act as burden of proof in that large, federal regulation can be a positive thing. Where are they wrong? I would say prejudice still exists. I f-ing hate driving behind women; any woman! Especially older, Asian women because I really feel they are the worst drivers. What can I say? It's a heuristic from experience. Can't argue with that, right? I have racial stances to a degree and I'm really hard on stupid sheep that don't have a freaking clue in life when it comes to having a reasonable discussion. I suppose there I discriminate b/c I do treat them with less respect than someone who actually thinks for himself. However, I'm not racist. All these Jesse Jackson a$$holes make you think that if you even think a bad thought about some black dude who cut you off in traffic for one second you're a racist and owe him $$$. To hell with that! I don't owe him $hit. Without racism, prejudice, hardship, obstacles, et cetera, life would be so boring. I believe that racism as I define it is bad; basically, treating someone negatively based on his race without giving him a fair chance to prove himself. In my driving scenario, I don't treat the old, Asian lady any differently than any other driver, but I might be absolutely annoyed, judgmental and skeptical as to how well she can drive. I might go around her rather than bothering to give her a chance to go faster than 5 below the speed limit, but I'm not mistreating her at all. So many people are so afraid to have opinions of anyone other than white people. It's getting to be so pathetic because generation after generation gets more and more "let's walk on eggshells" about it. If some black guy pisses me off, guess what: I'm pissed off at a black guy. Does that make me racist? Hell no. It makes me pissed off at a black guy! Now let's say I met some black guy and treated him negatively based on his race by talking down to him, being rude, not giving him a job he's the best candidate for, et cetera...then that's certainly racist behavior. Something a lot of people don't know is that when you have friends of all races, you realize how natural it is to bring up other people's races. I can talk about black people with my black friends, spanish people with my spanish friends and so forth, and it's nowhere near being tense, certainly not tense like Reverand Jesse Jackass or Al Not-So-Sharpton would have you believe. In answer to your question, I think it helped more than it hurt. I think it's unfortunate that the people who call themselves "the black community" are different than the real black community and take things wayyyyy too far, wanting reparations and other socialist endeavors. But the movement itself seems to me to have started with a pure intention: to give equal rights to everyone. Can't say I disagree with that there. Now the offshoot of wanting things handed to people left and right due to their "hardships" (a.k.a., being born any race other than white) is the most pathetic, laughable thing I've had a chance to witness in my years. "Is life so dear or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" -Patrick Henry | Post Points: 5
Many modern liberals will claim the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended discrimination against women and minorities and without it, racism and sexism would be just as prevalent as it was before the act. They also hold the Civil Rights Act as burden of proof in that large, federal regulation can be a positive thing. Where are they wrong?
I would say prejudice still exists. I f-ing hate driving behind women; any woman! Especially older, Asian women because I really feel they are the worst drivers. What can I say? It's a heuristic from experience. Can't argue with that, right?
I have racial stances to a degree and I'm really hard on stupid sheep that don't have a freaking clue in life when it comes to having a reasonable discussion. I suppose there I discriminate b/c I do treat them with less respect than someone who actually thinks for himself. However, I'm not racist. All these Jesse Jackson a$$holes make you think that if you even think a bad thought about some black dude who cut you off in traffic for one second you're a racist and owe him $$$. To hell with that! I don't owe him $hit.
Without racism, prejudice, hardship, obstacles, et cetera, life would be so boring. I believe that racism as I define it is bad; basically, treating someone negatively based on his race without giving him a fair chance to prove himself. In my driving scenario, I don't treat the old, Asian lady any differently than any other driver, but I might be absolutely annoyed, judgmental and skeptical as to how well she can drive. I might go around her rather than bothering to give her a chance to go faster than 5 below the speed limit, but I'm not mistreating her at all.
So many people are so afraid to have opinions of anyone other than white people. It's getting to be so pathetic because generation after generation gets more and more "let's walk on eggshells" about it. If some black guy pisses me off, guess what: I'm pissed off at a black guy. Does that make me racist? Hell no. It makes me pissed off at a black guy!
Now let's say I met some black guy and treated him negatively based on his race by talking down to him, being rude, not giving him a job he's the best candidate for, et cetera...then that's certainly racist behavior. Something a lot of people don't know is that when you have friends of all races, you realize how natural it is to bring up other people's races. I can talk about black people with my black friends, spanish people with my spanish friends and so forth, and it's nowhere near being tense, certainly not tense like Reverand Jesse Jackass or Al Not-So-Sharpton would have you believe.
In answer to your question, I think it helped more than it hurt. I think it's unfortunate that the people who call themselves "the black community" are different than the real black community and take things wayyyyy too far, wanting reparations and other socialist endeavors. But the movement itself seems to me to have started with a pure intention: to give equal rights to everyone. Can't say I disagree with that there.
Now the offshoot of wanting things handed to people left and right due to their "hardships" (a.k.a., being born any race other than white) is the most pathetic, laughable thing I've had a chance to witness in my years.
"Is life so dear or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" -Patrick Henry
Isaac,
Thanks for the reference to the Block book.
When addressing an issue like the privatization of roads, I can't help feeling that common law--and much of current law that emerged from it, does a decent job in most cases of handling "implicit" contracts--that is, of addressing the background assumptions that enter into any contract. I know that many libertarians want to make these rules rational and explicit in a practical way, but then there is the issue of transaction costs and perfect foresight. It seems that a purely envisioned anarcho-capitalist world without a well-developed system of law would involve such elaborate contracts as to exceed the forsight of the average legal "reasonable" person; it is in that respect, a practical absurdity. It seems natural to me that some of this foresight has been and would be absorbed by the courts and underlying legal framework in a sort of efficient sorting out of transaction costs. To the degree that a legal system gains autonomy, it will necessarily depart from explicit rationalization. This is my Hayekian bias, I guess, at least with respect to common law, although Hayek himself wouldn't likely have made the point in terms of transaction costs.
In short, common law would grant B, the victim of the blockade, some sort of easement, and that would be the end of it; naturally, this presupposes that B would somehow gain access to the courts. Though I am far from advocating the status quo, the lack of problems along these lines does give me some respect for the existing order of things.
RBrown: Nobody should be forced to "serve the public" any further than he intended to when he made himself available for business transactions, and he should have the freedom to decline further business at any time. There's no reason to take his service of one person as a promise to serve the next. For example, my selling of one car (such as my own) to another person shouldn't obligate me to sell cars for the rest of my life to everyone who comes to my house and demands one.
Have there been any cases where someone was forced to remain open for business?
I think that the wording of Title II could be better and more circumscribed, and it's good to be vigilant about its interpretations.
Mainly, I think the clause states that *in so far as one is open for business* one cannot refuse service on the basis of race or gender.
edavismail:Thanks for your post. Imagine A owns a toll road, which is now suddenly open to whites but not to blacks because A has decided he is a racist, and the road is the only way for B --who is black--to get home. It is obvious that this--in a racist, arbitrary way--interferes with B's peaceful seeking of happiness. It is a different matter if A refuses passage because B won't pay the toll, because the toll is a legitimate--non-racist--consent condition for B's passage through A's property. This is a legitimate constraint on B because B must respect A as one who should actively seek happiness.
First off, I have to question your assertion that the road is the only way for B to get home. If you mean that's the only way for B to get home using his car, that's fine, but who says he has to use his car? He can walk, can't he? (Please don't change the scenario to make B a paraplegic.)
Second, the distinction between racist consent conditions as illegitimate and non-racist consent conditions as legitimate seems completely arbitrary to me. What if B is white but too poor to pay the toll? B's peaceful seeking of happiness would then appear to be interfered with just as much as in your example.
edavismail:I definitely believe in self-defense, and that it is compatible with what i've said thus far. Non-distorted interaction is preferable to the confusion [that] applies once intervention in another's property, body, or authority take place. Nevertheless, I believe that one can defend one's body, property, and authority against interventions that are against one's consent where one is defending respect for oneself as one who should actively seek happiness (in a way that respects others as one's who should seek happiness). The principle of collective individuation is recursive: one should respect every person as one who should actively seek happiness (in a way that respects others as ones who should seek happiness (in a way that respects others . . .[))] At the same time, I think it's impossible to defend oneself on the basis of this principle where one is being a racist with regard to providing public accommodations.
Your statements here still make no distinction between my would-be murderer's seeking of happiness (which for him means killing me) and my own seeking of happiness (which for me means keeping him from killing me and thus staying alive). By your reasoning, as far as I can tell, if I kill or even injure my would-be murderer in self-defense, I have interfered with his seeking of happiness and have thus acted morally wrong.
Do you make any consideration for which interference happened first?
Autolykos: Do you make any consideration for which interference happened first?
Yes.
One should actively seek happiness only because every person should be respected as one who should seek happiness, therefore one should neither define nor bring about one's happiness in a way that does not respect other people as ones who should also actively seek happiness.
I say if a guy owns a road, he is not mandated to give anyone priority to use it. He can discriminate all he wants. He could certainly prevent black people from using it simply because he doesn't like the color of his skin. I don't see the big issue.
I wasn't allowed to get a minority scholarship in college because I'm white, and I wouldn't have been admitted into Bethune Cookman College. Do I care? No, b/c they can discriminate all they want.
Revin Jesse Jackass and Al not-so-Sharpton would hate a true capitalist society. Those damn idiots need their own Civil Rights island as far as I'm concerned. I say drop them in the Middle East and see how quickly they are assimilated into the "open, welcoming culture" that has "contributed" so much to America.
edavismail: Do you make any consideration for which interference happened first? Yes. One should actively seek happiness only because every person should be respected as one who should seek happiness, therefore one should neither define nor bring about one's happiness in a way that does not respect other people as ones who should also actively seek happiness.
Do you mean one should neither define nor bring about his own happiness in such a way? However, you don't say anything about what you think is morally right to do when a person violates this directive. Also, I don't see how this actually addresses situations where two or more people have done so, albeit at different points in time with respect to one another.
Autolykos: Do you mean one should neither define nor bring about his own happiness in such a way? However, you don't say anything about what you think is morally right to do when a person violates this directive. Also, I don't see how this actually addresses situations where two or more people have done so, albeit at different points in time with respect to one another.
I see these issues broadly in terms of justice, defense, and forgiveness.
The sense of justice consistent with the principle of collective individuation is forward-looking and restorative. When someone suffers an illegitimate disturbance, justice involves providing reparations for damage done. Where Crusoe has destroyed Friday's shelter, it is only just that Crusoe rebuild Friday's shelter or provide the means to do so. The matter becomes more difficult when addressing rape or murder. Here any attempt at reparation will seem inherently deficient, though nevertheless necessary.
This points to another role of justice, which is defensive. Because one should respect oneself as one who should actively seek happiness, one can justly defend oneself against interventions within one's body, property, or authority that are against one's consent. Where someone has demonstrated behavior that threatens or brings about disturbance of another's body, property, and authority against this other's consent, or where persons have reason to expect that this someone may demonstrate such behavior again, then such persons can justly restrict the person from demonstrating such behavior.
Forgiveness is an alternative way of addressing interventions within one's authority, body, and property that are against one's consent. One may forgive another for such interventions, however, others may wish to incarcerate or otherwise hinder the perpetrator from making further transgressions.
On a practical level, I'm fond of common law and the ways in which it has addressed many of these problems. I believe that a system of judge-made law with an elaborate set of precedents will emerge where a society upholds the principle of liberalization.
I appreciate your elaboration here, but with all due respect, I still don't think you've addressed my point. In my hypothetical example of defending myself from my would-be murderer, both people involved are (by your reasoning) intervening with each other's body, property, or authority against his consent. So by your reasoning, the murderer is morally justified in defending himself from me once I start to defend myself from him. Again, the issue of whose rights take precedence - whose non-consensual intervention is justified - is left unresolved. From what you've presented so far, the only logically consistent application of your philosophy would be complete pacifism.
edavismail,
Well I understand the concern and solutions from privatization is just speculation, no one is saying that is what is going to happen but thats how the markets works, one can only speculate the market. Hayek, himself, thought that there needed to be a state in certain situations but his framework can imply otherwise, ever heard of the term Hayekian anarchist? I would suggest looking up Steve Horwitz, if you are interested in that topic.
To me, the privatization of roads is not a radical idea if one truly believes in the market. Why is it consistent to say the market is efficient, except in some cases ( such as roads)? The main thing that Capitalism has taught me is that free market solutions are far more productive and efficient than statist/socialist solutions. The main difference between the mainstream 'free marketeer' and free marketeers that call for privatization is that the former picks and chooses on which services the market can provide and feel that there needs to be some anti-market institution in deal with services that they feel cant be provided by the market, while the latter does not even pick and choose which services because they advocate that all services may be provided via market. In one form or another, the mainstream 'free marketeer' comes in contradiction when he/she calls for free market solutions and bashes socialist solution and then advocates anti-market solutions, such as socialized roads, schools, court, etc.
So by your reasoning, the murderer is morally justified in defending himself from me once I start to defend myself from him.
I'm not sure where the disconnect is. The murderer is not respecting you as one who should actively seek happiness, therefore he is not actively seeking happiness in a way that respects another as one who should seek happiness, and his "happiness" cannot be defined in a non-distorted or uncompromised way. Also, since you respect yourself as one who should actively seek happiness, you can defend and secure your property, body, and authority from interventions which are against your consent. One of the goals of justice, defense, and forgiveness is to restore clarity in our relations of body, property, and authority. The ideal social-systemic condition involves collective individuation free from illegitimate disturbance.
http://mises.org/Community/forums/p/24094/414485.aspx#414485
I think what you're getting at in a way, in everyday language, is that even the criminal has certain rights, that it's wrong to use excessive force, etc.