No, we already have claims... incompatible claims... that's the problem. What we (humans) need is a principle or set of principles for determining which claims are legitimate and which claims are not legitimate.
Legitimacy is in the eye of the beholder. A Marxist may consider the apple to be nobody's legitimate property. The point I am making is that we all make claims to our property. It is a necessary condition of property. The next step is that people can either respect or violate those claims. Libertarians claim that the first user is typically (or always, depends on the libertarian) the rightful owner. So the question is why do libertarians believe that? Certainly there are libertarians who just accept homesteading as a founding principle for its own sake, and then they separately accept the NAP as another, and estoppel as yet another. But there is no link here other than the fact that the holder of these beliefs happens to believe them.
The link between these beliefs is reciprocity. I make a claim, and if it's a reasonable claim, I expect you to respect it. For example, if I claim all of North America as mine or I claim it on behalf of some government somewhere, we don't consider that to be reasonable. But if I were to build a house on unclaimed land, we would recognize that as reasonable. I expect you to respect my reasonable claim, and you expect me to show you the same respect.
Many cultures throughout the millenia have had this as some sort of important principle. Of course, many of these same cultures didn't agree as to who the principle applied to. Libertarians say this principle applies to everyone. Regardless, when you apply the ethic of reciprocity, you get people to agree to respect other's claims of first use. Second use is just not a claim anyone (except a thief) can respect.
At this point in this dispute though, things are symmetrical. If you go ahead and say 'Graham, it's my apple and you have no right to steal it from me' then you are as guilty of a "contradiction" as I am.
No, I have already made a claim to the apple. I can explicitly claim it by stating, "Graham, I claim this as my apple." I can implicitly claim it through my actions of using it. We don't need to go further into norms here, I think.
So you have a choice, you can either respect my claim or violate it. It's your choice to do either one. But if you violate that claim, then you and I have a dispute, and if we follow reciprocity, then I have no reason to respect your claim either.
I don't think so. My understanding is that estoppel is a principle used by Kinsella for determining what kinds of retaliatory actions constitute defense and which ones go further and become a new act of aggression. It doesn't try to justify libertarianism in the first place.
Estoppel is a legal principle that Kinsella found intriguing and just, and he has promoted it as an important libertarian principle. Notice in the very first sentence wikipedia mentions the legal concept of equity? Estoppel originated through the concept of equity, which is in turned tied to reciprocity. I skip the whole common law history in my explanation and go straight to the heart of the issue. Estoppel is about preventing people in a legal setting from making claims contradictory to their previous claims or actions. If you steal from me, and I go to take it back, you can't call my actions theft in a court of law.
This is all pyschology though, not political philosophy. Yes, libertarianism feels 'intuitively' the most ethical system to us and many people, and there are good reasons in evolutionary psychology why that would be the case. But this is not what we're really talking about. You and I are 'rationalists' in that we're seeking to build a sound intellectual foundation for a grand edifice. This is an intellectual discussion about what sits at the very bottom of that edifice: the starting point, the first principle in our grand theory of social relations. It's not relevant here to bring up arguments from psychology about why people do (or do not) intuitively agree with (at least most of) the edifice.
Very little, if any, of that is psychology. It is an explanation of the ethic of reciprocity and its implications. I do not claim to know why the vast majority of people prefer voluntary and peaceful interactions. I do not claim to know why cultures have placed an importance on the golden rule. I imagine it has to do with evolution and social humans passing on their genes better than ones that act alone, but I do not actually know this to be true. I strongly suspect that it is true.
I am claiming that the vast majority of people do prefer voluntary and peaceful interactions. But that is not psychology. If anything, reasoning out those implications would fall under praxeology, but since I am making ethical claims, it cannot be praxeology. Regardless, I am reasoning out the implications of the golden rule, and they lead to principles such as homesteading, estoppel, proportional punishment, etc. The golden rule is my starting point. It does not have to be yours. Feel free to accept whatever axioms you want as the basis for your philosophy.
The NAP is the golden rule. From it, I can reason out the implications to homesteading, etc. So when Rothbard claims that the NAP is the foundation of libertarianism, I believe him. But if you do not have the same attraction to the NAP/golden rule that I do, then you must accept homesteading, estoppel, NAP, proportional justice, etc. as separate axioms. That is fine. But I do add that I think the reason you accept them is because of a typical human attraction to the ethic of reciprocity. Perhaps I am wrong, and I should not use pyschology in that one respect. Perhaps you just accept all these axioms separately.
I don't.
@Graham
When I say, "Feel free....your philosophy." I am not saying that you aren't libertarian, so I hope you don't read it that way. It's meant to be a sentence that can apply to libertarians and non-libertarians.
The NAP is the golden rule. From it, I can reason out the implications to homesteading, etc.
If you can, do.
I have. As you have stated in the other thread, you do not subscribe to the NAP. You do not even hold the same definition of "aggression". Nor do you use the word "minarchist" as others do. To be honest, I have no idea what you are saying, as your words could mean anything.
I'm not really sure what you get out of talking with me.
I have. As you have stated in the other thread, you do not subscribe to the NAP.
I most certainly do subscribe to the NAP, please provide the quote where I say otherwise.
You do not even hold the same definition of "aggression".
Really? What's my definition and how does it differ from the norm?
Nor do you use the word "minarchist" as others do.
That's true, but I explained that in my very first post on this forum many months ago, and there's a standing explanation in my account profile for anyone to see.
To be honest, I have no idea what you are saying, as your words could mean anything.
Anything? Huh....
The same I get out of talking with everyone here, an opportunity to learn, sharpen my reasoning skills, and have my own ideas subjected to rational criticism and thereby improved.
...I don't know why you're getting angry. You claimed you could derive the homesteading principle from the NAP, and I asked you to do so. What's wrong with that? Would you prefer if we all just took your word for it?
Minarchist: I most certainly do subscribe to the NAP, please provide the quote where I say otherwise.
Minarchist: Really? What's my definition and how does it differ from the norm?
Minarchist: That's true, but I explained that in my very first post on this forum many months ago, and there's a standing explanation in my account profile for anyone to see.
From this conversation. For anyone who cares, Minarchist claims to subscribe to the NAP, but he does not subscribe to the standard version as stated by Rothbard or Block. He has his own principle that he also calls the NAP. It's the same with aggression and other terms.
Minarchist: The same I get out of talking with everyone here, an opportunity to learn, sharpen my reasoning skills, and have my own ideas subjected to rational criticism and thereby improved. ...I don't know why you're getting angry. You claimed you could derive the homesteading principle from the NAP, and I asked you to do so. What's wrong with that? Would you prefer if we all just took your word for it?
Well, I just simply don't believe you. I am not angry, but I just don't really find much value in engaging you on these subjects anymore. I have numerous times demonstrated how one can reason to these other principles from the golden rule. The fact of the matter is that you do not accept the golden rule as your premise. But that doesn't change the fact that estoppel, for example, comes from the ethic of reciprocity. I mean, come on, its very history comes from the common law concept of equity, and it doesn't get much more reciprocal than that.
So, you've gotten me to respond to you again, but fortunately I haven't actually engaged you in any meaningful debate in this post, so your antics will only get you so far.
I don't believe you are acting honestly, and until you convince me otherwise, I don't think I'm going to think otherwise. You can either care or not care what I think. If you care what I think, then I guess you'll have to convince me that you are behaving honestly. But if you don't care, then naturally you will stop with this nonsense.
I'll say again, the Rothbard quote you're so fond of, gotlucky, presupposes an existing definition of property. NAP is the foundation of a great deal, but you have not established that it is the foundation of a DEFINITION OF PROPERTY.
Also by referring back to a Golden Rule, you suggest that common practice is an effective argument in favor of NAP as an axiom. That may be so, but it undermines your point. The reason you have set yourself up for this problem is that you fail to recognize the definition of property as necessarily prior to NAP. You had to look elsewhere, and in doing so you argued against your own argument.
You're clearly emotionally attached to the NAP. That's great, but it's not logic.
With all due respect, you have no idea what you are talking about. Perhaps you would like to state what the golden rule even is and what it's relationship is to the NAP?
That's YOUR preoccupation, not mine. I don't even think it pertains to the discussion at hand.
The fundamental axiom of libertarian theory is that no one may threaten or commit violence ("aggress") against another man's person or property. Violence may be employed only against the man who commits such violence; that is, only defensively against the aggressive violence of another. In short, no violence may be employed against a non-aggressor. Here is the fundamental rule from which can be deduced the entire corpus of libertarian theory.
Here we go. Right there in your very own quote. Emphasis mine. I don't find your "due respect" all that respectful, either.
Well, that's your problem I guess, not mine. I meant it, as we have been having a nice conversation in another thread. But here, you have demonstrated that you do not even know what the golden rule is. So, I have asked you to demonstrate that you have knowledge of what is being discussed. I will give you some easy links to read:
Golden Rule/Ethic of Reciprocity
NAP/History
The NAP is the golden rule. "Do not aggress" "Eye for an eye" "Love thy neighbor as thyself" "Respect me and what's mine, and I'll respect you and what's yours"
These are all various ways of stating the ethic of reciprocity, which the NAP falls under. The NAP is specifically meant for the realm of law, but the golden rule even allows for this too. If you insult me, reciprocation would not mean hitting you, it would be insulting you back. But if I hit you, then I would be going beyond reciprocity. Then the law is involved, unless of course you are in a statutory law system where you can be arrested for things you said. But I should hope that any libertarian would recognize that as a violation of the NAP.
The problem here is that you are fixated on the NAP, and you are not looking at the ethic of reciprocity. "Respect me and what's mine, and I'll respect you and what's yours." This is the origin of property. If I make a claim to own something, you can either respect it or not. If you do not, then we have a dispute, and then we must settle it. But it starts with me making a claim to own something - that it belongs to me and not you. That claim has to start somewhere.
But there is not much for us to discuss if you won't even bother to learn about what is being discussed before making accusations of failed logic. You are just throwing darts in the dark.
From this conversation.
What in that conversation indicates that I reject the NAP in its normal formulation?
I stated that the NAP is not the foundation of libertarianism. I did not say I reject the NAP.
For anyone who cares, Minarchist claims to subscribe to the NAP, but he does not subscribe to the standard version as stated by Rothbard or Block.
That is false, I subscribe to the normal formulation of the NAP. I do differ with Rothbard on the question of inalienability, as does Block.
He has his own principle that he also calls the NAP. It's the same with aggression and other terms.
Is it? Why don't you tell me what I call the NAP? And what I call aggression? I use both those terms in the same way as you and everyone else.
I have numerous times demonstrated how one can reason to these other principles from the golden rule.
No, you have not. You have argued that all libertarian ethics has its historical roots in the ethic of reciprocity, but as Graham pointed out above, the history of the ideas has nothing to do with their logical relationships to one another.
The fact of the matter is that you do not accept the golden rule as your premise. But that doesn't change the fact that estoppel, for example, comes from the ethic of reciprocity. I mean, come on, its very history comes from the common law concept of equity, and it doesn't get much more reciprocal than that.
Again, talk about the history of these ideas has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not one can derive the homesteading principle from the NAP.
So, you've gotten me to respond to you again, but fortunately I haven't actually engaged you in any meaningful debate in this post, so your antics will only get you so far. I don't believe you are acting honestly and until you convince me otherwise, I don't think I'm going to think otherwise. You can either care or not care what I think. If you care what I think, then I guess you'll have to convince me that you are behaving honestly. But if you don't care, then naturally you will stop with this nonsense.
So when I ask you to substantiate your claim that it is possible to derive the homesteading principle from the NAP, I'm engaged in nonsensical, dishonest antics? Uh huh. And clearly the only sensible, honest and serious thing for you to do is to start making baseless and completely irrelevant claims about my views on the NAP et al, in an effort to paint me as a non-libertarian? Uh huh.
Minarchist,
I believe this just may be my last post to you ever. You can quote me on this if I fail to live up to this claim. If anyone read through the conversation that ended with the link I posted, anyone can see that your definition did not line up with either Block's or Rothbard's. Specifically, you cut out the initiation of violence to the person. You also define aggression differently than Rothbard or Block.
Feel free to read through that conversation again. It is stated explicitly for anyone who cares to wade through that bullshit conversation between us.
I do not need to repost quotes from that thread in order to prove you wrong, as the quotes are already in that thread. I am not going to derail this thread any further by wasting my time with you. If you continue to lie about me and these "false" accusations, as they are not false, then I am just going to start reporting your posts to the moderators.
There is no need for this level of dishonesty on the forums.
You DO have a definition of property, which you state is dependent upon NAP but is not. You're saying that "things that I assert as my property are my property" and that's a definition, sure, but it isn't explicit in NAP.
It's still a definition WHICH YOU NEEDED IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND NAP.
Note too that it is different from others' definitions, leading to the obvious conclusion that the exact terms of the definition of property are not a requirement of NAP in and of itself.
gotlucky:No, we already have claims... incompatible claims... that's the problem. What we (humans) need is a principle or set of principles for determining which claims are legitimate and which claims are not legitimate. Legitimacy is in the eye of the beholder. A Marxist may consider the apple to be nobody's legitimate property.
That would be a misuse of language by the Marxist. Marxists advocate a specific set of principles for determining ownership. I believe those principles basically amount to: everything belongs to the state. They cannot help but specify owners and ownership principles. Anyone who has an opinion about what constitutes just use of scarce resources is necessarily supporting a particular set of principles for ownership, whether they recognise it or not. All that means is that they have an opinion about who should make decisions about what, i.e. who should own what.
The point I am making is that we all make claims to our property. It is a necessary condition of property. The next step is that people can either respect or violate those claims. Libertarians claim that the first user is typically (or always, depends on the libertarian) the rightful owner. So the question is why do libertarians believe that?
OK, well that's not the question I'm answering. I'm addressing the OP's question about whether the NAP rests on a more fundamental concept and whether there is actually a circularity involved somewhere. I'm saying it does, and there isn't.
It doesn't matter who is first to claim it. It is the first person to establish an objective and intersubjectively ascertainable link that matters, because we call that person the homesteader and consider him the legitimate owner of the scarce good which was previously unowned.
Well if I respect your claim then there's no problem to be solved. If I don't respect your claim, you can choose to not respect my claim either and we'll be at a state of war with each other. Ownership - the whole subject of political philosophy - only matters when there is such a state of war between individuals. If we all just got along, there'd be no disputes to resolve, and no political philosophy at all.
Talking about why we seem to just get along most of the time is either history or psychology. Political philosophy only comes into play when we don't get along, so what you're talking about is one step removed from what I'm talking about, and what I think the OP was talking about.
I am reasoning out the implications of the golden rule, and they lead to principles such as homesteading, estoppel, proportional punishment, etc. The golden rule is my starting point. It does not have to be yours. Feel free to accept whatever axioms you want as the basis for your philosophy. The NAP is the golden rule. From it, I can reason out the implications to homesteading, etc. So when Rothbard claims that the NAP is the foundation of libertarianism, I believe him. But if you do not have the same attraction to the NAP/golden rule that I do, then you must accept homesteading, estoppel, NAP, proportional justice, etc. as separate axioms. That is fine. But I do add that I think the reason you accept them is because of a typical human attraction to the ethic of reciprocity. Perhaps I am wrong, and I should not use pyschology in that one respect. Perhaps you just accept all these axioms separately. I don't.
If the Golden Rule and the NAP are the same thing, why did you even bring up the Golden Rule? The NAP has a much more precise meaning than the Golden Rule. There are dozens of ways of phrasing the Golden Rule. You used the word "respect". Now here you're saying effectively that "respect", to you, means "don't aggress", i.e. "don't initiate coercion".
So you're saying you can reason from the NAP to the homesteading principle? Please outline how or point me to somewhere you have done that.
Government Explained 2: The Special Piece of Paper
Law without Government
This is tiring. I have not said this. I specifically talked about claims. Property is a legal concept. There is no property on a one man island. You are still fixated on the NAP, when the crux of the issue is the ethic of reciprocity. You are going to have to undertand this if you want to get anywhere.
Yup, fixated on the NAP. Perhaps if you bothered to read the chart I linked to, you would see the progression of the ancient form of the golden rule to the modern libertarian form of the NAP.
But that would require work on your end.
Definitions of what? NAP or property?
You also define aggression differently than Rothbard or Block.
I define aggression in exactly the same way as Block: namely, as a violation of property rights. No, the quote you've posted repeatedly where Block defines aggression as a violation of property or person does not speak to the contrary - because Block views the body as (alienable) property. Again, see the following:
http://mises.org/journals/jls/17_2/17_2_3.pdf
you cut out the initiation of violence to the person.
I believe that violence to the person is aggression insofar as it constitutes a property rights violation of the owner of the body, which is always the person whose body it is, unless that person entered into voluntary slavery.
You believe that violence to the person is aggression per se, regardless of who owns the body in question.
In other words, our disagreement is all about the case of voluntary slavery. If VS were not an issue, we would have exactly the same definition of aggression.
....and I'm going to ignore all the rest of what you said, and any additional hostile nonsense you spew in the future.
Graham Wright: That would be a misuse of language by the Marxist. Marxists advocate a specific set of principles for determining ownership. I believe those principles basically amount to: everything belongs to the state. They cannot help but specify owners and ownership principles. Anyone who has an opinion about what constitutes just use of scarce resources is necessarily supporting a particular set of principles for ownership, whether they recognise it or not. All that means is that they have an opinion about who should make decisions about what, i.e. who should own what.
I was using the term Marxist somewhat loosely, as there are Marxists/communists who do not believe in a state. I don't care to delve too deeply into that matter as Marxism/communism is so contradictory that we'll get nowhere as to who believes what. The point I am making is that not everyone has the same concept of legitimacy.
The NAP is circular only insofar as it is an axiom. It is not a conclusion but a premise. Rothbard tried to use natural law to reason his way to the NAP, but I do not agree with that, namely for the is-ought problem. I recognize that I accept the NAP as a premise for no other reason than the fact that I do. But it seemed to me that the OP was claiming that the NAP had other circular problems within it, and I reject that claim.
Obviously, you take other premises in order to reach your philosophy of libertarianism. But for me, and people like Rothbard, I start with the NAP/ethic of reciprocity. In the end we probably agree on most everything seeing as we are both libertarians. I just don't take all these axioms as unconnected principles that we just happen to agree upon by coincidence.
Well, this is the problem of objective links. Why first use and not second use? There must be a reason that you prefer first use to second use? I know why I do. But I'm curious, do you have a reason other than you do?
Well if I respect your claim then there's no problem to be solved. If I don't respect your claim, you can choose to not respect my claim either and we'll be at a state of war with each other. Ownership - the whole subject of political philosophy - only matters when there is such a state of war between individuals. If we all just got along, there'd be no disputes to resolve, and no political philosophy at all. Talking about why we seem to just get along most of the time is either history or psychology. Political philosophy only comes into play when we don't get along, so what you're talking about is one step removed from what I'm talking about, and what I think the OP was talking about.
To be honest, this seems a little strange coming from you. I don't want that to sound like I'm insulting you, because I'm not. It's just that you are missing the whole dispute resolution aspect of the equation. Just because there is a dispute does not mean that we must be at a state of war with each other. This is what law is for. Law will exist with or without political philosophy.
Are you familiar with the term respect?
Verb respect (third-person singular simple present respects, present participle respecting, simple past and past participle respected) to have respect for. She is an intellectual giant, and I respect her greatly. to have regard for something, to observe a custom, practice, rule or right I respect your right to hold this belief although I think it is nonsense. to abide by an agreement. They failed to respect the treaty they had signed, and invaded. (transitive, dated except in "respecting") To relate to; to be concerned with. Glandulation respects the secretory vessels, which are either glandules, follicles, or utricles. — J. Lee.
respect (third-person singular simple present respects, present participle respecting, simple past and past participle respected)
I could have used the word violate, which has an opposite meaning in terms of law. I could have said, "Do not violate me or what is mine, and I won't violate you or what is yours." I preferred the sound of the positive form rather than the negative form. But they mean the same thing.
I did earlier in the thread, but I'll do it again quickly here:
I pick an apple that has fallen from a tree. I have used it first. I claim it to be mine, explicitly or implicitly. If you come along and say that it is yours, I have no reason to respect that claim. But we both have a reason to respect each other's claims of first use instead of some weird notion of second use. In other words, I respect your claims to the apples you pick off the ground, and you will do the same for me. This is respecting first use.
What we are not doing is respecting some bizarre claims of second use. In other words, I pick the apple off the ground and put it down in a basket, and then you come along and say, "According to the rule of second use, this is now my apple." Perhaps a society could do this, but the ethic of reciprocity is such that I respect your claims and you respect mine. I made a claim to the apple. This does not make it my property. Claims are a necessary aspect of property, but they are not sufficient. We only have property in a legal context. For something to be considered property, it needs to be recognized as property by the community or society. When you respect my claims of first use, and I respect your claims of first use, then we have homesteading of property. But if no one recognizes the claims of first use as legitimate, then there is no homesteading.
Perhaps that is the source of the problem here. I have already provided links in this post, so if I start providing more, the forum will eat or delay my post. So, I suggest that you look up the following words just so to make sure we are on the same page. This is not meant to be patronizing:
Property, ownership, possession, and rightful.
Actually, on second thought, I will just edit those links in after I post. But the one thing you will notice is that the one man "society" does not have property per se. It requires a two way street at least. So, without reciprocity, you cannot have homesteading, as homesteading requires people to actually consider it legitimate in the first place for it to even be a law. It requires both of us to agree to the reciprocal nature of the principle.
To directly answer the OP:
Once property rights are established (i.e. once we know what property is, and how one acquires it) the NAP is superfluous. It amounts to "don't violate property rights." I don't think the NAP has a place in the foundation of libertarianism.
However, the NAP is extremely useful shorthand to look at any particular action/policy/law/etc and ask "is this compatible with libertarianism?"
In the OP I proposed an alternative forumation which I believe combines the calling of the traditional formulation with Rothbardian property-acquisition rules as a consequence.
I suggested something along the lines of "It is wrong to use force against another person or his ongoing peaceful projects".
Property is now simply a convenient methods of clarifing and making publically known which physical objects (or natural resources) are to be considered part of a given person's ongoing projects. If a resource is part of my ongoing project, the NAP prohibits others from using force against it. The meaning of the new formulation is identical to that of the old.
But the new formulation makes it easy to derive homesteading as a method for acquiring property titles.
Homesteading is nothing but the incorporation of resources into an ongoing project. If the resource isn't previously owned (or if I acquired it through voluntary exchange), its incorporation into my projects is peaceful (as it doesn't itself violate NAP). Homesteading only confers full (exclusive) property rights of the nature of the project and the resource are such that exclusive use is reasonably necessary. The canonical example of clearing and sowing a field clearly fits.
If, on the other hand, the nature of the project and the resource is that exclusive access is not reasonably required (e.g. if the resource is a path I use occasionally), there is no justification for full ownership. Another person using the resource (e.g. another person walking on the path) isn't thereby using force against my project. In that case what I acquire is mere easement (or use-right), rather than full, exclusive ownership.
A subsequent person who does want to incorporate the used resource into a project in a way that reasonably requires exclusive use (e.g. by clearing a field which contains the path) can only be considered to be doing so peacefully if they refrain from employing force against my project, i.e. if they respect my easement (use-right) on the path.
The advantage of this formulation is that it combines the traditional property-protecting calling of NAP with Rothbardian property acquisition procedures. It even allows the useful distinction between exclusive use (full ownership) and non-exclusive use (easement). It even helps clarify the boundaries of homesteading. Property rights are conferred through homesteading exactly to the extent that exclusive access is reasonably required. If I clear and sow a field, I can reasonably require that no other person enter the field and trample on my crops. I cannot, however, reasonably claim that an airplane flying way above me, or a tunnel drilled far underneath my field interrupt my project. Hence my property rights are restricted to normal surface use.
Comments?
gotlucky: The NAP is circular only insofar as it is an axiom. It is not a conclusion but a premise. Rothbard tried to use natural law to reason his way to the NAP, but I do not agree with that, namely for the is-ought problem. I recognize that I accept the NAP as a premise for no other reason than the fact that I do. But it seemed to me that the OP was claiming that the NAP had other circular problems within it, and I reject that claim. Obviously, you take other premises in order to reach your philosophy of libertarianism. But for me, and people like Rothbard, I start with the NAP/ethic of reciprocity. In the end we probably agree on most everything seeing as we are both libertarians. I just don't take all these axioms as unconnected principles that we just happen to agree upon by coincidence.
Yes, you and Rothbard start with the NAP: "don't initiate coercion". My position as I explained in my first post is that this criterion of initiation does not make sense unless you have a theory of property (what it is, and how it is legitimately acquired) underlying the statement. It is this underlying theory that is the foundation of libertarianism.
It doesn't matter who is first to claim it. It is the first person to establish an objective and intersubjectively ascertainable link that matters, because we call that person the homesteader and consider him the legitimate owner of the scarce good which was previously unowned. Well, this is the problem of objective links. Why first use and not second use? There must be a reason that you prefer first use to second use? I know why I do. But I'm curious, do you have a reason other than you do?
I support homesteading because a society based on homesteading (i.e. a libertarian society) will have what I consider to be better consequences (peace and prosperity) than societies based on a different property assignment principle.
Why do you support homesteading?
Well if I respect your claim then there's no problem to be solved. If I don't respect your claim, you can choose to not respect my claim either and we'll be at a state of war with each other. Ownership - the whole subject of political philosophy - only matters when there is such a state of war between individuals. If we all just got along, there'd be no disputes to resolve, and no political philosophy at all. Talking about why we seem to just get along most of the time is either history or psychology. Political philosophy only comes into play when we don't get along, so what you're talking about is one step removed from what I'm talking about, and what I think the OP was talking about. To be honest, this seems a little strange coming from you. I don't want that to sound like I'm insulting you, because I'm not. It's just that you are missing the whole dispute resolution aspect of the equation. Just because there is a dispute does not mean that we must be at a state of war with each other. This is what law is for. Law will exist with or without political philosophy.
What are you talking about?! In that very quote I said that if we all got along, there'd be no disputes to resolve. Disputes are the whole reason laws and the subject of political philosophy exist, and I've said that many times in this thread and on my blog.
If the Golden Rule and the NAP are the same thing, why did you even bring up the Golden Rule? The NAP has a much more precise meaning than the Golden Rule. There are dozens of ways of phrasing the Golden Rule. You used the word "respect". Now here you're saying effectively that "respect", to you, means "don't aggress", i.e. "don't initiate coercion". Are you familiar with the term respect? Verb respect (third-person singular simple present respects, present participle respecting, simple past and past participle respected) to have respect for. She is an intellectual giant, and I respect her greatly. to have regard for something, to observe a custom, practice, rule or right I respect your right to hold this belief although I think it is nonsense. to abide by an agreement. They failed to respect the treaty they had signed, and invaded. (transitive, dated except in "respecting") To relate to; to be concerned with. Glandulation respects the secretory vessels, which are either glandules, follicles, or utricles. — J. Lee. I could have used the word violate, which has an opposite meaning in terms of law. I could have said, "Do not violate me or what is mine, and I won't violate you or what is yours." I preferred the sound of the positive form rather than the negative form. But they mean the same thing.
Does "respect me and what's mine" mean the same as "don't aggress against me and what's mine" or doesn't it? You can't just equivocate between a broad and a narrow definition of "respect" as and when you please.
So you're saying you can reason from the NAP to the homesteading principle? Please outline how or point me to somewhere you have done that. I did earlier in the thread, but I'll do it again quickly here: I pick an apple that has fallen from a tree. I have used it first. I claim it to be mine, explicitly or implicitly. If you come along and say that it is yours, I have no reason to respect that claim. But we both have a reason to respect each other's claims of first use instead of some weird notion of second use. In other words, I respect your claims to the apples you pick off the ground, and you will do the same for me. This is respecting first use.
So what if we both "have a reason to respect each other's claims"? Either we are able to get along or we're not. And political philosophy is about when people don't get along.
Again, so what? Obviously if no one recognizes the claims of first use as legitimate, then there is no homesteading. All you're saying here is that the property rules actually operating in a society depend on what property rules are generally seen as legitimate. Well, duh.
You have not reasoned from the NAP to the homesteading principle here.
Perhaps that is the source of the problem here. I have already provided links in this post, so if I start providing more, the forum will eat or delay my post. So, I suggest that you look up the following words just so to make sure we are on the same page. This is not meant to be patronizing: Property, ownership, possession, and rightful. Actually, on second thought, I will just edit those links in after I post.
Actually, on second thought, I will just edit those links in after I post.
That is very patronizing.
But the one thing you will notice is that the one man "society" does not have property per se. It requires a two way street at least.
And where have I said anything to the contrary?
So, without reciprocity, you cannot have homesteading, as homesteading requires people to actually consider it legitimate in the first place for it to even be a law. It requires both of us to agree to the reciprocal nature of the principle.
Both the "so" and the "as" here are non-sequiturs, as far as I can tell. You have not reasoned from the NAP to the homesteading principle at all. You would need to start by giving a definition of the NAP which doesn't have property theory already underlying it, otherwise your reasoning is bound to be circular.
Minarchist:Once property rights are established (i.e. once we know what property is, and how one acquires it) the NAP is superfluous. It amounts to "don't violate property rights." I don't think the NAP has a place in the foundation of libertarianism. However, the NAP is extremely useful shorthand to look at any particular action/policy/law/etc and ask "is this compatible with libertarianism?"
That is spot on. When it comes down to it, the NAP is superfluous and does amount to "don't violate property rights" (norm-free).
When used as the shorthand, it generally means "don't violate libertarian property rights" (normative), which of course requires an explanation of what libertarian property rights are, and makes it clear why the NAP can't itself be the foundational principle of libertarianism.
Eran:In the OP I proposed an alternative forumation which I believe combines the calling of the traditional formulation with Rothbardian property-acquisition rules as a consequence. I suggested something along the lines of "It is wrong to use force against another person or his ongoing peaceful projects". Property is now simply a convenient methods of clarifing and making publically known which physical objects (or natural resources) are to be considered part of a given person's ongoing projects. If a resource is part of my ongoing project, the NAP prohibits others from using force against it. The meaning of the new formulation is identical to that of the old.
It seems like your new formulation suffers from the same problem as the old one. By "peaceful projects" you seem to mean "things a person does that don't involve aggressing against anyone". So your formulation becomes "It is wrong to use force against another person except when that person has used aggression", which is just "It is wrong to use aggression, defense is OK", which is the NAP.
Both these terms "peaceful" and "aggression" presuppose a certain property theory. I think the correct path is to look beyond mere re-wording of the NAP and at the actual property theory beneath it. That is, the rules for how property can be legitimately acquired / transferred / abandoned.
I support homesteading because a society based on homesteading (i.e. a libertarian society) will have what I consider to be better consequences (peace and prosperity) than societies based on a different property assignment principle. Why do you support homesteading?
Maybe it will be easier to explain this in terms of consequentialism. Nielsio has an example in one of his videos about some people on an island and a shovel. Basically, A takes a shovel from B. B claims that the shovel is his and that A ought to return it. Now, this is not your shovel. So what does it matter to you if A keeps the shovel or returns it to B? The reason is what happens when its a shovel that you claim is yours? So, what happens is you support the idea that the shovel really ought to be returned to B and that it is his shovel and not A's.
Nielsio has also given an example of muggers as well. What do you care about muggers being on the street if you never get mugged? It's because you don't want the possibility of you or someone you care about getting mugged. So you are against muggers, people who assault and rob others.
This is why first use is a good rule, instead of some ridiculous rule of second use. You support other people's claims of ownership through first use because you want others to respond in kind. The key thing to realize is that we all make claims to various objects. Other people can either respect or violate those claims. If I want others to respect my claims over objects I want to call my own, I must show them the same respect. If I make a shovel and claim it as my own, I want people to respect that claim. I must respect their claims over the tools they make. That is all homesteading is, respecting other people's claims of first use.
I just happen to support the ethic of reciprocity for deontological reasons instead of consequentialist reasons. But if you want to support homesteading for consequentialist reasons, that is fine. But homesteading cannot be a norm or law if people do not respect it. Just because you've mixed your labor and whatnot doesn't mean anyone has to respect that claim. Homesteading is nothing without people respecting other's claims.
I guess what threw me off was your use of the word "war". Disputes don't require a state of war between individuals, unless you are just using the term war loosely. Wolves competing to be the alpha male don't always engage in actual violence with each other. Often they just posture and growl and one of them backs down. I assumed you meant war in the sense of actual violence, but perhaps that is not what you were saying.
If you read what I wrote, you will see that I said, "Just because there is a dispute does not mean that we must be at a state of war with each other." But if you were using the word "war" differently then there is nothing wrong with what you said. It just seemed odd to me considering the things you have written in the past.
Hm. I think I must have angered you, and that is not my intention. If you read what I said, you would see that my last sentence was, "But they mean the same thing."
Earlier in your post, you said:
Graham Wright: I support homesteading because a society based on homesteading (i.e. a libertarian society) will have what I consider to be better consequences (peace and prosperity) than societies based on a different property assignment principle.
I want to ask, what do you think is the key difference between what you have said here and what I said that you are objecting to? Why is it that you consider those consequences to be better, but if I say that people will think those consequences will be better, you just dismiss it?
Again, so what? Obviously if no one recognizes the claims of first use as legitimate, then there is no homesteading. All you're saying here is that the property rules actually operating in a society depend on what property rules are generally seen as legitimate. Well, duh. You have not reasoned from the NAP to the homesteading principle here.
I think I have a better way of putting it. I think the problem here is that I have been emphasizing the conflict-free part of the ethic of reciprocity. If you make a shovel, and I take it from you, we have a dispute (providing you want the shovel back). Now, from what I have been saying before, I've just been saying that through the ethic of reciprocity, we will just agree to respect claims of first use, and you have not considered this to be useful as you are interested in what happens when we cannot agree.
Well, if we have a dispute about who the shovel ought to belong to, we can settle it in only so many ways. We could fight over it, one of us could just walk away, or we can argue about it and attempt to resolve the dispute through non-violence. What happens when we do that? You want the shovel back, and I want to keep it. We could argue between just us, we could go to a third party and agree to abide by whatever he says, or we could go to a third party in order to help us work things out.
The thing is, what sort of resolution are we going to come to? If we are in a decentralized society, we will have a rule of first use. This is because there is no other rule that will actually help us settle this and future disagreements. If we settle on anything other than first use, then pretty much any object becomes fair game for the taking. I might get to keep your shovel now, but what happens when you take my wagon? We just have some sort of finders keepers society, and people don't want to live like that. And the purpose of norms and laws are to reduce and avoid conflict. First use is the best rule for that in general.
You cannot have homesteading if people don't respect it. That respect precedes homesteading. It is a necessary condition of homesteading.
Like I said, it wasn't my intention. You seem to be saying that the act of mixing one's labor makes it someone's property. This is just simply not true. Property is a social convention. If it is not what you have been arguing, then it is my mistake for believing you have been arguing this.
Like I said, if this is not your belief, then I am mistaken in assuming it to be your belief.
The problem here is that you are getting hung up on the NAP and not looking at the ethic of reciprocity. If you have a society that is based on the ethic of reciprocity, then it necessarily has the rule of first use as a norm/law. It would not be a society based on reciprocity or respect if people did not respect other's claims to certain objects as property. I am not saying this would be a conflict free society. The law is what is used to resolve disputes about what belongs to whom. People do not respect unreasonable claims unless they are threatened. If when Columbus came to America and claimed it for himself instead of Spain, everyone would have laughed him off. He wouldn't have had the force to back up such an absurd claim.
Like I said earlier, it will probably make more sense to think of the ethic of reciprocity in terms of consequentialism. We respect claims of first use as ownership because we want others to do the same for us. It doesn't matter if it was somebody else's stuff that got stolen. You still have an incentive to support the rule of first use. If you don't, then all the stuff that you claim as your own becomes fair game for others to take. If someone violates or doesn't respect your claims over your stuff, then you will violate or not respect his claims either.
@gotlucky
If you have a society that is based on the ethic of reciprocity, then it necessarily has the rule of first use as a norm/law.
Aren't there an infinite number of possible ways to assign original ownership of property? And couldn't any given society adopt any one of these norms? And couldn't they adopt any one of these norms AND at the same time adhere to the ethic of reciprocity?
As I understand it, the ethic of reciprocity is about A respecting claims of a certain kind from B so that B will reciprocate and respect the same kind of claims when made by A. The ethic of reciprocity establishes this symmetrical relationship, but it says nothing about the content of the claims in question. They can be any kind of claims. They can rest on any of an infinite number of norms for assigning property.
It would not be a society based on reciprocity or respect if people did not respect other's claims to certain objects as property.
But what kind of claims? Why is it necessarily the case that these claims would be based on the first use concept of homesteading?
Eran:Most people lack a coherent and comprehensive understanding of the concept of "property".
What do you mean by "the concept of 'property'"? I didn't think there was one and only one concept that is necessarily called "property".
Eran:But once presented with the inviolability and full rights associated with property, they could reconcile that term with their perception of the scope of legitimate government action by associating political sovereignty (in their world) with property (in ours).
The notion of the "social contract" is appealing to a lot of (if not most) people, as it implies a voluntary alienation of rights. The question is whether they gave up any rights - and, if so, how.
Eran:You are correct that government actions exceed even those of a landlord. However, even if government restricted its activities to those consistent with being a landlord (e.g. by punishing drug-users with exile rather than imprisonment), we would still view them as contrary to NAP. How do we justify that?
However, even if government restricted its activities to those consistent with being a landlord (e.g. by punishing drug-users with exile rather than imprisonment), we would still view them as contrary to NAP.
How do we justify that?
I think we can justify it the same way we can justify a person who aggressively commandeered an apartment building from its owner, but hasn't aggressed against any of the tenants, as contrary to the non-aggression principle. The actions of that person toward the property in question are aggressive because the way he acquired it was aggressive.
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Voluntaryism Forum
Graham Wright:Sorry Autolykos. Here's something you did say that I disagree with. Autolykos: Eran:Self-ownership doesn't help - a landlord can legitimately prohibit smoking on his permises. So governemnt's drug prohibition, for example, would be legitimate IF government was the legitimate owner of its territory. Prohibiting smoking on his premises simply means that people smoking on his premises are trespassing and must either stop smoking or leave. But prohibiting smoking per se does not give the landlord any right to imprison them, injure them, damage or destroy their property, kill them, etc. Your second sentence is incorrect. A landlord can do all these things, so long as it is proportionate to the severity of the rule violation. The landlord must start off by politely asking the person to leave, but if that doesn't work, they can use as much force as necessary to remove that person. All government actions, that we typically call aggression, are legitimate if the government is the legitimate landlord of the nation. Eran is completely right in the above two sentences. We (libertarians) therefore have to show why government's don't legitimately own the land they claim, because otherwise Georgism (for example) and other philosophies are still completely consistent with the NAP. We do this by referring to the homesteading principle... not to the NAP, or the self-ownership principle, but to the homesteading principle.
Here's something you did say that I disagree with.
Autolykos: Eran:Self-ownership doesn't help - a landlord can legitimately prohibit smoking on his permises. So governemnt's drug prohibition, for example, would be legitimate IF government was the legitimate owner of its territory. Prohibiting smoking on his premises simply means that people smoking on his premises are trespassing and must either stop smoking or leave. But prohibiting smoking per se does not give the landlord any right to imprison them, injure them, damage or destroy their property, kill them, etc.
Eran:Self-ownership doesn't help - a landlord can legitimately prohibit smoking on his permises. So governemnt's drug prohibition, for example, would be legitimate IF government was the legitimate owner of its territory.
Prohibiting smoking on his premises simply means that people smoking on his premises are trespassing and must either stop smoking or leave. But prohibiting smoking per se does not give the landlord any right to imprison them, injure them, damage or destroy their property, kill them, etc.
Your second sentence is incorrect. A landlord can do all these things, so long as it is proportionate to the severity of the rule violation. The landlord must start off by politely asking the person to leave, but if that doesn't work, they can use as much force as necessary to remove that person. All government actions, that we typically call aggression, are legitimate if the government is the legitimate landlord of the nation.
Eran is completely right in the above two sentences. We (libertarians) therefore have to show why government's don't legitimately own the land they claim, because otherwise Georgism (for example) and other philosophies are still completely consistent with the NAP. We do this by referring to the homesteading principle... not to the NAP, or the self-ownership principle, but to the homesteading principle.
I think you mean to say that you think it's legitimate for a landlord to do all those things, so long as it's propportionate to the severity of the rule violation. The word "can" implies physical ability to me, which has nothing to do with legitimacy.
With that out of the way, I don't think you quite understood what I was saying. You'd agree that it would be illegitimate for a landlord to immediately imprison anyone he finds smoking on his property, yes? And even if the smoker refused to leave on first request, I still don't see how that per se gives the landlord the right to imprison the smoker, damage/destroy any of his property, injure him, or kill him. If the smoker physically resists being forcibly removed from the property, then I think the landlord is within his rights to defend himself. But that's not the same thing to me as saying the landlord has the right to e.g. throw the smoker into a cage for a month, blow up the smoker's car, or cut off the smoker's arm simply because he was smoking on the landlord's property. Does that make more sense?
Graham Wright:It seems like your new formulation suffers from the same problem as the old one. By "peaceful projects" you seem to mean "things a person does that don't involve aggressing against anyone". So your formulation becomes "It is wrong to use force against another person except when that person has used aggression", which is just "It is wrong to use aggression, defense is OK", which is the NAP. Both these terms "peaceful" and "aggression" presuppose a certain property theory. I think the correct path is to look beyond mere re-wording of the NAP and at the actual property theory beneath it. That is, the rules for how property can be legitimately acquired / transferred / abandoned.
I was hoping that formulating NAP in terms of "projects" rather than "property" will remove a layer of abstraction and uncertainty.
In fact, the concept of property then follows as a corollary of NAP. A resource is recognised as a person's property to the exact extent that physical invasion of that resource interferes with an ongoing project of that person.
gotlucky, you keep arguing against arguments I never made and discussing things I never brought up.
This started off as a narrow discussion about the logical relationship between the NAP and other libertarian principles, namely homesteading. Is the NAP derived from homesteading, is it the other way round, are they two separate "axioms"... what is the relationship between them?
Here is the post of yours that I originally commented on, to say I disagree:
gotlucky: Eran: gotlucky, The reason the conventional formulation of NAP is circular is that "aggression" only makes sense by reference to "legitimate property", yet legitimacy of property titles is itself conditional on compliance with NAP. Consider a statist who argues that government (as representative of the citizen body) is the legitimate owner of its entire territory. Since the entire territory of the country is the legitimate property of the democratic government (goes the explanation), no government law violates NAP (in the same way that landlord charging rent or setting rules of conduct on his territory doesn't). Since government action doesn't violate NAP, its ownership is legitimate. Thus nothing in the NAP helps distinguish between the libertarian and the statist position (thus justified). This is not quite true. The libertarian concept of just property is derived from the NAP. The NAP is a form of the golden rule, the ethic of reciprocity. Homesteading and estoppel are derived from this concept of reciprocity, though they do not find their origins in libertarianism. Through concepts of homesteading and estoppel, we get the libertarian idea of just property. The point of the NAP is that it is the foundation of libertarianism, and all libertarian concepts can be derived from it. There are plenty of libertarians who do not care to derive these other principles and just accept them as separate axioms. But this need not be the case. Certainly, if you encounter a libertarian who just accepts homesteading as an axiom, then the NAP will seem circular. But other libertarians, such as Rothbard (or myself!), do not just accept homesteading as a separate axiom. To us, all libertarian concepts must be derived from the NAP or they are not libertarian.
Eran: gotlucky, The reason the conventional formulation of NAP is circular is that "aggression" only makes sense by reference to "legitimate property", yet legitimacy of property titles is itself conditional on compliance with NAP. Consider a statist who argues that government (as representative of the citizen body) is the legitimate owner of its entire territory. Since the entire territory of the country is the legitimate property of the democratic government (goes the explanation), no government law violates NAP (in the same way that landlord charging rent or setting rules of conduct on his territory doesn't). Since government action doesn't violate NAP, its ownership is legitimate. Thus nothing in the NAP helps distinguish between the libertarian and the statist position (thus justified).
gotlucky,
The reason the conventional formulation of NAP is circular is that "aggression" only makes sense by reference to "legitimate property", yet legitimacy of property titles is itself conditional on compliance with NAP.
Consider a statist who argues that government (as representative of the citizen body) is the legitimate owner of its entire territory. Since the entire territory of the country is the legitimate property of the democratic government (goes the explanation), no government law violates NAP (in the same way that landlord charging rent or setting rules of conduct on his territory doesn't). Since government action doesn't violate NAP, its ownership is legitimate.
Thus nothing in the NAP helps distinguish between the libertarian and the statist position (thus justified).
This is not quite true. The libertarian concept of just property is derived from the NAP. The NAP is a form of the golden rule, the ethic of reciprocity. Homesteading and estoppel are derived from this concept of reciprocity, though they do not find their origins in libertarianism. Through concepts of homesteading and estoppel, we get the libertarian idea of just property.
The point of the NAP is that it is the foundation of libertarianism, and all libertarian concepts can be derived from it. There are plenty of libertarians who do not care to derive these other principles and just accept them as separate axioms. But this need not be the case. Certainly, if you encounter a libertarian who just accepts homesteading as an axiom, then the NAP will seem circular. But other libertarians, such as Rothbard (or myself!), do not just accept homesteading as a separate axiom. To us, all libertarian concepts must be derived from the NAP or they are not libertarian.
I believe Eran is absolutely correct here, and just about everything you say here is back-to-front. Eran, Minarchist, Kinsella and I are all pointing to the same flaw in the idea that the NAP is the logical foundation of libertarianism. To quote Kinsella again: "One cannot identify an act of aggression without implicitly assigning a corresponding property right to the victim."
All the stuff about the Golden Rule / ethic of reciprocity is you chasing your own tail. You've now agreed that the NAP and the Golden Rule are the same thing, so one can't be derived from the other. But you're still talking about the ethic of reciprocity as different to the NAP, with the NAP being derived from the ethic of reciprocity, even though in the quote above you implied that the Golden Rule and the ethic of reciprocity are the same thing!
I'd like to see your answers to Minarchist's questions above, but also at this point I want to check you understand what the problem is with saying "all libertarian concepts can be derived from the NAP". Do you agree with the Kinsella quote above? If not, how can such an act be identified? And if you do agree with him, how can you continue to say that the NAP is the fundamental concept from which property assignment principles like homesteading are derived, when the NAP is meaningless without these principles underlying it?
Autolykos:I think you mean to say that you think it's legitimate for a landlord to do all those things, so long as it's propportionate to the severity of the rule violation. The word "can" implies physical ability to me, which has nothing to do with legitimacy.
Yes.
Yes, that's understood, but it doesn't really help with the "state-as-landlord" argument. The State can argue that it uses force proportionately in exactly the same way. So the State forbids it's tenants from smoking cannabis on it's land (the entire country). The first time you get caught the punishment might be a slap on the wrist but if you get caught again the punishment gets more severe, and if you refuse to submit to that punishment, it will get more severe again. The State is just defending itself, using only as much force as necessary to enforce it's house rules. Even prison might be viewed as equivalent to a landlord evicting the tenant from his premises (after all, there is nowhere for the State to kick someone out to... unless some other State will take him).
This argument won't be defeated by taking the line that you have... that the State is being a "bad" landlord (using force disproportionately, hence violating the NAP). The argument is wrong because the assumption that the State is a legitimate landlord is wrong. And to show why the State is not a legitimate landlord, the NAP is of no use: we have to refer to homesteading.
Graham Wright: To quote Kinsella again: "One cannot identify an act of aggression without implicitly assigning a corresponding property right to the victim."
To quote Kinsella again: "One cannot identify an act of aggression without implicitly assigning a corresponding property right to the victim."
This is one of those times that I disagree with Kinsella. Libertarians use the definition of aggression that means initiation of violence or the threat thereof. If I suckerpunch you without any kind of provocation from you, I certainly have initiated violence against you. I don't have to assign any property right in your body to you in order for that to be aggression. Most acts of aggression may need property rights to be assigned, but not all of them.
Graham Wright: All the stuff about the Golden Rule / ethic of reciprocity is you chasing your own tail. You've now agreed that the NAP and the Golden Rule are the same thing, so one can't be derived from the other. But you're still talking about the ethic of reciprocity as different to the NAP, with the NAP being derived from the ethic of reciprocity, even though in the quote above you implied that the Golden Rule and the ethic of reciprocity are the same thing!
The Golden Rule is the ethic of reciprocity. There are many ways of stating reciprocal relationships between people:
So how does the NAP fit in with this? The one difference between the NAP and all of these different ways of citing the ethic of reciprocity is that the NAP talks about property. The NAP still is about reciprocal relationships between people, but it goes one step further and explicitly includes property. So the NAP is the ethic of reciprocity in the same way that "eye for an eye" and "love thy neighbor as thyself" are both the ethic of reciprocity. But the difference between the NAP and the others are, as I have said, that the others do not mention property.
It is the general idea of the ethic of reciprocity in which we get property, homesteading, estoppel, proportionality, etc. Proportionality should be clear with the phrase, "Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth..." Estoppel is also from the ethic of reciprocity, as it is about being equitable in the law, and you can read the links I provided earlier if you want to look into that more.
But your question is about property and homesteading, not estoppel and proportionality. The whole point about property coming from the ethic of reciprocity is that people must respect another's claims to objects. "Do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you." You would not want someone else to take the shovel that you call your own, so don't take the shovel (or tools in general) that other people call their own. At this point, it doesn't even matter who used it first. We are looking at the fact that people make claims to certain objects. If people take the ethic of reciprocity as a premise to their actions, then they must respect others' claims to the objects that they call their own. I claim the hat I am wearing (or not wearing) as mine, and you claim the watch you are wearing (or not wearing) as yours. We can either respect these claims or not. The point is, that when we respect these claims, we are recognizing these objects as property assigned to someone.
I am not talking about a conflict-free society. If we do not respect these claims, then we have disputes. These disputes are eventually settled one way or the other, and the result is defining property rights more clearly. I'm not interested in looking at what happens when one party has more power than the other, because we can easily see what happens with that, as we only have to look at the state.
But the point is, property only exists when people respect the claims of others. Nielsio's arguments about the mugger and the shovel are great, and maybe I have butchered them when typing them out, but if you are not familiar with how he put it, I highly recommend watching his videos to see how he puts it.
Obviously, property does not have to be derived from the ethic of reciprocity, but I was under the impression that we were talking about the libertarian concept of rightful property, not property in general. States define property too, but it's not in line with libertarianism. But if I do unto you as I would have you do unto me, I would not be taking the stuff that you claim as yours.
So, what about first use? Well, if I build a house and claim it as my own, and you build a house and claim it as yours, then reciprocity is that we respect those claims. If I don't respect your claim, and I burn your house down or enter it without your permission, then reciprocity would mean that you could do the same to my house. First use is just one type of claim to objects. If I trade a watch for a shovel, I am saying that I do not claim the watch as my own anymore, but I claim the shovel as mine now. If I build the watch, I am claiming it as my own unless I am doing it on behalf of someone else. Homesteading is just respecting the claims that people make as the first user to some object. If someone comes along and claims the watch as the second user, he is not respecting the claims of the first user. If one respects the claims of another, then he must necessarily also respect the other's claims of first use.
Regarding Minarchist's questions: I don't know if you read my posts to him, but I am no longer engaging him in conversation of any kind. I do not care if his comments are constructive or not, I am not longer posting to him. But since you also share those same questions, I will engage you on the points that he raised.
If you respect my claims to objects, then you must necessarily also respect my claims when I am the first user. If a second person comes along and claims an object under the rule of second use, then he must necessarily be violating the first user's claims.
Consequentialists may only respect others so that they are respected too, but not all people are consequentialists. Those that just find it immoral to aggress against others do not aggress so as to not be aggressed against. They don't aggress because they find it to be immoral.
As for the content, see my above response to first use versus second use.
See above.
If you respect my claims to objects, then you must necessarily also respect my claims when I am the first user.
I must respect all claims you make on objects, regardless of the basis of these claims?
What if you walk up to me and say, "that tree over there belongs to me, because it is green and green is my favorite color." And I accept this claim and say, "ok, so then do you see those berries over there, those are mine because they are red and red is my favorite color," and you in turn accept this claim.
We have just reciprocated. I accepted your claim, you accepted mine. The property ethic we have established says that the owner of the thing is the person whose favorite color is the color of the thing.
By way of another example:
Suppose you walk up to me and say "that tree over there is mine, since I am the first to claim it." I accept this and say, "ok, then I now claim that berry bush, it is mine because I am the first to claim it." Again, we have reciprocated. We have respected each other's like claims. And we have established a property ethic whereby the first claimant is the first owner.
....I could go on with more examples, but I think either one of these it itself demonstrates that the ethic of reciprocity, the respecting of one another's like claims, does not necessarily entail the first-use concept of homesteading. I think the most you can say is that the ethic of reciprocity is a necessary condition for the first-use concept of homesteading to operate in society, but it is not a sufficient condition. Put another way, the ethic of reciprocity is a necessary condition for any kind of ethics to operate in society, but it does not determine which ethics will operate.
gotlucky: Graham Wright: To quote Kinsella again: "One cannot identify an act of aggression without implicitly assigning a corresponding property right to the victim." This is one of those times that I disagree with Kinsella. Libertarians use the definition of aggression that means initiation of violence or the threat thereof. If I suckerpunch you without any kind of provocation from you, I certainly have initiated violence against you. I don't have to assign any property right in your body to you in order for that to be aggression. Most acts of aggression may need property rights to be assigned, but not all of them.
Well that in itself is enough to show that the NAP can't be the foundation of libertarianism, then. If a cop confiscates the weed in your possession, can we say that he initiated coercion against you? Only if our underlying property theory tells us that it was YOUR weed to begin with. If our underlying property theory tells us it was the cop's weed in the first place, then he is clearly NOT initiating coercion... you are, by using HIS property without consent. You see?
But this is true of all aggression, not just "most". If you "suckerpunch me" without any kind of provocation from me, then you have initiated violence ONLY if our underlying property theory tells us that I am the owner of the body you punched. If that theory tells us YOU owned the body, then it's not an initiation of violence. So again the NAP is not enough. To argue that this suckerpunch was aggression, you first need to present an argument for why I own the body you punched, and not you.
Nielsio's arguments about the mugger and the shovel are great, and maybe I have butchered them when typing them out, but if you are not familiar with how he put it, I highly recommend watching his videos to see how he puts it.
Which of Nielsio's videos are you referring to by the way?
Yes I did, that's why I let you know that I had the same questions.
Minarchist's response to this point was excellent once again. So if you're still giving him the silent treatment, pretend that I wrote this...
Minarchist: @gotlucky If you respect my claims to objects, then you must necessarily also respect my claims when I am the first user. I must respect all claims you make on objects, regardless of the basis of these claims? What if you walk up to me and say, "that tree over there belongs to me, because it is green and green is my favorite color." And I accept this claim and say, "ok, so then do you see those berries over there, those are mine because they are red and red is my favorite color," and you in turn accept this claim. We have just reciprocated. I accepted your claim, you accepted mine. The property ethic we have established says that the owner of the thing is the person whose favorite color is the color of the thing. By way of another example: Suppose you walk up to me and say "that tree over there is mine, since I am the first to claim it." I accept this and say, "ok, then I now claim that berry bush, it is mine because I am the first to claim it." Again, we have reciprocated. We have respected each other's like claims. And we have established a property ethic whereby the first claimant is the first owner. ....I could go on with more examples, but I think either one of these it itself demonstrates that the ethic of reciprocity, the respecting of one another's like claims, does not necessarily entail the first-use concept of homesteading. I think the most you can say is that the ethic of reciprocity is a necessary condition for the first-use concept of homesteading to operate in society, but it is not a sufficient condition. Put another way, the ethic of reciprocity is a necessary condition for any kind of ethics to operate in society, but it does not determine which ethics will operate.
Graham Wright: Well that in itself is enough to show that the NAP can't be the foundation of libertarianism, then. If a cop confiscates the weed in your possession, can we say that he initiated coercion against you? Only if our underlying property theory tells us that it was YOUR weed to begin with. If our underlying property theory tells us it was the cop's weed in the first place, then he is clearly NOT initiating coercion... you are, by using HIS property without consent. You see? But this is true of all aggression, not just "most". If you "suckerpunch me" without any kind of provocation from me, then you have initiated violence ONLY if our underlying property theory tells us that I am the owner of the body you punched. If that theory tells us YOU owned the body, then it's not an initiation of violence. So again the NAP is not enough. To argue that this suckerpunch was aggression, you first need to present an argument for why I own the body you punched, and not you.
You need to forget about the NAP. My argument has been about the ethic of reciprocity. The NAP is one way of stating the ethic of reciprocity, but it explicitly adds in property. But if you look to the origin of the NAP and what it really is, which is a legal realization of the golden rule (eye for an eye is another), then your counterpoint does not address my point. Sure, the NAP itself assumes a libertarian property ethic, but the ethic of reciprocity leads to a libertarian property ethic. So instead of saying "Do not do unto others as you would have them not do unto you", you can just recite the NAP.
Sure, if you have a property ethic that allows for slavery, then using violence against your slave would certainly be using your property as you see fit. But slavery does not align with the NAP for certain reasons. The first is that the NAP is not just about property but also about the person. Both Block and Rothbard have stated it more or less as, "Do not aggress against, which is to say, do not initiate violence or the threat thereof against another person or his rightful property." I really didn't want to make this another dumb slavery thread, but you brought it up, so I'll address it. If you use violence against your slave, sure, he's your property, but you are also violating the first part of the NAP, which is, "Do not aggress against a person." The only type of slavery that is allowable with the NAP is enslaving a slave owner as retribution for his crimes.
Second, if you start with the ethic of reciprocity, you just don't have slavery anyway. If I don't enslave you, then you won't enslave me. If I enslave you, then you will retaliate by enslaving me. Despite the fact that Bastiat talked about the state being the great fiction where everyone lives at the expense of everyone else, it doesn't really work like that. In adversarial relationships, only one party can be the winner at any given time. It's entirely the opposite with cooperative relationships, where both people are winners. You can't have two people enslaving each other at the same time.
So again, I'm not talking about just the NAP. I'm talking about it's roots in the ethic of reciprocity (and again, the NAP is a version of that ethic, but it is the only version that I am aware of that explicitly includes property).
Graham Wright: Which of Nielsio's videos are you referring to by the way?
Crusoe, Morality, and Axiomatic Libertarianism
I think there may be others where he talks about this sort of thing, but this one is short.
Re Minarchist's post: The general gist of his post is that so long as everyone agrees to some ethic, then it is reciprocal and homesteading might not occur as a principle. This is only partially true. It is true that in a small community, homesteading might not occur as an underlying principle. Let's look at some examples.
In a group of friends, one might call "shotgun" in order to claim the front passenger seat in a car. Sometimes friends honor the claim, and sometimes they don't. When they don't, their friends usually call them out on bad form.
If some friends are going to play on an Xbox, you might have one call first controller and another might call second. If you have more than 4 friends, the first 4 to reach the controllers typically are the ones to play first, but sometimes whoever calls a controller gets it too. Certainly it's up to the owner of the Xbox, but usually he stays out of assigning controllers as he doesn't want to piss off any of his friends.
If some people want to play beer pong at a party, usually they actually discuss who is going to play first, as usually there are a lot of people already at the table. People don't usually even form a line, as everyone wants to watch. So people call out who gets to go next.
Now, you might object to these examples as the property in question is already owned. But before I go to the next step, I just want to point out that people can peacefully and effectively resolve and avoid disputes just by calling out claims. But the real problem is about unowned objects, not already owned objects. So let's look at what happens with unowned objects.
Suppose there is a small group of friends stranded on an island. They might be friendly enough that they can successfully claim ownership over things just by calling it. "I want that shady spot." "I'm going to use that tree." If they are on good enough terms, then calling it might work out for a while, and maybe for their entire duration on this island. But this sort of thing cannot work in a large group. Even if we were to assume that the friends never had disputes among themselves, there would certainly be disputes in a larger group.
So the question is, what is the sort of ethic that people can respect? In a small group of friends, calling out claims might work. They can respect that sort of thing. But in a community of 100? 200? A modern sized nation? Absolutely not. People cannot respect this sort of thing. When you are at a function and there is a buffet, notice how everyone forms a line? They don't call out who gets first dibs and who gets second. It's not an ethic that a regular group of people can reciprocate over. Whoever gets the food first had to get in line first.
Columbus can claim North America for Spain, but it's not an ethic that anyone but the royalty of Spain could get behind. It was not reciprocal. There is nothing inherently wrong with "calling it" first, and there is nothing inherently right with first use. They are appropriate solutions to different situations. Another solution among friends is to flip a coin or to play rocks, paper, scissors. It's neither right nor wrong.
Homesteading is appropriate in a society or community when people cannot use "calling it" as an appropriate solution. It's not a one size fits all solution, especially if you are a consequentialist. It is one of the many types of conflict avoidance and resolution mechanisms that arise from mutual respect and reciprocation. And I cannot recommend that particular video of Nielsio's enough.
One other point: Homesteading itself is not a consistent principle. There is no way to know a priori what is considered as first use. If you are building a house, do you have to fence in the land around it first? What happens if you fence "too much" land?
I don't expect answers to these questions, as they must necessarily rely on norms. Sure, you can come up with some theory of homesteading that you must directly use the land, so that fencing in land is out. But this causes more problems than it solves, and if you are adopting homesteading for consequentialist reasons, then you really need to rethink this point.
So while the ethic of reciprocity does allow for various conflict avoidance and resolution mechanisms, first use is one of the standard mechanisms, especially on a large scale. But homesteading itself is not "consistent" either. Considering how arbitrary it can be (e.g. just how much land can you fence in before you are not properly homesteading it), the ethic of reciprocity is better suited for consequentialists because it is actually focused on peaceably and voluntarily avoiding and resolving disputes, and it does allow for homesteading when appropriate and it allows for other mechanisms such as "calling it" when appropriate.
Here you're saying that the rule of first use must necessarily follow from adherence to the ethic of reciprocity (EoR). In other words, you're saying that EoR is a sufficient condition for the first-use rule to operate.
It [homesteading] is one of the many types of conflict avoidance and resolution mechanisms that arise from mutual respect and reciprocation
Whereas here you're saying that many different property assignment norms could follow from adherence to the EoR. But if that's the case, then it is impossible for the EoR to be a sufficient condition for the first-use rule to operate.
You have a logical contradiction. You're saying that both of the following propositions are true.
X--> A or B or C
and
X-->A
....and they cannot both be true.
So you need to either abandon you're claim that the EoR is a sufficient condition for the first-use rule, or prove that only the first-use rule can result from the EoR.
Graham Wright:Yes, that's understood, but it doesn't really help with the "state-as-landlord" argument. The State can argue that it uses force proportionately in exactly the same way. So the State forbids it's tenants from smoking cannabis on it's land (the entire country). The first time you get caught the punishment might be a slap on the wrist but if you get caught again the punishment gets more severe, and if you refuse to submit to that punishment, it will get more severe again. The State is just defending itself, using only as much force as necessary to enforce it's house rules. Even prison might be viewed as equivalent to a landlord evicting the tenant from his premises (after all, there is nowhere for the State to kick someone out to... unless some other State will take him). This argument won't be defeated by taking the line that you have... that the State is being a "bad" landlord (using force disproportionately, hence violating the NAP). The argument is wrong because the assumption that the State is a legitimate landlord is wrong. And to show why the State is not a legitimate landlord, the NAP is of no use: we have to refer to homesteading.
First off, I wasn't directly addressing the "state-as-landlord" argument. I was originally refuting this argument from Eran: "Self-ownership doesn't help - a landlord can legitimately prohibit smoking on his permises. So governemnt's drug prohibition, for example, would be legitimate IF government was the legitimate owner of its territory." I believe I showed how, on the contrary, self-ownership does help in determining the legitimacy of a landlord's actions. A landlord is just that, an owner of land. He doesn't come to own a person just because that person set foot on the land he owns.
If the state argues that it's using proportional force when it imprisons, assaults, kills, etc. drug users (for example), then it's clearly using a different definition of "proportional" from the one we're using. Such a difference in premises can't be proven or disproven - it can only be accepted or rejected.
Basically, I see the question of what actions a landlord can legitimately take against others on his property as being separate from the question of whether a given claim of land ownership is itself legitimate. You're right that what I wrote in response to you and Eran regarding the former question doesn't address the latter question. It wasn't intended to.
Clearly, though, if someone's claim of ownership over something is illegitimate, then all of his actions with/toward that thing are also (and necessarily) illegitimate. I was only accepting arguendo the notion that the state is the legitimate owner of "its" territory, in order to show that that doesn't mean that all of its actions 1) with/toward that territory are necessarily legitimate.
Just wanted to expand upon my previous post about homesteading:
Again, the problem with the idea that homesteading is the best conflict avoidance and resolution mechanism, from a consequentialist point of view, is that this is false. It is the best for probably most cases of original property acquisition, but it is not the best mechanism for all cases. To go with the previous example, if you are to homesteading land, what counts as "first use"?
Must you lay out the foundation for your house before you start building walls? Do you need to fence the land in before you build a foundation? If you want a big yard, do you need to fence in the area that you want to claim? What if you don't want a fenced in yard?
And of course, what happens if you are laying out the foundation to your house, and you've finished laying out the north, south, and east sides, but as you work your way towards the west side of your house, someone else comes along and uses the land by doing whatever? He can fence in some of it, plant a seed, maybe put down a sign. I don't care. The point is, what if someone else beats you to the punch as you are laying down the very foundation to your new house?
Are you allowed to say, "Excuse me, sir, but I was just about to use that for the west side of my house. That is my property." If you do this, then you are not going by a strict first use rule, but in fact you are also including in "calling it" as a legitimate claim.
Now, if you just believe that first use is the rule, and that's that, well there isn't really much to say. You believe first use is the only moral method of acquiring property. Period. End of story. But if you happen to support first use because of consequentialism, then a strict first use rule is not always the best solution.
So either first use is not as logically rigorous as it first appears, or it leads to some absurd scenarios, but you are okay with it because you just subscribe to first use as the only moral method of property acquisition.
Again, about the ethic of reciprocity, not all property ethics are compatible with the ethic of reciprocity. The EoR does lead to more than one conflict avoidance and resolution mechanism, but there is nothing wrong with this. But it does lead to first use as a norm. As I said earlier in the thread:
gotlucky: If you have a society that is based on the ethic of reciprocity, then it necessarily has the rule of first use as a norm/law.
A careful reading of this quote will show that I used the article "a" and not "the". The reason it will be a norm in a EoR is very simple. People are not omnipresent. In other words, people are not everywhere at all times. If you claim some area of land as yours for a house, there might not be someone present for when you claim it. If there is ever a dispute over whose land it is, do not forget the matter of needing proof as to who claimed it first. Demonstrating that you used it is far easier to prove than demonstrating that you merely called it, especially if no one else was around when you first claimed it.
Maybe the person who called it did in fact claim it first, but without a means of proving it, no one else can know this. Even if someone else were present, heresay is not nearly as strong of proof as hard, physical evidence. By the time a society has the concept of notarizing documents, the standard of first use will have long been established as the dominant norm. So if people want to be able to demonstrate to others that they were in fact the ones to first claim something, they would prefer first use as a standard as it can be falsified.
Mechanisms such as "calling it" and "rocks, paper, scissors" will never be completely eradicated in a EoR society, but there is no necessary reason why they ought to be. They have their place as conflict avoidance and resolution mechanisms, but they are not nearly as strong as "first use". First use would be far more widespread as it can meet a standard of proof that people can rely on in general.
gotlucky:You need to forget about the NAP.
Hmm. Well I am the one who previously said "the NAP is superfluous".
It was you that said "the NAP is... the foundation of libertarianism, and all libertarian concepts can be derived from it".
My argument has been about the ethic of reciprocity. The NAP is one way of stating the ethic of reciprocity, but it explicitly adds in property. But if you look to the origin of the NAP and what it really is, which is a legal realization of the golden rule (eye for an eye is another), then your counterpoint does not address my point. Sure, the NAP itself assumes a libertarian property ethic, but the ethic of reciprocity leads to a libertarian property ethic. So instead of saying "Do not do unto others as you would have them not do unto you", you can just recite the NAP.
So, to summarise...
ethic of reciprocity ---> libertarian property ethic ---> NAP.
The point I was making in this thread was about the direction of the second arrow, which we now apparently agree on. I am not so much interested in the first arrow, although I agree with Minarchist that the EoR is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the libertarian property ethic.
Clearly then, since homesteading is one of the principles we refer to when we say the "libertarian property ethic", homesteading is a principle logically more fundamental than the NAP; the homesteading principle is not derived from the NAP. Because acts of aggression (acts of initiation) can't be identified without referring to a particular property ethic, the NAP (in it's most common use) means nothing more substantive than "do not violate the libertarian property ethic" and hence it is superfluous.
I don't see how that video is relevant to what we're talking about. I don't know what he means by "axiomatic libertarianism" so I don't know what viewpoint he is actually criticising there.
Re Minarchist's post: The general gist of his post is that so long as everyone agrees to some ethic, then it is reciprocal and homesteading might not occur as a principle.
I think he was pointing out that you can logically have a society based on the ethic of reciprocity which isn't based on the libertarian property ethic. So to logically arrive at the libertarian property ethic, you at least need some other "first principle" besides the ethic of reciprocity.