Juan: Whether the state or the parents have the 'right' to dictate what's good for children is a misunderstanding of the problem, in my opinion. I think nobody has the right to dictate, or even knows what's good for others..
Surely you can't mean to suggest that parents don't have the right to dictate what's good for their children. A new born baby has no option but to rely completely on someone else to know what's good for them. Even an older child has to rely on a parent or guardian to some extent. Only when a child is of sufficient age to be able to declare that they wish to live outside the protection of their parents, and to be actually able to do it, can it be said that they have become an adult. It's a this point, and not before, that a person cannot be told how to live their life.
Inquisitor:I wonder in part if this confusion perhaps stems from not having read Rothbard's Ethics of Liberty.
Exactly.
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
I'm not familiar with the treatises referenced above, so maybe what I'm suggesting is already refuted there, but I would think the immediate difference between arguing for an authoritarian family but against an authoritarian government is dependent on how much difference you see between a child and an adult. A government of adults trying to rule over other adults is not equivalent to a situation with an adult directing a child. If a child is in danger of eating something that could harm or kill it, this is not the same as an adult doing something dangerous that they have consciously chosen to do. In the first case, proper stewardship of your parental responsibilities would cause you to impose your will on the child and keep the bottle of bleach out of their reach. In the second case, you don't have any right to keep the person who wants to drink some bleach from doing it, provided he/she is not imposing harm on someone else in the process.
Juan:"Surely you can't mean to suggest that parents don't have the right to dictate what's good for their children" That's exactly what I'm saying. And no, I don't have a solution or a prescription as to how libertarian parents should raise their children. But, the fact that I don't have solution does not mean that I'll refrain from point out what I think are flaws in the system. I notice for instance that nobody is adressing the link between the authoritarian family and authoritarian government...
OK, let's look at this. The authoritian family. From the perspective of adults in the family, the family association is voluntary. Any adult is free to leave the family, and thus disavow its rules at any time. A wife can leave her husband or vice versa. If an adult family member is prevented from leaving and forced to comply with its rules, that violates the natural law. I assume you don't disagree.
Your problem seems to be that libertarianism does not allow children in the family to disobey its rules and that this is therefore coercive. But it's not. Consider that while the child is present in the home, it is on the property (in this case the real property) of its parents. Under libertarian philosophy, any property owner is free to dictate the rules governing their own property. If you come into my house, you follow my rules. If you don't like it, you are free to leave. So the question then becomes when is a child free to leave? The answer is at any time. The parent may persuade the child to stay or implore him to return, but every child regardless of age must be given the absolute right to run away if he so wishes. If he does, he has demonstrated his complete right of self-ownership because at this point he has demonstrated it in nature. So you see so long as a child chooses to live in the home, he must follow the rules. But it's not coercive because he's free to leave at any time, and thus disavow those rules. When he does so sucessfully, we call him an adult.
Juan: It seems to me that the government libertarians so dislike, and the family, both operate on the same principle ?
No. Families are a form of voluntary association.
Its also important to understanding that what Leonidia is talking about only applies to infants or the very young. Children consent to parenting by choosing to live with their parents. If children do not wish to remain with their parents they can choose to live with anyone else willing to take them in, any voluntary relationship. Infants are not capable of expressing consent(in words or actions), this is the case where parenting rights might be "homesteaded" because an abandoned infant can not consent to be raised by anyone. The child would become a "trust," not unlike a family fortune without any heir old enough to manage it.
Peace
Juan:So, a parent uses coercion against a child to prevent him from being harmed. And a government does the very same thing with its subjects
The difference is that a child does not have the capacity to accept or reject a risk. By their nature, they are unaware of it. Whereas with government, it's not as if by virtue of being in government that you gain access to some higher level of being where you can see and understand the nature of the universe in a way that mere citizens cannot. If indeed there were some difference like that, perhaps the argument would have merit.
As I said before, if you can't recognize any difference between a child and an adult, then you won't accept this argument.
Now if the child who was trying to get at the bottle of bleach spoke up and said something like, "Father, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but you must respect my right to self-determination here, and I am fully capable of making these choices for myself. Please cease your coercive actions against me immediately." Now, assuming you didn't freak out and think you were suddenly transported to a bad remake of The Omen, there'd at least be good reason to treat what appeared to be a child as a self-determined adult. But generally children do not demonstrate any such capacity.
nfactor13:The difference is that a child does not have the capacity to accept or reject a risk. By their nature, they are unaware of it. Whereas with government, it's not as if by virtue of being in government that you gain access to some higher level of being where you can see and understand the nature of the universe in a way that mere citizens cannot. If indeed there were some difference like that, perhaps the argument would have merit.
So a government could exist so long as it only tells people who do "not have the capacity to accept or reject a risk" what to do?
Your logic is broken. Parenting is justifiable because of the nature of the relationship, not the nature of children. If parents are allowed to tell children what to do simply because children are stupid then any adult could tell any child what to do. Obviously that is not the case.
Parent/child is a voltunary relationship just like employee/employer or husband/wife. Child do not have to listen to what every adult tells them, because they do not have to listen to any adults. But children do choose to listen to their parents(for the most part) because they enjoy living in their home. Unfortunately, today the State trys to tell children that their parents own them.
JonBostwick:So a government could exist so long as it only tells people who do "not have the capacity to accept or reject a risk" what to do?
I was arguing more generally that the treatment of children by adults cannot be a legitimate argument to justify how adults treat other adults. You're taking my rejection of a general premise to be an endorsement of a particular opposite. (can't remember what the technical term is for that rhetorical maneuver.) So I'm rejecting the specific analogy "parent is to child as government is to adults in general" because government is composed of adults, whereas parents are not indistinguishable from children.
JonBostwick:Your logic is broken. Parenting is justifiable because of the nature of the relationship, not the nature of children. If parents are allowed to tell children what to do simply because children are stupid then any adult could tell any child what to do. Obviously that is not the case.
There are some cases where any adult can tell any child what to do, and I gave a specific example. You see a child pickup a gun (ignore how they came to be in that situation for the moment), or as I mentioned before, about to drink some bleach, etc. You are not the parent of that child. Are you suggesting it's wrong for you to coerce the harmful thing from the child because you don't have the appropriate 'relationship' with the child? I'm not suggesting you should be compelled to keep the child from being harmed, but I don't understand why you'd object to someone else who did just because they weren't the parent. Perhaps you could explain the logic of it to me, but it doesn't make sense as I'm reading you. I could be misunderstanding your point.
In general cases, though, I agree that the relationship does have a place and importance, but I don't see it as being as symmetric as you do. (more on that below)
JonBostwick:Parent/child is a voltunary relationship just like employee/employer or husband/wife. Child do not have to listen to what every adult tells them, because they do not have to listen to any adults. But children do choose to listen to their parents(for the most part) because they enjoy living in their home. Unfortunately, today the State trys to tell children that their parents own them.
At what age are they entering into a voluntary relationship exactly? Not from birth certainly. Would they have to speak first, or can they give non-verbal consent? I understand that it would be wrong to think of children as property, so I'm not totally against what you're saying, but in practical terms I do not think it makes sense to think of children as simply underdeveloped adults who enter into contracts with people for parenting duties. If a kid voluntary gets into a bad guy's car because he offered them candy, we don't treat that as a voluntary relationship that we have to respect. Perhaps you disagree, but that seems a bit unrealistic.
DW89:I have many of the same conclusions that you do, but I greatly differ with you over the definition of terms. Hopefully I'll be able to explain that my distinctions make a huge difference. Firstly, there is your defintion of the word 'right'.Rights and indeed all laws within a free society serve only to promote justice. Thats it, nothing else. There is no morality involved. Justice supercedes morality. Indeed it is very dangerous to try to make laws 'moral' or philanthropic, because this morality almost always comes at the expense of liberty and this philanthropy is virtually always false. Secondly, I have a very big problem with the fact that you define a right as a claim. Defining rights solely in the affirmative use of them is extremely dangerous. Rights are a choice. Whether or not a person chooses to excercise a right does not determine whether or not they justly possess it. Only if a person misuses a right do they forfeit it. Simply choosing not to excercise it does not mean that it can be taken from them. If you do believe that rights can be taken away from a person because they do not exercise them, then what you are in fact describing is an obligation, not a right.
But there are different kinds of rights. The rights to which you refer are inalienable rights or natural rights. i.e. rights that cannot be taken away. I have the right to my life, my liberty and my property. No disagreement there.
However, the word "right" can also refer to alienable rights such as contractual rights or rights of use or custodial rights. It was in this context that I was using the word "right", which is precisely why I was careful to define it beforehand. So, I have the the inalienable right to property that I own, but I lose the right to use that property if I transfer the title to someone else. Two different meanings of the word right.
However, since most people here when they see the word "right" assume it to refer solely to an "inalienable right", perhaps I should have used the word "claim" instead. Would that have satisfied you?
DW89:This is why simply not using property or vacating it does not invalidate your just claim to it.
If you vacate your property or abandon it, it may be claimed or "homesteaded" by someone else in which case you very definitely do lose your claim to it.
DW89:Firstly, a fetus cannot possibly choose whether or not they want to live, therefore, how can fetuses have rights?
Wow, are you implying that if a person is incapable of expressing a will to live, they have no right to life? How about the mentally impaired?
DW89:this claim of a moral duty to prevent pregnant women from aborting a pregnancy obviously comes at the cost of the mothers right to possess her own body.
Don't disagree with you there. This is why the "right to lifers" are wrong. It's because the mother's body takes precedence over the fetus and not because the fetus is incapable of expressing a will to live.
Firstly, on an entirely unrelated note, do you know why all of my posts come out as a paragraph? I skip lines and seperate the posts into paragraphs when I'm writing them, but when I post, it doesnt show up that way. I would appreciate any advice you could give me.
Now as for other matters...
I would first point out that you didn't address your use of the word moral in your definition of the word 'right'.
Also, your questions make it seem as if you didnt read my full post, rather just the first sentence. I'm not sure how you're question over the use of the word claim instead of right circumvents all of my grievances over the word claim.
I dont agree with you that there are different kinds of rights. I'm not sure that the terms inalienable and alienable are all that helpful. For instance, you are correct in observing that if a person violates a contract then they lose ownership over any rights that the contract may have given them. However your example of transfering ownership of property to someone else does not make your right to that propery any more alienable, being as it is that by transferring ownership of the property you are forfeiting any right to it altogether.
Here's my question though, you would say that a person's right to do as they please with their body is an inalienable, natural right? Am I correct that you would say this? If you would say that, I would point out the following. If you use your body to violate someone else's rights, they are intitled to use force to stop you. Or in other words, you have forfeited your right to do as you please with your body. This is because you have violated the terms of society, of the larger social 'contract' that we live by. Therefore, how is your right to your own body any more natural or inalienable than the rights that you would call 'alienable'.
And lastly, I took issue in my last post with the fact that you were claiming that people forfeit there rights even when they dont violate the terms of ownership. For example, you said that if a person is not using their property, another person can justly claim ownership of the property. But according to what contract is the original owner required to use the property? What have they done to warrant the forfeiture of their rights?
1) If I'm not mistaken, according to the Anarcho-Capitalist understanding of property rights, an individual is by no means obligated to use their justly owned property in order to retain ownership over it. What you have described sounds exactly like the practice known as "squatting". You are in essence arguing the libertarian socialist position on property.
2) Yes, I believe I am arguing that. In the case of the mentally impaired (and this only pertains to the severely mentally impaired), they do not possess the right to life. However, the fact that they are an individual who is alive in society means that the right to life for that individual does exist. The mentally impaired individual does not retain active ownership over that right, because they cannot use it. Therefore, just as the case of a parent with a child, another individual can claim custodial possession of the mentally impaired individual's right to life.
The case of abortion is much more complicated. If a person believes that rights are granted to human beings at conception by a deity, then there are rights that pertain to a fetus. However, since the fetus cannot excercise its rights, another person may claim ownership over these rights. The person with the most just claim is of course the mother. However, this still leaves the complication of precisely why a woman does not have the right to abort a pregnancy. The only way a person could argue that they have a more just claim to the fetus's right to life is if it is believed that the fetus would unequivocaly choose to live if it could give its consent. Therefore, a mother who chooses to abort the pregnancy forfeits her custodial claim over the fetus's right to life because she has violated the terms of her custionship (if thats actually a word). But of course it is very difficult to argue that a fetus would unequivocally choose to be delivered.
Now, if you believe as I do that rights are derived from the individual's existence in society, then abortion rights become a far less complicated issue. So long as the fetus remains inside the mother's uterus, and is not an individual who is physically in society, the fetus is virtually dependant on the mother and is within her body, and therefore the mother can legally treat the fetus as if it is any other part of her body. In this case, there are no rights in existence that pertain to a fetus.
JonBostwick: Juan:It seems to me that the government libertarians so dislike, and the family, both operate on the same principle ? No. Families are a form of voluntary association. Its also important to understanding that what Leonidia is talking about only applies to infants or the very young. Children consent to parenting by choosing to live with their parents. If children do not wish to remain with their parents they can choose to live with anyone else willing to take them in, any voluntary relationship. Infants are not capable of expressing consent(in words or actions), this is the case where parenting rights might be "homesteaded" because an abandoned infant can not consent to be raised by anyone. The child would become a "trust," not unlike a family fortune without any heir old enough to manage it.
Juan:It seems to me that the government libertarians so dislike, and the family, both operate on the same principle ?
I have to disagree somewhat with what you're saying about the family. I would argue that the family has the capacity to be the most direct form of tyranny, much more direct then the state could ever be. For as bad as the state is, and it certainly is bad, parental authority is much more direct. One's family is literally right there standing over your shoulder, while the state is at least somewhat physically removed from the individual. Parental authority is argueably even harder to escape than state authority.
Many families are far from voluntary associations, they may very well involve unchosen positive obligations and the threat of force to enforce them. Many parents use fear and guilt to control their children. While I essentially agree with Rothbard's stated views on how children gain their rights as they mature, it nonetheless has some potentially ugly implications for allowing extreme control of people by their parents before they mature into adults. I also don't think that all spousal relationships are genuinely voluntary associations, for some involve the threat of force.
I tend to take the Molyneuxian view that people should choose to actually completely disassociate from their families of origin if they are miserable hotbeads of unchosen obligations. There is no rational reason for an individual to be obligated to bend over backwards for their family members if their family members do not actually value them as individuals or possess any genuine virtues.
The rise of the state could be seen as coming directly from the family. A tribe is nothing but an extended family, and the heriditary nature of many monarchies suggests an obvious connection between the state and the family. The progression could be seen as being family ---> tribe ---> monarchy ---> democracy and so on. Another point is that people's ideological support for the state could easily be seen as stemming from their percieved need for parental authority.
Sorry if this post is derailing the thread.
Yurp. Thanks for your help. Turns out the formatting problem was caused by AOL. Switching to Firefox did the trick.
DW89:I would first point out that you didn't address your use of the word moral in your definition of the word 'right'.
I don't believe I ever used the word "moral" in my definition of the word "right".
DW89:I'm not sure how you're question over the use of the word claim instead of right circumvents all of my grievances over the word claim.
DW89:I dont agree with you that there are different kinds of rights. I'm not sure that the terms inalienable and alienable are all that helpful. For instance, you are correct in observing that if a person violates a contract then they lose ownership over any rights that the contract may have given them. However your example of transfering ownership of property to someone else does not make your right to that propery any more alienable, being as it is that by transferring ownership of the property you are forfeiting any right to it altogether.
I have a right to my property, i.e. my body, the fruits of my labor, things I appropriate from nature etc. You can't take these things from me. I have an absolute right to them.
On the other hand if I rent property from you, I might have the right to use your property under the terms of a contract, but this is a different kind of right, in this case a contractual right. Or if I have custody over someone I may speak of a custodial right. However, these are not absolute rights because they're dependent on fulfilling some obligation.
DW89:Here's my question though, you would say that a person's right to do as they please with their body is an inalienable, natural right? Am I correct that you would say this? If you would say that, I would point out the following. If you use your body to violate someone else's rights, they are intitled to use force to stop you. Or in other words, you have forfeited your right to do as you please with your body. This is because you have violated the terms of society, of the larger social 'contract' that we live by. Therefore, how is your right to your own body any more natural or inalienable than the rights that you would call 'alienable'.
Your property right in your body is inalienable, but that doesn't mean you can violate another person's natural rights. If you do, they are entitled to self defense, not because of some "social contract", but because all natural rights must be similarly applied. So yes, another person may legitimately use force against you, but only if you violate their natural rights. Your right to your property is absolute, except in cases where you have aggressed against another. That's the only exception.
DW89:And lastly, I took issue in my last post with the fact that you were claiming that people forfeit there rights even when they dont violate the terms of ownership. For example, you said that if a person is not using their property, another person can justly claim ownership of the property. But according to what contract is the original owner required to use the property? What have they done to warrant the forfeiture of their rights?
If a person claims unowned property there is no contract. They make it theirs by using it. They homestead it. However, if they fail to use that property it returns to nature, and it can then be claimed by someone else. "Failing to use" does not mean, for example, leaving your house to go on an extended vacation. It means abandoning the property altogether such that it is obvious that it has returned to its state of nature.
DW89:1) If I'm not mistaken, according to the Anarcho-Capitalist understanding of property rights, an individual is by no means obligated to use their justly owned property in order to retain ownership over it. What you have described sounds exactly like the practice known as "squatting". You are in essence arguing the libertarian socialist position on property.
DW89:In the case of the mentally impaired (and this only pertains to the severely mentally impaired), they do not possess the right to life.
DW89:The mentally impaired individual does not retain active ownership over that right, because they cannot use it.
DW89:Therefore, just as the case of a parent with a child, another individual can claim custodial possession of the mentally impaired individual's right to life.
DW89:The case of abortion is much more complicated.
I refer you to my earlier answer. I am certainly not advocating squatting. As for your assertion that I'm arguing some sort of libertarian socialist position, that's nonsense.
Of course they do. A mentally impaired person has an absolute right to life, just like every human being. They possess this right. No one else does. Their right to life cannot be taken away or given to someone else. It belongs to them and them alone. They cannot be killed. This does not mean that they have a right to be fed, clothed etc; it's just that no one can take their life from them.
Nonsense. They're alive aren't they? They're using their life.
No. A person can have custodial rights over the individual. But they emphatically do not have possession of the individual's right to life. We get back to the fact that these are two different kinds of rights!
I would be happy to discuss abortion, but I think you should start another topic.
I don't know how to use the quoting feature, so unfortunately I have to resort to numbering my responses to the order in which you wrote your comments.
1) Your definition of the word 'right' was: "Right" A just claim or title whether legal, prescriptive or MORAL
2) Yupp. I quite literally meant that I didn't understand what you were saying about replacing the word right with claim. Perhaps you could explain that further such as which cases you were specifically talking about.
3) If I have received certain rights due to a contract, I cannot use those rights to violate the contract. If I have received certain rights by taking a custodial role over them, I cannot violate the terms of custodinship. If I own property, I cannot use that property to violate another person's rights. It seems to me that to call the right to property more "absolute" than the other two is simply semantics. It seems to be a distinction without a difference.
4) You asserted: "all natural rights must be similarly applied." My question to you is why? Keep in mind, I agree that the right to ones body must be equally applied. I also agree that all rights which you call natural must be equally applied. But my question is, if you say this is not because of a social contract, then why?
5) If a person stills retains the contractual ownership over a piece of property, then isn't it entirely subjective at what point the individual has suffieciently abandoned the property? How can you justly claim that the intent of the owner was to forfeit ownership over a piece of property without contacting the owner? It seems that he could justly claim at any time that he never had the intent of forfeiting ownership.
6) To be honest, I've always been perplexed by the usage of the term nature in regards to rights and their origins. In a recent Mises.org blog posting by Lew Rockwell entitled "Land Socialism: Playing With Fire ", Lew describes nature as "mean, dangerous, cruel, and often thoroughly evil." He goes on to state "We thrive and rule nature, or nature rules and eats us alive." Why then do we allow nature to dictate our rights? Why does nature determine justice? I've never understood it.
7) Do you know of any non-utilitarian rights theorists who do not claim that rights are derived from god or nature? I'd really appreciate it if you could recommend me a few thinkers. I know that Hans Hermann Hoppe has attempted to do this with his version of "argumentation ethics", but do you know of anyone else?
Oops. Didn't see the continuation of your email. Number 6 of the last email is in response to your general usage of the word nature and natural rights. 7 is not related directly to anything you said.
1) Aren't you describing squatting on abandoned property that was previously privately owned? I don't see how that is different from squatting. I said that you seemed to be describing libertarian socialims because if the definition of abandonement is left to subjectivity, then what is to stop society from devolving into libertarian socialism? Over time, it is likely that the definition of abandoned will become broader and broader.
2) In response to your assertions about the mentally impaired's right to life, I would simply bring forward two examples. Let's say that an individual is physically injured or contracts a disease that leaves them in a vegetative state. This individual is alive, and therefore, according to you, using their right to life. Does this then mean that they must be kept alive in perpetuity? Assuming that the individual is not married, can a member of the hospital staff choose to pull the plug? It seems to me that this case is very similar to that of a parent with a child. The mentaly impaired individual is not in a position to give their consent, and therefore, another individual may assume custodial possession of their rights.
Another example, an individual becomes terribly stricken by a psychological disease that renders them unable to control their actions in any way that remotely resembles how they would act if they were behaving rationally. Isn't this case also like that of the child? The individual in question is unable to give their consent any more than the child can (possibly less). Therefore, they forfeit their own rights.
This is not at all the same as saying that they can be killed by anyone who chooses to do so. They can be killed by the individual who maintians custodial possession of their rights, insofar as that individual is acting in accordance with what the mentally impaired individual would consent to if they could. This of course is subjective, but it can be known to a reasonable degree.
If a person maintains custodial rights over an individual (as you assert) then they implicitly maintain the custodial right to life of that individual. You seem to be arguing that individual rights does not encompass the right to life (which it must). This is what confuses me with your assertion. For instance, when we say that someone owns a slaves, that means that the master owns the slaves basic individual rights. The master can dictate what actions the slave can take. Is that not the same thing as saying that the master owns the slaves right to life, right to their body, right to speach, right to property, etc.?
3) It is certainly reasonable to say that the abortion issue has become tangential. I agree that it makes sense to leave it at that for now.
Jan Narveson in his The Libertarian Idea (contractarianism) and Respecting Persons in Theory and Practice, Nozick in his Anarchy, State and Utopia (deontology), Rothbard in his Ethics of Liberty (natural rights), den Uyl's and Rasmussen's Norms of Liberty (Aristotelean ethics), Peikoff's Objectivism, Rand's The Virtue of Selfishness, Kelley's The Logical Structure of Objectivism, and of course Hoppe's The Economics and Ethics of private property all deal with rights. These works all deal with non-religious justifications for rights. Anthony Flew, Roderick Long, Geoffrey Alan Plauche etc. also have articles available online. These are all good places to begin looking.
Also, you asked something about why we allow nature to 'dictate' what our rights are. That is a misunderstanding of the term 'natural' right. A natural right is one which man possesses in accord with his nature qua rational being. It is not one 'dictated' by nature, at least in the sense that nature is anthropomorphised. Moreover, be aware that Rockwell is evoking the term in a specific sense there, namely in contradistinction to how environmentalists see nature as more important than humans.
To quote, you use the tags quote tag , putting any text you want quoted between the tags and the tags themselves in brackets (e.g [x] [/x], where x is the tag).
BrainPolice: The rise of the state could be seen as coming directly from the family. ...The progression could be seen as being family ---> tribe ---> monarchy ---> democracy and so on. Another point is that people's ideological support for the state could easily be seen as stemming from their percieved need for parental authority.'
Jean Jacques Rousseau: The word Economy, or OEconomy, is derived from oikos, a house, and nomos, law, and meant originally only the wise and legitimate government of the house for the common good of the whole family. The meaning of the term was then extended to the government of that great family, the State.
If human rights do not come from nature, god, or some part of the environment and universe in general, it seems to me that they must come from other humans. Saying that rights come from man's nature qua man is nice, but it doesn't seem like it accomplishes anything to me in itself. Rights are rules by which humans treat each other, and so must be recognized by all parties in order to be rights. In other words, they must come from a shared ethic, although the means by which this ethic is spread can naturally be through normative, philosophical argument.
Since you've got to convince other people of your system of rights for them to mean anything, I think any system of rights not being derived from god or nature will always boil down to consequentialist arguments (i.e., "why should I accept your system of rights, what will it do for me?"). Fortunately, most people who argue about this sort of thing are concerned about the consequences of far more than their immediate needs.
DW89, I'll try to keep this short. A person has an absolute right to life. This means their life cannot be taken away (except if they aggress against another). They cannot be killed, for example. This does not mean they have a right to be kept alive (fed, clothed, kept on life support,etc). If you decide not to provide life support, and they die, this is not killing. You have not violated their right to life, nor have you taken over their right to life. You have simply asserted your right not to have to keep them alive. There's a big difference.
As regards property rights, if a person abandons property, at what point does it become unowned and free to be homesteaded again? It's subjective, like many things in life. There are no hard and fast rules. Common sense has to apply. This has nothing to do with collectivism or socialism. Just the opposite. In a Libertarian society all property is privately owned or it's not owned at all. There is no public property.
Thanks so much for the reply. I greatly appreciate it. I'd just like to clarify a bit further though, so that I may begin my search at the most useful place. I am essentially interested in finding an argument for "natural" rights that is able to circumvent the "is-ought problem", "naturalistic fallacy", "fact-value distinction", or whatever else you'd like to call it. The only arguments I know of that successfully do so are derived from argumentation ethics. Do the other theorists you suggested also successfully accomplish this feat? I don't know the answer to this, but I'm assuming they don't, so I'd ask which of them do.
You are certainly correct in your explanation of what constitutes 'natural' in the term 'natural rights' insofar as many libertarians do may that claim. However, if I'm not mistaken, there are in fact other libertarian thinkers who attempt to look at nature (in a more general sense), and derive rights from the patterns that they find within it. Perhaps I am incorrect in that none of these thinkers are in fact libertarian or classical liberals. I realize that Rockwell was certainly attempting to draw the distinction you described, but I suppose I had in mind the latter conception of natural that I outlined above, in which case I do think a libertarian would be contradiction his/herself. Of course, I'm guessing that Lew Rockwell himself does not espouse that position.
Grant: Fortunately, most people who argue about this sort of thing are concerned about the consequences of far more than their immediate needs.
Fortunately, most people who argue about this sort of thing are concerned about the consequences of far more than their immediate needs.
Fortunately, most people who argue about this sort of thing are concerned about the consequences of far more than their immediate needs. True, but if the basis of rights does not effectively circumvent the is-ought problem, then it seems the theory can quickly devolve into a sort of utilitarianism. What I mean is, what is to stop a person from subjectively choosing different long term needs (or desires) than another individual, purely based upon the real or percieved utility of those long term needs? For example, libertarians generally believe that law serves only to promote and ensure justice, rights, and individual liberties. Most libertarians believe that morality should be seperated from the law because the creation of moral law (or law that promotes equality) comes at the direct expense of liberty. But what is to stop an individual from arriving at the conclusion that law should indeed be moral, and that the loss of liberty is an acceptable consequence of a moral society?
Granted, you correctly pointed out that argument and debate could provide a libertarians a way to succeed in convincing others that individual liberty is indeed the only sensical basis of law. One could use economics to prove this. However, it seems that we're having a difficult time winning that battle at the present time. I therefore believe that if libertarians were able to present a case for an 'objective' basis of 'natural' rights, we may well be far more successful than we are currently.
DW89:Thanks so much for the reply. I greatly appreciate it. I'd just like to clarify a bit further though, so that I may begin my search at the most useful place. I am essentially interested in finding an argument for "natural" rights that is able to circumvent the "is-ought problem", "naturalistic fallacy", "fact-value distinction", or whatever else you'd like to call it. The only arguments I know of that successfully do so are derived from argumentation ethics. Do the other theorists you suggested also successfully accomplish this feat? I don't know the answer to this, but I'm assuming they don't, so I'd ask which of them do.
To my knowledge Aristoteleans do not see the fact-value dichotomy as valid, and so any of the Aristoteleans (and thus Objectivists) I mentioned might offer arguments for it. I think den Uyl and Rasmussen specifically do so in their book, though I haven't read it. Narveson's contractarian ethics also try and circumvent the whole problem, much like Hoppe's argumentation ethics, of which I think the stronger is the second, though it needs some work still.
You are certainly correct in your explanation of what constitutes 'natural' in the term 'natural rights' insofar as many libertarians do may that claim. However, if I'm not mistaken, there are in fact other libertarian thinkers who attempt to look at nature (in a more general sense), and derive rights from the patterns that they find within it.
Do you perhaps mean social darwinist types?
I agree with you on your response to Grant for the most part - if anything, it is economics that illumines why laissez-faire is the way to go. The rights theories can be used to justify the ethical structure necessary for it against all other structures. Something important to keep in mind, most libertarians separate what is one's right to do and what it is moral to do, and also see positive law, specifically, as pernicious; law in accord with libertarian principles would be seen as both desirable and righteous.
I think there are several issues not addressed. One is understanding slavery. In history slavery was an option to prisons. If one stole, was caught, and could not repay that which he stole he was sold into slavery to pay his debt. If one came into any financial problems in which he could not pay his debt, he was sold into slavery to pay it. This was not generally for a lifetime, but until the debt was paid. In ancient Sumer slaves were able to own property, and conduct business in their own name, much like the slaves, oops I mean citizens, in the United States. When your labor is taxed, i.e., part of it belongs to another entity, be it a person, company, or government, you are slave to that entity.
Parents most definitely own their children, until they reach the age at which they can support and provide themselves. Until then the parents have a right to their labor. Parents, which is inclusive in ownership, have a resposnibility to maintain that property. If the owner wants his property to perform at its peak, he needs to make sure the property has what it needs. In the case of a child, that means proper nutrition, and good examples of good behavior. In getting the child to perform slave labor, e.g., taking out the trash, etc., the child is learning to take care of him or herself. In performing this slave labor, or chores, the child helps pay for his upkeep.
About the drugs, a question that was not addressed was, do the parents consume the drug? My mother was like most, taking over the counter drugs. Early in my life, about 13, I decided I did not want to take them. When I got a cold I did nothing for it. I let it run its course naturally. After a number of years the severity of the cold lessened, until I did not get them anymore. The last time I had a cold was in 1982. I cannot remember the last time I had the flu. I do not get flu shots, or any other shots. I do not even take aspirin. I do not get headaches.
As much as one may want, he does not have the authority to tell another how to treat his property. If the owner abandons that property, then another, if he wants to take the responsibility for ownership, may claim it. However, because the owner is not in the immediate presence of the property does not constitute abandonment. Just because the owner is not on his real property does not give others the right to homestead it.
I do not do meth, therefore I would not give it to my child. I do not take man made drugs, therefore neither would I give them to my children. I do drink beer, and if my child at age 5 wanted a drink, I would likely give him a taste. I would not give him own his own bottle or can. In years past in Europe, and probably today, children were given wine mixed with water to drink, the younger, the more water.
The child learns from its parents through imprinting. Raising a child is a job, not a hobby. By looking after the best interest of your property, you are looking after your own best interests.
leonidia: This does not mean they have a right to be kept alive (fed, clothed, kept on life support,etc). If you decide not to provide life support, and they die, this is not killing. You have not violated their right to life, nor have you taken over their right to life. You have simply asserted your right not to have to keep them alive. There's a big difference.
Yes. This is the difference between negative and positive liberty. But, access to land (to exist IS TO occupying land somewhere - they can't be separated) is not something that is "provided" to you because there is no labor involved from the landowner. Land is a freely "created" good. It is access that is provided via exclusive use.
leonidia: In a Libertarian society all property is privately owned or it's not owned at all. There is no public property.
The use of the word "public" is unfortunate because it means two different things in common usage.
1. common property
2. collective property
Classical liberalism's negative liberty framework is built off of the concept of common property and rights.
Collectively owned property requires the consent of all the other joint owners (consensus) or their delegated authority PRIOR to access/use.
Common property does not. You are free to act so long as in your acting to access or use you do not infringe on the individual equal access rights of anyone else.
Roger Daugherty:Parents most definitely own their children, until they reach the age at which they can support and provide themselves. Until then the parents have a right to their labor.
No they don't.
Parents have a right to their children's labor until they can support themselves? Running away to live with someone is supporting themselves, isn't it? So parents have a right to their child's labor so long as the child agrees to give it to them? Doesn't sound like a right to me.
JonBostwick: No they don't. Parents have a right to their children's labor until they can support themselves? Running away to live with someone is supporting themselves, isn't it? So parents have a right to their child's labor so long as the child agrees to give it to them? Doesn't sound like a right to me.
How is having a right to one's labor different from owning that one? That is part of the definition of ownership, that you have a right to use the possession.
The very essence of running away suggests the runner cannot support himself, especially if he or she has to find someone with whom to live. If the runner can support himself, then he is merely leaving home, flying out of the nest. Supporting oneself involves more than just finding a job and earning money. There is laundry to do, meals to cook, etc.
I said ownership was until the child could take care of himself. You say until the child refuses to give his labor. If the child refuses to give his labor because his labor can sustain him, then he is able to take care of himself. If the child refuses to labor period, then where will he go to get someone else to take care of one who refuses to work. And if he refuses to labor at all, he certainly cannot take care of himself. If this then breaks the ownership contract, then kick his ass out in the cold, because you have no responsibility to something you do not own.
Slaves were not to be mistreated, unless they refused to labor. With ownership comes responsibility. If you want something you own to perform well, you must care for it, as with a car, so with a child, or a slave. Not all car owners, not all parents, not all masters treat their responsibilities equally.
All men, and women are created equally, one sperm, one egg. After that first split of the cell, the equality is gone. Each person is a unique individual. The right to life includes the right to ownership. Ownership can only be over something that cannot take care if itself, e.g., domesticated animals, fruit and nuts from a tree, a car, a child who cannot take care of himself.
JonBostwick: Roger Daugherty:Parents most definitely own their children, until they reach the age at which they can support and provide themselves. Until then the parents have a right to their labor. No they don't. Parents have a right to their children's labor until they can support themselves? Running away to live with someone is supporting themselves, isn't it? So parents have a right to their child's labor so long as the child agrees to give it to them? Doesn't sound like a right to me.
That children who run away are returned to their parents means that the parents do legitimately own the child. Only when the child can challenge that ownership does he become emancipated.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power