Why not?
Because "don't start fights" (the NAP in other words) is not the sum of human morality and it is not a sufficient basis for law. It's definitely a good start and you can throw out about 90% of statutory law just by impartial application of this obvious principle. But when you look into human behavior with a finer-resolution microscope, you find that people do a lot of things to each other that violate the NAP but are, nonetheless, socially tolerated and do not result in legal sanctions (e.g. spousal abuse, denial of custody rights in divorce, etc.) Whether they ought to result in legal sanctions is an issue that can only be resolved through having a healthy, functioning market in law.
Clayton -
Clayton:Because "don't start fights" (the NAP in other words) is not the sum of human morality and it is not a sufficient basis for law.
The NAP means more than just "don't start fights", doesn't it?
Regarding "human morality", how do you define the term? It seems have many different definitions among people.
Saying the NAP is not a realistic guide for determining law in a stateless society because it's not a sufficient basis for law tells me next to nothing, and I don't see how the former follows logically from the latter.
Clayton:It's definitely a good start and you can throw out about 90% of statutory law just by impartial application of this obvious principle. But when you look into human behavior with a finer-resolution microscope, you find that people do a lot of things to each other that violate the NAP but are, nonetheless, socially tolerated and do not result in legal sanctions (e.g. spousal abuse, denial of custody rights in divorce, etc.) Whether they ought to result in legal sanctions is an issue that can only be resolved through having a healthy, functioning market in law.
In other words, many/most people aren't consistent with the NAP, even without taking into account statutory law. Tell me something I don't already know. :P
Whether something ought to result in legal sanctions does not dictate whether it does or will result in legal sanctions. The two are not logically connected in any way.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
Clayton:Yeah, this is the Molyneux theory (maybe not original to him but he's the one I've most heard speaking of it).
You could call it that. :P However, I arrived at many of his conclusions independently. For me it involved applying the non-aggression and self-ownership principles to all human beings.
Clayton:I wonder if, perhaps, cause and effect are reversed in this theory: perhaps parents who live under brutal states are brutal to their children and parents who live under minimal states treat their children more naturally.
I can think of two pieces of evidence that seem to contradict this.
The first is the principle of patria potestas in Roman Law and its evolution over time. Quoting from the link:
It does not seem that the Patria Potestas was ever viewed among the Romans as absolutely equivalent to the Dominica Potestas, or as involving ownership of the child; and yet the original notion of the Patria came very near to that of the Dominica Potestas. Originally the father had the power of life and death over his son as a member of his familia: he could sell him and so bring him into the mancipii causa; and he had the jus noxae dandi as a necessary consequence of his being liable for the delicts of his child. He could also give his child in adoption, and emancipate a child at his pleasure. [Emphasis added.]
The second is that parenting standards in the United States appear to have become less and less strict, while at the same time all levels of US government appear to have become more and more strict (notwithstanding the extension of civil and political rights to women and non-whites).
Clayton:I think there can be non-arbitrary boundaries and I think these boundaries can emerge through voluntary law. For example, majority might be determined by the child's answers to a set of questions asked by a neutral third-party (e.g. a psychologist) whose purpose is to determine the child's ability to make decisions on his own. My only contention is that armchair philosophy, such as the NAP, is not a realistic guide to determining the law in a voluntary law society.
I fail to see how boundaries that emerge through voluntary law can be non-arbitrary. So I suspect we're each using a different definition for the word "arbitrary". Keep in mind that I'm using the word in the context of formal logic - that is, nothing in logic per se requires certain boundaries to be taken as true, either as premises or as conclusions from premises.
Strictly speaking, no one can "determine the law" in a voluntary law society, if by that you mean "determine what the law would/will be". However, I contend that the NAP is something that everyone follows instinctively, at least vis-a-vis himself. If the law is going to be impartial (which of course there is no logical necessity for it to be so), it would then apply the NAP consistently for all people. Essentially this would just be the Golden Rule writ large and formalized.
I'm not qualified to comment on patria potestas.
As for the US, I would dispute the idea that child-rearing has actually become more lenient. I don't have any data to back me up but it is my view that currently accepted practices in child-rearing are much more traumatic to children than earlier practices in American culture.
For example, the common lie of telling children "you can do anything, you can be anyone when you grow up, you could even be the President when you grow up!" as a supposed boost to their self-esteem is, actually, an abusive act that has the effect of depriving young adults who actually believed what adults told them as children of a good deal of their young adulthood until they realize that they've been viciously lied to. So, apparently compassionate practices in child-rearing can be, in effect, abusive. There is no doubt that American parents are a good deal more pious about parenting than their forebears and make a much bigger deal about how much they care about their children's well-being, and so on. Whether that piety actually translates to more compassionate and rational child-rearing practices is another matter. It's like that old saying, "all show and no go."
As for what is meant by "arbitrary", I'm using it in the colloquial sense, "no reason can be given for why it is this way." Let's say we live in a peaceful part of Somalia and you accidentally injure and kill my draft animal with your pickup truck. Now, let's say that the required payment is 30 goats*. If you ask why you must pay 30 goats, a reason can be given, it is not arbitrary. "Because you killed my draft animal and the elders in this case met and, after taking into account the customs of Xeer and the details of this case, decided that 30 goats was the appropriate payment. If you'd rather try to ask your clan-leader to start a clan war on your behalf so you can escape paying 30 goats as anyone else would have to pay in your shoes, go right ahead so I can watch him laugh you out of his house." There's a reason why you have to pay 30 goats. It wasn't imposed by the whim of a Wise Leader. It wasn't imposed by me. It wasn't your choice. Unlike rulings by government courts or laws passed by government legislatures, there's a reason why I must pay 30 goats that is truly outside of the whim of any one individual.
*This illustration is completely contrived
Clayton:I'm not qualified to comment on patria potestas.
Does that mean you're skeptical of my source?
Clayton:As for the US, I would dispute the idea that child-rearing has actually become more lenient. I don't have any data to back me up but it is my view that currently accepted practices in child-rearing are much more traumatic to children than earlier practices in American culture. For example, the common lie of telling children "you can do anything, you can be anyone when you grow up, you could even be the President when you grow up!" as a supposed boost to their self-esteem is, actually, an abusive act that has the effect of depriving young adults who actually believed what adults told them as children of a good deal of their young adulthood until they realize that they've been viciously lied to. So, apparently compassionate practices in child-rearing can be, in effect, abusive. There is no doubt that American parents are a good deal more pious about parenting than their forebears and make a much bigger deal about how much they care about their children's well-being, and so on. Whether that piety actually translates to more compassionate and rational child-rearing practices is another matter. It's like that old saying, "all show and no go."
I fail to see how that common lie is deliberately restrictive upon children. Surely you understand that, in referring to "less and less strict", I was referring to decreasing physical restrictions placed on children by their parents. However, I've come to realize that the strictness/leniency of parenting is not necessarily one-dimensional. While more parents in the US seem to eschew corporal punishment of their children than in times past, they might also be more protective of their children, placing more restrictions on what they're allowed to do and where they're allowed to go. That latter possible trend, if it can actually be said to exist, is one that I'd say is positively correlated with the expansion of the state.
Clayton:As for what is meant by "arbitrary", I'm using it in the colloquial sense, "no reason can be given for why it is this way." Let's say we live in a peaceful part of Somalia and you accidentally injure and kill my draft animal with your pickup truck. Now, let's say that the required payment is 30 goats*. If you ask why you must pay 30 goats, a reason can be given, it is not arbitrary. "Because you killed my draft animal and the elders in this case met and, after taking into account the customs of Xeer and the details of this case, decided that 30 goats was the appropriate payment. If you'd rather try to ask your clan-leader to start a clan war on your behalf so you can escape paying 30 goats as anyone else would have to pay in your shoes, go right ahead so I can watch him laugh you out of his house." There's a reason why you have to pay 30 goats. It wasn't imposed by the whim of a Wise Leader. It wasn't imposed by me. It wasn't your choice. Unlike rulings by government courts or laws passed by government legislatures, there's a reason why I must pay 30 goats that is truly outside of the whim of any one individual.
Even if it was imposed by the whim of a Wise Leader, it would seem to satisfy the colloquial sense of "arbitrary" as you gave it. Someone can ask, "Why do I have to pay 30 goats for killing your draft animal with my pickup truck?" and the answer would be "Because the Wise Leader decreed it to be so." Whether that reason is satisfying to him is another issue entirely.