You are not grasping - purposefully I would guess - the distinction between a difference in kind, and a difference in degree. I tried to explain this in my last post using examples of self-awareness, etc. Scientifically, one can make an iron clad case that corn and humans exhibit a difference of kind and NOT of degree in the context of what makes us human, and thus leads to natural rights. I am not talking about 'LIFE' - a virus is alive, after all. I am talking about HUMANITY and what allegedly sets us apart from all the other living beings. If you cannot accept or understand this distinction, then we have nothing to discuss.
Thought that would have been rather obvious.
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. - Goethe
Let me try to be clear about this so there is no misunderstanding.
Natural rights doctrine notes that we -and we alone - have these rights due to our humanity, the implication being that 'humanity' is a distinct category - i.e. that we exhibit a fundamental difference in kind from all other creatures.
So obviously, the question of what exactly is the fundamental distinction between humanity and other creatures presents itself. What is is that is 'human'? Is this simply due to the taxonomic nomenclature created by Carl Linnaeus, which separates humans into our own genus (Homo) distinct from the other primates??? Obviously not, especially since Linnaeus himself noted that the only reason he thus separated humans out from other primates was out of fear of running afoul of the religious authorities. TH Huxley, among others, made compelling arguments that humans belong in the same genus as primates, and should be separated out at the species boundary only.
So what does this mean for the natural rights arg? We seem to assume that the thing that makes us distinctly human - the difference in KIND - is the thing that results in our having natural rights. But based on the scientific evidence, there is no ready answer to 'what is the unique differentiator which expresses this difference in kind?' Comparing what we now know about chimps, especially, blurs this once-seemingly-clear boundary.
For example, many philosophers - from Plato to Hegel - have held that we are fundamentally distinct due to reason, intellect, understanding, etc. But there is overwhelming evidence now that many animals reason to some degree or other, particularly primates. So this is a difference in degree, which in fact was the view of both David Hume and Darwin.
We used to think self-awareness was the differentiator. Turns out, this is wrong - chimps are also self aware. Again, difference in degree.
Then we thought - ability to communicate via a true language was the differentiator. Turns out chimps can learn a substantial amount of Amslan and use it effectively. About as much as a 2 year old child - we're not talking real complex communication, but linguists have been astounded that chimps could accomplish as much as they did. So we can't discount them on that criteria - it's again a difference in degree, not kind.
Social organization and culture - same issue. Differences in degree.
Mortimer Adler encapsulated the latest philsophical thinking by laying out 4 definitive criteria (see his The Difference of Manand the Difference it Makes for more) - and each of these 'confident assertions' has since been destroyed by scientific advances in understanding chimps, especially.
So - if we have these rights by virtue of our humanity, and if we reject the 'Creator-given' and 'soul'-based arguments (which I do), but we can't really come up with a definition of 'human' that excludes chimps (aside from a DNA argument - but who claims natural rights spring from DNA???), what makes us so damned sure that chimps are not also deserving of these rights?
Yea and you can basically keep going w/ this and break everything down to atoms and ask why this arrangement of atoms deserves rights and this one doesnt. I think more complex animals should have some rights, like the right not to be tortured for the sake of torturing. However, I guess I'll have to be a mean old racist or species-ist and side w/ humans (as best as that can be defined).
I still dont understand the difference between self-owned and unowned and how that might work itself out.
"The best way to bail out the economy is with liberty, not with federal reserve notes." - pairunoyd
"The vision of the Austrian must be greater than the blindness of the sheeple." - pairunoyd
pairunoyd:Yea and you can basically keep going w/ this and break everything down to atoms and ask why this arrangement of atoms deserves rights and this one doesnt. I think more complex animals should have some rights, like the right not to be tortured for the sake of torturing. However, I guess I'll have to be a mean old racist or species-ist and side w/ humans (as best as that can be defined).
Well, at least you have clarified that you do not even grasp the basic logic of my argument, since it has nothing to do with 'atoms', nor are you able to provide any definition of 'human' though you feel free to use this term - which you cannot define - as the basis of your argument - there is really nothing more for you and I to debate in that case.
You might consider that Aristotle demonstrated that, absent the ability or willingness to define the terms used in an argument, that argument was impossible to be taken seriously, because it was - by definition - meaningless.
So in all seriousness, if you are going to use an argument of the form 'because we are human and they are not' you really must give some thought to the question: what do I mean when I use the word 'human?
Children do not respect our rights either. If 2 year olds had fangs and claws, we'd be in trouble. ;-)
That's what I am getting at, really - if children are to be treated to a trustee-type status, why not chimps? So I don't buy #2.
As to #1, I think we are at the fuzzy edges of this thing and I am trying to get clarification. I am not an animals rights advocate. I am merely noting that the oft-heard slam dunk 'we're human and they're not and so we get rights and are precious but we can kill them or torture them as we please' is an absolutely unsupportable argument once you actually try to explain what that actually means and come to an understanding of just how uncomfortably close the chimp and human species are.
And as you astutely noted - what about the brain dead? What about the retarded person with the intelligence of a 2 year old - or 3, or 4, 5, 6 - who will never be able to assert their rights, or even be aware of them in a serious way? For all intents and purposes, they are equivalent to a chimp, unless you pull out the trusty old 'only humans have souls, ya damned unbeliever!' which of course cannot be proven and therefore does not belong in the argument. Can we then kill mentally retarded people like we do chimps? Use them in experiments like chimps?
ozzy43: pairunoyd:Yea and you can basically keep going w/ this and break everything down to atoms and ask why this arrangement of atoms deserves rights and this one doesnt. I think more complex animals should have some rights, like the right not to be tortured for the sake of torturing. However, I guess I'll have to be a mean old racist or species-ist and side w/ humans (as best as that can be defined). Well, at least you have clarified that you do not even grasp the basic logic of my argument, since it has nothing to do with 'atoms', nor are you able to provide any definition of 'human' though you feel free to use this term - which you cannot define - as the basis of your argument - there is really nothing more for you and I to debate in that case. You might consider that Aristotle demonstrated that, absent the ability or willingness to define the terms used in an argument, that argument was impossible to be taken seriously, because it was - by definition - meaningless. So in all seriousness, if you are going to use an argument of the form 'because we are human and they are not' you really must give some thought to the question: what do I mean when I use the word 'human?
http://anthropology.si.edu/humanorigins/faq/human.htm
A variety of traits are considered important to the biological and cultural definition of human. Some researchers deem language, art, and consciousness as the most important traits, while others point to the origin of two-legged walking (bipedality) as the starting point of the human lineage. The traits unique to human beings arose at different times over a long period. Some important human characteristics are listed below; it's important to keep in mind that these characteristics are in comparison to other primates, the closest genetic relatives to our species:
These are just some of the traits that make us human. What other characteristics can you think of? The Smithsonian is planning a new exhibition - - "What Does It Mean To Be Human?" - - which will explore the defining characteristics of human beings as a unique and astonishing part of the natural world.
End of paste job.
What Im saying is that is if someone TRULY questions whether or not there's a difference between what we call 'humans' and what we call 'chimps', then you could just continue down the line of species and on and on until you get down to the very substance everything is made of. However, it's obviously a good exercise to think about what it is that makes us human.
ozzy43: Children do not respect our rights either. If 2 year olds had fangs and claws, we'd be in trouble. ;-) That's what I am getting at, really - if children are to be treated to a trustee-type status, why not chimps? So I don't buy #2. As to #1, I think we are at the fuzzy edges of this thing and I am trying to get clarification. I am not an animals rights advocate. I am merely noting that the oft-heard slam dunk 'we're human and they're not and so we get rights and are precious but we can kill them or torture them as we please' is an absolutely unsupportable argument once you actually try to explain what that actually means and come to an understanding of just how uncomfortably close the chimp and human species are. And as you astutely noted - what about the brain dead? What about the retarded person with the intelligence of a 2 year old - or 3, or 4, 5, 6 - who will never be able to assert their rights, or even be aware of them in a serious way? For all intents and purposes, they are equivalent to a chimp, unless you pull out the trusty old 'only humans have souls, ya damned unbeliever!' which of course cannot be proven and therefore does not belong in the argument. Can we then kill mentally retarded people like we do chimps? Use them in experiments like chimps?
Children have the potential to respect our rights because they're not forever children. As far a deformed people, we do know they came from undeformed people at least at some point. I know this isnt a satisfactory answer, but I'm just adding some comments. I've found that my posts tend to irritate people. My deal is that my posts are neccessarily pieces of a completely thought out, strongly held position. I have my positions, ideas and beliefs, but I just generally engage in conversation and hope that the conversation serves to enlighten me. I'm the perpetual student and readily admit I'm not of as much use to others as I'd like to be. My ego is quite low and at times that gives people the wrong impression. I try to be child-like in many ways simply because that's my natural disposition.
pairunoyd, I don't mean to beat up on you - it's simply that if someone cannot define the terms they are using yet expresses that they are going to use them anyway, it drives me a little crazy. This is a very risky approach to reality, IMO - it generally means one is drawing conclusions *not* based on reason or fact or provable evidence, but on emotion and unexamined assumptions, and this path generally leads directly away from truth and unforgiving reality.
I think that when one finds oneself in this position, it's time to engage in some deep thinking about that subject. It's time to examine the unexamined. This is, I would argue, the child-like approach - question everything, especially those biases you have that came from who knows where. That's what kids do in the quest to honestly understand.
The last thing one should do in such a case - if one's goal is to truly understand the issues under debate (and to truly know oneself) - is to forge ahead based on unacknowledged internal bias and non-reason. This is much more of an adult approach, in fact - we think we know it all, and do not want to show our ignorance for fear of ridicule, etc. In fact, I'd argue that this mindset is one of the primary reasons that libertarians and anarchists have such a hard time reaching most people.
That's all I'm saying. I hope I did not cause you undue distress.
pairunoyd:Habitual bipedality Large brain size (compared with body size) Expanded planning and problem solving abilities Language Art and other forms of symbolic expression Complex cultural learning dependent on symbolic information Dependence on technology for survival Varied diet, including domesticated plants and animals Functional hairlessness Worldwide geographic distribution and adaptation to diverse climates and habitats Greater social complexity
OK, good. Now a couple things jump out:
1. Note all the qualifiers: 'Expanded', 'Greater', 'Large' - these are relative measures. Expanded, greater, large - compared to what?? Doesn't this seem like cheating? In other words, isn't it clear from these relative qualifiers that whoever wrote this list was aware of potential criticism and attempting to pre-empt their critics primarily? Also, relativity ALWAYS implies difference in degree. Chimps are problem solvers - we are *better* problem solvers. Difference in degree, not kind. So those bullets with relative qualifiers do not advance the 'difference in kind' argument at all.
2. Which of these comes together to give us natural rights? Is it the position of natural rights proponents that we have these rights because we have distributed ourselves over the earth? Or because of our 'functional hairlessness'? Or because we are omnivores? Or because we habitually walk on two legs? Clearly not.
All in all, this list seems largely to be a compendium of someone's biases. It's almost like cheating - they seem to me to have made the list in the way they did to rule out other species and specifically primates pre-emptively.
And yet, even in this case, if you look at what we now know about chimps and bonobos, they qualify for many of the bullets on the list. And if we consider brain dead or retarded humans, they do not qualify for some of the bullets. So we're still in the grey area it seems.
I think at a minimum, based on what we do know and what we do not, chimps deserve something approaching a trustee status unless and until someone can conclusively prove that humans are fundamentally different in kind - i.e. reminiscent of 'first of all, do no harm'. And all the research shows that things are going the other way, so that seems unlikely to say the least. It's an interesting situation.
Well, I wrote out a long response, complete with examples backing up my 'yes or at worst probably' answers to thew questions above, and then lost it. :-(
Let me just say this: at one point in the not so distant past, my position was that this line of questioning was absurd, like, no doubt, many of you. But as I have read, thought and learned more about this world, and about liberty and rights, and about the necessity of using unbiased reasoning, and of examining unexamined assumptions - questioning everything - to arrive at truth, I have found that my former position was logically untenable.
We all have a bias here, as in so many areas. We must set that aside if we hope to apply reason and arrive at truth. I thought this quote summed it up nicely:
"We humans commonly react with astonishment upon discovering that chimpanzees can do something we consider special to humankind. Any evidence of intelligence overlap provokes the greatest scepticism, as the uniqueness of that quality in us is our most cherished illusion. But is this defensive reaction anything more than a visible indicator of our anthropocentric view of the world? Would it not be more extraordinary if a species having broad genetic overlap with us did not perform acts or feel emotions or have thoughts akin to ours?"
BTW, for the record, I am no animal rights activist, per se, and none of this should be interpreted to mean that I think all animals have rights - that *is* an absurdity, in my view. At least, that's my position at this point in time. ;-)
ozzy43:The unspoken presumption here seems to be: someone must own the child - either him/herself or another. Why must this be the case? Can a child not be 'unowned' until they can assert self-ownership? That is, I am not sure we need to be dichotomous in our approach to this situation - is there no room for a different category of being, neither self-owned, nor other-owned?
The unspoken presumption here seems to be: someone must own the child - either him/herself or another. Why must this be the case? Can a child not be 'unowned' until they can assert self-ownership?
That is, I am not sure we need to be dichotomous in our approach to this situation - is there no room for a different category of being, neither self-owned, nor other-owned?
How does one establish ownership? After all, the parents did create the child. The child is also under the control of the parents until he reaches a point when he can be considered a self-owner. If the child is unowned, then anyone who comes along could homestead the child. The child is going to be owned by someone, that is, under someone's control. Why create new terms for something that is obvious? After all when someone asks "whose child is this," you don't hear "he is neither self-owned nor other-owned but an unowned potential self-owner."
ozzy43: The extension to chimps is also valid here - does the fact that a chimp may not be capable of asserting self-ownership (and what exactly is the criteria for asserting self-ownership and just how clear is it?) mean that it must be owned? Why not, again, more of a trusteeship, perpetual if need be, when the issue arises? The idea that chimps can be owned - despite the fact that most of the arguments for differentiating humans from chimps in a fundamental way (i.e. difference of kind and not degree) cannot be sustained in light of the scientific evidence - and experimented upon, killed, disposed of as their owner wills, is troubling from an ethical standpoint, at least to me. If the difference is primarily one of degree, then how is it ethical to assert ownership, whether over a child or a chimp?
The extension to chimps is also valid here - does the fact that a chimp may not be capable of asserting self-ownership (and what exactly is the criteria for asserting self-ownership and just how clear is it?) mean that it must be owned? Why not, again, more of a trusteeship, perpetual if need be, when the issue arises?
The idea that chimps can be owned - despite the fact that most of the arguments for differentiating humans from chimps in a fundamental way (i.e. difference of kind and not degree) cannot be sustained in light of the scientific evidence - and experimented upon, killed, disposed of as their owner wills, is troubling from an ethical standpoint, at least to me. If the difference is primarily one of degree, then how is it ethical to assert ownership, whether over a child or a chimp?
http://www.mises.org/story/2291
"But the fundamental flaw in the theory of animal rights is more basic and far-reaching. For the assertion of human rights is not properly a simple emotive one; individuals possess rights not because we "feel" that they should, but because of a rational inquiry into the nature of man and the universe. In short, man has rights because they are natural rights. They are grounded in the nature of man: the individual man's capacity for conscious choice, the necessity for him to use his mind and energy to adopt goals and values, to find out about the world, to pursue his ends in order to survive and prosper, his capacity and need to communicate and interact with other human beings and to participate in the division of labor. In short, man is a rational and social animal. No other animals or beings possess this ability to reason, to make conscious choices, to transform their environment in order to prosper, or to collaborate consciously in society and the division of labor.
Thus, while natural rights, as we have been emphasizing, are absolute, there is one sense in which they are relative: they are relative to the species man. A rights-ethic for mankind is precisely that: for all men, regardless of race, creed, color, or sex, but for the species man alone. The Biblical story was insightful to the effect that man was "given" — or, in natural law, we may say "has" — dominion over all the species of the earth. Natural law is necessarily species-bound." ( http://www.mises.org/story/2581 )
However I'm quite sure that owning a chimp would be a complex situation to say the least. Not so much in property titles and such, but the relationship one would have with a chimp. Ethically, I find some experiments, killing, disposal, etc troubling as well. However I don't think I could go so far as to say it is unethical. Then again, what about artificial selection? Would it necessarily be a bad thing to attempt to speed up evolution and try to breed a new human-like species?
The parents did create the child, but only in the sense that some slob flicking a butt out the window creates a wildfire. Despite the fact that he started the process, he can hardly be said to own it, and it's hardly under his control. He is, however, responsible for it.
In a similar fashion, when a child is created, it grows and develops in ways not very predictable and not controllable, short of odd sci-fi interventions or killing, by the parents. A human being is a sentient being. There are periods, such as in the womb or in early infancy, or during sleep or coma, when this sentience lapses, but a human is a sentient being in essence; in other words, humans are naturally sentient, and only lack this quality in special limiting circumstances.
Insofar as a child cannot be property, and yet is dependent upon more powerful and rational agents for its survival until adulthood, it is logical and just that those most directly resposible for the dependency tend to it. As a man could rightly be charged for a fire he caused, so parents ought be charged with the care and maintenance of the child whose dependency they caused.
First, good links - thanks. Am reading them as I have time and finding them clarifying.
pazlenchantinrocks:If the child is unowned, then anyone who comes along could homestead the child.
Well, but from the first essay you posted:
"Thus, it is the concept of objective link between claimants and a claimed resource that determines property ownership. First use is merely what constitutes the objective link in the case of previously unowned resources. In this case, the only objective link to the thing is that between the first user — the appropriator — and the thing."
But the logic of your statement then requires that a child be a 'thing' or a 'resource' to which an objective link can therefore be established. I don't think this is the case. Even in the case of a chimp, I do not think this is the case. At best, it is arguable whether either a child or a chimp is a resource or thing, whereas in the case of a non-sentient piece of land, say, it is not arguable.
The more I read and think about this - and that process is far from complete - the more it seems a 'special' category (e.g. trusteeship) may be justifiable for very special cases. But the criteria for determining such cases would need to be very clear and concrete and establishing that in itself would be difficult to acheve.
pazlenchantinrocks:However I'm quite sure that owning a chimp would be a complex situation to say the least. Not so much in property titles and such, but the relationship one would have with a chimp. Ethically, I find some experiments, killing, disposal, etc troubling as well. However I don't think I could go so far as to say it is unethical. Then again, what about artificial selection? Would it necessarily be a bad thing to attempt to speed up evolution and try to breed a new human-like species?
Thorny questions, to be sure, and again perhaps a good argument for a special category - neither other-owned nor self-owned. And that, I suppose, is my point - that it's not a slam dunk case either way, so proceeding as if it were is not justifiable (first of all, do no harm). Again, it seems to me that, until the matter can be completely and objectively worked out, there should be some sort of moratorium on chimp killings and experiments (and yet, what is the agency which can accomplish that without violating other ethical rules? Certainly not a coercive State!). That is, if a rock solid argument cannot be made that chimps are indeed things or resources, they should be off limits to exploitation which involves harm or damage. I don't see how any other position at this point is ethical.
pazlenchantinrocks: In short, man has rights because they are natural rights. They are grounded in the nature of man: the individual man's capacity for conscious choice, the necessity for him to use his mind and energy to adopt goals and values, to find out about the world, to pursue his ends in order to survive and prosper, his capacity and need to communicate and interact with other human beings and to participate in the division of labor. In short, man is a rational and social animal.
An excellent point - and yet, chimps are demonstrably rational and social animals as well. They have the capacity for conscious choice, and they pursue their ends to survive and prosper, and so forth. Not to the same *degree*, but again we're back to a difference in degree vs a difference in kind. For the vast, even overwhelming majority, of animals, the difference in kind is easily demonstrable, and so the question really is primate-specific.
For chimps and bonobos, and potentially for orangutans and in some cases even gorillas (i.e. for the great apes - our closest relatives in the animal kingdom), these alleged 'human traits' are characteristics which they do seem to share, to a degree. It's just not as simple as asserting that man is simply man and therefore natural rights accrue to us, and all other beings are under man's dominion and subject to whatever treatment we choose to mete out to them.
Inquisitor:Do chimps have feedback loops for the tools they use? Can they advance their knowledge based on what they learn and improve their artifices? Can they project plans in the long-term and execute them? Are they capable of acting on the basis of abstract principles (and can they formulate high abstractions) and guiding their activities on such principles? Can they conceptually integrate what they perceive? These are, loosely, what Nozick identifies as criteria of rationality, and some which I have added. If a chimp could exhibit all of these, I'd see no reason to not give it rights, or at least allow it to enter into a trustee sort of relationship.
What about infants and the mentally challenged? Do they have those things?
"Austrian economics and freedom are not synonymous." -JAlanKatz
Infants definitely have the necessary potential for it (and thus will acquire them in brief time.) My question is whether chimps have in fact developed such traits.
Inquisitor:My question is whether chimps have in fact developed such traits.
A severely retarded person may be roughly equivalent to a chimp for the purposes of discussion - perhaps the same argument would apply to either? Seems reasonable.
Nathyn,
I haven't read every post, but from what i have read, my perspective is you put up a valid fight and take some unfair abuse well. I think what you said here,
"Someone else gave a good justification, though: When a person creates a child, they create the very situation of dependence ("life") which makes the child vulnerable to aggression [or simply death]. Until that child is capable of defending [and caring for] itself, [or the parent can find another caretaker,] the act of having children and aborting them (in the late term) or neglecting them is itself a form of aggression, just like throwing a [/stowaway, i think an invited passenger is a more appropriate analogy] into the ocean and expecting them to swim [because the invitation has been arbitrarily and unexpectedly taken away]."
I think Rothbard had a blind spot to the question of voluntarily accepted positive obligations, in respect to parents and children. Stephan Kinsella addresses this somewhere on lewrockwell.com; if i happen across it, i'll post the link here. But the upshot is, your moral intuition is correct. It is more than merely immoral to allow your child to starve to death on a whim, it is wrong from a pure Rothbardian property ethic as well.
So I’m with you.
But Rothbard, like us all, was only attempting to apply consistently his understanding of a correct property ethic to the parent – child relationship. If he were perfect, and got everything right, he’d not have been human.
pauled:my perspective is you put up a valid fight and take some unfair abuse
The 'abuse' is not based upon a single thread. Perhaps before passing judgment, you should your due diligence. I think the issue many of us have with Nathyn is that he's obviously intelligent, but seems incapable of forcing himself to examine his unexamined assumptions and inculcated biases, and seems unfamiliar with basic tenets of logic and debate, and so he often mounts baseless and illogical attacks on otherwise innocent threads that send them off into the weeds.
Maybe this is true, and i have missed something important. But he has a valid and logical dispute against Rothbard's pretty clear "the parent is within his right to let his child starve" ethic, which i have not seen a persuasive defense of here - which again, perhaps i missed. Or maybe this list is in agreement with the initial thrust of Nathyn's argument, and the debate broke off to something tangential that i missed.
To sum up what I have seen of this “debate”. Early on, Nathyn quoted Rothbard:
“Applying our theory to parents and children, this means that a parent does not have the right to aggress against his children, but also that the parent should not have a legal obligation to feed, clothe, or educate his children, since such obligations would entail positive acts coerced upon the parent and depriving the parent of his rights.”
To this post, he was responded to with (non-)answers such as “I see no problem with Rothbard's position”, and non sequiturs such as “So is it that you advocate the state having control over the children so they can sustain repeated abuse at the hands of state orphanages?”, “The right to do nothing does not correlate with the right to drop a child in the wilderness against his will”, and kind requests to “Please, just leave”. Finally, the ultimate demonstration of reluctance to engage in the meat of the question: “My argument? I haven't made one on this topic,”, and then a further ironic and tangential misdirection “Big on straw men arguments aren't you?” Good one. LOL!
Grant’s sensible contribution should have been a cue to the list that in fact Nathyn’s question had at least some merit and warranted some cool-headed debate. But instead, the gist or theme i got from most comments was to the tune of "read my lips - parents shall not be slaves of their children – and stop attacking my Murray Rothbard". And yet the Rothbardian answer to Rothbard’s own error is simple. The parent voluntarily acted in such a manner to make the child's life dependent on the intervention of the parent. The child’s dependence is caused by the parent, therefore the parent has voluntarily taken on a positive obligation to care for, or find care for that child.
If the list has already made an argument against this position, then I missed it - sorry. But judging by how the discussion got dismissed and scuttled before it really got started, and turned instead into a personal attack against the one bringing up the issue, I doubt it.
My problem with Nathyn wasn't so much the substance of his argument, as I already mentioned I agree that it is logical that positive obligations arise to children (I've argued this before on the Austrian Forum), except were they are not voluntarily conceived. It was the way in which he misrepresented (I doubt unintentionally) Rothbard's arguments and resulted to petty trolling to get his point across.
pauled: Maybe this is true, and i have missed something important. But he has a valid and logical dispute against Rothbard's pretty clear "the parent is within his right to let his child starve" ethic, which i have not seen a persuasive defense of here - which again, perhaps i missed. Or maybe this list is in agreement with the initial thrust of Nathyn's argument, and the debate broke off to something tangential that i missed. To sum up what I have seen of this “debate”. Early on, Nathyn quoted Rothbard: “Applying our theory to parents and children, this means that a parent does not have the right to aggress against his children, but also that the parent should not have a legal obligation to feed, clothe, or educate his children, since such obligations would entail positive acts coerced upon the parent and depriving the parent of his rights.” To this post, he was responded to with (non-)answers such as “I see no problem with Rothbard's position”, and non sequiturs such as “So is it that you advocate the state having control over the children so they can sustain repeated abuse at the hands of state orphanages?”, “The right to do nothing does not correlate with the right to drop a child in the wilderness against his will”, and kind requests to “Please, just leave”. Finally, the ultimate demonstration of reluctance to engage in the meat of the question: “My argument? I haven't made one on this topic,”, and then a further ironic and tangential misdirection “Big on straw men arguments aren't you?” Good one. LOL! Grant’s sensible contribution should have been a cue to the list that in fact Nathyn’s question had at least some merit and warranted some cool-headed debate. But instead, the gist or theme i got from most comments was to the tune of "read my lips - parents shall not be slaves of their children – and stop attacking my Murray Rothbard". And yet the Rothbardian answer to Rothbard’s own error is simple. The parent voluntarily acted in such a manner to make the child's life dependent on the intervention of the parent. The child’s dependence is caused by the parent, therefore the parent has voluntarily taken on a positive obligation to care for, or find care for that child. If the list has already made an argument against this position, then I missed it - sorry. But judging by how the discussion got dismissed and scuttled before it really got started, and turned instead into a personal attack against the one bringing up the issue, I doubt it.
Best Post in this thread so far.
"Melody is a form of remembrance. It must have a quality of inevitability in our ears." - Gian Carlo Menotti
IIRC rtr tried to use that argument once on the Mises blog, but I don't quite recall how he phrased it; he brought in the notion of division of labour. He's on this board, so maybe he can illuminate us.
pauled: So I’m with you.
The Origins of Capitalism
And for more periodic bloggings by moi,
Leftlibertarian.org
I'll refer back to my earlier comment that if you can't exclude chimps from human status you'll have a hard time excluding anything. Once you accept chimps you must accept all of their chimpness and it becomes part of the new definition of human-ness, because I dont see much room for compartmentalizing chimpness and humanness in a single entity. So once chimpness is incorporated it's easy to find the next species that most closely approximates a chimp. From there you can go to the next species. I dont know how gradual the available 'devolution of species' is, but I'd imagine someone creative enough could eventual encompass every particle of the universe as possessing rights. To me, this is part of the morality problem w/ the Theory of Evolution. If kind doesn't produce its own kind but instead 99.99999999999999% kind and a lower and lower percentage w/ each offspring, then its an endlessly slippery slope when trying to apply absolutes.
Yes, the justification is in action, and the knowledge of consequences, and the fact of property damages. If you act in such a way that causes a person to require your assistance to avoid property damage, then you are ethically constrained to provide that assistance, or else you are liable for the damages. It's pretty straight forward. The child did not ask to be put in a position of dependence on the parents, the parents put him in that position.
If you run past a person and bump him, a non-swimmer, in the water and he starts to drown, you cannot just shake your finger at him and denounce him as advocating slavery when he demands you help him out of the water and save him from drowning. Slavery is not part of the question; the question is who is responsible for his drowning, if you do not help him out?
loweleif: Do apes or any other animal have a medium of exchange? Do they trade? And by trade, I don't mean "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" e.g Vampire bats sharing blood. Not really sure if this makes a valid point, but I thought this might be a difference in kind rather than degree.
Do apes or any other animal have a medium of exchange? Do they trade? And by trade, I don't mean "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" e.g Vampire bats sharing blood. Not really sure if this makes a valid point, but I thought this might be a difference in kind rather than degree.
They engage socially on some level as we do. Their difference is one of incremental behavior, not categorical ontology.
pairunoyd: To me, this is part of the morality problem w/ the Theory of Evolution. If kind doesn't produce its own kind but instead 99.99999999999999% kind and a lower and lower percentage w/ each offspring, then its an endlessly slippery slope when trying to apply absolutes.
To me, this is part of the morality problem w/ the Theory of Evolution. If kind doesn't produce its own kind but instead 99.99999999999999% kind and a lower and lower percentage w/ each offspring, then its an endlessly slippery slope when trying to apply absolutes.
Ding ding ding! I'm not the only one to realize this after all. This is the Problem of Application. It's nearly impossible to reasonably justify the application of diametrically-opposed principles (obligation vs non-obligation) to two entities which, as you said, are virtually identical in substance and detail.
pauled:To this post, he was responded to with (non-)answers such as...
From page 1 - I frankly do not see this response from allixpeeke as a 'non-answer' - in fact, I think it was exceedingly substantive:
allixpeeke: Nathyn:Why should Murray Rothbard's property rights matter, but not the lives of children?The axiom of self-ownership is essential, for without it, there would be nothing to stand in the way of Smith's claim to own Brown. It is because Brown owns himself, and cannot alienate from himself that ownership, nor can have that ownership alienated from him by anyone else (Smith, for example), that Brown cannot ever be ethically enslaved. This axiom of self-ownership applies to every human, regardless of age. Every child, no matter at what age, has a natural right to his/her self. Rothbard's property rights matter precisely because children (and everyone else) should be free from coersion and force. In short, without Rothbardian property rights, children could be enslaved! It's not that the lives of children don't matter, but rather that children must be treated equally with adults. No adult has the right to force me to labour so as to sustain his/her existence. Neither, in fact, do children, no matter at what age they may be, or how wealthy I may be. Children should be treated as equals to adults, and since Smith must abide by the "My house, my rules" rule when in Brown's home, so too do Brown's children. If Smith does even the slightest thing to irritate Brown, Brown has every right to demand that Smith leave the premises. Likewise, Brown has the right to demand that his own children leave the premises. Finally, because children are naturally equal to adults, if a child wishes to secede from his/her parents and "run away," the parents have no right to force the child to return, nor does the state and its henchmen have the right to employ force to coerce the child into returning. Nathyn:And also, if freedom truly comes from the right to make contracts -- and children are forbidden from making contracts -- this essentially means that under anarchism, children will universally be slaves.I fail to see why children would be forbidden from making contracts. Rothbard's major flaw in The Ethics of Liberty was in implying that babies can be owned. They cannot be. He is correct that parents can sell guardianship to other would-be parents. But since children are, by their very nature, human beings, and since human beings all have the same rights vested in them as each other, a child has every right to alter or abolish his/her bonds with his/her guardians. In the same way it is our right to alter or abolish the government, a child is free to A) leave his/her guardians and seek adoption from others, or B) leave his/her guardians and set out to live on his/her own. The fact is, under anarchism, children cannot be owned, just as adults cannot be owned--except by the self. Even if a parent said, "My house, my rules; you may not sign that contract, and if you do, you must leave here," the child would still be free to sign the contract if he/she deemed the reward of signing to be greater than the disadvantage of needing to find a new home, just as I am free to terminate my employment with my employer. Nathyn:No matter how intellectually you put it, justifying this is downright dastardly, particularly when juxtaposed with the claim that the mere existence of government amounts to theft and murder.Methinks you are confused. It is our current system which enslaves children. Our current system forces children to attend ten years of education, regardless of their opinion on the matter. Our current system says that children must sign up with Selective Services so that the state, any time it wants, can enslave you and force you to murder. Our current system enslaves children to their parents. Try running away, the cops will bring you back. And unfortunately we don't even have an underground railroad anymore to help escaped slaves make it to Canada. It's our current system which is downright dastardly. Nathyn:This is what I meant, by the way, when I said that one has to be thoroughly dehumanized to buy into such radicalism.One has to be thoroughly dehumanised to support the current statist system, which enslaves children, treats them as animals, and refuses to even acknowledge the validity of their contractual agreements.
Nathyn:Why should Murray Rothbard's property rights matter, but not the lives of children?
The axiom of self-ownership is essential, for without it, there would be nothing to stand in the way of Smith's claim to own Brown. It is because Brown owns himself, and cannot alienate from himself that ownership, nor can have that ownership alienated from him by anyone else (Smith, for example), that Brown cannot ever be ethically enslaved.
This axiom of self-ownership applies to every human, regardless of age. Every child, no matter at what age, has a natural right to his/her self. Rothbard's property rights matter precisely because children (and everyone else) should be free from coersion and force.
In short, without Rothbardian property rights, children could be enslaved!
It's not that the lives of children don't matter, but rather that children must be treated equally with adults. No adult has the right to force me to labour so as to sustain his/her existence. Neither, in fact, do children, no matter at what age they may be, or how wealthy I may be.
Children should be treated as equals to adults, and since Smith must abide by the "My house, my rules" rule when in Brown's home, so too do Brown's children. If Smith does even the slightest thing to irritate Brown, Brown has every right to demand that Smith leave the premises. Likewise, Brown has the right to demand that his own children leave the premises.
Finally, because children are naturally equal to adults, if a child wishes to secede from his/her parents and "run away," the parents have no right to force the child to return, nor does the state and its henchmen have the right to employ force to coerce the child into returning.
Nathyn:And also, if freedom truly comes from the right to make contracts -- and children are forbidden from making contracts -- this essentially means that under anarchism, children will universally be slaves.
Rothbard's major flaw in The Ethics of Liberty was in implying that babies can be owned. They cannot be. He is correct that parents can sell guardianship to other would-be parents. But since children are, by their very nature, human beings, and since human beings all have the same rights vested in them as each other, a child has every right to alter or abolish his/her bonds with his/her guardians. In the same way it is our right to alter or abolish the government, a child is free to A) leave his/her guardians and seek adoption from others, or B) leave his/her guardians and set out to live on his/her own.
The fact is, under anarchism, children cannot be owned, just as adults cannot be owned--except by the self. Even if a parent said, "My house, my rules; you may not sign that contract, and if you do, you must leave here," the child would still be free to sign the contract if he/she deemed the reward of signing to be greater than the disadvantage of needing to find a new home, just as I am free to terminate my employment with my employer.
Nathyn:No matter how intellectually you put it, justifying this is downright dastardly, particularly when juxtaposed with the claim that the mere existence of government amounts to theft and murder.
Our current system forces children to attend ten years of education, regardless of their opinion on the matter.
Our current system says that children must sign up with Selective Services so that the state, any time it wants, can enslave you and force you to murder.
Our current system enslaves children to their parents. Try running away, the cops will bring you back. And unfortunately we don't even have an underground railroad anymore to help escaped slaves make it to Canada.
It's our current system which is downright dastardly.
Nathyn:This is what I meant, by the way, when I said that one has to be thoroughly dehumanized to buy into such radicalism.
Later, Nathyn makes one of his 'meritorious assertions' - the sort which in your eyes "warranted some cool headed debate":
Nathyn:As I said, according to Dr. Evil, we can dump our kids out in the wilderness.
Of course, nobody had said anything like that. It's a standard TROLL tactic intended to provoke, which, IF you had bothered to do the due diligence I suggested, you'd know. But you still haven't it seems.
At any rate, pazlenchantinrocks, provided yet another thoughtful response:
pazlenchantinrocks:"Now if a parent may own his child (within the framework of non-aggression and runaway-freedom), then he may also transfer that ownership to someone else. He may give the child out for adoption, or he may sell the rights to the child in a voluntary contract. In short, we must face the fact that the purely free society will have a flourishing free market in children. Superficially, this sounds monstrous and inhuman. But closer thought will reveal the superior humanism of such a market. For we must realize that there is a market for children now, but that since the government prohibits sale of children at a price, the parents may now only give their children away to a licensed adoption agency free of charge. This means that we now indeed have a child-market, but that the government enforces a maximum price control of zero, and restricts the market to a few privileged and therefore monopolistic agencies."So is it that you advocate the state having control over the children so they can sustain repeated abuse at the hands of state orphanages?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_Pia_child_sexual_abuse_scandalhttp://hrw.org/summaries/s.china961.htmlhttp://www.jbs.org/node/4631http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54861When you're trying to establish the law you can't mix in morality. They are two different subjects." What we are trying to establish here is not the morality... (which may or may not be moral on other grounds), but its legality, i.e., the absolute right of the mother..."I guess you conviently missed that.Anyway, if there was a free market in children, then why would anyone abandon their child when they can put him up for adoption and be compensated for him? The states' rules against the free market and the states' establishment of rape room orphanages are in many cases what drive people to toss their babies into dumpsters in the first place. A free market would solve these problems.
"Now if a parent may own his child (within the framework of non-aggression and runaway-freedom), then he may also transfer that ownership to someone else. He may give the child out for adoption, or he may sell the rights to the child in a voluntary contract. In short, we must face the fact that the purely free society will have a flourishing free market in children. Superficially, this sounds monstrous and inhuman. But closer thought will reveal the superior humanism of such a market. For we must realize that there is a market for children now, but that since the government prohibits sale of children at a price, the parents may now only give their children away to a licensed adoption agency free of charge. This means that we now indeed have a child-market, but that the government enforces a maximum price control of zero, and restricts the market to a few privileged and therefore monopolistic agencies."
So is it that you advocate the state having control over the children so they can sustain repeated abuse at the hands of state orphanages?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_Pia_child_sexual_abuse_scandal
http://hrw.org/summaries/s.china961.html
http://www.jbs.org/node/4631
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54861
When you're trying to establish the law you can't mix in morality. They are two different subjects.
" What we are trying to establish here is not the morality... (which may or may not be moral on other grounds), but its legality, i.e., the absolute right of the mother..."
I guess you conviently missed that.
Anyway, if there was a free market in children, then why would anyone abandon their child when they can put him up for adoption and be compensated for him? The states' rules against the free market and the states' establishment of rape room orphanages are in many cases what drive people to toss their babies into dumpsters in the first place. A free market would solve these problems.
It's interesting to note that, in this case, your hero Nathyn was the one who hit the provocation button first - and yet you chose to ignore that and try to make pazlenchantinrocks' response seem to be the provocative one - without providing the proper context. That's quite dishonest of you, IMO.
I don't see a hint of "read my lips - parents shall not be slaves of their children – and stop attacking my Murray Rothbard" in either of these substantive responses, which balance some of the more intemperate ones nicely all things considered. So it seems your analysis of the posts in this thread is highly selective in nature, and thus your characterization of it is skewed. This would seem to indicate an agenda on your part.
You don't have to dishonestly mischaracterize the thread if you want to jump in on Nathyn's side. You'd be better off just jumping in and using logic to support your position.
loweleif:Do apes or any other animal have a medium of exchange? Do they trade? And by trade, I don't mean "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" e.g Vampire bats sharing blood. Not really sure if this makes a valid point, but I thought this might be a difference in kind rather than degree.
Actually, apes are reknowned for their eagerness to trade - ask any zookeeper who leaves his broom in the chimp cage. The chimps immediately seize and hold the broom until the zookeeper proffers an apple or banana - at which point, the chimps initiate a trade. Within the species, chimps can and do trade just about anything for sex.
As to a *fixed* medium of exchange, no. But then, there are innumerable barter economies in the history of human culture, so if you disallow the chimps on this, you gotta disallow an awful lot of humans as well over the last 200,000 years or so.
ozzy43: It's interesting to note that, in this case, your hero Nathyn was the one who hit the provocation button first - and yet you chose to ignore that and try to make pazlenchantinrocks' response seem to be the provocative one - without providing the proper context. That's quite dishonest of you, IMO. I don't see a hint of "read my lips - parents shall not be slaves of their children – and stop attacking my Murray Rothbard" in either of these substantive responses, which balance some of the more intemperate ones nicely all things considered. So it seems your analysis of the posts in this thread is highly selective in nature, and thus your characterization of it is skewed. This would seem to indicate an agenda on your part. You don't have to dishonestly mischaracterize the thread if you want to jump in on Nathyn's side. You'd be better off just jumping in and using logic to support your position.
So can a 2 yr old chose to have sex? Can they chose to drink poison? I know you offer economic incentive as a way to reduce such acts, but what if people paid money to watch these things? I mean, a cup of poison could be placed w/i someone's home and a child could and probably would chose to drink it.
pairunoyd: ozzy43: It's interesting to note that, in this case, your hero Nathyn was the one who hit the provocation button first - and yet you chose to ignore that and try to make pazlenchantinrocks' response seem to be the provocative one - without providing the proper context. That's quite dishonest of you, IMO. I don't see a hint of "read my lips - parents shall not be slaves of their children – and stop attacking my Murray Rothbard" in either of these substantive responses, which balance some of the more intemperate ones nicely all things considered. So it seems your analysis of the posts in this thread is highly selective in nature, and thus your characterization of it is skewed. This would seem to indicate an agenda on your part. You don't have to dishonestly mischaracterize the thread if you want to jump in on Nathyn's side. You'd be better off just jumping in and using logic to support your position. So can a 2 yr old chose to have sex? Can they chose to drink poison? I know you offer economic incentive as a way to reduce such acts, but what if people paid money to watch these things? I mean, a cup of poison could be placed w/i someone's home and a child could and probably would chose to drink it.
First of all, I'm not sure how your response ties into my post. My point in that post was simply to try to 'recharacterize' this thread more accurately. What does this have to do with toddlers having sex???
There have been several posts that have noted the appropriateness of a trusteeship type of arrangement. Others which noted that it is the current system under which children are treated as, in essence, slaves or animals. Others have noted the difference between legality and morality, and still others have noted that no matter what the legal framework, parents will still love and protect their children because evolution has equipped us thusly. These are worth going back and reading if you have not done so.
sorry. i didnt mean to submit that and your comments. theyre obviously not very related. ;) sorry. made a mistake.
No worries - those are common questions to ask, and good ones to understand the answers to. Check through the thread, and see what you can glean. Obviously, different people here have different views on the subject. Personally, I think that no matter what the approach one takes to it, the worst one is to leave it in the hands of the State. A free civil society will develop mechanisms based on voluntary action that will be far more effective (and ethical) than State coercive ones. Just think of all the horror stories you have heard about state government child protective services agencies and their failings. The State is a bureaucracy, organizationally speaking, and there are some things that a bureaucracy - by its nature - is simply unable to do well. Some people seem to think - for the life of me I cannot understand why - that government is some sort of magic wand, which can do just about anything asked of it. This is a faith based belief, unsupported by any rational argument, as far as I can tell, and it gets us into all sorts of horrible situations.
For example, if you restrict a bureaucracy to filling potholes and changing burnt out street lights, things will probably go pretty smoothly - these are things it can do relatively well (not to say that private sector could not do better, of course) - but when you ask a bureaucracy to take over in *human* areas - dealing with abused or neglected children, say, or dealing with the issue or poverty - you are asking for real trouble.
ozzy43:As to a *fixed* medium of exchange, no. But then, there are innumerable barter economies in the history of human culture, so if you disallow the chimps on this, you gotta disallow an awful lot of humans as well over the last 200,000 years or so.
pauled:Yes, the justification is in action, and the knowledge of consequences, and the fact of property damages.
Yes, the justification is in action, and the knowledge of consequences, and the fact of property damages.
pauled: If you act in such a way that causes a person to require your assistance to avoid property damage, then you are ethically constrained to provide that assistance, or else you are liable for the damages.
If you act in such a way that causes a person to require your assistance to avoid property damage, then you are ethically constrained to provide that assistance, or else you are liable for the damages.
You're jumping logical sequences.The action of property damage requires X to literally alter the physical being of Y against Y's wishes.
As a parent neglicting Y, X merely does not act, at all, he is neither altering or affecting the property of Y. Whether Y needs X or not is irrelevant, X is an independent being, no authority but his own.
If you mean to say that X chose to create Y, that would be one argument, but consider Y as an individual himself. When else does Y come into individual existence but when the chord is cut?The action of being born causes man to become man, and thus be void of any claims of social obligation from other men.
I get the feeling you're referring to contractual obligations, but in the instance of parenthood, no real contractual obligation to act exists if it is assumed that an individual becomes an individual with individual rights and individual existence at birth. If you are proposing that individuals are not created at birth, but instead at some later date I would certainly enjoy a logical and non-arbitrary explanation of when this date occurs.
pauled:It's pretty straight forward. The child did not ask to be put in a position of dependence on the parents, the parents put him in that position.
It's pretty straight forward. The child did not ask to be put in a position of dependence on the parents, the parents put him in that position.
Situational damage is not synonymous to personal damage. Certainly, a being is thrown into existence involuntarily, but at inception the individual cuts all social obligations, including soical obligations to see to his prosperity.
pauled: If you run past a person and bump him, a non-swimmer, in the water and he starts to drown, you cannot just shake your finger at him and denounce him as advocating slavery when he demands you help him out of the water and save him from drowning. Slavery is not part of the question; the question is who is responsible for his drowning, if you do not help him out?
That's a terrible analogy. In your example the person has directly been attacked, whether it was an accident or not.
In our scenario the child has neither been attacked, nor is he attacking. He merely exists, tough luck if he doesn't have the means to sustain himself; that's part of individual existence, we all live and die alone.
Procreation isn't "doing nothing", nor is putting someone in a position of needing your assistance for his survival doing nothing. You speak as if babies come from magic, or thin air or some third party stork drops him down your chimney in a fashion disconnected from any voluntary action on your own part. Wrong.
"The action of property damage requires X to literally alter the physical being of Y against Y's wishes."
This is not the only way to inflict damage. It is sufficient to act in such a manner to be reasonably expected to be the cause of property damage. To invite someone to go for a walk in the field you mined would make you responsible for the damage that ensued if they stepped on one of your mines. And creating a baby makes you responsible for its death if you do not provide for its needs.
"As a parent neglicting Y, X merely does not act, at all, he is neither altering or affecting the property of Y. Whether Y needs X or not is irrelevant, X is an independent being, no authority but his own."
The act of procreation makes one the cause of a need, a need which if not provided results in death. And, yes not providing for the needs of one's own child is certainly an act. And if you are confused on what constitutes action, you must go study Mises's Human Action more thoroughly.
"If you mean to say that X chose to create Y, that would be one argument, but consider Y as an individual himself. When else does Y come into individual existence but when the chord is cut?"
There is a continuum. A new-born baby will one day be a full rights bearing individual, but in the meantime, he must develop some faculties to claim such rights. During this time, the parent as guardian must provide for the child, or he will die. And this state of affairs is due to a previous voluntary sexual act of the parents.
"The action of being born causes man to become man, and thus be void of any claims of social obligation from other men"
There is more to the question than this. Action requires purpose, awareness and an ability to use means to obtain the ends desired by the intellect. The newborn child does not possess these things. He is not an actor, and being born is not an action. He is unable to care for himself and will die without care.
"I get the feeling you're referring to contractual obligations, but in the instance of parenthood, no real contractual obligation to act exists if it is assumed that an individual becomes an individual with individual rights and individual existence at birth. If you are proposing that individuals are not created at birth, but instead at some later date I would certainly enjoy a logical and non-arbitrary explanation of when this date occurs."
There is no contract. There is an act of procreation which is well known to cause a life and death need for care of the child. For an elaboration of when we come to own ourselves, read Kinsella's "How We Come to Own Ourselves" - Possible Solutions to the Dilemma, at http://www.mises.org/story/2291 .
"... Certainly, a being is thrown into existence involuntarily, but at inception the individual cuts all social obligations, including soical obligations to see to his prosperity."
Pure assertion; unsubstantiated by reason and against intuition as well.
"That's a terrible analogy. In your example the person has directly been attacked, whether it was an accident or not.
"In our scenario the child has neither been attacked, nor is he attacking. He merely exists, tough luck if he doesn't have the means to sustain himself; that's part of individual existence, we all live and die alone."
It's not a bad analogy, if not perfect. The relevant parallel is, in each case your action was and could be predicted to be the cause of the person's need for assistance, to save him. The child exists due to the actions of the parents. It is not merely tough luck; it is the nature of humans that he cannot sustain himself. With such an ethic as yours, we may as well concede that life is tough, brutal and short, and therefore might makes right. We are striving for an ethic beyond acknowledging that life is harsh and brutal.