Nicolás Maloberti has published an intriguing article in the first volume of the Libertarian Papers.He basically contends that people have positive rights to some extent in case they encounter a situation of unpredictable peril and there are people with the means to save them. Then, he says, those in need have a positive claim towards those with the means to save them. As an example, he cites the drowning baby and the idle bystander.I have two main issues with his idea:1) It is not entirely clear what constitutes a "perilous situation". In his paper, Nicolás defines it as a situation that threatens survival (page 6). Some types of illness threaten survival; do those inflicted with such an illness, then, have a claim to the wealth of the non-ill? In another example, he uses the hiker in the cold mountains who would freeze to death if he were not taken care of by a cabin owner. However, didn't the hiker take the risk of ending up alone in the cold woods when he consciously decided to leave civilization for a hiking trip? How minimal does the risk have to be for it to be unpredictable, thus legitimating a samaritan claim? It gets pretty subjective from there.2) Even if we assume that there's an objective threshold concerning risk and obligation to help, doesn't this actually deny the self-ownership of the individual? If I have a claim to a log cabin owner's cabin and may legitimately use force against him if he denies me access, am I not practically enslaving the cabin owner? After all, his life and property are secondary to my needs in this case. This seems to be deeply unlibertarian to me.What are your thoughts on this?
theres been a lot of debate recently on the subject 'perilous situations', though it was framed a different way:
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/5790.aspx
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring