Jackson LaRose: Here is a thought exercise I'd like to get some opinions on here... I thought about it when I was trudging through some Hoppe last night (gag) Jim and Bill are in a room with one chair. Jim is sitting in the chair, Bill is standing. Jim gets up to get a drink at the water fountain across the room. Before he leaves, he puts a note on the chair reading: "Jim's chair, do not sit!" Bill disregards the note, and sits in the chair. Jim, upon returning from across the room, notices this violation of his property rights. "Get up!" Jim exclaims. "No way. You weren't using this resource, so I homesteaded it. The chair is now mine." Bill replies. Jim pulls out his trusty revolver, shoot Bill in the chest, pulls his corpse off the chair, and has a seat. Now according to your reasoning, who was right, and who was wrong? Explanations would also be helpful.
Here is a thought exercise I'd like to get some opinions on here... I thought about it when I was trudging through some Hoppe last night (gag)
Jim and Bill are in a room with one chair. Jim is sitting in the chair, Bill is standing. Jim gets up to get a drink at the water fountain across the room. Before he leaves, he puts a note on the chair reading:
"Jim's chair, do not sit!"
Bill disregards the note, and sits in the chair. Jim, upon returning from across the room, notices this violation of his property rights.
"Get up!" Jim exclaims.
"No way. You weren't using this resource, so I homesteaded it. The chair is now mine." Bill replies.
Jim pulls out his trusty revolver, shoot Bill in the chest, pulls his corpse off the chair, and has a seat.
Now according to your reasoning, who was right, and who was wrong? Explanations would also be helpful.
I am not sure what is the point of presenting such scenarios. Lets say I provide an answer which is incorrect and does not correspond with reality. Or lets say that I feel inadequate to provide an answer. What does that prove? Laws of physics do not hinge on there existing a person knowledgeable enough to be able to solve any puzzle regarding physics. Likewise natural law does not hinge on there existing a person possessing infinite wisdom and therefore able to answer any question regarding applied ethics without a danger of being wrong.
You are not very generous with the information you offer, so a fully satisfactory answer seems impossible, but what can be said is that Jim was wrong in shooting Bill. If the chair was his (probably but can not say with confidence with so little info), then he was justified in using the minimum violence needed to get it back, but he clearly went beyond that and merely used the theft of the chair as a pretext for aggression of his own.
Response to Marko's answer:
I know idealouges prefer to see the world in black or white, but there was no "right" or "wrong" answer to the exercise. One difference between the laws* of physics and the "laws" of morality is that physics can be deduced utilizing testing and empirical observation. I (personally, not insulting your sensibilities) can't figure out a way to construct an experiment that would prove or disprove a theory concerning "right" or "wrong".
How would you determine whether or not the chair was Jim's utilizing natural rights theory? He was utilizing (homesteading) the resource, my understanding of Hoppe was that was enough to endow him with the "right" to that chair. I'm really not trying to trap you, I just wanted some clarification. Is that a misreading?
How would Jim determine the "minimum amount of violence" he is "justified" in utilizing against Bill? Why is Jim still considered the owner of the chair if he stops utilizing it, even for a moment? Couldn't Bill have an equal claim of homesteading?
Disclaimer: I am not trying to disprove anything. I am just trying to gain a better grasp the theory of natural rights.
Angurse:Actually no, "lacking in some" I don't agree that all even have any moral intuitions. And it can be considered warp in comparison to that which is commonly held (i.e. standard). As we already know people share very similar intuitions. If you want to call that external fine by me. This is no different than saying you have a "warped sense of humour" for laughing when a bus full of puppies crashes. As generally people don't find such an event to be funny at all.
OK, so it's agreed. You do measure morality based on a fixed idea external the individual (in this case, the commonly held morality) of which you probably have your finger right on the pulse, since your just a common guy. And yes, everyone has intuition, of course, you've made it quite clear that they don't mean much to you if they don't agree with your opinions.
You commies make me sick. Here's a website you might enjoy:
http://www.house.gov/pelosi/
I'm sure there you can talk to lots of others about the beauty of the dictatorship of the majority over those immoral individuals.
Jackson LaRose:OK, so it's agreed. You do measure morality based on a fixed idea external the individual (in this case, the commonly held morality) of which you probably have your finger right on the pulse, since your just a common guy.
First of all, I never said I was a common guy nor have I even presented my views of morality, so please withhold your claims until you can actually substantiate them. What I did do was present a source of morality to TLAR, to which you even agreed. If you have a problem with "measuring" morality in the same way humour and all other cognitive experiences are "measured" fine by me. I understand that it is ultimately a matter of personal taste (and have already express this idea), it just so happens there is a commonly held personal taste among people. Blame evolution or god. I could care less.
Jackson LaRose:And yes, everyone has intuition, of course, you've made it quite clear that they don't mean much to you if they don't agree with your opinions.
Thanks for agreeing. You're right, if some stranger just walked over to me and punched me in the face his (warped) view of morality really wouldn't mean much to me.
Jackson LaRose: You commies make me sick. Here's a website you might enjoy: http://www.house.gov/pelosi/ I'm sure there you can talk to lots of others about the beauty of the dictatorship of the majority over those immoral individuals.
Too much coffee. You should calm down with the accusations and assumptions, they aren't helpful.
But to the puncher in question, his morality is arrow-straight.
Sorry if I offended, it must just be my warped sense of humor...
If religions sprung from man, then the source you suggested would be the same as TLAR, just without all the robes, incense, and silly hats.
Jackson LaRose:But to the puncher in question, his morality is arrow-straight.
From his POV sure, nor to most people, and most importantly not my own.
I might contend the most part, depending on the application of the scenario. We are the way we are due to social conditioning, which might (depending on circumstances) skew that assumption.
Or intuition.
I don't really see the distinction.
A product of biology. Instinct. Not formed by by reason or inference. If by "social conditioning" thats what you meant then there isn't a distinction.
I'd be quite impressed with you state of self-awareness if you could truly distinguish the two.
Jackson LaRose:I'd be quite impressed with you state of self-awareness if you could truly distinguish the two.
Social conditioning is nurture, as opposed to sociobiology - nature.
Jackson LaRose: Disclaimer: I am not trying to disprove anything. I am just trying to gain a better grasp the theory of natural rights.
Jackson LaRose: I know idealouges prefer to see the world in black or white, but there was no "right" or "wrong" answer to the exercise.
I know idealouges prefer to see the world in black or white, but there was no "right" or "wrong" answer to the exercise.
The two statements would seem to contradict each other.
Jackson LaRose: One difference between the laws* of physics and the "laws" of morality is that physics can be deduced utilizing testing and empirical observation. I (personally, not insulting your sensibilities) can't figure out a way to construct an experiment that would prove or disprove a theory concerning "right" or "wrong".
One difference between the laws* of physics and the "laws" of morality is that physics can be deduced utilizing testing and empirical observation. I (personally, not insulting your sensibilities) can't figure out a way to construct an experiment that would prove or disprove a theory concerning "right" or "wrong".
Yes that is one difference. I am not sure it is meaningful though unless you are saying only empirical knowledge is valid. In any case there is no such difference if we instead use mathematics for the comparison. I do not know of an experiment that could prove a math theory.
Jackson LaRose: How would you determine whether or not the chair was Jim's utilizing natural rights theory? He was utilizing (homesteading) the resource, my understanding of Hoppe was that was enough to endow him with the "right" to that chair. I'm really not trying to trap you, I just wanted some clarification. Is that a misreading? ... Why is Jim still considered the owner of the chair if he stops utilizing it, even for a moment? Couldn't Bill have an equal claim of homesteading?
...
Why is Jim still considered the owner of the chair if he stops utilizing it, even for a moment? Couldn't Bill have an equal claim of homesteading?
As I said it is hard to determine the truth of the matter with any certainty because if this was supposed to be an example from the real world then we have so little info to go on. You would need to expand on the scenario and answer things like, who built the chair, who owns the room, do Jim and Bill have a home and so on.
Instead you have created a world where nothing exists except for one unowned room, a fountain, a magically conjured chair and two characters interested only in staying in this room. So do not be surprised that in this totally surreal world you have created application of homesteading is no less surreal than the rest of it.
A chair is not a natural resource. It is "homesteaded" by whomever builds it. It does not get homesteaded by sitting on it. In the real world. However by the premise of your scenario the chair actually is unowned (having come into existence via magic, or having been abandoned). Such an object would be homesteaded in the real world by the virtue of taking it onto your person and carrying it home. Not by the virtue of using it for a little while. However since in your scenario the room is apparently unowned and the two characters homeless and only interested in staying in this room then yes you actually do homestead an abandoned chair by the virtue of sitting on it. It is ridiculous yes, but it is only to be expected when we are talking about a scenario which is already ridiculous in itself. So Jim had homesteaded the chair as per the natural rights rules of his mini-world. The chair stayed his because he had only ceased to use it for the time being, but did not abandon it, which he even went as far as to clearly show with the note he left on the chair.
Jackson LaRose: How would Jim determine the "minimum amount of violence" he is "justified" in utilizing against Bill?
How would Jim determine the "minimum amount of violence" he is "justified" in utilizing against Bill?
The amount of violence he is justified in using is the minimum amount of violence required to make himself whole again. In his case the violence he is justified to is the minimum violence needed to get his chair back. The minimum violence it would take Bill to relinquish his hold on the chair is what he is entitled to. No more.
This still leaves Jim with a problem of determining what is the minimum violence it would take to make Bill return the chair which can be very tricky indeed. But Jim never attempted to discover the answer. He did not try pushing Bill from the chair or discharging a shot into the air. In any case this practical side can not be answered by ethics. You would need to ask people who knew Bill and what sort of a person he was.
To angurse:
"Social conditioning is nurture, as opposed to sociobiology - nature."
Yes, I understand the textbook distinction, but I'm saying that on an introspective level, the causation for your action would be much harder to distinguish.
Marko:A chair is not a natural resource. It is "homesteaded" by whomever builds it. It does not get homesteaded by sitting on it. In the real world. However by the premise of your scenario the chair actually is unowned (having come into existence via magic, or having been abandoned). Such an object would be homesteaded in the real world by the virtue of taking it onto your person and carrying it home. Not by the virtue of using it for a little while. However since in your scenario the room is apparently unowned and the two characters homeless and only interested in staying in this room then yes you actually do homestead an abandoned chair by the virtue of sitting on it. It is ridiculous yes, but it is only to be expected when we are talking about a scenario which is already ridiculous in itself. So Jim had homesteaded the chair as per the natural rights rules of his mini-world. The chair stayed his because he had only ceased to use it for the time being, but did not abandon it, which he even went as far as to clearly show with the note he left on the chair.
Doesn't this create a disputed claim of ownership between Jim and Bill, since both seem to have legitimate claims on said chair. I also don't understand how the chair not being a "natural resource" is really relevant, because it is still a scarce resource.
Sure, but the difficulty to distinguish doesn't alter the fact, it just means we need to look harder. And there is a bit scientific research on the subject.
I would argue that the distinction falls by the wayside in the face of free will in the individual being able to conquer either nature or nurture.
Jackson LaRose:I would argue that the distinction falls by the wayside in the face of free will in the individual being able to conquer either nature or nurture.
First you'd have to prove free will though.
If not free will, than what? Determinism?
Sure, that or Compatibilism. While I'm no determinist, its pretty obvious that not everything people do is of their own free choice (blinking, heart beat) emotions may fit in such category as well.
Marko: You can't claim rights exist up to a point, but when it gets complicated they cease to. Rights either exist or they do not. You can't have them exist but fade out after a distance.
You can't claim rights exist up to a point, but when it gets complicated they cease to. Rights either exist or they do not. You can't have them exist but fade out after a distance.
Rights exist subjectively. It just so happens that most people on Earth adhere to the NAP instinctively. But there is no objective way to go about protecting and enforcing these so-called rights. Also, breaking objective laws, like those of physics and economics, have consequences. If I drop a rock, gravity will force it to the ground, and if I inflate the currency, it will destroy savings over time. But if I kill somebody, I can get away with it, and there are no consequences. There is nothing objectively telling me that I broke any laws.
Would you rob a house if you were starving? Would you initiate violence in order to protect your children? How can these morals be objective when they are violated with such impunity?
The bottom line is that most things in life are subjective and arbitrary, beneficial when facilitated by voluntary interaction, and detrimental when forced by the state.
free paradigm blog ::: free paradigm on youtube
how can it be true that A=A when I can write down A!=A ?
i can make things not be themselves with impunity!
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
I can look at your sarcasm as initiated violence against me, since I generally view sarcasm to be childishly violent in nature. We did not agree voluntarily that you could treat me like a dumbass, and I feel aggressed against. Some libertarian you are, you remind me more of a violent statist thug.
demosthenes: since I generally view sarcasm to be childishly violent in nature
demosthenes:We did not agree voluntarily that you could treat me like a dumbass
demosthenes:Some libertarian you are, you remind me more of a violent statist thug.
nirgrahamUK:that's neither enlightened or libertarian.
According to your subjective analysis.
is that how i treated you? i thought I treated you with respect as someone worthy of being corrected by the reveal of a counter-argument
Can you prove that's how you were treating me.. you know, objectively?
be careful you don't cross the line into launching insults.
Is that a thinly veiled threat? You about to teach me that might equals right? Are you sure you're not a statist? It would fit since you're the one who started with the insults in the first place, intervening in this otherwise peaceful, voluntary discussion.
demosthenes:According to your subjective analysis.
demosthenes:Can you prove that's how you were treating me.. you know, objectively?
.
demosthenes:Is that a thinly veiled threat?
nirgrahamUK:if you understand that libertarianism is concerned with property and uninvited border crossings, and reflect on what property borders i have crossed by 'sarcastacising' you
I'm just saying, it is my right to choose what I consider to be aggression. Even if morality was objective, we would still disagree on how justice should be carried out and where the line is between regular interaction and coercion.
irrelevant
Ultimately I totally agree with you. It is irrelevant whether rights are objective or not. If they exist or not. In the end, all that matters is that justice provided by the market will be superior than "justice" "provided" by the state.
no, its an explicit warning to conform to house rules. i am obliged to warn you.consider yourself warned against launching insults.
Launching? I was responding to insults, not launching them. Nice try though.
Angurse:While I'm no determinist, its pretty obvious that not everything people do is of their own free choice (blinking, heart beat)
I don't really see that as obvious, ever have a staring contest? Ever see those guys who can hold their breath for like 20 minutes, because they slow their heart rate to almost nothing? You don't give your mind enough credit. If our ego discovers it in the brain, it can be altered.
Oh and +1 for demosthenes, don't let nigarham push you around!
Jackson LaRose:Oh and +1 for demosthenes, don't let nigarham push you around!
you are celebrating someone that can't intellectually respond to criticism of his arguments? +1 to you.
demosthenes: Rights exist subjectively. It just so happens that most people on Earth adhere to the NAP instinctively. But there is no objective way to go about protecting and enforcing these so-called rights. Also, breaking objective laws, like those of physics and economics, have consequences. If I drop a rock, gravity will force it to the ground, and if I inflate the currency, it will destroy savings over time. But if I kill somebody, I can get away with it, and there are no consequences. There is nothing objectively telling me that I broke any laws. Would you rob a house if you were starving? Would you initiate violence in order to protect your children? How can these morals be objective when they are violated with such impunity? The bottom line is that most things in life are subjective and arbitrary, beneficial when facilitated by voluntary interaction, and detrimental when forced by the state.
This is what I was +1'ing about, dude.
Here's a good quote from Adam Knott from the "Why are there so few Misesians?" thread:
We come upon a man committing some act grossly violative of his nature: let us say that he was engaged in a theft. We apprehend him, and while we have him in custody we question him about the nature of the act we caught him performing. We fmd he is an extremely knowledgeable fellow, familiar with all the arguments of the natural law school. In fact, he has read Rasmussen's article and was con- vinced that the proposition that a man ought to act in accord with his nature is correct, logically. "Well," we ask him, "if you know that to steal is to act against your nature, and you know that you ought to act according to your nature, how could you bring yourself to commit your felonious act?" "I chose not to act in accord with correct ethical principles," our philosophical burglar might answer.
My story, I trust, illustrates the problem. To deny an ultimate value and todefy an ultimate value are not at all the same activity, and it is the latter whichprovides the stronger suppolt of the is-ought dichotomy. One can deny a fact, butone cannot defy one. You can deny the law of gravity is operative in the world,but your denial will have no effect on what will happen when you step off aprecipice. The law of gravity operates no matter which course of action youpursue-if you accept the existence of the operation of the law and hold yourselfback from the edge of the cliff, or if you reject the truth of the law of gravityand step over the ledge, or if you accept the truth of the law, but wish to fall (letus say as a means of suicide), in all three cases the operation of the law of gravityis unaffected.
Moral law does not work in this way, however. One can admit the intellectualcorrectness of a proposition of moral law (even of its ultimate value), and yetdeliberately defy it. This being the case, we must question what moral law means:
If one could not, by any means whatsoever, defy moral law, great difficulty wouldarise over the appropriateness of the use of "ought"-for we do not normally usethat word to command actions which in any event cannot be avoided. If, on theother hand, one can and does defy the imperative of a moral law, how is one stillseen as bound by it? Punishment or other ill consequences do not suffice to makemoral law objective, for if the person committing the violation of the maxim(s)prefers the object of his illicit action, even when coupled with punitive or otherunfortunate consequences, that seems to mean that there is no apparent reason whyhe should not act contrary to that moral law.
Any reason offered for why one should not act contrary to moral law musteither be a fact or a value. If a fact, it will need to he made relevant by the accep-tance (envaluation; not epistemological acceptance) of that fact by the individual'swill, which condition, in turn, renders it subjective. If a value, it, in its turn, willrequire an answer why it may not be defied, and so ad injnitum.
you seem confused that because people can err and be mistaken, that there is nothing for them to be mistaken about. The problem of 'binding' is no more a problem for objective ethicists than it is for objective logicists or objective mathematicians.
How would you directly respond to the following?: how can it be true that A=A when I can write down A!=A ?i can make things not be themselves with impunity!
you are modifying the equation to make it untrue. You aren't defying the fact that A=A. Writing and physically changing are two different things.
similarly. when you violate an objective interpersonal norm. you do an act which is immoral. the fact that you actualised something that you shouldn't have doesn't make it the case that there was no truth as to whether you should or you should not have done so.
That's just a sentence.
"Gravity doesn't exist."
If I jump off a cliff naked, gravity will still be there. A will still equal A.
Now if we agree "it is incorrect to murder", I can still go kill some people. So it's not a "law" in the same sense.
To quote Mr. Knott:
One can deny a fact, but one cannot defy one.
no. regardless of how many people you kill. it will still be true that it is immoral to murder innocents.
the claim is that it is immoral to murder them not that its impossible. your ability to do the immoral does not prove anything apart from that you performed evil.
But if you contend morality is universal, you must concede that it is a different type of "law" than math, or physics.
no. it is formal, just like math.
physics i can grant you.
How do you reconcile the fundamental difference we were just discussing?
I'm afraid your question is a little unclear and open to interpretation. can you ask it more precisely?
Perhaps you are asking me to explain that when you do an immoral act, it remains an immoral act. the fact of the acts morality is beyond being affected by your actualizing or failure to actualize the act.
Jackson LaRose: I don't really see that as obvious, ever have a staring contest? Ever see those guys who can hold their breath for like 20 minutes, because they slow their heart rate to almost nothing? You don't give your mind enough credit. If our ego discovers it in the brain, it can be altered.
Yet, as hard as you try, you will still blink, and your heart will, in fact, beat. You do behave involuntarily. Sorry ego.
I could remove my eyelids, or kill myself. Sorry brainstem.