nhaag:Means are things you can control. If you employ people, they are not the means but the service they render is. So, strictly speaking, you do not use humans as means, but you contract with them to render a service.
That is an incorrect definition.
Peace
Can you please explain how so?
In the begining there was nothing, and it exploded.
Terry Pratchett (on the big bang theory)
JonBostwick: nhaag:What is involved in the thinking that hiring someone to murder a third party is, that, by hiring someone you can take away his individual responsibility to not agress merely because you both agreed in a contract No one has claimed to believe that to be the case. What everyone has stated is that the hirer shares in the guilt of the hired. nhaag:Again my argument is, if you hold the hirer responsible for a murder you take away the responsibility of the acting killer for his action, even if you argue that now both will be responsible, this would mean at least that you take away part of the killers responsibility. Every human being is personal responsible for whatever he/she does, it is called freedom Fallacious. If two people commit a mugging together is each held to be half as liable as a mugger who commits the same crime alone? Of course not. Each would be forced to return all money they recieved and each would be liable for assaulting the victim.
nhaag:What is involved in the thinking that hiring someone to murder a third party is, that, by hiring someone you can take away his individual responsibility to not agress merely because you both agreed in a contract
No one has claimed to believe that to be the case.
What everyone has stated is that the hirer shares in the guilt of the hired.
nhaag:Again my argument is, if you hold the hirer responsible for a murder you take away the responsibility of the acting killer for his action, even if you argue that now both will be responsible, this would mean at least that you take away part of the killers responsibility. Every human being is personal responsible for whatever he/she does, it is called freedom
Fallacious.
If two people commit a mugging together is each held to be half as liable as a mugger who commits the same crime alone? Of course not.
Each would be forced to return all money they recieved and each would be liable for assaulting the victim.
Well your argument does not seem to prove the case anyway. Both aggressed personally, so both are liable to make up for the damage they have done. I can not see how that refutes what I said?
And one remark here as well, each could be forced by or on behalf of the mugged if that is what he wants.
It seems the whole issue rotates around a bit. So, let me try to clarify how I come to my conclusions.
1.) Every person owns, that is controls its property
2.) initiation of aggression is a crime that gives the individual who is aggressed against the right to retaliate in whichever way he seems to fit to either prevent the aggression alltogether or achieve a compensation that he thinks is sufficient.
3.) No one can give someone else a right that he does not posess.
4.) Groups have neither positive nor negative rights at all.
5.) An aggressor does not get stripped of any natural rights he has, as they are inalienable. Only insofar as he has to reconcile the aggressive act he is oblieged to make it up to the aggressed, not to a group, society, law or any other entity.
6.) Law is not set, but it is, and can therefor only be, found. Policies about interpretation of the law are mere conveninence to speed up similar conflicts as far as the victim agrees
Based on these points a contract to commit a crime can never even be a contract, as, by definition a contract is an exchange. Now, noone can exchange something that he does not posses or will posses at the time of delivery. The right to initiate aggression can never be possesed by anyone, hence a contract to kill or harm a third party (if it is the initiation of aggression) can never institute a liability of the non acting party (the employer of the hitman). The only thing possible would be that the acting person (the hitman) could make the employer liable for fraud (as he offered a contract that he was not willing to fulfill, i.e. never had the means to fullfill it). The victim (or his rightful heir) can only hold the killer liable noone else.
Society has no claim in the whole process whatsoever, so it is not involved in any way.
Does that make sense?
Have a great time
You're making a mountain out of a molehill. Yes, someone is responsible for services they have purchased in the pursuit of a given end, which include those of an assassin. Yes, the assassin is also liable for providing them. Both are liable. Both owe the victim restitution. There is no more to it than this. The agent agreed to be used as a means by providing their services, and to the extent they carry them through, are liable. The person hiring them has used them as a means and is also liable. There is no more to it than this. Rothbard addressed this issue in the paper JonBostwick cited. Freedom of the will &c. are irrelevant. They do not exonerate either party. The rights objection is utterly irrelevant. It would be relevant, if for example the agent took the principle to court and demanded they uphold the contract. Then the court could not uphold it. But as far as establishing liability goes, rights are irrelevant: all they are, are prohibitions on the initiation of aggression. The fact that the agent does not have the right to kill the victim is neither here nor there. The fact of the matter is that their agent executed their will, as specified by the contract.
The only reason the rights objection makes sense in the case of slavery contracts is because a court is expected to uphold them - the objection notes that the contract is fraudulent and thus cannot be upheld. But this has nothing to do with the question of liability in the case of bilateral contracts between individuals conspiring to harm a third party. Here, all that matters is whether the agent acted as the means of the principle, thus executing their will, or not. There is no more to it. Free will &c. are irrelevant once this has taken place.
-Jon
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
JonBostwick: nhaag:Means are things you can control. If you employ people, they are not the means but the service they render is. So, strictly speaking, you do not use humans as means, but you contract with them to render a service. That is an incorrect definition.
Means are not thing you control. Means are things you use.
People can not "control" any animal any more than they can a person. Are we to believe that if I trample a person while riding a horse I am not liable? Certainly a horse can refuse to comply with its rider. The only action I performed was sitting on a horse. No crime there.
Or lets say I drop a bomb from a plane. I do not cause the bomb to fall to earth, gravity does it independent of my will. Humans can't control gravity so carpet bombing is not a crime.
JonBostwick:People can not "control" any animal any more than they can a person. Are we to believe that if I trample a person while riding a horse I am not liable? Certainly a horse can refuse to comply with its rider.
*cough cough cough* which is why animals can't really be property *cough cough cough*
Excuse me. Allergies.
JCFolsom: JonBostwick:People can not "control" any animal any more than they can a person. Are we to believe that if I trample a person while riding a horse I am not liable? Certainly a horse can refuse to comply with its rider. *cough cough cough* which is why animals can't really be property *cough cough cough* Excuse me. Allergies.
You don't seem to believe much of anything is property.
Well, we used to have huge moles here .
Yet, I think i agree with your remarks.
Here is Rothbard on that problem, and it looks pretty much like my argument I think
"Suppose, for example, that A and B freely contract to shoot C. The third version may say that this is an illegal contract. But, actually, it should not be! For the contract itself does not and cannot violate C’s rights. It is only a possible subsequent action against C that will violate his rights. But, in that case, it is that action which must be declared illegal and punished, not the preceding contract. The first clause, which provides for absolute freedom of contract, is the clearest and evidently the preferable formulation.34"
Man, Economy and State Scholar Edition pg. 1345
Cheers
I don't think it is.
He says that only the action must be illegal, not the contract.
This could mean that a hiring a hitman becomes a crime only when and if the murder actually takes place, and not when an argeement is reached or money changes hands. This would be inline with our means/ends analysis.
JCFolsom:*cough cough cough* which is why animals can't really be property *cough cough cough* Excuse me. Allergies.
All kittehs agree: they own the hoomans.