Jon Irenicus:It's one of the oldest distinctions made in ethical theory. The good pertains to the good life, i.e. the moral life, and is more concerned with one's character. The right concerns how one ought to treat others, basically. A major problem with modern ethical theory - particularly liberal, and this includes libertarian - is that it eschews the 'good' to the extent that the 'right' dominates, stripping morality of any substantive content and rendering it utterly minimalist. It's relevant in comprehending to what extent, if any, the NAP is absolute, and in what contexts it is so.
The online resources I can find right off the bat on this issue are remarkably scant. Do you have anything you suggest reading on the subject?
Shelly Kagan's Normative Ethics.
Online? Haven't really checked. Coverage of it was limited even on my uni courses. I'd recommend you read Rasmussen's and den Uyl's Norms of Liberty if you want a full-blown exposition on its importance and relation so far as the NAP goes.
-Jon
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
If I'm not mistaken, though, this entire argument has implied the distinction from the beginning. In what way are you hoping that the distinction will be informative to the conversation? I mean, obviously we're talking about whether promotion of "the good" can be used as justification of a rights infringement, but defining "the right" to answer that question would simply beg the question.
Donny with an A:If I'm not mistaken, though, this entire argument has implied the distinction from the beginning.
Unless I, too, am mistaken, I believe you're right. We just haven't been using the same words for it.
JCFolsom: But look, you're not even faced with the decision just now! You're basically planning to do it if you should ever have the occasion to, even though you know it's wrong! You have made the decision, with malice aforethought, to do what you define as evil. So, you sir, are a LIAR. You say you believe something when you know that you do not act as if you believe it. You are a knowing and happy hypocrite. Not only would you violate the code you fraudulently claim, you don't even express a desire to be a "better" person who would actually try to do what you "know" is right. Your morals are shown by your actions. You don't believe in the NAP any more than I do, you just like being in the club.
But look, you're not even faced with the decision just now! You're basically planning to do it if you should ever have the occasion to, even though you know it's wrong! You have made the decision, with malice aforethought, to do what you define as evil.
So, you sir, are a LIAR. You say you believe something when you know that you do not act as if you believe it. You are a knowing and happy hypocrite. Not only would you violate the code you fraudulently claim, you don't even express a desire to be a "better" person who would actually try to do what you "know" is right.
Your morals are shown by your actions. You don't believe in the NAP any more than I do, you just like being in the club.
I'm not faced with it now? I thought that was the whole point of this exercise? Am I not suppose to assume I AM in that situation and determine how I might act? Liar? I think not sir. Please show me where I've lied about anything. Fraud? Dream on! Hypocrite? No more than yourself or anyone else. I can only assume, based on how I think I might react, that I would try to save the life of the man on the mountain and if that meant violating my own "moral code" -- gee...I wonder if I'm the only one whose ever done that? -- then I guess I would. Get off your high horse man. No one is perfect and in imperfect situations I can only guess as to how I would act. You'd rather be right than honest. At least I'm honest about what I MIGHT do. I didn't know moral perfection was a requirement in order to be an anarchist.
"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds. " -- Samuel Adams.
gigaplex: A moral system does not have to be religious. My "survival" moral system that I posted earlier does not have anything to do with gods, aliens or anything like that.The moral system you just described IS NAP and it has to be in order for NAP to be absolute on a moral level since the moral system would need to lead you to completely identical answers.
A moral system does not have to be religious. My "survival" moral system that I posted earlier does not have anything to do with gods, aliens or anything like that.The moral system you just described IS NAP and it has to be in order for NAP to be absolute on a moral level since the moral system would need to lead you to completely identical answers.
What the hell are you talking about? Identical answer to what? Whether or not it is right to steal someones property just because you think it's ok to do so?
JCFolsom: JonBostwick:So lets say you steal the transporter but when you get off the mountain I shoot you for mugging the transporter's owner. Would you still do it? Is violating the NAP still such a good idea? Ah, but your shooting the "mugger" after the fact is a murder, because your action does not achieve an end for someone else equal to or greater than what is lost by the person you shoot. It's just vengeance.
JonBostwick:So lets say you steal the transporter but when you get off the mountain I shoot you for mugging the transporter's owner. Would you still do it? Is violating the NAP still such a good idea?
Ah, but your shooting the "mugger" after the fact is a murder, because your action does not achieve an end for someone else equal to or greater than what is lost by the person you shoot. It's just vengeance.
No its not. The NAP is already disproven when he stole the transporter, remember? I'm simply improving my utility.
Peace
Hold on, Jon, you don't want to say that. What you need to argue is something like the idea that once someone violates the NAP, it does not count as aggression to use force against them. But you need to say more than that, since there are some things you can do to someone who violates the NAP which would count as aggression: if, for example, I stole a twinky from your store, you would not be justified in approaching me twenty years later and shooting me in the face. So the theory gets a little more complicated, especially when you factor in procedural justice, proportionality, and the debate between punishment and restitution.
You're mistaking me. I was not responding within the confines of the NAP. I was acting free of the limitations of the NAP. Because, as was said, it had been obsoleted.
Of course I wouldn't actually kill someone who stole a transporter. I was attempting to point out the absurdity of using a hypothetical, complete with a "happily everafter" ending, to prove utility. I was asking if he would still violate the nap if it resulted in a reduction of utility.
Okay yea, I misunderstood. Sorry about that.
Jon Irenicus: It's one of the oldest distinctions made in ethical theory. The good pertains to the good life, i.e. the moral life, and is more concerned with one's character. The right concerns how one ought to treat others, basically. A major problem with modern ethical theory - particularly liberal, and this includes libertarian - is that it eschews the 'good' to the extent that the 'right' dominates, stripping morality of any substantive content and rendering it utterly minimalist. It's relevant in comprehending to what extent, if any, the NAP is absolute, and in what contexts it is so. -Jon
It's one of the oldest distinctions made in ethical theory. The good pertains to the good life, i.e. the moral life, and is more concerned with one's character. The right concerns how one ought to treat others, basically. A major problem with modern ethical theory - particularly liberal, and this includes libertarian - is that it eschews the 'good' to the extent that the 'right' dominates, stripping morality of any substantive content and rendering it utterly minimalist. It's relevant in comprehending to what extent, if any, the NAP is absolute, and in what contexts it is so.
I agree Jon. This seems to be the issue and to me it seems the way to frame it. Sometimes wording can be confusion though. To me the idea of property rights is to devide the moral question, i.e. what is good, from the rights question. I do not think that the right dominates though, it is only the least common denominator and moral is in an other realm. Like if you talk about biology you usually do not mix it with engineering roads.
Have a great day
In the begining there was nothing, and it exploded.
Terry Pratchett (on the big bang theory)
Geoffrey Allan Plauche: nhaag:Now a crime is not a moral entity (what is good and what is bad), I think that's debatable. If (real) crimes are not immoral and (just) laws don't have a moral basis, then what is the basis of law? Why should laws protect libertarian rights? Why should people respect rights? Is it not wrong/immoral to violate rights intentionally? Typically the stark separation of ethics and law that you propose is a mark of legal positivism, which is not conducive to libertarianism.
nhaag:Now a crime is not a moral entity (what is good and what is bad),
I think that's debatable. If (real) crimes are not immoral and (just) laws don't have a moral basis, then what is the basis of law? Why should laws protect libertarian rights? Why should people respect rights? Is it not wrong/immoral to violate rights intentionally? Typically the stark separation of ethics and law that you propose is a mark of legal positivism, which is not conducive to libertarianism.
It is indeed, I think. First, I believe, that one of the challenges is the term crime itself. We are used to identify this term with something that is immoral because it is used by the law givers exactly in that way, for what I think to be of obvious reasons. Avoiding taxation is a crime so it is immoral, right?
From my perspective crime is therefor a bad term for the basic relationships between humans and their rights to their own property. What about using the term contract instead? Jut for the sake of the argument. A contract is an agreement between two or more parties. Now if someone doesn't fullfil his part of the contract, what is he supposed to do? Right, he is supposed to heal the contract by whatever it takes to do so. As no third party is involved, no third party has any reason nor any right to interfere neither by punishment nor by any other way.
From my perspective, laws indeed do not have a moral basis. People should respect the right to self ownership, because it allows them to cooperate, and cooperation is the most effective and safe way to survive.
It is counterproductive to violate contracts as it increases the always risk of ones position to be successful. And, frome the perspective of the violated, it makes no difference if you violate a right intentionally or not.
Only when you start to involve third parties, groups that is, that claim, because of superior knowledge (moral, ethics), they now can decide not only if the contract was violated but also what kind of punishment is appropriate, you can make a measurement on this. The yardstick you use to measure, is the groups morale or ethics. If you think that road is valid, you open the door wide for collectivistic ideas regarding the law.
I can not see how this is legal positivism, but if you like to call it that way I don't mind, neither can I see how that would set me outside of libertarianism. Isn't this view actually the only applicable way to prevent group law and group think, i.e. collectivsm?
I'm not trying to prove utility. I know it looks that way, but I'm not a utilitarian. No, I say the person should take the tranporter because it that action is compassionate (saves a person's life), brave (faces off against a callous foe who is in a position of advantage, already possessing the life-saving device), and therefore, good and virtuous. Your shooting the person in the face, regardless of the utility you think you increase, is petty, vengeful, and murderous, and therefore evil.
Come to think of it, I think Niccolo's argument implicitly brought in the distinction. So maybe you're right.
Jon Irenicus:No, it actually has not been drawn out here, at least not explicitly, although Niccolo pretty much phrased it in terms I agree with. If the right is given precedence (and it will, as it is the logical precondition of the good, at the interpersonal/political level), the pursuit of the good will be morally but not legally permissible. Hence anarcho-capitalism is not "defeated" so to speak, and the nature of the NAP is clarified, and the sense in which it is absolute made obvious. Hence why one may morally be permitted to aggress in emergencies, but legally they can expect consequences for it. The NAP sets the conditions under which moral behaviour is even possible. It is on a different level than personal morality.
Anarcho-Capitalism, inasmuch as it depends on the NAP (though many here have said it does not, and it is not my purpose to dispute this latter point), is defeated. One of the great benefits of anarchy is that, under it, there is no huge institution that will punish people for good deeds that somehow violate unbending and simplistic rules. Only statist-type legalists, for whom utter predictability and order is the highest end, would prosecute a person from taking a life-saving tool from someone being simply callous and miserly and using it to save a life.
Only under the state is the right warped away from the good.
Well but hold on. "The right" is not the same thing as the "rights" that people have. Only with a Nozickian side constraint-style view, where rights always trump, would the two be identical. No?
No, for the last time, it is not defeated, because you are making the illicit move that aggression in emergency situations (which still demands restitution) somehow is licence for violation of the NAP in non-emergency circumstances. If this assumption is not made, anarcho-capitalism is not "defeated", and the argument is bunk. All it does show is that, as a matter of personal morality, one might be impelled to violate the NAP at certain junctures. It says nothing of whether they are, by way of right, entitled to do so without expectation of restitution for the victim.
And on the political level, they do always trump. Every single violation of the NAP that is morally permissible mentioned so far is a matter of personal morality, which the aggressor can expect to be forced to compensate the victim for.
Jon Irenicus:No, for the last time, it is not defeated, because you are making the illicit move that aggression in emergency situations (which still demands restitution) somehow is licence for violation of the NAP in non-emergency circumstances.
No, I'm not saying that violating the NAP is OK in non-emergency situations. I am saying that a principle which is a principle except in situations x, y, and z is no principle at all, and that we should, rather than contenting ourselves with flawed pseudo-principles, work to find true and consistent principles, even if to do so we must move away from deontological rules proscribing particular actual behaviors. I am also saying that when aggression is the proper and good sort of action to take, you should aggress, and that, given that it was, in fact, a good deed, you should face no penalty whatsoever for it.
Another aspect that perhaps you overlook here is that the other party, the one you aggress against, is being evil; thus, the good shall be his enemy. If the other man needed the teleporter, with only one charge, to save his loved one, and you stole it and used that one charge to save your loved one, you would indeed owe restitution. The motivations of both parties matter.
Why do we make distinct emergency and non-emergency situations in relation to the NAP?
The NAP is an absolute and does not go on a "case by case" approach.
Jon Irenicus:And on the political level...
What political, Jon? Why would we want politics in our stateless society? Why do so many "anarchists" want to have so many institutions? Anarchy should be a radically individualistic "system", not a system of private government.
JCFolsom: Anarcho-Capitalism, inasmuch as it depends on the NAP (though many here have said it does not, and it is not my purpose to dispute this latter point), is defeated. One of the great benefits of anarchy is that, under it, there is no huge institution that will punish people for good deeds that somehow violate unbending and simplistic rules. Only statist-type legalists, for whom utter predictability and order is the highest end, would prosecute a person from taking a life-saving tool from someone being simply callous and miserly and using it to save a life. Only under the state is the right warped away from the good.
True, and since ancap does not depend on the NAP whoatsoever, it is not defeated at all - it loses no ground whatsoever. And things would play out the way we want them to in ancap without some sort of magical force commanding everyone to follow NAP absolutely.
JCFolsom:I am saying that a principle which is a principle except in situations x, y, and z is no principle at all, and that we should, rather than contenting ourselves with flawed pseudo-principles, work to find true and consistent principles, even if to do so we must move away from deontological rules proscribing particular actual behaviors.
NAP is still a principle even though it may not achieve the best results in situation x, y or z, it just means that that principle didn't achieve the most optimal results possible in that situation. Just because it doesn't work in every situation doesn't mean that it shouldn't be applied absolutely in law. Even when applied absolutely in law, in an ancap society, the hero is likely not punished, the victim is compensated and the child is saved. The reason for applying it in an absolute manner in the law is so that people can follow it. When you have a millions different laws where everything is different for every situation (e.g. any country right now), then you can't possibly keep a check on things, you couldn't possibly stop all the bad laws, you couldn't possibly know all the laws and you can't possibly follow all the laws. Consistent laws are needed even though life is not consistent. The NAP is the best option for that. Agreed?
gigaplex:True, and since ancap does not depend on the NAP whoatsoever, it is not defeated at all - it loses no ground whatsoever. And things would play out the way we want them to in ancap without some sort of magical force commanding everyone to follow NAP absolutely.
I qualified my statements elsewhere to state that I'm not arguing that AnCap ideas are dependent upon the NAP. I reject the Cap bit for other reasons, but that really wasn't what I was trying to argue.
gigaplex:The only way for the most people to benefit in the best way for every situation, is to go the utility route - that's what utility is. Unfortunately utility can not be implemented. Someone would have to decide what is best for everyone and we all know how well that works out ;) Following the NAP results in better utility overall than if you tried to implement pure utility. There may or may not be another principle that is practical and achieves a higher utility than NAP overall but it has been a looooong time and no one has come up with one. There may even be philosophical reasons for why it is impossible to have a principle that achieves higher utility than NAP. But if you want to go on some quest to find, that's fine, but don't expect people to throw something away if you have nothing better to replace it with - oh and if you do go on that quest, be prepared to throw away the rest of your life because it is unlikely you'll find anything. NAP is still a principle even though it may not achieve the best results in situation x, y or z, it just means that that principle didn't achieve the most optimal results possible in that situation. Just because it doesn't work in every situation doesn't mean that it shouldn't be applied absolutely in law. Even when applied absolutely in law, in an ancap society, the hero is likely not punished, the victim is compensated and the child is saved. The reason for applying it in an absolute manner in the law is so that people can follow it. When you have a millions different laws where everything is different for every situation (e.g. any country right now), then you can't possibly keep a check on things, you couldn't possibly stop all the bad laws, you couldn't possibly know all the laws and you can't possibly follow all the laws. Consistent laws are needed even though life is not consistent. The NAP is the best option for that. Agreed?
Your statements are irrelevant to me. I reject law in general, and do not see why we are having a discussion about such a thing in an anarchist context. What law? Who says? Whence this law? Millions of different laws? Where are you getting all these laws in a society where no man has official power over another?
Again, I am neither a deontologist nor a utilitarian. We never truly know the ends of our actions. You may save a boy who will one day kill thousands. You just can't know. Utilitarianism is the height of hubris. Deontology is by definition too simplistic; a possible (albeit sometimes implausible) situation could always be contemplated where it would be good to violate the rule.
You don't need rules. In an anarchist, individualist society, each action can be evaluated individually, and put in terms of good or evil.
Let's take a for instance. You, and several others, watched a man kill your child in cold blood. The man then escapes. You catch up to him only years later, when he has a dependent child for whom he is the only support. You take your vengeance upon the man, killing him. His child is left without any obligated support. Surely, utility is at best neutral in this situation, and realistically, the situation is probably worse than it was before. Yet, was it not good that you avenge your child? Should a man be able to hide behind his dependents from the horrors he committed? Were you not honorable and determined in your steadfast pursuit, brave in your confrontation of a known murderer? And if that child now starves, is it not truly just a further crime of the father, who was irresponsible enough to have a child when he knew his life was forfeit?
JCFolsom: I qualified my statements elsewhere to state that I'm not arguing that AnCap ideas are dependent upon the NAP. I reject the Cap bit for other reasons, but that really wasn't what I was trying to argue.
I know you're not arguing that ancap is dependant on NAP. That's why I agreed with you :)
JCFolsom: Your statements are irrelevant to me. I reject law in general, and do not see why we are having a discussion about such a thing in an anarchist context. What law? Who says? Whence this law? Millions of different laws? Where are you getting all these laws in a society where no man has official power over another?
Just because it is an anarchy doesn't mean you won't have rules. Maybe you don't want to call them laws, call them whatever you want. For example, you will probably have an agreement between you and your protection agency that you will not go around randomly killing people. My point was that even if those agreements are arranged to align completely with the NAP, in this situation, the hero is likely not paying restitution, the victim gets compensated and the child is saved. So this situation is no excuse to not apply the NAP in the rules, agreements or whatever you want to call it. There is going to be some rule for this class of situation and if you break the rules whenever you want then the agreements mean nothing. That's why I say the NAP should be followed absolutely when put into the rules of an agreement.
There may be situations where the NAP is better not put into the rules of an agreement or the rules violate the NAP and then there would be no need to follow the NAP absolutely for that situation. You would instead follow the rules that are laid out in that agreement. If this is what you're getting at then I'll agree with you but I take it to mean you are saying to abolish all rules and agreements and everything is determined on a case by case basis. That, I don't agree with.
gigaplex:There may be situations where the NAP is better not put into the rules of an agreement or the rules violate the NAP and then there would be no need to follow the NAP absolutely for that situation. You would instead follow the rules that are laid out in that agreement. If this is what you're getting at then I'll agree with you but I take it to mean you are saying to abolish all rules and agreements and everything is determined on a case by case basis. That, I don't agree with.
You may not agree with it, but who are you to say otherwise? In an anarchic society, you have no power over how others conduct their affairs or live out their ethics, you have the power over your own actions, and to defend yourself from others. If you want rules, go ahead and live by rules. But there is no central authority to agree with you.
JCFolsom: You may not agree with it, but who are you to say otherwise? In an anarchic society, you have no power over how others conduct their affairs or live out their ethics, you have the power over your own actions, and to defend yourself from others. If you want rules, go ahead and live by rules. But there is no central authority to agree with you.
There doesn't need to be a central authority to agree with me.
Really, I find it hard to believe that you think you could live in an ancap society without ever entering into an agreement that contained rules as to how the agreement was set up. You could try to get by like that if you wanted but I can't see it working out.
That's basically a statist argument. You think we need some sort of higher authority, some institution, albeit mayhap the choice of which is free, to follow the rules of. Of course, since the people under that institution need to interact with each other, we need some sort of cross-agency agreements, which will require some sort of multigroup arbitration/coordination group. And so on and so forth.
Now, if you want to agree to follow certain rules, I can respect that. It would then be dishonorable for you to violate the rules you freely agreed to.
Now, of course any contract has terms, to which the signatories would be bound. However, overall rules (such as the NAP) are different agreements than the contract to buy a car.
By political, I would assume he means the properly Aristotelian conception of politics: as equals cooperating in joint pursuit of eudaimonia.
Market anarchist, Linux geek, aspiring Perl hacker, and student of the neo-Aristotelians, the classical individualist anarchists, and the Austrian school.
Well I'm not sure the representatives of a corporate entity are ever justified in initiating force on behalf of that entity against the corporation's own customers without some contractual justification for doing so...so it seems like all justified aggressive force would need to be initiated by individuals on their own behalf. No? That doesn't really settle the question, though, because we're not dealing with public actions. We're talking about individuals determining what would be morally acceptable.
It seems to me that in order to call something morally wrong, we'd need to believe that someone doing it would be deserving of at least some level of condemnation. And honestly, I'm not sure that I'd condemn the guy who initiated force to save the kid. Perhaps if he had to use a lot of force, I'd be a little uneasy with the situation, but if all he had to do was shove the boat owner out of the boat and use it to save the kid, I think I'd come down on his side (though, for strict liability reasons, I'd say he might have to compensate the boat owner for any damage he caused in the process). And if he didn't actually have to physically harm the boat owner, but rather had only to take the boat without permission, that seems even more clear to me.
JCFolsom:One of the great benefits of anarchy is that, under it, there is no huge institution that will punish people for good deeds that somehow violate unbending and simplistic rules. Only statist-type legalists, for whom utter predictability and order is the highest end, would prosecute a person from taking a life-saving tool from someone being simply callous and miserly and using it to save a life.
It is my belief that Ancap legal systems would revolve around common law or customary law, which is far from being a set of unbending and simplistic rules. I believe that it would tend towards an objective system of law based on the NAP precisely because of this flexibility, including the ability to focus on economic costs and feedback. It would be much more humane and realistic than you give it credit for.
Another point is that rights and the NAP do not prevent aggression and rights-violations from occurring. While this might seem obvious at one level, what it means is that a principle like the NAP is a principle of society, and not necessarily an individual principle. The difference is that society should never veer from the principle, even though some individuals invariably will.
If someone violates someone's right to save someone's life, it may indeed be the "right" thing for the individual to do, and yet, still require that he be prosecuted for violating the right. But the Ancap legal system, as a common or customary system, and thus much more flexible than authoritarian legislation, would take the reasons for the rights-violation into consideration, and most likely would come up with a light or lenient decision in recognition of such. The reason society should not veer from the principle is precisely to discourage individuals from violating it without the best of reasons. People are free to violate it, but must suffer the consequences if they are wrong, or have bad reasons for doing so. Is that not truly a more individualistic, anarchistic society than one where people are expected to never violate the principle?
I'm not sure how coherent this is, so gimme a break! But surely there is a meaningful distinction between the individual and society that would apply, even in anarchism.
No, I'm not saying that violating the NAP is OK in non-emergency situations. I am saying that a principle which is a principle except in situations x, y, and z is no principle at all, and that we should, rather than contenting ourselves with flawed pseudo-principles, work to find true and consistent principles, even if to do so we must move away from deontological rules proscribing particular actual behaviors.
And I am saying that is nonsense. The principle is absolute in the contexts it applies. It is you who is operating on the basis of a deontic view of principles (i.e. being applicable to any and all contexts, universally.) not me.
Another aspect that perhaps you overlook here is that the other party, the one you aggress against, is being evil
What is more evil is the fact that one is willing to render another a slave to their needs, even though this victim had no prior obligation to the aggressor in question. One wonders where the limits of such "obligations" end, and why it would not be legitimate to tear the victim's heart out if it were a heart the sufferer required.
Political = interpersonal. The post you quoted earlier noted this. It refers to the legal aspect of any system, and specifically conflict-resolution.
That's what I thought you meant; wombatron's post got me confused. In any case, I don't think that's a reasonable position. Can you not think of a case where you would think it odd to condemn a person for using force for a reason other than self-defense?
I can see some merit in the idea that situations like these involve a suspension of the ethical. But my objection to that characterization would be that these kinds of situations wouldn't permit you to do anything in order to save the child. That is, we might imagine that you didn't know how to use the boat; I don't know if you'd be able to torture the boat owner until he went out to save the child, at the threat of you killing him if he didn't go through with it. So it's not a suspension of the ethical. I'd simply think of it in terms of people being normally entitled to being treated in certain ways, such that you need a really significant reason to treat them otherwise, and this situation represents one of those "extreme situations" in which we can contemplate doing things that would normally be disrespectful to others' individuality.
You've read my paper on the Rich Victim Problem, right? What did you think of my analysis of Thomson's idea that in some situations, it might be disrespectful to insist that one's rights be respected? I ask not because I think that point was obviously correct, but rather because it doesn't seem entirely unreasonable to me, and it seems like it would be a useful point to discuss in the context of this debate.
Why should legal impermissibility necessarily entail moral condemnation? I mean I might consider it morally commendable that a mother went to great lengths to insure her daughter's survival, even if it involved theft, but that doesn't mean I would not consider her action theft. I'd still think she had to make her victim whole, even if I thought given the circumstances it was the right action. I only view the NAP as a principle necessary to bring about the conditions necessary for self-directed moral activity, i.e. to prohibit the initiation of force at the legal level. I'm still ambivalent to the notion of the suspension of the ethical (i.e. emergency situations in which rights do not apply, as Rand pretty much argued, and so do Rasmussen and den Uyl following her), though, and you may be right that some of the circumstances described to not come under it (but I'd argue they don't negate the NAP, given that one can still expect restitution on part of the aggressors.) Wombatron is correct in what I meant, but I am just avoiding any use of vocabulary specific to Aristotelianism for the moment to put the argument in more general terms.
I haven't seen it - could you link to it?
What does "legal permissibility" mean, though? Are you saying that aggression should be the only positive defense? Are you working in a framework of restitution and strict liability, or punishment and the duty of care doctrine?
Here's the link: http://libertarian-left.blogspot.com/2008/02/respecting-rich-victim-boundary.html
By legally impermissible, I mean an action that one has right to defend themselves against and expect (on part of the aggressor) restitution to compensate for the harm. I lean towards the former doctrine.
I'll give it a read.
Hahahaha
Don’t you just LOVE the extreme, absurd and bizarre hypotheticals people launch as an “attack” on anarcho-capitalism?
But just to entertain your post, I’ll put myself in fantasy land for a moment and explain what I’d do…I’d steal it from him, “zap” the friend to safety and face the consequences. Stealing still would have it’s repercussions in an anarcho society, and I’d be glad to face them for something like that.
Jon, do you think that force can be justified not only in repelling an attack at the specific time that the attack is launched, but also in enforcing justice after the fact (i.e., taking back stolen property)? Or to enforce a contract? If so to either, would the person having the force used against them be justified in defending themselves?
Donny with an A: What does "legal permissibility" mean, though? Are you saying that aggression should be the only positive defense? Are you working in a framework of restitution and strict liability, or punishment and the duty of care doctrine? Here's the link: http://libertarian-left.blogspot.com/2008/02/respecting-rich-victim-boundary.html
Quick, related question, for anyone in the know: is a duty of care, or something similar, compatible with a framework of pure restitution?