Political Theory

Re: Libertarian children

Skyler Collins — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 19:10:35 GMT

@E. R., I made a new thread for this topic: http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/17261.aspx

Re: Libertarian children

E. R. Olovetto — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 18:47:08 GMT

Someone posted that yesterday and I hadn't taken the time to respond yet. Basically though, his argument centers around a faulty analogy. This is the 2nd paper recently criticizing Block that is pretty bad. I'm a bit surprised it even got published.

Re: Libertarian children

Andris Birkmanis — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 18:40:03 GMT

A CRITIQUE OF BLOCK ON ABORTION AND CHILD ABANDONMENT

by JAKUB BOZYDAR WISNIEWSKI, 2010.

Re: Libertarian children

E. R. Olovetto — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 04:27:40 GMT

[deleted]

Re: Libertarian children

William — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 04:13:24 GMT

1) I got the thread posts mixed

2) is turd an appropriate term?

3) It wasn't relevant, it turns out I misread and jumbled both posts. It is deleted

Re: Libertarian children

E. R. Olovetto — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 04:09:43 GMT

I'm confused if I should report this second Stirnerite turd, after the one in the "Libertarian child rearing" thread got deleted. Relevance?

Re: Libertarian children

William — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 04:05:19 GMT

Misread the post. I can't delete this post for sme reason.

Re: Libertarian children

E. R. Olovetto — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 02:13:39 GMT

I can't see how libby's post is on topic, but the last 3 need taken to teh Issues FOrum.

Re: Libertarian children

Conza88 — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 01:53:10 GMT

[DELETED: THIS IS A MATTER FOR THE ISSUES FORUM]

Edit: As usual, the off topic "troll" comment stands.

Re: Libertarian children

Praetyre — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 01:49:43 GMT

[DELETED: THIS IS A MATTER FOR THE ISSUES FORUM]

Re: Libertarian children

Jackson — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 01:20:08 GMT

There is no 'libertarian' answer because they are obsessed with 'principles'. In realtiy customary norms will handle this, and it is a serious pragmatic problem for the 'absolutist' libertarians (though no serious problem for consequentialist libertarians).

[DELETED: THIS IS A MATTER FOR THE ISSUES FORUM]

Re: Libertarian children

Skyler Collins — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 21:32:01 GMT

@trulib, what an obvious approach to the situation in a free society! Glad you shared it.

Re: Libertarian children

Graham Wright — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 21:21:26 GMT

Conza88:
There is also (from memory) a post from trulib outlining and elaborating on the legal sequence of dealing with child abuse in a free society. That was good.

Thanks. Here is that post. The legal sequence was as follows.

Bob rapes his 3 year old daughter.
Evidence of the rape is discovered, by chance, by a nursery nurse.
The nurse calls the 'Friends of Babies' organization.
'Friends of Babies' knock at Bob's door and start asking him questions. Bob starts getting nervous, but denies it. Friends of Babies are confident in their assessment that Bob's lying, so they break into his house and forcibly remove the child from him.
Bob calls his PDA, telling them an evil gang has taken his child away from him, for no good reason.
Bob's PDA investigates. There's a trial. If Bob is found innocent, 'Friends of Babies' are guilty of child kidnap. If Bob is found guilty, the libertarian court declares that, by raping his child, Bob loses the right to continue bringing it up. Rape is not consistent with homesteading the right to bring up a child, so Bob's right to bring up his daughter is declared abandoned. The court awards the right to bring up the child to the other claimant: the Friends of Babies organization.
The Friends of Babies organization rehomes the child, perhaps with a relative, or finds adoptive parents for it.
Friends of Babies publicizes the fact that Bob is a child rapist. He is added to all the (privately-produced) sex offenders registers. Voluntary actions, such as boycotts of Bob, make Bob's life a misery.

This covers the practical issues of how parental child abuse (and neglect) will be approached by a libertarian court and how enforcement would likely work in anarchy. The definition of what is consistent with homesteading the right to bring up a child will be determined by the norms held by the individuals in society and those norms will be discovered and exercised through a free market in law.

I am not sure whether the libertarian court can go further, and allow force to be committed against Bob. In particular:

When the child-victim has reached full adult status, can she use retaliatory force against Bob (either to attain restitution or retribution)?
Can anyone (and who?) use force against Bob while the child-victim is not yet capable of giving, or not giving, consent to that use of force?

E.R. - How are you defining "self-sustaining" (roughly) and how is the distinction useful? Send me a private message if you prefer.

Re: Libertarian children

Conza88 — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 09:43:13 GMT

"As regards the utilitarian position, the proof contains its ultimate refutation. It demonstrates that simply in order to propose the utilitarian position, exclusive rights of control over one’s body and one’s homesteaded goods already must be presupposed as valid. More specifically, as regards the consequentialist aspect of libertarianism, the proof shows its praxeological impossibility: the assignment of rights of exclusive control cannot be dependent on certain outcomes. One could never act and propose anything unless private property rights existed prior to a later outcome. A consequentialist ethic is a praxeological absurdity. Any ethic must instead be “aprioristic” or instantaneous in order to make it possible that one can act here and now and propose this or that rather than having to suspend acting until later. Nobody advocating a wait-for-the-outcome ethic would be around to say anything if he took his own advice seriously. Also, to the extent that utilitarian proponents are still around, they demonstrate through their actions that their consequentialist doctrine is and must be regarded as false. Acting and proposition-making require private property rights now and cannot wait for them to be assigned only later." - HHH

Re: Libertarian children

Vichy Army — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 07:47:18 GMT

There is no 'libertarian' answer because they are obsessed with 'principles'. In realtiy customary norms will handle this, and it is a serious pragmatic problem for the 'absolutist' libertarians (though no serious problem for consequentialist libertarians).