Political Theory

Re: Responsibility and Punishment

Knight_of_BAAWA — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 02:00:02 GMT

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.

Re: Responsibility and Punishment

Bostwick — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 01:40:50 GMT

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.

Re: Responsibility and Punishment

nhaag — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 09:36:11 GMT

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

Re: Responsibility and Punishment

nhaag — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:20:17 GMT

Well, we used to have huge moles here .

Yet, I think i agree with your remarks.

Have a great time

Re: Responsibility and Punishment

Bostwick — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:04:58 GMT

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.

Re: Responsibility and Punishment

JCFolsom — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:32:32 GMT

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.

Re: Responsibility and Punishment

Bostwick — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:46:11 GMT

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.

Re: Responsibility and Punishment

Jon Irenicus — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:29:51 GMT

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

Re: Responsibility and Punishment

nhaag — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 10:14:50 GMT

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.

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

Re: Responsibility and Punishment

nhaag — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 09:44:04 GMT

Can you please explain how so?

Re: Responsibility and Punishment

Bostwick — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:56:00 GMT

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.

Re: Responsibility and Punishment

Bostwick — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:47:49 GMT

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.

Re: Responsibility and Punishment

nhaag — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:35:02 GMT

I understand your argument thread and agree that it would be valid if one could be responsible for something that one can not control. Yet, my argument is, that you can not be responsible for things you can not control and hence you can not be liable for things that you can't control.

it maybe helps to catch the principle if we take another case instead of murder. Say if a group of people would agree, i.e. contract, to rob a single individuals money. Let's say a group of 10. One robs it. Let's say € 100 bucks. Now all ten are responsible? Now all 10 are liable? Would that mean that each of them would have to pay € 10 bucks because this would make up to € 100. This would be a great principle for large groups to engage in plunder, as the bigger the group the less every single individual in the group is liable for. Actually this is the way to go if you like to have public liability. Or put it another way, no liability at all. Shared liability is a way to have groups get away with all kind of crime without having to face real harm for a single member in such a group. If the state comes to your mind, yes, that is how it works.

The only way around that issue I am aware of is to keep freedom, responsibility and liability strictly on the level of the individual. If you focus on punishment however, which I deny to be a goal of law, than your approach is valid. Yet, who is to decide about punishment? A group? The state? Does someone loose all freedom when commiting a aggression? Is he stripped of his "inalienable" rights? I do not think so, because, who is to decide? How to ensure individual rights, if a law would claim to make someone responsible for an act he had no control over?

Regarding the non sequitur, I do not think it is one. 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. Such the employed becomes an agent of yourself whom you have given certain rights on your behalf. As you can not grant any right that you do not posses, your agent can not claim to have any more rights than you have given him. Any action your agent undertakes that is not covered by either his own rights or the rights you have granted him to fulfill the contract, is his very own responsibility not yours. As none of you have any right to initiate aggression, your agent can never claim such a right. It is his aggression not yours. If you make a contract to commit a crime with someone, this contract is null and void right from the beginning, as you can not rightfully make such a contract because contracts are statements of exchange. As you can not rightfully exchange what you do not posses, there is no contract. If there is no contract than there can be no obligation to fullfill it. And if there is no abligation, than you can not be held liable for a crime you never did.

The freedom to act incorporates for each party that it takes responsibility for its own actions in full and without any way to blame a third party for it, neither in full nor in part.

Re: Responsibility and Punishment

Jon Irenicus — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:15:12 GMT

Right, so a contract that expressly stipulates the assassination of someone by a hired party is in itself an action, an action that makes use of another to kill an innocent party. Likewise any contract where the employer assumes liability for actions taken by their employee in the course of duty. See, no intentions involved even. Again, it is a non sequitur to say because a human being has free will that they cannot be used as a means (wilfully) and that thus their employer is exonerated from any blame. Their decision to contract with another party to harm an innocent 3rd party is an action that culminates to harm. I do not see why the agent should get to plead innocent just because they're a means, given that they wilfully undertook this status, and neither why the principle should, given that they used another as a means to achieve a certain action. Both are liable.

-Jon

Re: Responsibility and Punishment

nhaag — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 09:39:15 GMT

Jon Irenicus:

Do you also think fraud is thus impossible to prosecute? I mean, I may have said in my contract I'd give you X amount of goods, but did I really intend it? Or, in the case where I exchanged a property title, did I really intend to hand it over to you? Or was I just lying and was the contract all pretend, and thus is my reclaiming the good really "theft"? But if the court upholds the contract, it is assuming an intention already, or at the very least binding me to take responsibility for the effects of a decision I made in writing. So whilst it is true that intentions are private, contracting with someone else is a pretty good indicator that you intend for them to perform the service specificed in the contract. If that wasn't your intention, simple: don't enter into the contract, and do not go through with the exchange. None of this can be determined purely a priori of course, but I do not see why intentions are a particular problem in the case of these contracts, and yet not in a more general sense. Employers are often held responsible for the performance of duties by their employees whilst on the job, at common law.

-Jon

Fraud is a violation of property rights. If I agree to do A for a thrid party to do B and I do not deliver, while B does, I infringe on his property rights unless I can give A back. I never deny that intentions exist, in fact, as I said elsewhere intensions aims and goal are interchangable terms for what i want to achieve. But, as long as the means I employ (and a third person is never a means in the fundamental sense) are not employed in an aggressive way, i.e. do not actually infringe on the property rights of a third party, or parties, I do not harm anyone.

The fact that employers are held responsible for the performance of duties of those employed only showes, that common law is by no way derived totally from the natural law of human freedom, though it is closer to that than any other law I am aware of. Here common law assumes, which is consistent with the fact, that common law did not rule out slavery for example, that an employer in fact has the power to control the employed. If that was the case, than, of course, the employer would be responsible for action of the employed. Yet, the employer actually does not control the employed in the fundamental sense of the term control.

There is simply no way to control any item that can control itself. What one can control are objects that can not control themselves, like guns, forks, arrows and the like. No human being can be forced to act unless a human being makes the decission to act in one way or the other. What can be done is to act upon another human being, like you can carry someone from A to B, injure him, kill him even, but there is no way to control him to, say lift his arm, unless he chooses to.

So here the common law is not in accordance to the natural human law of freedom, rather it is in accordance to the idea that one can posses, in the sense of being a Master, a third party. This contradicts the human nature, because a human being can never be owned in a sense that a third party has total control, not even if the owned would agree, because the freedom to act is inalienable, i.e. that one can not give it up, even if he wishes.