Political Theory

Re: Formulation of Non Aggression Principle

Graham Wright — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 21:45:26 GMT

gotlucky:
You need to forget about the NAP.

Hmm. Well I am the one who previously said "the NAP is superfluous".

It was you that said "the NAP is... the foundation of libertarianism, and all libertarian concepts can be derived from it".

My argument has been about the ethic of reciprocity. The NAP is one way of stating the ethic of reciprocity, but it explicitly adds in property. But if you look to the origin of the NAP and what it really is, which is a legal realization of the golden rule (eye for an eye is another), then your counterpoint does not address my point. Sure, the NAP itself assumes a libertarian property ethic, but the ethic of reciprocity leads to a libertarian property ethic. So instead of saying "Do not do unto others as you would have them not do unto you", you can just recite the NAP.

So, to summarise...

ethic of reciprocity ---> libertarian property ethic ---> NAP.

The point I was making in this thread was about the direction of the second arrow, which we now apparently agree on. I am not so much interested in the first arrow, although I agree with Minarchist that the EoR is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the libertarian property ethic.

Clearly then, since homesteading is one of the principles we refer to when we say the "libertarian property ethic", homesteading is a principle logically more fundamental than the NAP; the homesteading principle is not derived from the NAP. Because acts of aggression (acts of initiation) can't be identified without referring to a particular property ethic, the NAP (in it's most common use) means nothing more substantive than "do not violate the libertarian property ethic" and hence it is superfluous.

Crusoe, Morality, and Axiomatic Libertarianism

I don't see how that video is relevant to what we're talking about. I don't know what he means by "axiomatic libertarianism" so I don't know what viewpoint he is actually criticising there.

Re Minarchist's post: The general gist of his post is that so long as everyone agrees to some ethic, then it is reciprocal and homesteading might not occur as a principle.

I think he was pointing out that you can logically have a society based on the ethic of reciprocity which isn't based on the libertarian property ethic. So to logically arrive at the libertarian property ethic, you at least need some other "first principle" besides the ethic of reciprocity.

Re: Formulation of Non Aggression Principle

gotlucky — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 06:11:50 GMT

Just wanted to expand upon my previous post about homesteading:

Again, the problem with the idea that homesteading is the best conflict avoidance and resolution mechanism, from a consequentialist point of view, is that this is false. It is the best for probably most cases of original property acquisition, but it is not the best mechanism for all cases. To go with the previous example, if you are to homesteading land, what counts as "first use"?

Must you lay out the foundation for your house before you start building walls? Do you need to fence the land in before you build a foundation? If you want a big yard, do you need to fence in the area that you want to claim? What if you don't want a fenced in yard?

And of course, what happens if you are laying out the foundation to your house, and you've finished laying out the north, south, and east sides, but as you work your way towards the west side of your house, someone else comes along and uses the land by doing whatever? He can fence in some of it, plant a seed, maybe put down a sign. I don't care. The point is, what if someone else beats you to the punch as you are laying down the very foundation to your new house?

Are you allowed to say, "Excuse me, sir, but I was just about to use that for the west side of my house. That is my property." If you do this, then you are not going by a strict first use rule, but in fact you are also including in "calling it" as a legitimate claim.

Now, if you just believe that first use is the rule, and that's that, well there isn't really much to say. You believe first use is the only moral method of acquiring property. Period. End of story. But if you happen to support first use because of consequentialism, then a strict first use rule is not always the best solution.

So either first use is not as logically rigorous as it first appears, or it leads to some absurd scenarios, but you are okay with it because you just subscribe to first use as the only moral method of property acquisition.

Again, about the ethic of reciprocity, not all property ethics are compatible with the ethic of reciprocity. The EoR does lead to more than one conflict avoidance and resolution mechanism, but there is nothing wrong with this. But it does lead to first use as a norm. As I said earlier in the thread:

gotlucky:

If you have a society that is based on the ethic of reciprocity, then it necessarily has the rule of first use as a norm/law.

A careful reading of this quote will show that I used the article "a" and not "the". The reason it will be a norm in a EoR is very simple. People are not omnipresent. In other words, people are not everywhere at all times. If you claim some area of land as yours for a house, there might not be someone present for when you claim it. If there is ever a dispute over whose land it is, do not forget the matter of needing proof as to who claimed it first. Demonstrating that you used it is far easier to prove than demonstrating that you merely called it, especially if no one else was around when you first claimed it.

Maybe the person who called it did in fact claim it first, but without a means of proving it, no one else can know this. Even if someone else were present, heresay is not nearly as strong of proof as hard, physical evidence. By the time a society has the concept of notarizing documents, the standard of first use will have long been established as the dominant norm. So if people want to be able to demonstrate to others that they were in fact the ones to first claim something, they would prefer first use as a standard as it can be falsified.

Mechanisms such as "calling it" and "rocks, paper, scissors" will never be completely eradicated in a EoR society, but there is no necessary reason why they ought to be. They have their place as conflict avoidance and resolution mechanisms, but they are not nearly as strong as "first use". First use would be far more widespread as it can meet a standard of proof that people can rely on in general.

Re: Formulation of Non Aggression Principle

Autolykos — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 19:08:39 GMT

Graham Wright:
Yes, that's understood, but it doesn't really help with the "state-as-landlord" argument. The State can argue that it uses force proportionately in exactly the same way. So the State forbids it's tenants from smoking cannabis on it's land (the entire country). The first time you get caught the punishment might be a slap on the wrist but if you get caught again the punishment gets more severe, and if you refuse to submit to that punishment, it will get more severe again. The State is just defending itself, using only as much force as necessary to enforce it's house rules. Even prison might be viewed as equivalent to a landlord evicting the tenant from his premises (after all, there is nowhere for the State to kick someone out to... unless some other State will take him).

This argument won't be defeated by taking the line that you have... that the State is being a "bad" landlord (using force disproportionately, hence violating the NAP). The argument is wrong because the assumption that the State is a legitimate landlord is wrong. And to show why the State is not a legitimate landlord, the NAP is of no use: we have to refer to homesteading.

First off, I wasn't directly addressing the "state-as-landlord" argument. I was originally refuting this argument from Eran: "Self-ownership doesn't help - a landlord can legitimately prohibit smoking on his permises. So governemnt's drug prohibition, for example, would be legitimate IF government was the legitimate owner of its territory." I believe I showed how, on the contrary, self-ownership does help in determining the legitimacy of a landlord's actions. A landlord is just that, an owner of land. He doesn't come to own a person just because that person set foot on the land he owns.

If the state argues that it's using proportional force when it imprisons, assaults, kills, etc. drug users (for example), then it's clearly using a different definition of "proportional" from the one we're using. Such a difference in premises can't be proven or disproven - it can only be accepted or rejected.

Basically, I see the question of what actions a landlord can legitimately take against others on his property as being separate from the question of whether a given claim of land ownership is itself legitimate. You're right that what I wrote in response to you and Eran regarding the former question doesn't address the latter question. It wasn't intended to.

Clearly, though, if someone's claim of ownership over something is illegitimate, then all of his actions with/toward that thing are also (and necessarily) illegitimate. I was only accepting arguendo the notion that the state is the legitimate owner of "its" territory, in order to show that that doesn't mean that all of its actions 1) with/toward that territory are necessarily legitimate.

Re: Formulation of Non Aggression Principle

Minarchist — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 20:54:53 GMT

@gotlucky

If you have a society that is based on the ethic of reciprocity, then it necessarily has the rule of first use as a norm/law.

Here you're saying that the rule of first use must necessarily follow from adherence to the ethic of reciprocity (EoR). In other words, you're saying that EoR is a sufficient condition for the first-use rule to operate.

It [homesteading] is one of the many types of conflict avoidance and resolution mechanisms that arise from mutual respect and reciprocation

Whereas here you're saying that many different property assignment norms could follow from adherence to the EoR. But if that's the case, then it is impossible for the EoR to be a sufficient condition for the first-use rule to operate.

You have a logical contradiction. You're saying that both of the following propositions are true.

X--> A or B or C

and

X-->A

....and they cannot both be true.

So you need to either abandon you're claim that the EoR is a sufficient condition for the first-use rule, or prove that only the first-use rule can result from the EoR.

Re: Formulation of Non Aggression Principle

gotlucky — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 15:12:26 GMT

One other point: Homesteading itself is not a consistent principle. There is no way to know a priori what is considered as first use. If you are building a house, do you have to fence in the land around it first? What happens if you fence "too much" land?

I don't expect answers to these questions, as they must necessarily rely on norms. Sure, you can come up with some theory of homesteading that you must directly use the land, so that fencing in land is out. But this causes more problems than it solves, and if you are adopting homesteading for consequentialist reasons, then you really need to rethink this point.

So while the ethic of reciprocity does allow for various conflict avoidance and resolution mechanisms, first use is one of the standard mechanisms, especially on a large scale. But homesteading itself is not "consistent" either. Considering how arbitrary it can be (e.g. just how much land can you fence in before you are not properly homesteading it), the ethic of reciprocity is better suited for consequentialists because it is actually focused on peaceably and voluntarily avoiding and resolving disputes, and it does allow for homesteading when appropriate and it allows for other mechanisms such as "calling it" when appropriate.

Re: Formulation of Non Aggression Principle

gotlucky — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 22:52:26 GMT

Graham Wright:

Well that in itself is enough to show that the NAP can't be the foundation of libertarianism, then. If a cop confiscates the weed in your possession, can we say that he initiated coercion against you? Only if our underlying property theory tells us that it was YOUR weed to begin with. If our underlying property theory tells us it was the cop's weed in the first place, then he is clearly NOT initiating coercion... you are, by using HIS property without consent. You see?

But this is true of all aggression, not just "most". If you "suckerpunch me" without any kind of provocation from me, then you have initiated violence ONLY if our underlying property theory tells us that I am the owner of the body you punched. If that theory tells us YOU owned the body, then it's not an initiation of violence. So again the NAP is not enough. To argue that this suckerpunch was aggression, you first need to present an argument for why I own the body you punched, and not you.

You need to forget about the NAP. My argument has been about the ethic of reciprocity. The NAP is one way of stating the ethic of reciprocity, but it explicitly adds in property. But if you look to the origin of the NAP and what it really is, which is a legal realization of the golden rule (eye for an eye is another), then your counterpoint does not address my point. Sure, the NAP itself assumes a libertarian property ethic, but the ethic of reciprocity leads to a libertarian property ethic. So instead of saying "Do not do unto others as you would have them not do unto you", you can just recite the NAP.

Sure, if you have a property ethic that allows for slavery, then using violence against your slave would certainly be using your property as you see fit. But slavery does not align with the NAP for certain reasons. The first is that the NAP is not just about property but also about the person. Both Block and Rothbard have stated it more or less as, "Do not aggress against, which is to say, do not initiate violence or the threat thereof against another person or his rightful property." I really didn't want to make this another dumb slavery thread, but you brought it up, so I'll address it. If you use violence against your slave, sure, he's your property, but you are also violating the first part of the NAP, which is, "Do not aggress against a person." The only type of slavery that is allowable with the NAP is enslaving a slave owner as retribution for his crimes.

Second, if you start with the ethic of reciprocity, you just don't have slavery anyway. If I don't enslave you, then you won't enslave me. If I enslave you, then you will retaliate by enslaving me. Despite the fact that Bastiat talked about the state being the great fiction where everyone lives at the expense of everyone else, it doesn't really work like that. In adversarial relationships, only one party can be the winner at any given time. It's entirely the opposite with cooperative relationships, where both people are winners. You can't have two people enslaving each other at the same time.

So again, I'm not talking about just the NAP. I'm talking about it's roots in the ethic of reciprocity (and again, the NAP is a version of that ethic, but it is the only version that I am aware of that explicitly includes property).

Graham Wright:

Which of Nielsio's videos are you referring to by the way?

Crusoe, Morality, and Axiomatic Libertarianism

I think there may be others where he talks about this sort of thing, but this one is short.

Re Minarchist's post: The general gist of his post is that so long as everyone agrees to some ethic, then it is reciprocal and homesteading might not occur as a principle. This is only partially true. It is true that in a small community, homesteading might not occur as an underlying principle. Let's look at some examples.

In a group of friends, one might call "shotgun" in order to claim the front passenger seat in a car. Sometimes friends honor the claim, and sometimes they don't. When they don't, their friends usually call them out on bad form.

If some friends are going to play on an Xbox, you might have one call first controller and another might call second. If you have more than 4 friends, the first 4 to reach the controllers typically are the ones to play first, but sometimes whoever calls a controller gets it too. Certainly it's up to the owner of the Xbox, but usually he stays out of assigning controllers as he doesn't want to piss off any of his friends.

If some people want to play beer pong at a party, usually they actually discuss who is going to play first, as usually there are a lot of people already at the table. People don't usually even form a line, as everyone wants to watch. So people call out who gets to go next.

Now, you might object to these examples as the property in question is already owned. But before I go to the next step, I just want to point out that people can peacefully and effectively resolve and avoid disputes just by calling out claims. But the real problem is about unowned objects, not already owned objects. So let's look at what happens with unowned objects.

Suppose there is a small group of friends stranded on an island. They might be friendly enough that they can successfully claim ownership over things just by calling it. "I want that shady spot." "I'm going to use that tree." If they are on good enough terms, then calling it might work out for a while, and maybe for their entire duration on this island. But this sort of thing cannot work in a large group. Even if we were to assume that the friends never had disputes among themselves, there would certainly be disputes in a larger group.

So the question is, what is the sort of ethic that people can respect? In a small group of friends, calling out claims might work. They can respect that sort of thing. But in a community of 100? 200? A modern sized nation? Absolutely not. People cannot respect this sort of thing. When you are at a function and there is a buffet, notice how everyone forms a line? They don't call out who gets first dibs and who gets second. It's not an ethic that a regular group of people can reciprocate over. Whoever gets the food first had to get in line first.

Columbus can claim North America for Spain, but it's not an ethic that anyone but the royalty of Spain could get behind. It was not reciprocal. There is nothing inherently wrong with "calling it" first, and there is nothing inherently right with first use. They are appropriate solutions to different situations. Another solution among friends is to flip a coin or to play rocks, paper, scissors. It's neither right nor wrong.

Homesteading is appropriate in a society or community when people cannot use "calling it" as an appropriate solution. It's not a one size fits all solution, especially if you are a consequentialist. It is one of the many types of conflict avoidance and resolution mechanisms that arise from mutual respect and reciprocation. And I cannot recommend that particular video of Nielsio's enough.

Re: Formulation of Non Aggression Principle

Graham Wright — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 21:21:04 GMT

gotlucky:
Graham Wright:

To quote Kinsella again: "One cannot identify an act of aggression without implicitly assigning a corresponding property right to the victim."

This is one of those times that I disagree with Kinsella. Libertarians use the definition of aggression that means initiation of violence or the threat thereof. If I suckerpunch you without any kind of provocation from you, I certainly have initiated violence against you. I don't have to assign any property right in your body to you in order for that to be aggression. Most acts of aggression may need property rights to be assigned, but not all of them.

Well that in itself is enough to show that the NAP can't be the foundation of libertarianism, then. If a cop confiscates the weed in your possession, can we say that he initiated coercion against you? Only if our underlying property theory tells us that it was YOUR weed to begin with. If our underlying property theory tells us it was the cop's weed in the first place, then he is clearly NOT initiating coercion... you are, by using HIS property without consent. You see?

But this is true of all aggression, not just "most". If you "suckerpunch me" without any kind of provocation from me, then you have initiated violence ONLY if our underlying property theory tells us that I am the owner of the body you punched. If that theory tells us YOU owned the body, then it's not an initiation of violence. So again the NAP is not enough. To argue that this suckerpunch was aggression, you first need to present an argument for why I own the body you punched, and not you.

Nielsio's arguments about the mugger and the shovel are great, and maybe I have butchered them when typing them out, but if you are not familiar with how he put it, I highly recommend watching his videos to see how he puts it.

Which of Nielsio's videos are you referring to by the way?

Regarding Minarchist's questions: I don't know if you read my posts to him, but I am no longer engaging him in conversation of any kind. I do not care if his comments are constructive or not, I am not longer posting to him. But since you also share those same questions, I will engage you on the points that he raised.

Yes I did, that's why I let you know that I had the same questions.

If you respect my claims to objects, then you must necessarily also respect my claims when I am the first user. If a second person comes along and claims an object under the rule of second use, then he must necessarily be violating the first user's claims.

Minarchist's response to this point was excellent once again. So if you're still giving him the silent treatment, pretend that I wrote this...

Minarchist:

@gotlucky

If you respect my claims to objects, then you must necessarily also respect my claims when I am the first user.

I must respect all claims you make on objects, regardless of the basis of these claims?

What if you walk up to me and say, "that tree over there belongs to me, because it is green and green is my favorite color." And I accept this claim and say, "ok, so then do you see those berries over there, those are mine because they are red and red is my favorite color," and you in turn accept this claim.

We have just reciprocated. I accepted your claim, you accepted mine. The property ethic we have established says that the owner of the thing is the person whose favorite color is the color of the thing.

By way of another example:

Suppose you walk up to me and say "that tree over there is mine, since I am the first to claim it." I accept this and say, "ok, then I now claim that berry bush, it is mine because I am the first to claim it." Again, we have reciprocated. We have respected each other's like claims. And we have established a property ethic whereby the first claimant is the first owner.

....I could go on with more examples, but I think either one of these it itself demonstrates that the ethic of reciprocity, the respecting of one another's like claims, does not necessarily entail the first-use concept of homesteading. I think the most you can say is that the ethic of reciprocity is a necessary condition for the first-use concept of homesteading to operate in society, but it is not a sufficient condition. Put another way, the ethic of reciprocity is a necessary condition for any kind of ethics to operate in society, but it does not determine which ethics will operate.

Re: Formulation of Non Aggression Principle

Minarchist — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 18:22:24 GMT

@gotlucky

If you respect my claims to objects, then you must necessarily also respect my claims when I am the first user.

I must respect all claims you make on objects, regardless of the basis of these claims?

What if you walk up to me and say, "that tree over there belongs to me, because it is green and green is my favorite color." And I accept this claim and say, "ok, so then do you see those berries over there, those are mine because they are red and red is my favorite color," and you in turn accept this claim.

We have just reciprocated. I accepted your claim, you accepted mine. The property ethic we have established says that the owner of the thing is the person whose favorite color is the color of the thing.

By way of another example:

Suppose you walk up to me and say "that tree over there is mine, since I am the first to claim it." I accept this and say, "ok, then I now claim that berry bush, it is mine because I am the first to claim it." Again, we have reciprocated. We have respected each other's like claims. And we have established a property ethic whereby the first claimant is the first owner.

....I could go on with more examples, but I think either one of these it itself demonstrates that the ethic of reciprocity, the respecting of one another's like claims, does not necessarily entail the first-use concept of homesteading. I think the most you can say is that the ethic of reciprocity is a necessary condition for the first-use concept of homesteading to operate in society, but it is not a sufficient condition. Put another way, the ethic of reciprocity is a necessary condition for any kind of ethics to operate in society, but it does not determine which ethics will operate.

Re: Formulation of Non Aggression Principle

gotlucky — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 21:38:33 GMT

Graham Wright:

To quote Kinsella again: "One cannot identify an act of aggression without implicitly assigning a corresponding property right to the victim."

This is one of those times that I disagree with Kinsella. Libertarians use the definition of aggression that means initiation of violence or the threat thereof. If I suckerpunch you without any kind of provocation from you, I certainly have initiated violence against you. I don't have to assign any property right in your body to you in order for that to be aggression. Most acts of aggression may need property rights to be assigned, but not all of them.

Graham Wright:

All the stuff about the Golden Rule / ethic of reciprocity is you chasing your own tail. You've now agreed that the NAP and the Golden Rule are the same thing, so one can't be derived from the other. But you're still talking about the ethic of reciprocity as different to the NAP, with the NAP being derived from the ethic of reciprocity, even though in the quote above you implied that the Golden Rule and the ethic of reciprocity are the same thing!

The Golden Rule is the ethic of reciprocity. There are many ways of stating reciprocal relationships between people:

"Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, etc."
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
"Do not do unto others as you would have them not do unto you."
"Love thy neighbor as thyself."
"That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow."
"Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain, and your neighbor's loss as your own loss."
"One who, while himself seeking happiness, oppresses others with violence other beings who also desire happiness, will not attain happiness hereafter."

So how does the NAP fit in with this? The one difference between the NAP and all of these different ways of citing the ethic of reciprocity is that the NAP talks about property. The NAP still is about reciprocal relationships between people, but it goes one step further and explicitly includes property. So the NAP is the ethic of reciprocity in the same way that "eye for an eye" and "love thy neighbor as thyself" are both the ethic of reciprocity. But the difference between the NAP and the others are, as I have said, that the others do not mention property.

It is the general idea of the ethic of reciprocity in which we get property, homesteading, estoppel, proportionality, etc. Proportionality should be clear with the phrase, "Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth..." Estoppel is also from the ethic of reciprocity, as it is about being equitable in the law, and you can read the links I provided earlier if you want to look into that more.

But your question is about property and homesteading, not estoppel and proportionality. The whole point about property coming from the ethic of reciprocity is that people must respect another's claims to objects. "Do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you." You would not want someone else to take the shovel that you call your own, so don't take the shovel (or tools in general) that other people call their own. At this point, it doesn't even matter who used it first. We are looking at the fact that people make claims to certain objects. If people take the ethic of reciprocity as a premise to their actions, then they must respect others' claims to the objects that they call their own. I claim the hat I am wearing (or not wearing) as mine, and you claim the watch you are wearing (or not wearing) as yours. We can either respect these claims or not. The point is, that when we respect these claims, we are recognizing these objects as property assigned to someone.

I am not talking about a conflict-free society. If we do not respect these claims, then we have disputes. These disputes are eventually settled one way or the other, and the result is defining property rights more clearly. I'm not interested in looking at what happens when one party has more power than the other, because we can easily see what happens with that, as we only have to look at the state.

But the point is, property only exists when people respect the claims of others. Nielsio's arguments about the mugger and the shovel are great, and maybe I have butchered them when typing them out, but if you are not familiar with how he put it, I highly recommend watching his videos to see how he puts it.

Obviously, property does not have to be derived from the ethic of reciprocity, but I was under the impression that we were talking about the libertarian concept of rightful property, not property in general. States define property too, but it's not in line with libertarianism. But if I do unto you as I would have you do unto me, I would not be taking the stuff that you claim as yours.

So, what about first use? Well, if I build a house and claim it as my own, and you build a house and claim it as yours, then reciprocity is that we respect those claims. If I don't respect your claim, and I burn your house down or enter it without your permission, then reciprocity would mean that you could do the same to my house. First use is just one type of claim to objects. If I trade a watch for a shovel, I am saying that I do not claim the watch as my own anymore, but I claim the shovel as mine now. If I build the watch, I am claiming it as my own unless I am doing it on behalf of someone else. Homesteading is just respecting the claims that people make as the first user to some object. If someone comes along and claims the watch as the second user, he is not respecting the claims of the first user. If one respects the claims of another, then he must necessarily also respect the other's claims of first use.

Regarding Minarchist's questions: I don't know if you read my posts to him, but I am no longer engaging him in conversation of any kind. I do not care if his comments are constructive or not, I am not longer posting to him. But since you also share those same questions, I will engage you on the points that he raised.

Aren't there an infinite number of possible ways to assign original ownership of property? And couldn't any given society adopt any one of these norms? And couldn't they adopt any one of these norms AND at the same time adhere to the ethic of reciprocity?

If you respect my claims to objects, then you must necessarily also respect my claims when I am the first user. If a second person comes along and claims an object under the rule of second use, then he must necessarily be violating the first user's claims.

As I understand it, the ethic of reciprocity is about A respecting claims of a certain kind from B so that B will reciprocate and respect the same kind of claims when made by A. The ethic of reciprocity establishes this symmetrical relationship, but it says nothing about the content of the claims in question. They can be any kind of claims. They can rest on any of an infinite number of norms for assigning property.

Consequentialists may only respect others so that they are respected too, but not all people are consequentialists. Those that just find it immoral to aggress against others do not aggress so as to not be aggressed against. They don't aggress because they find it to be immoral.

As for the content, see my above response to first use versus second use.

But what kind of claims? Why is it necessarily the case that these claims would be based on the first use concept of homesteading?

See above.

Re: Formulation of Non Aggression Principle

Graham Wright — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 20:54:05 GMT

Autolykos:
I think you mean to say that you think it's legitimate for a landlord to do all those things, so long as it's propportionate to the severity of the rule violation. The word "can" implies physical ability to me, which has nothing to do with legitimacy.

Yes.

With that out of the way, I don't think you quite understood what I was saying. You'd agree that it would be illegitimate for a landlord to immediately imprison anyone he finds smoking on his property, yes? And even if the smoker refused to leave on first request, I still don't see how that per se gives the landlord the right to imprison the smoker, damage/destroy any of his property, injure him, or kill him. If the smoker physically resists being forcibly removed from the property, then I think the landlord is within his rights to defend himself. But that's not the same thing to me as saying the landlord has the right to e.g. throw the smoker into a cage for a month, blow up the smoker's car, or cut off the smoker's arm simply because he was smoking on the landlord's property. Does that make more sense?

Yes, that's understood, but it doesn't really help with the "state-as-landlord" argument. The State can argue that it uses force proportionately in exactly the same way. So the State forbids it's tenants from smoking cannabis on it's land (the entire country). The first time you get caught the punishment might be a slap on the wrist but if you get caught again the punishment gets more severe, and if you refuse to submit to that punishment, it will get more severe again. The State is just defending itself, using only as much force as necessary to enforce it's house rules. Even prison might be viewed as equivalent to a landlord evicting the tenant from his premises (after all, there is nowhere for the State to kick someone out to... unless some other State will take him).

This argument won't be defeated by taking the line that you have... that the State is being a "bad" landlord (using force disproportionately, hence violating the NAP). The argument is wrong because the assumption that the State is a legitimate landlord is wrong. And to show why the State is not a legitimate landlord, the NAP is of no use: we have to refer to homesteading.

Re: Formulation of Non Aggression Principle

Graham Wright — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 20:29:30 GMT

gotlucky, you keep arguing against arguments I never made and discussing things I never brought up.

This started off as a narrow discussion about the logical relationship between the NAP and other libertarian principles, namely homesteading. Is the NAP derived from homesteading, is it the other way round, are they two separate "axioms"... what is the relationship between them?

Here is the post of yours that I originally commented on, to say I disagree:

gotlucky:
Eran:

gotlucky,

The reason the conventional formulation of NAP is circular is that "aggression" only makes sense by reference to "legitimate property", yet legitimacy of property titles is itself conditional on compliance with NAP.

Consider a statist who argues that government (as representative of the citizen body) is the legitimate owner of its entire territory. Since the entire territory of the country is the legitimate property of the democratic government (goes the explanation), no government law violates NAP (in the same way that landlord charging rent or setting rules of conduct on his territory doesn't). Since government action doesn't violate NAP, its ownership is legitimate.

Thus nothing in the NAP helps distinguish between the libertarian and the statist position (thus justified).

This is not quite true. The libertarian concept of just property is derived from the NAP. The NAP is a form of the golden rule, the ethic of reciprocity. Homesteading and estoppel are derived from this concept of reciprocity, though they do not find their origins in libertarianism. Through concepts of homesteading and estoppel, we get the libertarian idea of just property.

The point of the NAP is that it is the foundation of libertarianism, and all libertarian concepts can be derived from it. There are plenty of libertarians who do not care to derive these other principles and just accept them as separate axioms. But this need not be the case. Certainly, if you encounter a libertarian who just accepts homesteading as an axiom, then the NAP will seem circular. But other libertarians, such as Rothbard (or myself!), do not just accept homesteading as a separate axiom. To us, all libertarian concepts must be derived from the NAP or they are not libertarian.

I believe Eran is absolutely correct here, and just about everything you say here is back-to-front. Eran, Minarchist, Kinsella and I are all pointing to the same flaw in the idea that the NAP is the logical foundation of libertarianism. To quote Kinsella again: "One cannot identify an act of aggression without implicitly assigning a corresponding property right to the victim."

All the stuff about the Golden Rule / ethic of reciprocity is you chasing your own tail. You've now agreed that the NAP and the Golden Rule are the same thing, so one can't be derived from the other. But you're still talking about the ethic of reciprocity as different to the NAP, with the NAP being derived from the ethic of reciprocity, even though in the quote above you implied that the Golden Rule and the ethic of reciprocity are the same thing!

I'd like to see your answers to Minarchist's questions above, but also at this point I want to check you understand what the problem is with saying "all libertarian concepts can be derived from the NAP". Do you agree with the Kinsella quote above? If not, how can such an act be identified? And if you do agree with him, how can you continue to say that the NAP is the fundamental concept from which property assignment principles like homesteading are derived, when the NAP is meaningless without these principles underlying it?

Re: Formulation of Non Aggression Principle

Eran — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 17:21:41 GMT

Graham Wright:
It seems like your new formulation suffers from the same problem as the old one. By "peaceful projects" you seem to mean "things a person does that don't involve aggressing against anyone". So your formulation becomes "It is wrong to use force against another person except when that person has used aggression", which is just "It is wrong to use aggression, defense is OK", which is the NAP.

Both these terms "peaceful" and "aggression" presuppose a certain property theory. I think the correct path is to look beyond mere re-wording of the NAP and at the actual property theory beneath it. That is, the rules for how property can be legitimately acquired / transferred / abandoned.

I was hoping that formulating NAP in terms of "projects" rather than "property" will remove a layer of abstraction and uncertainty.

In fact, the concept of property then follows as a corollary of NAP. A resource is recognised as a person's property to the exact extent that physical invasion of that resource interferes with an ongoing project of that person.

Re: Formulation of Non Aggression Principle

Autolykos — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 17:12:52 GMT

Graham Wright:
Sorry Autolykos.

Here's something you did say that I disagree with.

Autolykos:
Eran:
Self-ownership doesn't help - a landlord can legitimately prohibit smoking on his permises. So governemnt's drug prohibition, for example, would be legitimate IF government was the legitimate owner of its territory.

Prohibiting smoking on his premises simply means that people smoking on his premises are trespassing and must either stop smoking or leave. But prohibiting smoking per se does not give the landlord any right to imprison them, injure them, damage or destroy their property, kill them, etc.

Your second sentence is incorrect. A landlord can do all these things, so long as it is proportionate to the severity of the rule violation. The landlord must start off by politely asking the person to leave, but if that doesn't work, they can use as much force as necessary to remove that person. All government actions, that we typically call aggression, are legitimate if the government is the legitimate landlord of the nation.

Eran is completely right in the above two sentences. We (libertarians) therefore have to show why government's don't legitimately own the land they claim, because otherwise Georgism (for example) and other philosophies are still completely consistent with the NAP. We do this by referring to the homesteading principle... not to the NAP, or the self-ownership principle, but to the homesteading principle.

I think you mean to say that you think it's legitimate for a landlord to do all those things, so long as it's propportionate to the severity of the rule violation. The word "can" implies physical ability to me, which has nothing to do with legitimacy.

With that out of the way, I don't think you quite understood what I was saying. You'd agree that it would be illegitimate for a landlord to immediately imprison anyone he finds smoking on his property, yes? And even if the smoker refused to leave on first request, I still don't see how that per se gives the landlord the right to imprison the smoker, damage/destroy any of his property, injure him, or kill him. If the smoker physically resists being forcibly removed from the property, then I think the landlord is within his rights to defend himself. But that's not the same thing to me as saying the landlord has the right to e.g. throw the smoker into a cage for a month, blow up the smoker's car, or cut off the smoker's arm simply because he was smoking on the landlord's property. Does that make more sense?

Re: Formulation of Non Aggression Principle

Autolykos — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 17:00:30 GMT

Eran:
Most people lack a coherent and comprehensive understanding of the concept of "property".

What do you mean by "the concept of 'property'"? I didn't think there was one and only one concept that is necessarily called "property".

Eran:
But once presented with the inviolability and full rights associated with property, they could reconcile that term with their perception of the scope of legitimate government action by associating political sovereignty (in their world) with property (in ours).

The notion of the "social contract" is appealing to a lot of (if not most) people, as it implies a voluntary alienation of rights. The question is whether they gave up any rights - and, if so, how.

Eran:
You are correct that government actions exceed even those of a landlord.

However, even if government restricted its activities to those consistent with being a landlord (e.g. by punishing drug-users with exile rather than imprisonment), we would still view them as contrary to NAP.

How do we justify that?

I think we can justify it the same way we can justify a person who aggressively commandeered an apartment building from its owner, but hasn't aggressed against any of the tenants, as contrary to the non-aggression principle. The actions of that person toward the property in question are aggressive because the way he acquired it was aggressive.

Re: Formulation of Non Aggression Principle

Minarchist — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 23:02:15 GMT

@gotlucky

If you have a society that is based on the ethic of reciprocity, then it necessarily has the rule of first use as a norm/law.

Aren't there an infinite number of possible ways to assign original ownership of property? And couldn't any given society adopt any one of these norms? And couldn't they adopt any one of these norms AND at the same time adhere to the ethic of reciprocity?

As I understand it, the ethic of reciprocity is about A respecting claims of a certain kind from B so that B will reciprocate and respect the same kind of claims when made by A. The ethic of reciprocity establishes this symmetrical relationship, but it says nothing about the content of the claims in question. They can be any kind of claims. They can rest on any of an infinite number of norms for assigning property.

It would not be a society based on reciprocity or respect if people did not respect other's claims to certain objects as property.

But what kind of claims? Why is it necessarily the case that these claims would be based on the first use concept of homesteading?