Ayn Rand

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Agathon

Libertarians claim that violations of liberty (the usurpation of choice) are the only things that count as bad. All rights that Libertarians claim are derived from this principle.

You are paddling in the sea, idly watching a small child drowning nearby. Nobody else has seen it.

Would it be bad if you didn't help it?

[tinyp3nis]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
It's a wierd debate when only one side makes any sense.

Are you going for two flies?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp



You are paddling in the sea, idly watching a small child drowning nearby. Nobody else has seen it.

Would it be bad if you didn't help it?

Heh Heh - I was saving that one for later, but be my guest.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by tinyp3nis

Are you going for two flies?

Not really. The Libs seem to be putting forth the more cogent case so far when compared to Agathon, IMO. It just seems surreal to use Chomsky as a source for an arguement against Libertarianism when I'm sure that better ones are available.

[David Floyd]

You are paddling in the sea, idly watching a small child drowning nearby. Nobody else has seen it.

Would it be bad if you didn't help it?

I'll take this one.

I believe it would be "bad", or rather wrong, not to help the child, because helping the child is not an immoral activity, and if you do not help the child, he or she will die. Preventing death by moral means is always right, but, on the other hand, preventing death through immoral means is always wrong.

There is also a third example, and that is helping the child at the cost of your own life or safety or somesuch. In this case, it is not immoral to refuse to help the child - it just takes a personal value judgement on whose life you value more, yours or the child's. I personally doubt I would help the child if I would die in the process, but other people might. Either way, it isn't a wrong decision because it's a personal choice involving no coercion.

To sum up, there is a moral imperative, from my point of view, to help the child ONLY IF you can help the child through moral means and you do not put yourself in danger by doing so.

Now, I used the phrase "from my point of view", which is a Christian/Libertarian point of view. If one is not a Christian, and is not guided by certain personal moral principles, then I cannot impose a moral imperative on that person to help the child in any situation. So, objectively speaking, there is no moral imperative unless you impose one on yourself (or, rather, allow one to be imposed upon you).

[Wraith]

--"I never could understand exactly what force meant in libertarianism"

The dictionary definition works.

"violence, compulsion, or constraint exerted upon or against a person or thing"

Let me quote an example, although it's from a paper about Objectivism.

How can the existence of willingness be determined? A man with a gun to his head (or whose values are indirectly threatened) will most likely ASSERT willingness, but does his assertion really signify the existence of willingness?
To determine whether or not something is voluntary, we should examine two things: the person's behavior (both word and deed) and the context within which that behavior occurs--including the temporal context: the person may be operating under a threat laid on him in the past, and which is not to be manifest until sometime in the future.
The concept "voluntary" cannot apply to any context in which coercion occurs as part of the relevant environment. If a person's behavior is mandated, regardless of her personal choice, then her behavior cannot properly be labeled voluntary. No contract--whether direct, indirect, or implied--is valid if it is coercively imposed, or if it is acquiesced to by default within a context of coercion. Meaningful consent does not exist under these conditions.

The fundamental distinguishing characteristic which separates the two categories is the relevance of choice to the preservation of values.
For example: If I put a gun to your head and demand your money, the situation is such that your choice has no relevance: you lose a value no matter how you choose. Either your money or your life.
If your choice is to give me the money, then you lose the money.
On the other hand, if your choice is NOT to give me the money, then you still lose the money--and your life, too.
No matter how you choose, you lose. That's what makes the situation coercive.
If a person's choice is NOT relevant to the loss vs. non-loss of a value then the transfer is a theft. If the person's choice IS relevant, then the transfer is a trade.
There is a situation in which choice seems to be relevant, but nonetheless the transfer cannot be termed a trade: when the transfer occurs within a context of deception. This is fraud.

--"and pollutes your living enviroment"

Damaging your property without your consent, so yes.

--"If they set up next to you in a attempt to get you to leave are they initiating force?"

Depends how they attempt to get you to leave. If they offer you a lot of money for your place and do nothing else, then no. If they send people over to your house to comment on how flammable it looks, then yes.

--"If someone charges you a toll to get to a place you need to get to so that you will survive and you don't have the money to pay are they using force?"

Depends. If you need to take a plane but can't afford the ticket, then no. If they're preventing you from getting in your car unless you pay them, then yes.

--"If your ancestors use force to take land from someone and him or his ancestors return and want that land back is it in your right to use force to keep them out?"

This is one of the few true problems. It's hard to make blanket statements about this one, but it'll largely depend on how long ago it was and what kind of proof can be brought into play.
The problem here lies in the fact that restitituions for generations past involve punishing people who did not do anything wrong. This is a bad thing. We are pretty effectively limited to only addressing this when it was caused by people who are still alive.

--"Is it OK for someone to get someone else to protect your 'property rights'?"

In general, yes. It's fine for you to protect rights, no matter whose they happen to be. Your methods still have to be appropriate.

--"If you owe a debt"

Unless you were dumb enough to sign a contract saying you're their slave if you can't pay it off, it doesn't quite work that way. Penalties for contract violations of a sort that aren't specified in the contract are what the courts are for.

--"should you still recieve the services"

If you haven't paid for it, then no. Not unless the person providing them feels charitable.

--"would there be a police system, and a court system"

Depends which libertarians you ask. We do range from minarchists like myself (in which the answers are yes) to anarchists (who would say no).

--" I care about what they are entitled to."

Libertarians do not talk about what they are entitled to. The term does not agree with the general philosophy. Libertarians simply want their rights to remain unviolated.

--"They have an argument that says roughly that violations of liberty are what is wrong"

You're mis-stating things again. It's not "violations of liberty", it's violations of rights. The two terms are not synonymous. This is the last time I will address one of your strawmen.

--"It's a wierd debate when only one side makes any sense."

I know. But this is why it's really hard to argue with subjectivists. When they insist that things can mean anything they want them to mean, it's effectively impossible to pin them down on anything.

Wraith
"Forget Mother Mirabel, this crowd needs Father Thorazine. What the hell are you looking at?"
-- Duckman

[Az]

I'll take this one.

I believe it would be "bad", or rather wrong, not to help the child, because helping the child is not an immoral activity, and if you do not help the child, he or she will die. Preventing death by moral means is always right, but, on the other hand, preventing death through immoral means is always wrong.

There is also a third example, and that is helping the child at the cost of your own life or safety or somesuch. In this case, it is not immoral to refuse to help the child - it just takes a personal value judgement on whose life you value more, yours or the child's. I personally doubt I would help the child if I would die in the process, but other people might. Either way, it isn't a wrong decision because it's a personal choice involving no coercion.

To sum up, there is a moral imperative, from my point of view, to help the child ONLY IF you can help the child through moral means and you do not put yourself in danger by doing so.

Now, I used the phrase "from my point of view", which is a Christian/Libertarian point of view. If one is not a Christian, and is not guided by certain personal moral principles, then I cannot impose a moral imperative on that person to help the child in any situation. So, objectively speaking, there is no moral imperative unless you impose one on yourself (or, rather, allow one to be imposed upon you).

I'll be an *******, and twist the plot a little bit more:

You're a wheelchair-bound police officer of a perfect libertarian state, guarding a convicted criminal, on a boat in waters that are shallow for adults, but are deep for kids. a child is drowning near by. can you force the convict into saving the child?

( I don't even want to get into the "one murder=many murders" part. )

[DinoDoc]

Why would a wheelchair bound officer be in a boat guarding a convict?

[Rex Little]

Originally posted by SirTweek

If a oil operation sets up next to your town/home and pollutes your living enviroment are they initiating force against you? If they set up next to you in a attempt to get you to leave are they initiating force?

Yes.

If your ancestors use force to take land from someone and him or his ancestors return and want that land back is it in your right to use force to keep them out?

The original owner of the land clearly has the right to take it back; the original taker clearly does not have the right to keep it. Once everyone involved is dead and only their descendants are involved, the issue gets murky. Land ownership is a tricky concept anyway; reasonable people can disagree about exactly what it entitles you to.

If someone charges you a toll to get to a place you need to get to so that you will survive and you don't have the money to pay are they using force?

Obviously, this question assumes that the person charging the toll owns land that you must cross to get where you need to go. The answer depends on how his ownership of that piece of land is defined. (Defined how, and by whom? I don't know, and I don't propose to settle the question here. Like I said, it's a tricky concept.) If it includes the absolute right to decide who sets foot on the land, then no, he's not initiating force.

Is it OK for someone to get someone else to protect your 'property rights'?

Anything you have the right to do, you have the right to get someone else to do for you. That includes protecting your property rights. But you didn't say property rights; you said 'property rights'. If by that you meant claims to property that really isn't yours, then of course it's not OK.

If you owe a debt and the person you owe the debt to comes to you and tells you that you will be her slave since you will not pay the debt back then uses a gun to make you do what she wants, is she using force?

Yes, unless you had signed an agreement giving her the right to do that if you didn't pay.

If you pay a certain amount of money to receive certain services and then decide not to pay the money, should you still recieve the services and if the service giver decides that you owe them is it ok to use force to stop them?

If this possibility is covered in whatever agreement was made at the time of the original purchase, that agreement governs. If not, there are a number of reasonable ways the law can deal with it. My own preference would be that if the service provider was expecting payment in advance, or if you've made it clear you won't pay, they're under no obligation to provide the service. If they choose to do so anyway, it's at their own risk; if you choose not to pay they have no right to force you.

In the instances where force is used what redress do you have in a libertarian society, would there be a police system, and a court system or would it be up to you and anyone you can hire to defend your 'rights'?

Protecting your rights is the proper function of police and courts. That doesn't preclude you from hiring someone else, but if they go beyond protecting your rights and violate someone else's, you're as responsible as if you'd done so yourself.

[Az]

DD: this is besides the point. It's the full right of Police Inc. to employ whoever they want to.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by DinoDoc

Not really. The Libs seem to be putting forth the more cogent case so far when compared to Agathon, IMO. It just seems surreal to use Chomsky as a source for an arguement against Libertarianism when I'm sure that better ones are available.

It doesn't matter who the source is. The Libertarians haven't put forward any case at all, much less a cogent one in answer to my question which I will repeat. Giving dictionary definitions or merely re-asserting the point in question is not making a case.

So again...

If depriving someone of liberty is depriving them of choice and this is the ground of Libertarian morality, why is what the robber does wrong when he clearly doesn't deprive his victim of the power of choice or make the choice for that person. The question couldn't be simpler.

Bad answers include: because he's threatening to violate someone's rights - this is dumb because merely threatening to violate someone's rights is not violating them ergo is not wrong, unless you invent a right not to be threatened.

Bad answer 2: Claiming a "right not to be threatened". If you invent a right not to be threatened, where does it come from? It certainly cannot be account for in terms of violating a person's liberty because threats threaten to deprive people of liberty (as Libertarians define it) rather than actually depriving them of it. And since all Libertarian rights are derived from the right to liberty, there just can't be any right not to be threatened in a Libertarian scheme.

Bad answer 3: coming up with some other moral principle in addition to liberty which justifies a right not to be threatened. This won't work because it is hard to find a principle that won't yield anti-libertarian counter examples.

Surely you supposed Libertarians can give some answers to these queries without begging the question.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Agathon
It doesn't matter who the source is.

I know that the source doesn't matter. I just find Chomsky amusing in a buffoonish kind of way.

[Agathon]

Well, given that Chomsky's part in the cognitive revolution makes him a good candidate for being one of the leading scientific and historical figures of the twentieth century, it's a bit much to say that.

The point isn't peculiar to Chomsky (in fact I think he reports the example from someone else) but it is a much more powerful point than the so called Libertarians on here realise since they don't seem to understand the conceptual role of the principle of liberty in a Libertarian scheme as the sole moral principle from which all rights are derived. Unfortunately rights not to be threatened don't fall into this scheme unless you adopt a different (i.e. socialist) principle of Liberty. That's what's so funny about the robber case.

Anyway, how about having a go at answering the question.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Agathon
it's a bit much to say that.

It's the political writings that do it for me. Most of them are just so far out there. I'll admit to not being familiar with the rest of his work though.

Anyway, how about having a go at answering the question.

I would but I fail to see anything substantively wrong with Rex's post on page 5.

[Agathon]

Rex's problem is that he assumes we have a right not to be threatened (what he calls "coercion") without giving an argument as to how it is derived from the principle of liberty.

The fundamental principle of Libertarianism is a variation on "Everyone is the owner of their own life and no one owns anyone elses." Their interpretation of this is that we have a "negative" right to liberty (a right to non-interference in our choicemaking) rather than a "positive" right to liberty (a right to interfere in the choices of others in order to affect our range of choices).

Trom this "negative" conception of liberty, they derive the rights to freedom of association, speech and property. I have no great objection to this derivation of rights because it follows from the initial conception of liberty. I can't see how you can derive a right not to be threatened like I described in the robber case because the robber doesn't interfere with your choicemaking (that is what he does does not intefere with "negative" liberty). If one did have a right not to have such choices presented to one then that would be admitting a "positive" right to liberty because it would be allowing you to interfere to affect your range of choices. A positive conception of liberty would destroy what most people call libertarianism because it would require others to do things without their consent in order to affect our range of choices.

If this seems a bit abstract, it is. I make no apologies for it either - this is where the real substance of the theory is, so this is where it should be questioned.