sdavio

I have an issue with the 'ought' aspect of self-ownership. We all agree that a human being has attributes (ie blue eyes.) If this were *all* property was then I'd agree with it.However, there is a step of logic necessary to the person having a 'right' to themselves, and I don't see how it follows. This leap is necessary in order to justify owning external objects with the labour theory of property.

Even barring my criticism of the entire strategy as fallacious; the principle entailed in my form is simply that [someone's actions can be attributed to them], which, while contained inside the capitalist's property paradigm, is not the entire paradigm. Your strategy would only work if implied in my making the argument were all of the parts of the definition of property which is being challenged. If this rule were not true, then (as square4's post demonstrated) basically anything would go. I could prove murder is valid because in arguing against murder you are moving your body and murderers do that too.

The labour theory of property presupposes self-ownership and the is-ought leap which are the very things this thread is about. Sure, my labour comes from me, but this doesn't entail any 'ought'; it doesn't necessarily show that I have any right to it's product. This was my purpose in separating the different understandings of property, a main variance between them being those which are simply 'is' ('A property of my eyes is blueness') versus 'ought' ('This guitar is mine, so I am justified in withholding it from others'). I've got no vested interest for or against property here; I'm just interested to see if it can be proven logically, considering I found the attempt in Stefan's video unsound.

As I understand, you are basically claiming that, if I apply my labour to an object, the choice about what happens to that object is always (in moral terms) best left up to me, and I should be allowed recourse to violence if another person impedes that from happening. Applying someone's argument to them as a causal agent doesn't prove the above statement deductively. It requires further proof. Nor is it self-evident within the fact that I spent the labour in the first place. Stef's original argument, and people in this thread, have framed property as simply meaning attributing something to something else causally. That is not the concept of property most people would understand, nor the one necessary for anarcho-capitalism. The gap between those two things was precisely what the absurdity of the tree example was attempting to show. Most people understand property as an object being attributed to a person with a moral right to it respected by society (and the right to use force in defense of it). This latter paradigm being justified doesn't follow from the fact that I attribute Stef's argument to Stef, having autonomous control of my body, nor from the fact that labour is expended toward the object in the first place.

I apologize if I'm being unclear. When you say we 'own' the effects of our actions, it seems to mean simply a statement of cause and effect. Clearly, if I built a chair, the fact of 'the chair being built' is causally connected to myself. However, this does not entail any sort of capitalist right to the chair, it is simply an 'is' statement of what caused the chair to come into it's current state of being. The statement, "I built this chair therefore I caused it to come into it's current state," is definitional and self-evident. The part after 'therefore' can be absolutely deduced from the part before it. On the other hand, the statement "I built this chair, therefore I have a capitalist right to it, and the right to use force against those who interfere with that," is not definitional; it is an assertion. Therefore it is not simply self-evident, it needs to be supported with a rational proof. By that definition of ownership, the wind 'owns' the leaves of a tree which is pushes about. Surely you can see how I'm finding a gap between that understanding and the capitalist's property paradigm?

Alright, I've attempted to elaborate on my argument to make clear exactly where I see the disconnect: - In order for statements like "Taxation is violent and immoral" to hold, right to owning property must be a logical and natural extension of being human, rather than a utilitarian-style social construct.- There seem to be multiple understandings of property alluded to in this thread:1. An attribute of something. (An attribute of my eyes is that they are blue.)2. Cause and effect.3. Having conscious control of something. (I have control of my body.)4. Capitalist property: The right to an object, whether you have direct control of it or not, and the right to use force against those who interfere with it.- #4, specifically, and the paradigm it entails, do not deductively follow from any of the previous points.- Therefore, there remains to be shown a logical progression specifically from being human to the #4 understanding of property."If you own yourself then you own the effects of your actions."If I understand correctly, this would refer to the #2 type of property, cause and effect. Then, you say:"You make a chair, you own that chair. If you break somebody else's chair, you owe them a chair."Which makes the progression to #4, capitalist property. My question essentially is, if I make a chair, why do I necessarily 'own' it (in the capitalist sense)? If obtaining and withholding capitalist property (as distinguished from property in the sense of self-autonomy etc.) is only a social consideration rather than an intrinsic right, then withholding property could as equally be violence as interfering with someone else's could be, because it would be an act of society rather than a right.

Of course it was; namely because I don't feel clear on the logical backing for which people have an absolute right to obtain and hold property, as opposed to it being simply something like a social construct.From what I understand by the responses so far there is some sort of Is/Ought distinction, where self-ownership simply resembles a statement like "I have control over my body." Most defences of absolute property rights I've seen imply that property rights follow necessarily from self-ownership, but if that is all self-ownership is, it seems there is a long philosophical leap from that to property as we know it in capitalism. It seems essential that, for the function of most libertarian logic and rhetoric ("taxation is theft", "violence is wrong, and disrespecting absolute property rights is violent"), there is a logical progression from self-autonomy to capitalist property, rather than the answer being that we adopt the property system because it works best for society to function. If the answer is only the latter, then most moral defences would fall apart.

This seems very different from the capitalist understanding of property, in which for instance I could be given the right to an area of land, and that land is a 'property' of mine to do with what I will, and that anyone else cannot step foot on it else (retaliatory) force will be used against them. I'm interested how you could frame that as a sort of amoral 'fact of the universe'. It just doesn't seem to follow from the fact that I attribute someone's argument to their person causally.In short, if our property is only that which we can innately control, we'd only end up with something more like the communist view of property, which I'm sure is not the goal, lol. I'm wondering specifically about the leap to other forms of property. Nope, don't know who that is..

First, that it doesn't prove universality of property rights logically. Second, that the form of 'property' it refers to might not be the same as we know in the capitalist sense, but only something like accountability or cause and effect. It also doesn't prove ownership of something you're not currently using.

Well, the video was titled "A Proof of Property Rights", and the basis for property as universal and binding seems particularly important considering it forms the grounding upon which the rest of UPB's morality system is predicated.

It is possible for someone to act in accordance with the principle that property rights aren't universal. The positive claim being made is that property should be unilaterally applied and respected as moral law. To say "anyone who refers to property in a specific case is assuming the existence of the concept of property" does not rationally prove the former claim, in my view. Also, it seems there is a big difference between being accountable in the sense of cause and effect and property in the sense of having a right to use an object as you wish. We're talking strictly about an abstract philosophical proof here. The assertion "property rights should be universally respected as a moral imperative" does not logically follow from "Person A attributed an argument to Person B."

The proof for property rights I have seen Stefan Molyneux provide (specifically in the video "A Proof of Property Rights") is that one cannot argue against property without being a hypocrite. This seems an example of the logical fallacy 'Tu Quoque', because it is not logically sound to claim an assertion is true only on the grounds that a specific or theoretical opponent of the assertion would be a hypocrite. It would work as an aside, but this is purported to be a rational proof working from first principles. Am I mistaken in labelling this proof as a fallacy? "[Tu Quoque] is a logical fallacy that attempts to discredit the opponent's position by asserting the opponent's failure to act consistently in accordance with that position; it attempts to show that a criticism or objection applies equally to the person making it." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque