square4

There are lots of groups that are more likely to commit a crime statistically. For example, those in poor neighborhoods. And they are also more likely to claim government welfare. So should we support locking down poor neighborhoods with fences? Of course not. A peaceful immigrant is not responsible at all for the existence of a welfare state. So to evaluate the morality of interacting with the immigrant, it is irrelevant if there is a welfare state.

The counter argument is very simple: It is never justified to attack the innocent. Although some immigrants are criminals, not all are. Also, state borders do not even remotely correspond to valid borders of private property. So with closed borders, it means that innocents will be attacked. If you disagree, please explain how your proposal will avoid initiating force against peaceful people. Also please explain who you would want to employ for this (government agents?), and how you propose to finance it (through taxation/theft?). I know about how the government in my country (a country in Europe) has horribly mistreated immigrants. I strongly oppose such practice.

do you have a transcript available?

We cannot randomly do things and expect a bridge to emerge, so there are some required principles of bridge building. Or do you want to reserve the word "principles" for moral principles?

To build a bridge, it is required to follow the correct principles of bridge building. Therefore we should build a bridge, because it is correct ??

It appears there are some hidden steps or assumptions made in the argument for self-ownership. Based on hints by people in other threads, I now think the complete argument (implicitly) goes like this: 1. Morality means acting according to universal and consistent principles. 2. Morality is not seen as something you "ought" to do, avoiding the Hume is-ought gap. The claim is: IF you want to be moral (that is, IF you want to act according to universal consistent principles), THEN, to reach that goal, you should do this or that. 3. Based on the idea of the subjectivity of value, that each person has its own arbitrary preferences, ethical theories cannot make any objective distinction between different actions, as long as they are not forced on another person. 4. Based on the idea that people are not fundamentally different, ethical theories cannot make an arbitrary distinction between people. 5. Any action (including speaking and debating) is consistent only with the principle that you have the right to do so, and generalizing based on point 3 and 4, that people own themselves. 6. Any violent action that denies the victim the possibility to control himself, would be in line with the principle that people own and do not own themselves, but that is inconsistent (or contradictory). Based on point 1, such an action would be immoral. Please correct me if this reconstruction is wrong. Hopefully, this will help us to better critically examine the argument, and have a more productive discussion.

Hello QE Infinity, welcome on the boards. One of the principles of good ethics, is that it can be applied universally, without making arbitrary distinctions. If we remove arbitrary distinctions from state border control, it boils down to: "attacking travelers", which of course no one would argue for. State borders are arbitrary, and do not correspond at all to valid borders of private property. No one knows how "border control" would be in a free society. Suppose you can prove that border control is not evil, it still would not be something that should be "required". Because similarly, if you can prove bread is not evil, it does not mean that bread should be required. You run into the some problems as regular democracy that the preferences of the majority are enforced on the minority. So the only thing you could do, is require that your part of the tax money is spent on this or that, but you cannot decide for other people. And even for valid borders of your own private property, it would be prudent not to employ for this the state, because it is an organization known for its very bad behavior. I also differ about your description of a free society. The type of free society I envision and would want to live in, there would be a right of way for large owned areas, for example when crossing a corn field. The property rights in such large areas would be in that case to protect the crop, not for exercising arbitrary control over passing travelers. The idea of complete ownership of every plot of land of the earth, with legal authority over aspects they did not create in any way, I don't see how such a thing could be justified or preferable.

When someone says to me "that's your opinion", I would conclude that they think I am wrong, and moreover, that they think I have spoken with too much certainty, because I said it as if it were an established fact, and they dislike that, and want to correct me on that point. It tells me they are not convinced at all of the truth of it, and that I have not provided enough evidence or arguments to convince them, or that maybe they know about counter-arguments or evidence that I don't know or haven't fully thought through.

hypocrisy ?

Arguments against the supernatural or paranormal are interesting, but provide no explanation for what actually happened. I also want to see spontaneous regrowth of amputated body parts, but while it is not happening, in the mean time, I would like to explain the things that actually did happen. Below is an example miracle account, written around 1916 by a surgeon named John H. Bowen: "... I saw, I suppose, over one hundred healed of incurable diseases, such as we doctors can do nothing for; consumption, pellagra, Bright's disease, cancer, blindness and valvular heart trouble (or regurgitation of the blood). I saw these diseased persons healed two years ago and all of them that I am personally acquainted with are healed today. I will also mention two children I saw healed, one eighteen months old, who was born blind and seemed to have no marks of human intelligence; was badly deformed; had curvature of the spine so much so that the backbone was curved in such a manner as to be much higher that the shoulders. When Sister Etter prayed for it the eyes received sight; the human intelligence came in; that awful curvature of the spine straightened out; the baby stood on its feet and smiled for the first time of its life, so the father and mother said, and of course they shouted and praised God ..." The explanation "outliers on the bell curve" doesn't work if something is repeated too often. Maria Woodworth-Etter, who did the praying in this case - in a certain phase of her life, people have reported miracle after miracle, while other people experience no such thing. There must be a reason for that. I would like to know what is the best possible naturalistic explanation for these kind of things.

I would like to understand better what are the available naturalistic explanations for miracles. As definition for miracle: simply those things that are commonly seen by religious people as a miracle, such as a person recovering from a seemingly incurable disease after prayer. My questions include things like: - What kind of diseases or mental problems can heal spontaneously, and which cannot? if so, how often (statistics), and by which means? - What does modern science say about emotions having effects on your body (placebo effect etc.), and what are the limits of these effects? - Suppose a miracle is a myth (it never happened), how do such myths arise? Do there exist information sources that contain a comprehensive and rigorous treatment of this subject? giving the best possible naturalistic explanations for the various types of miracles, given the current state of science, including a probability analysis. Pointers in the right direction would be appreciated.

It seems that most people do not consider themselves strictly bound by what they contractually or otherwise have agreed to. I wonder what is the cause of this, and if this is expected to ever change, especially in a free society. When most people do not feel obliged to do what they have agreed to, this means that there will be little market pressure applied to the conditions in such agreements, except to the degree that these are enforced. This means people who are strictly honest, will pay a price for it, which means there is an incentive to be dishonest, reinforcing the existing situation. If you feel obliged to do what you sign to do, to ensure compliance, it is needed to at least read the complete text, which people often do not do. As an example, when using web services, most people click agree without reading the agreement, and companies even expect you will not read it. For example, on the Skype website, it said that registering only takes a minute or two. But the register process included an agreement, which requires you to confirm that you have read it (and accept it). If you would actually do so, it is 14165 words, with a reading speed of 300 words per minute, it takes 47 minutes. As a counterargument someone might say, I do not have to read it all, I only have to agree to the legal consequences of the agreement. If that were the actual agreement, then fine, but in most cases, that's not the actual content of the agreement, so the counterargument fails. The Wikipedia article on Standard form contracts has interesting analysis of why people sign such contracts. Then there are also issues in the actual content of contracts, which is to be expected with the lack of market pressure on them. In some cases, the conditions in contracts are not even intended to be followed, but are intended only as a legal cover. If a contract says, you will not do X, it's legal intend is often that if you do X, they cannot be blamed. They actually don't mind if you do X. I have even experienced that the same company that had asked to me to contractually sign to not do X, verbally asked me to do X, which is contradictory. What is your analysis of the situation?

A socialist commune is compatible and allowed within a voluntarist anarcho-capitalist society, and its (collective) property right claims would be respected. The question to you is if socialists would similarly allow a freely chosen capitalist society within their socialist commonwealth, and respect their property. Within this question, let us assume that this capitalist society will only claim resources in their own area, and those they have imported through voluntary trade. Further assume that the capitalist area does not contain a disproportional amount of natural resources, compared to the rest (such as Hong Kong, compared to China). Would this be acceptable?

Suppose someone has created a machine, and offers another person a job to work for a wage, using this machine. By doing so, he does not diminish the available options for the laborer. It is still possible to work without the machine. It is still possible to use similar resources, and make a machine yourself. By offering a job, the capitalist is adding an extra possibility. How could that be called coercion? Suppose the laborer accepts the job, then the produced product will be the result of both of their labor, right? So what is the full fruit of ones labor? The production of capital goods and the offering of the job, should be taken as one process. Before this process began, the capital goods did not exist, and the worker also did not have the possibility to use those and receive its full produce. So this option has not been removed; it never existed. Similarly, a person who bakes bread and sells it, is not removing the option of getting bread for free, because that option never existed.

By social wealth, do you mean the benefits gained through interactions between individuals, through division of labor, and the like? If these were voluntary, as demanded by anarchism, these should already have been beneficial to the parties involved, which means they already received some compensation, although indeed not necessary in an equal fashion. But with regard to natural wealth, as far as these natural resources are unimproved by men, I agree that ownership of it cannot be justified. But isn't the price of most products for only a very small portion determined by the raw materials in their original natural form, and most of it determined by the value added to it by the various laborers? This labor includes also the labor required for the production of the capital goods that were used during production. And if this labor was voluntary, this means they already felt compensated for it, when agreeing to the salary.

It is an important topic that you bring up. There is disagreement about property rights, even among anarchists, and this disagreement will probably not go away quickly. So if everyone is going to enforce its version of property rights (socialisms / capitalism), the result would not be nice. This shows the importance of finding a peaceful way to handle it. Property rights simply claim what is right and wrong. These rights can be valid, without necessarily justifying its enforcement on others. But in practice, property rights are often linked to the idea that they may be enforced. People who disagree with a property right claim, may grudgingly choose to accept it, because of fear of enforcement, and the actual use of force might be very rare. But this does not alter the coercive nature of it. A way towards a solution could be a civilized discussion, to come to an agreement, or at least create a better understanding of the situation and the principles of the other. If an agreement cannot be reached, the determination of property rights could be left to what communities decide, and people join or leave these communities voluntarily. This is not a complete solution, because people can still be affected by it involuntarily. Inside the community, this would be especially the children. But also people outside the community are affected by how it handles property rights. For example, if a community is located around a rich natural resource, other communities might protest against the exclusive ownership of that resource. A practical way to handle the problem can simply be non-enforcement, even when thinking to be in the right, in order to maintain peace.

I think it is a good example, and it could help to open people's eyes. But what you can expect, is an answer like this: "Vacations are a private good, and we have a place for a free market in vacations (with some regulation of course), but the government provides "public" goods. These are services from which non-payers cannot easily be excluded (free-rider problem), such as roads and national "defense". Also, there are goods that are so critical to our well-being, such as health care, that we cannot leave that in the hands of profit-driven companies. But with regard to vacations, we totally agree with you."

With wireless communication, it is not uncommon that your neighbor is sending their waves of data into your house. It is then a small step to capture and analyse the data for possible weak or missing encryption. So there are situations where passive capturing of private information is possible. An example is also the Google street view cars that captured private wireless data. A possible principle could be that we have property rights in information that we produce, and that consent is needed to use it. A possible objection to this is that information property rights necessarily restrict physical property rights. They cannot both be fully valid at the same time, because information always resides also at some physical location. So it isn't possible to deduce information rights from physical property rights. It also cannot be deduced from the non aggression principle. But that doesn't mean the principle is invalid. In the modern technological situation, with the internet and the cloud, ownership of the physical means on which your information is stored is becoming less common. Despite that, many people desire the right of exclusive control over certain information that they created, for various reasons (privacy or economic). Even if digital ownership is not accepted as independent principle, the owners of the physical layer of digital spaces could of their own accord implement terms and conditions that make digital ownership possible in the digital virtual world. And often they do.

Of course, we have no right to enter other people's houses. But if the ownership is about a large area, such as a large corn field, I would think there are circumstances where people would have the right to walk through other people's corn fields, if they need to travel through it for some reason (a right-of-way), of course provided they do not damage the corn, and the owner would not have the right to attack those who are passing by. People would spent a large percentage of their time on the property of others: the houses they rent, the roads and other transportation facilities, parking places, shops, and businesses where they work 8 hours a day. Can the owners of these places set arbitrary conditions for entry, basically making all other property rights superfluous?

How can be prevented that land or building ownership would basically negate self-ownership? The problem is as follows. Suppose a person owns a piece of land, and grants access to the land under the terms that he chooses. In the extreme case, the condition that he sets for entering his land may be that anyone may do whatever he wants with you and your property, while on this piece of land. If this would be valid, it would basically erase all morality on this land. Of course, we have the option not to enter his land. But now suppose nearly all land is owned, and each owner has certain conditions for entering, regarding your body and your property. Suppose those rules are not as extreme as in the previous example, but they are arbitrary rules, nonetheless. If they, as a land owner, have the right to set rules, as a condition for entering, why would they not? This might mean, as the stipulated conditions multiply, that in the end basically everything, except land ownership, is completely governed by the rules of the land owners. Anyone who inhabits the earth unavoidably must be on some piece of land (or sea), which is likely to be owned, and therefore be subject to the "jurisdiction" (or government) of the land owner. This means, for example, that prohibition against theft basically becomes irrelevant, except to the degree that the land owners, of their own accord, decide to take it into account in their conditions for entering their land. Of all ethical principles, only one remains, namely that of land ownership, and self-ownership would be like a thing of the past, only to be exercised out of society in the unowned woods. This does not seem right. Intuitively, we may say, that a land owner should not set absurd rules, and we would want to limit them in various ways, but how do we avoid that these will be just our own arbitrary preferences, not based on universal principles? We may say that in the free market, land owners that set harsh rules, will not flourish. That might be true, but that does not answer the philosophical question about whether this is morally right. This question has already been discussed in various forms in previous discussions. I have not yet found a satisfying way to look at it yet, so I welcome your input.

Who owns the ground where you loose your wallet? I suppose in AnCap, there would be few unowned places. The owners of a place could set rules for the handling of lost items (after all, they can deny access to their property to anyone who disagrees). Hopefully they would set reasonable rules, and there would be market pressure to do so. But in principle, an owner could set the rule that anyone may appropriate wallets left on the ground (maybe it is a communist commune). Personally, I would think if someone wants to set such a rule on his property, he should at least clearly communicate it, so it is possible to avoid it.

Under full socialism / communism, there are no market prices, and for that reason it is difficult to know how the means of production can best be allocated. This is called the economic calculation problem. My question is this: Have large businesses the same problem internally? Supply of products and services from one part to another part of the the same company are not traded internally using a market price. As a company would grow larger, their internal economic calculation problem would get bigger. So this would be a factor favoring smaller companies. Is this true?

Mises was not an anarchist, but a minarchist. Occasionally, there are some pro-state ideas in his writings, unfortunately. I am currently reading Human Action. In this book, he often explicitly refrains from doing a moral evaluation, because he claims that is all arbitrary, and it is also not the job of an economist. So he simply describes what he thinks will be the outcome, given the circumstances. An implicit argument from effect. The question whether immigration control is moral in this case, could be rephrased to: Is it moral to attack a person, who possibly has plans to use a gang to violate other people's rights? I would say, this is immoral.

Try to apply principles consistently. If a random security business decides to patrol your street, do they then have the right to extract a payment from you for this "service"? Of course not, because you have never agreed to purchase the service. The same applies to governments. Also, please realize that imprisonment of the innocent is a serious crime, that destroys people's normal life. In addition, prison guards further mistreat the people they have abducted, for example by doing strip-searches, which is similar to rape/molestation, because it is involuntary. This often happens with official approval, so then it fully reflects on the government as an institution. Imagine a private agency would do the same. If it is indeed true that no private company provides it, it is good to ask the question: Why is that? Is it because of the threat of fines or imprisonment? Or because it is difficult to compete against agencies that have a guaranteed theft-based income? Governments use an unjust business model. I would recommend reading some more libertarian literature about anarchy, and a new world of understanding might open.

"endorsing the principle of liberty as an end": I am not happy with the characterisation "as an end", as if it stops there, and we look no further. Liberty means absense of violence. The question is whether this principle is endorsed or not. Any principle taken as an end in itself is strange, because it forgets the person for whom the principle is applied. "devaluing many of the moral concerns": If I am not willing to use violence to further certain things, this does not mean at all that I devalue those things. "You do not want the government to do this, so you are unconcerned about it" is quite the typical charge, but incorrect.