logic32

Here's the point Pelafina is making.Let's say you started a successful boycott in an ancap state against black people resulting in 100,000 of them starving. This would not breach the NAP. However, their starving was an effect of your actions. So you are responsible for their starving. You 'own' their starving as Stefan would put it. (An example he gives in UPB is that of 'owning a murder', i.e. being morally responsible for that murder.)But there appears to be some dissonance in saying both that you are morally responsible for their starving, and the fact that you have not violated the NAP and so have acted permissibly. The first appears to be consequentialist, the second deontological. What's the solution?

We've already established that "Instance Exclusive control of ones body is by definition self ownership Generalized Exclusive control of x is by definition x ownership." So where are you getting this concept of the 'rightful owner' from? If ownership is just an 'is-claim' determined by exclusive control, who can the 'rightful owner' of x be apart from the person in exclusive control of x? It sounds like you're suggesting there's some other way of determining who the owner is other than exclusive control. So how do we square this with Stefan's statement that self-ownership is just the descriptive claim of exclusive control and NOT a rights claim? (From the 'Ethics, Rights, And Society' conversation)

Self ownership as exclusive control of one's body does not entail that 'human beings own themselves as private property', which you also claimed, as if the two were equivalent. So whilst it might be a fact of reality that you control your body, this does nothing to show that you fully own yourself as private property. So if you want your argumentation to be relevant to libertarianism or anarcho-capitalism forget about bodily control, and instead prove your claim that human beings fully own themselves as private property. Since bodily control is compatible with communism, social democracy, etc. since it is not the same thing as full private property ownership of oneself. "This is because a conservative could easily concede that people control their bodies while nonetheless insisting that the state ought to prevent people from engaging in homosexual acts, or a social democratic could concede that people control their bodies while arguing that private companies ought to be regulated by the state. It is because of this that anarcho-capitalists and right-libertarians must make sure to not conflate the ‘is’ of bodily control with the ‘ought’ of self-ownership." Friedman is explicitly arguing against argumentation ethics in that extract, he thinks argumentation ethics fails.http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/On_Hoppe.html You have to remember that all libertarians except Stefan think 'self-ownership' means full private property rights in your body. And if the state is violating those rights, you are not enjoying full private property rights in your body. As Friedman points out, argumentation ethics entails that, since Hoppe et al are not in ancap societies, their self-ownership and homesteading are being violated, hence they cannot be arguing. Which is absurd, since they clearly are. I'll quote him again. "2. In order to argue about the truth of proposition we must have absolute self ownership and ownership of scarce means, defined in objective, physical terms and obtained via homesteading. ... As to 2, note that if it is literally true nobody, including Hoppe, has ever argued about the truth of propositions, since there are no completely libertarian societies in which they could do so. That is obviously not true--and neither is the proposition from which it follows. One can think of an enormous number of non-libertarian ethics and non-libertarian societies consistent with people being able to argue in their defense."

Can you see why it is frustrating when you just repeat 'I own myself' 'you own yourself' 'that is a fact of reality' 'human beings own themselves as private property' yet when asked to give justification for this you just repeat the claim or say that we have psychological control of ourselves, which is not relevant? Whether you own yourself as private property is exactly what is under discussion and asserting it is not an argument. I do thank you for interacting though and attempting to help me get a better understanding of these issues. I don't know what you mean by this, I think it is within the scope of the thread to determine whether Stefan's argument is successful, or if it isn't, whether we can rescue it by amending it in some way. That's the best point against argumentation ethics; if arguing requires full self-ownership rights then given that Hoppe, Rothbard et al did not enjoy full self-ownership rights then they cannot have been arguing. As Friedman puts it "2. In order to argue about the truth of proposition we must have absolute self ownership and ownership of scarce means, defined in objective, physical terms and obtained via homesteading. ... As to 2, note that if it is literally true nobody, including Hoppe, has ever argued about the truth of propositions, since there are no completely libertarian societies in which they could do so. That is obviously not true--and neither is the proposition from which it follows. One can think of an enormous number of non-libertarian ethics and non-libertarian societies consistent with people being able to argue in their defense."

You could certainly argue that human beings cannot be legitimately owned as private property (full private ownership as Stanford puts it). Thus, individuals may not own themselves but nonetheless control themselves. Given that this is the case, were people to not own themselves they would still have the capacity to control their body in the manner required for survival and so would not die out. One could even argue that people ought to be free to control themselves unless they perform certain freedom limiting actions, such as murdering another, because this has good consequences such as people not experiencing the suffering and preference violation that comes with one losing control over one’s body as a result of the actions of another. However, this need not entail full private property ownership. Matt Zwolinski responds to Rothbard's similar argument here - Rothbard's argument - "(1) There are three and only three possibilities regarding ownership of the self: (i) each person is a full self-owner, (ii) “a certain class of people, A, have the right to own another class, B,” or (iii) “everyone has the right to own his own equal quotal share of everyone else.” [For a New Liberty (San Francisco: Fox & Wilkes, 1978, p. 29)]" Zwolinski's response - "(1) ignores a host of relevant alternatives to (i), (ii) and (iii), such as, for example, (iv): “every person has a right to own (control) his person in the following respects 1…N, but not in the following respects in which his ownership of his person is subject to restriction or regulation by others in the following ways…”."

On what basis is your body your property? It doesn't follow from the fact of psychological control that you have full private property ownership over your body. So it doesn't follow from the fact that you control yourself that the state is initiating force against you through taxation by violating your property rights, since psychological control is not a property right. So if you are responsible for your nephew, you own your nephew? How does that make any sense? And that distinction is a pretty big one don't you think, given that it is the exact example Stefan uses in UPB (below) and you are suggesting it is erroneous since you claim responsibility/ownership are not identical when it comes to actions. You being causally responsible for or having psychological control of your body does not entail full private property rights in your body, hence it doesn't follow from those things that the state is initiating force and violating your property rights. So clearly responsibility and property ownership are not identical. "Since we own our bodies, we also inevitably own the effects of our actions, be they good or bad. If we own the effects of our actions, then clearly we own that which we produce, whether what we produce is a bow, or a book — or a murder." - UPB But in what sense is the 'factual descriptive nature of property' the basis of property rights? This is crucial. You can't just CALL psychological control 'self-ownership' or 'property' and think that somehow proves that you have a full property right in yourself. You then state 'then claim a right to take your property' but clearly they don't, since they wouldn't accept that you have a property right in what is being taxed. So at some point you do need to demonstrate that you have a property right in x rather than just calling something that isn't even normative 'self-ownership' and act like you've proven something to do with property rights.

Well there's obviously an inconsistency from Stefan there right! He both asserts that he has proven property rights exist and then says that rights for him do not exist. But if rights don't exist then how is the state violating our rights? Maybe you could attempt to square this circle.Which of my claims do you disagree with? I'm not stating my AGREEMENT with both claims which would be what is required for you to accuse me of inconsistency, I stated that Stefan ASSERTS these things. Hence the meme you posted seems misplaced, unless you think it is absurd to even consider that Stefan might have been inconsistent.http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights/ This explains the modern understanding of rights claims, there are legal rights, moral rights, liberty rights, claim rights, property rights (a type of claim rights). You're probably familiar with Hohfeldian analysis which is the standard way to understand rights. So I can't just answer 'what is a right' because it depends on whether you are talking about a legal, claim, moral, right, etc. But if you are clearer on what you are asking, I should be able to answer. For instance: A has a liberty right to φ if and only if A has no duty not to φ. A has a claim right that B φ if and only if B has a duty to A to φ.

Right, it doesn't seem helpful for me to use 'own' to mean both be morally responsible for and have full private property rights in. Because clearly the two aren't identical. "Full ownership of an entity consists of a full set of the following ownership rights: (1) control rights over the use of the entity: both a liberty-right to use it and a claim-right that others not use it, (2) rights to compensation if someone uses the entity without one's permission, (3)enforcement rights (e.g., rights of prior restraint if someone is about to violate these rights), (4) rights to transfer these rights to others (by sale, rental, gift, or loan), and (5) immunities to the non-consensual loss of these rights. Full ownership is simply a logically strongest set of ownership rights over a thing. There is some indeterminacy in this notion (since there can be more than one strongest set of such rights), but there is a determinate core set of rights (see below)." - from Stanford. But when Stefan talks about 'owning a murder' he surely can't mean that you have this set of private property rights in the murder. For instance, can you sell the murder, or just transfer your property rights in it to someone else? The fact that Stefan might be morally responsible (or just causally responsible) for making an argument does not entail that he own the argument as private property. In the above video, 'A Proof Of Property Rights', Stefan seems to think he has proven full private property rights in the body by the end of the video, when in fact this is an illusion since he has conflated moral responsibility with full private property rights, when they are clearly distinct, as the 'own a murder' example shows. Thanks for responding!

Aggression is standardly defined as violating someone's property rights, so it is normative. If you don't have a property right in x, how can you say that me taking away x is aggression? What if I in fact have a property right in x?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tobN6iY4iIs Stefan in this video asserts that property rights arise from the psychological fact of self-control, just as others have stated including Marcus, but I don't see how this follows. Stefan is clearly attempting a proof of property rights. The reason Stefan asserts that the state is immoral is that it violates your rights, since taxation is theft (see below from UPB). Here again he acknowledges property rights. So I think it's important for you to understand what rights are and where they come from! Since they are essential to the anti-state argument, i.e. that taxation is a violation of your property rights - as theft. UPB is largely concerned with establishing property rights. But I'm questioning whether it is successful because it appears to err in jumping illogically from descriptive statements (Stefan's version of self-ownership) to normative claims i.e. those of property rights. From UPB "If I say that I need the government to protect my property, but that the government is by definition a group of people who can violate my property rights at will, then I am caught in an insurmountable contradiction. I am saying that my property rights must be defended – and then I create an agency to defend them that can violate them at any time."

Ah, sorry, I meant that ("Firstly I would point out that Magnus is not accurately representing Stefan's view on this matter by saying 'self-ownership is not the only right we have' ") as in 'you are not representing Stefan's view' not that I thought you were 'misrepresenting' Stefan, which you of course were not because you never claimed that 'this is Stefan's view'. But it is Stefan's view which I (and all of us, I assume) am interested in discussing most, since it is so influential. Do you think there is a way of fusing your view that self-ownership is a rights claim with Stefan's claims to the contrary? And do you think we can derive the rights claims from Stefan's version of 'self-ownership' successfully? I want to stress that I was not accusing you of misrepresenting, what I said was that you were not representing Stefan's view, which was the view I was critiquing. I would like to thank you for your thoughtful responses and I certainly didn't intent to imply you had misrepresented Stefan, I hope that now it is clear what I meant by that. I don't understand your comment about the article, it was written by Matt Zwolinski who is a leading libertarian.

Sorry Magnus, I've corrected the link, my mistake. ProfessionalTeabagger, I think it's relevantly similar, since Magnus and others were claiming that self-ownership 'arises' from psychological control, or 'extend outwards' from it.Firstly I would point out that Magnus is not accurately representing Stefan's view on this matter by saying 'self-ownership is not the only right we have' and saying that it is not identical to psychological control, here Stefan is clear that self-ownership IS psychological control and NOT (he really stresses this) a rights claim (17:00). Of course, you may disagree with Stefan on this, but I wanted to point out Stefan's position. He stresses that rights do not exist (3:45) 'just to clarify, rights do not exist for me in any way at all' in response to the person he is talking to asserting (correctly) that self-ownership is standard conceived as a rights claim.

But how do those other rights follow from (or 'arise from', 'extend outward' from) direct psychological control? Without simply committing the naturalistic fallacy and confusing is-claims with ought-claims, as Rothbard does (Matt Zwolinski explains how here http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2012/07/reading-the-ethics-of-liberty-part-2-rothbard-on-natural-law/) "When we examine the case of Crusoe, Rothbard claims, we are confronted with a number of “inescapable,” “natural facts.” Crusoe has only his own body to rely upon; he has no instincts to tell him automatically how to live; there are various natural resources that can be used to satisfy his desires, some in their raw form, some only after having been transformed by human effort. Crusoe must produce before he can consume, and reason is his means of survival (30). Fair enough, so far. But where in this catalogue of natural facts are we to find morality? Where is the “ought,” the normativity that is the characteristic mark of moral and political thought? For Rothbard, the key transitional concept is ownership. For when Crusoe examines his own situation, Rothbard claims, he discovers “the natural fact of his mind’s command over his body and its actions: that is, of his natural ownership over his self” (31). Self-ownership, for Rothbard, is a natural fact, constituted by our control over our self (our body and our actions). My body is mine because I alone determine how it moves and what it does. And so self-ownership extends naturally to ownership over external goods. For by “mixing our labor” with the land, we come to have control over it, too. And our property in it extends only so far as our control extends – to stand on the shore of a new continent and claim ownership over the entire thing would be “empty vainglory” (34). True property in external goods is equivalent to actual control over them (34). There is, however, a serious confusion at work in this argument. It is a confusion that stems partly, I think, from Rothbard’s Crusoe methodology. Part of the greatness of Human Action is how well that approach works for the analysis of economics. Mises is able to show that even economic concepts that seem essentially interpersonal, like that of “exchange,” are really fundamental features of human action discernible even in the case of “autistic” action. But it’s just not clear that you can do this with ethical concepts like “ownership.” And that’s because ownership really is an essentially interpersonal concept. To claim ownership over a thing – or over one’s self! – is to make a claim against others. It is to claim, at a minimum, that they must refrain from interfering in your use of the thing. That kind of interpersonal claim is the essence of property. Without it, you simply don’t have property. A thief might control the purse he has stolen from you, but he doesn’t own it. Your ownership of the purse, in contrast, isn’t defeated by the fact that the thief is now controlling it. What gives you ownership is not actual control, but the normative right to control. I’m not saying that Crusoe doesn’t own himself, or the nuts and berries he mixes his labor with. I’m saying that Rothbard hasn’t shown that he does. Pointing to the “natural fact” that Crusoe controls himself and his berries does not establish that he owns them in the sense of having a moral claim against others. To think that it does is to confuse the “is” of what Crusoe possesses with the “ought” of what he has a right to possess. Unfortunately, Rothbard proceeds to argue in the chapters that follow as if he had established the normative claims of self-ownership and ownership of external goods. Indeed, his entire understanding of the free society is based on these concepts (40). And so, the oversight here is not a minor one. It is, instead, absolutely fatal."

But the example of the stolen car demonstrates that control is not the basis of ownership. Since it isn't the basis for ownership of external objects, why would it be the basis for ownership of the body? Rather, the moral right to determine permissible use is the basis of ownership, and this is compatible with non-NAP breaking slavery. "A fourth objection to full self-ownership is that it permits voluntary enslavement. Agents have, it claims, not only the right to control the use of their person, but also the right totransfer that right (e.g., by sale or gift) to others. Some libertarians—such as Rothbard (1982) and Barnett (1998, pp. 78–82)—deny that such transfer is even possible, since others cannot control one's will. This, however, seems to be a mistake, since what is at issue is the moral right to control permissible use (by giving or denying permission), not the psychological capacity to control. "

I think the Stanford encyclopaedia again explains it well: "A fourth objection to full self-ownership is that it permits voluntary enslavement. Agents have, it claims, not only the right to control the use of their person, but also the right totransfer that right (e.g., by sale or gift) to others. Some libertarians—such as Rothbard (1982) and Barnett (1998, pp. 78–82)—deny that such transfer is even possible, since others cannot control one's will. This, however, seems to be a mistake, since what is at issue is the moral right to control permissible use (by giving or denying permission), not the psychological capacity to control." So even if someone else is in direct control of their body, I can determine whether their actions are permissible or not by giving or denying permission, in the same way that you might own an animal. It is morally permissible for you to pick the animal up and transport it, and there's no confusion because the animal is in psychological control of itself in some sense. If your slave runs away, then you have not given permission for that use of that body which you own, so it should be returned to you, and your slave is initiating force against you. If it were impossible for self-ownership to be violated as it simply meant 'direct psychological control' then this would entail that the state throwing you in jail for no reason would not violate self-ownership, since you would at all points have direct psychological control over your body. So this indicates that self-ownership is (as is standardly accepted) the moral right to determine permissible use. Notice that it says control BY giving or denying permission.

I know, that's why I gave an example where somebody owns X without controlling X, illustrating that ownership of X does not entail control of X.