logic32
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Posts posted by logic32
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It's a kind of illegitimate ownership called theft. The car is a manifestation of the rightful owner's time and labor. The thief cannot logically claim ownership of that.
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)
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It is an argument because I have defined the terms I'm using and proven these definitions are valid by supporting them with empirical evidence.Self-ownership (I own myself, you own yourself) is exclusive control of of ones body. It is a fact of reality that I control my body, therefore self-ownership is a fact. The effects of my voluntary actions are owned by me. I maintain and use my body to create these effects. YOU are assigning ownership of these effects TO me when you wrongly claim that I'm just "asserting" an argument.It's because of these things that logically follow from having exclusive control of one's self that the term self-ownership or ownership is applied.
I think Friedman meant that people are exercising self ownership and have homesteaded in order to argue the truth of propositions regardless of the society. Even slaves require self-ownership to do this. I suspect the critics think that violating self-ownership means removing it or part of it; like if someones is forcibly claiming ownership of you, you can't have full self-ownership. It might be a bit like arguing that if a woman is repeatedly being raped then she no longer has a full vagina.
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.
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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."
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It's best not to alter my argument and then conclude something based on that alteration. Human beings own themselves as private property. That way they have to volunteer the time/labor, etc that is all part of their private property.
Private property ownership is a fact. I own myself. That is a fact of reality. You own yourself. That is a fact of reality. As long as we both interact in a voluntary manner then neither of us is claiming a right that we deny the other. But something like the state must necessarily interact with people in a coercive manner.
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.
Well it seems at the very least that you now understand what Stefan means, even if you think he is incorrect. Arguing about it's validity wasn't in the scope of the thread anyhow. Cheers.
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.
I am confused. Do you think their reasoning is invalid? I suggest you read the whole thing, even if you disagree, to at least get the full sense of arguments against the position that property rights cannot be denied without performative contradiction. Their strongest counter argument comes at the end where one could see a slave argue one position or the other, without owning (normative claim) himself/herself. The only necessary condition for said slave to argue is to control certain organs on his body, which does not grant him/her ownership anymore than animals control of their body prevents their enslavement.
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."
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Because I own it. I AM me and can't not own myself. It's private property. It's not un-owned, right? It can't be publicly owned (leaving aside possibly ways to volunteer for that) because I am part of the public. It can't be partly publicly owned, right?
The state is initiating force against me when they tax. They use force and that force is initiated.
Words and concepts can have different senses and be used in different contexts.
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…”."
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Aggression is the initiation of force. Issues of rights/ morality come up when people interact. Your body is your property and you will have have property rights.
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.
Responsibility/ownership are identical besides the distinction between actions and objects.
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
No, the factual descriptive nature of property is the basis of property rights. Whenever the government taxes you it claims a right to tax you whether explicitly or implicitly. As such it claims a right to forcibly take part of your property while denying you the same right.
You can test this starting out with the fact of property/selfownership and then playing through a scenario were some party begins to assert rights.
Exist is meant in two different senses. For example, the scientific method does not exist (externally to human consciousness) but in another sense it does exist and is objective because it is derived from objective reality.
Similarly, property rights are derived from the objective fact of self-ownership. These rights do not exist in reality but they exist in another sense and are objective.
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.
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Every dictionary I've seen defines it as some variation of, "initiating a hostile action" or "hostility to another", and both of those are descriptive.
Please help me do this by defining what a right is and then explaining where it comes from. I've already asked several times.
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.
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How do you define own in those instances? If you mean have responsibility for, then one owns what one has responsibility for, which makes the question of ownership even more complex.
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!
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Where does it become normative? I own my body, that's descriptive. I own (have responsibility for) my actions, hmm also descriptive. I own (have responsibility for) the effects that result from them, is that... no wait, descriptive. Taking someone's property against their will is an act of aggression, initiated by you. Even THAT's descriptive.
I'm still unclear as to how it could be normative since I don't understand what rights are or where they come from.
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 agroup of people who can violate my property rights at will, then I am caught in an insurmountablecontradiction. I am saying that my property rights must be defended – and then I create an agency todefend them that can violate them at any time." -
I'm not misrepresenting anything. I've never seen that video. I've been speaking of my own views on the subject, and responding to your characterizations of Stefan's statements. I have no desire to defend other people's views.
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.
Are you here to talk about Stef's definition or Rothbards?
It's also worth mentioning that the article "Reading the ethics of liberty, Part 3 Rothbard's confusion about self-ownership" was written by the leftist Michael Moore. So it might be biased.
I don't understand your comment about the article, it was written by Matt Zwolinski who is a leading libertarian.
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Your link at Bleeding Heart went to a 404 page, so I can't read it and comment on it.
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. -
This is incorrect.
Self-ownership doesn't "mean" direct psychological control. They are not equal in all respects.
Self-ownership is predicated on direct psychological control. Self-ownership arises from self-control.
And all the other forms of property rights we have arise, in turn, from self-ownership, as long as certain other conditions are met (e.g., being the first user of an object, or legitimately obtaining property rights in the object from the prior owner, etc.).
Putting you in prison (for no good reason, like a drug charge or not paying taxes) is still a violation of your OTHER rights, which are broader than just the right to wiggle one's own fingers. All of our rights BEGIN with self-ownership, but they extend outward from there, such as the right to do anything or go anywhere, when doing so does not infringe on other people's rights. The jailers can still violate those rights (freedom of movement), and can confiscate your things, even though the jailers can never deprive you of direct psychological control of your body (short of forcibly inserting high-tech implants into your central nervous system).
You seem to be assuming that self-ownership is the one and only right a person has, and as long as you have that, your property rights can't be violated. That's clearly false.
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."
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I want to step back to the initial post.
Direct control of the body through the brain is the biological basis for ownership. Your point is based on a misunderstanding of what Stefan is saying. It's evident in the thread title
There is no Ownership vs Direct Control (of the body). One is the basis and requirement for the other. You are thinking of the difference between direct control and ownership of an object, which is not really applicable to the body given that we can't relinquish direct control over it. (and again, it's the foundation of all ownership)
This is why the idea of voluntary slavery makes no sense.
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. "
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If (in the absence of electrodes and servos) it's impossible to confer true, direct control of your body to another person, then how could you transfer the right of exclusive control to him?
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.
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Owning X entailing control of X is not the same control of X entails ownership of X.
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.
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Sure, no problem. That definition is circular since an entitlement is a right.
Ownership implies a type of possession, not ability to be sold. Accepting self-ownership doesn't include the ability to sell yourself into slavery, so there's already a tricky exception to his argument.
Sorry, what's the normative statement here?
IP is a fiction. Stefan created the work regardless. It would not exist otherwise, that's what I mean by it being indicative. (I'm using own in terms of being responsible for, not some imaginary monopoly on words)
"That definition is circular". Well, on that basis, all definitions are circular, since the definition means what it being defined. E.g. I might define a rhino as a herbivorous ungulate with a horn of southeast Asia and Africa in the family Rhinocerotidae and you'd say 'that's circular because a herbivorous ungulate of southeast Asia and Africa in the family Rhinocerotidae is a rhino'. Definitions work both ways, a=b, b=a. Here's more information on different categories of rights. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights/#2
I disagree with Stefan and agree with Walter Block on non-NAP violating slavery. I think it is compatible with self-ownership, because you can tranfer the moral right to determine permissible use of your body. This is a side-issue, however, probably best not to get dragged down that road.
The normative statement is self-ownership - this is perceived as a normative claim (a rights claim) by pretty much every libertarian I've come across apart from Stefan. E.g. Rothbard defines it as "the absolute right of each man, by virtue of his (or her) being a human being, to “own” his or her own body; that is, to control that body free of coercive interference.” Cohen (not a libertarian) defines it thus: "each person enjoys, over himself and his powers, full and exclusive rights of control and use, and therefore owes no service or product to anyone else that he has not contracted to supply."
I don't know what you mean by 'some imaginary monopoly on words'. The point is that Stefan arguably conflates ownership in terms of property with being morally responsible for something. Hence, to show that you are morally responsible for something does not demonstrate that you have a legitimate property rights claim in it. Isn't it misleading to say 'he owns x but he has no property right in x'? If 'owns' apparently means 'is morally responsible for' then the previous sentence makes sense.
Thanks for the engagement!
heya logic32! Could you please define 'ownership'?!
I don't believe Stef ever said that the definition of ownership is direct control. Rather, it is the basis.
Ownership is a institutionally recognized claim to objects. The basis for how you can come to own different things depends on whatever the thing is. You can buy a car, but you can't buy a human, right?
The way we recognize new ways of ownership or resolve conflicts in grey areas is to look at which claim is the most logically consistent. It would make no sense to say that you could ever own me, right? And the self ownership argument is the reason for that. You can't reasonably claim ownership over something that I bought from someone who made that thing, right? Someone who exchanges value for value has a much better claim than someone who simply states that they own something, obviously.
There is no ontologically objective sense in which we say that property "exists". And the temptation is to say that therefore property is a false concept, but it's the same thing as saying that this is not my argument / position because it doesn't exist in an ontologically objective sense.
By "ontologically objective" I mean things like rocks and trees which you can touch. As opposed to ontologically subjective which is things like dreams, consciousness, web developers (jobs), money (independent of fibers and inks), things that "exist" in that they are represented as existing, but have no physical existence. Perhaps a needlessly complicated idea for this discussion, but it's important in addressing the previously mentioned temptation to dismiss property on the basis of lacking physical existence. After all, there is no signature written in the aether surrounding my computer or my body.
Hopefully that makes sense.
Hey Kevin! I think Stanford gets the definition of ownership correct here - as you can see, we are concerned with private property (capitalist) rights.
"Libertarianism holds that agents are, at least initially, full self-owners. Agents are (moral) full self-owners just in case they morally own themselves in just the same way that they can morally fully own inanimate objects. Below we shall distinguish between full (interpersonal) self-ownership and full political self-ownership. Many versions of libertarianism endorse only the latter.
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).
At the core of full self-ownership, then, is full control self-ownership, the full right to control the use of one's person. Something like control self-ownership is arguably needed to recognize the fact there are some things (e.g., various forms of physical contact) that may not be done to a person without her consent, but which may be done with that consent. It wrongs an individual to subject her to non-consensual and unprovoked killing, maiming, enslavement, or forcible manipulation."
Stefan said that 'the brain owns the body, which means that the brain directly controls the body'. I hold that there are counterexamples to this, for instance the man whose car is stolen and watches it as it is driven away by its thief. He does not directly control the car, yet he does own the car. So Stefan cannot be right that ownership entails direct control. He has said that self-ownership is simply the biological fact of direct control of the body, which would entail that direct control does indeed entail ownership. I am rather confused again since it would follow then that the car's thief, having direct control over the car, would own it - and so not be a thief!
I personally feel that the standard libertarian definitions of self-ownership are more in line with our intuitions than Stefan's definition, since it does not entail these odd cases where for instance a thief owns your car. Thanks very much for taking the time to engage with me!
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What am I? Chopped liver?
Ah, sorry Kevin, I'll respond ASAP, I got drawn into the discussion with ProfessionalTeabagger and forgot about your post.
If you want to know more about Stefan's definition of ownership, he has many podcasts and chapters in his books that address the topic. It is dismissive (or perhaps, dare I say, disingenuous) to take these two rather unrelated uses of the terminology in an attempt to seek further understanding.
The dismissal of Kevin's commentary has led me to question the intent of the original poster.
Hey Austin, well I have watched and listened to many videos and podcasts on these issues, and I believe this dissonance is a real issue which is unaccounted for. For instance, in the 'Rights Ethics and Society' debate, which I have watched in its entirety. I think if anything it is dismissive of you to not address the issues and instead direct me to Stefan's enormous podcast library.I forgot to address Kevin's post, my bad, but I don't see how this means you should question my intent, unless you thought my aim of being here was to elicit a response from ProfessionalTeabagger and engage with him at the expense of others. I think that's an uncharitable interpretation of my actions.Thanks a lot for responding though, and I'll address Kevin's points soon! Thank you Kevin for engaging with me on these issues also.
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What's a "right of exclusive control"?
I've never heard of this guy either. Owning a murder means being responsible for, that's just obvious. And writing the book does indicate that he owns the work...
Why is that absurd? People can have crazy opinions. Just because he thinks people should be taxed doesn't mean it's not theft.
Thanks for the response and engaging with me, I definitely think we are getting somewhere.
Well, rights are entitlements (not) to perform certain actions, or (not) to be in certain states; or entitlements that others (not) perform certain actions or (not) be in certain states.
Cohen has described self-ownership this way: "each person enjoys, over himself and his powers, full and exclusive rights of control and use, and therefore owes no service or product to anyone else that he has not contracted to supply."
David Gordon is one of the foremost anarcho-capitalist philosophers today, and someone who I think is generally an asset to our movement, even if we consider his critiques of Stefan to be unfounded. The point he's making is that property ownership and moral responsibility are distinct. The relationship of being morally responsible for a murder is not the same as having a property right in a table, yet he is suggesting that Stefan conflates the two by using the term 'own' for both. If you have a property right in the murder than you should be able to sell it, or transfer that right, but what does this even mean in this context?
It's not that the opinion is crazy, rather that for almost all anarchist libertarian philosophers, self-ownership has normative significance such that it would be an implicit contradiction to say one is a statist yet supports self-ownership, since they would claim that the state violates self-ownership. Writing the book does not entail that he ought to have property rights in it. That would be inferring an ought from an is. You say it 'indicates' that he owns it. Well, you can make that argument if you want. I expect Stefan would disagree given that he is anti intellectual property. Isn't this actually a good example of responsibility for and property ownership of being distinct? I agree with Stefan as well as Stephan on IP. Incidentally, I'd like to thank Stefan for his work on IP and his role as part of the libertarian anti-IP movement.
You can say the thief controls the car but does not own it. So what? The argument is not "if you control X you own X". You might be a thief or rapist for example.
Directly controlling the time/labor means they made the thing. They control the right to say "this car is product of my time and labor" and that be true. The thief takes control of that time and labor, thereby retroactively enslaving the rightful owner. The thief claims ownership through the act of taking the car but does not have legitimate ownership. It's like a rapist taking control over the women's vagina. He has removed control from her but that does not mean she does not own the vagina. Do you see now?
Stefan stated that ownership of x entailed (he actually said 'meant') direct control of x. In the rape case, the woman still is the one directly controlling her body, so she would still own herself in that sense, I agree. However, that puts us in the awkward situation of having to say that her self-ownership has not been violated, since at all points she is the one in direct control of herself, not her rapist. The standard libertarian definition of self-ownership (which I would favour as a libertarian) doesn't have this problem.
The thief doesn't take control of that time and labor, since that would require time travel, rather he takes direct control of the car. You say that directly controlling the time/labor means they made the thing but then immediately contradict this by saying the thief takes control of the time/labor when you clearly don't accept that this means he made the thing.
Thanks for the engagement, I want to understand where Stefan is coming from and I greatly appreciate the work he does in the liberty movement.
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Yes, "Ownership entails control", not "control entails ownership". What's the problem?
With the car example that's called theft or illegitimate ownership if you like. The rightful owner may not have physical control over the car but they still control other aspects. Among other things they control the creation of the car, the time and labor that made it. The car is part of them but not part of the thief. So thief is taking their time and labor (creativity, etc). That time and labor cannot both be owned by the thief and the owner. So the thief's ownership is illegitimate. Hope that clears it up.
So you would say that the thief owns the car - and it is 'illegitimate ownership'? I disagree, it's not that he owns the car and it's illegitimate ownership, rather he controls the car but doesn't own the car. If you don't think that direct control entails ownership why not just say the thief controls the car but doesn't own it? Perhaps this would cause problems for Stefan's self-ownership argument, because he says self-ownership is the biological fact that you directly control your body. It's very odd to say that the car now has two owners because somebody stole it. If x owning y entails that x has direct control of y, then the person whose car has just been stolen (person A) cannot own the car, because he does not have direct control of the car. You suggest that person A 'directly controls' the time and labor that made the car, let's just accept this for the sake of argument, this suggests that he *may* own the time and labor that made the car (since as you say direct control doesn't entail ownership), but he cannot own the car, since he doesn't control it. I'm not clear on what it means for him to 'directly control' that time anyway. That's a red herring. If owning y entails direct control of y, then if x doesn't directly control y, then he doesn't own it.
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Control is necessary but not sufficient criteria for ownership. You don't have direct control over you car when you park it either but you still have ownership of it. You don't have direct control of your body when you sleep but it's still yours.
"For X to own Y means that X has direct control of Y" is not the same as "For X to be in control of Y means X owns Y". That's a common straw-man of ownership.
I understand that ^ which is why I specifically said I was interpreting Stefan as saying "For X to own Y means that X has direct control of Y" i.e. ownership entails direct control as opposed to the other claim.
"To anticipate your response and be totally clear what I'm saying, you might say that rather than direct control being identical with ownership, or direct control entailing ownership, that ownership entails direct control. Yet imagine the owner of the car watching the thief drive away. He is the owner of the car. Yet he does NOT have direct control of the car. Hence even in its weakest form, Stefan's statement is falsified, as long as you accept that the car owner watching his vehicle being driven away is indeed the owner."
But that example ^ shows that control ISN'T necessary for ownership, because the person who owns the car is watching it being driven away in someone else's control.
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"seems clearly falsifiable"? Make an effort.
"Make an effort" this isn't a very sympathetic way of interacting. It sounds like you don't care about my emotions, which Stefan would not approve of.
Well, you gave the example of a thief who had stolen a car, "If I take your car and drive away with it I am in direct control of the car but that does not mean I own it. "
Yet Stefan said that 'the brain owns the body means the brain is in direct control of the body'. I.e. for x to own y means that x has direct control of y. Here is an example where x owns y but x does not have direct control over y.
To anticipate your response and be totally clear what I'm saying, you might say that rather than direct control being identical with ownership, or direct control entailing ownership, that ownership entails direct control. Yet imagine the owner of the car watching the thief drive away. He is the owner of the car. Yet he does NOT have direct control of the car. Hence even in its weakest form, Stefan's statement is falsified, as long as you accept that the car owner watching his vehicle being driven away is indeed the owner.
Thanks for responding!
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Because their control is not legitimate. You can control something without having legitimate ownership of it. That's called theft or borrowing.
Don't confuse "direct control" = ownership with ownership = direct control. If I take your car and drive away with it I am in direct control of the car but that does not mean I own it. I cannot for example own the time and labor that made the car. That is something I would just be taking.
You also have to use common sense when it comes to interpreting "controls everything". A statement like "the government controls everything" is true in one context and false in another. So be careful not to mix up contexts.
This leads to interesting lines of philosophy.
^ I did link to that video in the original post but it was edited out because of other statements that Youtuber has made, I'm being open about where I'm getting these criticisms from (well some of them, I'm not just rehashing a_ar___pac and _hil______ l____, I can think for myself.)I still am not clear on the relationship between direct control and ownership. Stefan says that the brain owns the body means the brain is in direct control of the body. But this seems clearly falsifiable for example using the example you've just given (ironically YOU are now parroting a_ar___pac and _hil______ l____, that's the example given in the video I originally posted!)
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Thanks everyone!
The first user of any object is the owner. So, we're the owner of our bodies.
Also, a person's brain has (literally) exclusive control over his hands. There's no way around that, short of implanting electrodes and chips and servos. Anyone's control over your body requires your assent and compliance. The right of exclusive control can't be transferred, because the fact of exclusive control can't.
Once you start dealing with external objects, then control-in-fact becomes at least disputable. So, that's why the issue of who has the right of control arises -- to differentiate between rightful control and wrongful control.
But as to the body, full, exclusive control literally cannot be assumed by someone else. You can agree to let someone else guide you temporarily (e.g., employment), but that's really just agreeing to follow orders, not to surrender true, exclusive, complete control over your hands.But what about this argument - let's allow that the brain has exclusive control over the body. This doesn't entail that a person has a right of exclusive control over his body. Even if you were to say that that person is the only possible candidate for ownership, since ownership requires this distinctly direct control (even though it clearly doesn't because we own external objects over which we don't have this direct control) it doesn't follow that the person DOES own the body, since you could say claim that humans cannot be legitimately owned. This also entails that the state doesn't violate your self-ownership, as at no point when, say, the state throws you in prison for some trivial act, have the agents of the state taken 'full exclusive control' of your body. Surely for anarcho-capitalists this isn't an acceptable conclusion?
As for your first claim, I'll quote Kinsella:
"Parents as First Owners
And what is wrong with relying on first use as the basis for self-ownership? To be sure, with respect to most claimants to one's body — a robber or state trying to conscript, say — one is indeed the "first user," and thus has a better claim to the body than the outsider. But what about one's parents? Is one really the first user of one's body? Was one's body simply lying around unowned, in state of nature, waiting for some occupant to swoop down and appropriate it?
No, obviously not. It was (one was) in the care of — and produced by — one's parents. So if we maintain that "first use" always determines the answer to the question "who owns this resource?", for any resource at all, then it would seem that parents do own their children. The mother owns the physical matter and bits of food and nourishment that assemble into the zygote, embryo, fetus, and then baby."
Since I am the one who is in full control of my body, I am responsible for my body. Therefore, I'm also responsible for the effects of my body's actions. Ownership fundamentally stems from responsibility: if I make a claim about something for example, it's my claim, because I'm the one responsible for making that claim (so, it wouldn't make any sense for you to correct some arbitrary other person if it's the claim that I made that is wrong). The same counts for materials. If I build a house with the body that I naturally own, that house is the effect of my actions, therefore it's my house. That way, you can technically see ownership of external stuff as an extension of the body.
But isn't this making the mistake of conflating capitalist ownership in and morally responsibility for? As David Gordon said in his second review of UPB, "You cause the effects of your actions and are responsible for them, but it does not follow from this that you "own," in the moral or legal sense, these effects. What does it mean to "own" a murder? Molyneux also confuses a causal and a moral statement when he says that my article accepts that "I [Molyneux] exercise 100% property rights over the creation of the book Universally Preferable Behavior: A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics (he refers to it as my book, and my arguments etc.)." Certainly Molyneux wrote the book; but that by itself implies nothing about who ought to have property rights in it."
It's always a descriptive (is) claim. Anything else is invalid.
Maybe you could explain this a bit more. The moral argument is a direct consequence of the descriptive claim. (if you didn't directly control your body you couldn't be responsible for any of your actions, so how could morality even exist?)
It doesn't. Like you said, direct control doesn't necessarily imply ownership when it comes to things other than your body.
If self-ownership is just a descriptive claim, then there's no contradiction in saying 'I accept self-ownership is true, and I'm a socialist who thinks people should be taxed', which seems absurd. This 'self-ownership' doesn't seem to do anything for libertarianism.
Thanks a lot for the responses guys, and if Stefan has any thoughts himself I'd love to hear them in all humility. I'm eager to learn and simply want to make sure I have everything straight. I appreciate the feedback and assistance. -
It's the difference between positive assertions and normative assertions (questions of fact vs. questions of law).
Control is a positive assertion -- it describes a feature of objective reality, an empirical fact. You either control something, or you don't. Or you might have partial control over it, or you might have competing efforts between two or more people to control something. In any event, to say that someone controls something says nothing about whether he should control it.
Ownership is a normative concept. It's an abstraction, in particular an ethical proposition. Ownership is the right of exclusive control (of something). As such, it's a key concept in property rights, or property law.
Ownership in general is not a fact. But self-ownership certainly arises from biological fact.
Thanks, okay, well I suppose I'm a bit confused as to why in all other cases ownership is a rights claim whereas specifically with self-ownership it is simply an is-claim, with no normative content. So how does Stefan get from the normatively inert 'self-ownership' to the morally significant claim (which is how most libertarians I am aware of would view self-ownership) which is the moral right to exclusively control permissable use of the body. A thief who has stolen your car has 'car-ownership' in the same way that you have 'self-ownership' - he directly controls the car. But I'm not clear as to why this should have any normative significance. In the case of the thief it clearly doesn't entail that he owns your car in the standard sense.Cheers for the responses!
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Big fan of Stefan, particularly his work on feminism, but I am a little confused by his definition of 'ownership'. In 'Why you were bullied' he says "The brain owns the body, what that means is it directly controls the body." But another video title is 'The Bundy Ranch: The Government Owns Nothing And Controls Everything'.
But if ownership is direct control, how can the Government control everything without owning it? (Perhaps you could argue they don't control it 'directly' but they control it as directly as anybody controls external objects.) Stefan has been clear that for him ownership is a biological fact, an is-claim, not an ought-claim.I'm humbly asking for assitance in helping me understand these concepts, and I thank Stefan for the great work he does!Frank
We own the effects of our actions?
in General Messages
Posted
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?