Resolving acts of aggression: restitution, punishment, deterrence

[TimS]

If, in an anarcho capitalist society, a person is duly and reasonably found to have commited an act of aggression, what sort of moral limits might there be on a DRO's proposed resolution?

 

The most obvious aspect is restitution, particularly for theft or destruction of property. For personal injury, the aggressor could be held liable for incurred medical expenses and lost income. Presumably any reasonable resolution is going to restore the victim to their previous status, if possible.

 

Murder is more problematic, since life is irreplaceable. Also some instances of property may have particular sentimental value that cannot be replaced, or easily measured.

 

Another factor is actual punishment. Is it morally/philosophically valid for the DRO to propose a punative resolution that significantly exceeds a reasonable level of restitution? I.e., you stole $50 worth of property, but we declare you liable for $100 as retribution for your evil behavior.

 

What about a resolution that includes personal injury or the intentional infliction of pain. Is it in any way legitimate for a DRO to ever prescribe beating or some other form of torture as part of a resolution? Does it matter if the injury is permanent? What about killing the aggressor, is that ever okay?

 

Does deterrence of future aggression play any consideration? Rape is an especially insidious form of aggression, even more insidious when perpetrated against children. In the case of cold-blooded rape (for example as commited by soldiers in wartime), is it reasonable or moral to prescribe an excessive level of monetary liability simply for the purpose of deterring future rapists?

 

What got me thinking about this is the topic of spanking. Admittedly I am coming around to the FDR view that spanking is just bad period, but I am not clear on how spanking represents aggression if it is preformed as part of a dispute resolution. Regardless, if spanking is never okay, even as retribution for aggression, then it clearly stands to reason that personal injury can never be part of a moral dispute resolution.

 

However it is not immediately obvious to me why this should necessarily be the case, especially if the aggression involved personal injury. However if restitition is the only valid form of resolution, then it would make sense--since of course injury is purely retributive. But it is also not immediately obvious why retribution and deterrence could not be reasonable factors.

 

Thoughts?

[Carl Green]

 

What got me thinking about this is the topic of spanking. Admittedly I am coming around to the FDR view that spanking is just bad period, but I am not clear on how spanking represents aggression if it is preformed as part of a dispute resolution.

 

As in a dispute resolution between the parent and the child?

 

...and if spanking's not just bad period, in what way(s) could it be good?

[dsayers]

Is it in any way legitimate for a DRO to ever prescribe beating or some other form of torture as part of a resolution?

 

In what way would beating/torture lead to restitution or correction? It seems to me that if immorality is rooted in abuse, then abuse would be the last thing to prescribe.

[TimS]

As in a dispute resolution between the parent and the child?

 

...and if spanking's not just bad period, in what way(s) could it be good?

 

Disputes a parent might be expected to resolve include (at least): child-parent, child-spouse (i.e., the parent is resolving a dispute between the child and the other parent), child-sibling, child-third party child, child-third party adult.

 

Are you really asking, "If violence is not just bad period, in what way(s) could it be good?" Violence can be good if used to protect people and property from aggression, and if used to implement moral dispute resolutions.

 

In what way would beating/torture lead to restitution or correction? It seems to me that if immorality is rooted in abuse, then abuse would be the last thing to prescribe.

That's what I'm asking. How does the DRO do business? Is it legitimate for the victimized party to seek a punative resolution? If so, is there difference between a punative resolution that's limited to extracting money from the aggressor, and a punative resolution that inflicts injury on the aggressor's body? (Obviously any injury is by definition punative and not restorative--but fines can be punative too.) Is it legitmate for the DRO to employ punative resolutions to provide an economic incentive (deterrence) against future aggression?

 

It seems to be the case that immorality is rooted (but not solely rooted) in abuse, so if reform is part of the DRO's mission then it seems like any punative resolution would be off the table, since punishment seems to be abusive by definition. Only purely restitutive resolutions would be considered.

 

However I don't see why it is a moral imperative for anyone to try to reform the aggressor. If enough people don't want to try, or if they think deterrence outweighs reform, there will be DROs for them too. And those DROs won't have a problem with punative (abusive) resolutions. Would you consider living in a society with DROs like that?

[labmath2]

I think child interaction is still one of those areas where it is hard to come to any conclusion. I think what you are arguing, which is interesting, is that one could enter a contract with his child which makes spanking morally justifiable. I could be wrong, but i will try to explain, at least the way i understand it, the way the argument is posed.

 

I have a 6 year old son and i negotiate with him. In order to negotiate with him, he has to have the capacity for reason and to freely make a decision within the scope of what we are discussing. Assuming we are discussing him interacting with other children and i explain to him that hitting other children is bad because it makes them feel bad ... At the end of the discussion, i say if you do hit someone else, then i get to decide if there are enough mitigating circumstances to make it justifiable (i.e self defense). If there is no such circumstance, then you will receive some form of punishment. If the child understands and agrees, then there is no violation of NAP since its voluntary, if he disagrees, then we can renegotiate till we reach some acceptable conclusion. However, if the child cannot understand me for one reason or the other, then the spanking will act as conditioning since negotiation is off the table.

[TimS]

Honestly I wasn't trying to make this specific to children; that's just the particular issue that piqued my interest. I am trying to think about how these principles might be (or should be) generalized to any dispute resolution process. 

What I'm suggesting is that if physical injury is axiomatically excluded from the list of possible resolutions because it is abusive, it therefore follows that all punitive resolutions are excluded on the same basis. 

And if the resolution cannot involve punishment, there is no deterrent (economic disincentive) for aggression. What I mean is: it is not clear to me how you could meaningfully distinguish between a deterrent and a punishment, and between punishment and abuse. Maybe you could; I don't know. 

On the other hand, if there are people who believe that aggressors should be punished (perhaps out of a childish desire for vengeance, or out of a desire to deter future aggression), it is not clear to me how you could meaningfully distinguish between punishments that merely involve fines and punishments that involve personal injury. 

If the child understands and agrees, then there is no violation of NAP since its voluntary, if he disagrees, then we can renegotiate till we reach some acceptable conclusion. However, if the child cannot understand me for one reason or the other, then the spanking will act as conditioning since negotiation is off the table.

 

I guess that seems reasonable, but I suppose there is a lot of room to disagree. For example, what if spanking conditions the child to be less reasonable and more open to violence?

[labmath2]

There is one thing that bothers me in the argument and its not that it could lead to bad outcome since Stefan says do not look to outcome, but to process. The problem is the obvious situation coercion, the child depending on you for survival, which makes the child much more susceptible to abuse of this kind. I think people underestimate the power of creating environments that forces people do things they would not normally do even in the absence of physical coercion.

[Omegahero09]

I think it's important to note that we have no idea what DRO's will actually look like in the future.

 

The real question is- do you as the hypothetical consumer of the hypothetical DRO want to purchase a service which uses torture as you say, in its practices?

 

I think it will look more like DRO's using proactive measures in prevention of crime: ostracism, sharing of data with other DRO's, and literal protection in the way of armed patrols, emergency responders, escorts etc.

 

Money and time restitution (paying for leave and so on) would be the most rational things to supply the DRO's customers in the event of the occasional crisis. 

 

I really doubt there will be free-world 'spooks.' Goons who will go out and club people who rob you, I don't think will be too popular in most of the free world. It's too expensive.

[Carl Green]

Are you really asking, "If violence is not just bad period, in what way(s) could it be good?" Violence can be good if used to protect people and property from aggression, and if used to implement moral dispute resolutions.

 

No, I used the word spanking specifically for a reason. In the OP you said "Admittedly I am coming around to the FDR view that spanking is just bad period".

 

'Coming around' implies ambivalence.  Which means you might think spanking could be good in some way.  I was just curious as to what way spanking a child could be good, even if it is part of a previously arranged agreement for "dispute resolution with a child".

[TimS]

There is one thing that bothers me in the argument and its not that it could lead to bad outcome since Stefan says do not look to outcome, but to process. The problem is the obvious situation coercion, the child depending on you for survival, which makes the child much more susceptible to abuse of this kind.

 

That's a good rule of thumb, but the set of (morally) good acts is very, very large. And some of those acts will produce objectively better outcomes than others. For example, it is not immoral for a business owner to pay too much for his factors of production. But it will cause him to take a loss and eventually go out of business. So some consideration for outcomes seems like a good idea.

 

I think people underestimate the power of creating environments that forces people do things they would not normally do even in the absence of physical coercion.

I agree. And I think those social forces will be much, much stronger in the absence of the state. Hopefully for good, but maybe for ill. And that's an extremely important issue for DROs to handle.

 

The real question is- do you as the hypothetical consumer of the hypothetical DRO want to purchase a service which uses torture as you say, in its practices?

 

I think it will look more like DRO's using proactive measures in prevention of crime: ostracism, sharing of data with other DRO's, and literal protection in the way of armed patrols, emergency responders, escorts etc.

 

Money and time restitution (paying for leave and so on) would be the most rational things to supply the DRO's customers in the event of the occasional crisis. 

 

I really doubt there will be free-world 'spooks.' Goons who will go out and club people who rob you, I don't think will be too popular in most of the free world. It's too expensive.

 

I don't know. That's exactly what I'm asking: if I murder someone in cold blood, how much of my humanity--how much of my "moral status"--have I ceded, if any? Is still just as wrong to injure (or punitively fine!) me as some random innocent?

 

I'm glad you brought up ostracism. I think ostracism is among the most personally destructive punishments available, and I'm not sure it can be legitimately separated from physical injury. (Let me put it this way: I suffer from a combination of social anxiety and depression. If I could choose between an extended session of torture and ostracism, I would take the torture every time.)

 

Furthermore, ostracism seems like it would almost always just happen naturally due to the inherent revulsion that normal people have for aggression. Because of this, and because of its tremendously punitive nature, I strongly suspect that many DROs will spend a lot of money paying the community to restrain their tendency to ostracize aggressors--at least if the community values reform over retribution.

 

I suppose a DRO could resolve all the financial aspects without the need to kidnap an aggressor and physically sit him down in a court room. However, I think DROs will definitely field repo teams to recover stolen property, or extract fines from unocooperative aggressors. But that only works in the case where the aggressor has assets to repo. The only way to extract money from someone who has no assets is enslave them, which would require "spooks".

 

And I don't see how this would be that expensive if you already have the infrastructure for a large guard force. You just take a handful of interested guards and train them to be ninjas. You wouldn't need very many, I think.

 

No, I used the word spanking specifically for a reason. In the OP you said "Admittedly I am coming around to the FDR view that spanking is just bad period".

 

'Coming around' implies ambivalence.  Which means you might think spanking could be good in some way.  I was just curious as to what way spanking a child could be good, even if it is part of a previously arranged agreement for "dispute resolution with a child".

 

Help me understand what you are saying. I wrote, "Are you really asking" and you said "no". Do I take this to mean that you disagree that spanking is a subset of violence? Because when I say that "violence can be good", that applies to all its subsets, including spanking. If you say, "spanking is never good", then it is I who am curious as to how you distinguish spanking from other types of violence.

[Omegahero09]

 I don't know. That's exactly what I'm asking: if I murder someone in cold blood, how much of my humanity--how much of my "moral status"--have I ceded, if any? Is still just as wrong to injure (or punitively fine!) me as some random innocent? I'm glad you brought up ostracism. I think ostracism is among the most personally destructive punishments available, and I'm not sure it can be legitimately separated from physical injury. (Let me put it this way: I suffer from a combination of social anxiety and depression. If I could choose between an extended session of torture and ostracism, I would take the torture every time.) Furthermore, ostracism seems like it would almost always just happen naturally due to the inherent revulsion that normal people have for aggression. Because of this, and because of its tremendously punitive nature, I strongly suspect that many DROs will spend a lot of money paying the community to restrain their tendency to ostracize aggressors--at least if the community values reform over retribution. I suppose a DRO could resolve all the financial aspects without the need to kidnap an aggressor and physically sit him down in a court room. However, I think DROs will definitely field repo teams to recover stolen property, or extract fines from unocooperative aggressors. But that only works in the case where the aggressor has assets to repo. The only way to extract money from someone who has no assets is enslave them, which would require "spooks". And I don't see how this would be that expensive if you already have the infrastructure for a large guard force. You just take a handful of interested guards and train them to be ninjas. You wouldn't need very many, I think.  

 

I think we are confusing what exactly the ostracism would entail- I was under the impression that the DRO and her sibling companies would freeze all assets belonging to the aggressor, and no companies or persons who work with the DRO's in the market would trade with them.

 

Imagine murderer bob after murdering someone, goes to buy a coke, when he swipes his card or checks his phone to pay via app, he notices that his DRO has sent a summons and that his tender has been frozen until the conflict in question has been resolved.

 

And just like that he can't do anything until he turns himself in, or goes someplace where the tender is different, and the community has no affiliation with the DRO's he fled from. Which would be almost impossible, because the DRO's would be huge. Like Visa, Sprint, or Ebay huge.

 

As far as your moral status, what did you agree to? I'm sure it would be in your policy that you sign for the extent of violence the DRO could afflict on you. For myself, would I sign a contract that says within it if I rape someone the DRO can use force to bring me in for resolution? Sure! So long as I have defensive rights within resolution, like restitution if the accusation was false.

[TimS]

I think we are confusing what exactly the ostracism would entail- I was under the impression that the DRO and her sibling companies would freeze all assets belonging to the aggressor, and no companies or persons who work with the DRO's in the market would trade with them. Imagine murderer bob after murdering someone, goes to buy a coke, when he swipes his card or checks his phone to pay via app, he notices that his DRO has sent a summons and that his tender has been frozen until the conflict in question has been resolved. And just like that he can't do anything until he turns himself in, or goes someplace where the tender is different, and the community has no affiliation with the DRO's he fled from. Which would be almost impossible, because the DRO's would be huge. Like Visa, Sprint, or Ebay huge. As far as your moral status, what did you agree to? I'm sure it would be in your policy that you sign for the extent of violence the DRO could afflict on you. For myself, would I sign a contract that says within it if I rape someone the DRO can use force to bring me in for resolution? Sure! So long as I have defensive rights within resolution, like restitution if the accusation was false.

I appreciate the response and I agree with all that.And yes, I was using the term "ostracism" in a very different way. If someone is found guilty of theft, or lying, that will have a big impact on their ability to trade, since no one would trust them. I'm sure firms would still offer employment in low-responsibility positions, and/or with a wage reduction that compensates them for the risk of hiring a thief/liar. Nevertheless, that label is stuck with you for life. No matter how repentant your future behavior, you will always be thought of as The Guy who might just be pulling a long con.My point is that whatever resolution the DRO decides, the emergent behavior of the market (I hate saying "collective") will continue to punish you indefinitely. So if you are bothered by this, perhaps when you sign up at a DRO you choose a more expensive policy--one that will (in the event you are found to have committed aggression) provide sufficient compensation to the parties you trade with, such that they overlook the risk of doing business with you. For that matter you could choose a policy that amounts to incorporation, again at a premium.

[Omegahero09]

My point is that whatever resolution the DRO decides, the emergent behavior of the market (I hate saying "collective") will continue to punish you indefinitely. So if you are bothered by this, perhaps when you sign up at a DRO you choose a more expensive policy--one that will (in the event you are found to have committed aggression) provide sufficient compensation to the parties you trade with, such that they overlook the risk of doing business with you. For that matter you could choose a policy that amounts to incorporation, again at a premium.

 

Maybe, who knows?

 

I imagine it wouldn't be too different than credit scores, and insurance policies. There has to be a forgiveness system, I'm sure there will be.Maybe after Murderer Bob turns himself in, pays off his debts after working for the DRO for seven years he gets released back into the free-world, with more expensive premiums on his plan. After which maybe he takes advantage of one of the forgiveness programs with the DRO and works with a local church and after a couple years the church (who works with the DRO contractually of course) gives him the stamp of forgiveness and his premiums go down even further.