afterzir Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 A criticism I've heard is that of building a circular road around a house and trapping that person there to die. How would one counter this without appeal to consequences i.e. the man tells the judge that "I own the road because I homesteaded it and can do whatever I want with my property (i.e exclusive use) as long as I don't directly harm others or their property." aside: this scenario is rare, but it could easily apply to a person entering a house or office, which is a common occurrence, and then being trapped inside. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProfessionalTeabagger Posted January 31, 2016 Share Posted January 31, 2016 How would we counter what? Provide details. We can't do ethical reasoning if we're not sure what the question is or what all the details in the scenario are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Torbald Posted January 31, 2016 Share Posted January 31, 2016 A criticism I've heard is that of building a circular road around a house and trapping that person there to die. How would one counter this without appeal to consequences i.e. the man tells the judge that "I own the road because I homesteaded it and can do whatever I want with my property (i.e exclusive use) as long as I don't directly harm others or their property." aside: this scenario is rare, but it could easily apply to a person entering a house or office, which is a common occurrence, and then being trapped inside. But doing that is a harm to others and their property. If you build a cage around a person while they sleep it is obvious that you are incarcerating them. Same with the house. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afterzir Posted January 31, 2016 Author Share Posted January 31, 2016 But doing that is a harm to others and their property. If you build a cage around a person while they sleep it is obvious that you are incarcerating them. Same with the house. I think the road example is weaker than entering a house, so I'll switch to the house scenario (weaker because he hasn't deliberately entered another person's homesteaded area) . The fictional guy might respond: I'm not incarcerating him (tying a rope around him would be incarcerating him), I own my door an can lock or unlock it as I see fit, and locking a door doesn't directly harm anyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebeardslastcall Posted January 31, 2016 Share Posted January 31, 2016 Do all your neighbors hate you? Why would someone be living next to a bunch of people that hate them? How exactly do you imagine this happening? What of the millions of people forced into cages with current societies? Are you seriously concerned about this happening to you by a bunch of people that have rejected force and violence and are acting on ethical principles? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Mister Posted January 31, 2016 Share Posted January 31, 2016 Just because a person enters your house doesn't mean you can restrain them against their consent. If this were the case, businesses could just lock you in the store until you gave them all your money. Of course no one would return to that business afterwards. In the same way, if a woman says "stop" after allowing and encouraging a man to get on top of her and penetrate her, he has to stop. As for the road - why is he doing this? Where does he get the resources to do it? Is he building the road by himself? If not, why are construction workers participating in such a ridiculous plot? Don't people wonder what he is doing when building the road? How will respond to him afterwards - won't they ostracize him for being a dick? None of this stuff is that hard, it's completely unrealistic and takes about 2 minutes of thought to figure out. The real question is, what percent of our mental energy should be focused on ludicrous lifeboat scenarios vs. child abuse, religiosity, and statism? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Torbald Posted January 31, 2016 Share Posted January 31, 2016 I think the road example is weaker than entering a house, so I'll switch to the house scenario (weaker because he hasn't deliberately entered another person's homesteaded area) . The fictional guy might respond: I'm not incarcerating him (tying a rope around him would be incarcerating him), I own my door an can lock or unlock it as I see fit, and locking a door doesn't directly harm anyone. What? Incarcerating who? Locking the door of your home is perfectly acceptable behavior. Who would argue it isn't? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afterzir Posted January 31, 2016 Author Share Posted January 31, 2016 What? Incarcerating who? Locking the door of your home is perfectly acceptable behavior. Who would argue it isn't? Okay. I see (I just got worried for second thinking that one could morally kill someone using the definition of property). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Mister Posted January 31, 2016 Share Posted January 31, 2016 Okay. I see (I just got worried for second thinking that one could morally kill someone using the definition of property). Good, well now that we have that out of the way (unless you're being snarky and passive aggressive..?), can we deal with actual moral problems facing us in the world today? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LibertarianSocialist Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 A criticism I've heard is that of building a circular road around a house and trapping that person there to die. How would one counter this without appeal to consequences i.e. the man tells the judge that "I own the road because I homesteaded it and can do whatever I want with my property (i.e exclusive use) as long as I don't directly harm others or their property." aside: this scenario is rare, but it could easily apply to a person entering a house or office, which is a common occurrence, and then being trapped inside. No one has answered your question, which commonly happens with questions of this nature. If we are to imagine such a theoretical scenario in an ancap society which embraces a Rothbardian concept of property rights (one which expressely rejects aspects of Lockes theory) , then I am afraid our man is at the mercy of his captor. This is because property rights are superior to natural rights in that a man may only express his natural rights (self ownership, right to not be aggressed against etc.) through the medium of property. He has no rights that he cannot bargain for whence the time arises when he must surrender his own natural rights to the superior property rights of the owner. (the bargaining parameters being set, and at least influenced heavily by legal fiction). Now if it is a question of a Lockean understanding of property rights, the Lockean proviso adds an interesting dimension. One may claim that taking all the land makes it impossible for him to have "as much and as good as" entry to his property. That by taking it, you deprive him of a specific type of land which you had no grounds to take in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LibertarianSocialist Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 Just because a person enters your house doesn't mean you can restrain them against their consent. If this were the case, businesses could just lock you in the store until you gave them all your money. Of course no one would return to that business afterwards. In the same way, if a woman says "stop" after allowing and encouraging a man to get on top of her and penetrate her, he has to stop. As for the road - why is he doing this? Where does he get the resources to do it? Is he building the road by himself? If not, why are construction workers participating in such a ridiculous plot? Don't people wonder what he is doing when building the road? How will respond to him afterwards - won't they ostracize him for being a dick? None of this stuff is that hard, it's completely unrealistic and takes about 2 minutes of thought to figure out. The real question is, what percent of our mental energy should be focused on ludicrous lifeboat scenarios vs. child abuse, religiosity, and statism? This is something I always felt was a cop-out by Rothbard, and a real inconsistency in his philosophy. Must contracts be honoured, or not? If a person willingly signs a contract that states he will be trapped inside afterwards, or a woman signs an agreement to engage in coitus, are they bound to it or not? If my natural rights are greater than that of contract, why am I bound to ever honour anything? Who decides what contracts must be honoured or not, private arbitration? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B0b Posted February 9, 2016 Share Posted February 9, 2016 Suppose that the person building the road around his house is his neighbor and he does it because he he does not like him. What can the trapped person do about it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasTheIdealist Posted February 11, 2016 Share Posted February 11, 2016 If we are to imagine such a theoretical scenario in an ancap society which embraces a Rothbardian concept of property rights (one which expressely rejects aspects of Lockes theory) , then I am afraid our man is at the mercy of his captor. As I see it, he would be at the mercy of private law and judicial arbitration. Such enclosings would likely not be supported anywhere and therefore the precedent against it would be expressed in the laws of any decentralized legal mechanism. If my natural rights are greater than that of contract, why am I bound to ever honour anything? Who decides what contracts must be honoured or not, private arbitration? Yes. This is unfortunately a deviation from the topic, but all contracts are essentially a forfeiture of your future liberty (ideally in exchange for some other freedom). Like a type of slavery: Contracts are only as good as the enforcement behind them. It doesn’t matter how much your philosophical ideology demands that the terms of your contract be upheld, if a judge thinks the terms of your contract, or the consensual context, are inappropriate, they can decide to reject it. In a market, our responsibility would be to merely support judges who support the same level of contract slavery that we do. And in that regard, I would strongly criticize Walter Block for not opposing extreme slavery. http://individualistwill.com/contracts-are-slavery/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LibertarianSocialist Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 Okay, so as I now understand it, Ancaps really believe the only right people have is the 'right of might', in that they believe that 'rightness' comes from legal authority, itself derived from physical power. So what really distinguishes our respective schools of anarchism is not our philosophical basis (would you call yourself a stirnerite egoist?), but our personal desires? Is the only difference between your society and mine the personal interests of the holders of power? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GailG Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 Locke said that the basis of his reasoning is that before wealth and money, all land is commonly held. So your scenerio doesn't work. Locke wrote his 2nd treatise on government after learning about the Iroquois and other indigenous nations that held all nature in common and had democracy by 100% concensus. That culture would never build a "circular road", as you call it because it would have required the concent of 100% of the people within its boundaries to allow that to happen. the one effectively held prisoner would have vetoed the proposal. The rest of the people either have to live with it or use peaceful means to change the resister's mind. We are taught that those of the enlightenment just happened to come upon new ideas and ideals, but that's a myth. Those of the enlightenment happened to learn about the Iroquois who have the longest lasting constitutional democratic republic in recorded history. It was founded in August 909 CE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B0b Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 GailG, what you are describing here is a rudimentary State. What does this have to do with libertarianism? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john cena Posted March 16, 2016 Share Posted March 16, 2016 This is something I always felt was a cop-out by Rothbard, and a real inconsistency in his philosophy. Must contracts be honoured, or not? If a person willingly signs a contract that states he will be trapped inside afterwards, or a woman signs an agreement to engage in coitus, are they bound to it or not? If my natural rights are greater than that of contract, why am I bound to ever honour anything? Who decides what contracts must be honoured or not, private arbitration? You fundamentally misunderstand what a contract is. You can exit a contract at any time. It is not a forcefully binding agreement.. If the creator of the contract did not put an exit clause in, well that's his own fault. IE your cellphone company will give you a free cellphone for signing a contract, but charge you extra for breaking it early. Do you have to pay the extra? No, you can let your credit score go down. So if a woman says "yes" and then "no" after you stick it in, you can rape her forever according to your logic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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