NAP and UPB in extreme cases

[Caio Costa]

Hi there! I'd like to hear what you guys think about a situation like this.

Quote

If a village of 100 people has one well which is in the possession of one man, who suddenly refuses to give water to anyone else, and there is no rain or any other water and people are dying of thirst, can the dying people use force against the man (but not kill or wound him) to take what water they need just to survive? (leaving him of course with his proper share).

I do not want answers such as "a situation like that would never occur because x, y and z".

What I'm looking for is the pure moral analysis of it.

Can anyone relate Hoppe's argumentation ethics or Molyneux's UPB to this in order to produce a good response?

I'll post my thoughts and conclusions soon too. 

[ofd]

Yes, because property is no end in itself. If you value your own life less than the rigths to water the person has you are either dumb or a very principled Ancap. In both cases you deserve what you get.

[barn]

I don't think it is force if the other habitants of the village withhold EVERYTHING they own from the said 'well-owner' and just keep up their own right to property by lets say fencing off EVERYTHING else.

Sooner or later the 'well-owner' must come to terms of not being able to survive on only water and the negotiations can begin. Easy peasy.

 

(even though this is a ridiculously restricted thought experiment.. I know, I know.. but don't see why such a thing would exist in reality)

[neeeel]

this almost exact example has been brought up to me when I have been putting forward ancap ideas and principles, it was further stated that withholding water from someone who is dying is violence. While I dont see how it can be violence, unless you have a weird definition of violence, or then open up any other non action or refusal to trade as violence, it is still an interesting thought experiment. I dont see how it can be immoral to refuse to give someone access to your property, doesnt morality tell you what you shouldnt do, rather than what you should? That is, there are no actions you can take that make you a moral person, but there are actions you can take that make you an immoral person.

 

I suppose you could counter their thought experiment by saying "well, what if the guy who is dying and needs my water just killed my wife and kids? Do I give still have to give it to him?"

[RichardY]

Would it be violence to withold water like at the 4 minute mark? If someone felt they had a greivence against a person?

 

 

[smarterthanone]

13 hours ago, Caio Costa said:

If a village of 100 people has one well which is in the possession of one man, who suddenly refuses to give water to anyone else, and there is no rain or any other water and people are dying of thirst, can the dying people use force against the man (but not kill or wound him) to take what water they need just to survive? (leaving him of course with his proper share).

Well this particular example leaves quite a few loose ends which I can't help but bring up.

1. If there is no rain or any other water, a drought could dry up a well. So for every person who drinks today from such well, deprives its owner of one more day of water in the future. Like it may last just the owner 3 weeks but if everyone drinks it, it may only last the owner 1 week. In this case, I would say he is right to keep the water and they would not be on firm moral grounds to take the water by force.

2. Why do they not have an option to leave the area? This is often brought up in cities, such as you closed the one factory that kept the city up and it violated me to do so. No, you may move somewhere else. In this case, get in your car and drive somewhere, even if its far away, even if you own a house here, even if you need to spend your life savings doing it, to leave.

3. If there truly is no option, say the entire world exploded in fire and this is all thats left and say it is not running out. I think it would be moral under the NAP to steal the water because I think its a solid argument to say if one ought to do something, they must be able to actually do it AND its not reasonable to have someone kill themselves when what they need is in front of their face so you cant say one ought to die instead of drink water that is readily available HOWEVER, it would also be moral for the owner to shoot or otherwise defend the water. So the actions could be moral but the outcome would be unclear, if they succeed or if the owner succeeds.

[Thesemindz]

These kinds of questions should be ignored. It's a ridiculous nonsensical premise and even attempting to address it directly is a waste of time. There is some value in discussing why this is a stupid question, but none in trying to answer it. A village of 100 people has one well owned by one person. And he "suddenly" decides not to let anyone have water. No context there. There's no other source of water, at all, a situation which would never result in a village of that size, and everyone else is dying of thirst. Dying. So not only do we have an impossible situation, with no context, but we are asked to moralize about it at the last possible instant. And then the person posing the question says, "Don't say it can't happen," because he doesn't want you to be able to call him out on his bullshit.

I used to teach karate. Inevitably, a student would ask, "What do you do if a person is just about to hit you in the face. They've already thrown the punch, your hands are down, and their fist is an inch from your face." The answer is, "You get punched." In such a ridiculously contrived scenario, there is no answer. It's an impossible question designed to waste your time and discredit a moral theory. It could not happen, it would not happen, and it should not be discussed in the context of philosophy.

[RichardY]

[barn]

36 minutes ago, RichardY said:

Dammit memes

[ofd]

Quote

It's an impossible question designed to waste your time and discredit a moral theory.

You can reformulate it to match real life events. It is moral to export food when the country you live in suffers from a bad famine? Is it moral to make booze out of wheat when there is famine going on?

[Phuein]

I've given this kind of extreme situation a lot of thought, and conclude with an answer. Solid answer for my taste.

This happens all the time! The community made the previous unmentioned mistake of not making sure they have their own other options for water access. This is like not planting enough food, finding yourself starving. A mistake. It really does happen.

After making such a critical mistake, the next option is either to get help or to aggress to survive. Without help, if really no other trade is possible, or not preferred, stealing is a much lesser evil than death. It's like the difference between rape or rape+murder. Neither is good, at all, both really bad, but the lesser evil is generally subjectively preferable.

So you messed up. Steal to survive and deal with the consequences. Sometimes you even get the option of making up for your mistakes and immoral actions.

Anyone who would rather die than deal with consequences is not logical.

Of course, within all of this there is the argument of whether you would actually die, and not have other benign options. Always the case.

[Jsbrads]

To flesh out the case, imagine:

The village is on thick rock, high in the Afghan mountains. The digging of the well was an arduous task which one man did alone and the town grew around his plentiful supply of water in a dry land. The man, now 40, dies suddenly leaving a son of 20 who chooses not to share water anymore. It is mid summer and the walk to the nearest water source is arduous and even dangerous with a full canteen, impossible without.

If the well seems to have unlimited water fed by and underground spring: Eminent Domain, which is a legal method so long as it is exercised in the most minimal way, should allow the temporary supply of water needed for people to evacuate.

If it isn’t a well at all, it is just a large cistern, and the man (40) had paid for it filled and sold water at a dollar a bucket and the son now won’t sell any...

If it can be refilled: The townspeople can use Eminent Domain to take what they need to evacuate and pay the water wagon guy to replace the water.

If a nuclear holocaust or viral event destroyed every other source of water, they cannot morally take it. You can’t murder one person to save another from death. 

Edited January 29, 2018 by Jsbrads

[Tyler H]

@Phuein How is death evil?

[Gavitor]

Fact is your failure to plan ahead does not make it ok to steal from me. It's Immoral to steal from me regardless of circumstance. Morality does not stop people from taking a particular action.

By the way, if you have to make up a particular scenario to try and dispute something you're already doing it wrong.

[barn]

On 01/29/2018 at 5:57 PM, Tyler H said:

@Phuein How is death evil?

True. Merciless doesn't mean ill-intended.

...

[HenryJubeda]

On 12/27/2017 at 7:08 AM, Caio Costa said:

Hi there! I'd like to hear what you guys think about a situation like this.

I do not want answers such as "a situation like that would never occur because x, y and z".

What I'm looking for is the pure moral analysis of it.

Can anyone relate Hoppe's argumentation ethics or Molyneux's UPB to this in order to produce a good response?

I'll post my thoughts and conclusions soon too. 

The initiation of force is immoral, so no, you can't be moral AND initiate force because that's a contradiction. You don't get to say "I have a need, therefore I get to initiate force" because that justifies, rape, assault, murder and theft.

 

A better question is WHY would such a man do something like that? And the answer is that it's the act of a madman because what can possibly be gained from this? If such a person wants the people to leave his property, he can just ask them. The well is his, so the water is his. What the other villagers can do is just stop supplying everything else this man needs. Food, shelter, conversation, anything he exchanges for the use of the water. Not wanting to exchange something you own is not an act of aggression. Say there's a food shortage. Do the villagers then get to rob this man so that they all die from hunger a little bit slower? How did they end up being solely dependent on this guy without any preparation? The accumulation of consequences of decisions is essential to human existence. Without it, there's really no reason to do anything ever since no matter what you do, you can't get ahead and bad decisions have no bad consequences.