Stephen Keim,

You are a lawyer, as such, you are meant to have read a Constitution, any Constitution of any country that has got one, and should have noted that within it lies the cause of that inhumanity to which the attention of people is now directed.

This ‘Lie’ is intrinsic in the postulate that power is divisible. (Montesquieu).

If it were so, and Judges held Power on their own right, ‘Habeas Corpus’, meant to over-ride all other ‘legal provisions’ enacted under a Constitution, could be called into play.

Sir,

Isn’t it a paradox that under a constitutional Monarchy (English) the subject had the privilege of Habeas Corpus and in a so called Democracy this provision is neutralized and the power holder can get away with murder?

Wouldn’t it be time, Sir, to put a stop to this charade about ‘Human Rights’ and urge people to hold their power away from murderous charlatans called politicians?

I won't take people like Stephen seriously until they apply their criticisms of the US to our own backyard.

We now have detention without trial in federal law, attributable to terrorism laws. But for a courageous newspaper journalist, Haneef would be rotting in jail on trumped up charges.

State laws, based either on terrorism or catching drug criminals, are worse. The NSW Crime Commission is truly a Star Chamber.

Then, despite the High Court finding the NSW bikie gang legislation unconstitutional, the state government is talking about reinstating it with tweaks.

We can't criticise the US unless our own hands are clean. That's far from the case.

DavidL:
We can't criticize the US unless our own hands are clean .

Why not ?

Stephen, a good and interesting article.

The whole thing can be boiled down to this. Either rights are whatever states say they are. This is obviously just an open-ended warrant for endless and protean abuse.

Or a right is only what you are justified in using violence to defend. This means everyone has a right to his own body, to the fruits of his labour, and to voluntary relations with others. It means no-one has a right to free handouts paid for by government taking the means from someone else. And thus it means a political state is a criminal association.

DavidL, did you ever find out who the lawyer was who defended Haneef? That's right--Stephen Keim.

Peter Hume--you need to read some of the literature on rights. Your either or dichotomy is mistaken. Try the Stanford online Enclopaedia of Philosophy for a start.

ozbib
Instead of appealing to absent authority and assuming what is in issue - two fallacies - why don't you tell me what you think the mistake is?

Stephen Keim,

You make 9/11 seem a thunderbolt from the sky, which it was, and it wasn’t.

You forgot that President James Monroe on the second of December 1823 declared War to the world.

And 9/11was an episode of that war

And that war is still raging

And will continue to tear the world apart until either Americans are exhausted or they understand that Liberty is no license but freedom and their freedom is conditional to other people’s freedom.

what, not one mention of abortion, as glaring and egregious a violation of human rights as anything ever perpetrated in this 'war on terror'?

Peter Hume

I make neither mistake. And the first is not a fallacy, in any case. I don't have time to give you a course of lectures.

ozbib
You comment consists of nothing but fallacies
1. appeal to absent authority - someone somewhere supposedly knows better, it's just that you can't make you any sensible argument yourself
2. I supposedly don't understand, whereas you do without proving it, which assumes what is in issue.

Then when I point out that you've said nothing but fallacies, your response is only to insist that your original fallacious approach is not fallacious, but without showing reason. Presumably your appeal to the absent authority of the Stanford online Enclopaedia of Philosophy was just some kind of optical illusion?

"Someone somewhere proves you wrong". There. That's an argument to satisfy your own intellectual standards.

If you don't have time, then shut up. If you do, then make some sensible argument on point instead of making a fool of yourself

Peter H

An invitation to you to read some literature so that you are better informed on a topic is not an appeal to an authority at all.

A comment that you are mistaken is not begging the question, because it is not an argument at all. Because it is not an argument, it cannot exhibit a fallacy.

I was, I admit, rather short with you, and that was not very polite. I apologise for that. By way of amends, here is a brief introduction to the topic.

There are a number of different kinds of rights claims, carrying different implications about who is obligated to act or to refrain from acting in particular ways. For example, there are role or institutional rights; and to these correspond duties. There are legal rights--to a fair trial for instance. There are natural rights, and there are human rights.

Natural rights are often treated as specifications of the principle of liberty--such as the right to free speech. To that correspond obligations not to interfere with someone's speech. But there is no corresponding obligation to make forums available for the speech. Human rights are sometimes treated as depending on arguments about what is required for a person to live a life that is at least minimally good. An individual (on this account) does not have a duty to another specific individual to provide what is required, but has a duty to be part of institutions which make it possible for persons to obtain what is required.

Each of these is argued about. A positivist account of legal rights, for instance treats them as stating what the courts will uphold. But opponents say they are rather about what the courts should uphold.

There are arguments about how the rights claims are to be justified, and especially about how they relate to other moral claims. They are, however, not arbitrary--not even human rights.

ozbib
Thank you.

I reject any implication that you speak from a position of superior knowledge. Perhaps you do. But unless you can establish that as a matter of argument, rather than assertion, I no more intend to accept it, than I would expect you to accept the same assumption coming from me.

So far it seems to me that what you have said, has not advanced the argument any further than what I said.

Both Hart's and Dworkins theories have in common that they resolve to what the state says a right is or ought to be. They are essentially ex post facto rationalisations of pre-existing state power.

But the state is that group in society claiming and exercising a territorial monopoly of ultimate decision-making and backed by force. To say a right is or ought to be what the state says it is or should, only says in other words, that it is what the powerful say it is or ought to be.

How has anything you said escaped, or shown how to escape that problem?

"There are arguments about how the rights claims are to be justified, and especially about how they relate to other moral claims. They are, however, not arbitrary... "

Why not? If the state claims a right to confiscate my property and give it to someone else, why is that not arbitrary?

Okay. About a third of my PhD was on philosophical logic; and at one time I lectured on logic. I lectured on rights for 29 years.

Your comment about Hart and Dworkins is not entirely clear. Each would be surprised to think that his position implied that the state was entitled to do whatever it wanted. (Or is that not what you meant? If so, perhaps you could let me know--and why you think it is true.)

In my view, the right to property has limits, set by other, more important rights, such as those to life, shelter, food and health. How this is to be argued depends on how property is justified in the first place. To save time, perhaps you could let me know what you believe about that. You might note, though, that people with a great deal of wealth are in a position to deny others the opportunity to obtain property; or to retain the things that they create.

“Your comment about Hart and Dworkins is not entirely clear. Each would be surprised to think that his position implied that the state was entitled to do whatever it wanted. (Or is that not what you meant? If so, perhaps you could let me know--and why you think it is true.) “

I think it’s true because, as I said, both resolve to a foundation resting on state power. Hart – law as the command of the sovereign. How to identify the sovereign?: the one habitually obeyed. So this is precisely the kind of legal positivism that the first leg of the Nuhremberg defence affirms – that right is by definition what the state defines it to be. And we see this theory today in the orthdox idea that rights are what legislation defines them to be.

Dworkin purports to differ from the positivists in saying a law is not what the state says it is, but what the state ought to say it is. Okay, but why the state? Why that particular association? Why not the Country Women’s Association? Why not the Milperra Soccer Club? And of course the answer is, because they’re the ones with the guns and a claim of an exclusive right to use them not just in defence, but in offence – in unprovoked aggression oops “policy” – what they’re going to use police to enforce. Naturally, claiming and exercising such a monopoly, they take care to call any act of aggression by the name of right, which they claim requires only the formality of mere legislation. As I said, if that is so, then there is no abuse it will not permit.

“In my view, the right to property has limits, set by other, more important rights, such as those to life, shelter, food and health.”

In history, many states have legalized slavery. In such a case, according to the ‘rights as what is legislated’ theory, an escaping slave is a criminal, and the master who re-captures and punishes him is a victim of crime.

“How this is to be argued depends on how property is justified in the first place. To save time, perhaps you could let me know what you believe about that.”

I justify it as following from the principle of self-ownership, which cannot be denied without performing a self-contradiction. Thus it is axiomatic. It establishes at the least a property right to the physical stuff of one’s own body, one’s standing space, and what is appropriated from nature to incorporate into one’s body, - eg air, food. How could it be otherwise? From it follows the right of 'homesteading' – ie appropriating unowned resources; as well as the right to peaceable production, to the fruits of one’s labour, and to voluntary exchange of justly acquired property (no force or fraud).

There is no such thing as a right to human efforts taken by coercion; if there were, then there could be such a thing as a right to slavery, which I deny.

Also, if a theory that aggressive violations of property rights were justified by other allegedly higher claims, there is no reason why the legitimacy of that claim should be confined to the territory of a particular compulsory monopolist. It would be valid worldwide, regardless of state boundaries, and a state would have no more right to enforce it than anyone else. It would amount to a claim that anyone can attack anyone at any time. But yet the purpose of rules is to avoid or reduce unnecessary conflicts, not to create them unnecessarily.

“You might note, though, that people with a great deal of wealth are in a position to deny others the opportunity to obtain property; or to retain the things that they create.”

In the absence of a license for unprovoked aggression, all property is held subject to the sovereignty of the great mass of consumers i.e. society. And the greatest inequality between one market actor and another is never as great as the least inequality between a subject and the state, because the use of aggression is illegal in market transactions.

Furthermore, it is the oldest fallacy in economics that one person’s wealth is the cause of another’s poverty. If this zero-sum theory were correct, we would not have advanced beyond the material standards of our primitive ancestors. In fact it is precisely the process of capital accumulation that raises the living standards of all, especially the poorest of the poor. By contrast, with coercion-based transactions, the stronger takes from the weaker, and value is destroyed.

In any event, the considerations you urge cannot justify the use of aggressive violence because of the argumentation ethic – anyone, by participating in the debate, affirms their acceptance of the ethical principle of property – else you would not be qualified to argue the point but must refer us to the one who has ownership rights over your body.

But if your theory can justify aggressive violence, it is indeed arbitrary, and, there is no abuse such a theory would not justify. All I’d have to do is claim violating property rights was necessary for the higher purpose of health, as indeed the state does in funding velodromes, and in some states (Scandinavian – who else?) even visits to brothels for those deemed entitled. And what about surfing holidays – are they not also beneficial to health?

Now please explain why your rights claims are not arbitrary and unequal? (Mine aren't, because they are founded in the argumentation ethic as I have just explained - everyone demonstrates he accepts the ethic of them by entering into the discussion.)

"In my view, the right to property has limits, set by other, more important rights, such as those to life, shelter, food and health."

So if someone is hungry, he has a right to rob you?

And if you work and save up and buy a house, and someone else doesn't, he has a right to enter your home and take up residence to save himself from homelessness?

Looks like ozbib just got hit for six.

Jardine
So if someone is hungry, he has a right to rob you?

If he is near starving, and there is no alternative, of course he has. Similarly, to use an example from Judith Jarvis Thomson, if I'm caught in a blizzard and copme accross your unoccupied hut, I'm morally entitled to break in, and if necessary burn your furniture in order to keep myself alive.

My breach of your rights has to be commensurate with my need--I'm not entitled to go on burning your furniture for fun. There hssz to be no alternative which is in breech. And if I am subsequently in a position to repay you, I'm obliged to. But if I cannot, I have done nothing wrong.

Peter H., I did not suggest that there is, in general a zero sum game. Why did you interpret my remark that way? As for the right to own you body, I recall a discussion some time ago, in which I argued that there were two fallacies in that argument. Was that with you? And if so, have you found a way to fix the problems?

ozbib
No, it wasn't with me. What are the two fallacies?

And what do you say to what I say are the fallacies in arguing against it? If you don't have the exclusive right to the use of your body, then by what right do you participate in the argument? And by arguing don't you implicitly acknowledge the possibilty of a rational discourse, ie not might-is-right, ie based on the right of the other person to the use and control of his body and mind, otherwise what's the point in arguing with him?

Also could you please answer why you said rights are not arbitrary.

“If he is near starving, and there is no alternative, of course he has.”

And what if the reason he’s near starving is because earlier he preferred leisure to work?

Who decides?

“Similarly, to use an example from Judith Jarvis Thomson, if I'm caught in a blizzard and copme accross your unoccupied hut, I'm morally entitled to break in, and if necessary burn your furniture in order to keep myself alive.”

A blizzard of course? But not in a lightish snowfall obviously?

Peter H,

I have just lost half an hor's work replying to you--using a public compuer, where I cannot save my work. I'll have another go, but I am going to runout of time.

I accept that having entered into a discusion with you, and especialy with the way I etered in, that you have a right to my treating ou seriously, and inter alia, explaining why I think human rights talk is not arbitary--at least ot the extent that not every claim will count.

But first to property. You do not presuppose that you own your body when you engage in argument, but that you have rational autonomy. And you cannot (unfortunately) get from there by valid argument to the view that rational autonomy is good, much less that it is the ultimate good or the only good. (RS Peters tried to take that route.)

Nevertheless, I support the view that what counts most is persons, and that what makes the moral difference between persons and at least most animals is rational autonomy. Because I put this forth as the foundation of morality, I cannot prove it. But I can make it plausible, by noting that it rational autonomy brings the possibility of making value judgements and hence of moral action. And I can examine the way the view supports moral views that we take for granted--that murder is wrong, for instance. I compare the view with alternatives, such as utilitarianism, or the official Catholic doctrine of neo-Aristoteleansim. Such views are called moral theories.

A moral theory is used to determine what should be done where we have moral dilemmas. We go from theory to examples and back again. Sometimes a new example, such as the London conjoint twins case in the year 2000, creates problems for a theory. (I'll explain if you are interested.) Then the theory needs to be adjusted. The theory may also throw light on such cases

PeterH continued

There is a risk of circularity; but the argments do not have to be circular--the process is more like a spiral, with (hopefully) greater insight coming as a result.

It is common for people to throw up their hands and declare that we will never resolve the debate between moral theories. But I am more hopeful--though I no longer expect to see it in my lifetime. What I have seen is great improvement in the theories. Examples if you wish.

Now to property. I think that you are your brain, and the relationship betweena brain and its body is not ownership, but that of part to whole. I guess you ust control your body.

I am not even confident that itmakes sense to say that you own your body, in the ordinary sense in which you own your computer, and I don't own this one. But it does make sense to say that someone else owns you--for example, if you are a slave and accept the institution ofof slavery. They could own you, body and mind.

But even if I did have to accept that you own your body and I own mine(in the computer sense) it would not follow that I had an obligation to respect a right to own other property.

I don't know where the argument comes from, but I think it is a shocker. If you like, I'll write about what I think, very tentatively justifies us having an institution of property.

Peter, I am almost out of time; and Jardine, I'm afraid I can't reply till tomorrow.

The main line of argument I want to outline is that it makes sense to think of human rights as the requirements for a person to live a decent life--a life fit for persons. There will be argument about what that involves--can you live a decent life if you have no time for friendship or family relationships? But you would have to be very ingenious to argue convincingly that you have such a right to have or keep a leather jacket (in normal circumstances, of course. Not every thing will do.

I'm afraid I must go--pleawse be patient with me.

Butcould you explain what you mean by resolve?

Thank you.

“I have just lost half an hor's work replying to you”

My commiserations.

“--using a public compuer, where I cannot save my work.”

This is the price we pay for ironing out the world’s jurisprudential wrinkles, and for what recompense? None.

“You do not presuppose that you own your body when you engage in argument, but that you have rational autonomy.”

You haven’t given reason for that assertion, on which all your supposed refutation of my argument depends.

Just because you do have rational autonomy doesn’t mean you don’t have self-ownership.

Rational autonomy is a sub-set and a function of the fact of exclusive possession and use of one’s body.

There is no sense in which rational autonomy can be considered separately from the fact of exclusive possession and use of one’s own body, which in turn is the factual basis of the principle of self-ownership. We are not talking about disembodied wraiths ratiocinating in a vacuum; but real human action faced with real natural scarcity in a social context.

If there were no natural scarcity, there would be no need for rules of just conduct. A’s use of a resource would never impinge on B’s. What gives rise to the need for ethics and rights is the fact of scarcity. Even if we supposed a world without scarcity, as in a Garden of Eden, there would still be the basal scarcity of the stuff of one’s physical body, and hence the need for rules of just conduct to rationalize that scarcity; else we would have no ethical objection to A aggressing against B.

A world in which that basal natural scarcity does not exist is unthinkable. Why? Because it’s a non-negotiable fact of reality. It gives rise to the human condition which requires ethics to solve the problem it raises; otherwise we’re back to Nuhremberg.

The question is not whether you agree, it’s whether you can refute it. But to refute it, you have to exercise the exclusive possession and use of your body, thus affirming it. Therefore it’s axiomatic.

As to the ethical basis of my argument, what claims can count is limited by the fact that a right is a rule of conduct that is *enforceable and enforced*. This automatically imposes a limit on what can be a right. The initiation of force needs to be justified, and what can justify it but defence?

Since self-ownership is axiomatic, the question is what ethical justification someone could have to use aggressive force to overawe your decision on how to use your body as you see fit, to force you to substitute his decision as he sees fit.

One doesn’t own one’s body in the computer sense, because self-ownership is the basal right which makes all subsequent and subsidiary property rights possible. A computer is a chattel; a man cannot rightly be. One’s body is the radical capital.

I prove as follows.

1. The argumentation ethic shows that you acknowledge the fact of self-ownership by entering the discussion. You perform a self-contradiction by denying it. That of itself is sufficient to prove my case (as to self-ownership) and disprove yours.

You still haven’t answered my questions, if this is wrong, then
I. by what right do you participate in the argument?
II. why are you talking to me?
III. How could any violation of self-ownership be anything other than arbitrary?

If I am right, it’s because you hope to persuade me with reason, because you acknowledge that I have the exclusive possession and control of my body, and that it cannot be any other way, else you would be talking to someone else.

If you are right, it doesn’t make sense.

2. For that reason this right is not arbitrary, but axiomatic. The only alternative is might-is-right.

3. The argumentation ethic accords to everyone an equality of rights, for which many a sage hath yearned; while respecting people’s differences, which has an ethical beauty and elegant jurisprudential parsimony about it.

4. All human rights and other rights are exercised through property rights.

5. This ethic avoids confusing unprovoked aggression with a claim of right.

6. For that reason it would minimize unnecessary conflict, which is the purpose of rules of right.

7. The liberty that this principle justifies, optimises as best we know how, the co-ordination of human efforts and natural resources so as to satisfy the most urgent and important wants of society, as judged by society themselves on the basis of voluntary relations, not their political overlords on the basis of arbitrary prerogative and unprovoked aggression.

8. As all the revenue of the state comes from confiscating private property, therefore the utilitarian value of the principle of liberty has precedence both in fact as well as in logic.

9. If the starting point is not that A has the right to the use of his own body, how can B be in any better position in respect of A?

My ethical theory denies the possibility of a right of slavery; yours leaves open the possibility that A could own B, or the fruits of his labour which amounts to the same thing.

“it would not follow that I had an obligation to respect a right to own other property”

Yes it would, for that reason.

But if it doesn’t rule it out categorically, then it can only be arbitrary - dependent on the opinion of the aggressor.

The argument is, that arbitrary violations of property rights cannot make an ethical standard, but only an unethical double standard, because it presupposes that B has the right to control his own body *and* A’s, while A would not have the right to control his own, let alone someone else’s. “A is allowed to hit B, but B is not allowed to hit A.” It would set up two unequal classes, an exploiting class and an exploited class, based on who was most powerful - the opposite of right.

10. As you assert a right to *override pre-existing* property rights, the common starting point is acceptance, not rejection of them. (cont.)

Therefore the onus is on you to show reason which would not negate property rights themselves. You haven’t done so.

I submit that your method of invoking contextless scenarios – e.g. starving man without saying why - is dubious for the reasons Jardine has identified.

Empirically, starvation is overwhelmingly the result of claims to violate property rights. It's the institution of property feeding unprecedented billions.

“I don't know where the argument comes from, but I think it is a shocker.”
Perhaps so, but you haven’t refuted it, nor escaped its manifold refutations of yours. It comes from the Austrian school: www.mises.org

See also:
http://mises.org/books/economicsethics.pdf

“The main line of argument I want to outline is that it makes sense to think of human rights as the requirements for a person to live a decent life--a life fit for persons.”

This could only ever depend on definitions of “decent”, of which, at last count, there were 7 billion; it would therefore be a recipe for chronic conflict. At best, it could only justify a moral rule, not an enforceable one. It could depend for its claim only on mere arbitrary power, else it would be voluntary, and not a right.

Therefore you haven’t shown that my original dichotomy is mistaken, not shown two fallacies in, nor any valid reason against the argumentation ethic; have not answered my questions which disprove you; and have given only arbitrary assertions as argument, unlike my argument which is validly deduced from an axiom.

Thus when all the rabbits are chased down all the burrows, either
a) a right is what the most powerful says it is or ought to be, or
b) a right is something which you hold equally with everyone else, which justifies you in using force to defend it, and the only things that could possibly qualify are your or anyone else’s life, liberty and property.

Unprovoked aggression can never be a right but is a wrong; and therefore a political state, being based on unprovoked aggression, is a criminal association.

By “resolve to” I mean “ultimately depend on”.

Pretty good, eh?

Peter H,

You say I have not given a reason for my assertion that you do not own your body. What I clearly do presuppose is that there is a person there, manipulating a computer. I accept, though I do not think I presuppose it, that you are a brain, which is part of a body. It is up to you to prove that I presuppose ownership, which must be something different from being a part of a body for the rest of your argument to get started. True, I have not proven that you do not own your body--I assume that you do, for if you were a slave you would not be likely to be able to spend time debating philosophy with me. But the possibility that you are a slave shows that I do not have to assume that you own yourself. Entering into the discussion does not presuppose that you own yourself, only that you exist.

You accept that "self ownership" is not the same as owning a computer. That is, the concepts are different. The argument suffers from the fallacy of equivocation. If you don't like the part to whole notion, we could try 'embodiment'. I do assume that you are embodied. I fail to see that that implies ownership. And you have not shown that it does.

Jardine,

The point of the blizzard example is that there are occasions where the right to life overrides the right to property. And Peter, whether or nor you need to spell out the details of a hypothetical assumption depends on the use to which it is put and the nature of the assumption. In this case, since people do die in blizzards, or even when they are lost in the snow or just unable to get to safety, they are entitled to commit theft. If
Scott of the Antarctic had come across a hut owned, say by Shackleton, would he not have been entitled to break in, to save the lives of his companions?

Peter again.

You assert in effect that embodiment is axiomatically a right. I agree that it is not arbitrary, because, as a person, you are entitled to continue to exist, and so far as we know, the only way you can do so is by continuing to be embodied. But you need that extra premise. If it wee not that I think that all assertions are value laden, I'd say you were breaching the is/ought gap. You are embodied--but why are you entitled to continue to be so?

By what right do I participate? Because you are interested in doing so; or you are graciously permitting me to do so. (I suspect your question was not quite what you meant.)

Would killing you be a violation of "self ownership"? You don't need me to tell you of circumstances when that would be justified. (I would hate to think that they might arise.)

"Rational autonomy is a subset and a function of the fact of exclusive possession...' With respect, the sentence does not make sense. My best guess is that you mean that embodiment is required for rationality to be possible; and that embodiment makes other things possible as well. That is true. But I assert--because I cannot prove--that embodiment matters only because of the existence of the person--the rational autonomous moral agent--not independent of that. I can make it plausible, but no in 1200 words.

And, of course, I still don't see how you propose to get from a value of embodiment to one of ownership (in the computer sense).

Whatever the guy in the blizzard’s purpose was in being where he could get caught in a blizzard in the first place – maybe he was sightseeing or hoping for fame or whatever – why should he be able to put the costs and risks of his purposes onto someone else? Why should he be able to ‘privatize the profits and socialize the losses’ so to speak? Why is that automatically more important than property, without which there wouldn’t be a hut?

Also, Judith Jarvis Thompson and you seem to assume this would have no cost for the life of the owner. How do you know the owner is not being forced to sacrifice his life, e.g. next time he arrives in a blizzard and hoping to burn the furniture?

By assuming that not being able to use the property would have a cost for the trespasser but not the owner, you’re not comparing apples with apples. How could JJT, or you, or any trespasser ever know? And why wouldn’t this negate the right to own property in general? Where would you draw the line?

Could you please answer my earlier question: Who decides? Why that person?

There are a number of issues.

1. Whether rational autonomous moral agent independent of embodiment

I don’t see how that distinction can be maintained. How could the r.a.m.a. have existence independent of the fact of the person who embodies it? How could the rational autonomy express its rationality and autonomy other than in propositional exchanges, i.e. in argumentation, by an individual person?

2. Whether embodiment presupposes self-ownership
How could a person engage in argumentation, either to speak or to hear, without presupposing both the fact of, and the right to the exclusive possession and use of his body?

And as to the *right* of the exclusive possession and use of his body, how could anyone (for example a slave or his master) argue that, though a slave can factually speak, he does not have the right to argue, without relying on argumentation as the means to justify the proposition he contends for, and hence pre-supposing the ethic of self-ownership and private property?

3. Whether self-ownership justifies more extended property rights such as homesteading principle, products of one’s own labour, and products of voluntary exchanges.

How could a person engage in argumentation about an ethical proposition as to the justified use of scarce resources, without presupposing that both he and his interlocutor have the right to appropriate unowned resources, such as air?

How could he have the right to appropriate unowned scarce resources without mixing his labour with it and having a right to the resulting product?

How could he have a right to the product of his own labour, without the right to engage in voluntary transactions with others?

4. I have not impermissibly derived an ought from an is. In fact the whole argument is wertfrei.

To quote Hoppe in the book I linked above:
“[A]ny ethical proposal, or indeed any proposition, must be assumed to claim it can be validated by propositional or argumentative means… "
[i.e. might-is-right can only go to fact – the fact of power - not to ought – the value of justification] …

(Hoppe continued):
“…The structure of my argument is this:
(a) justification is propositional or argumentative (a priori true is-statement);
(b) argumentation presupposes the recognition of the private property ethic (a priori true is-statement);
(c) no deviation from a private property ethic can be justified argumentatively (a prior is-statement).”

5.
To say that slavery may exist is no refutation. The issue is as to the justification, not the fact of power.

“Obviously, no one could propose anything or become convinced of any proposition by argumentative means if a person’s right to exclusive use of his physical body were not presupposed.”
Hoppe

Someone can say that 1 +1 = 3. That doesn’t disprove the proposition that 1 + 1 = 2, nor does it prove that 1 + 1 = 3. All it means is that people may prefer unjustified over justified propositions or actions.

6.
At the empirical level, what reason is there to think that violation of property rights is capable of increasing net social utility, or whatever one calls the ultimate human welfare criterion? The only way you have attempted this is to assume the net social benefits of violating property rights, as in the case of the starving or emblizzarded man (like that? New word.).

But obviously if we ignore the costs, anything will seem beneficial. Once we account for the cost side of the ledger, we find that
a) the violator has no way of knowing or proving that the risk to the life or welfare of the owner, or other downstream beneficiary of the owner’s property rights, is necessarily lesser than that of the trespasser
b) *and* there is no principled defence of such violations than to assert what is in issue, namely whether they would increase net social utility,
c) and property violations would reduce the net social utility by reducing the benefits of property and substituting arbitrary aggression, and
c) such argument is unjustifiable by argument, but only by arbitrary force, which is no justification.

Or, to quote my wife just now coincidentally reading an article about rights:
“The people who blah on most about human rights, actually mean, that they wanna come and take stuff off other people."

Peter Hume and Jardine K. Jardine,

At last I have again access to my computer. My apologies for so long a delay. I will understand if you decline to continue after my unexplained delay.

How rights and conflicts of rights are to be built into the law is a complex matter. Some rights, such as the right to freedom of speech, are claims about what laws ought not to exist. We sometimes deal with conflicts by way of balancing—a well understood term. Laws are made accordingly; and courts also interpret them by balancing various considerations. The way Australian law deals with the conflict between the right to life and that to property is to give a magistrate (I include judges in that term) the power to decline to record a conviction. Thus in a case where a person deliberately gets caught in a blizzard so he can wreck my property, the magistrate can reject the excuse. Some rights are enforceable but not enforced—the assertion of them can be a demand for their enforcement. Others are not suitable for enforcement at all—the cost of doing so is too great. Assertions of them are demands for action, not for laws.

The commonest use of right demands I know of is attempting to persuade government figures to desist from grossly immoral actions. People write at Amnesty’s suggestion to government figures in other countries demanding/asking them to free someone from prison, or to commute a death penalty, or to provide protection to some in extreme peril. That may appease your wife, Peter.

Jardine, as I said, the point of the blizzard example is to show that the right to property is not absolute, but may be overridden by at lease one other right. Variations on the example will of course giv

different outcomes. But they are not to the point.

In an actual case, you have to use the best judgement you can in the circumstances. You don’t then have to take account of the merely fanciful—that the owner was deliberately in the blizzard and was planning to chop up his own furniture.

You asked why is life more important than property? Which would you rather lose? What would you give to save your life? And do you think that your life is more important than those of others? I took it that the answer is obvious.

Light snowfalls? When I was a child, my parents broke into a relative’s house to give me and my siblings a place out of the cold. There had been unexpectedly heavy rain, and we couldn’t cross the rivers in order to get home. (They knew where out relatives were.) No blizzard, but justified, I think.

Does it negate the right to property? No, it relegates it to its proper place. The trespasser incurs a debt, to be paid once he can. And he should endeavour to earn the money to do so.

Peter, I’ll take these remarks first.

“(a) justification is propositional or argumentative (a priori true is-statement);
(b) argumentation presupposes the recognition of the private property ethic (a priori true is-statement);
(c) no deviation from a private property ethic can be justified argumentatively (a prior is-statement).”

5.
To say that slavery may exist is no refutation. The issue is as to the justification, not the fact of power.”

You miss the point, which is a logical one. The possibility that you are a slave shows that the proposition that you own your body could be false. It is not a priori, but a posteriori.

Why do I think that the assumption that

you are embodied is not a priorI? Because you could be an angel or a god.

You may want to argue that it is not logically possible for either to exist. That would be interesting. (It has been tried, in the distant past. I don’t know about recent work.) But unless that can be done, I am not forced by logic alone to assume that you have, or better, are, a body.

Still, when I assume you are human, I do assume you are a body. But I do not have to assume that you own your body. Because you might not. Slavery is an immoral institution—certainly. But that does not make it an a priori matter that you own your body. I could argue with you quite well if you were in fact owned by someone else.

Do you have the exclusive use of your body? You are not, for instance, employed in manual labour? Okay that is not what you meant. But what did you mean, and what has that to do with property?

I am glad you reject the institution of slavery. In doing so, however, you are denying slave owners’ right to retain their property. That is a deviation from a private property ethic. Once you are into the business of determining which private property institutions are morally acceptable and which are not, then you cannot logically get from the right to own your body to a general right to retain your all property, of all kinds, no matter what.

Different societies have had different property institutions. Australian Aborigines, as you will be aware, held their property in common. New Zealand Maori, I understand, retained an interest in their property when they sold it. (The ensuing disputes were adjudicated by the chiefs. In the mid

twentieth century, Maori who had migrated to the cities having no chiefs to appeal to, took their disputes to the police, who prosecuted them for theft. There were swingeing penalties I read about in the papers (“there is far too much theft amongst these people”) until the confusion was sorted out.) Property is not one institution. Taxation is part of our institution of property.

If you were right, and I have to accept your right to the ownership of your body, it still would not follow that I have to accept the whole of an ethic of property. I could not, without pragmatic self-contradiction, assert that all property is theft. But I could still hold that most property is.

A standard way to show that an argument is fallacious is to take a true premise and use the same argument form to derive a false conclusion. So what do you think of this? In arguing with you I have to assume that you are alive. It should follow, if your argument is valid, that I cannot, without pragmatic self-contradiction, argue with you that you should die. The conclusion however is plainly false. In hospitals, when a dying patient wants to stay alive for an extra few hours in the vain hope of a miracle cure, and that can only be achieved at the expense of someone else’s life (ie they could be cured) or in lifeboat situations (women and children first; old men last), it makes perfect sense to argue that a person should be prepared to die. Just wars may provide other examples. (Jardine, these are real situations.)

So, a true premise, the same argument form, and a false conclusion. So your argument—and that of Mises—is invalid. Happy new year.