Hold on Pericles, you wrote a whole post asserting that there is no moral dimension to property rights, and then in your following post you wrote:

<< …the violation of mining and property rights has a strong moral dimension >>

Which surely means that the definition and implementation of property rights must also have a moral dimension.

I wrote:

>> Property owners should certainly not have inalienable rights to do whatever they like with their land and to exclude all other uses or people. <<

You asked:

<< Why not? So long as their actions do not violate the rights of others… surely they have an entirely moral right to enjoy their own property? >>

I find it quite amazing that you feel the need to ask such a question. I would have thought it obvious.

We can’t have the right to do whatever we like with our land for all sorts of reasons. Obviously we don’t have the right to undertake illegal activities on our land, which encompasses a very broad variety of restrictions.

It could also be argued that it is amoral to undertake activities which are not accepted as fair and reasonable by the wider community but which are not actually illegal.

Morality, being defined as codes of conduct put forward by society, can certainly be impinged upon in all manner of ways if we have inalienable rights to do whatever we liked on our property.

Dear Ludwig,

You claim that one's own land is not the right place for one to undertake illegal activities or activities which are not accepted as fair and reasonable by the wider community.

OK, Where then is the right place to undertake such activities (assuming nobody else is hurt as a result)?

In public parks perhaps? in your friend's house? in the outback? inside a volcano? in wombat burrows? in the sea? under the sea? out in space? on top of government-house? In the world-to-come and the kingdom of heaven?

<<Morality, being defined as codes of conduct put forward by society, can certainly be impinged upon in all manner of ways if we have inalienable rights to do whatever we liked on our property.>>

I see what you mean, such immoral actions, for example, as hiding Jews in your property against the codes of conduct put forward by a Nazi society.

I once saw the movie "Logan's run", where society decreed that it is immoral to be old, to live beyond 30, so everyone reaching that ripe age is ritually killed on the carousel ("renewed" in their jargon, so they are told). In that movie at least, the hero and his girlfriend managed in the end to break out of the city and found that extremely illegal really-old man who immorally lived to be 60 or so. Where is the exit from this locked city called society?

I'm beginning to suspect that you deliberately misunderstand, Ludwig, simply in order to have something to say.

>>Hold on Pericles, you wrote a whole post asserting that there is no moral dimension to property rights, and then in your following post you wrote: "…the violation of mining and property rights has a strong moral dimension"<<

Those are most definitely not contradictory statements. In fact, they encapsulated the point I was trying to make, which was that it is the act of violation that has a moral dimension, not the property.

Violation on one hand. Ownership on the other. Two separate issues. Does that make it clearer?

You continue your muddle with this, along precisely the same lines:

>>We can’t have the right to do whatever we like with our land for all sorts of reasons. Obviously we don’t have the right to undertake illegal activities on our land, which encompasses a very broad variety of restrictions.<<

Illegal activities are indeed a moral issue. But that applies to everything you can think of. Owning a car is not a moral issue. Running over little old ladies is a moral issue. Same same. It is the act of running someone over that has the moral dimension. Actually owning a car is entirely passive, and does not have a moral dimension.

>>It could also be argued that it is amoral to undertake activities which are not accepted as fair and reasonable by the wider community but which are not actually illegal.<<

I take it you mean immoral rather than amoral. But you are correct. It is the actions that may be regarded as moral/immoral.

With me now?

<< From the principle of liberty, ownership of land should be, as at common law, to the centre of the earth. >>

What??

Why, Jardine?

We own land and use the surface and subsurface soil and water. That’s it! We shouldn’t own more than that. The minerals at a greater depth SHOULD be state property, or the property of all of us in the nation state.

I can’t fathom how you can talk about a principle of liberty leading to ownership to the centre of the earth, or to a depth any greater than what we need to run a farm, or a garden.

For that matter, the water that we draw from bores could easily be deemed common property, for which we have to pay, and for which there are restrictions on the amount of usage, due to the prospect of overdraw and hence depletion or saltwater incursion of the groundwater resource, and hence the violation of other peoples’ right to use this resource.

And the soil could also have restrictions placed on its use, for the common good, so that it doesn’t blow away or become depleted.

So when you talk about the common good, or the violation of peoples’ rights in the long term, we shouldn’t even entirely own the subsurface, let alone anything deeper!

continued

<< Ludwig’s argument would only make sense if government did not enforce law or policy. Given that it does, the ethics of using force or threats of force are unavoidably implicated in every government policy. >>

Crikey Jardine, you do get loopy!!

The law is meaningless, and the morality therein is neutered, if there is no enforcement regime!

<< The reason Ludwig is unable to state any principle by which anyone could know whether their person or property should be free from aggressive invasion by government… >>

Aggressive invasion eh? I’ve made it clear that if mining is to happen on private property in order to recover the resource that is owned by us all beneath the private property, then it should be done with the fullest of consultation and compensation with and for the landholder.

I’m as much against aggressive state invasion as you are Jardine.

<< That's exactly what he's defending! >>

There you go again, making false assertions. You build straw-man scenarios against your sparring partners, and assert them as absolutely factual.

But why?

Why can’t you debate in a sensible manner?, as per Yuyutsu.

<< I'm beginning to suspect that you deliberately misunderstand, Ludwig, simply in order to have something to say. >>

Just beginning eh Pericles? Hehehe.

Not at all. This sort of thing has happened many times in our long and sordid correspondence on this forum. We both raise what appear to be contradictions in each other’s writings in order for them to be clarified. It is an integral part of this sort of slow written debate.

So, thanks for the clarification.

<< Violation on one hand. Ownership on the other. Two separate issues. Does that make it clearer? >>

Yes.

But I disagree.

It is not just violation of the law, or the moral code which is immoral. There is surely a fundamental moral aspect to the formulation of that code in the first instance.

It could be argued that the law is a subset of the moral code. But an imperfect one, where there are situations where the law could uphold an immoral position and breaking the law could be more morally acceptable or sensible than sticking to it.

The action of formulating the law must surely be considered a moral act.

And the action of land ownership within the bounds of the law must likewise be a moral act.