Grim
True. The point of ethics is indeed for the preservation of social co-operation.

However what you have said provides no justification whatsoever for the use of aggression in order to get what one wants from others, just because one can’t be bothered obtaining their consent, and claims to be morally above the ethical requirements of peaceful social co-operation.

I notice no-one will answer the challenge of explaining how the forced expropriation of human effort can be ethically distinguished from slavery; nor who else’s authority I would need to confirm in order to know that you have the moral right to engage in this discussion.

The problem is that the redistributionists can show no ethical or intellectual justification for their desire to bully others into submission in the name of social justice; and once we subtract from the argument their fake moral superiority, there is nothing left.

Otherwise, what are the answers to the questions?

Once upon a time, the rulers ruled by the strength of their arms, literally. Tribal leaders rose to their positions by being the strongest, the toughest and the most ruthless.
And women and children, and weaker men were abused and exploited. Of course, not all strong men were abusers; in medieval times a custom of 'chivalry' evolved, implicitly acknowledging that all people were not -physically- equal, and that the strong had a moral duty to defend the weak.
Centuries later, Samuel Colt developed a hand gun, which he described as 'the equalizer'. He claimed that no longer would the strong be able to exploit the weak, as even small people could fire a gun.
As anyone who grew up on TV and movie westerns can attest, guns didn't really equalise. Some men were always going to be faster; faster reflexes, faster to anger, faster to kill. John Wayne aside, you no longer had to be the biggest, to abuse and exploit others.
Finally Law came to the West. This was supposed to be the ultimate equaliser. Even women and children had (eventually) a right to be treated as equals, before the law. No longer would an accident of birth, of genetics, give one person the right to exploit or abuse another.
You think?
Now the 'strong' aren't the fastest with a gun, but fastest with a pen. They may not be physically the biggest, but they are still the most ruthless; still the most selfish, the most greedy.
The simple fact is, if the Law worked as it should, unions should never have been necessary.
The strong still dominate the (economically) weak, and can anyone not question the adage “equal before the Law”, when lawyers command such prices?
The number of 'strong men' who retain any respect for the ancient concept of chivalry, of moral duty, of voluntarily using their strength to protect, defend and support those (economically) smaller and weaker than themselves, is vanishingly small.
Which is the greater freedom? Freedom from exploitation, or the freedom to exploit others without scruple or mercy?
An ethical question.

You have not given any reason to think that the law will not itself be used as an instrument of exploitation.

You merely assume, in an utterly circular argument, that those whose actions are based on a legal monopoly of violence and fraud, will produce outcomes that will be more ethical, than if the outcomes were based on consent. But you have not explained what it is about violence, or fraud, or majority opinion that justifies this conclusion.

And let's be honest. The reason you have not answered the challenge as to self-ownership, is because you can't. So why don't you admit that you think you own your own life, or show us who does? Why don't you explain how you distinguish ethically between taxation and forced labour?

Is this the best the re-distributionists can come up with: evasion and circular argument

"Shrieks of silence", their only reply.

Ah-Ling. Give me time. Sensible comments aren't made in minutes. For the record, it is easy to show that the principle of liberty is not the foundation of ethics. It is quite difficult to demonstrate that people are entitled to keep their property, no matter how poor those who helped them get it are. It is not too hard to demonstrate, in some widely held moral theories, that there are limits to the entitlement to keep property. Reaching a general principle of redistribution, however, is a book-length project. You might try reading the second edition of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice, especially the material in support of his difference principle.

Jardine, I made no claim that what most moral philosophers say is to be accepted on that ground. Rather, the point was a rebuttal of Wing Ah-Ling's claim that it is easy to see that ethics and economics are based on the axiom that one owns one's own life. Utilitarians and other consequentialists don't accept it. (That includes orthodox Islamist ethicists as well as many Western philosophers.) Neo-Aristotelians don’t accept it. (That includes orthodox Catholic ethicists.) Deontologists don’t accept it. Principalists don’t accept it. That is a lot of people who don’t think it is obvious at all.
You claim that in entering a debate, I implicitly assert ownership of my body and speech act[s]. I don’t think I own either in the same sense that I own my computer. (I think I AM my body—or at least part of it.) Nor do I own my life in that sense. But even if I’m wrong about that, it does not follow that I must consider that ownership is the foundation of ethics, or that it is the most important thing about myself. I assume also that all three of us are rational, and that the truth therefore matters to us. Does it follow that rationality is the foundation of ethics? I also assume a degree of autonomy. (I note that there is a common—but by no means universal—belief that it is rational autonomy that makes human beings morally significant.)

But it does not follow that people are entitled to do whatever they wish, whatever the consequences.
Mill’s exception is for actions that cause harm to others. Property does not come into this. Autonomy does. Children have some autonomy, but lack knowledge, and so may commit self-harm unwittingly, or not understand what the harm they are doing involves. It is surely obvious that we should not allow them the freedom which we accord to adults. But both your position and that of Ah-Ling imply that we should.
If a person is going to commit suicide in the belief that their situation is hopeless, and they are mistaken, then I am entitled to intervene, to point out a way through and to offer help. I may prevent them long enough for them to discover their real options. However, I do think that if they fully understand the facts and have considered their alternatives, then they are entitled to do it. I think that that is obvious. But if you don’t accept either example, I will find some more. In any case, I think you have a better case for saying that I deny the significance of their autonomy rather than their self-ownership. (To be fair, I note that you could argue that suicide is a special case, in that a person is destroying their autonomy along with themselves. I respect their worth by denying them the opportunity to destroy it.)
People rarely get to own property substantially more than that of others by their own unaided labour. Nor do they become highly wealthy merely because they work harder. Indeed, a person cannot work enough hours to make great wealth merely by working longer and faster. The notion that both you and Ah-Ling suppose, that people obtain their wealth by their labour, and thus requiring them to give some away makes them slaves, is questionable. They can be required to give away what they have not, in that sense, earned.