Anarcho-Capitalism: A Branden ‘Blast from the Past’

[George H. Smith]

Are you familiar with something called a "disagreement"?

George,

Sure.

What does that got to do with my attempt to understand this logic or lack of logic?

I sincerely do not understand.

If someone says they hold NIOF as an axiom and there can be no exceptions, I can disagree. If I claim that reason has to be the foundation of a system of government and can trump NIOF in certain contexts, they can disagree.

What I don't understand is how NIOF can be a middle goose pond that admits exceptions and be a goose pond that doesn't admit exceptions at the same time.

Michael

The same principle cannot both admit and not admit exceptions at the same time and in the respect.

Moreover, some general principles admit exceptions and some do not. This depends on the nature of the principle involved. .

I have no idea what you are talking about.

Ghs

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I have no idea what you are talking about.

Ah come on.

This isn't rocket science.

I'm talking about the stuff we have been discussing.

To recap...

Nah...

I just did that a few posts ago.

Let's give it a break. When something gets to the point of having to repeat stuff that much, I don't find it worth pursuing,

Michael

[George H. Smith]

I have no idea what you are talking about.

Ah come on. This isn't rocket science. I'm talking about the stuff we have been discussing. To recap... Nah... I just did that a few posts ago. Let's give it a break. When something gets to the point of having to repeat stuff that much, I don't find it worth pursuing, Michael

I will assume that you misunderstood something I said, and let it go at that.

Ghs

[rhartford]

The concept “owner” and the concept “property” used in posts on this thread often appeal to usage of those terms by individualist, libertarian, or Objectivist philosophers. But, to understand the meaning of a concept, it is necessary to appeal to the facts of reality that gave rise to the concept; appeal to statements by others provides information but does not directly lead to understanding.

Suppose an isolated individual, A, is pursuing goals that will benefit A’s life. A will create values that A will use for his or her benefit and A will dispose of those values as A sees fit. Only if A is performing those identical actions in a social context is it epistemologically important to have terms to distinguish, identify, and associate the cause of the value created, A, and the effect of A’s action, the value created.

It is in this social context, where it is possible that control of the use and disposal of a created value can be transferred to another, that it is important to form a concept for identifying the cause and effect relationship, and the two parts of that relationship. The concepts of owner, property, and ownership arise to identify the value creator, the created value, and the relationship between them.

Values that one achieves in the building of one’s own character and personality are not transferrable and the concepts of ownership, owner, and property can only be applied to them in a metaphorical sense, maybe nice aesthetically, but dangerous epistemologically.

Let me illustrate the danger that I referred to above. Assuming for the moment that my analysis of the epistemological origin and meaning of the concept “property” is correct, consider what would be meant by the term “inalienable property.”

This would be a value created by its owner that could be transferred to another (property) that could not be transferred to another (inalienable). The term is not only an example of the “fallacy of the stolen concept,” but is such a direct contradiction as to constitute an oxymoron.

I realize that “inalienable property” has a long history of use, and not all bad. But to use such a logical fallacy in political philosophy leaves one less committed than one should be to the need for placing “rights” on a firm ethical foundation.

Ptolemaic ideas were used in astronomy for centuries, and reasonably successfully, but the error of circular celestial orbits led to the ad hoc use of epicycles, slowing the advance of astronomy until questioned by the Copernican paradigm and Kepler’s work. In a similar respect, the centuries of use of the term “inalienable property” has slowed application of modern epistemological tools to the analysis and validation of rights.

[Martin Radwin]

I have no idea what you are talking about.

Ah come on. This isn't rocket science. I'm talking about the stuff we have been discussing. To recap... Nah... I just did that a few posts ago. Let's give it a break. When something gets to the point of having to repeat stuff that much, I don't find it worth pursuing, Michael

I will assume that you misunderstood something I said, and let it go at that.

Ghs

I think that where Michael is going with this is that, since the NIOF as used by Rothbard is a "middle axiom" derived from moral reasoning based on more fundamental premises, it should have some exceptions. In other words, he is assuming that a middle axiom should have at least some exceptions and that it is therefore a contradiction to assume both that something is a middle axiom and that it simultaneously has no exceptions. But I'm not sure what is the basis of this assumption. In mathematics, for example, a mathematical law derived from more fundamental laws, which are ultimately derived from the axioms of the mathematical system, is generally known as a theorem, to distinguish it from an axiom. A theorem is derivable from axioms or from other theorems ultimately derivable from axioms, whereas an axiom is a fundamental assumption not derivable from anything else. But a mathematical theorem is just as true as the axioms from which it is derived, and it no more has exceptions than a mathematical axiom.

Martin

[George H. Smith]

The concept “owner” and the concept “property” used in posts on this thread often appeal to usage of those terms by individualist, libertarian, or Objectivist philosophers. But, to understand the meaning of a concept, it is necessary to appeal to the facts of reality that gave rise to the concept; appeal to statements by others provides information but does not directly lead to understanding. Suppose an isolated individual, A, is pursuing goals that will benefit A’s life. A will create values that A will use for his or her benefit and A will dispose of those values as A sees fit. Only if A is performing those identical actions in a social context is it epistemologically important to have terms to distinguish, identify, and associate the cause of the value created, A, and the effect of A’s action, the value created. It is in this social context, where it is possible that control of the use and disposal of a created value can be transferred to another, that it is important to form a concept for identifying the cause and effect relationship, and the two parts of that relationship. The concepts of owner, property, and ownership arise to identify the value creator, the created value, and the relationship between them. Values that one achieves in the building of one’s own character and personality are not transferrable and the concepts of ownership, owner, and property can only be applied to them in a metaphorical sense, maybe nice aesthetically, but dangerous epistemologically.

Let me illustrate the danger that I referred to above. Assuming for the moment that my analysis of the epistemological origin and meaning of the concept “property” is correct, consider what would be meant by the term “inalienable property.” This would be a value created by its owner that could be transferred to another (property) that could not be transferred to another (inalienable). The term is not only an example of the “fallacy of the stolen concept,” but is such a direct contradiction as to constitute an oxymoron. I realize that “inalienable property” has a long history of use, and not all bad. But to use such a logical fallacy in political philosophy leaves one less committed than one should be to the need for placing “rights” on a firm ethical foundation. Ptolemaic ideas were used in astronomy for centuries, and reasonably successfully, but the error of circular celestial orbits led to the ad hoc use of epicycles, slowing the advance of astronomy until questioned by the Copernican paradigm and Kepler’s work. In a similar respect, the centuries of use of the term “inalienable property” has slowed application of modern epistemological tools to the analysis and validation of rights.

Your analysis is incorrect. Property need not be "a value created by its owner." You can own land that you did not create. Nor do you necessarily create the "value" of land.

You also confuse the epistemological origin of a concept with the etymological origins of words that can used to signify that concept. "Right to life" and "self-ownership" are not different concepts; they are merely different ways of expressing the same concept. Which term is better depends on the context. "Self-ownership" was better in the anti-slavery arguments of abolitionists, because it stood in clear relief to the claim that one person owns another. The term "self-sovereignty" was better during early debates with absolutists over state sovereignty. "Right to life" might be better in other contexts. These all mean the same thing. They merely highlight different features of the same concept.

All this is making a mountain out of a molehill.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

I have no idea what you are talking about.

Ah come on. This isn't rocket science. I'm talking about the stuff we have been discussing. To recap... Nah... I just did that a few posts ago. Let's give it a break. When something gets to the point of having to repeat stuff that much, I don't find it worth pursuing, Michael

I will assume that you misunderstood something I said, and let it go at that.

Ghs

I think that where Michael is going with this is that, since the NIOF as used by Rothbard is a "middle axiom" derived from moral reasoning based on more fundamental premises, it should have some exceptions. In other words, he is assuming that a middle axiom should have at least some exceptions and that it is therefore a contradiction to assume both that something is a middle axiom and that it simultaneously has no exceptions. But I'm not sure what is the basis of this assumption. In mathematics, for example, a mathematical law derived from more fundamental laws, which are ultimately derived from the axioms of the mathematical system, is generally known as a theorem, to distinguish it from an axiom. A theorem is derivable from axioms or from other theorems ultimately derivable from axioms, whereas an axiom is a fundamental assumption not derivable from anything else. But a mathematical theorem is just as true as the axioms from which it is derived, and it no more has exceptions than a mathematical axiom.

Martin

Good explanation. Thank you.

Ghs

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

George,

Outside of this thorny discussion, the positive takeaway is that I am more interested in reading Rothbard.

I had no real opinion of him before other than he was a libertarian, had a more scholarly approach than Rand's (meaning he quoted and referenced a wide range of works) and some people loved him while others hated him, all in the same manner they did with Rand. I didn't care for the lengths he went to in his foreign policy ideas from what I have heard reported, although I do like the idea of live and let live. I read a few of his essays and I found his play, Mozart Was A Red a hoot (although the video of the performance at his birthday was a sniggering mess).

Now I'm kind of interested to see what all the yelling has been about. I have no doubt the Rand side distorts his views just as much as many libertarians distort Rand's views.

Also, you mentioned a while back some introductory books on history. I am interested if you still want to recommend them.

I admit my priorities are going in the direction of the Napoleon Hill project I mentioned earlier and not history or politics, but I do want to put this stuff on the reading list I use.

Thanks.

(btw - I keep slogging my way through different speed reading and speed learning methods, and I am getting better through sheer persistence, but it's still rough going for the amount of reading and studying I need to do. So I just take the time I need--even with recommended stuff.

Ironically, two really good things that have helped a lot have come from outside the courses. But the courses are still good, too.

The first was getting a free program called Balabolka, which reads text out loud. Whenever a work is boring or I have difficulty concentrating on it, if I can get a digitized version, which can be doc, html, txt, pdf, etc., I load it up in the program and follow the original text with my eyes while following the program with my ears. When I find my mind drifting, I pause the program and reread with my eyes over the last little bit. Then I continue with eyes and ears. I have been able to get through a lot of stuff I would not have otherwise by doing this.

The next was from my research into Scientology. They have a thing for improving studying. Although their purpose is not all Kosher, I found Hubbard's three points in his system very helpful if taken away from the Scientology context.

1. If you are reading and come across a word you don't understand, stop and look it up. It's a pain, but the cost of not doing it is high. Or if your mind starts drifting, stop and see if--earlier--you skimmed over a word you didn't understand. Skipping over a word you don't know the meaning of often triggers your mind to spin off into daydreaming and the next thing you know, you have read several paragraphs and can't remember a damn thing. Finding the word and looking it up cures that--at least it does for me.

2. Add many different referents to a concept. If you read about a new kind of tractor, look it up on the Internet or look at a magazine or whatever and try to see a picture of it. Best of all, try to find one and climb up into it. See if you can find out what it sounds like. Smells like. Feels like. Read about its uses and strengths and weaknesses. And so on. There's more to this idea, but the point is to get more information input into your brain about an idea than just the words of a definition. This has really helped me with highly technical stuff.

3. When you need to learn things sequentially, keep to the sequence instead of jumping ahead. I have been a major sinner in this respect over the years, so this has helped a lot in learning my Internet skills.

Hubbard's trick is to use Scientology dictionaries and concepts, so he indoctrinates people into the cult culture that way. But taken out into the real world, these three ideas helped me clear up some bad habits I had developed. Simple and elementary, but very effective.)

Michael

[Dennis Hardin]

You can't use reason to both establish and dis-establish the NIOF principle. I think Dennis started with NIOF as a given to be deconstructed. That's ass backwards. Sort of like climbing a mountain by climbing down the mountain. You can do that with a helicopter, just like Ben Bernacke, with much the same results at least in parallel.

--Brant

Dennis got himself all balled up in his discussion of the NIOF principle and its relationship to rights (in Rands approach). For example, he pointed out that the NIOF principle is not included in Rand's definition of a "right." This is true but irrelevant. The initiation of force is the method by which rights are violated, according to Rand, and it would be senseless to include the method of violation in the definition of a "right."

What Rand did do was to incorporate the notion of "freedom of action" in her definition of rights. She then said that rights define man's freedom of action in a social context. This means that we use rights to distinguish between the initiatory and retaliatory uses of force. Thus after we identify a given action as the initiation of force, we then condemn that action as a violation of rights.

Dennis said he agreed with this (having changed his mind from an earlier position), but he then ignored everything and went off on a tangent. He declared, in effect, that we first identify a rights violation and then call this the "initiation of force." This has everything ass-backward. It makes nonsense of Rand's basic point, because it leaves us no objective standard by which to identify a rights violation in the first place.

It was with good reason that Rand attempted to link fraud and breach of contract to the NIOF principle, by calling them "indirect" uses of force. (Herbert Spencer similarly called fraud and breach of contract "indirect aggression.") This was no idle exercise by Rand. It was an essential extension of her NIOF principle, as applied to situations that do not necessarily involve violence against individuals.

Ghs

Let me see if I got this right.

George says that we use rights to distinguish between the initiatory and retaliatory uses of force. We agree on that much. Then he says: “after we identify a given action as the initiation of force, we then condemn that action as a violation of rights.” In other words, we observe the initiation of force, and then conclude that rights have been violated. Force alone, it seems, according to George, is our "objective standard" for identifying a rights violation.

He contrasts this approach with my alleged misconception that “we first identify a rights violation and then call this the ‘initiation of force.’ “ If we do that, he says, we are left with “no objective standard by which to identify a rights violation in the first place..”

I’m feeling a bit light-headed, at this point. Shall we descend from the clouds and concretize what these two approaches mean in practice? I know that’s going to make life uncomfortable for George, but cognition tends to work much better if we actually know what the fuck we are talking about.

George’s scenario: Someone steals my wallet. That’s an initiation of force. George says: “we identify a given action as the initiation of force,and then we condemn that action as a violation of rights.” According to George, since stealing is an initiation of force, we can now condemn that act of stealing as a violation of rights.

Dennis’ scenario: We have identified, prior to the theft, that property is a right, because it is an objective requirement of human survival. Someone steals my wallet. Based on my principle that property is a right, we condemn the theft as an initiation of force.

Put even more simply:

George says: Stealing is an initiation of force, therefore stealing is a violation of rights.

Dennis says: Stealing is a violation of my right of property, therefore stealing is an initiation of force.

George correctly characterizes my position as that of maintaining that the delineation of rights comes first. His position, the best way I can make sense of it, is that the act of initiating force comes first. He seems to be arguing that, without force, we don’t know what our rights are. For him, acts of force serve as an “objective criteria” defining the meaning of rights. That is totally false and utterly contradictory to Objectivism.

Force is not the “objective standard” for rights. That standard is the objective requirements of human nature.

Now let’s look again at what Ayn Rand says.

. . .the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action—which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)

Thus, for every individual, a right is the moral sanction of a positive—of his freedom to act on his own judgment, for his own goals, by his own voluntary, uncoerced choice.

From “Man’s Rights”

Thus, for Ayn Rand, rights are not in any sense defined by the initiation of force. The objective criteria for defining rights are the objective requirements of human life and human nature. We determine when a rights’ violation has taken place by the standard of whether coercion has been used to interfere with the individual's exercise of his rights. The process of defining rights begins with a grasp of the requirements of human nature—not some random act of initiating force.

When George says: “Thus after we identify a given action as the initiation of force, we then condemn that action as a violation of rights”—he is the one who has it bass ackwards. We begin with an understanding of rights—and then define what constitutes a violation of such rights. Without a prior understanding of rights, we have no way of knowing what is or is not initiatory force. (This, of course, is why the typical libertarian's allegiance to the NIOF "principle"--out of context-- is hopelessly misguided and futile.)

And I will repeat the following one more time. (Who knows? Ghs might actually make an honest effort to grasp what Rand is saying some day.)

If a man has the right to his own life, then he has the right to take all those actions that are necessary, by his nature as a rational being, to sustain and protect it. In order to prove that a certain action is in fact a right, you have to prove that it is required by man’s nature.

Objectively Speaking, p. 47

The bottom line of all this, once again, is that the anarchist's wish-fulfillment theory of "private defense agencies" constitutes a threat to the objective control of force, and therefore amounts to an act of initiatory force. The government, consistent with its role of protecting individual rights, can therefore use retaliatory force to put a stop to such chicanery.

Note: It occurs to me that the radical misinterpretation of the Objectivist theory of individual rights manifest in George's above post may well be a key to understanding the whole wacky anarcho-capitalist syndrome. His bizarre viewpoint is the polar opposite to that of Ayn Rand. I hope to elaborate further on that hypothesis in the near future.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I think that where Michael is going with this is that, since the NIOF as used by Rothbard is a "middle axiom" derived from moral reasoning based on more fundamental premises, it should have some exceptions. In other words, he is assuming that a middle axiom should have at least some exceptions and that it is therefore a contradiction to assume both that something is a middle axiom and that it simultaneously has no exceptions. But I'm not sure what is the basis of this assumption. In mathematics, for example, a mathematical law derived from more fundamental laws, which are ultimately derived from the axioms of the mathematical system, is generally known as a theorem, to distinguish it from an axiom. A theorem is derivable from axioms or from other theorems ultimately derivable from axioms, whereas an axiom is a fundamental assumption not derivable from anything else. But a mathematical theorem is just as true as the axioms from which it is derived, and it no more has exceptions than a mathematical axiom.

Martin,

I based it on George's own observation in the post he made about middle axioms. (Reread it. You'll see that it is there.)

On substance, though, I disagree with you about treating principles of human behavior like principles of math. In order to claim no exceptions whatsoever on that basis, we would have to know all there is to know about humans. But in math, to posit a no-exception theorem, we are the ones who created the system. It's like making the rules of a game. We control it.

I agree that we can make no-exception tautologies about identifying human behavior. We can say you can't initiate force without initiating force. And there are no exceptions to that.

But to claim that NIOF is the source of human rights and there are no exceptions is just plain arbitrary to me. Observation doesn't validate this (like say with the fundamental axioms).

When you derive rights from a random observation about human behavior (that force can be initiated or retaliatory) and add an equally random value judgement to it (that one is good and the other is bad), I could just as easily say that humans walk upright or they crawl to move over land and walking is good while crawling is bad, thus all our rights derive from walking upright. No exceptions. Or to take this to the social level, humans communicate by initiating words and responding with words, and responding is good and initiating is bad, so all our rights derive from not initiating communication with words.

The observation has no exceptions due to the tautological nature of identification (force can be divided into initiatory and retaliatory and they are what they are), but the value judgment (retaliatory is good and initiatory is bad) has no metaphysical basis for claiming no exceptions. Or even why one is good and the other bad, to be frank.

It's just an affirmation.

To accept that manner of metaphysical reasoning as valid, I might as well obey the orders of a dictator, or the dictates of my own heart, or the way I interpret coffee grounds that fall out of a percolator, as the basis for my actions and claim there are no valid exceptions.

I want to be clear on something. Even though I support minimum government, I dislike it intensely.

My initial dislike of government is based on not liking people telling me what to do, not anything about initiating force. My affirmation is nobody is going to boss me around without a fight. To make that universal, though, I realize I need to take into account that some people are not good guys like I am. So I need to do more thorough identification to evaluate government in general.

I use the system of identifying something correctly in order to evaluate it correctly. Using that premise, you can't mitigate government or (in the anarcho-capitalist utopia) eliminate it altogether without basing reason on human nature. You can't base it on a simple affirmation about what should be because someone thinks this is good or someone says so.

When you do that, you lose the intellectual argument to the statists by default. They, at least, can point to human history and say man has a tribal component in his nature and observation backs them up. They can claim you ignore this when using NIOF as the fundamental idea from which all others about rights and government are derived. And that observation is correct.

Until the logic can tie to reality, i.e., to what exists as it exists, you will never get to what should be and have a minimum chance of it happening. But you will get a lot of discussion with a vast amount of noise, little signal, and hardly any practical results. I observe this is exactly what happens.

Michael

[George H. Smith]

I think that where Michael is going with this is that, since the NIOF as used by Rothbard is a "middle axiom" derived from moral reasoning based on more fundamental premises, it should have some exceptions. In other words, he is assuming that a middle axiom should have at least some exceptions and that it is therefore a contradiction to assume both that something is a middle axiom and that it simultaneously has no exceptions. But I'm not sure what is the basis of this assumption. In mathematics, for example, a mathematical law derived from more fundamental laws, which are ultimately derived from the axioms of the mathematical system, is generally known as a theorem, to distinguish it from an axiom. A theorem is derivable from axioms or from other theorems ultimately derivable from axioms, whereas an axiom is a fundamental assumption not derivable from anything else. But a mathematical theorem is just as true as the axioms from which it is derived, and it no more has exceptions than a mathematical axiom.

Martin, I based it on George's own observation in the post he made about middle axioms. (Reread it. You'll see that it is there.) ....

I said no such thing.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

You can't use reason to both establish and dis-establish the NIOF principle. I think Dennis started with NIOF as a given to be deconstructed. That's ass backwards. Sort of like climbing a mountain by climbing down the mountain. You can do that with a helicopter, just like Ben Bernacke, with much the same results at least in parallel.

--Brant

Dennis got himself all balled up in his discussion of the NIOF principle and its relationship to rights (in Rands approach). For example, he pointed out that the NIOF principle is not included in Rand's definition of a "right." This is true but irrelevant. The initiation of force is the method by which rights are violated, according to Rand, and it would be senseless to include the method of violation in the definition of a "right."

What Rand did do was to incorporate the notion of "freedom of action" in her definition of rights. She then said that rights define man's freedom of action in a social context. This means that we use rights to distinguish between the initiatory and retaliatory uses of force. Thus after we identify a given action as the initiation of force, we then condemn that action as a violation of rights.

Dennis said he agreed with this (having changed his mind from an earlier position), but he then ignored everything and went off on a tangent. He declared, in effect, that we first identify a rights violation and then call this the "initiation of force." This has everything ass-backward. It makes nonsense of Rand's basic point, because it leaves us no objective standard by which to identify a rights violation in the first place.

It was with good reason that Rand attempted to link fraud and breach of contract to the NIOF principle, by calling them "indirect" uses of force. (Herbert Spencer similarly called fraud and breach of contract "indirect aggression.") This was no idle exercise by Rand. It was an essential extension of her NIOF principle, as applied to situations that do not necessarily involve violence against individuals.

Ghs

Let me see if I got this right.

George says that we use rights to distinguish between the initiatory and retaliatory uses of force. We agree on that much. Then he says: “after we identify a given action as the initiation of force, we then condemn that action as a violation of rights.” In other words, we observe the initiation of force, and then conclude that rights have been violated. Force alone, it seems, according to George, is our "objective standard" for identifying a rights violation.

He contrasts this approach with my alleged misconception that “we first identify a rights violation and then call this the ‘initiation of force.’ “ If we do that, he says, we are left with “no objective standard by which to identify a rights violation in the first place..”

I’m feeling a bit light-headed, at this point. Shall we descend from the clouds and concretize what these two approaches mean in practice? I know that’s going to make life uncomfortable for George, but cognition tends to work much better if we actually know what the fuck we are talking about.

George’s scenario: Someone steals my wallet. That’s an initiation of force. George says: “we identify a given action as the initiation of force,and then we condemn that action as a violation of rights.” According to George, since stealing is an initiation of force, we can now condemn that act of stealing as a violation of rights.

Dennis’ scenario: We have identified, prior to the theft, that property is a right, because it is an objective requirement of human survival. Someone steals my wallet. Based on my principle that property is a right, we condemn the theft as an initiation of force.

Yes, we know that property is a right prior to the theft. This is a general principle. But we don't know, prior to a specific action, whether that action constitutes a violation of property rights until after we identify it as an initiation of force.

You phrased your example as follows: "Someone steals my wallet." This already tells us that the initiation of force was involved, since it is your wallet and someone stole it;. i.e., someone took it without your permission. This is what it means to "steal" something.

Suppose, however, that we don't know anything about the wallet, and we simply say "Someone acquired a wallet." Okay, did this entail a violation of someone's rights? We don't know, and we cannot know until we know the specifics. Acquiring a wallet per se is not a violation of rights. Only if we know that the guy stole the wallet -- i.e., only if we know that he initiated force against the rightful owner of the wallet -- can we say that a right has been violated. This is what Rand meant when she said that rights define man's freedom of action in a social context.

Force is not the “objective standard” for rights. That standard is the objective requirements of human nature.

I never said that force is the objective standard for rights. I never said anything like this, and neither did Rand. I said that the initiation of force is the standard by which we identify the violation of rights. This is merely a restatement of Rand's view.

I strongly suggest that you do something about your light-headedness before posting anything else. It has seriously clouded your thinking.

[Brant Gaede]

A right from the perspective of a person is a positive. From the perspective of law it is a negative. Or, I have a right to do this or that and you don't have a right to initiate force. The law can only see that negative regarding a wrong action. A person sees both. That's because the law is not a positive actor. The law itself has no rights and the right to retaliatory force basically resides in a person delegated to a third party. That retaliatory right is a positive respecting action respecting a negative. Before acting a person must ID the fact of whether it is a right action--positive--or a wrong action--negative, respecting the law and not respecting what he can get away with. Or, would I be initiating force to do this? Then, does the law say I'd be initiating force to do this? I don't see it on the list of crimes, but it may be wrong regardless so I must figure if it's a right action regardless. Relative to action there are a delimited number of wrongs in the law or not. Relative to rights there are so many possibilities it makes no sense to focus on the positive to determine right or wrong for what, for instance, is right for a sociopath or psychopath is not necessarily objectively right which is in society laid out by law. However, in the context of rights there are so many choices I must make the best choice which in itself is something of an ethical issue apart from any legality. That's all positive looking for the best positive. The law looks not for the best positive.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I said no such thing.

George,

Well then you didn't. Be happy.

I'm tired of this kind of crap.

Michael

[Dglgmut]

If the initiation of force always = violating a person's rights--and vice versa, then it seems redundant to label something an initiation of force in order to determine whether or not that action violates someone's rights.

Anyway, I think the psychology of collectivists is the real problem. People willing to be lead without putting in enough effort to decide for themselves whether it's a cause they really like or not...

Politics may not even be an issue; once more people adopt a more realistic philosophy and are not as willing to be lead, we will see less of the problems that arise from collectivism.

I think the Randian government, though, deals with a contradiction: that people are rational enough to have that sort of government (and to set it up with provisions for the people to decide whether or not they want to fund it) and yet they still need a government that prohibits anyone from protecting their own rights or setting up a protection agency.

[George H. Smith]

I said no such thing.

George, Well then you didn't. Be happy. I'm tired of this kind of crap. Michael

The next time you insist that I said something that I claim I never said, at least have the courtesy to quote the passage in question. It is a sleazy tactic to make an allegation without citing specific evidence. I am tired of this crap as well.

Ghs

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

George,

Sleazy, my hind end.

I already quoted it once. How many times do you want to be quoted? Try reading for a change.

You could of at least asked before shooting your mouth off. I think shooting your mouth off to intimidate is sleazy. But if you want to imitate Lindsay Perigo, if he's your role model, go right ahead. You keep doing a good job of that on this thread.

The crap I'm tired of is you always going to "I said you said--he didn't say they didn't say" with a nasty attitude every time we get near the foundation.

If you don't want clarification or to discuss the real issue, no problem.

Like I said, I'm happy to work out these ideas elsewhere. This tactic of yours goes nowhere and it constantly wastes my productive time.

I don't give a crap about defending personal vanities in this topic. The ideas under examination is the important stuff to me.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

George, I'll have to check the quotes of David Kelley and Chris Sciabarra that Dennis provided and see who they were referring to. I remember Rothbard being mentioned. Gotta do this later today. Michael

Murray sometimes spoke of the "axiom" of nonaggression, but he didn't mean what you mean by "axiom." He meant what Francis Bacon called a "middle axiom." The is a mid-level principle, justified by reason, that is employed as the fundamental principle of a specific cognitive discipline.

For Murray, nonaggression is the "axiom" of libertarianism in the sense that it is the common principle on which all libertarians agree. It thereby establishes the framework for higher-level libertarian theory, but it is not some kind of self-evident or primary principle in moral philosophy.

You should always keep context in mind. When one libertarian argues with another libertarian, it is not necessary, in this context, for either to justify the nonaggression principle. This is not necessay, in this context, because both libertarians already agree with the principle. And this common ground -- or middle axiom -- permits them to explore more complicated problems, such as those that arise in legal theory.

This is how theories progress -- in stages, as general principles are established and agreed upon, and as these general principles are then applied to specific problems.

Do general principles sometimes admit exceptions? Yes, of course. But once a general principle has been agreed upon, the burden of proof falls upon the person who posits the exception. It is his responsibility to demonstrate why a general principle that he himself accepts does not apply to a particular case. This requires that he specify criteria by which legitimate exceptions can be identified.

Ghs

For what this is worth to whom.

--Brant

[George H. Smith]

George, Sleazy, my hind end. I already quoted it once. How many times do you want to be quoted? Try reading for a change. You could of at least asked before shooting your mouth off. I think shooting your mouth off to intimidate is sleazy. But if you want to imitate Lindsay Perigo, if he's your role model, go right ahead. You keep doing a good job of that on this thread. The crap I'm tired of is you always going to "I said you said--he didn't say they didn't say" with a nasty attitude every time we get near the foundation. If you don't want clarification or to discuss the real issue, no problem. Like I said, I'm happy to work out these ideas elsewhere. This tactic of yours goes nowhere and it constantly wastes my productive time. I don't give a crap about defending personal vanities in this topic. The ideas under examination is the important stuff to me. Michael

No, you didn't quote the passage. You merely mentioned an earlier post by me, without give a number or a link. I wrote a number of posts on the issue under consideration. I suppose you expect me to scroll through dozens of old posts and guess what you were talking about.

This problem can easily be solved. Quote the passage now. Or at least link the post that you were referring to.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Michael,

Brant just quoted a post by me that includes this line:

Do general principles sometimes admit exceptions? Yes, of course.

Is this the line you were thinking of? If so, please note that I said sometimes, i.e., not in every case. This depends on the type of general principle we are talking about.

Ghs

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

This problem can easily be solved. Quote the passage now. Or at least link the post that you were referring to.

George,

I quoted it in this post. And that post has links to the original one.

Now, instead of me doing what I have said I want to do, which is something or other back when I said I would provide the Kelley and Sciabarra quotes (damn damn damn--I'm going to have to look that up to remember because it got lost in all the crap), and reading your essay on war, I'm wasting my time on your attitudes and some weird-ass chip on your shoulder.

I have to re-prioritize my time and what I discuss if I intend to get my stuff done. You are free, of course, to continue on as you are doing.

In fact, it occurs to me that my participation might be wasting your time, too. You need to be writing your good stuff.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Do general principles sometimes admit exceptions? Yes, of course.

Is this the line you were thinking of? If so, please note that I said sometimes, i.e., not in every case. This depends on the type of general principle we are talking about.

In other words, you meant to say, "Do some general principles admit exceptions?"

That's not what I understood.

I understood, "General principles sometimes admit exceptions." Meaning that all general principles admit exceptions sometimes (not "all" as in fundamental axiom "all," instead, "middle axiom" kind of general principles were the ones we were talking about).

That's a reasonable interpretation of your words.

Be that as it may, I have been discussing this at length for some time with you and I got the phrase from you.

Michael

[George H. Smith]

George,

I quoted it in this post. And that post has links to the original one.

Yes, you quoted me in that post, but that post contains no reference to a comment you later made, to wit:

I just can't understand how something can have exceptions and not have exceptions at the same time. Not on fundamentals. Philosophy to me isn't a game of "eeny, meeny, miny, moe".

I had no idea what you were referring to here, since your conclusion obviously doesn't follow from my remark: "Do general principles sometimes admit exceptions? Yes, of course." I never imagined that anyone could construe this remark as you did, so I figured you were thinking of something else..

Ghs

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I never imagined that anyone could construe this remark as you did...

This is obviously because I, and anyone else who understood as I did, are cognitively deficient.

Michael

[George H. Smith]

Do general principles sometimes admit exceptions? Yes, of course.

Is this the line you were thinking of? If so, please note that I said sometimes, i.e., not in every case. This depends on the type of general principle we are talking about.

In other words, you meant to say, "Do some general principles admit exceptions?"

That's not what I understood.

I understood, "General principles sometimes admit exceptions." Meaning that all general principles admit exceptions sometimes (not "all" as in fundamental axiom "all," instead, "middle axiom" kind of general principles were the ones we were talking about).

That's a reasonable interpretation of your words.

Be that as it may, I have been discussing this at length for some time with you and I got the phrase from you.

Michael

That is not a reasonable interpretation at all.

Consider my words: "Do general principles sometimes admit exceptions? Yes, of couse."

Here is a parallel: "Do people sometimes commit murder? Yes, of course."

Would you take this to mean that all people commit murder, sometimes? Of course not.

If I had wished to say what you attributed to me, I would have said: "Do general principles admit exceptions? Yes, of course." There would have been no reason to add "sometimes."

In any case, I said yesterday that you must have misunderstood my meaning. But you stuck to your guns. Instead of conceding that this might have happened and asking me what I meant, you repeated the error this morning. This is inconsiderate, at the very least.

Ghs

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