Big FREEDOM! Stuff > The Philosophy of Freedom/Libertarianism/Doctrine of free will
Moral Theory of Non-aggression
Mike26:
"People have long used punishment as an excuse to violate others in order to control them. When someone seeks punishment, they are not seeking justice. Punishment is merely violence with a bad excuse. The threat of punishment is governments’ primary motivator. Governments cannot threaten us with justice. The purpose of punishment is to induce suffering so the threat of suffering can be used to control us."
Adam Kokesh in his book Freedom
Magnaniman:
Yes, those seeking power exploit legitimate needs in order to gain that power. However, that does not refute anything I said.
Say that you're living in a completely free society where people generally try to adhere to the NAP as closely as possible. One day, a cold-blooded murder is committed and the victim was unable to successfully defend him or herself. What happens next?
One day, a drunk driver hits another car with a family in it, kills the father and one of the kids, the other kid is paralyzed from the waist down, and the other father (it's a gay family) loses an eye. All video evidence shows that it was the drunk driver's fault, by any objective standard. The drunk driver refuses to voluntarily help the survivors in any way. What happens next?
FreedomIsOurDestiny:
--- Quote from: Magnaniman on June 21, 2016, 11:21:17 PM ---Yes, those seeking power exploit legitimate needs in order to gain that power. However, that does not refute anything I said.
Say that you're living in a completely free society where people generally try to adhere to the NAP as closely as possible. One day, a cold-blooded murder is committed and the victim was unable to successfully defend him or herself. What happens next?
One day, a drunk driver hits another car with a family in it, kills the father and one of the kids, the other kid is paralyzed from the waist down, and the other father (it's a gay family) loses an eye. All video evidence shows that it was the drunk driver's fault, by any objective standard. The drunk driver refuses to voluntarily help the survivors in any way. What happens next?
--- End quote ---
I love the questions you pose and points you bring up. It really gets me to step back and think critically. At this stage in our evolution I do not think we have the wisdom to be able to answer that. I believe we will gain that wisdom allowing us to handle these situations according to NAP. Anything that we say now would be more theory. This doesn't mean I am copping out, I will offer a theory and accept that it may be flawed.
The victim's rights were infringed upon, and as such has the right to be made whole. Violence and incarceration would not make the victim whole, it would just create another victim. Since these offenders are not voluntarily following with the appropriate actions to make their victims whole, they are still infringing on the victim's rights. The victim(s) are justified in taking action to be made whole and/or compensated. The next step would be to determine what would be proper compensation to the victim.
I think this would be the stage where the two hypotheticals would begin. The local community would be very aware of what had happened and cease trade and communication with and deny right of passage on their property to the offender. This would not be obligated, but in not doing so may be deemed a violation of the victim's rights, thus bringing a potential claim against them. Essentially, the offender would be ostracized and any attempt to leave their property would be considered an act of aggression. Of course, if the offender is totally self sufficient, it could remain at this state for the rest of their life. Total social isolation is crippling to a human and I don't see that happening, but if it did the victim or victim's heirs would still have the right to compensation which would come from the property left behind by the offender.
That was very difficult to write because there are so many possibilities in regards to different courses of action the involved parties could take, but at every point the NAP would need to be adhered to. Anytime that principle is violated, a victim would have a claim to be made whole. By claiming the right to own yourself, you must respect that right in everyone else in order for the first clause to be true.
Magnaniman:
Yes, these are very difficult questions to answer. It's all well and good to talk about how things might work when everything is operating perfectly, but the real test comes when dealing with non-ideal situations.
Really, though, this is an extreme tangent. I've been trying to make the point that people are responsible for their actions, both good, like in the case of acquiring property, and bad, such as harming someone else. You simply cannot allow people to freely benefit from all of the positive aspects of personal independence while not holding them accountable for the negative repercussions of their actions as well. Of course, this was all to make the point that having children, which is an act that makes someone helpless, creates an obligation to those children on the grounds that you are responsible for their helpless state. Apparently, though, I have to prove that personal accountability is a necessary aspect of personal freedom and that some degree of enforcement is necessary for those that refuse accountability for their actions.
When someone breaches a contract and refuses to abide by the terms stipulated in the event of a breach, it can be pretty simple. Like Freedestiny said, others may continue to do business with the breacher or not, depending on whether they thought the contract was fair to begin with. Perhaps they'll continue to do business with that person, but add a premium that will go towards compensating the victim of the breach. Easy. There are lots of measures that can be taken.
It becomes more difficult when talking about about more egregious offenses. Some of the same types of measures that work with contract violations might work in some cases, but, in others, they simply won't work. In the case of murder, refusing to take action afterwards just encourages vigilantism and more murder. Person A murders someone, most of the rest of the community feels that the NAP prevents them from taking action, so Person B, the victim's sister, murders Person A. Since the community doesn't do anything about murder, nothing happens to her, either. So Person C, Person A's uncle, murders Person B... and so it goes.
There must be a mechanism for dealing with egregious violations of the NAP, most especially when the violation is carried out successfully and your community is dealing with the aftermath. Every community might choose to deal with them in different ways, but the fact remains that they must be dealt with or you will be fostering an environment conducive to cyclical systems of reprisal violence. It would be akin to South Park where people just scream "It's coming right for me!" before they kill whomever they please.
EDIT: I have some ideas here, but, first, we need to agree that they are necessary. If I don't have everyone on board, I can come up with more, increasingly heinous situations...
EDIT 2: I don't think that creating an embargo around a murder's house, waiting for him to try to leave so that you can shoot him is very constructive. If that's the plan, you might as well just shoot him in the first place and save everyone some time. Coming up with some ridiculous justification so that you can try to frame a reprisal killing as self defense is entirely self-defeating and wastes resources.
FreedomIsOurDestiny:
Regarding edit 2, I agree that if the goal were to just shoot him why not just do it at the onset - which would be an obvious violation of nap. I think it would be a good exercise to address each hypothetical in order to create a guidebook to help people follow in the future, which would be added to as actual cases are recorded (as factually possible). There are so many variables involved including who the actors in the original act were, as well as the extended community. The embargo may only be for a temporary house arrest situation to get an active dispute resolution team in place. Retribution can be forced property seizure and the murderer may be deemed to dangerous for society.
Essentially, we would need to attempt to put together hypothetical guidelines to help each other apply to the numerous situations that could potentially rise, which would probably be multiple sources. I do feel that when people collaborate when all have a strong conviction to following NAP, group think will not devolve to lynching, but rather find a reasonable resolution to any problem that arises.
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