[favh]

(Original post by Adorno)
Anyone care to explain the following? It's from our join requests list:

JakePearson 2 Days Ago 19:41 LABOUR ARE AWESOME

Does the Libertarian Party condone its MPs attempting to join other parties?

We're only conducting a long march through the institutions of power. Surely you couldn't object to that?

[Rhadamanthus]

As I say, I was TSRaped. Not much you can do really.

[Adorno]

(Original post by JakePearson)
As I say, I was TSRaped. Not much you can do really.

Said raper must be particularly familiar with how this place works then? It's not really intuitive as to where you go to join groups.

[paperclip]

(Original post by JakePearson)
As I say, I was TSRaped. Not much you can do really.

You must have some really bloody sad mates. But i shall reject you in a sec then.

And there was me thinking we had even more libertarians seeing the light

(Just incase you hadn't realised, he applied to the socialists with 'Socialism is the way forward!' too)

[Lord Hysteria]

(Original post by Adorno)
Said raper must be particularly familiar with how this place works then? It's not really intuitive as to where you go to join groups.

What is the big deal?

You have, presumably, cancelled the application ... so ...

[paperclip]

(Original post by Lord Hysteria)
What is the big deal?

You have, presumably, cancelled the application ... so ...

Well, it does get rather tedious when right wingers repeatedly attempt to join your party for a laugh.

[Rhadamanthus]

(Original post by Adorno)
Said raper must be particularly familiar with how this place works then? It's not really intuitive as to where you go to join groups.

Yeah, they're a member too - albeit they don't post that often.

[ByronicHero]

They didn't apply to UKIP

[Lord Hysteria]

(Original post by Melancholy)
This really isn't sound reasoning to support legitimisation. You've introduced property rights for prudential reasons, not because they are justified in themselves.

Let's use your reasoning in another way. I believe in natural rights. The right to life, which is the basis of our survival and continued existence is, I think, the only place to start. But such a right seems futile and pointless if it can't be meaningfully implemented. This is where the right to sustenance arises. (Indeed, the right to sustenance is arguably a better "basis of our survival and continued existence" ).

There is no "proof" for natural rights, anymore than one can prove God. It depends on what you believe man's values are in the "state of nature". I believe a person has the right to life, and by extension the right to property and liberty. This is where I have to coin the term "the human identity". A certain universal set of definitions that define man in a 'state of nature'.

But regardless of that, you still have to justify natural rights. Now I could possibly accept the right to self-ownership as being a trivially true natural right. However, in order to convert your right to your own talents and labour and body into property, you need a system of property rights to be authoritative. You can't just say, "Screw whoever will be disadvantaged, I'm implementing an absolute system property rights". I don't mind allowing property rights, but only so long as the system which is created is, loosely, justified to all as part of some form of social-contract. With property rights comes moral obligations (and I think John Rawls plausibly argues that case). However, regardless of my position, I merely need to say that your position is simply not sound.

I don't understand the moral obligation point. I should be obliged to feel sorry (the basis for such an obligation) for having made use of property to further my life, to other people, simply by virtue of their existence? I think you'll have to explain how this is moral!

You're also wrong to imply that a Libertarian theory of entitlement is entailed by a 'right to life'. It isn't. People have a 'right to life' in societies which are taxed.

I do like how you declare "it is wrong ....", as if there is some mystical universal code from which you derived it! Perhaps, it was your Christianity.

As above. You can own your own labour, but you really need to justify property rights, in themselves, in order to grant full entitlement over the property which you accrue. I think you'd benefit from reading Cohen's article. It surely is an affront on negative liberty to exclude others from the land of a previously unfree earth. Now I accept the need for property rights, but you can't just grant it for prudential reasons which only benefit the talent-endowed and the most advantaged. I think you really ought to consult a social contract in order to (a) grant property rights, but also (b) discuss how the basic structures of society ought to be arranged (and in taxation can be sneaked in).

What is labour with property? You say I can own my own labour. So, if I pick up a piece of marble and carve a statue, should I own the final statue? According to you, I should divide it up equally to everyone person in the world and they own a piece of it. They own it simple because they exist. They don't need to have been disadvantaged or talent-stricken at all. What is the point of my owning labour, if I don't own the product of that labour? A person has to work and produce in order to support his life. If you say the produce of his work are owned by others, then by extension he is owned by another man.

In which case you deny self-ownership and inheritance. Perhaps you'd like to rephrase your objection?

You took that sentence out-of-context. I was referring to property rights.

*Obviously*, having spoken about natural rights, I'm hardly going to claim now that man has no right to self-ownership! Come on!

No, I don't agree that he necessarily has full ownership over that statue. Sure, if he sells it, I wouldn't mind giving him most the money of that sale. He has productively used his labour for the benefit of society; but to imply full ownership is to imply that a system of absolute property rights is authoritative, which in turn implies that the system is justified. I don't think it's justified without some appeal to a social contract in which taxation would be permitted.

You think he created the statue to "benefit society"? Lol. Do you actually think that I (or anyone else) creates goods 'to benefit society'? The person that created that statue did so to improve his life by earning some money. The 'improving society' bit is the un-intended by-product. Do you think the guy who sells burgers on a Saturday night near a club does so 'to benefit society'? Or perhaps the hairdresser I go to occasionally?

What does it actually mean to be 'degrading of human identity'? I think you're fluffing up your answer with poetic nonsense, personally. Using my reasoning, nobody owns a piece of the statue without any appeal to a social contract. You haven't justified the homestead principle in which property is gained (and I don't blame you! It's a weak justification that anybody who happens to step on a piece of land first, then starts to labour on it, can exclude other people from entering the land).

To degrading means to lower. The 'human identity' are the values that define the every man. Since my post has been referring to the right to life, liberty and property, it probably is an extension of those as the 'human identity'. My language was probably too poetic for you .

In my opinion, the statue is the product of a man's labour. If he is to fully own his labour, then he must own the fruits of that labour. I don't believe another human being can claim ownership of that, otherwise that would claim ownership over the man - which is of course immoral, I hope you agree with that.

I don't really see why a person can't go into an used field and pick an apple. According to you, he owes something to society for the mere act of sustaining his life! I don't really see the difference between that and pieces of land that are unused. In any case, it really doesn't bother me. The homestead principle is very rare (if non-existent now due to the population boom) and most people are involved in economic actions necessary to earn property and maintain his life.

Of course not, but no reasonable political philosopher makes that case - so you're merely shooting down a straw man argument. What they're probably saying (and what you're probably misunderstanding) is that if property rights have originally been stolen and passed on, then how does the next generation have any entitlement to that property. If someone stole your car and passed it on to their children, would they be entitled to that property? Repeat the process of passing the car onto the children ad infinitum, and you'll see that none of their labour or energy or land (or whatever) went into making that car. This is different from saying that property rights ought not to exist purely because some property gets stolen. It's merely saying that people's entitlement to their current inheritance is historically questionable.

This all stems from whether you think a man's labour (and by extension, his life) can be owned by another. If so, then the owner (society) is a victim of theft from the slave. That is the slave keeping some of his produce to himself. As you have gathered, I don't accept that position morally, philosophically or politically. I also don't see anything wrong regarding inheritance and think it's immoral to tax it.

This, again, all assumes that property rights are sound, per se, in the first place, which I don't think any philosopher has plausibly justified.

I have justified them. I have not 'proven' them simply because I can't.

1. If I step on "your" piece of land, then property rights allow for the State to use force to remove me.
2. If the State uses force to remove me, then my negative liberty not to be harmed (when I haven't infringed any of your rights) has been interfered with.
3. Therefore, property rights (if not an infringement on your rights) entails an infringement on people's negative liberty not to be harmed.

People have a right not to be harmed? Lol?

Seriously though, if a person deprives me of my natural rights, then he/she forfeits their natural rights. Thus, we can imprison them etc ...

I'm confused; I see no coherent argument here.

If people should deal with property as they see fit and nobody has a right to a piece of it, then presumably I can go and steal your car and that would be morally akin to you owning the car?

You can, but you'd be depriving me of my property I have gained through property rights. It is as immoral as someone depriving me of my liberty ...

You seem to have accepted murder laws out of reluctance? The State legislates on your life (e.g. through murder laws) because you have no choice but to do so?

No. I said "I accept the legislation on murder on a pragmatic level and philosophical level".

I am not reluctant to accept murder laws! I embrace them.

Expand. What does this mean? Why can't you accept taxation (as you do for murder) for those reasons?

Laws regarding murder seek to protect and preserve natural rights - namely, right to life. Anything that protects natural rights is justified as the role of the state. A state's role is to protect rights - that is all. Taxation is the appropriation of property by another man because he owns it. A government should protect property rights and not violate them.

This is a tasty bit of metaphysics. What is natural? So death is 'not natural'? It is 'an error' insofar as it involves an unintended malfunctioning of the body. To call it 'an error', in your words, invokes a normative judgement on what ought to be natural (i.e. surviving ought to be deemed natural, even when it does not naturally occur). By your reasoning, it is just as natural for a cancer (whereby cells are determined to be corrupted through a natural process in which humans do not intervene) to grow exponentially as it for it to be healed through artificial man-made drugs (i.e. both are unnatural - or perhaps the latter is more natural under your view). I think you're using a misleading and corrupt interpretation/definition of 'natural', tbh.

Of course death is natural. It is one of the most definite things in the world. Cancer (at least the 'internal' types) is a malfunction of the body's design. Therefore, it isn't a 'natural' consequence. I also don't follow your cancer growing exponentially and drugs or how referring me to thefreedictionary helps. It is natural for drugs to help and even remove the cancer because that is their function.

I agree with the conclusion that 'what is natural need not be moral), but I disagree with your argument. You're saying that what is natural ought not to be what is moral purely because we lack sufficient information to know what is natural. All that argument does is leave open the possibility that what is moral might be what is natural, but we just can never know it to be the case. I think that is a weak argument compared to other arguments which demonstrate that, intuitively, not everything which is natural ought to be what is moral. An earthquake may be natural, but I wouldn't describe it as "moral". On the other side of the coin, I wouldn't describe condoms as necessarily 'immoral'.

I am confused.

I wouldn't describe an earthquake or condoms as moral either simply because it is a contradiction of terms. Only an entity that can make a choice can described as moral or immoral. Earthquake & condoms don't make choices.

What I am saying is that deriving a body of morals based on our subjective emotionally-connected fallible senses isn't based on reason.

No.

I said:

You may be right to talk about morality of an individual having a robust relationship to his intentions, but this is frankly irrelevant. Whether or not you are forced to donate to charity, your intention to donate is not changed. But this is a different area of normative philosophy. When I'm talking about what ought to be the case, I'm talking of precisely that - not whether people truly need to have a good, ethical, virtuous, decent-intention-driven character in order to be, personally, moral. I'm saying what their moral duties are, not whether they fulfil those duties in good-spirit.

This means:

You probably ought to judge how moral a person is by his intentions. Legislation can never make a person more or less moral because his intentions, rather than his actions, determine whether a person is moral. This isn't relevant though. Whether or not morality is judged by intentions, that doesn't mean that we should leave the decision of whether murder ought to be legitimate to the conscience of individuals. They have a moral obligation not to murder others. I don't care if they are moral beings or not. I care not for their intentions. I care about how society ought to be run - which is an entirely different topic.

Why do you insist on picking the most morally-questionable subject - murder? I have never said that 'murder laws' are wrong or something. As it so happens, the House of Lords has been changing its mind for the last hundred years on the legality of this point. Unfortunately, you paint a black-and-white image. What if a mother killed another to save her baby boy? According to you, her intentions (and state of mind) is irrelevant. She killed X and must suffer. I, on the other hand, think a person's intentions have some part in defining the morality of the action. That woman might have the defence of provocation and maybe given a manslaughter charge. In your world, she should be locked up for putting a greater value on her son.

No-one is suggesting that "murder ought to be legitimate". Nobody is making it morally acceptable. What I am saying is that a person's mental status must be taken into account to award criminal blame. You also have to look beyond murder.

'Pleases me' is often a codeword for 'it gives me pleasure' which is trivially synonymous to 'feeling good'. If that is the only reason for giving, then I don't think it's a moral reason for giving to charity. Blocking out emotion and doing it because it's good in itself - with reverence to a moral law/obligation, independent of emotion - is the only moral way to commit an act. You can do virtuous acts gladly, but it's not moral by virtue of doing it gladly. I might be too lazy to wash the car - but I do it. I may actually want to wash the car, but the morally relevant factor is the intention - was it out of non-emotion-driven reverence to a moral law, or was it because I solely wanted to feel good?

I am not sure whether washing the car amounts to a moral act. Isn't it just a personal preference as to how you maintain your property? Is there a 'right' or 'wrong' system of codes to washing cars. I don't know, as I don't own one.

In any case, I am baffled as to why someone would give money to charity if not through a desire to do 'good'. Isn't that the reason charity exists? Because we are compassionate beings and feel the desire to want to help a disadvantaged person? Is it 'wrong' to derive a pleasure from helping a fellow human being and making his life easier? I think it's distasteful if someone says to me, "oh, I give to charity because I must". In fact, I'd think there is something fundamentally wrong with the person. This is the great problem with religious charity! It's done because God says we must! That means that we (as humans) have no desire to help one another. That seems like a horrible world.

It's not his blog, it's an Oxford PPE student's blog which contains his argument. This doesn't counter his argument. He's countering the objection that all acts are egotistical. If he provides one counter-example, then he suffices in demolishing that objection (it is a proof by counter-example). Until you deal with his argument, rather than making up your own scenario, then you haven't got to grips with his argument.

That is what I did. I have shown how acts relating and involving loved ones in life isn't selfish. The reason is that that person is one of your greatest values. Therefore, you treat him in the same way as you treat yourself. Thus, you're not selfish with respect to your children. So the point about "all acts are egotistical" isn't true at all.

It is Schopenhauer's moral philosophy that links 'love' to morality. I think Kant's interpretation is correct. How can it ever be moral to do something purely because you were going to do it anyway? What's unique and virtuous about that? I don't mind people enjoying the fact that they do moral acts, but it must be moral purely because you're intentionally following a moral law - and you'd do that act regardless of whether you derived pleasure from it or not.

I agree with you that deriving pleasure from doing something is rather irrelevant to the matter. You do X because you want to and as long as it doesn't hinder another person's rights. It is immoral to do an act if you put the interests and desires of another human being above your own. In essence, to enslave oneself. Whether it makes you happy is a by-product.

I think you're missing the point of my argument if you don't even know why I've brought up the subject of murder. You're saying that it devalues human identity (or whatever other loaded expression you use) if we force people to act morally. We force people to act morally by punishing them for immorally killing people (e.g. murder). Therefore murder laws 'devalue human identity'. I think that's a ridiculous conclusion, and so consequently your argument must be absurd!

I never said the human identity is subject to "forcing people to act morally".

What I said is that it is contrary to the human identity to commit an act because the interests of other people are greater than yours. So, if you make a statue (which is where I said that poetic line) it is immoral to give a piece of it away, because a stranger's desires are greater than yours.

Incidentally, you asserted that it is ridiculous and absurd that "murder laws 'devalue human identity'" and I am saying that murder laws preserve the human identity.

And where is the difference, precisely? Is it not because it's 'immoral' to deprive you of your natural rights (by which I mean self-ownership). I accept that the State ought to intervene when something that is immoral (like this) occurs. I don't see it as devaluing human identity to get the State involved when an injustice occurs. I think it's a silly argument to make - and God knows what that phrase ('devaluing human identity) actually means!

I have already made it clear, for the umpteenth time, that a State should intervene in murder to "preserve the human identity". What I said is that ownership of another man's property, simply through your existence and none of your labour, is "devaluing the human identity". That is because the state should seek, as far as possible, to protect property rights - not violate them.

This is a problematic argument. Ownership is entirely contingent on the type of system of property rights (and theory of entitlement) under which a society operates. By your argument, the government of the Soviet Union was entitled to own all of the land purely because they 'owned it'. There's something circular and question-begging about your argument. It certainly doesn't justify a Libertarian theory of entitlement.

A government isn't an individual. People own property. A government is the collective by nature, unless it has a dictatorship. If the government has used it's power to deprive man of his right to property then it has no justification for that property and it isn't the government's property. I can only speculate how you formed that opinion from what I have said!

I've already argued why people not agreeing to property rights is morally relevant, despite your blind assertion that people 'have the right to do whatever they want with their own property'. If you don't justify why property rights ought to exist (be it through a social contract or otherwise), then I don't see how people can even own property in the first place.

If people don't own property, then how can we live? If I can't go to a tree, pick an apple and eat it, then I daresay humanity would end rather abruptly. Particularly, if I have to divide it up everytime amongst every human being!

[Melancholy]

[Melancholy]

^ Hmm, I actually wrote a response but that's all that came out when I posted "reply". That's quite disappointing and disheartening since I posted quite a lot to counter each paragraph...

Anyway, the basic point was that your argument is very weak because it relies on question-begging (e.g. property rights are legitimate because natural rights are unquestionable and natural rights entail property rights - "I believe property morally belongs to whomever owns it" ), vague concepts (e.g. human identity and so forth) and fails to directly penetrate my argument (unless I'm mistaken, you don't actually justify property rights in themselves and don't attempt to challenge my rationale for the necessity of a social contract).

I mean, let's take a quick example:

"If people don't own property, then how can we live? If I can't go to a tree, pick an apple and eat it, then I daresay humanity would end rather abruptly. Particularly, if I have to divide it up everytime amongst every human being!"

1. Firstly, I'm not even advocating a property-less society. We live in a society in which you aren't fully entitled to your own property - since you are taxed! You can still live, though.
2. Even if property is necessary for life, this still makes no statement on the permissibility of unrestrained property rights. We need healthcare to live, does this permit a welfare state?
3. Nobody is saying that nobody can eat the apple - only that apples are distributed justly so that nobody is disadvantaged by granting state-ownership of property.
4. Of course, you could be prevented from eating that apple under your system if you're not the owner of the private property.

That's just one example using your concluding statement, and your post is riddled with these type of problematic statements. You also have a tendency to confuse personal morality (e.g. where intention mitigates moral culpability) with the morality surrounding how the basic structures of society ought to be arranged. These are two separate areas of moral philosophy.

edit: Oh, and 'natural rights' is a pretty rubbish theory if you can't actually justify it without being dogmatic and relying on that non-trivially-true statement. You irrelevantly mention my [alleged] Christianity in your response, but your faith in natural rights is rather a lot more questionable. I'm not asking for proof - but at least some form of plausible justification.

[Melancholy]

I mean - first paragraph:

"I believe a person has the right to life, and by extension the right to property and liberty."

The latter simply does not follow from the former.

Your whole argument is infected with these sorts of blatant errors.

edit: Again,

"I do like how you declare "it is wrong ....", as if there is some mystical universal code from which you derived it! Perhaps, it was your Christianity."

I didn't even use 'wrong' in the normative sense! I never said it was morally wrong, but rather that it's wrong to say that a 'right to life' entails a Libertarian theory of property entitlement. The relevant counter-example? You have a right to life in taxed societies. Therefore, a Libertarian conception of property rights is not entailed by a 'right to life'. QED.

So other than a baseless and irrelevant appeal to my [alleged] faith, and pretty appalling reasoning, I don't know what much has been achieved by your post.

I really wish my full post had been posted... but anyway, I shan't get too annoyed about it.

[Anony mouse]

(Original post by Melancholy)
^ Hmm, I actually wrote a response but that's all that came out when I posted "reply". That's quite disappointing and disheartening since I posted quite a lot to counter each paragraph...

It happened to me once and put me off TSR for a few weeks. I feel for you bro.

(Original post by Melancholy)
If you don't justify why property rights ought to exist (be it through a social contract or otherwise), then I don't see how people can even own property in the first place.

I'm going to be as concise as possible and say the justification for property rights is that it secures sovereignty and free will. See, if we are individuals, required morally, to lead our lives by our judgements, it is crucial that we control the elements with which our lives are lived. Indeed, it becomes the most crucial thing. Now, without the right to private property, without having some props, some elements of reality that are under our jurisdiction, our ethical decisions cannot be effectual. In short, in order to have a effective life of moral virtue, for example the virtue of generosity, we must have the right to to hold property and then to be free to part with values, on your own terms.

[Melancholy]

(Original post by Anony mouse)
It happened to me once and put me off TSR for a few weeks. I feel for you bro.

I'm going to be as concise as possible and say the justification for property rights is that it secures sovereignty and free will. See, if we are individuals, required morally, to lead our lives by our judgements, it is crucial that we control the elements with which our lives are lived. Indeed, it becomes the most crucial thing. Now, without the right to private property, without having some props, some elements of reality that are under our jurisdiction, our ethical decisions cannot be effectual. In short, in order to have a effective life of moral virtue, for example the virtue of generosity, we must have the right to property, to hold and then to be free to part with values, on your own terms.

I think you're saying that autonomy (the ability to govern oneself and make decisions with tangible consequences which can be attributed to the owner - for which they are morally culpable) entails a Libertarian conception of property rights (absolute ownership without taxation). But I don't think that this is correct. So long as the rules of property ownership (e.g. you can have this amount of income/wealth/property but you know you will be taxed at rate X%) are made clear, you are still able to make choices and live the life that you choose to live in full knowledge of the consequences of your actions (bar the intervention of brute luck).

Nobody chooses a Libertarian theory of property entitlement. Changing our entitlement theory doesn't change our ability to make decisions within the system, if you see what I mean.

For example, I have no problem with people having self-ownership and doing whatever they want with their endowments so long as they don't (a) harm other people's bodies or (b) their legitimate property (decided by a theory of entitlement). I agree that people should govern their body and have autonomy. I’m unsure if autonomy does entail self-ownership, but let’s suppose that it does. It’s not that the libertarian merely needs legitimate endowments/talents to earn property, they need the institutional set up of a certain form of capitalism to be authoritative.

People are confronted with choices and rewards. I'm not changing people's ability to make choices, but rather interfering with their rewards by changing the laws of entitlement.

Yes, person X may have a certain set of talents and the ability to choose what he does with them, but he doesn’t have to be rewarded for them in various ways that he might be.

So the libertarian still has a lot of work to do. Work that can’t be done by a commitment to autonomy.

[Lord Hysteria]

(Original post by Melancholy)
^ Hmm, I actually wrote a response but that's all that came out when I posted "reply". That's quite disappointing and disheartening since I posted quite a lot to counter each paragraph...

I sort my responses in MS Word ...

Anyway, the basic point was that your argument is very weak because it relies on question-begging (e.g. property rights are legitimate because natural rights are unquestionable and natural rights entail property rights - "I believe property morally belongs to whomever owns it" ), vague concepts (e.g. human identity and so forth) and fails to directly penetrate my argument (unless I'm mistaken, you don't actually justify property rights in themselves and don't attempt to challenge my rationale for the necessity of a social contract).

If I am going to make serious and lengthy responses then at least get my positions correct. My justification of property rights is that they are derived from natural rights, and natural rights are, not "unquestionable ", but the defining characterisitcs of man in a state of nature. I call this the "human identity". If you're so troubled by those words, I'll stop using it. It isn't vague at all. But stands for right to life, property and liberty. That is it.

Secondly, you didn't present any justification for the social contract. I have asked you repeatedly to justfity taxation on property, and other things. If you had made your apparent arguments, I would have to ask for them. That or the concept that man's labour can be owned by another ....

I mean, let's take a quick example:

"If people don't own property, then how can we live? If I can't go to a tree, pick an apple and eat it, then I daresay humanity would end rather abruptly. Particularly, if I have to divide it up everytime amongst every human being!"

1. Firstly, I'm not even advocating a property-less society. We live in a society in which you aren't fully entitled to your own property - since you are taxed! You can still live, though.

If you take away a man's property (or a percentage) then you deprive him of his labour to make a product that helps his existence. You keep on banging on about a system of taxation but haven't justified your position.

2. Even if property is necessary for life, this still makes no statement on the permissibility of unrestrained property rights. We need healthcare to live, does this permit a welfare state?

1) Of course property is necessary for sustaining life!

2) Since when does something that is needed by society and individuals means the government should have a monopoly on providing it.

3. Nobody is saying that nobody can eat the apple - only that apples are distributed justly so that nobody is disadvantaged by granting state-ownership of property.

Here we go again. What you are saying is that despite my labour to get the apple, it has to be divide up and given to society simply because they exist. You just affirm your position and then label mine as 'problematic'.

4. Of course, you could be prevented from eating that apple under your system if you're not the owner of the private property.

Of course. I never said it couldn't be that case. I don't see how reveresing the sentence makes it 'problematic'?

That's just one example using your concluding statement, and your post is riddled with these type of problematic statements. You also have a tendency to confuse personal morality (e.g. where intention mitigates moral culpability) with the morality surrounding how the basic structures of society ought to be arranged. These are two separate areas of moral philosophy.

edit: Oh, and 'natural rights' is a pretty rubbish theory if you can't actually justify it without being dogmatic and relying on that non-trivially-true statement. You irrelevantly mention my [alleged] Christianity in your response, but your faith in natural rights is rather a lot more questionable. I'm not asking for proof - but at least some form of plausible justification.

I have justified it, you keep on saying "oh it doesn't work", "it's dogmatic", "not plausible" but I don't see why it doesn't. Admittedly, it has one great problem. I am assuming that every man has a right to life. If you want to dispute it, then pick one of my premises!

[Melancholy]

(Incidentally, both Old Holborn and Gothrum on the LPUK board attempted an argument from autonomy to justify Libertarianism. Unfortunately, they were taking Ben Colburn's work out of context! Ben Colburn is a luck egalitarian moral philosopher working at Cambridge - but if they accept his premises, they'll have to abolish private schools and support universal healthcare; conclusions which a Libertarian would be unlikely to support! )

[Anony mouse]

(Original post by Melancholy)
I think you're saying that autonomy (the ability to govern oneself and make decisions with tangible consequences which can be attributed to the owner - for which they are morally culpable) entails a Libertarian conception of property rights (absolute ownership without taxation). But I don't think that this is correct. So long as the rules of property ownership (e.g. you can have this amount of income/wealth/property but you know you will be taxed at rate X%) are made clear, you are still able to make choices and live the life that you choose to live.

Of course, but the more rules of property ownership there are, the less we are free to make those choices and live the life we choose to live. The ability to govern oneself and make decisions with tangible consequences vary to different degrees, with Communism being on one end of the spectrum, and Libertarianism being on the opposite.

Now even I'm not sure to what extent I believe in complete autonomy, otherwise that would make me an anarchist. I believe there may well be a good justification for some sort of taxation in order to assist those who are disadvantaged by a capitalist system. But I do think strong private property rights are essential nonetheless for the reason I gave earlier.

[Melancholy]

(Original post by Lord Hysteria)
If I am going to make serious and lengthy responses then at least get my positions correct. My justification of property rights is that they are derived from natural rights, and natural rights are, not "unquestionable ", but the defining characterisitcs of man in a state of nature. I call this the "human identity". If you're so troubled by those words, I'll stop using it. It isn't vague at all. But stands for right to life, property and liberty. That is it.

I'm sorry, but it is vague! You wouldn't have any serious modern analytical philosopher in moral philosophy resting their whole argument on the idea that 'natural rights are the defining characteristics of man in the state of nature'. What do you actually mean by that, in clear terms which can be discussed and logically analysed and scrutinised? I don't see how this justifies untaxed property rights at all.

And it is entirely question-begging and circular - as I said - to say that people should have property because not to have property rights is to go against 'human identity' where human identity is defined as somebody who has a right to '...property rights...'

Secondly, you didn't present any justification for the social contract. I have asked you repeatedly to justfity taxation on property, and other things. If you had made your apparent arguments, I would have to ask for them. That or the concept that man's labour can be owned by another ....

This is tiresome because I did and constantly have done in many of my posts on TSR.

Here's one example that I wrote 3 days ago:

Spoiler:

Show

"I've written about it in the past and it takes quite long - it's a massive task to condense this sort of response. But a rough sketch is this:

Without laws we have a Hobbesian State of Nature. Murder is legitimate, there are no rules, people are at liberty/free to do whatever they want. It is survival of the fittest. Many people find this intuitively unjust - and I would agree. Therein lies the justification of laws and government (or at least laws or a constitution). We own ourselves, and nobody should be able to harm our bodies - this seems trivially just (it's essentially a version of Mill's 'Harm Principle'). However, all this is meaningless if we have no entitlement to any piece of land on which to stand. Property rights are useful - we need them - we need to know who can and can't look after a piece of land and use their labour on it and work with it and make it economically useful to society. Unlike with the human body, the rightful owner of resources is much less obvious. We want to avoid the tragedy of the commons and we want to build a decent society, so we permit private property. However, everyone has a certain leverage in this agreement. Do you think the talentless, unlucky, disadvantaged and so forth would permit a system of property rights without any demands in return? Granting property rights is contingent on everybody being happy with the offer (remember, property rights aren't naturally granted - they're state-enforced). So the weak and vulnerable have certain leverage - they can demand a welfare state (and other safe-guards) to aid the disadvantaged in return for granting a property-owning democracy.

Many political philosophers have tried to pen out to what rational agents would agree in this sort of social contract. John Rawls does this in his Theory of Justice - he derives the Liberty Principle and the Difference Principle (which is split into two parts). He uses game theory/decision theory to support his argument that rational agents would always agree to help the worst-off. Essentially, he arranges the basic structures of society based on his appeal to justice. He places people in the Original Position behind a 'veil of ignorance' - what would people agree to if they didn't know to what station they would be born (i.e. if they didn't know they would be born into a wealthy family, or with great intelligence, or into a racial minority)?

There are other approaches; many philosophers have relied on this queer notion of 'justifiability to all' - but I find that largely question-begging, since we're trying to find exactly what is justified.

I haven't done his work justice, but I recognise that not everyone has the time to read a massive article outlining his view (his ToJ is a massive work). This podcast is available online and offers a decent introduction to his work." [link has been removed by me - Melancholy]

If you take away a man's property (or a percentage) then you deprive him of his labour to make a product that helps his existence. You keep on banging on about a system of taxation but haven't justified your position.

Equally, if you allow private property, you exclude others from people able to use their labour on that product which could help their existence. Where's the difference?

And it's sheer ignorance to say that I haven't justified my position. I have nevertheless spoilered one occasion where I roughly outlined it - but I've constantly outlined it to you through the discussion in the 'Ask a Tory' thread.

1) Of course property is necessary for sustaining life!

2) Since when does something that is needed by society and individuals means the government should have a monopoly on providing it.

(1) Absolute ownership of property is not necessary for sustaining life - a Libertarian theory of property entitlement is not necessary for sustaining life.

(2) The government has a monopoly on providing State-enforced property rights. You're being very inconsistent.

Here we go again. What you are saying is that despite my labour to get the apple, it has to be divide up and given to society simply because they exist. You just affirm your position and then label mine as 'problematic'.

Not simply because they exist, but rather because they are part of the process which granted you ownership of private property in the first place. Sure, property entitlement ought to be in some way connected to the amount of labour one has exerted to gain that property; this doesn't deny the argument for taxation.

Of course. I never said it couldn't be that case. I don't see how reveresing the sentence makes it 'problematic'?

But it highlights a problem. You are potentially effectively denied from resources for survival under a system of property rights in much the same way that you could under a system in which the State owned much of the land. Did you read Cohen's article? (Here)

I have justified it, you keep on saying "oh it doesn't work", "it's dogmatic", "not plausible" but I don't see why it doesn't. Admittedly, it has one great problem. I am assuming that every man has a right to life. If you want to dispute it, then pick one of my premises!

Sorry, but that simply is not your only assumption. I believe that everybody has the right to life. Everybody has a right to life in a taxed society where murder laws exist. You also, I assume, believe that people have the right to the means to life - that's not a Libertarian assumption, since that also permits the right to medical help. You assume, through natural rights, that people have a right to untaxed property as well as life.

Property has nothing to do with 'the right to life' (which is essentially just the negative liberty not to be killed or otherwise harmed). A homeless person who lacks property has the 'right to life'. He may lack the means to create a sustainable life - but since when have Libertarians cared about that?

But yeah, I'm merely saying that your argument is flawed; and I'm saying it on reasonable grounds (read for yourself). I'm hardly just blindly asserting it, am I?

[Melancholy]

(Original post by Anony mouse)
Of course, but the more rules of property ownership there are, the less we are free to make those choices and live the life we choose to live. The ability to govern oneself and make decisions with tangible consequences vary to different degrees, with Communism being on one end of the spectrum, and Libertarianism being on the opposite.

Now even I'm not sure to what extent I believe in complete autonomy, otherwise that would make me an anarchist. I believe there may well be a good justification for some sort of taxation in order to assist those who are disadvantaged by a capitalist system. But I do think strong private property rights are essential nonetheless for the reason I gave earlier.

I'm not so sure that 'more laws' always equates to less freedom/liberty or autonomy. Regardless of whether there are many laws which say who is entitled to what, or whether there is one massively controversial law which just tells the Libertarian theory of property rights, people are still free to act in the way they want in full knowledge of the outcomes. They still have sovereignty and autonomy, which was your concern/objection.

And the Libertarian theory of property rights involves more than one law regarding who can and can't sign contracts and how property can be legitimately gained and traded. I do recommend Cohen's article on property, money and freedom, which I've already mentioned (the terminology - e.g. money as an inus condition for freedom - is explained inside).

I'm not a supporter of Cohen in the sense that I think private property is pretty damn well justified in a social contract.

That said, I'm not even sure how valuable autonomy really is. We deny it for children, we deny it in a lot of cases - but I loosely see it as a good thing. But, I mean, what use is autonomy for homeless man whose only choices aren't really that desirable (do I nap on the park bench or on the streets?) I assume that autonomy's important nonetheless. I just think that autonomy (the ability to make your own sovereign decisions, governing what you do and knowing the outcome) does not require an untaxed system of property rights.

Anyway, I'm off to the pub to watch the match.

[Anony mouse]

(Original post by Melancholy)
I'm not so sure that 'more laws' always equates to less freedom/liberty or autonomy. Regardless of whether there are many laws which say who is entitled to what, or whether there is one massively controversial law which just tells the Libertarian theory of property rights, people are still free to act in the way they want in full knowledge of the outcomes. They still have sovereignty and autonomy, which was your concern/objection.

Well it largely depends on what the law says but the majority of laws are passed in order to restrict people’s liberty (with 'liberty' being defined in the libertarian sense of the word). The more laws passed to this effect, the less free will we have to exercise sovereignty.

(Original post by Melancholy)
And the Libertarian theory of property rights involves more than one law regarding who can and can't sign contracts and how property can be legitimately gained and traded. I do recommend Cohen's article on property, money and freedom, which I've already mentioned (the terminology - e.g. money as an inus condition for freedom - is explained inside).

I'm not a supporter of Cohen in the sense that I think private property is pretty damn well justified in a social contract.

That said, I'm not even sure how valuable autonomy really is. We deny it for children, we deny it in a lot of cases - but I loosely see it as a good thing. But, I mean, what use is autonomy for homeless man whose only choices aren't really that desirable (do I nap on the park bench or on the streets?) I assume that autonomy's important nonetheless. I just think that autonomy (the ability to make your own sovereign decisions, governing what you do and knowing the outcome) does not require an untaxed system of property rights.

Autonomy is extremely valuable although I never said autonomy did require a completely untaxed system of property rights. Granted, some of my colleagues within the Libertarian Party UK with an absolutist approach to property rights may disagree with me. What I am arguing is that laws restricting what one can do with their property should be kept to a bare minimum, concentrating only on protecting against John Mill’s Harm principle. I may be wrong, but is my sincere belief that a Libertarian society could do a lot more for that homeless man than a Socialist one.