The Master-Behind-the-Curtain

If one understands rights from a metaphysical viewpoint rather than legalistic/economic/historical viewpoints, it is observed that all human rights are property rights, extending from the right of self-ownership. Simply by virtue of being a sapient being (I think L. Neil Smith has pushed the significance of the potential diversity of that concept brilliantly) one utilizes the energies of one's own mind. This particular state, and the natural laws of human action (in the sense of a jurisprudence) that emerge from it are inalienable. You *always* own yourself. No one can ever own you in the real sense of the word. They can make pretense of it, but it is always false. If we follow this concept to its conclusion, no hegemonic or coercive action is ever legitimate. From individual acts of rape, robbery and murder on up to the very existence of political power itself there is no justification. So we are not merely at liberty to, but have established an imperitive to point out that what John Calhoun called the political means is always a crime. It isn't a question of how much, or when, or who, the whole damn thing is plainly rotten.

I'm not sure who wrote it (I suspect Jim Davies is the culprit) but I admit I like the piece. It seems to me to be, if anything, a response to the positions of Walter Block and Murray Rothbard. Perhaps not those two in particular, but their work does get around.

If anyone here has ever read their stuff, you'll understand why I say the position they hold leaves much to be desired. What they wouldn't call a crime, I would. There is a good reason why I think the Romans were filthy savages for leaving live babies in jars by the side of the road, and considered it perfectly acceptable to do so. Utilizing the understanding above (and knowing the late imperial culture that did such things) we can contrast it with the popular assumption of the period in Rome that children were the property of their parents. It was based on an assumption that was unrealistic and expedient at the same time.

What the writer of that article tries to argue is the actual *nature* of such arrangements, not an idealized proposition of how they ought to function. What he's saying is the mother more or less extends an olive branch that need not be responded to in kind. There's the "if you shove the man in the lake, you have to pull him out before he drowns" argument. After all, the child never really chooses to be born. The mother does choose to carry a baby to term, or perhaps even to get pregnant except in certain special cases. To whatever extent the new life has been rendered endangered by the parents (that they created the life to endanger in the first place is plainly irrelevant, if you toss your grown son in the lake, and he is otherwise independent except your action, you've done no different) they are responsible for it. How then, does a parent throw off the yoke of responsibility, besides never incurring it in the first place? Simple: Raise the child into an adult, able to take control over their own life. This is one logical reason for opposition to legal controls over power-of-consent, especially in the context of labor agreements, even in the context of a minarchy.

Something I would like to outline now are critical exceptions to the argument, exceptions which exist only in the context of coercion. The first exception is where the woman is forced to have the baby due to institutional coercion, e.g. the outlawing of abortions. Even if she did get pregnant willingly, she did not choose to carry the baby to term. Her control of her own body is being forcibly violated. Necessarily, those who coerced her into having the child are responsible. Yes, I am saying that if abortions were illegal at present, births would be a 'government' problem.** Further (and I venture into an area frankly of opinion) in the context of a pregnancy due to rape, a woman is not responsible for the pregnancy *or* carrying to term. What if she considers abortion murder? Must she now undertake an act that she (rightly or wrongly) believes to be inexcusable no matter what, on top of being the victim of one of the most violent crimes imaginable? Can a theory of ethics put the *victim* of a crime in this terrible position, while more or less ignoring the rapist? Surely not. I argue instead that a rapist is responsible for the well-being of the child and the mother, being the cause of the detrimental circumstances of both. Now some might say, 'what if she just has the baby to exact harsher penalties from the rapist?' He should have thought of that before he raped her, should he not?

An additional point: Human rights are not secondary to, or antecedent to property rights, but simply a particular manifestation of them. Contractual rights are no different.

**This being an example of the infinite regress into institutional chaos inherent in state power is just icing on the cake.

I think this is finished, if it looks messy or strange, I apologize. I'll take a look at it a few hours from now and see what I think.

I am sorry this is off topic but I'd really like to know if Mr Nickerson is the same Mr Nickerson whose previous residences were Monterey and Hawaii? If so, I have apologies I would like to make to him.
Thanks,
cagirl

The word "rights" is used in a lot of ways. The two definitions that I provided were not meant to be exhaustive; but I believe that between them they cover the vast majority of uses of the word that I come across. As an anarchist, I don't find it a very interesting concept. I agree that all human rights are property rights: I have a "right", or a "just claim" to all that is mine, just like I've got a belly-button. Generally I avoid people who want to yammer-on about their belly-buttons....

When you hear someone start splitting that one right into a million pieces, and debating which pieces you will be "allowed" to exercise, and to what extent; then it's time to reach for your gun.

Brian C. Nickerson writes:

You *always* own yourself. No one can ever own you in the real sense of the word. They can make pretense of it, but it is always false. If we follow this concept to its conclusion, no hegemonic or coercive action is ever legitimate.

Actually, if we follow this concept to its conclusion, we end up in the wastebasket. Contradictory statements cannot be true. If a person is a self-owner, then they possess all the prerogatives of ownership, including the right to transfer that ownership to someone else. If they do not possess this "right", then they are not truly self-owners. To discern true ownership, watch to see who comes darting out from behind the curtain to deny such a sale....

No actual children were considered as property, or as anything else, in the writing of my piece. Leaving aside this diverting rhetoric, the probable status of dependent children in a free society is an interesting topic to explore. The nice thing about a free market is that it can give everyone (who can afford the price) what they want for themselves. Can the market fulfill the needs of people who want to inflict pain upon themselves? Turning to the local rag, I see an advertisement from a Mistress Selena that seems to suggest that it can. So, I bet in a free market a parent could hire someone (perhaps even Mistress Selena) to lash them vigorously every time they slighted their children in the least way. However, getting back to the mainstream, I suspect that most parents wouldn't be much interested in such things. Since dependent children generally aren't the ones paying the bills, I hope it isn't too mind-blowing for me to suggest that most of the providers of protection and legal services would be more responsive to the desires of their actual customers (parents), as opposed to their customer's dependents?

"The word "rights" is used in a lot of ways. The two definitions that I provided were not meant to be exhaustive; but I believe that between them they cover the vast majority of uses of the word that I come across."

This is incorrect, for example Lysander Spooner didn't use it this way, nor did Rothbard, nor does Block, nor do many other Austrians as far as I'm aware, nor...You get the picture. You might mean in general, but this criticism was levelled at anarchists in particular.

"As an anarchist, I don't find it a very interesting concept. I agree that all human rights are property rights: I have a "right", or a "just claim" to all that is mine, just like I've got a belly-button. Generally I avoid people who want to yammer-on about their belly-buttons...."

This misunderstands the importance of the concept of rights itself. It's also gratuitously snide. The answer to the question "who's got the right?" determines such just claim, it is not a thing to be assessed or meaningfully understood after the fact, or the just claim itself...To put it bluntly, rights exist prior the construction of a jurisprudence or theory of natural law.

"When you hear someone start splitting that one right into a million pieces, and debating which pieces you will be "allowed" to exercise, and to what extent; then it's time to reach for your gun."

We see that in most mainstream talk about rights, but the hard-line defenders of the concept have always, to my knowledge, attempted to deduce it from logical axioms or singular sources. For example, Aquinas and Aristotle both put it in the hands of God or the Olympians respectively. There's a fun little historical thread there, actually, which contains much of a systematic defense of liberty (and refutation of the justifications for tyranny) centuries before certain people might get phony credit for inventing it. So what if statolatrists have turned a perfectly valid concept on its head and made garbage of it? Do we assume the same of medical services, garbage collection, education or anything else upon which the omnipus gets its ugly tentacles?

"Actually, if we follow this concept to its conclusion, we end up in the wastebasket. Contradictory statements cannot be true. If a person is a self-owner, then they possess all the prerogatives of ownership, including the right to transfer that ownership to someone else. If they do not possess this "right", then they are not truly self-owners. To discern true ownership, watch to see who comes darting out from behind the curtain to deny such a sale...."

It's a question of the physical *possibility* of disposal. In a free society labor can never be capitalized. It just can't. The man can always walk off the job, and while guilty perhaps of fraud (if he's been paid for work he did not yet do) he still acts under his own power. It can only be done (and enforced) on a pay-as-you-go basis. The thing is, to own something is to be able to dispose of it. However, it is physically impossible (at present) to dispose of the *will to dispose* of oneself. Do you understand? You can never, so long as you remain human(1), do this. You can never, no matter how much you might want to, give up the one component of human action that not only throws statistical and probabalistic analysis of human behavior out the wash but makes laboratory analysis of such behavior impossible; free will. Carrying your thesis to its ultimate argument, we see a seemingly effective (though necessarily faulty) apologia for all tyrannies past, present and future. I would not deny such a sale myself. I would merely point out that the contract is fundamentally illegitimate and impossible to enforce. If I were arbitrating the two parties I would recommend they nullify the contract and go instead towards an agreement which could be upheld. The laborer defrauded the buyer by selling something he couldn't sell (the will to dispose) and the buyer attempted to enslave the person of the seller through the contract.

To use the old "Brooklyn bridge" example: Assume that I own the Brooklyn Bridge, the East River and all that, and I sell it all to you (we'll say for one dollar so I can write it off as a loss when the tax man comes around) and the agreement is such that I promise to deliver the bridge, river and all, to a particular address - as constructed at present. We have an obvious technological problem here: I cannot deliver on the promise. It's plainly impossible. This doesn't mean I can't sell ownership of the bridge to you, but that I can't sell it as promised. I could sell you it as it is now (it's a little rusty!) or part of it. The thing is, with self-ownership we have a technological problem. A person might, some day, due to radical changes in the practical possibilities of reality, sell their will to others. At present, you can only sell your time. A limited range of choices available in a given circumstance does not necessarily imply tyranny.

(1) - It would be best to suspend consideration of such realities as we might imagine in the far future, or in science fiction novels, and stick to the present where it still quite impossible.

Aside from being an anarchist, I am also a rationalist. I don't need an elaborate mythos that details the heavenly lathe that rights were turned upon: I see that sugary crap being spun from people's heads everyday, like cotton-candy at the carnival. If reciprocal respect for private property is worth doing, it is worth doing for a reason.

It happens that when people willing to exercise such reciprocal respect get together, and are able to exclude defectors, they find themselves able to build capital and wealth. They are soon living much easier (and longer) lives than people who weren't willing to forgo thievery. This is reason enough for me to wish to belong to such a group (if only I could find one...).

Now, it is true that people who practice this respect may do so on the basis of mythic understandings, or religious commandments; as opposed to a rational understanding of the economics involved. Evolution will quickly act to reinforce these myths, as groups based on them will do much better than those whose beliefs lack this feature. The trouble with this is that the people who spin the myths tend to spin loopholes for themselves, which get larger and larger until everyone and their uncle seems to have a license to steal: at which point the group is back to being scrabbling animals again. Rational understanding is less prone to this problem, since the laws of economics don't change with the wind.

With regard to self-ownership, and the transfer thereof, you seem to be spinning distinctions that don't make a difference. If I understand you correctly, you assert that there is some figment that can't be transfered. Isn't this also true if one buys a horse? It might wander off, refuse to let its new owner ride it, or even throw them off and break their neck. Yet these transactions seem to occur anyway. Perhaps you could write a long disclaimer explaining what a poor idea this kind of transaction is, and have the master-behind-the-curtain force all sellers to have it tattooed on their chests before offering themselves to the market.

Bad things can and will happen in a free country, just as they do in non-free ones (though probably not to the same extent). I'm not interested in fairy-tales to the contrary, and not amendable to attempts to smuggle master along to "fix" these problems.

"With regard to self-ownership, and the transfer thereof, you seem to be spinning distinctions that don't make a difference. If I understand you correctly, you assert that there is some figment that can't be transfered."

I'll start here, because this is easily the most colossal misunderstanding of what I've said thus far. The point about self ownership is that it is impossible to transfer the *will* one has over oneself. It is *physically impossible* and so it simply cannot be done. It cannot be done willingly or coercively. One *always* controls oneself. It is an ultimate given. It is not a figment, it is the primary component. The means of disposal (free will) is always present. The comparison you give is at best a superficial analogy, and at worst deliberately misleading; animals do not possess the sapient free will that humans do. A horse may be tamed and brought under external control. A human is still in control. The best you can hope to do is short-circuit the higher brain functions, but last I heard short of killing a man that is impossible. You've either not understood, avoided or ignored the central push of my argument. It is a technological problem that one is unable to surrender one's will. It could be solved in some future, but I insist on dealing with reality as it is. The thing you're selling, *you* cannot be sold. It is indeed a scarce quantity, and you grabbed it first.

"Perhaps you could write a long disclaimer explaining what a poor idea this kind of transaction is, and have the master-behind-the-curtain force all sellers to have it tattooed on their chests before offering themselves to the market."

This metaphor of yours is tired and much overworked. It does not apply to the arguments that I've advanced. Any man trying to sell himself is a crook, for reasons explained elsewhere. If you were to go to an arbitrator, his only recommendation in a free society would be that the seller return what he had received in payment (whether in kind or cash is irrelevant) for the services not rendered/goods not delivered and that the contract be nullified, as there was no valid exchange. With the technological possibility of transmitting the will over oneself to another (a frightening thought) additional options open. Just as additional options open for a woman who doesn't want to birth a child with the technological possibility of abortion, and perhaps someday, eviction. That these technological solutions to problems did not exist in the bronze age did not change the ethical problems involved.

"I don't need an elaborate mythos that details the heavenly lathe that rights were turned upon: I see that sugary crap being spun from people's heads everyday, like cotton-candy at the carnival. If reciprocal respect for private property is worth doing, it is worth doing for a reason."

This strictly utilitarian, amoral position is highly dangerous. How long before you realize that often robbery is more convenient for one at the expense of the other? Your position is waiting to mutate into a "rational" form of utilitarian statolatry at first convenience. History is certainly on that side: Westphalian governments have been around for nearly four centuries, and even if their goose is soon to be cooked, there's no reason not to jump on the highwayman's horse and load a Ruyter's pistol and take aim, right? Secular power systems are at least as old as Ur. I don't believe you realize just how precarious it is. I would not presume you're an atheist, just as I would ask you not presume I am a theist. I am not. The only other Anarchist who springs to mind consonant with your position is David D. Friedman, whose attempt to refute natural law theory didn't. The only adjective I can use to describe your viewpoint is Machiavellian. Maintaining internal consistency with your viewpoint, if tyranny were the most expedient (either from a collectivist or individualist perspective) there's no reason why you should not switch sides. One additional point: Two of the most famous natural law advocates of the last century were both atheists.

I'll point out the mistake you both make: You assume value to be an objective, and not subjective concept. Get this, the disharmony and chaos of tyranny, the pervasive vice and corruption, the outright evil of it, some people like that. There are people in the world with valuations very different from your own. Some people desire power over others. It's hard to believe, to be quite honest. Most people's experience with power structures vary between brutally unpleasant and fatal. That they should be attracted like flies to a light bulb frankly baffles me.

"Bad things can and will happen in a free country, just as they do in non-free ones (though probably not to the same extent). I'm not interested in fairy-tales to the contrary, and not amendable to attempts to smuggle master along to "fix" these problems."

No shit, Sherlock. What the hell do you think concepts like private production of defense, adjudication in a free market society, extensive examination of the legal and political structures of medieval Ireland and Iceland, or Molyneux and Alston on DROs are all about?

We've really run away from the point the original article made anyway.

"Rational understanding is less prone to this problem, since the laws of economics don't change with the wind."

Take Adam Smith, a rationalist. Some of what he advocated was disastrous and his theoretical structure was a sharp decline from those before him. Rational thinking does not always provide perfect, or even satisfactory, results.

Point two, economics cannot establish on its own a case for a free society. Nor can it posit ethics. It cannot resolve the subjective valuations of those who might gain a great deal of psychic revenue from causing disharmony. That socialism causes calculational chaos, and that world socialism would make calculation of such kind impossible to the point that only black markets could function might be something very desirable to a nihilist or sadist. That the vast majority of people throughout the vast majority of history may have opposed that does not, from the viewpoint of economics, make it any less valid. All economics can do, much like physics, is describe the reality that a theory of ethics must exist within. It tells us that price fixing causes dislocation in the market, it does not even attempt (if it's good economic theory) to tell us whether or not this is a good or a bad thing.

Brian C. Nickerson wrote:

The comparison you give is at best a superficial analogy, and at worst deliberately misleading; animals do not possess the sapient free will that humans do. A horse may be tamed and brought under external control. A human is still in control.

Yes, if you give it some grain, and speak gently to it, you can probably tame the horse, but there is no guarantee. Even tamed it is still in control of its body, unless you are wiring up its brain to an external control box. Men like their grain milled and baked, and prefer a little entertainment while they eat it, but otherwise the same is true of them. In either case, ages of selective breeding have made the breed docile-enough that they are pretty easy to control. It still seems to me that your distinction makes no difference. Your assumption that the buyer is somehow being defrauded seems especially bizarre: why wouldn't they know as much as you about what they were buying?

This strictly utilitarian, amoral position is highly dangerous. How long before you realize that often robbery is more convenient for one at the expense of the other?

If it isn't another "colossal misunderstanding" on my part, I think I'm beginning to understand your world-view. You would like to see a giant ark of civilization built to buoy the whole of mankind above the abyss. You recognize that many of the passengers would soon be tearing out stringers and hull-planks to profit themselves (or just for the fun of it), but you imagine that you can prevent this, and get everyone to contribute to maintaining the craft; if only you can spin the right combination of myths for them. Perhaps heavenly carrots and fiery sticks for the common folk, with complex theories of natural rights for the more sophisticated.

While I'm sure you wouldn't make the usual mistake (putting the wreckers in charge of policing the structure), it seems to me that you are making another common one: Ignoring a force of nature, in this case "evolution". We all have built into us an algorithm that is forever scanning for ways to advance our gene-share at the expense of others. It often seems short-sighted compared to our newfangled conscious planning abilities because life has generally been a short and brutal game; but its voice speaks loudly in people: more loudly than the conscious voice, in most. Many of your passengers would indeed tear out the hull-planks to profit themselves, and all that your myths would accomplish in the end would be to give some of these wreckers guilty consciences. And you would end up once again swimming about in the flotsam, in the same waters as those guys who thought to make a "New Soviet Man" who could spit in the face of personal incentive.

I envision a much more modest craft, built and maintained by those who consciously understand the advantages of reciprocal respect for private-property, and the necessities to guard against and penalize defection. This would hopefully keep our defection rate low-enough that we would maintain the will to make bad-eggs walk the plank.

For the rest of the people in the sea, I would wish only the best of luck. I would leave them free to build their own ships, to whatever pattern they like, including my design if it seemed fair to them. I suspect that most of them would end up as galley slaves, if they didn't eat each other first, but that wouldn't be my problem. They aren't my responsibility, and the best help I can be to them is to set a good example.

"Even tamed it is still in control of its body, unless you are wiring up its brain to an external control box. Men like their grain milled and baked, and prefer a little entertainment while they eat it, but otherwise the same is true of them. In either case, ages of selective breeding have made the breed docile-enough that they are pretty easy to control."

I was horrified when I read this. It wasn't just the sloppiness, or the half-assedness of it or the complete ignoring of the distinct difference between man and all other known living things. It wasn't even the Marxist shade of pragmatism with Veblenite institutionalist flair. No, it was and is what I know you can permit yourself to do because of this misunderstanding. It's also how utterly defenseless an argument for liberty is against an argument for tyranny in that mode.

"Your assumption that the buyer is somehow being defrauded seems especially bizarre: why wouldn't they know as much as you about what they were buying?"

You seem to be doing a spectacular job of not understanding my position at all. Lemme explain the *is* so that you aren't confused: Any time a man whose life is capitalized under contract makes an action contrary that capitalization, the contract is null and void. Obviously, he is going to do this, being a man. There is no avoiding it. It's like trying to shout down the laws of gravitation. They'll still be there when you shut up. Seeing as the major contributions to epistemology and jurisprudence of the 20th century rest, all of them, upon stolen concepts (such as the ideas of determinism and collectivism) and deliberate distortions of the truth about reality, it seems obvious that even if a free society were established tomorrow, many people would still believe that determinism is a valid position when it isn't. They would act according to those assumptions. Even if the seller thought so too, he would still be selling something he demonstrably cannot sell. Now here is the ought: If we were talking within the scope of one of various theoretical propositions (such as Rothbard's suggestion in Power & Market) of defense agencies and the like; the arbiter ought to suggest both parties sunder such agreements as invalid, and demand the seller return what was improperly gained. Let's say I promised to work for you for the rest of my life, and the agreement was for three thousand dollars a year or three hundred thousand or whatever. The amount is irrelevant. Principally, what you have purchased is a capitalization of a resource. It's the same with a house: discounted against time preferences and all that, one pays for the whole service a thing renders when one buys it outright. The problem is, the thing capitalized is still in the hands of the previous possessor. Extending from this is a conclusion of how labor must function in a free society: It could never be contractually bound, but would instead have to be purchased on a pay-as-you-go basis.

"If it isn't another "colossal misunderstanding" on my part, I think I'm beginning to understand your world-view. You would like to see a giant ark of civilization built to buoy the whole of mankind above the abyss. You recognize that many of the passengers would soon be tearing out stringers and hull-planks to profit themselves (or just for the fun of it), but you imagine that you can prevent this, and get everyone to contribute to maintaining the craft; if only you can spin the right combination of myths for them. Perhaps heavenly carrots and fiery sticks for the common folk, with complex theories of natural rights for the more sophisticated."

I don't know where to begin. I wish I were the sort who can plow into a smorgasbord of fallacies with delight, but I'm not. You've misunderstood me completely and absolutely. Your method of caricature and ridicule recalls nothing so much as John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society. I didn't invent the concept of natural law. Nor is it something that only theists believe. Not being a theist myself, that's a handy consideration. Two of the most well-known (in libertarian circles) natural law theorists were atheists themselves. They were both also highly intelligent.

"We all have built into us an algorithm that is forever scanning for ways to advance our gene-share at the expense of others. It often seems short-sighted compared to our newfangled conscious planning abilities because life has generally been a short and brutal game; but its voice speaks loudly in people: more loudly than the conscious voice, in most."

I do believe you just contradicted many central tenets of rationalism all at once, while at the same time claiming to be a rationalist. Which is it? Is man an instinctual beast, reduced to living in negative or zero sum games (the mathematical analogy, wholly inappropriate and smuggled into an improper context is a nice touch, by the way) or is he a rational, thinking, purposive acting being? You can have your cake or eat it; not both.

"I envision a much more modest craft, built and maintained by those who consciously understand the advantages of reciprocal respect for private-property, and the necessities to guard against and penalize defection. This would hopefully keep our defection rate low-enough that we would maintain the will to make bad-eggs walk the plank."

So you're a utopian. I'm not. I have the distinct feeling your plan could fall apart any time. It might take five minutes or five millenia but it would fall apart. No matter how loosely you construct a holistic social framework, it's still a shaky piece of work. Being the sort of person who has abandoned the possibility of institutional victories for liberty (my reasoning and my health both won't give sufficient breadth to it) in any future, let alone the near one, I don't dabble in methodological collectivism. It's plainly unrealistic. I don't have visions for the future. To put it honestly, my desire for liberty (and outrage at the violation of others' liberty) stems from a simple desire to be left the hell alone.

I'm utterly uninterested in discussing this with you further. You've been snide, not just to me, but to numerous others including people many years dead who cannot defend their positions. I have little desire to try to explain the groundings of a whole body of jurisprudence theory to someone who claims to be "not interested" in it.

Brian, it appears to me that you have begun to take S.M.’s responses personally; although he can be something of an asshole at times, I do not believe he has intended them to be personal attacks. More to the point, it seems to me that you two are talking past each other, as was the case with others who had been contributing to the conversation. I am not speaking for Skeptical Man, nor even on his behalf, because I don’t fully understand his position myself, but I think I do see where some of the difficulties originate, and will try to briefly address a few of them.

It appeared to me that S.M. was suggesting B.N. might be the utopian, to the degree B.N. might believe that enlightening all (or even most) individuals as to the freedom philosophy will bring about substantial and lasting change in the human condition, once and for all. S.M. is, as far as I can tell, not a utopian in the sense attributed to him; and I thought that was made clear by his phrasing—the goodness of humans wouldn’t be sufficient to keep even a small voluntary community flourishing; vigilance and the will to weed out those who would try to coerce others or create an unearned advantage were stated as being necessary.

The bit B.N. quotes regarding his accusation of S.M. trying to have it both ways on rationalism leaves out the most important piece, which is that the algorithm in play is evolution—gene activity. Each living thing derives from its genetic instructions, modulated to some degree by environmental forces that might influence its growth or even genetic expression (viz., the turning on and off of specific genes). If human consciousness, self-consciousness, and cognitive capabilities are not emergent phenomena from genetic instructions, where do they come from? Some respond to such questions with a deistic answer of some sort, but B.N. has indicated he would not be among them. If not genes or god(s), then where do they come from? And to be clear, in my understanding of the admittedly complex subject of genetics, to state that they work in the general way I’ve outlined is not to reduce human functioning to a deterministic state. “Cognitive capabilities” includes free will.

Anyway, B.N. seems to me to reduce the issue to a false dichotomy. The observation above does not necessarily mean that humans are “instinctual beast[s]”. Further, at some level the engagement of one’s rational faculties becomes a choice. I daresay each of us knows individuals who appear to move from situation to situation reflexively and/or reactively, and thus fail to avert unpleasant situations from recurring and to learn anything from the unpleasant situations. Similarly, we know individuals who learn quickly and apparently easily, and who can generalize appropriately from one situation to others—yet those individuals can sometimes shift their thinking into idle gear as well.

From just my undergrad psychology courses, I recall plenty of studies showing that individuals do make non-rational choices. Moreover, some choices seem to defy rational explanation, despite Rand’s attempts at it. Has someone presented a convincing, reasoned argument for preferring green over blue, for example? Such preferences seem not to be subject to instinct, nor to reason. So we’re in uncertain waters, without even considering the subject of emotions. And to me, those observations underscore something that is reflected in nearly every neuropsychological study reported: there’s a lot that we don’t understand about how human brains work, especially at higher levels (viz., overall, rather than reductionistic cell- or neuron-cluster-based levels).

I didn't invent the concept of natural law. Nor is it something that only theists believe. .... Two of the most well-known (in libertarian circles) natural law theorists were atheists themselves.

I am certain S.M. knows this; and my understanding of the passage is that he was attempting to give a somewhat inclusive example, rather than imply the conclusion B.N. has reached. I think S.M.’s point/intention was to underscore that if an action can arise from various precedents, it doesn’t matter which was employed to get it to come about. One can hold to the biblical commandment to “not murder”; one can obey the state-based laws against it; one can arrive at a position of non-aggression by various libertarian philosophical arguments; or one can simply observe that unprovoked aggression will not advance one’s interests, especially in the long run. Does it matter which path one trod, to get to that specific place? Thus, I don’t think S.M. was trying to disrespect natual law theorists, so much as he was pointing out a few of the paths possible to get to the same end. (I’d bet, though, that he wouldn’t think much of this subtle argument from authority—or maybe that’s just me insinuating my feelings into the mix.)

I could go on (and on), but I see little reason to address each possible specific. (And, there is no way I can be induced into trying to tease apart the apparent differing perspectives on human nature between these two gentlemen.) I don’t know Skeptical Man well enough to do that, but I do know that he is not interested in tyranny of any sort. He is interested in living free—being left alone, much the same as B.N. desires; theory means little to S.M. unless it can be shown to have practical application. Thus, attempting to use pragmatism as an insult or to cast it in a negative light is unlikely to sting.

[Please overlook any punctuation, grammar, and/or spelling errors; it’s practically impossible to do high-quality modifying and copy-editing when it takes three hours just to get the comment to appear in the preview pane. I’ll fix such squinkinesses as soon as I’m able.]

The word "rights" is used in a lot of ways. .... As an anarchist, I don't find it a very interesting concept.

It seems likely to me that you are a somewhat unusual anarchist, then. I posit that many anarchists of today think and write about rights for two reasons: 1] to avoid the concept being entirely co-opted by the statist-positive rights types that have swarmed the ideological field; and 2] to explore possible transitions from statist to free societies. And the second reason highlights part of the confusion here, I suspect: a difference of context. Skeptical Man changed the context in his original piece, from considering writings of contemporary anarchists to how childrens’ rights might be addressed in a free society—and his context for thinking about rights, as I’ve already stated, appears to be a rather singular one. I suspect that differing mental frames for thinking about these issues has led individuals to be “writing past” each other, much as happened on Bear’s latest post.

Mr. Skeptical, I don’t think Jorge’s questioning of your view of children as property was “diverting”; I can see why he had concerns over some of what you wrote. It might be a diversion for you, but for those of us trying to understand what you’re saying, getting clarification is anything but diversionary.

If you did not mean to imply that children are the property of their parents, please correct my interpretation and clarify the following:

....in a free country a parent would have no externally-imposed obligation to treat their children in a particular fashion.

I read this to say that parents can do whatever they want with their children and no one can legitimately interfere.

Free-market law-providers would recognize dependent children in exactly the capacity that they would be paid to recognize them in.

I read this to say that private law will not recognize the rights of individuals unless they are explicitly paid to do so. This goes far beyond children. It implies that a wealthy/powerful individual (or group) can violate the rights of poor/powerless with impunity.

Children would achieve recognition as self-owners when they were ready and able to pay for such recognition.

I read this to say that until such a time children are not self-owners.

"Self-ownership" for the child in this context consists of the parent being ordered to treat their offspring as their master's property, rather than as their own.

I read this to explicitly say children are the property of their parents.

If I am wrong in the above please provide an alternate interpretation.

Since dependent children generally aren't the ones paying the bills, I hope it isn't too mind-blowing for me to suggest that most of the providers of protection and legal services would be more responsive to the desires of their actual customers (parents), as opposed to their customer's dependents?

To me the above demonstrates "strong feelings about desired outcomes" on your part. You seem to have fixated on one possible way free market law can be provided, to the exclusion of all others. But even within the context you describe, I can imagine a civil rights organization, supported by voluntary contributions, which takes it upon itself to defend the rights of children and others of diminished capacity. Organizations such as the Innocence Project and the ACLU exist today. Why would they cease to exist in a Anarchist society?

I can imagine that a standard contract with free market law providers will have a clause that requires the client to abide by the rules of the firm. One of those rules being absolute respect for the rights of all other individuals.

In your model, how does one deal with a general criminal? Paraphrasing you, I suspect that few criminals would be willing to pay for a policy that provided justice for their victims. Does this mean that criminals are immune from justice? You imply that parents who violate their children's rights are.

I, like Brian, do not know of any anarchist who uses "rights" in the way you are. Recognition and respect for Rights are the foundation of any just society. Without this an Anarchist society cannot exist.

The correct concept of Rights, including inalienable ones, is necessary to achieve freedom.

Jorge, to sate your curiosity, I view other people's children as being: none of my business. For myself, I think of the parental role as that of a caretaker for a responsible self-owner who is mostly absent in the beginning, but who will (hopefully) appear with time and eventually be ready to take complete responsibility for their life. In this role, a parent is often called upon to make decisions as if they were the owner. To an external agency the distinction between "owner" and "one empowered to make decisions as owner" will generally make no difference, so it will often be neglected.

Tell me, if you had a toddler who seemed determined to toddle off down the road, would you say: "Goodbye little one, as a self-owner you of course have the right to leave", or would you gather them up and return them safely to your home? If the latter, then I suspect that in practice you act more in accordance with my definition than with your own.

In a conflict between Alice and Bob, both self-owners, who has standing to intervene? Master is out, because if he makes a showing to call a "time-out" then Alice and Bob weren't self-owners after all. To further set the stage, let's suppose that Bob is a young child without his own protection policy, Alice is his mother, and the conflict is occurring on her property. Do the neighbors have standing to trespass on Alice's property to intervene? Do you? On whose behalf would you intervene, and with what justification?

I'll grant you that Alice's contract with her protection agency would probably have a clause exempting her from coverage for deliberate misdeeds on her part, just as a car insurance policy will deny coverage to someone who deliberately smashes their car; but ultimately Alice is their customer, and she probably isn't interested in paying someone to dictate her behavior. In a case of extreme abuse, I expect that someone might intervene anyway, with the hope that Alice's behavior would ultimately shield them from liability; but this would be a risky proposition, and not one to be taken lightly.

Jorge wrote:

I read this to say that private law will not recognize the rights of individuals unless they are explicitly paid to do so. This goes far beyond children. It implies that a wealthy/powerful individual (or group) can violate the rights of poor/powerless with impunity.

I think it is safe to say that in a free-market, the wealthy will be better-off than the poor. How could it be otherwise? We have a (semi) free-market in food where I live. There seems to enough charity to keep even the meanest beggar from starving, but I've never seen them eating steak.

To me the above demonstrates "strong feelings about desired outcomes" on your part. You seem to have fixated on one possible way free market law can be provided, to the exclusion of all others.

When one writes that "water flows downhill", they aren't demonstrating "strong feelings about desired outcomes", they are merely noting a fact. If a person were instead to write about "water flowing uphill", without an explication of how this came about, they would be demonstrating ... something. Perhaps ignorance of gravity. Or maybe that they were willing to let their desire for water to flow uphill to overcome their knowledge. Or it could be that they believe in some force which can overpower gravity, but they don't like it, and prefer not to mention or think of it, but they can't stop this belief from influencing their writing. I think my assertion that providers of protection and legal services would be more responsive to the desires of their customers than to non-customers is about as unexceptional as asserting that water runs downhill.

Here's another assertion for you: Most parents, including, I suspect, you Jorge, treat their children more or less the way they think they should treat them. It follows then, that most parents will see little if any need to pay someone to force them to treat their children differently. If protection were provided on the basis of market forces, as opposed to politics, there would be little margin for agencies to enforce rules on parent / child relations. I think even home-schoolers might be able to operate with impunity.

But even within the context you describe, I can imagine a civil rights organization, supported by voluntary contributions, which takes it upon itself to defend the rights of children and others of diminished capacity.

Certainly. If they didn't exist, I'd lend a hand starting such an organization.

In your model, how does one deal with a general criminal? Paraphrasing you, I suspect that few criminals would be willing to pay for a policy that provided justice for their victims. Does this mean that criminals are immune from justice?

If they weren't willing to pay for justice for their victims, then they might indeed be immune from justice: but not in a good way.

Children are not the parents "most precious possessions". The very concept that children are thought of as slaves owned by their parents is horrifying. That it is stated by a libertarian is flabbergasting.

I read that in its full context—“Most parents would pay to have their children protected as their most precious possessions ...”—as meaning that parents would place the highest value on their childrens’ lives, rather than as implying ownership of a child; that is, the “as” plays a comparative role in the sentence. I suspect that is what Skeptical Man had in mind; perhaps he’ll drop back in again and let us know.

[A linguistic aside: I don’t know if any other language is better at it, but English leaves us little recourse but to use possessive pronouns – my son – when actual possession is not what’s meant. I suppose one could say something like, “The child I birthed/helped create/have been raising as my own, though s/he is not of my flesh”, but that’s a long and often, too-detailed way of avoiding such small words. Do individuals object to using those possessive pronouns when referring to another, such as “my wife”? Lobo and I did, but only in a joking way, and as far as I can remember, only in private.]

Very interesting comments, gentlemen.

But maybe not. Especially given

"Self-ownership" for the child in this context consists of the parent being ordered to treat their offspring as their master's property, rather than as their own.'

The "rather than as their own" comment strongly implies that the author views children as the parents property. That view is consistent with the entire paragraph, and the rest of the piece as well, given that he views parents rejecting a free market court which imposed restrictions on the treatment of their children.

On the linguistic note, I see "my son" as being the same as "my friend" or "my bus" in the sentence "here comes my bus". It does not imply ownership.

We do not object to the possessive pronouns. Until reading this it never occurred to me that someone would :) Just shows the diversity of human beings.

Brian C. Nickerson wrote:

I do believe human beings do have certain instincts, but they aren't utilized much. Reason is a much more precise tool and gets reliable results, whereas instinct is useful only in those places where the capacities of reason break down.

I would counter that instinct to a man is a bit like current to a fish: a hugely significant force that is largely invisible to them. A fish living in the deep ocean would be inclined to think that it was completely in control of its own movement: it could swim this way, that way, any way that it wished. Even if a passing sea-mount betrayed this "current" phenomena, a fish would find it easy to discount: for it could more than counter this small motion with the barest flip of its tail.

Now, to a scientist charting the movements of the population of fish at a level where the individual swimmings to and fro were not visible, the movement of the current and the movement of the mass of fish would seem identical. If he noted that the fish were caught in a current that was carrying them into inhospitable waters, he would not be surprised one bit when they arrived there. To a fish, immersed in its illusion of control, that arrival might be quite a shock. Perhaps it would lay the fault on the character of its fellow fish, assuming that most of them must have wanted to come to this bad place.

Men make much of their free-will. It can take them this way, that way, every which way. What could be more significant? But put those men in a perverse incentive system, where their free-will is pitted against the current, and watch what happens. The movements of the mass of them will be indistinguishable from that of the tide.

If fish charted out the ocean's currents, and took them into account in their navigation, they could go where they wished. Similarly, when men craft institutions where the incentives are in line with their goals, they find themselves going in the direction they desire.

Disclaimer: no actual fish were studied for this post, and for all I know fish may be smart enough to take currents into account in their navigation.

But I feel that this doesn't denigrate the importance of free will in the slightest. On the contrary (hey, at least I didn't say Au Contraire!) I think that elevates the importance of the axiomatic existence of it: If man has will, and acts as a coward merely because it is expedient, then the evil we observe in that is infinitely greater than if he is merely determined by external forces, or at least forces external to his consciousness. In other words, principles only matter if you'll hold to them when it is difficult to do so, not just when it is easy. I'm more or less paraphrasing L. Neil Smith, but it's a point throughout most serious moral philosophy that it's only worthwhile if it can be upheld even in the most extreme cases. I detect a hint of Johann Kaspar Schmidt (aka Max Stirner) throughout your writing. An interesting article by Wendy McElroy in one of the earliest issues of The Libertarian Enterprise dealt with reconciling this with natural law philosophy. I don't know as it's a correct understanding on my part, but all the same I hope you won't resort to the kind of epithets a certain prison-designing nutcase did and call the theory of natural law 'nonsense on stilts' or somesuch. It's plainly uncivil and alienates most of the people with whom you'd otherwise have an interesting conversation.

The problem I have is institutions are a fundamentally objectionable thing to me. I don't think you can craft an institution that will not, however slowly, produce predictably bad results. The very best effort at good institutions to date took less than two-hundred years to become perhaps one of the most monstrous examples of exactly what it set out to destroy. Your natural criticism (following your line of argument) would be absolutely correct in this case: The damn thing was designed not to promote the good, the useful, desired and the just, but to prevent their opposites. I can't answer that criticism. So far as I know, the Aquinas (my favorite Catholic philosopher) style 'city upon a hill' has yet to be successfully tried. There were the Quakers, of course. Their failure might just be an accident of history. You might be on to something here, but I frankly find all variations on the Veblen thesis that the only thing that matters (I'm not saying you believe this, but Veblen and his followers did and do) is the nature of institutional control horrifying. It reduces man to the level of an insect.