[Meta777]

What happens if the two parties cannot agree upon who the arbitrator should be
or if one decides that they are going to ignore the others plea for arbitration?
Who then get's to decide what happens?

If one party refuses to participate in arbitration, is the other side justified in initiating coercion?

[Eran]

The weight of forces in society would push the parties to arbitrate. If one party refuses, the other could (at some risk - see below) obtain an opinion from a very credible, independent arbitration firm. If that firm agrees, that party could act using force.

Note that the first party could then try and sue the acting party. At that point, the opinion of the arbitrator would serve as weighty (but not necessarily overwhelming) evidence for the justifiability of the sanctioned action.

While it is theoretically possible that an armed conflict would ensue, that is highly unlikely in a mature, stable ancap society, in which, in essence, there is broad consensus on sources of legitimacy.

Just as in a democratic society, legitimacy is conceived to originate in majority opinion as expressed through democratic institutions, with certain courts being the proximate sources of opinion, so in an ancap society, legitimacy originates in property rights (justly acquired and understood), with reputable arbitration firms being the proximate sources of opinion.

[Meta777]

The weight of forces in society would push the parties to arbitrate.

You mean coercion?

If one party refuses, the other could (at some risk - see below) obtain an opinion from a very credible, independent arbitration firm. If that firm agrees, that party could act using force.

But wouldn't that be an initiation of force?

Note that the first party could then try and sue the acting party. At that point, the opinion of the arbitrator would serve as weighty (but not necessarily overwhelming) evidence for the justifiability of the sanctioned action.

While it is theoretically possible that an armed conflict would ensue, that is highly unlikely in a mature, stable ancap society, in which, in essence, there is broad consensus on sources of legitimacy.

So you're saying that the situation would be unlikely to occur within a society in which everyone agrees with each-other?
Assuming everyone was not in agreement though, is there anything else that might prevent an armed conflict?

Just as in a democratic society, legitimacy is conceived to originate in majority opinion as expressed through democratic institutions, with certain courts being the proximate sources of opinion, so in an ancap society, legitimacy originates in property rights (justly acquired and understood), with reputable arbitration firms being the proximate sources of opinion.

Who gets to decide who the reputable arbitrators are?
If it is through consensus, but not unanimous consensus,
are the majority justified in imposing their arbitrators on those who disagree?

-Meta

[Eran]

But wouldn't that be an initiation of force?

That depends on your perspective. Normal legitimate use of force in an ancap society is restricted to retaliation/restitution, and thus wouldn't count as "initiation" of force.

Use of pre-emptive force against those posing imminent danger could either be viewed as retaliatory force (in the sense that those who pose imminent and material danger to others have, in a certain sense, initiate the use of force themselves), or as an exception to NAP.

So you're saying that the situation would be unlikely to occur within a society in which everyone agrees with each-other?
Assuming everyone was not in agreement though, is there anything else that might prevent an armed conflict?

The pre-requisite for stability in any moderately-peaceful society is a broad agreement on sources of legitimacy and means for resolving disputes. This is as true in our democratic society as it would be in an ancap society. Agreeing (broadly, not universally) on sources of legitimacy and dispute resolution mechanisms is not the same as agreeing on how particular disputes are to be resolved.

In the current US, there is broad acceptance of the authority of the USSC as the final arbiter of disputes. This is not to say that there is agreement about any particular USSC decision (obviously there isn't), or that there are no exceptions who refuse to accept such authority (e.g. principled anarcho-capitalists). But the degree of acceptance is broad enough that the likelihood of an armed conflict is fairly low.

The same would hold in an ancap society.

[eugenekop]

First, welcome back!

Thank you! Honestly the main reason I came back is because I can talk with you. You are the brightest libertarian mind I am personally familiar with, and I am familiar with many. You should write a book!

Regarding wars. I am still not 100% convinced that let's say Nazis could have been defeated without breaking NAP. Can you recommend a book about this, a book about conventional warfare without breaking NAP?

This position is incoherent. Unless you physically strangle the other person with your bare hands, harming another invariably involves using indirect means to achieve the end. The indirect means could involve a purely physical chain of events (e.g. pulling a trigger), unsuspecting third persons (e.g. a postal worker delivering a letter-bomb), third persons being duped (e.g. you ask somebody to blow up a building telling them it is empty, even though you hid your victim in the building), or third persons sharing your ideology.

There is no way of drawing an arbitrary line anywhere in this spectrum and exonerate the guilty party. The argument mentioned above holds - by this logic, a mass murderer would be completely innocent if they didn't personally pull the trigger.

I suggest an alternative approach which views crime in terms of human action - a behaviour using means to achieve a certain goal. If the intended goal is criminal, the action is criminal, regardless of whether the means involve merely physical objects or other people. Note that this rule does NOT exonerate intermediaries - if they harmed others, they are guilty as well.

I believe the position is quite coherent. Imagine people have no way to communicate with each other. Imagine people are so independent in this world that even relying on communication itself would be un-libertarian because it would lead to confusion and property rights violation. In this scenario the only way to discover objectively if property was harmed is to check the physical evidence, not the psychological motives behind the participants in the act. Would you really trust an arbitrator to "read" the mind of a person and try to discover whether he said he wants A to kill B, or he gave directions to A to kill B, or he was simply so charismatic that A killed B just to make him happy? This is too vague.

Remember the case where a pastor named Terry Jones threatened to burn Quaran books and as a result a series of violent demonstrations were held in which several Muslims were killed? Terry Jones deliberately wanted this to happen to show the world how barbaric Muslims are. So he used means (threatening to burn the Quaran book) to achieve a certain goal (getting some Muslims killed). Is he liable for murder? Some people may say so, others may not. This is too subjective and culture dependent. I like property rights to be accurate and objective, because that allows the maximum freedom. A physical harm to property, indirect or direct, is such objective measure. Simply persuading people to harm some property cannot be considered a crime, its too subjective, too dependent on culture, too simple to manipulate for political reasons, to impose the dominating morality, or to persecute political opponents.

If not, how do you distinguish between temporary lost of capacity (due to an accident or illness) and temporary lack of capacity (due to being immature or a baby)?

I think that's pretty clear. You absolutely MUST authorize someone else to be your agent in protecting your rights while you, yourself, are incapable of doing so. I mean, how can you have rights if you can't understand or assert them? This is purely arbitrary. If you can't say in front of someone "I was right in this case because..." then you can't have rights.

[Eran]

Regarding wars. I am still not 100% convinced that let's say Nazis could have been defeated without breaking NAP. Can you recommend a book about this, a book about conventional warfare without breaking NAP?

I am not sure either. I have reached the point where I am not sure it was a good idea to resist the Nazis, but I am not confident about the alternative. Should the Nazis have been defeated at any cost? What if defeating them would have cost not 70,000,000 but 300,000,000 lives? What if it would have required using nuclear bombs making the European continent into a desert? If you accept that some price for defeating the Nazis might have been too high, you have to ask yourself how we can know that the price actually paid was worth it.

When I think about libertarian ethics, it is always with the understanding that it is embedded in a broader moral theory. I strongly believe that under normal conditions, it is wrong to aggress against innocents, to initiate force, etc.

But I can imagine circumstances, ones often referred to as "lifeboat scenarios", in which the normal rules of ethics cease to apply. In which the need to urgently protect lives supersedes the normal call to respect private property.

In several spheres of life, people who want right violations pretend or suggest that a situation is urgent enough to warrant deviation from the normal rules of morality. If you follow leftists debaters on these forums you would get the impression that minimum wage and the social safety net is all the stands between the poor and starvation. We all know that even in developing countries such as India, starvation is virtually unheard of. Similarly, you often hear of the "ticking bomb" excuse for torture. TV series like '24' notwithstanding, real-world "ticking bombs" are virtually unheard of. But government agents and their apologists use the scenario to excuse torture of people who have already been held in custody for years.

WWII is complicated. I am fairly certain that the circumstances of 1939 were the result of prior (Western) government policies, including US entry into WWI, the Versailles treaty, etc. But even if we agree that violations of NAP were called for in the fight against Nazis, this is FAR from implying that we are in any way in a similar situation today. Calls to attack Iran today, and Afghanistan/Iraq wars in the recent past come to mind.

On the ethics of War from an enlightened, though not quite libertarian perspective, I suggest "Just and Unjust Wars" by Michael Walzer (partially available online here. On the lies frequently used by politicians to justify going to war, there is the classic [url]War is a Lie[/url].

Simply persuading people to harm some property cannot be considered a crime, its too subjective, too dependent on culture, too simple to manipulate for political reasons, to impose the dominating morality, or to persecute political opponents.

I am not unsympathetic to the argument. For example, I am an advocate of strict liability in negligence cases.

I want the function of potential-force-using to be as simple as possible, leaving questions of guilt and morality to the free market (e.g. through setting premiums on liability insurance).

If line with your reasoning, I would want a very narrow application of incitement, hate speech, etc.
There is a difference, however, between the example you gave of Terry Jones' actions, and a much more straightforward case of a general commanding his troops to shoot civilians, a cult leader ordering his followers to commit crimes, or a person hiring an assassin.

In my mind, however, it becomes a question of evidence, left to reputable arbitration courts to decide. Determining guilt and responsibility can be difficult in many cases, but it isn't impossible.

You absolutely MUST authorize someone else to be your agent in protecting your rights while you, yourself, are incapable of doing so.

This is not what you wrote though. You wrote "You can have rights only when you assert them."

It would be a reasonable position to suggest that children's rights need to be protected using an agent. For children, it is very straightforward to suggest that the default position of society is that the parents act as the children's agents. I think of it as being trustees of the property rights the children have in their own bodies (as well as, potentially, alienable property).

I don't see how the fact that the child was never in a position to positively assign agency rights to his parents makes any difference.

[eugenekop]

But even if we agree that violations of NAP were called for in the fight against Nazis

Do you think violations of NAP were called for? What kind of situations in wars do you imagine in which breaking the NAP would be the only practical choice? How would it be possible not to resist the Nazis? In what way? What do you think the result of that would be?

This is not what you wrote though. You wrote "You can have rights only when you assert them."

It would be a reasonable position to suggest that children's rights need to be protected using an agent. For children, it is very straightforward to suggest that the default position of society is that the parents act as the children's agents. I think of it as being trustees of the property rights the children have in their own bodies (as well as, potentially, alienable property).

I don't see how the fact that the child was never in a position to positively assign agency rights to his parents makes any difference.

My rule is that you can have rights only when you assert them. When you assign an agent to act on your behalf you assert your rights. You must understand your rights if you assign someone else to take care of them. The reason you want babies to have rights is because you don't like the fact that they can simply be killed without repercussions. But this only means that YOU want rights OVER the baby, the right of not witnesses the killing of the baby. So its not about the baby, its about you and your sensitivity. So its wrong for you to say that babies have rights. You just assert your rights regarding the safety of the baby.

[Eran]

Do you think violations of NAP were called for?

Frankly, I am not sure. Even with the benefit of hindsight, it isn't clear whether it was right to declare war on Hitler.

I am very certain that the Allied forces have engaged in egregious war crimes, as when civilian populations were targeted on purpose. Could the war have been fought without harming any innocents? I am not sure.

What kind of situations in wars do you imagine in which breaking the NAP would be the only practical choice?

You can see a situation in which an aggressor is engaging in mass genocide, while using "human shields" to protect its troops. Harming those human shields could be ethically called for as a means for greatly lowering the human cost of the aggression.

How would it be possible not to resist the Nazis? In what way? What do you think the result of that would be?

This is pure speculation. You can imagine an alternative history in which Britain (and later the US) didn't declare war on Germany. Rather, Germany faced the defensive forces of France (which failed) and Russia (which managed to hold on).

Eventually, Russia and Germany, both exhausted, reached truce, with Germany continuing to occupy continental Europe. Without a British declaration of war, Hitler never attacks Britain. Partisan forces in continental Europe continue to resist German occupation, but eventually fighting dies out. Most Jews have already been eliminated, so Jewish death-toll is somewhat higher. However, having the power to retroactively change British and American policies, we can imagine those countries opening their doors to Jewish refugees, and actually lowering the human toll in that regard.

Hitler continues in power for a few more years, but Nazi economic policies result in anaemic growth and development. Eventually he dies, is assassinated, or retires. The German "empire" dissolves after a couple of decades. During that period, people indeed suffer, but the death-toll never reaches anything like the 70,000,000 who actually died in the war.

This is obviously speculation, but I don't see how this scenario can be ruled out, or how one can assess, with any certainty, that it would result in greater human suffering than the one we actually went through.

So its wrong for you to say that babies have rights. You just assert your rights regarding the safety of the baby.

I understand your point. You see babies and young children as the property of their parents (just as pets and farm animals are), at least until such time as they are able to assert their rights.

I disagree, but not in a way that I can logically explain. As a matter of theoretical philosophical discussion, there is a point of dispute. As a matter of practice, I think our differences are minimal, for several reasons:
1. The vast majority of babies are born to loving parents. Allowing a market in parental rights (to my system) or in babies (to yours) would mitigate child abuse, as abusive parents often (though not always) would rather be paid for their baby given the opportunities. A world without government subsidies for babies would also reduce the number of babies born.
2. Our current society shows in clear ways how much value it puts on the lives and well-being of babies and children. Absent a formal recognition of their property rights in themselves, informal action would surely criticize, ostracise and deter (without any need for aggression) the abuse of babies, in just the same way that it would deter abuse of animals (which you and I agree have no rights).
3. In a realistic development of anarcho-capitalist society, underlying shared values within society will evolve naturally, rather than being dictated by Murray Rothbard, you or I. In any such development, I think it is inconceivable that your position would be adopted broadly by society. Thus any future ancap society (which I believe is unlikely, but not impossible) is overwhelmingly likely to treat babies as if they do have rights.

[eugenekop]

You are saying that partisan resistance would have died in Europe (and I think I share this belief), but partisan resistance is the only type of resistance I know of that doesn't violate NAP. Conventional warfare with airplanes, missiles and tanks all uses indiscriminate firepower to some degree. So are you implying that libertarians have no chance to defend against such powerful and tyrannical aggressors as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union?

[SecretSquirrel]

But I can imagine circumstances, ones often referred to as "lifeboat scenarios", in which the normal rules of ethics cease to apply.

Wrong

If you ever allow violation of ethics or rights because of "circumstances" you are:

1) Illogical, because the threshold of required "circumstances" is perceived subjectively, and this practically completely neuters the notion of ethics or rights because of that fact in practice
2) Not different one whit in principle, but only in degree, from Nazis or Bolsheviks or Khmer Rouge or any other similar group. They all made this exact argument.

Human beings are and are always to be treated as ends in themselves, NEVER as a means to an end for you or someone else. This is "ethics." Everything else is "expedience" and "might makes right."

[Eran]

eugenekop,
My point is that armed/violent resistant would have died altogether. Compare to the old Soviet Union - no internal violent resistance, yet the system imploded due to its inherent inefficiency. Or China, where the system self-reformed, rather than defeated in an armed struggle.

I guess I am thinking of a hypothetical scenario in which a Nazi-dominated Europe would have faced an end of one of those two forms.


SecretSquirrel,
I guess I am not as much of a deontological absolutist as you are.
1. I didn't say "violation of ethics", but rather conceive of situations in which the normal rules of ethics cease to apply. Under such circumstances, different rules take precedence. This, I must stress, is my personal, intuitive conception of ethics. Not being an ethical objectivist, I don't think any of us can offer anything that isn't a personal, intuitive conception, regardless of the fancy layer of logical/philosophical rationalization we overlay on top of that intuition.

2. If you choose to draw your line between (1) absolute deontologists who agree with you, and (2) everybody else, then I guess you are right. I will here acknowledge publicly that beyond words, I am also guilty of having brought two children to the world without their prior permission. I guess in that respect there is no difference (in principle) between me and Hitler.

Human beings are and are always to be treated as ends in themselves, NEVER as a means to an end for you or someone else. This is "ethics." Everything else is "expedience" and "might makes right."

How do you know?

[SecretSquirrel]

How do you know?

Its the only way to take adequate duty of care towards others. If you ever willfully fail to do take adequate duty of care you are already breaching ethical behavioral guidelines.

and i very much hope for their sake that your children's lives are fully of sunshine and happiness with no significant difficulties or regrets from start to finish.

[Eran]

and i very much hope for their sake that your children's lives are fully of sunshine and happiness with no significant difficulties or regrets from start to finish.

They are now both old enough that, if they so choose, they could always terminate their own lives. Any healthy and determined adult can.

From the observation that the vast majority of people prefer to go on living, I deduce that the crime of bringing children into the world is not, by and large, overly bad.

[eugenekop]

Eran, from what I see in latest Israeli conflicts, the militants from the other side use human shields a lot, even though the Israeli army doesn't care that much about it. So if human shields are used already, can you imagine how much will they be used against libertarians, who will have a real problem breaking NAP (unlike modern countries)?

[Eran]

You are only focusing on one aspect of the conflict. In part, the "human shields" may not be unwilling - it may be the case that the militants in Gaza enjoy broad popular support from the population. The reason behind that (as I am sure we discussed in the past) is that the Gazans have legitimate grievances against prior and ongoing aggression by Israel.

I would readily admit, however, that "human shields" could indeed be used by true aggressors and thus pose significant dilemma for dedicated libertarians.

However, regardless of your ethical view, it is easy not just to imagine, but to look at historic examples in which evil people present us with difficult moral dilemmas. Hostages are a form of "human shield". Depending on the identity and number of hostages, almost any person will at some point hesitate regarding the right thing to do.

The moral scale of the Israeli government is easily revealed when you consider how different a value it places on innocent lives depending on the nationality of those lives.

My attitude (unlike SS) is that, while the NAP should be the "rule", there are rare exceptions to that rule. One difference between my position and that of people who use the excuse of such exceptions to justify aggression is that I believe that if you do harm innocents, you owe them compensation.

The analogy often used is of a person wandering in the cold wilderness, worried for his life, and finding an empty and locked cabin. He breaks in (thereby committing aggression) to save his life. Most libertarians would justify such action, but point out that the person subsequently owes compensation to the cabin owner.

Similarly, if you do end up hurting civilians used as human shields, you owe them (or their families) compensation.