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Topic: criminals with guns in courts and jails (Read 16248 times)
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CurtHowland
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That is what the Farmer Ant does.
So does the ant now become a rational actor? No more than one cell in your body is a rational actor, yet together those cells create complexity. Not so sure that a hungry human would be any more picky than the bear about the available food either. Which is why the productivity possible through capitalism and the division of labor has freed mankind, not enslaved it. |
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MaineShark
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If an "insane" person is incapable of possing rights doesn't that mean I can kill him, he has no right to life?
Or I can take his stuff, he has no right to property?
Who determines he is insane anyways?
We all agree some people aren't of normal mind, even if not many. Hence why we have the NAP. If someone initiates force against another, he has demonstrated himself to either be disinterested or incapable of behaving in a reasonable manner. Anything prior to that, we can debate his sanity/rationality/whatever-term-you-like. No opinion of three doctors, or determination by a judge; the perpetrator of a violation of someone else's rights condemns himself, absent a value judgment on anyone else's part. Or are there many levels of rights?
Not just an all or none thing. There's only one right - self-ownership - all other apparent rights are just applications of that one actual right. So no, there are no levels; there can't be levels in a single, yes/no question. Joe |
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"An armed society is a polite society" - this does not mean that we are polite because we fear each other.
We are not civilized because we are armed; we are armed because we are civilized..
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Alex Libman
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You do realize that the cow is not behaving in a natural manner.
Its production of milk was for its young... not yours. |
What does that have to do with anything I've said? I've explained why a cow is a natural resource, which can be exploited by self-owning entities with Property Rights ("Rational Economic Actors") however they see fit. All things in the universe are products of evolution, from the lowest forces of physics to chemical evolution, all the way down to organics and biology. A tree did not intend for its branch to be used for a spear, and the geological forces that created coal didn't intend for it to power a locomotive, etc. By the logical criteria that determines Rights, there's no significant difference between rocks and cows. It were the REA's that gave those things a higher meaning. (PS: I'm a vegan (again), and whey protein powders contain cholesterol, so I have no use for cows (except possibly leather).) If an "insane" person is incapable of possing rights doesn't that mean I can kill him, he has no right to life? |
I've just explained how all human beings are potential REA's, since no one can logically prove that a cure or rehabilitation is 100% impossible for anyone (including Terri Schiavo, though the decision to end her life could have been legitimate based on any contractual agreements she entered into while an actual REA). No other animals are potential REA's in of themselves - even if you could attach a brain enhancement device to a monkey, that would be a completely new creature, with the original monkey just being one of the ingredients. Potential REA's have the Right to Life and the Right to Emancipation. The former means that killing them is taboo (that doesn't mean anyone has an obligation to pay their bills, though an advanced society would certainly find a way). The Right to Emancipation is a more complicated concept that ensures that parents / guardians / caretakers / prison wardens cannot hide their treatment of their dependents from public scrutiny and interfere with their ability to petition for emancipation. I'm a big believer in strong Parents' Rights, as for example parents can make very significant medical decisions for their children (ex), but they cannot kill them and they cannot mutilate them or brainwash them or isolate them from society to the point where their abuse would have no consequences for the abusers. Or I can take his stuff, he has no right to property? |
Potential REA's don't generally fall out of the sky to be homesteaded like natural resources. They at very least have parents - and a high-tech society with powerful "genetic information systems" would make it much easier to find the parents of any particular child. Parents who don't want the children have no right to just kill or abandon them (see above), but must at very least make a public announcement that they intend to abandon their child, and an advanced society would find no shortage of people who'd want to do something about that (even if, as a resource of last resort, it would involve for-profit orphanages reminiscent of Victorian England). The burden of proof is on the parents / guardians to document that a particular dependent is unfit to be emancipated by a certain age (i.e. 18). All of this ensures that all potential REA's have guardians, who must be actual REA's, to hold their Right to Liberty and Right to Property on their behalf. Who determines he is insane anyways? |
Declaring that someone deserves to lose their Right to Liberty and/or Property, or to be emancipated and regain those Rights, requires evidence that is backed by impartial expert opinion. Psychologists, child development specialists, criminologists, neurologists, etc would compete with each-other on the basis of their reputation to provide their services. In a decentralized justice system, there is a strong functional pressure to make all evidence "open source" - that is available to anyone who may care to inquire. Some cases may be treated informally, like if a developmentally challenged child wants to continue living with her parents and everyone is in agreement. Other cases may attract a media firestorm (with all them busybodies now working for private charities instead of governments), and result in much debate among opposing teams of experts. Polycentric jurisprudence is an evolving system, and only time and real-world precedent can tell how the most controversial of cases are to be handled, but I think liability risks would make it a lot easier to err on the side of freedom. If reasonable people are willing to stake their reputation on someone not being insane, it's probably best to set that person free and see what happens. There's only one right - self-ownership [...] |
Clearly a two-year-old who doesn't want to take a bath can have some of his Rights over-ruled by his parents (or guardians, etc), and rightly so. On the other hand those guardians cannot kill their dependent, or lock him up in a basement where they can do anything to him with impunity, etc. This is why I make a distinction between actual and potential REA's, with the latter having their Right to Liberty and/or Right to Property entrusted to someone else. |
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« Last Edit: May 02, 2011, 10:18:01 am by Alex Libman »
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John Edward Mercier
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Alex, You have yet to explain why an animal is not an economic actor any better than a slave owner could. That is what the Farmer Ant does.
So does the ant now become a rational actor? No more than one cell in your body is a rational actor, yet together those cells create complexity. Not so sure that a hungry human would be any more picky than the bear about the available food either. Which is why the productivity possible through capitalism and the division of labor has freed mankind, not enslaved it. I was replying to maintaining another species for their productive value... and farming to feed that species. And how would a species that has limited interaction, like bears, develop capitalism? I'm pretty sure the species members would need to have a little more interaction. |
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Alex Libman
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You have yet to explain why an animal is not an economic actor any better than a slave owner could. |
Yes I have. And see also a bunch of other threads where I've argued against animal rights (ex. 1, 2, 3, 4, etc). The American slave owners went to great lengths to maintain the illusion that Africans were less men and more ape. I pass no laws forbidding the education of animals - to the contrary, I'm more than willing to give Nim Chimpsky & pals the benefit of doubt. But the fact remains that all races of humans are on the same logarithmic plane of intellectual capacity, with any ethnic genetic predisposition being minuscule compared to the variations that come from individual personality and other personal attributes. If any parahumans come about who posses a sufficient-enough fraction of human intelligence, then I would be a staunch defender of their Rights. But no currently existing animal or AI comes anywhere close. No more than one cell in your body is a rational actor, yet together those cells create complexity. |
Yes, it is very much possible -- as many science fiction stories have speculated -- that independent modules / components of an organism not qualify as Rational Economic Actors, but the whole organism would. But nothing known to modern science comes anywhere close, not even all of Planet Earth combined sans man. |
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« Last Edit: May 04, 2011, 01:18:32 pm by Alex Libman »
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WendellBerry
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Someone owns property. Either it's privately owned, or owned by that unique institution "government". Either way, the owner by definition can determine the disposition of the property.
The conflict is when govt tries to assert that a property is public, while they in fact enforce trespassing and other private property rules upon it.
So here we are in the commons section of the forum and still people don't understand the distinction between: 1. individual property and rights 2. common property and rights 3. collective property and rights Collective property rights are jointly held. Typically - No one can act to access or use without the explicit consent of all the other joint owners or their delegated authority where the terms and conditions are spelled out prior. Common property rights are individual but equal. Typically - Any individual can access and use without prior consent so long as in their use/access they do not infringe on any other individuals equal access right to the same. Then to really screw things up they use the term "public" to mean both common and collective - they are NOT the same. |
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John Edward Mercier
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That is because in practice; there is no true common.
We collectively own the property acquired through common means.
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John Edward Mercier
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Your second quote wasn't mine... it was me quoting Curt.
So now its the level of intelligence and not intelligence?
So a newborn is not an REA and has no Rights. And must pass some theoretical test to acquire those Rights.
What would that test be?
Same argument as the slave owners.
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CurtHowland
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So a newborn is not an REA and has no Rights. And must pass some theoretical test to acquire those Rights.
What would that test be?
Same argument as the slave owners. I'm assuming that you mean that the argument a slave owner makes is that his slaves are not capable to be independent. I consider this a reversal of the flow of logic, akin to "If A then B, B then not necessarily A". That a child is not a fully rational actor came first. The individual and societal recognition of that pre-existing fact is why the mechanisms of legal "dependence" exist, and cover not just "children" by age, but also those individuals who never develop the capacity to be fully independent. A slave owner asserting that the individuals he "owns" are his "dependents" and therefore do not have the capacity to be independent, is no less mistaken than my asserting that since I own a red shirt, I own all red shirts. It has been perfectly normal in many societies throughout human history for parents to be able to kill their children at will. That particular act today counts as murder, just as chattel slavery is now considered wrong. Societies and societal norms change over time. Will slavery be normal again at some point in the future? I expect it will. But not here, not today, and not in an environment where the individual is considered ruler of their own selves first. |
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John Edward Mercier
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So the child either has to be an REA. Or Rights are given to 'humans' regardless; not because of a natural disposition.
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MaineShark
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So the child either has to be an REA. Or Rights are given to 'humans' regardless; not because of a natural disposition. All people have rights. Some humans are people. There is no visual, chemical, genetic, etc. way to tell the difference. The only externally-visible difference is behavioral. Falsely treating a non-person as a person has no victim. Falsely treating a person as a non-person, does have a victim. Therefore, we treat all humans as having rights, unless they prove otherwise (by the behavior of initiating force against another). Hence, the NAP. It's pretty darn simple... Joe |
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"An armed society is a polite society" - this does not mean that we are polite because we fear each other.
We are not civilized because we are armed; we are armed because we are civilized..
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CurtHowland
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So the child either has to be an REA. Or Rights are given to 'humans' regardless; not because of a natural disposition.
You're reversing the logic flow again. A child is not recognized as a rational actor. Rights are not "given" at any time, merely recognized as pre-existing. The right of self determination is not recognized in a child for the simple fact of behavior, as MaineShark so ably describes. When the young human being acts rationally, their rights are recognized as such. The society we generally live in ascribes this change to a particular age, but it is hardly dependent upon age alone. I have considered a society where social "majority" is achieved by the individual bringing suit against their parents/guardians and in effect declaring themselves emancipated. Once done, that individual is considered a legal adult, a free individual. One of the problems in America is that we don't have a ritual by which an individual achieves adulthood. Some use highschool graduation, I've always thought that was pretty lame. |
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MaineShark
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Indeed. The reason children have rights is not because they are currently, fully rational, but because they will, unhindered, become such.
Violating their "rights," now is actually an act of aggression against them in the future, when they would otherwise be able to exercise their rights freely. It's like setting off a time bomb, which won't go off for years. It's still wrong, because it will cause harm. Aggression does not have a "statute of limitations." Proving it, as a practical matter, might be difficult, the longer the time goes on, but the actual act is wrong, even if it will take decades before it actually interferes with someone's rights.
Joe
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"An armed society is a polite society" - this does not mean that we are polite because we fear each other.
We are not civilized because we are armed; we are armed because we are civilized..
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Russell Kanning
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almost every time i go into a court or jail .... criminals have guns there
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B.D. Ross
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Indeed. The reason children have rights is not because they are currently, fully rational, but because they will, unhindered, become such.
Nah. |
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