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Nigel

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Of course it's semantics. The meaning of things is pretty important, wouldn't you say? Whether something constitutes self-defense or a rights violation is a pretty important distinction to make, isn't it? Nothing less than deciding whether I am morally permitted to do the thing in question or not is at stake.

But I don't know what you mean by a "level of the violation of your own rights." What kind of levels are we breaking rights violations up into and why? Do you mean when can you take certain measures to defend yourself? This would be a legal application of the moral principle validating that self-defense is permissible when your rights are violated in the first place. It would probably start as soon as you perceive an overt threat of invasion, and go from there in accordance with proportionality. But I can't quite see the relevance here.

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Of course it's semantics. The meaning of things is pretty important, wouldn't you say? Whether something constitutes self-defense or a rights violation is a pretty important distinction to make, isn't it?

Its semantics because the meaning isn't different, just the words to describe them. In both cases you are arguing that it is ok to proscribe force onto another person because they are acting in an irrational way that threatens your self interest.

But I don't know what you mean by a "level of the violation of your own rights." What kind of levels are we breaking rights violations up into and why? Do you mean when can you take certain measures to defend yourself? This would be a legal application of the moral principle validating that self-defense is permissible when your rights are violated in the first place. It would probably start as soon as you perceive an overt threat of invasion, and go from there in accordance with proportionality. But I can't quite see the relevance here.

I'll admit that my usage of words there was obtuse, but yeah it's about the proportionality of response. Like, if someone comes at me with a gun and the intent to kill I am well within my rights to kill him in self defense. However if a clumsy neighbor continuously runs his lawnmower over my petunias, can I kill him?

The reason the granularity matters has to do with the abdication of rights by the irrational. What rights are abdicated for what levels of irrationality? This is about the problem of defining a group concept of "what is rational", which is the entire principle of democratic governance.

The most basic version of this is what I'll call the Law & Order ™ legal system (like the show, so its murderers etc.) We have agreed that it is irrational for a person to murder someone else or to molest a child, and that someone who acts irrationaly like this abdicates their rights to freedom (they go to jail.)

The more complex, and more interesting version of this is in government spending. For instance: a large number of us agree that it is rational to provide funding for the Law & Order legal system, so that they can catch and imprison dangerous people. Let's just assume for a moment that this is in fact rational (we'll come back to that). But there are others who irrationally disagree with this. They do not want to pay for this. But by not paying for this they make it more costly for the rational members of society to get their Law & Order. Therefore their irrational acts are in fact damaging the property (Law & Order) paid for by the rational

For this level of irrational behavior, is it wrong to force the irrational members to pay for it? They are acting irrationally and by doing so are damaging our property.

Now, I assumed in this case that it was a rational choice to pay for Law & Order. But how do I actually know that, especially when there are those that disagree? How can a group direct a government to rational action when there is no arbitrary definition of what is rational?

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Its semantics because the meaning isn't different, just the words to describe them. In both cases you are arguing that it is ok to proscribe force onto another person because they are acting in an irrational way that threatens your self interest.

Yeah, and I think this is important. I don't at all agree that this is the case. I don't agree that the words mean the same things, either. Try to think about what a rights violation would mean. It would mean that there is a moral prohibition against taking this action, that the action is evil, wrong. If it is legitimate self-defense, then it means there is a moral imperative to taking the action, the action has survival value, it is good, life-affirming.

So it's not that you view it as a rights violation, but you just think it's permissible to violate rights in this instance for whatever reason. That would require you to say "I know that I may not do this morally, but we should do it anyway. I know that this is evil, but I am advocating evil anyway." It's actually that you are saying that you don't really think that it is wrong to do this to someone, which a fortiori means that you don't really think there is an individual right here in the first place, which in turn means that you just plain disagree with the ethical code in question.

And btw, you don't get to use force against someone just because they are irrational or threaten your self-interest in any imaginable way.

I'll admit that my usage of words there was obtuse, but yeah it's about the proportionality of response. Like, if someone comes at me with a gun and the intent to kill I am well within my rights to kill him in self defense. However if a clumsy neighbor continuously runs his lawnmower over my petunias, can I kill him?

Of course not? If someone steps on your toe, or shoplifts a candy bar, or throws a baseball into your lawn, no you may not kill them. (There are threads on this btw.) Again, I don't quite see the relevance.

But by not paying for this they make it more costly for the rational members of society to get their Law & Order. Therefore their irrational acts are in fact damaging the property (Law & Order) paid for by the rational

Now this is truly an equivocation. As previously mentioned, you don't own the value of your property, nor do you have the right to a certain price in the marketplace, as that would require totalitarian control over the choices of everyone in society, and the destruction of all freedom. You own the physical property itself, and each owner has the right to make his own choices as to what he does with it. The cost of goods and services on the market reflects these voluntary choices.

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Abstract. The authors contend that what can legitirnatcly be owned in a free society is only

rights to physical property. not to the value thereof. You are thus free to undermine the value

of our property by underselling us, by inventing a new substitute for our property, etc. But you

cannot legitimately physically agresa against our property, even if it5 value remains constant

despite your efforts.

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Ok, I'll accept your point that the devaluation of a property is not a violation of rights, whatsoever. I kind of got into one of those things where you get an idea in your head and the momentum just keeps building and building and it gets harder and harder to find the early flaw.

So, let's go back for a second to the military defence thing. 90% of the people acknowledge it is in their best interest, 5% of people say its not (which is ok because they are allowed to devalue my property.) However, there's another 5% that determines that it is in their best interest to do this, but then says that it isn't so they can get it for free.

For these last people it isn't a matter of them devaluing my property, they are flat out stealing it. Would that be a proper interpretation?

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Sorry, I don't see how anything has changed. I still see a bunch of people illegitimately crying "thief!" to justify their own thieving. Unless we know who owns what and why in the first place, then we can't decide who has stolen something. Just saying "they are flat out stealing" doesn't help me. How are they stealing? How is it that the 90% really owns the 5%'s money in question?

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How would you find out a person's lack of having paid, we can't say a priori. Just off the top of my head, I suppose you could ask them for records of their having donated, and if they refused, you could become really suspicious. We could give them gold star stickers if they donate, and see if they don't have one we shake our fists at them. But the strict question in terms of what does Objectivist ethics say can be done to free riders is this: coercion no, boycott yes.

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It's not just a matter of them not having paid. Of those that don't pay there are two subcategories:

A) Those that did not pay because they rationally decided that the proposed spending was not in their own self interest

B ) Those that believed that the proposed spending was in their self interest, but chose not to pay while masquerading as A.

There is nothing inherently wrong with not contributing, but refusing to contribute to something that you privately acknowledge is in your self interest because there is no way for others to know what your reasons are is completely unethical.

Edited by emorris1000
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It's not just a matter of them not having paid. Of those that don't pay there are two subcategories:

A) Those that did not pay because they rationally decided that the proposed spending was not in their own self interest

B ) Those that believed that the proposed spending was in their self interest, but chose not to pay while masquerading as A.

There is nothing inherently wrong with not contributing, but refusing to contribute to something that you privately acknowledge is in your self interest because there is no way for others to know what your reasons are is completely unethical.

Okay. Therefore what? It still doesn't follow that they are stealing, as we haven't yet establshed who owns what. If they have the option of paying or not, it would seem the argument implicitly assumes they own the money in question.

But really, I don't know if you can say "Well they're liars. They know I'm right, they just don't give money anyway, because they're dirty free riders!" I don't think they really know what you think. It seems rather that they don't think they will benefit in the same way the payers do, that they think they will benefit more by not donating as compared to donating, just so long as enough other people do, but that they would donate as compared to not having the service at all. In that case, I don't know how different they are from category A. They judge it in their self-interest not to pay.

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