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2046:

"What? No we're not waiting for anything other than people to acknowledge and respond to the arguments already offered. People were claiming they didn't even want to read them out of pure laziness! No one is saying someone's need is the principle involved, why is there the need to invent such claims out of the whole cloth?"

Who has offered a philosophical Oist based argument for claiming that the locked person has his rights violated? If I've missed it I will surely read it.

I am the one "arguing" that the the implicit claim is that ones need is what creates the alleged "right".The "need" to bring this up is because those who argue that the landlocked person has a right to cross another's property don't realize the principle implicit in the claim. The "cloth" is the actual claims of others in this thread.

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We've been round and round on property rights before in other threads, and since you have direct personal knowledge that I have explained myself and can explain myself this is simply a lie. You have seen all the explanations, mine and others', you simply refuse to accept them. I decline your generous invitation to waste more of my time pretending you can be reasoned with.

Also, notice that I managed to make my displeasure with your posts known without resorting to namecalling.

Your previous "explanations" have failed to satisfy me because they were faulty, Grames. And yes, I do "simply refuse to accept" your poor reasoning.

If you're saying that you can do no better now, I believe you -- you seem to be very limited. But when you recognize that you have nothing helpful to add, the best you can do for the thread, and the community, is simply to remain silent and let other, better posters reply instead. If you want to spill your venom, do it in PM, or to the unfortunates in your household, or not at all. Leave conversation to the adults.

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The lines that define the properties in question are not the lines that define the rights at question. Property rights are not equal to the property. Whatever property is referred to in a particular case is a concrete while a right is necessarily an abstraction. What is referenced when we refer to a property and we refer to a property right are very different things. Recall that the meaning of a concept is what it references. Therefore we have two very different concepts in 'property' and 'property right'.

I am willing to go on and be the someone that defends 'the philosophical position that one has a right leave his property irrespective of the rights of those around them', but first you should have the opportunity to respond to this.

Grames, I'm aware of the differences sighted above and the relevant action associated with the use of the abstract right here in question involves the use of the concrete property of another person. Recall that the abstraction here involved references the use of the concrete of another man. Both concepts are involved and I don't see why you felt the need to state the obvious.

Edit:for the record I have not read any other thread on property rights that I know of as I'm generally digging into epistemology. The only links I know of were not on philosophical arguments. If Grames has labored on the philosophical problem herein in another place I'd be happy to read it without him being expected to reiterate it. Likewise for anyone else.

Edited by Plasmatic
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Your previous "explanations" have failed to satisfy me because they were faulty, Grames. And yes, I do "simply refuse to accept" your poor reasoning.

If you're saying that you can do no better now, I believe you -- you seem to be very limited. But when you recognize that you have nothing helpful to add, the best you can do for the thread, and the community, is simply to remain silent and let other, better posters reply instead. If you want to spill your venom, do it in PM, or to the unfortunates in your household, or not at all. Leave conversation to the adults.

One can lead a horse to water, but one cannot make him drink.

One can lead a child to knowledge, but one cannot make him think.

- Robert Heinlein

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2046:

"Also, there are tons of contexts where Lockean property rights permits one use of anothers property. For example, suppose Smith buys a car from Jones. The car is sitting in Jones' driveway. The title of ownership has changed whilst the physical location has not. Not suppose Smith wants to get the car, does Jones have a right to say "No you can't!" and build a wall around it? Can Jones then claim that his property rights are being violated when the police come to confiscate the car? What has happened here? Specifically, Smith's right of ownership to the car permits him to come onto Jones' property and take it by force, if such a situation is necessary. The same applies to the concept of easements. Someone already owns access to, or leave from, his property in certain contexts, and thus denial of his access is tantamount to Jones' walling off of Smith's car in his driveway. "

First, I'm not interested in a Lochean view of philosophy. Your analogy is false anyhow. There is nothing on the surrounding property of the walled persons property that he has a title to. Offer a argument as to why one "owns access" through another's property.

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Recall that the abstraction here involved references the use of the concrete of another man.

No, it does not reference that. What is to be done about the encirclement problem in property law (easement) is a deduction that comes way later than the concept of a right.

A right is a normative abstraction describing how one should act toward others and how others should act toward oneself. A normative abstraction pertaining to human action is also known as a moral principle. Moral principle is the genus of the definition of right given by Ayn Rand:

A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life.

That a man's right to his own life is fundamental is important here because what is fundamental is the essential defining characteristic of the concept by the rule of fundamentality. Any and all construing of the limits of property rights are subordinate to the right to life, which can be considered as forming the context for those specific rights.

Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action—which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)

The actions required by man the rational animal crucially include interacting with others: above all learning from them, and also listening to and speaking to them, and trading with them for material values, and generally contracting with them. "Man is not a lone wolf and he is not a social animal. He is a contractual animal." -Ayn Rand There cannot be a right to so greatly interfere with the necessary actions of life man qua man even if subsistence survival were possible on the isolated plot.

Not 2 months ago there was a thread on this identical topic. See Trapped Man Problem

Two years ago Craig Biddle wrote in defense of Immigration and Individual Rights. Poster 2046 referenced it in the thread Ayn Rand & "Open Borders". Since freedom of movement is a similar feature between the immigration question and the trapped man problem there is a parallel argument to made in both cases.

I quote the most relevant portion of Biddle's case (footnotes and links omitted from the original):

Here is why:

Man lives by means of reason–that is, by acting on his rational judgment. To live, he must observe facts, identify causal relationships, use logic, form principles about what is good and bad for his life, and act on his best judgment. For instance, he must observe that food, shelter, medical care, and the like are necessary for his survival; he must acknowledge that such goods cannot be wished or prayed into existence but must be produced by means of rational thought and effort; he must conclude that producing values is good for his life and that failing to produce them is bad for his life; and he must act on that principle. A person who fails to recognize such facts and take such actions will either soon die or, as is more often the case, exist parasitically on those who do think and produce.

Because reason is man’s basic means of living–and because reason is a faculty of the individual–a human life, a life proper to man, is a life lived by the judgment of one’s own mind. The basic principle on which America was founded and on which slavery was abolished is an acknowledgment of this fact: Each individual has a moral right to act in accordance with his own judgment, so long as he does not violate the same right of others. This is the meaning of the right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. The right to life is the right to act as one’s life requires–which means, on the judgment of one’s mind. The right to liberty is the right to be free from coercive interference–so that one can act on the judgment of one’s mind. The right to property is the right to keep, use, and dispose of the product of one’s effort–which one does by acting on one’s judgment. And the right to the pursuit of happiness is the right to seek the values of one’s choice–which one does by acting on one’s judgment.

Each of these rights–and every other legitimate right–is a species of the right to act on one’s judgment; thus, if we want to protect our rights, we must recognize andreject the one thing that can stop us from acting on our judgment: physical force.

If someone puts a gun to your head and commands “Give me your wallet” or “Take off your clothes” or “Don’t criticize the government” or “Don’t cross that border,” you cannot act on your judgment; you cannot keep your wallet or remain clothed or criticize the government or cross the border. The threat of death makes your judgment–your basic means of survival–irrelevant; you now have to act on the gunman’s judgment. Absent such force, you can act as you see fit; you can keep your wallet, remain clothed, criticize the government, cross the border.

The principle here is: Physical force used against a person prevents him from acting on his judgment–and only physical force has this effect. In other words, individual rights can be violated only by means of physical force.

Claiming a right to trap a man on his property violates rights by making it impossible generally for the trapped man to act on his judgement, and so is an assault on his life and initiation of force.

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Edit:for the record I have not read any other thread on property rights that I know of as I'm generally digging into epistemology. The only links I know of were not on philosophical arguments. If Grames has labored on the philosophical problem herein in another place I'd be happy to read it without him being expected to reiterate it. Likewise for anyone else.

You are wise in the ways of the Grames. I had covered the topic before. Respect. :D

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First, I'm not interested in a Lochean view of philosophy. Your analogy is false anyhow. There is nothing on the surrounding property of the walled persons property that he has a title to. Offer a argument as to why one "owns access" through another's property.

Well that's fine and all, you don't have to support Lockean rights, but insofar as we are discussing easements and private property, the whole point in question was to see what follows from what. And that was the whole point of the analogy, that there is in fact something on the surrounding property that he has a title to. If you can understand that, then you can understand how if that were the case, then it wouldn't be a violation of the surrounding property owner's rights to allow access. The only thing left then is to see how that could be the case, and an example is in my post that mdegges linked to on the first page. It is the same way, for example, how an airport obtains an easement for a certain amount of noise output over a surrounding person's property, that same thing involved in the "coming to the nuissance" doctrine, i.e. they were there first.

The right of an easement follows deductively from the Lockean homesteading principle (first-appropriation) and legitimate title transfer (contractual exchange.) There is no appeal to anyone's "need." The surrounding person voluntarily entered a pre-existing situation in which movement has already been prescriptively established, therefore he is initiating force if he blocks access. However, if the person exceeds the bounds of the level of access previously established (for example, if he tries to establish a drag strip on the property), then he can be enjoined by the surrounding owner to stop the new activity.

Edited by 2046
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Am I the only one to whom it seems that this reduces to a question of wether or not a free society might need public roads?

No. What it means is that a free society is not a utopian society and that people with have to first think, then think on principle, if they expect to live in that free society.

Further, it is proof that freedom is the only way to deal with odd one-in-a-million concrete emergency situations since public solutions (I.E. Central Planning) cannot even account for the predictable emergencies (like FEMA and a hurricane) let alone bizarre situations like this. Would you rather work with your neighbors in a local court to solve a local issue based on the Principle of Rights, or does Washington need to appoint a Czar to manage each case? I know which situation I’d choose.

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Well I'm glad you read it... See now we can have a discussion. So, what part of my approach to the argument for easements in my post specifically do you find to not succeed?

Your post from that previous thread doesn't address the issue at hand on this thread. It doesn't offer an Objectivist philosophical justification for the imposition of an easement against the will of the surrounding property owner. It doesn't offer an Objectivist philosophical justification for the claim that one has the "right" to use another's property against his will, or that one's "rights" can be violated by someone who has done what he pleases with his own property while not trespassing or in any other way intiaiting force which would prevent one from possessing title, using, owning and living off of one's own property.

J

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Still, there would have to be some type of principle in law, that assured people that they would not be murdered by omission.

Why do you call it "murder"? In the scenario that DonAthos presented, those who have food are simply refusing to sell it to one person. That is not "murder." Do you remember in Atlas Shrugged that the heroes of the novel remove from society the benefits that would have derived from their creativity and intellects? Their doing so resulted in immense hardships and death, including of innocent people. That's what happens when you intentionally go on strike to try to stop the motor of the world. You, however, seem to think that the heroes of Atlas Shrugged were guilty of "murder," and that the heroes were actually villains. You seem to think that someone's need of something gives him the right to it.

J

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Rights are rights to action. The untrapped neighbor can act to leave from and return to his property without assistance, without permission and without interference. The trapped neighbor cannot. Is this a good start? Does it remain to prove that such action (leaving from and returning to one's property without costs imposed by others) is a right?

Yes, it remains to be proven that leaving and returning from one's property is a right. See, the point is that if leaving and returning is a right which can be imposed on other property owners, then you're basically making an argument against the Objectivist position of opposing the existence of public roads, since public roads are really nothing but an integrated system of easements.

J

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If the premise is that in a capitalist society a person or persons could 'wall someone in', I would ask is there a conceivable context in which a productive rational individual would derive any advantage to the walling in.

Walling others in would be a great way to increase one's revenue -- demanding very high payments from landlocked owners, or even the eventual surrender of their property, in exhange for their ability to come and go could be very profitable. Also, walling people in could be a very effective way of dealing with evil people who, politically, promote vicious ideas. So, yes, there are conceiveable contexts in which a rational individual would derive advantage from walling others in.

J

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Under capitalism, all lands would be private, but the sole discretion of the private owners does not extend to include the negation of the rights of others.

No one on this thread has yet offered an Objectivist philosophical justification for the claim that one's rights are being negated when another land owner builds a surrounding wall on his own property.

This specious landlocked scenario tries to circumvent or obfuscate this by using the concept of rights while trying to ignore or brush aside what gives rise to the concept. Easement by necessity, while perhaps poorly worded, addresses this.

As I said in a recent post, imposing easements against the will of individual landowners is an argument in favor of a public road system. Such systems are nothing but a massive integration of easements. Actually, they are more justified than typcial easements, because landowners are paid fair market price for their property, and not just ordered to allow others to use it without compensation.

The problem on this thread appears to be that certain people want to believe in a certain conclusion, and they don't like the opposite conclusion despite the fact it is the inevitable Objectivist conclusion, so they end up advocating things without really considering the consequences of what they're advocating.

J

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What principle gives one individual the "right" to landlock another?

What principle gives one individual the right to landlock another? Why, the principle of private property! As has been said several time on this thread, practically eveyone in a completely private system would be landlocked in one way or another by surrounding neighbors. The people on this thread who support force-initiated easements are actually just making up "rights" because they want or need them.

J

Edited by Jonathan13
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On topic:

Definitely trolling, in the sense of advocating a position not sincerely held.

I see you as being the one who is trolling. We're five pages into this thread, and you still haven't offered any Objectivist philosophical justification for your position. You've also sent me off on a wild goose chase to a previous thread which I suspected didn't contain the substance that you were implying that it contained. Do you have any substance yet? Anything other than bluffing, blustering and distractions?

J

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Claiming a right to trap a man on his property violates rights by making it impossible generally for the trapped man to act on his judgement, and so is an assault on his life and initiation of force.

No one has claimed a right to "trap" a man. The fact that a man has allowd himselft to become trapped through his own inability to prepare for such eventualities in a system of purely private property ownership is not logical grounds on which to conclude that someone else has "initiated force" against him. The purpose of propery ownership is to support the lives of the indivduals who own and control it. The surrounded man still owns and controlls his property, and has the right and the power to use it to support his life.

So, basically, your faulty argument is that the man wants or needs to leave his property and enter onto someone else's, and therefore his need makes it his right, and since it's his right, the other owner is therefore "initiating force" by standing between him and his right. One might as well argue that if one is hungry but does not have food or a means of producing it, and that one needs others' food in order to survice, then one therefore has the right to their food, and they are "intiating force"if the try to prevent one from taking the food.

You just haven't this through very carefully.

J

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What principle give one individual the right to landlock another? Why, the principle of private property! <snip>

J

If there were such a principle, you would be right. But there isn't. Within the limits of one's right to act one can do whatever he wants with his own property, but only within the limits. The limit is where other men's rights begin. Rights and property rights are not context-free absolutes.

The Libertarian view of "freedom" misses this by extending "freedom" to take any action an individual choose to take, because to Libertarians, "freedom" means "freedom" under all contexts, a case of context dropping. Or in an opposing view that a man is not "free" because he cannot fly, or gets hungry, or is bound by other metaphysically given facts. Either way, it is method of grasping and inter-relating principles that seems to be elusive and appears to be difficult for many to grasp.

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Your post from that previous thread doesn't address the issue at hand on this thread. It doesn't offer an Objectivist philosophical justification for the imposition of an easement against the will of the surrounding property owner. It doesn't offer an Objectivist philosophical justification for the claim that one has the "right" to use another's property against his will, or that one's "rights" can be violated by someone who has done what he pleases with his own property while not trespassing or in any other way intiaiting force which would prevent one from possessing title, using, owning and living off of one's own property.

J

Hmm, then I'm not confident you even read it. In the first place, I did offer twice in this thread alone, examples where one can have a right to use another person's property specifically against his will. Secondly, the rest is a strawman because I haven't claimed an easement can be imposed on someone who hasn't violated anyone's rights, or that the claim is based off of "need." I have only claimed an access right follows from a prescriptive easement that was prior-existing (i.e. it was homesteaded, or contracted) and that this dispatches concerns of encirclement. Edited by 2046
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Hmm, then I'm not confident you even read it. In the first place, I did offer twice in this thread alone, examples where one can have a right to use another person's property specifically against his will. Secondly, the rest is a strawman because I haven't claimed an easement can be imposed on someone who hasn't violated anyone's rights, or that the claim is based off of "need." I have only claimed an access right follows from a prescriptive easement that was prior-existing (i.e. it was homesteaded, or contracted) and that this dispatches concerns of encirclement.

Are you not following this conversation?

Early in this thread, Grames and others began taking the position that easements imposed on property owners against their will are an Objectivist "solution" to the problem of people being surrounded under a system of purely private property ownership. These people smugly referred their opponents to a previous thread and other materials, and condescendingly demanded that others read it so as to get up to speed on the issue and discover the philosophical basis behind their assertions. Against my better judgment, I did so, and merely reported that the linked materials DO NOT offer Objectivist philosophical justification as was implied.

And thank you for confirming that! As you say, your position was not to claim that an encircled landowner's rights have been violated.

J

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Are you not following this conversation?

Early in this thread, Grames and others began taking the position that easements imposed on property owners against their will are an Objectivist "solution" to the problem of people being surrounded under a system of purely private property ownership. These people smugly referred their opponents to a previous thread and other materials, and condescendingly demanded that others read it so as to get up to speed on the issue and discover the philosophical basis behind their assertions. Against my better judgment, I did so, and merely reported that the linked materials DO NOT offer Objectivist philosophical justification as was implied.

And thank you for confirming that! As you say, your position was not to claim that an encircled landowner's rights have been violated.

J

No, I guess I'm not following it then. From what I saw, people asked a question that has frequently been responded to, then you flipped out on us. Regardless, it doesn't even appear you're interested in actually exchanging ideas, I don't even know who's claiming what anymore.
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What? No we're not waiting for anything other than people to acknowledge and respond to the arguments already offered. People were claiming they didn't even want to read them out of pure laziness! No one is saying someone's need is the principle involved, why is there the need to invent such claims out of the whole cloth?

Of course there is no context-free absolute right to leave your property through someone else's. That was never the claim.

Also, there are tons of contexts where Lockean property rights permits one use of anothers property. For example, suppose Smith buys a car from Jones. The car is sitting in Jones' driveway. The title of ownership has changed whilst the physical location has not. Not suppose Smith wants to get the car, does Jones have a right to say "No you can't!" and build a wall around it? Can Jones then claim that his property rights are being violated when the police come to confiscate the car? What has happened here? Specifically, Smith's right of ownership to the car permits him to come onto Jones' property and take it by force, if such a situation is necessary. The same applies to the concept of easements. Someone already owns access to, or leave from, his property in certain contexts, and thus denial of his access is tantamount to Jones' walling off of Smith's car in his driveway.

These are two different situations. In your example, the police force is retaliatory and Jones' actions equate to theft.

Say that the property A of owner A is walling in owner B of the property B. Owner A allows owner B access through his land so he can come to and from property B for free. However, owner A sells the house to owner C and owner C decides that he is going to charge a fee or not allow access. Owner B never had an agreement with owner C, but you would use force to make owner C give access to owner B for free? Is it the Objectivist view that owner B enters in certain preexisting agreements between owner A and C just by buying the property?

I think the only view compatible with Objectivism would be for Owner B to convince owner A to include this "free access" provision in the contract with owner C when buying property A.

Edited by Matt Giannelli
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These are two different situations. In your example, the police force is retaliatory and Jones' actions equate to theft.

Say that the property A of owner A is walling in owner B of the property B. Owner A allows owner B access through his land so he can come to and from property B for free. However, owner A sells the house to owner C and owner C decides that he is going to charge a fee or not allow access. Owner B never had an agreement with owner C, but you would use force to make owner C give access to owner B for free? Is it the Objectivist view that owner B enters in certain preexisting agreements between owner A and C just by buying the property?

I think the only view compatible with Objectivism would be for Owner B to convince owner A to include this "free access" provision in the contract with owner C when buying property A.

The similarity is only insofar as sometimes having a property right to something may include the positive obligation of someone else to allow access to their property. (Someone said there can never be such a thing on objectivist grounds, I'm showing otherwise.) Denial of someone's access right of way would also require retaliatory force.

Your example can't be figured out because it lacks context. What kind of agreement does B have with A? Does he have an unrestricted easement, or a contract that specifies a number of years, or an ad hoc agreement? C might be bound by such terms, he might not be for all we know. The point is that encirclement is a pretty outlandish objection to private property because everyone would ensure their ability to access their own land either by homesteading a prescriptive easement or through access contracts. If someone fails to do any of the above, well then it's his own damn fault.

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No, I guess I'm not following it then. From what I saw, people asked a question that has frequently been responded to, then you flipped out on us. Regardless, it doesn't even appear you're interested in actually exchanging ideas, I don't even know who's claiming what anymore.

I think you should go back and reread this thread, preferably while setting aside your emotions. I haven't "flipped out," and I have no idea how anyone reading and comprehending this thread could possibly come to the ridiculous conclusion that I don't appear to be interested in actually exchanging ideas, since I've been doing nothing but calmly offering substantive arguments where my opponents have been avoiding it. One or two of them have even been behaving with beligerence and smugness toward others while (inadvertently?) advocating anti-Objectivist positions.Your judgment on this issue is anything but objective if you've come to the unfounded position that I've been "flipping out" and not exchanging ideas.

J

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