NationStates Jolt Archive

I consider myself a conservative on the "old Whig" sense of the term (as Friedrich Hayek put it). That is, I feel it important to restrain the powers of government and maximise the liberty of the people in order to keep society in a vibrant, progressing state.

I believe that a failure to do so will result in the stagnation and ultimate failure of western civilisation, as well as non-Western societies that have adopted the western style of development and democracy.

I've also heard the same sentiments echoed by other conservatives.

So here come my questions:
1. How do pro-Bush members of the U.S. Republican Party reconcile the fact that restrictions on society in the name of morality and "values" might be seen by some as little more than an attempt to enforce a moralist nanny-state on the people?

2. Isn't the nanny-state mentality anathema to the spirit of conservatism?

3. Regarding the above, is it not a little bit insulting to the spirit of liberty and the intelligence of the American people to not trust them with making the "moral" or "values" related decisions on their own?

3. If we are told on the one hand that we are in a near-perpetual war against terrorism and are told on the other hand that restrictions and "sacrifices" must be made in wartime, what is to guard against these restrictions never being lifted?

4. Pat Roberts, a Republican congressman from Kansas said, "I'm a strong supporter of the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, and civil liberties, but you have no civil liberties if you are dead." How does this statement jibe with conservative beliefs in any way?

I've been in the U.S. nearly all my life, but maybe because my parents are immigrants, I'd hate to think my finger isn't as well placed on the pulse of our political currents. Having said that, please humour me a bit with these questions.

I'm with you man. Libertarian, classical liberal, pre-Bush Republican, Ayn Rand objectivist, whatever you call it, I don't care what the government's intentions are - it should be limited to the protection of contract and property rights. Go back to the basics that our Founding Fathers intended (minus the slavery of course).

1. They might consider the nanny-state a good idea.

*shrug* Hey, I'm the Paternalistic Commonwealth of Bogmarsh.

Change the gender of the nanny, and I'm fine with it.
( But then again, I dislike the GOP. )

Change the gender of the nanny, and I'm fine with it.
( But then again, I dislike the GOP. )
Oh, fine. Man-nanny, then.

Oh, fine. Man-nanny, then.


The Freedom to do Good cannot be uncoupled from the Freedom to do Bad.

That being so, I am no great proponent of Freedom, nor do I pretend to be one.

I agree. We need real conservatism here and not Liberals like Bush. The one question that I have is what does it mean to be a neo-conservative? I have heard this term and I have no idea what it means.

I agree. We need real conservatism here and not Liberals like Bush. The one question that I have is what does it mean to be a neo-conservative? I have heard this term and I have no idea what it means.
Neoconservatism means to follow a philosophy that revolves around the fundamental idea that the U.S. has a moral duty to exercise a more-or-less interventionist foreign policy around the world. Neoconservatism is primarily a foreign policy related philosophy that views "Islamofascism," China, and Communism as the modern equivalent of the Axis Powers in WWII.

Domestically, it seems as if much of the neoconservative movement, while not explicitly religious in itself (and indeed a good number of neocons are quite secular), is heavily influenced by the authoritarian and Christian right-wing of the Republican Party.

My only guess is that a lot of this Christian-right support stems from the neoconservative movement's unequivocable support of the Israeli cause and a shared anti-Communist sentiment.

Right on. These are the questions that I have been asking throughout the Bush administration, as "conservatives" push for bigger and bigger government. If there were actually conservatives of the sort you describe, I'd be voting for them! But, instead, I'm stuck voting Democrat as often as not, because the Dem candidates end up supporting slightly less government intrusion.

I'm so sick of settling for the lesser of two evils.

Right on. These are the questions that I have been asking throughout the Bush administration, as "conservatives" push for bigger and bigger government. If there were actually conservatives of the sort you describe, I'd be voting for them! But, instead, I'm stuck voting Democrat as often as not, because the Dem candidates end up supporting slightly less government intrusion.

I'm so sick of settling for the lesser of two evils.
Agreed. But something tells me the Republican party apparatus would make life extremely difficult for old-school conservatives even *angling* for public office, let alone those elected.

Thanks for the explanation of what an neo-conservative is. I think I am a neo-conservative because I think America nad all democracies must be at war with any and all countries that have major human rights abuses that are sanctioned by the government. However, I do not think that is a conservative view. I think it is just the view that we should not sit idly back and let evil run amok.

I think a conservative is one who stresses individual liberty and small government. The reason why I think Bush is a liberal is because he wants to regulate abortions, pornongraphy, and keep marijuana illegal. These things deprive or restrict individual liberty. I think it is a courageous and rather unpolitical think to want to come to the rescue of oppressed people. I do not see it as having anything to do with iberalism or conservatism except to the extent that we are helping foreigners having their freedoms and human rights excessively intruded upon by foreign governments.

Right on. These are the questions that I have been asking throughout the Bush administration, as "conservatives" push for bigger and bigger government. If there were actually conservatives of the sort you describe, I'd be voting for them! But, instead, I'm stuck voting Democrat as often as not, because the Dem candidates end up supporting slightly less government intrusion.

I'm so sick of settling for the lesser of two evils.

Of course, as proven in 2000, your votes are not what you thought they were... the electoral college sux!!:mad:

I think a conservative is one who stresses individual liberty and small government. The reason why I think Bush is a liberal is because he wants to regulate abortions, pornongraphy, and keep marijuana illegal. These things deprive or restrict individual liberty. I think it is a courageous and rather unpolitical think to want to come to the rescue of oppressed people. I do not see it as having anything to do with iberalism or conservatism except to the extent that we are helping foreigners having their freedoms and human rights excessively intruded upon by foreign governments.
But if a true conservative is for individual liberty and small government, they would be very wary of a powerful federal government that uses the military to do what it believes is right. And yes, some in the government may have the best intentions. But the best intentions have a nasty habit of resorting to violence sometimes (e.g. Communism). We libertarians don't trust a powerful, armed government even if some politicians are well-meaning. Because, who is to say those well-meaning politicians won't be replaced by tyrants who would use our power for the wrong ends. That's why I and other small government advocates believe private charities are more effective means of helping other countries than government programs.

it should be limited to the protection of contract and property rights.
Refreshing honesty from a right-winger.

Bush is caught in a bizarro electoral spot. His current support is born of several primary groups.

First and foremost he receives tremendous support from social conservatives, fundamentalist Christians and the like. They may not agree with Bush on many issues, including economic ones, but they really don't care about those. They instead worry about things like abortion and gay marriage, and fret about what will happen to society if these things are permitted. They have the mystic 'interventionist God' viewpoint, and think that God will smite us in this world if we don't do what they think he wants us to do.

Secondly his support from the Patriot-nationalist viewpoint is also important. These are folks who are often associated with the America can do no wrong viewpoint. They were possibly once 'old whig' style conservatives, but the years of having Republicans in power has taken its toll, and the healthy distaste for government that can be spawned by having a democrat in office every so often has withered.

Thirdly we've got the much talked about neoconservatives. Primarily social liberals, Jewish and intellectuals to an extent, they are extremely aggressive abroad, and are quite akin to idealists in foreign affairs. They focus on the middle east as the location in which they want to change the world first, so they can change the rest of the world later. They are increasingly on the out in the Bush administration, because their little game in Iraq has turned out radically different than they claimed it would. All the same, their ideas on international finances have not been disqualified, and are being exercised in some of the international financial istitutions with levels of success.

Finally we've got Nixon conservatives. Or, more appropriately, realists. They're willing to do nigh anything, to get whatever they need to done. Cheney and Rumsfeld are both of this group and NOT neo-conservatives. They allowed the neo-conservatives to have sway for a little while, but have since swept them out. They worship on the altar of Kissinger, and have very few qualms about playing dirty when they feel they have to.

Not truly supporters, but totally unwilling to vote for a Democrat who promises even more government spending are the classical conservatives, the 'old whigs' as you and F.A. von Hayek put it. They've gone along with Bush simply because they didn't like the alternative even more. They are disillusioned with the administration, and seek to reassert their dominance of the Republican party as soon as possible, if at all possible.

I'm in the last group.

I don't care what the government's intentions are - it should be limited to the protection of contract and property rights.Why should that be the limit to what the government does, and not some other limit?

The reason why I think Bush is a liberal is because he wants to regulate abortions, pornongraphy, and keep marijuana illegal. These things deprive or restrict individual liberty. Then you have a crappy definition of what a liberal is.

Why should that be the limit to what the government does, and not some other limit?
Primarily a normative judgement, which values freedom/liberty above all other values.

Then you have a crappy definition of what a liberal is.
It's a reference to the American viewpoint in particular of the false liberal-conservative dialectic that's been manufactured by politicians on all parts of the spectrum. The reason it's false is because dialectics is worthy of little more than an interesting mind game. The world is too nuanced for dialectics to explain anything in the real world.

Thanks for the explanation of what an neo-conservative is. I think I am a neo-conservative because I think America nad all democracies must be at war with any and all countries that have major human rights abuses that are sanctioned by the government. However, I do not think that is a conservative view. I think it is just the view that we should not sit idly back and let evil run amok.

I think a conservative is one who stresses individual liberty and small government. The reason why I think Bush is a liberal is because he wants to regulate abortions, pornongraphy, and keep marijuana illegal. These things deprive or restrict individual liberty. I think it is a courageous and rather unpolitical think to want to come to the rescue of oppressed people. I do not see it as having anything to do with iberalism or conservatism except to the extent that we are helping foreigners having their freedoms and human rights excessively intruded upon by foreign governments.


Neo-conservatism has a great deal more to it than a simple "Fight evil on its own territory". It's a theory of foreign relations that first emerged after the Cold War when people like Francis Fukayama, John Mearsheimer, and Charles Krauthammer started articulating a new post-war doctrine of American supremacy. Put simply, neo-cons saw the fall of the Soviet Union as a completely unique moment in human history: never before had one nation been completely able to economically, militarily, and culturally dominate other nations as the U.S. could now. Even Rome was only supreme in one relatively small geographic area, while the U.S. could, in the neo-con view, project its power anywhere and succeed. To that end, the U.S. had a well-nigh obligation to use its power to achieve permanent and sustained dominance in the name of self-defense, or at least defense of present or future U.S. interests.

However, because there are still dictatorships, and because dictatorships cannot be trusted to negotiate in good faith to surrender power, our unending supremacy depends upon the use of coercive force to end dictatorships the world over, replacing them instead with democracies that, in the neo-con analysis, rarely if ever fight each other. By doing that, we can eliminate hostility in the world and ensure a peaceful collective of democracies led by the United States and secured by American military hegemony. The only alternative is to allow the world to fall back into the old Westphalian multipolar world with its constant warfare and attempt to balance power, an attempt which, in the nuclear age is an attempt fraught with the gravest peril.

Neo-conservatism, then, differs markedly from classical conservatism because 1) is it even more utopian than the goofiest neo-liberal, and 2) it assumes, in contravention to every truly conservative precept, that people can be fundamentally remade by the use of some external force, in this case American military power.

Primarily a normative judgement, which values freedom/liberty above all other values.But it's only a value of one conception of freedom and liberty, why that conception as opposed to another?

But it's only a value of one conception of freedom and liberty, why that conception as opposed to another?
Mind you, normative judgement.

I've always been pragmatic when it comes to policy. I don't really conform to particular ideology but rather decide according to the issue at hand; personally, I think a government that uses any ideology as its basis for rule is dangerous simply because it crimps their ability to think rationally. I feel that a government that rules strictly according to liberalism is as dangerous as one that rules strictly according to neoconservatism or any other ideology.

I think a conservative is one who stresses individual liberty and small government. The reason why I think Bush is a liberal is because he wants to regulate abortions, pornongraphy, and keep marijuana illegal. These things deprive or restrict individual liberty.

lib·er·al [ lbr-l, lbrl ]
adj.

a. Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry. b. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.

The thing is, I agree with the stance of Glorious Freedonia and Halandra and I consider myself a liberalist. I generally use the term conservative to refer to someone who supports social and economic restrictive and "nanny-state" mentality. I believe that all individuals should have the right and choice to do whatever they wish as long as they do not infringe, restrict or harm the choice and rights of another individual or force an action on someone, the government's role is to ensure these rights. This results in balance and deals with true crimes, not moral "crimes" which only affect the persons choosing to do it to themselves. The military's purpose, then, is to protect the rights of the individuals from a force far larger than on the individual scale.

Mind you, normative judgement.Ah, okay, I can accept that that is the normal idea of what freedom and liberty are.

Ah, okay, I can accept that that is the normal idea of what freedom and liberty are.

Why concede that? It's quite clearly not. According to that notion of "liberty", a starving uneducated orphan without any decent opportunities is perfectly "free" as long as she is capable of selling her labor without government restrictions. The fact that she might be trapped in the most horrific of conditions with no real capability of escaping, the fact that she might die because of circumstances completely beyond her control, is a mere irrelevancy.

Why concede that? It's quite clearly not. According to that notion of "liberty", a starving uneducated orphan without any decent opportunities is perfectly "free" as long as she is capable of selling her labor without government restrictions. The fact that she might be trapped in the most horrific of conditions with no real capability of escaping, the fact that she might die because of circumstances completely beyond her control, is a mere irrelevancy.
What I'm talking about is an analysis of where the origin of this concept of liberty is from, not my opinions on it. Our viewpoints are clearly founded on different paradigms, and neither you nor I would be able to convince the other that they're wrong. The inevitability in that argument is a flame fest where I wind up calling you a "dirty fucking fascist" and you call me a "uncaring gredy sonabitch." I don't feel like having that debate again, and currently work is tugging on my nerves.

Why should that be the limit to what the government does, and not some other limit?

That is the basic foundation of society, without which you will have chaos. We can do without government instituted morality and welfare (e.g. It's not the end of the world if a few stem cells are destroyed or if certain people have to take a second job to make enough money), but we cannot do without the protection of contracts. Certain places in Africa, people are afraid to start businesses because they see others bulldozed to the ground by the government on the count of being political opponents. It's chaos. You won't bother doing anything in society unless you can be reasonably sure the government will protect your property and contract rights.

Why concede that? It's quite clearly not. According to that notion of "liberty", a starving uneducated orphan without any decent opportunities is perfectly "free" as long as she is capable of selling her labor without government restrictions. The fact that she might be trapped in the most horrific of conditions with no real capability of escaping, the fact that she might die because of circumstances completely beyond her control, is a mere irrelevancy.I don't agree with such a notion of liberty, but that's the notion of liberty that most people accept, therefore it is normal. This is one of the reasons people are sometimes apoplectic when I say that communism maximizes freedom, because their concept of freedom is different.

That is the basic foundation of society, without which you will have chaos. We can do without government instituted morality and welfare, but we cannot do without the protection of contracts. Certain places in Africa, people are afraid to start businesses because they see others bulldozed to the ground by the government. It's chaos. You won't bother doing anything in society unless you can be reasonably sure the government will protect your property and contract rights.I fail to see how without government-created and protected property rights, there would necessarily be chaos.

What I'm talking about is an analysis of where the origin of this concept of liberty is from, not my opinions on it. Our viewpoints are clearly founded on different paradigms, and neither you nor I would be able to convince the other that they're wrong.

I don't know about that. It's perfectly possible to defend a minarchist system according to a conception of freedom that doesn't result in absurdities. It's perfectly conceivable that laissez-faire capitalism maximizes even my preferred conception of freedom, and that my socialism is a delusional attempt to force an economy to do something it would do more effectively naturally.

My problem is with the notion that capitalist property relations are somehow intrinsically more free than any other sort. The argument that in practice they tend to maximize freedom more than other economic systems is a different one, and in my personal opinion far more defensible (if still wrong.)

The inevitability in that argument is a flame fest where I wind up calling you a "dirty fucking fascist" and you call me a "uncaring gredy sonabitch." I don't feel like having that debate again, and currently work is tugging on my nerves.

Fair enough.

I don't agree with such a notion of liberty, but that's the notion of liberty that most people accept, therefore it is normal.

No, I don't think it's the notion of liberty that most people accept at all. For instance, I think most people would include "meaningful control over one's own life" in any formulation of freedom. The difference is not so much in intuitive conceptions of what freedom is as it is in differing ways of applying it to the real world, and those applications are subjects about which serious discussion can be had.

This is one of the reasons people are sometimes apoplectic when I say that communism maximizes freedom, because their concept of freedom is different.

Or maybe their conception of communism, or of the capitalist alternative. It usually isn't so simple as "we have a fundamental disagreement," except perhaps when you're arguing with Objectivists.

I fail to see how without government-created and protected property rights, there would necessarily be chaos.
Well, the alternative is either anarcho-capitalism or plain anarchy. Some of the more hardcore libertarians seem to want the government to be basically just a large insurance company. I'm not totally averse to this idea, if it could be made to work, but I don't think that's what you're leaning towards in this case.

So the alternative to the protection of contract and property rights by government is anarchy - i.e. no one owns or has a right to anything. Well guess what, I've always wanted a beach house. I'll go and shoot the people who live in that place over there. Who's going to stop me?

No, I don't think it's the notion of liberty that most people accept at all. For instance, I think most people would include "meaningful control over one's own life" in any formulation of freedom. The difference is not so much in intuitive conceptions of what freedom is as it is in differing ways of applying it to the real world, and those applications are subjects about which serious discussion can be had.I don't know about that, most people aren't too concerned with meaningful control over one's own life as long as the government isn't causing a lack of control.

Well, the alternative is either anarcho-capitalism or plain anarchy. Some of the more hardcore libertarians seem to want the government to be basically just a large insurance company. I'm not totally averse to this idea, if it could be made to work, but I don't think that's what you're leaning towards in this case.

So the alternative to the protection of contract and property rights by government is anarchy - i.e. no one owns or has a right to anything. Well guess what, I've always wanted a beach house. I'll go and shoot the people who live in that place over there. Who's going to stop me?Communism and anarcho-communism can both without the idea of property rights.

Communism and anarcho-communism can both without the idea of property rights.
Well, we could debate this, but communism is basically just government ownership of everything. And the state's army and police still protect the contract and property rights - they're just assigned in a different way from a free-market democracy.

I don't know about that, most people aren't too concerned with meaningful control over one's own life as long as the government isn't causing a lack of control.

What about public education? Most people seem pretty supportive of basic attempts to expand opportunities, even if they require state coercion.

What about public education? Most people seem pretty supportive of basic attempts to expand opportunities, even if they require state coercion.But that's just it, that state coercion interferes with freedom, they simply believe that in this case, the interference with freedom is worth it.

What about public education? Most people seem pretty supportive of basic attempts to expand opportunities, even if they require state coercion.

Free education is the foundation for any fair meritocracy

But that's just it, that state coercion interferes with freedom, they simply believe that in this case, the interference with freedom is worth it.

And at least one reason many of them tend to think so is because it helps guarantee the freedom of the poor. The Right emphasizes the "personal responsibility for poverty" argument so much because if it were accurate it would mean that social circumstances do not restrict freedom as much as leftists argue they do. This is distinct from the kind of argument that I am rejecting, the notion that even if the social circumstances deprive someone of meaningful opportunities, it doesn't matter because "real" freedom is just property rights and unrestricted contractual agreements, and the poor are deprived of neither.

And at least one reason many of them tend to think so is because it helps guarantee the freedom of the poor. The Right emphasizes the "personal responsibility for poverty" argument so much because if it were accurate it would mean that social circumstances do not restrict freedom as much as leftists argue they do. This is distinct from the kind of argument that I am rejecting, the notion that even if the social circumstances deprive someone of meaningful opportunities, it doesn't matter because "real" freedom is just property rights and unrestricted contractual agreements, and the poor are deprived of neither.I would suggest that the reason that they don't view poverty as being an interference in freedom because it doesn't restrict property rights and contractural agreements, and they view those things as being what freedom is.

I would suggest that the reason that they don't view poverty as being an interference in freedom because it doesn't restrict property rights and contractural agreements, and they view those things as being what freedom is.

I think there are issues with how we define freedom, though.

In its strictest sense, freedom is a state where man or woman can exist without the coercion of another person. It doesn't matter whether he or she is the head of a multinational company or begs on the street outside that company's offices.

Poverty sucks, but there is only one form of freedom and the minute you divide it up into multiple "freedoms" is the minute you begin eroding the concept in itself.

Classic liberalism died in American politics when the Democrat party made its leftward lurch in the early 1970's. It is now the party of high taxes, government regulation, mandatory welfare programs, abortion on minors without parental consent, and a weak national defense. It has not won 50% of the vote in a national election since 1976.

Classic liberalism died in American politics when the Democrat party made its leftward lurch in the early 1970's. It is now the party of high taxes, government regulation, mandatory welfare programs, abortion on minors without parental consent, and a weak national defense. It has not won 50% of the vote in a national election since 1976.

I don't think excessive government spending is entirely a Democratic game. Postwar Republican administrations have presided over some rather impressive spending schemes themselves. Look no further than the Bush administration.

You're not suggesting that the Democrats are responsible for forcing the Republicans to spend beyond the nation's means, are you?

I don't think excessive government spending is entirely a Democratic game. Postwar Republican administrations have presided over some rather impressive spending schemes themselves. Look no further than the Bush administration.

You're not suggesting that the Democrats are responsible for forcing the Republicans to spend beyond the nation's means, are you?

Yes I do. Congress controls the purse strings of the government. Is it any coincidence that the Democrats controled Congress from 1955 to 1995 and the the national debt went up every year but 1956, 1957, and 1960?

Or that the national debt as a proportion of GDP is currently lower than it was at the end of World war II.

Or that Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Bush sr.s budgets were always dead on arrival.

as for George W. Bush the deficit has come from military spending increases which have been necessary for policy objectives. He has kept revenue up and social spending down.

So here come my questions:
1. How do pro-Bush members of the U.S. Republican Party reconcile the fact that restrictions on society in the name of morality and "values" might be seen by some as little more than an attempt to enforce a moralist nanny-state on the people?

Because if those restrictions on society and freedom are not put into place, the terrorists win!

2. Isn't the nanny-state mentality anathema to the spirit of conservatism?

How DARE you state that supporting our troops is a nanny-state mentality!

3. Regarding the above, is it not a little bit insulting to the spirit of liberty and the intelligence of the American people to not trust them with making the "moral" or "values" related decisions on their own?

Ah, but they can be trusted to make the decisions on their own, as long as the decision is made by the government!

3. If we are told on the one hand that we are in a near-perpetual war against terrorism and are told on the other hand that restrictions and "sacrifices" must be made in wartime, what is to guard against these restrictions never being lifted?

If sacrifice was easy, it wouldn't be sacrifice would it?

4. Pat Roberts, a Republican congressman from Kansas said, "I'm a strong supporter of the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, and civil liberties, but you have no civil liberties if you are dead." How does this statement jibe with conservative beliefs in any way?

It's true. Dead people have no liberties whatsoever! (except the right to vote.)

I don't have time to comment directly since I have to catch a train home from work. But I wanted to state that, in my opinion, this so far is the most intelligently-debated and rooted thread I have yet seen on this site in my brief time here. Bravo!

neo-Conservative:An intellectual and political movement in favor of political, economic, and social conservatism

Classic liberalism: a political philosophy that supports individual rights as pre-existing the state, a government that exists to protect those moral rights, ensured by a constitution that protects individual autonomy from other individuals and governmental power, private property, and a laissez-faire economic policy

the two have a number of things in common!

I agree. We need real conservatism here and not Liberals like Bush.

That is the most absurd statement i have ever heard! Sure, Bush is Liberal -- if he is compared to Ayatollah Khomeni.

I'm with you man. Libertarian, classical liberal, pre-Bush Republican, Ayn Rand objectivist, whatever you call it, I don't care what the government's intentions are - it should be limited to the protection of contract and property rights. Go back to the basics that our Founding Fathers intended (minus the slavery of course).

bravo, and seconded.

There is no doubt that the Democrats are no longer the party of John F. Kennedy. Here is the perfect quote to demonstrate it..

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

or this one from his brother Ted....

""While the deep concern of a woman bearing an unwanted child merits consideration and sympathy, it is my personal feeling that the legalization of abortion on demand is not in accordance with the value which our civilization places on human life. Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its earliest stages, has certain rights which must be recognized -- the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grown old. "


what happened to the Democrat party of the days of old?

You sir are a libertarian, not a conservative, in the strict sense of the term. But this doesn't mean that the current Republicans are either; they're proto-fascists.

Classic liberalism: a political philosophy that supports individual rights as pre-existing the state

This part never made sense to me. How can you have rights that pre-exist the state. If someone has the right to property someone else has the right to take it. Rights make no sense in a state of nature.

This part never made sense to me. How can you have rights that pre-exist the state. If someone has the right to property someone else has the right to take it. Rights make no sense in a state of nature.

In a state of nature, I could roam freely without clothes. I could literally do whatever I wished (within reason, now) without any possibility of a governing body placing me in confinement. I could say what I want to whomever I want without any fear of retaliation from a ruling body.

...You were saying?

If someone has the right to property someone else has the right to take it.
Your problem is that you don't recognise property as what it is: An extension of your body and mind.

You use your body and your mind to do work. That work results in you gathering stuff (whether that be a bunch of fruit from a tree, or a multi-million dollar wage you use to buy a Ferrari is of no consequence) which are meant to make your life easier.

Property cannot be divided from the individual, because it is the individual. The sum total of the skills and ability of that individual.

If you say someone has the right to take that away, then you must also say that someone has the right to kill someone else.

Your problem is that you don't recognise property as what it is: An extension of your body and mind.

You use your body and your mind to do work. That work results in you gathering stuff (whether that be a bunch of fruit from a tree, or a multi-million dollar wage you use to buy a Ferrari is of no consequence) which are meant to make your life easier.

Property cannot be divided from the individual, because it is the individual. The sum total of the skills and ability of that individual.

If you say someone has the right to take that away, then you must also say that someone has the right to kill someone else.

Umm....you totally misconstrued what I meant. I was talking about natural rights, i.e. rights in a state of nature. All rights are invented. A person does have a right to kill another in a state of nature. No rights exist in nature.

In a state of nature, I could roam freely without clothes. I could literally do whatever I wished (within reason, now) without any possibility of a governing body placing me in confinement. I could say what I want to whomever I want without any fear of retaliation from a ruling body.

...You were saying?

And in a state of nature some male could rape you, meaning you in particular, in all your orifices, torture you for weeks, and the eat you alive. All without a governing body placing him in. Therefore under natural rights people have the right to rape, torture, and murder.

... You were saying?

And in a state of nature some male could rape you, meaning you in particular, in all your orifices, torture you for weeks, and the eat you alive. All without a governing body placing him in. Therefore under natural rights people have the right to rape, torture, and murder.

... You were saying?

So, you're not denying that governments take rights away as well as give others, such as protection?

I was talking about natural rights, i.e. rights in a state of nature. All rights are invented. A person does have a right to kill another in a state of nature. No rights exist in nature.
Well, many smart folks wrote long books about how to arrive at a certain set of natural rights, and this probably isn't the place to recite them all (nor am I really the person to do so).

Kant, Locke, Jefferson, Hobbes etc etc

The idea is that humans are more or less made to live a certain way. They have certain abilities, needs and wants given to them not by the State, but by evolution or god (whichever way you might be inclined). And so by nature they have a certain set of things they need to be able to do in order to survive (like gather property to make their lives easier).

That doesn't mean that those rights can't be violated, of course they can. But it does suggest that the violation is morally wrong.

So, you're not denying that governments take rights away as well as give others, such as protection?

When did I ever say that. I'm just saying natural rights are total crap because in a state of nature people have the right to do anything, including rape and murder.

Well, many smart folks wrote long books about how to arrive at a certain set of natural rights, and this probably isn't the place to recite them all (nor am I really the person to do so).

Kant, Locke, Jefferson, Hobbes etc etc

The idea is that humans are more or less made to live a certain way. They have certain abilities, needs and wants given to them not by the State, but by evolution or god (whichever way you might be inclined). And so by nature they have a certain set of things they need to be able to do in order to survive (like gather property to make their lives easier).

That doesn't mean that those rights can't be violated, of course they can. But it does suggest that the violation is morally wrong.

Many of those guys used theistic arguements, in part, to explain natural rights because God gave humnas various rights. I'm an agnostic so that plops out.

Evolution set things people need and want in order to survive, but that doesn't mean they have a evolutionary right to survive. In fact its just the opposite. Evoltution culls individuals and species. Evolutionary speaking individuals don't reall matter much. Species, to some degree, and genes do. Ecological niches do. All in the very long term. Evolutionally that mean people don't really have any rights to anything. Any person or animal has the right to kill any other person or animal.

Many of those guys used theistic arguements, in part, to explain natural rights because God gave humnas various rights. I'm an agnostic so that plops out.
Hey, I'm a pretty radical atheist. God-type arguments don't impress me, but I don't think it really matters in this case. Their reference to god is more the "this is how god made us" type, and you can easily replace it with "this is how we are biologically".

Evolution set things people need and want in order to survive, but that doesn't mean they have a evolutionary right to survive.
I don't think that's what natural rights really are.

I mean, why are humans such a successful species? Because they have a good brain they use to form the environment to fit their needs and wishes. That is how they are "naturally".

So the ability to do this is a human's natural state, so to speak. It is what they need to do as a species in order to survive. Just as it is natural for a lion to hunt wildebeest, it is natural for humans to walk around and use their reasoning ability to form the environment in their favour.

Collecting property is really just that. If humans were prevented from gathering property of some shape or form (of course you can make all sorts of collectivist arguments here*), they'd probably either die or live pretty wretched lives from one day into the next. It's "naturally right" for humans to acquire property.

*Personally I am too influenced by Ayn Rand on this - to me reason (the primary tool of humans to survive) is an individual thing. Groups don't have reason, individuals do.

I mean, why are humans such a successful species? Because they have a good brain they use to form the environment to fit their needs and wishes. That is how they are "naturally".

So the ability to do this is a human's natural state, so to speak. It is what they need to do as a species in order to survive. Just as it is natural for a lion to hunt wildebeest, it is natural for humans to walk around and use their reasoning ability to form the environment in their favour.

Collecting property is really just that. If humans were prevented from gathering property of some shape or form (of course you can make all sorts of collectivist arguments here*), they'd probably either die or live pretty wretched lives from one day into the next. It's "naturally right" for humans to acquire property.

*Personally I am too influenced by Ayn Rand on this - to me reason (the primary tool of humans to survive) is an individual thing. Groups don't have reason, individuals do.

All rights are invented by human beings and are therefore by definition "artificial". The natural world recognized no rights. The attempt to derive rights from "natural law" or "human nature" is an example of the is-ought fallacy.

Just because humans are a successfull species now doesn't mean it will be indefinately. Most, or even all, species die out.

Just because an entity need someting to survive doesn't mean it has a right to it. If that was so then rights would be so conflicting, humans, animals, and plants that rights would be meaningless.

Yeah, rights don't naturally exist. That is why I take the whole rights argument to mean that a good system has these things. Without property rights it is difficult to create a working economy as we suffer from bad price structures. Without freedom of speech we have difficulty changing and adapting through the utilization of new ideas. Many rights have a practical benefit in my mind, and although I do not see them as unabridgeable, I see abridgement to be a bad precedent which could lead to an inefficient, ineffective totalitarian state.

All rights are invented by human beings and are therefore by definition "artificial". The natural world recognized no rights.
Of course not. The natural world can't recognise anything, because the natural world is not a rational individual.
Natural rights, despite their name, are still arrived at by humans, through trying to understand the world. It makes sense that for humans to survive, certain conditions need to be met, correct?
Philosophers have attempted to identify those conditions, and presuming that survival is a good thing (since it is a requirement for pretty much anything else), established a set of "rights" from them. And if these philosophers only used reason and logic (which I hold to be the only way to establish the real truth about things), they should all come very close to the ideal conditions and something that can with some confidence be called "natural rights".

In other words, perhaps people don't invent human rights so much as they discover them.

The attempt to derive rights from "natural law" or "human nature" is an example of the is-ought fallacy.
Well, you may have noticed, I have no business talking about philosophy, as I have little more to offer than my rather limited understanding of it. I didn't read most of the important works, I do business management and economics at uni.

Even so, what I can offer you to work forwards from here is that we first establish a definition of what a "right" is. Because one possible way to get around the is-ought problem is through that definition.

So I ask you: What do you think a "right" is?

Just because humans are a successfull species now doesn't mean it will be indefinately. Most, or even all, species die out.
Without doubt. But since the natural rights, as I tried to explain them, are very specific to a species, it stands to reason that other species have other natural rights.

If that was so then rights would be so conflicting, humans, animals, and plants that rights would be meaningless.
Well, I'm probably a lot closer to a relativist position there. Of course there is no universal right that counts for plants as well as humans. Plants don't have reason, plants don't acquire property. Evolution is an amoral process, and every species competes for scarce resources without much concern for moral issues.

Your Js mill reincarnated!you definatly seem to be a classical liberal.
I do agree with many classical liberal ideas, about maximising freedom, and lessening state interference, but that where the comparison stops and I turn into a welfare liberal,I think there should be a safety net and free healthcare(Im going to get shot for saying this but long live the NHS)

You use your body and your mind to do work. That work results in you gathering stuff (whether that be a bunch of fruit from a tree, or a multi-million dollar wage you use to buy a Ferrari is of no consequence) which are meant to make your life easier.

Why the connection?

You do indeed use your body and mind to do work - but the fact that our society rewards that work with certain goods does not mean that labor inherently deserves such rewards.

If you do your work because you rationally expect that you will gain property from it, then perhaps you have a right to that property, but you still can't complain about taxation, or even a society without private property, as long as you knew what you would get before you undertook the task.

You do indeed use your body and mind to do work - but the fact that our society rewards that work with certain goods does not mean that labor inherently deserves such rewards.
Well, society doesn't really reward it. Short of very few cases, it's not even 'representatives of society' I deal with, it's simple individuals representing their own interests.
That's why I don't accept the division people sometimes make between a "natural" primitive sort of world where you collect berries to eat and consume them yourself, and our modern world, where the connections are probably a little less direct. But they're still there...basically I'm still putting in some sort of effort, and then perhaps choose to exchange the product for something else.
So, no, labour as such doesn't automatically result in rewards. There are two things that determine your rewards: one being your luck and skill on the day (Do I find fruit today? Does my planned corporate merger work out properly?), and the second being what other people think it's worth (Does the guy with the steak like my fruit? Do the shareholders approve of what I've done?).

If you do your work because you rationally expect that you will gain property from it, then perhaps you have a right to that property, but you still can't complain about taxation, or even a society without private property, as long as you knew what you would get before you undertook the task.
Well, obviously I can complain. :D
On the other hand, you can't for example start a revolution then and take away the stuff people expected to get for their labour.

But you're right, the effort we put in is based on the reward we can rightly expect, and although people are bound to make mistakes in their expectations, we can estimate it fairly reliably. No one but yourself is to blame if you work more than you get rewarded for.

...if your environment and relationships with others are a fixed variable. They're not, of course, and so one can certainly try to get more for one's labour by influencing the environment, ie arguing with the boss or trading partner, voting for a political party that probably lowers taxes and the like. All that is a form of labour as well.
Capitalism isn't a perfect meritocracy, but it can certainly come close, if you push the right buttons...:p

You do indeed use your body and mind to do work - but the fact that our society rewards that work with certain goods does not mean that labor inherently deserves such rewards.


There is no value but that which human beings assign. Nothing is intrinsic. If that is the value that the producer and the consumer have assigned, then that is the appropriate value.

Well, society doesn't really reward it. Short of very few cases, it's not even 'representatives of society' I deal with, it's simple individuals representing their own interests.

Sure it does. What guarantees property rights in the first place? It doesn't do it directly, no, but the system of laws it creates and maintains provide the framework for these exchanges.

That's why I don't accept the division people sometimes make between a "natural" primitive sort of world where you collect berries to eat and consume them yourself, and our modern world, where the connections are probably a little less direct. But they're still there...basically I'm still putting in some sort of effort, and then perhaps choose to exchange the product for something else.

But they're unnatural. They are enforced by the law. They aren't rooted in nature. No one "naturally" owns land, or factories, or whatever. You might "naturally" own the berries you decide to randomly pick when walking through a forest - but even that "natural right" is constrained today, because the plants and trees that produce food are often owned, too.

But I digress. The fact that it is unnatural doesn't mean a thing, morally. It might matter practically, in that human beings living in unnatural societies might have problems they wouldn't have otherwise, but that's another subject entirely.

So, no, labour as such doesn't automatically result in rewards. There are two things that determine your rewards: one being your luck and skill on the day (Do I find fruit today? Does my planned corporate merger work out properly?), and the second being what other people think it's worth (Does the guy with the steak like my fruit? Do the shareholders approve of what I've done?).

I think you're missing my point. Let's say that in our society, labor does automatically result in rewards. Does that mean that such a system is the only acceptable way of organizing a society? Of course not.

If you were contributing labor for the purpose of receiving those rewards, it would be unfair to deny them to you, yes. But if you weren't - if, say, you were living in a commune where no one had any private property - your labor, if you were acting rationally, would be for some other purpose, and as long as you weren't coerced into it, you couldn't reasonably claim that your property rights were violated.

(Actually, looking over the next section of your post, I think you got it fine, but repeating myself can't hurt, especially since I don't know how clear I was in my last post.)

Well, obviously I can complain. :D

Of course. But you have no just claim to an alternative, at least assuming that the taxation etc. serves some useful purpose.

On the other hand, you can't for example start a revolution then and take away the stuff people expected to get for their labour.

Well, you can, but it would violate their rights, yes. I don't believe in absolute rights; in some circumstances a revolution would be justified anyway.

But you're right, the effort we put in is based on the reward we can rightly expect, and although people are bound to make mistakes in their expectations, we can estimate it fairly reliably. No one but yourself is to blame if you work more than you get rewarded for.

...if your environment and relationships with others are a fixed variable.

Exactly. That's why I have a problem with your notion that property is just an extension of your body and mind - it may be today, but it doesn't have to be, and a society in which it were not would not necessarily be oppressive.

They're not, of course, and so one can certainly try to get more for one's labour by influencing the environment, ie arguing with the boss or trading partner, voting for a political party that probably lowers taxes and the like. All that is a form of labour as well.

Right - but is it labor we really want to reward?

There is no value but that which human beings assign. Nothing is intrinsic.

I meant "inherent" in more of a moral sense - the fact that I labor doesn't mean that, simply by virtue of that fact, I justly deserve property. I agree that value is not "intrinsic" in the sense that it is an objective aspect of things the way color, size, etc. are.

If that is the value that the producer and the consumer have assigned, then that is the appropriate value.

This assertion rests on the assumption that the arrangement before the exchange was just, and therefore a consensual exchange between two people that affects no one else leads to a just arrangement as well. But why should we assume that the arrangement before the exchange was just? You can't justify property rights solely through consensual exchange, because consensual exchange involves the transfer of pre-existing property. An exchange between two consenting individuals of property neither justly owns hardly results in a just arrangement.

It doesn't do it directly, no, but the system of laws it creates and maintains provide the framework for these exchanges.
Hmmm...I suppose we end up arguing about what exactly is natural, and what exactly is created by society.
I'd say that the idea that you have something and exchange it with someone for something else is pretty much natural, sort of a direct consequence of humans interacting with nature. Particularly with the sort of "primitive" tribes that don't have a clearly defined notion of property as such within the tribe...if they meet another tribe (and choose not to kill each other) but exchange, the haggling over getting a good deal is a sight to behold.

No one "naturally" owns land, or factories, or whatever. You might "naturally" own the berries you decide to randomly pick when walking through a forest...
Why do you own the berries, but not the factory? Or the land you might have exchanged for the berries?
I just don't get the difference.

But if you weren't - if, say, you were living in a commune where no one had any private property - your labor, if you were acting rationally, would be for some other purpose, and as long as you weren't coerced into it, you couldn't reasonably claim that your property rights were violated.
True. It might be splitting hairs, but I'd argue then that you decided to share the natural right to keep what you produce and decide its fate.

Exactly. That's why I have a problem with your notion that property is just an extension of your body and mind - it may be today, but it doesn't have to be, and a society in which it were not would not necessarily be oppressive.
Well, we'd keep coming back to the Kibbutzim, wouldn't we?
And one of the big reasons people have cited for leaving them was that they didn't like that you don't get to look at and enjoy the product of your own two hands. Everything that was made was shared, and many of the kids who were born into that environment (ie they weren't as ideological about it as their parents were) missed a sense of individuality that you get by deciding over your labour, and how you use it to shape your life.
Which is not to say that there aren't some people who prefer living in Kibbutzim, there obviously are. But at least for some people there is an apparent reluctance to total economic collectivism which isn't taught, but seems to come naturally.

Right - but is it labor we really want to reward?
Well, again, it's not up to us to reward it. It's up to the people involved.
If an employee of yours walks up to you and tries to convince you that his or her labour is worth a pay raise, you can either reward a good argument, or not.

I meant "inherent" in more of a moral sense - the fact that I labor doesn't mean that, simply by virtue of that fact, I justly deserve property. I agree that value is not "intrinsic" in the sense that it is an objective aspect of things the way color, size, etc. are.

That you labor you justly deserve the value fruits of your labor, you don't just deserve any random bit of property. In the case in which you labor in a society which uses money, that value is set between the employer and the employee by mutual consent as a wage. If the employee does not feel that they are receiving enough, they can bargain for a raise, but if the employer is unwilling to grant that raise, then the employee has every right in the world to go and find another job.


This assertion rests on the assumption that the arrangement before the exchange was just, and therefore a consensual exchange between two people that affects no one else leads to a just arrangement as well. But why should we assume that the arrangement before the exchange was just? You can't justify property rights solely through consensual exchange, because consensual exchange involves the transfer of pre-existing property. An exchange between two consenting individuals of property neither justly owns hardly results in a just arrangement.
One justifies property rights through the value of labor. And consensual exchange is justified by that justification of that labor. Furthermore, labor is not just doing random work, labor is an act of change. You can dig up and fill in a hole all day, but that's not going to get you jack shit. If you dig the hole down to the water table, line it with rocks, build a pulley mechanism and a bucket to dip down into the water, you now own a well, which you justly own, because you built it. If you own the well, and your neighbor grows crops, but does not have water, it is a just exchange if you two consent to trade food for water, at a rate that you both agree on. The money system is just a far more sophisticated version of this, but the basics are the same.

Bush is a liberal because he supports big government. Of course the difficult question that this begs is "What is big government?". Big government is the constitutional (as opposed to unconstitutional) encroachment of individual rights and freedoms in order to please the wishes of the majority through law. Another aspect of big government is increasing or higher than "necessary" government expenses.

I have not seen much done by Bush that leads me to think that the man is for small government. Yes he has pushed tax cuts through Congress but there was not an accompanying reduction in governmental expenditures.

The removal or reduction of legal barriers to the use of marijuana, porn, and perhaps abortions would be a rolling back on government power and an increase of the rights and freedoms of the individual.

The one redeeming quality (and it really is the only thing nice that I can say about him) is that he is a neoconservative. I really do not see the Afghani or Iraqi situations to be a failure at all. Yes they were expensive but I really think that freedom has been increased in those countries greatly by what America, England, and others have accomplished. It is a shame that we are not doing more in places like North Korea, Syria, Sudan, Iran, and other places but at least we are doing something somewhere.

As far as classical conservatism and the idea of rights predating the state, I think we are missing the most important concept by worrying about rights in a state of nature. I forget the author, but I remember a concept from college about this where we can understand rights and freedom and the origin of rights in a way that I think is pretty helpful. This idea takes some imagination. Imagine that you have not been born yet and you are a soul in some kind of a void. Let's say you are about to be reincarnated from a human into another human but that is all that you know of your future. What kind of a society would you like to be born into? I think that a good portion if not all of us would want to be born into a society where basic human rights are acknowledged and respected. Most people in such a void would want some degree or another of a social safety net whether it be fairly small or rather large. In this imaginative excercise we can reach a pretty good conclusion about some of the human rights that "precede" the state as there are no states in a void inhabited by isolated intelligent souls awaiting birth.

A more religious approach is based on the idea that we are made in the image of the divine and are therefore creatures of the divine and have worth and deserve to be treated with some dignity. This idea stresses that no matter how awful of a person you are, there is a limit upon what others ought to be able to do to you to punish you because your worth is infinitely greater than the sum of your virtues or wickedness because you were made in the likeness of the Lord and therefore contain a spark of holiness or a fraction of the Lord within your soul. Since the Lord's goodness is infinite, a fraction of his infinite goodness is at least pretty darn big and probably infinite (sorry about the math but a zillionth of inifinity is probably something like infinity). Therefore, this goodness or worth contained in the worst of people should prevent everyone from doing terribly degrading things to the wicked because it is an insult to the Lord to badly treat a vessel of his holiness. Now I know that divine explanation is probably pretty confusing and I am no theologian but I have a sense that this is probably a similar idea to where the classical liberals were coming from.

Either way it all boils down to a pretty good argument for why we ought to have human rights that is a bit more intellectual than seeing torture bad due process good.

Hmmm...I suppose we end up arguing about what exactly is natural, and what exactly is created by society.
I'd say that the idea that you have something and exchange it with someone for something else is pretty much natural, sort of a direct consequence of humans interacting with nature.

But is "having" something like land "natural"?

Why do you own the berries, but not the factory? Or the land you might have exchanged for the berries?
I just don't get the difference.

The difference is that I'm talking about what's natural, and you're talking about what's fair. It may be that if I have a legitimate right to the berries, I have the legitimate right to exchange them for a factory as well (as long as the person with whom I'm exchanging has a legitimate right to said factory). But we shouldn't expect that without a society enforcing property rights, property like the ownership of a factory in which other people work or of land on which other people live would make much sense. If I have berries, I directly possess them - I carry them with my stuff, use them when I want to, etc. That could perhaps be called "natural." But owning a factory on the other side of the planet where people I've never even seen work? Of course not. It might be the result of just exchanges of "natural" property, but it still isn't natural.

True. It might be splitting hairs, but I'd argue then that you decided to share the natural right to keep what you produce and decide its fate.

But you didn't. You may actually want what you produce. But you don't necessarily deserve to get it, because you contributed the labor even though you knew you wouldn't receive it in return.

Well, we'd keep coming back to the Kibbutzim, wouldn't we?

Not just them. Any society without rigidly defined private property rights of the sort you are defending.

And one of the big reasons people have cited for leaving them was that they didn't like that you don't get to look at and enjoy the product of your own two hands. Everything that was made was shared, and many of the kids who were born into that environment (ie they weren't as ideological about it as their parents were) missed a sense of individuality that you get by deciding over your labour, and how you use it to shape your life.

I've said before that I don't advocate the Kibbutz model, and I haven't changed my mind. I would say, though, that because there is no natural, absolute right to property, the property I receive for my labor is properly a social decision, one that should maximize the public good. (Which is not to say that a society like ours necessarily does it wrong. If society thinks letting the market handle it maximizes the public good, fine. But it is not intrinsically the right way to do things.)

One aspect of promoting the public good is allowing people their spheres of privacy and permitting them their individuality, both of which, I would definitely agree, require people having certain things that they can say are theirs. One of the failures of the Kibbutz model is that it didn't do that very effectively. There are good, obvious reasons for saying that things that I am actively using, or that I generally tend to use, should be considered "mine." But, of course, that still doesn't extend to the factory on the other side of the world. And it still doesn't mean that if someone is starving, someone can't take some of "my" food and give it to them - because my right to the food is based on the promotion of the public good, and if another use for that item would promote the public good more effectively, taking it from me and putting it to that use is perfectly justifiable.

Which is not to say that there aren't some people who prefer living in Kibbutzim, there obviously are. But at least for some people there is an apparent reluctance to total economic collectivism which isn't taught, but seems to come naturally.

I think I would share that reluctance, to some degree. A society without any notion of private property whatsoever would be oppressive in certain ways I find unacceptable.

Well, again, it's not up to us to reward it. It's up to the people involved. If an employee of yours walks up to you and tries to convince you that his or her labour is worth a pay raise, you can either reward a good argument, or not.

If we accept that I have a just right to my property, and that such a right is unconditional, yes, it is up to me. But it doesn't have to be.

That you labor you justly deserve the value fruits of your labor, you don't just deserve any random bit of property. In the case in which you labor in a society which uses money, that value is set between the employer and the employee by mutual consent as a wage. If the employee does not feel that they are receiving enough, they can bargain for a raise, but if the employer is unwilling to grant that raise, then the employee has every right in the world to go and find another job.

If you deserve the "value fruits" of your labor, rather than some "random bit of property," then there's some standard by which we can judge the value of labor independent of the wage set between the employee and employer, and it's at least conceivable that the wage set by market conditions is the wrong valuation.

One justifies property rights through the value of labor. And consensual exchange is justified by that justification of that labor. Furthermore, labor is not just doing random work, labor is an act of change. You can dig up and fill in a hole all day, but that's not going to get you jack shit. If you dig the hole down to the water table, line it with rocks, build a pulley mechanism and a bucket to dip down into the water, you now own a well, which you justly own, because you built it. If you own the well, and your neighbor grows crops, but does not have water, it is a just exchange if you two consent to trade food for water, at a rate that you both agree on. The money system is just a far more sophisticated version of this, but the basics are the same.

But why should we assume that this particular manner of allocating property is the right way to do it? What is it about me building a well that entitles me to it? I'm altering something that already exists; why does that suddenly give me a right to it?

Of course the difficult question that this begs is "What is big government?". Big government is the constitutional (as opposed to unconstitutional) encroachment of individual rights and freedoms in order to please the wishes of the majority through law.

I don't agree with this definition. Mostly its because the Constitution can be amended. Potentially any rights, such as freedom of religion, speech, right to a fair trial, can be stripped away by amendments. So basically, according to your definition, the government can do whatever it wants, kill its citizens for political reasons, enforce an official religion on everyone, etc, and not be 'big' as long as it follow the Constitution, whatever it says at the time. Now its very unlikely that that will ever happen, but its possible.

Bush is a liberal because he supports big government.
Such a big post, starting with such a strange sentence.

But is "having" something like land "natural"?
Well, a male lion for example "has" a certain piece of land, which he will defend against other male lions. For all intents and purposes, in lion society that land is his property.

But we shouldn't expect that without a society enforcing property rights, property like the ownership of a factory in which other people work or of land on which other people live would make much sense.
You know, you probably have a point. But (and this is a big 'but') - could there be such a society? Would the concept of a factory make sense at all?

As far as we can tell the only societies without a clearly defined concept property rights are very primitive ones. Invariably as such societies advanced they developed a system of private property (or perhaps it is the other way around).
Australian Aboriginals don't even have agriculture. Other such tribes only have it on a very, very basic level. There is simply no need to have property rights in these societies.
But all indications for us are that we need property rights to exist on our level of sophistication. Yes, there are utopian phantasies, but they have always failed, not even necessarily because of their lack of property rights as such, but simply because they clashed with what people want, with human nature.
So perhaps arguing about a factory in a context in which there are no property rights is a little bit like arguing about people flying by flapping their arms. You can make interesting hypotheses and stuff, but they violate some important basic assumptions.

In such a case, even a set of rights developed by a society is still "natural" because they must always exist, no matter what. Even though I'm probably stretching the meaning of the word quite a bit.

...But owning a factory on the other side of the planet where people I've never even seen work? Of course not. It might be the result of just exchanges of "natural" property, but it still isn't natural.
So when do exchanges of natural property turn into exchanges of unnatural property?
Is it really just as simple as saying "as soon as you put those berries you picked away for a while, I can come and take them because you're not using them at the moment"?
It's a dangerous sort of area, because it is very easy indeed to use this sort of reasoning to take away the berries as well.

But you didn't. You may actually want what you produce. But you don't necessarily deserve to get it, because you contributed the labor even though you knew you wouldn't receive it in return.
Right. But is the hypothetical existence of this sort of society proof that there is no such thing as a right to keep the product of one's labour, regardless of government?
It is quite possible that every Indio hunter in the Amazon has a natural law to keep what he kills, but he just chooses to make it available to everyone in the tribe, in exchange for all the other stuff the rest of the tribe allows him to have a share in.

I would say, though, that because there is no natural, absolute right to property, the property I receive for my labor is properly a social decision, one that should maximize the public good. (Which is not to say that a society like ours necessarily does it wrong. If society thinks letting the market handle it maximizes the public good, fine. But it is not intrinsically the right way to do things.)
So...what is the public good? It's an age-old question, of course, and so far humans haven't been able to get even close to answering it without getting involved into all sorts of rent-seeking and selfish behaviour.
And why does the hypothetical lack of a natural right to one's property lead to a situation that requires some sort of social decision? If you don't think that there are natural rights as such, then you can either be a total moral relativist (in which case might is right, and no one but the weak is required to do anything at all), or you must accept that a government (ie an arbitrary group of usually quite well-off randoms) gets to decide the rules everyone else lives by. Neither option suggests that the public good plays any role at all.

There are good, obvious reasons for saying that things that I am actively using, or that I generally tend to use, should be considered "mine." But, of course, that still doesn't extend to the factory on the other side of the world.
Well, if there are some obvious reasons (apart from the problem that you can't share some things), then list them and tell me why they don't apply to the factory.
It may very well be your wish to make great berry-marmelade, for whatever reason. So you start collecting berries (which are presumably yours and rightly so), exchange them for money, exchange that for a bit of land which you use to plant berry-bushes, exchange the extra berries for more money and eventually exchange that money for the factory to make berry-marmelade.
At what point do the obvious reasons no longer apply? Aren't you using everything on every step along the way? Could someone else use any of the stuff at the same time, and you just share? What would you have to do with the product of the berries for it to no longer be yours?

I have a feeling that it is pretty much impossible to accurately define such a borderline. And that's why there is really just two options: Either you do own the product of your labour, and you own anything and everything you do with, or you don't. In which case you end up being a slave.

If you deserve the "value fruits" of your labor, rather than some "random bit of property," then there's some standard by which we can judge the value of labor independent of the wage set between the employee and employer, and it's at least conceivable that the wage set by market conditions is the wrong valuation.
No. Value is totally subjective. What I was saying when I said 'random bit of property' is that you can work all day long and produce nothing, and therefore you get nothing. No magical god in the sky tosses you a house for digging a hole and filling it back up.


But why should we assume that this particular manner of allocating property is the right way to do it? What is it about me building a well that entitles me to it? I'm altering something that already exists; why does that suddenly give me a right to it?
Because it was by your labor, by your exertion that the well is now productive. Without that, there would be no well. Without you, there would be no well. It would be a random patch of unused dirt.

Furthermore, under this mythical egalitarian system you posit, what happens if someone were to break away from the flock? What happens if I loudly pronounce "Fuck you all, I'm going into the big woods and doing whatever I want!" Once in the woods I build a house on the edge of the wood in sight of the village and start chopping wood. I build up a nice stash of firewood for the winter, and I make some delightful luxuries, like a chair, and a bed. I hunt some deer, and collect some berries, I dry the stuff out and I find myself well provisioned for the winter.

What does the community do to me? I've proclaimed myself isolated from society, and that no other man has any right to the fruits of my productive labors. And I flaunt this in the face of the village. No matter the appeals sent to me by the villagers, I refuse to participate in the communal society. What does the village do?

Of course not. The natural world can't recognise anything, because the natural world is not a rational individual.
Natural rights, despite their name, are still arrived at by humans, through trying to understand the world. It makes sense that for humans to survive, certain conditions need to be met, correct?
Philosophers have attempted to identify those conditions, and presuming that survival is a good thing (since it is a requirement for pretty much anything else), established a set of "rights" from them. And if these philosophers only used reason and logic (which I hold to be the only way to establish the real truth about things), they should all come very close to the ideal conditions and something that can with some confidence be called "natural rights".

In other words, perhaps people don't invent human rights so much as they discover them.

Well, you may have noticed, I have no business talking about philosophy, as I have little more to offer than my rather limited understanding of it. I didn't read most of the important works, I do business management and economics at uni.

Even so, what I can offer you to work forwards from here is that we first establish a definition of what a "right" is. Because one possible way to get around the is-ought problem is through that definition.

So I ask you: What do you think a "right" is?

Without doubt. But since the natural rights, as I tried to explain them, are very specific to a species, it stands to reason that other species have other natural rights.

Well, I'm probably a lot closer to a relativist position there. Of course there is no universal right that counts for plants as well as humans. Plants don't have reason, plants don't acquire property. Evolution is an amoral process, and every species competes for scarce resources without much concern for moral issues.

A right is the power or liberty to which one is justly entitled or a thing to which one has a just claim. Rights serve as rules of interaction between people, and, as such, they place constraints upon the actions of individuals or groups. Thanks Wikipedia, for the definition. How to determine what our rights are in a rational way without huge holes in the arguement is beyond me. I believe what I believe, and I'm only somewhat worried about the inconsistancies.

Natural rights juststifications are examples of the is-ought fallacy because base on what the ideal conditions which work best for humans are we ought to work towards the rights that satisfy those conditions.

Well, a male lion for example "has" a certain piece of land, which he will defend against other male lions. For all intents and purposes, in lion society that land is his property.

Property by use. Not by "ownership." If the lion left, would he charge rent for any new residents?

You know, you probably have a point. But (and this is a big 'but') - could there be such a society? Would the concept of a factory make sense at all?

As far as we can tell the only societies without a clearly defined concept property rights are very primitive ones. Invariably as such societies advanced they developed a system of private property (or perhaps it is the other way around).
Australian Aboriginals don't even have agriculture. Other such tribes only have it on a very, very basic level. There is simply no need to have property rights in these societies.
But all indications for us are that we need property rights to exist on our level of sophistication. Yes, there are utopian phantasies, but they have always failed, not even necessarily because of their lack of property rights as such, but simply because they clashed with what people want, with human nature.
So perhaps arguing about a factory in a context in which there are no property rights is a little bit like arguing about people flying by flapping their arms. You can make interesting hypotheses and stuff, but they violate some important basic assumptions.

I would agree that existing at our current level of sophistication without clearly-defined property rights is impossible - but I would also say that existing at our current level of sophistication is very much unnatural.

In such a case, even a set of rights developed by a society is still "natural" because they must always exist, no matter what. Even though I'm probably stretching the meaning of the word quite a bit.

You are. They might be required for a given level of sophistication, but they're not inherent in the natural way humans behave, and they're not required for any kind of society, merely for our kind.

So when do exchanges of natural property turn into exchanges of unnatural property?
Is it really just as simple as saying "as soon as you put those berries you picked away for a while, I can come and take them because you're not using them at the moment"?
It's a dangerous sort of area, because it is very easy indeed to use this sort of reasoning to take away the berries as well.

When I don't directly possess the item I "own." Leaving it aside for a while is one thing; that's temporary, it's still a reasonable assumption that I'll come back and get it. But leaving it there for years, and then, when you come across it again, demanding that the person who picks it up pay you for it... I'd say that's stretching it. Property you don't use at all is pretty much always unnatural.

Right. But is the hypothetical existence of this sort of society proof that there is no such thing as a right to keep the product of one's labour, regardless of government?

Yes, it does. If there is a circumstance in which a universal right to property by labor would imply a right to property, but in which such a right to property would be absurd to maintain, the conclusion must be that there is no universal right to property by labor, merely (perhaps) a general right to property by labor that is rooted in the way most of our societies are organized.

It is quite possible that every Indio hunter in the Amazon has a natural law to keep what he kills, but he just chooses to make it available to everyone in the tribe, in exchange for all the other stuff the rest of the tribe allows him to have a share in.

True. But it doesn't have to be that way for a society to be just.

So...what is the public good? It's an age-old question, of course, and so far humans haven't been able to get even close to answering it without getting involved into all sorts of rent-seeking and selfish behaviour.

How about this: the "public good" is the maximization of the capability of the individuals within a society to exercise meaningful control over their lives.

And why does the hypothetical lack of a natural right to one's property lead to a situation that requires some sort of social decision?

Because if there is no moral obstacle to pursuit of some other moral aim (in this case, the public good) it should be pursued.

If you don't think that there are natural rights as such, then you can either be a total moral relativist (in which case might is right, and no one but the weak is required to do anything at all), or you must accept that a government (ie an arbitrary group of usually quite well-off randoms) gets to decide the rules everyone else lives by. Neither option suggests that the public good plays any role at all.

Since when is the only conception of morality one of "natural rights"? I accept that there are certain things that it would be wrong for the mighty to do to the weak, and that applies as much to the government as to any other power. I also think that certain rights should be guaranteed to individuals that are not subject to the veto of the majority. I just don't think that property rights, as currently formulated in capitalist societies, are ones that should be guaranteed in such a manner. Certain rights that have to do with use of items would perhaps be guaranteed, but the vast majority of decisions regarding the allocation of property are, I would argue, properly social (though, again, if society decides to leave them to individuals, that is legitimate as well.)

Well, if there are some obvious reasons (apart from the problem that you can't share some things), then list them and tell me why they don't apply to the factory.

Sure.
1. My basic possessions help me form an identity. If they are liable to be taken whenever I am not actively using them, I am partially deprived of my capability to define myself.
2. I have a sentimental attachment to my basic possessions.
3. If anyone who wants to can take away my basic possessions, I have no real right to privacy; anyone can invade my personal space when they see fit.
4. Permitting basic possessions leads to less conflict; if what's mine is mine and what's yours is yours, there is no need to argue about who should use what when.
5. This is not so much of a reason as it is the rejection of a potential objection to (4) and to this conception in general. Generally, you can't hoard basic possessions; if you can get them, it isn't very difficult for anyone else to get them, either.

I suppose you could argue, using very tenuous logic, that (1) and (2) could apply to a factory on the other side of the world, but that would be weak at best. (3) certainly doesn't work, and because (5) doesn't work, (4), while it may apply, loses most of its force; it rests on the assumption that everybody else has an equivalent (or at least that if they don't, the possession is insignificant), which is not necessarily the case.

Note that none of these imply a right to exchange these basic possessions, though if I am merely exchanging them for other basic possessions, at the moment I can see no reason to object to such a right.

I am using "basic possessions," rather than merely "possessions," because it's possible to think of things one uses directly that nevertheless would not fulfill the requirements. In a society where cars were scarce, for instance, they would not qualify.

It may very well be your wish to make great berry-marmelade, for whatever reason. So you start collecting berries (which are presumably yours and rightly so),

Here's where you start to go wrong. The berries are "yours," yes, but they are yours in a certain sense - they are basic possessions, and your right to them is rooted in your right to privacy and your right to be an individual distinct from the community. That does not mean that you can do whatever you please with them; you can only do so as far as what you do with them fits their role as basic possessions. If you try to use them in a manner that removes them from the personal sphere and puts them in the social sphere, society has the right to regulate those uses as it sees fit.

exchange them for money,

Maybe. It depends on what the money can buy. If it is simply a means of exchange for basic possessions, go ahead.

exchange that for a bit of land which you use to plant berry-bushes,

Again, maybe. It depends on where the land is, and how much it is. If it's a garden-like plot in front of your house, no one's going to object, but if it's a huge field that could be used instead to grow food for the hungry, it ceases to really fulfill any aspects of the role of basic possessions - especially if you are hiring other people to grow the berries on it.

exchange the extra berries for more money and eventually exchange that money for the factory to make berry-marmelade.

The factory, definitely not. It's most certainly not a basic possession.

At what point do the obvious reasons no longer apply?

I hope I've answered this. To be specific, it's the point at which your property ceases being personal - expressed as basic possessions - and becomes social - as in, say, the ownership of a factory.

Aren't you using everything on every step along the way?

Yes, but for roles that don't always fulfill the role of a basic possession.

Could someone else use any of the stuff at the same time, and you just share?

For basic possessions, no. For the rest, society has the right to decide.

What would you have to do with the product of the berries for it to no longer be yours?

You have to remove it from the personal sphere.

I have a feeling that it is pretty much impossible to accurately define such a borderline.

It's not. The borderline can be vague, yes, but it's there.

And that's why there is really just two options: Either you do own the product of your labour, and you own anything and everything you do with, or you don't. In which case you end up being a slave.

A false dichotomy.

No. Value is totally subjective. What I was saying when I said 'random bit of property' is that you can work all day long and produce nothing, and therefore you get nothing. No magical god in the sky tosses you a house for digging a hole and filling it back up.

I agree. I misunderstood you.

Because it was by your labor, by your exertion that the well is now productive. Without that, there would be no well. Without you, there would be no well. It would be a random patch of unused dirt.

So the fact that I am the determinant factor in something's alteration makes it mine? If I run on a path in the wilderness, my footsteps are changing the composition of the path; does that mean I own it now? Surely it requires intent. If it requires intent, though, it requires expectation as well (how can I intend something I do not think will result from my action?), and if it requires expectation, society can make whatever rules it wants in this regard, as long as they are consistent.

Furthermore, under this mythical egalitarian system you posit, what happens if someone were to break away from the flock? What happens if I loudly pronounce "Fuck you all, I'm going into the big woods and doing whatever I want!" Once in the woods I build a house on the edge of the wood in sight of the village and start chopping wood. I build up a nice stash of firewood for the winter, and I make some delightful luxuries, like a chair, and a bed. I hunt some deer, and collect some berries, I dry the stuff out and I find myself well provisioned for the winter.

What does the community do to me? I've proclaimed myself isolated from society, and that no other man has any right to the fruits of my productive labors. And I flaunt this in the face of the village. No matter the appeals sent to me by the villagers, I refuse to participate in the communal society. What does the village do?

If you're using a forest that no one else was using, nothing. Why should they care?

Soheran answered most of the questions in much the same way as I would have, as we share a similar belief system, however I would like to explain my answer to this question as my beliefs go more in depth.

Furthermore, under this mythical egalitarian system you posit, what happens if someone were to break away from the flock? What happens if I loudly pronounce "Fuck you all, I'm going into the big woods and doing whatever I want!" Once in the woods I build a house on the edge of the wood in sight of the village and start chopping wood. I build up a nice stash of firewood for the winter, and I make some delightful luxuries, like a chair, and a bed. I hunt some deer, and collect some berries, I dry the stuff out and I find myself well provisioned for the winter.

What does the community do to me? I've proclaimed myself isolated from society, and that no other man has any right to the fruits of my productive labors. And I flaunt this in the face of the village. No matter the appeals sent to me by the villagers, I refuse to participate in the communal society. What does the village do?I would agree with Soheran that the village wouldn't care. The basic reason why the village wouldn't care (and goes at the heart of my reasons for holding my values) is that you are no longer living in society. The reason people live in societies is because those societies fulfill their self-interest better than not living in a society. Perhaps another way of looking at this is that society is a utility that people utilize for whatever reason. Being a utility, there is a right to charge a utility fee. This is commonly called a tax, but doesn't have to take such a form. (Also this right doesn't have to be exercised if the society doesn't wish to exercise it.) However, in your example, the person has removed themselves from the society, and is no longer using the utility, and as such there is no fee owed.

neo-Conservative:An intellectual and political movement in favor of political, economic, and social conservatism

I don't know about that. The neocons seem to want to change a lot of things. It's not all about conserving.

or this one from his brother Ted....

""While the deep concern of a woman bearing an unwanted child merits consideration and sympathy, it is my personal feeling that the legalization of abortion on demand is not in accordance with the value which our civilization places on human life. Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its earliest stages, has certain rights which must be recognized -- the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grown old. "

How can you claim to value human life when war and militarism are central tenets of your culture?]

Your problem is that you don't recognise property as what it is: An extension of your body and mind.

You use your body and your mind to do work. That work results in you gathering stuff (whether that be a bunch of fruit from a tree, or a multi-million dollar wage you use to buy a Ferrari is of no consequence) which are meant to make your life easier.
If this made sense, then theft would be OK, because hey, if you're holding it, it's yours, right?

Also, why are there crimes against property and crimes against the person? If your theory made sense, then they would be the same.

So the fact that I am the determinant factor in something's alteration makes it mine? If I run on a path in the wilderness, my footsteps are changing the composition of the path; does that mean I own it now? Surely it requires intent. If it requires intent, though, it requires expectation as well (how can I intend something I do not think will result from my action?), and if it requires expectation, society can make whatever rules it wants in this regard, as long as they are consistent.

It is not only alteration that makes something yours, but productive improvement. Leaving footprints on a path does not make that path more productive, but actually going through the woods and cutting a path through the brush is productively improving it. Then the path is yours. Merely changing something is insufficient, as Nozick detailed, but ,improving something, is.

As per expectation, society does not make that rule, instead that rule is devised under the most primitive of circumstances, and the rule is made by an individual. By the lone hunter-gatherer who settles down to grow primitive grain crops. The man who's labor is carried out for the sole purpose of supplying himself and his family. By virtue of that fact, the rule has been established.

It is not only alteration that makes something yours, but productive improvement. Leaving footprints on a path does not make that path more productive, but actually going through the woods and cutting a path through the brush is productively improving it. Then the path is yours. Merely changing something is insufficient, as Nozick detailed, but ,improving something, is.

And here I was thinking that value was subjective? By what standard can it be decided whether we're actually "improving" something or not?

And why does it matter whether or not I'm improving it? Isn't the whole idea that by altering something, I am adding part of myself to it, and thus making it mine?

Edit: Who is to say that my footsteps are not improving the path? I could argue that they're making the trail clearer, or that they make it more aesthetically pleasing, or all kinds of things.

As per expectation, society does not make that rule, instead that rule is devised under the most primitive of circumstances, and the rule is made by an individual. By the lone hunter-gatherer who settles down to grow primitive grain crops. The man who's labor is carried out for the sole purpose of supplying himself and his family. By virtue of that fact, the rule has been established.

In that circumstance - and, indeed, in that circumstance he expects to keep it. Not necessarily in all.

Property by use. Not by "ownership." If the lion left, would he charge rent for any new residents?
Primarily because the lion is not a sentient being. It cannot think to the future, and can only remember fragments of the past.



I would agree that existing at our current level of sophistication without clearly-defined property rights is impossible - but I would also say that existing at our current level of sophistication is very much unnatural.
And I'd have to wholeheartedly disagree. Human nature is that of a tool user, and we use tools to improve our lives in any way possible. That is our nature, and anything that results from that nature cannot be unnatural.


You are. They might be required for a given level of sophistication, but they're not inherent in the natural way humans behave, and they're not required for any kind of society, merely for our kind.
Merely for what we consider to be a just society.



When I don't directly possess the item I "own." Leaving it aside for a while is one thing; that's temporary, it's still a reasonable assumption that I'll come back and get it. But leaving it there for years, and then, when you come across it again, demanding that the person who picks it up pay you for it... I'd say that's stretching it. Property you don't use at all is pretty much always unnatural.
Which is why certain things are considered vacant.


Too lazy to answer the rest.

If this made sense, then theft would be OK, because hey, if you're holding it, it's yours, right?
No, it actually doesn't. He's talking about the use of productive ability, not just picking shit up off of the ground. If something is the result of your productive ability, then it is yours.

Also, why are there crimes against property and crimes against the person? If your theory made sense, then they would be the same.
Crimes against the person not only harm the property of the individual, but their productive capacity as well, thus indicating their much more severe nature.

Primarily because the lion is not a sentient being. It cannot think to the future, and can only remember fragments of the past.

No, it applies to the human hunter-gatherer too.

And I'd have to wholeheartedly disagree. Human nature is that of a tool user, and we use tools to improve our lives in any way possible. That is our nature, and anything that results from that nature cannot be unnatural.

Not so much the tools as the social structures and lifestyles that accompany them.

Merely for what we consider to be a just society.

Circular. You can't say that certain rules are just simply because they are required for a just society when a just society is simply one that follows those rules.

Which is why certain things are considered vacant.

But not factories.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe recently published an excellent article (http://www.mises.org/story/2265) which deals with this very topic. It doesn't deal with the origin of the concept of ownership, but assumes that the reader agrees that ownership is necessary for the four points below, and that the four points are necessary for meaningful human interaction.

First, every person is the proper owner of his own physical body. Who else, if not Crusoe, should be the owner of Crusoe's body? Otherwise, would it not constitute a case of slavery, and is slavery not unjust as well as uneconomical?

Secondly, every person is the proper owner of all nature-given goods that he has perceived as scarce and put to use by means of his body, before any other person. Indeed, who else, if not the first user, should be their owner? The second or third one? Were this so, however, the first person would not perform his act of original appropriation, and so the second person would become the first, and so on and on. That is, no one would ever be permitted to perform an act of original appropriation and mankind would instantly die out. Alternatively, the first user together with all late-comers become part-owners of the goods in question. Then conflict will not be avoided, however, for what is one to do if the various part-owners have incompatible ideas about what to do with the goods in question? This solution would also be uneconomical because it would reduce the incentive to utilize goods perceived as scarce for the first time.

In the third place, every person who, with the help of his body and his originally appropriated goods, produces new products thereby becomes the proper owner of these products, provided only that in the process of production he does not physically damage the goods owned by another person.

Finally, once a good has been first appropriated or produced, ownership in it can be acquired only by means of a voluntary, contractual transfer of its property title from a previous to a later owner.

Bush is a liberal because he supports big government. Of course the difficult question that this begs is "What is big government?". Big government is the constitutional (as opposed to unconstitutional) encroachment of individual rights and freedoms in order to please the wishes of the majority through law. Another aspect of big government is increasing or higher than "necessary" government expenses.

I have not seen much done by Bush that leads me to think that the man is for small government. Yes he has pushed tax cuts through Congress but there was not an accompanying reduction in governmental expenditures.

Actually, liberal, in the original sense of the word, is against all forms of "big government".

I am a classical liberal. I am anti-statist. I am anti-theocracy. I am pro-seperation of church and state. I am for the utmost personal responsibiltiy as well as maximum personal liberty. I am for maximum economic liberty. I like a small government. One that is effective at defending people's rights within its own borders. It is supposed to defend itself from invading powers and subversive powers within. But, that is about it. I think some small social programs are good like the fire department and a reformed public education system, with vouchers.

Natural rights juststifications are examples of the is-ought fallacy because base on what the ideal conditions which work best for humans are we ought to work towards the rights that satisfy those conditions.
I would've preferred a more personal definition, so we can work this out together. But wiki itself offers a solution (I was alluding to before) in its entry for the "Is-Ought Problem":
By reality, an effective moral cognitivist response assumes it means those things actually existing independent of the mind, rather than those representations of such things in the mind that we call knowledge, or of wishes entertained that things might be otherwise. In that more actual sense of the meaning of reality, an effective moral cognitivist response can agree that the truth of "is" statements are ultimately based on their correspondence to reality (both in the realm of actuality and the ideal) while "ought" statements are not.

By indefinables, this refers to concepts so global that they cannot be defined; rather, in a sense, they themselves define our reality and our ideas. Their meanings cannot be stated in a true definition, but their meanings can be referred to instead by being placed with their incomplete definitions in self-evident statements, the truth of which can be tested by whether or not it is impossible to think the opposite without a contradiction.

An example of this is of finite parts and wholes; they cannot be defined without reference to each other and thus with some amount of circularity, but we can make the self-evident statement that "the whole is greater than any of its parts", and thus establish a meaning particular to the two concepts.

These two notions being granted, it can be said that statements of "ought" are measured by their prescriptive truth, just as statements of "is" are measured by their descriptive truth; and the descriptive truth of an "is" judgment is defined by its correspondence to reality (actual or in the mind), while the prescriptive truth of an "ought" judgment is defined according to a more limited scope—its correspondence to right desire (conceivable in the mind and able to be found in the rational appetite, but not in the more actual reality of things independent of the mind or rational appetite).

To some, this may immediately suggest the question: "How can we know what is right desire if it is already admitted that it is not based on the more actual reality of things independent of the mind?" The beginning of the answer is found when we consider that the concepts "good", "bad", "right" and "wrong" are indefinables. Thus right desire cannot be defined properly, but a way to refer to its meaning may be found through a self-evident prescriptive truth.

That self-evident truth which the moral cognitivist claims to exist upon which all other prescriptive truths are ultimately based is: One ought to desire what is really good for one and nothing else. The terms "real good" and "right desire" cannot be defined apart from each other, and thus their definitions would contain some degree of circularity, but the stated self-evident truth indicates a meaning particular to the ideas sought to be understood, and it is (the moral cognitivist claims) impossible to think the opposite without a contradiction. Thus combined with other descriptive truths of what is good (goods in particular considered in terms of whether they suit a particular end and the limits to the possession of such particular goods being compatible with the general end of the possession of the total of all real goods throughout a whole life), a valid body of knowledge of right desire is generated.
Note that I'm merely saying 'There is a way around it', I'm not saying that I necessarily agree with it. I'm no philosopher, and I still tend towards moral relativism on virtually all issues bar one: I don't think that anyone has the right to hinder anyone else doing what that person believes is best for themselves. Because that would violate the relativist assumption that every set of values has an equal "right" (English sucks sometimes) to exist.
It's a very simple rule, and Soheran's question to me ("Isn't that an absolute moral statement?") in a recent thread made me think. So far I haven't come up with a good answer, maybe that would be a good topic for a thread.

So me being here, arguing for a set of pretty much absolute moral rights is actually quite new to me (and I was secretly hoping that someone with more knowledge and experience in the area might join the discussion to help my case out...:p ).

I would've preferred a more personal definition, so we can work this out together. But wiki itself offers a solution (I was alluding to before) in its entry for the "Is-Ought Problem":

A bad solution. It assumes an "ought" statement - "one ought to desire what is really good for one and nothing else" - and thus doesn't really escape the problem. Unless it can be convincingly shown that that particular "ought" statement really is self-evident in the same sense that the principles of logic are self-evident, it doesn't provide us with objective moral truth. All it provides us with is a way for judging the truth of moral statements within the framework of a given imperative.

Note that I'm merely saying 'There is a way around it', I'm not saying that I necessarily agree with it. I'm no philosopher, and I still tend towards moral relativism on virtually all issues bar one: I don't think that anyone has the right to hinder anyone else doing what that person believes is best for themselves. Because that would violate the relativist assumption that every set of values has an equal "right" (English sucks sometimes) to exist.
It's a very simple rule, and Soheran's question to me ("Isn't that an absolute moral statement?") in a recent thread made me think. So far I haven't come up with a good answer, maybe that would be a good topic for a thread.

For those who missed the thread, a little elaboration on this particular problem:

There are really two claims that are being advanced. The first is descriptive: there is no objective moral truth. The second is normative: therefore, we should not impose our morality upon others. Yet, as Hume's is-ought problem points out, we can't use a descriptive premise to arrive at a normative conclusion. We have to have a normative premise somewhere (probably something along the lines of "if we have no access to objective moral truth, we cannot impose our morality upon others who disagree.") If we accept the first claim as true, any such normative premise is not objective, and therefore the second claim, the conclusion of the two premises, is not objective either. If we wish to avoid a contradiction, we cannot impose it morally. We are left to passivity.

So me being here, arguing for a set of pretty much absolute moral rights is actually quite new to me (and I was secretly hoping that someone with more knowledge and experience in the area might join the discussion to help my case out...:p ).

You don't have to believe in objective moral truth to advance a moral argument. What you have to do is have common ground in basic moral intuitions with your opponent or audience, or at least your opponent or audience has to, for the purposes of the discussion, accept your basic moral intuitions as true. Otherwise, it will be unproductive.

Luckily, most people in our society do have more or less similar moral intuitions, and productive discussion can be had on most subjects.

I would've preferred a more personal definition, so we can work this out together. But wiki itself offers a solution (I was alluding to before) in its entry for the "Is-Ought Problem":

Note that I'm merely saying 'There is a way around it', I'm not saying that I necessarily agree with it. I'm no philosopher, and I still tend towards moral relativism on virtually all issues bar one: I don't think that anyone has the right to hinder anyone else doing what that person believes is best for themselves. Because that would violate the relativist assumption that every set of values has an equal "right" (English sucks sometimes) to exist.
It's a very simple rule, and Soheran's question to me ("Isn't that an absolute moral statement?") in a recent thread made me think. So far I haven't come up with a good answer, maybe that would be a good topic for a thread.

So me being here, arguing for a set of pretty much absolute moral rights is actually quite new to me (and I was secretly hoping that someone with more knowledge and experience in the area might join the discussion to help my case out...:p ).

I used the wiki definition because it IS my personal definition of rights, just much better expressed. :D

I combine rules, preference, and negative utilitarianism and combine a personal deontology that is more or less based on the golden rule in my ehics. Rights then should more or less maximise positive utility, minimize negative utility all within the framework of the golden rule. Full of holes I know.

I find your relativism because you like Objectivism and relativism in morality in subjective. To Rand morality, and everything else, is objective.

Property by use. Not by "ownership." If the lion left, would he charge rent for any new residents?
I don't know, usually he wouldn't leave without having gotten his arse kicked by another male lion. :p

But land isn't split into neat units that one can occupy and use. Strictly speaking the only thing the lion is using at any one time is a tiny part of the area, the rest still being his (as in he'll still defend it if someone violates it) nonetheless.

I would agree that existing at our current level of sophistication without clearly-defined property rights is impossible - but I would also say that existing at our current level of sophistication is very much unnatural.
...
You are. They might be required for a given level of sophistication, but they're not inherent in the natural way humans behave, and they're not required for any kind of society, merely for our kind.
I suppose that's where we differ quite a lot in outlook. I have always considered technological progress (and everything that comes with it) to be an inevitable consequence of our biology, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, but always people trying to make their lives easier by developing ways to influence the world around them.

When I don't directly possess the item I "own." Leaving it aside for a while is one thing; that's temporary, it's still a reasonable assumption that I'll come back and get it. But leaving it there for years, and then, when you come across it again, demanding that the person who picks it up pay you for it... I'd say that's stretching it. Property you don't use at all is pretty much always unnatural.
I'm not convinced just yet. Your influence on the thing (whether it be the berry, a tool or a factory) is absolute, and will remain for as long as the item in question exists. You made that tool, you built that factory, without you the item would not exist, or exist in a very different state.
Regardless of where you are and what you do in the meantime, one (usually quite vital) aspect of the item is connected to you, and will be 'forever'.

Yes, it does. If there is a circumstance in which a universal right to property by labor would imply a right to property, but in which such a right to property would be absurd to maintain, the conclusion must be that there is no universal right to property by labor, merely (perhaps) a general right to property by labor that is rooted in the way most of our societies are organized.
But is there such a circumstance? We can (maybe, if we don't go into much detail) make one up hypothetically, but we can make up many other things for that matter.

How about this: the "public good" is the maximization of the capability of the individuals within a society to exercise meaningful control over their lives.
Which leads us to at least one more definition, namely what is "the capability to exercise meaningful control over one's life"?
Equality of opportunity, or equality of outcome? If you have meaningful control, and you do something stupid with it and lose meaningful control - what happens then?

Because if there is no moral obstacle to pursuit of some other moral aim (in this case, the public good) it should be pursued.
So far you haven't established that the public good is a moral aim at all.

Since when is the only conception of morality one of "natural rights"?
What else could you have? To me, "natural rights" are rights that present the optimal conditions for humans to exist, arrived at through reasoning about nature.
The rest is either some form of religious origins (which must be disregarded immediately), personal beliefs not based upon reason (obviously if they were based on reason we'd have to expect them to be the same as the true "natural rights"), which must be disregarded too. And the government just making stuff up.

Certain rights that have to do with use of items would perhaps be guaranteed, but the vast majority of decisions regarding the allocation of property are, I would argue, properly social (though, again, if society decides to leave them to individuals, that is legitimate as well.)
This is a different topic alltogether, but I have yet to see a proper social mechanism for deciding about material wealth. Humans just aren't telepathic, they can't form a cohesive whole. You just end up with six billion individuals trying to maximise their personal welfare, and perhaps that of the people they know and like.

1. My basic possessions help me form an identity. If they are liable to be taken whenever I am not actively using them, I am partially deprived of my capability to define myself.
The factory can do that as well, like in the example of our marmelade-producer. You don't think Henry Ford defined himself, at least partly, through his factories?
I know I would: people define themselves through their achievements, and owning a factory is certainly an achievement.

2. I have a sentimental attachment to my basic possessions.
Same here. And besides, what is a "sentimental attachment"? Again, Henry Ford would probably have enjoyed his factories quite a lot.
Usually one's property represents one's life's work. If you stand there and look on your giant factory, and say "I made this all happen!", is that not a sentimental attachment?

3. If anyone who wants to can take away my basic possessions, I have no real right to privacy; anyone can invade my personal space when they see fit.
Why doesn't this work? Is there a proper definition of "personal space"? Is the definition of private property dependent on geography, so your factory next door to your house can be your personal space, but your factory in Malaysia cannot?
As for privacy...in many factories there are secrets hidden from competitors and other outsiders, much more important then the sort of other privacy you mean. Your personal ideas, plans and hopes all form what your factory becomes.

4. Permitting basic possessions leads to less conflict; if what's mine is mine and what's yours is yours, there is no need to argue about who should use what when.
I don't think it loses any force at all when applied to the factory. If there is a factory (still arguing on the slightly wobbly assumption that a factory would exist without clearly defined private property rights) and no one owns it, the tendency is for conflict to emerge.

5. This is not so much of a reason as it is the rejection of a potential objection to (4) and to this conception in general. Generally, you can't hoard basic possessions; if you can get them, it isn't very difficult for anyone else to get them, either.
I watched "Walking with Cavemen" the other week. One caveman (a very brave one) got a lion's tooth from its dead body, and carried around with him everywhere, as a status symbol. People respected him for it.
Since it is difficult for everyone to get a tooth of a lion, this isn't personal property of a caveman? It loses all meaning if it becomes public property!
As for hoarding, well, I don't think you can hoard factories anymore than you can hoard anything else.

If you try to use them in a manner that removes them from the personal sphere and puts them in the social sphere, society has the right to regulate those uses as it sees fit.
I don't think you are. Just because you are trading them with someone else doesn't make them any less personal to you, and doesn't remove the fact that without you the berries would still be on that bush.

Again, maybe. It depends on where the land is, and how much it is. If it's a garden-like plot in front of your house, no one's going to object, but if it's a huge field that could be used instead to grow food for the hungry, it ceases to really fulfill any aspects of the role of basic possessions - especially if you are hiring other people to grow the berries on it.
So it's all about alternative uses, about opportunity costs. Defined by...?

I find your relativism because you like Objectivism and relativism in morality in subjective. To Rand morality, and everything else, is objective.
:confused:
Could you rewrite that, please?

With Rand and objective morality, as I said, it's something I am still working out. I agree that there is an objective world out there, regardless of what we are, think and do.
Whether that world includes "right" and "wrong", "good" and "evil"...I'm sceptical.

The thing about Rand that influenced me most is probably looking at people themselves as...well, heroic beings. This romantic sort of outlook (and the harsh judgement on those who fail) fits with my personal dreams and goals, as well as my character. I see Atlas Shrugged primarily as a motivational book. I read it to feel good about myself, and something that makes me feel good about existing and achieving can't be all that wrong, can it?

The thing about Rand that influenced me most is probably looking at people themselves as...well, heroic beings. This romantic sort of outlook (and the harsh judgement on those who fail) fits with my personal dreams and goals, as well as my character. I see Atlas Shrugged primarily as a motivational book. I read it to feel good about myself, and something that makes me feel good about existing and achieving can't be all that wrong, can it?

This is a bit off-topic, but maybe you should check out Rush. You'll like their lyrics.

:confused:
Could you rewrite that, please?

With Rand and objective morality, as I said, it's something I am still working out. I agree that there is an objective world out there, regardless of what we are, think and do.
Whether that world includes "right" and "wrong", "good" and "evil"...I'm sceptical.

The thing about Rand that influenced me most is probably looking at people themselves as...well, heroic beings. This romantic sort of outlook (and the harsh judgement on those who fail) fits with my personal dreams and goals, as well as my character. I see Atlas Shrugged primarily as a motivational book. I read it to feel good about myself, and something that makes me feel good about existing and achieving can't be all that wrong, can it?

Sorry. I meant I found your moral relativism combined with Objectivism a little confusing. I don't like Rand, but I'm glad it makes you feel good.

I don't know, usually he wouldn't leave without having gotten his arse kicked by another male lion. :p

But land isn't split into neat units that one can occupy and use. Strictly speaking the only thing the lion is using at any one time is a tiny part of the area, the rest still being his (as in he'll still defend it if someone violates it) nonetheless.

I'm not speaking strictly. Even if it's "potentially used" land, the point still applies.

I suppose that's where we differ quite a lot in outlook. I have always considered technological progress (and everything that comes with it) to be an inevitable consequence of our biology, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, but always people trying to make their lives easier by developing ways to influence the world around them.

I'm not saying technology isn't based on natural modes of behavior. I'm saying that the society we have today, in part because of technology, in part because of other things, is not a "natural" way for humans to live.

I'm not convinced just yet. Your influence on the thing (whether it be the berry, a tool or a factory) is absolute, and will remain for as long as the item in question exists. You made that tool, you built that factory, without you the item would not exist, or exist in a very different state.
Regardless of where you are and what you do in the meantime, one (usually quite vital) aspect of the item is connected to you, and will be 'forever'.

But that connection is not (necessarily) one of ownership.

But is there such a circumstance? We can (maybe, if we don't go into much detail) make one up hypothetically, but we can make up many other things for that matter.

Even if it's just conceivable, it's good enough. A "universal right" by definition applies universally; there has to be a convincing reason for it to apply in all cases, whatever the circumstances. (The fact that it applies, I should probably note, does not mean that it is inviolable - merely that there is something wrong with violating it, and that wrong has to be weighed if we wish to act morally. I don't believe in absolutely inviolable rights.)

Which leads us to at least one more definition, namely what is "the capability to exercise meaningful control over one's life"?
Equality of opportunity, or equality of outcome? If you have meaningful control, and you do something stupid with it and lose meaningful control - what happens then?

I'd say that society has an obligation to help, assuming the person wants help. But let's not get into an argument about this, we have enough material already.

So far you haven't established that the public good is a moral aim at all.

True. I happen to think it's a moral aim because it's an aim that reflects the dignity and moral worth possessed by other human beings. If you wish to deny that other human beings possess moral worth, well, I have no reply; I can't prove it to you.

What else could you have? To me, "natural rights" are rights that present the optimal conditions for humans to exist, arrived at through reasoning about nature.

Natural rights are universal rights that are seen as inherent in the nature of the world, and not contingent on human actions or beliefs.

That's more or less the definition with which I've been going.

The rest is either some form of religious origins (which must be disregarded immediately), personal beliefs not based upon reason (obviously if they were based on reason we'd have to expect them to be the same as the true "natural rights"), which must be disregarded too. And the government just making stuff up.

I don't think it's possible to establish a purely rational basis for "natural rights."

This is a different topic alltogether, but I have yet to see a proper social mechanism for deciding about material wealth. Humans just aren't telepathic, they can't form a cohesive whole. You just end up with six billion individuals trying to maximise their personal welfare, and perhaps that of the people they know and like.

If you do it democratically, that (ideally at least) doesn't cause problems; everyone's selfishness is matched by everyone else's selfishness, and they counter one another.

The factory can do that as well, like in the example of our marmelade-producer. You don't think Henry Ford defined himself, at least partly, through his factories?
I know I would: people define themselves through their achievements, and owning a factory is certainly an achievement.

Same here. And besides, what is a "sentimental attachment"? Again, Henry Ford would probably have enjoyed his factories quite a lot.
Usually one's property represents one's life's work. If you stand there and look on your giant factory, and say "I made this all happen!", is that not a sentimental attachment?

Okay, I'll concede this point. My earlier formulation was too broad. The rights over "basic possessions" are the rights required for us to enjoy these benefits (defined individuality, protection of sentimental attachments.) While a factory in the present system might involve self-definition and sentimental attachments, it is not necessary for people to own factories in order to define themselves, and the sentimental attachment one might have to a factory is based on the fact that one owns it; if one did not, there would be no such attachment. Compare this to, say, the sentimental attachment one might develop for a computer or a family photo or a car that one uses regularly but conceivably wouldn't own.

The reason the proper formulation is the narrower one is that the fact that while in some societies, the bases for rights over basic possessions might apply to other kinds of property, societies which regulated those kinds of properties would not be oppressing people by denying them the capability to define themselves (as a society which banned basic possessions would be.)

Why doesn't this work? Is there a proper definition of "personal space"? Is the definition of private property dependent on geography, so your factory next door to your house can be your personal space, but your factory in Malaysia cannot?

I would roughly formulate it as the place where you live. So, no, next door or not, it doesn't qualify - especially if other people regularly go in and do the work there.

As for privacy...in many factories there are secrets hidden from competitors and other outsiders, much more important then the sort of other privacy you mean. Your personal ideas, plans and hopes all form what your factory becomes.

There might be economic benefits to guarding the secrets held in a factory, but state regulations of your factory do not violate your personal space the way state intrusion into your house would.

I don't think it loses any force at all when applied to the factory. If there is a factory ... and no one owns it, the tendency is for conflict to emerge.

Society would own it. Or, the local workers' council (which would represent everyone in a given area). Or even the capitalist - but her ownership could legitimately be conditional and subject to regulation. There would still be a legal framework for determining rights and duties, it just wouldn't be a radical capitalist one.

(still arguing on the slightly wobbly assumption that a factory would exist without clearly defined private property rights)

No, there would still be clearly defined private property rights, they just aren't the clearly defined private property rights that would result from the sort of natural rights for which you have been arguing. More vaguely defined property rights were merely relevant in the state of nature.

I watched "Walking with Cavemen" the other week. One caveman (a very brave one) got a lion's tooth from its dead body, and carried around with him everywhere, as a status symbol. People respected him for it.
Since it is difficult for everyone to get a tooth of a lion, this isn't personal property of a caveman? It loses all meaning if it becomes public property!

It isn't public precisely for the reason you mention - it loses all meaning if it becomes public. It's useless if it's public, thus there is no reason not to keep it personal.

As for hoarding, well, I don't think you can hoard factories anymore than you can hoard anything else.

You're missing my point - of course somebody else can come along and build a factory, but it's rather difficult, and beyond the means of most people.

I don't think you are. Just because you are trading them with someone else doesn't make them any less personal to you,

If the product you gain in exchange is not personal, of course it does.

and doesn't remove the fact that without you the berries would still be on that bush.

See my reply to Andaluciae on this subject.

So it's all about alternative uses, about opportunity costs. Defined by...?

It's defined by reason. If it's something that does have significant opportunity costs, it belongs in the social sphere. If it's something that doesn't have significant opportunity costs, it could fit into the personal sphere if it's the kind of thing that protects my privacy and individuality.

I think the distinction is usually pretty clear. Vague areas would have to be dealt with somehow by social institutions, and that opens the question of how best to organize social institutions so that they protect both individual rights and the public good - a question to which I can claim no brilliant answers.

Just because you are trading them with someone else doesn't make them any less personal to you, and doesn't remove the fact that without you the berries would still be on that bush.Are you arguing in favor of the Labor Theory of Value?

Holy fucking posttrees batman!

I'm not speaking strictly. Even if it's "potentially used" land, the point still applies.
So potentially used land works the same way then? So rather than exclusive ownership by usage, it's exclusive ownership by potential usage?

I'm not saying technology isn't based on natural modes of behavior. I'm saying that the society we have today, in part because of technology, in part because of other things, is not a "natural" way for humans to live.
I think we need to define what "natural" is. If we can reasonably expect that our modern world is the result of processes based on biology, then wouldn't the result be almost as natural as the processes themselves?

Even if it's just conceivable, it's good enough.
Does gravity apply universally? Can't we conceive a situation where humans can fly by flapping their arms?

If this hypothetical world is totally unrealistic, then does it really hold any value in the argument?

True. I happen to think it's a moral aim because it's an aim that reflects the dignity and moral worth possessed by other human beings. If you wish to deny that other human beings possess moral worth, well, I have no reply; I can't prove it to you.
Agree to disagree, hey? I'm not even that far removed from you, I think the potentially withing human beings is something very much worthwhile and should be protected.
But I also think that a lot of the moral worth of a human being is established by the actions of that person. I wouldn't give a Hitler the same moral worth as a bum as a Bill Gates.

That's more or less the definition with which I've been going.
It's not really saying anything different though, is it?

I don't think it's possible to establish a purely rational basis for "natural rights."
That's probably a great topic for another thread. Melkor claims he has, I'm sceptical as of yet. But as I said before, I'm not really into philosophy on a grand scale, and most of the important books I've never read.

If you do it democratically, that (ideally at least) doesn't cause problems; everyone's selfishness is matched by everyone else's selfishness, and they counter one another.
Or cancel each other out, and we're left with an absolute zero (if everyone carries the same vote and the same ability to influence the outcome, they pretty much have to, don't they). That's no good either.

While a factory in the present system might involve self-definition and sentimental attachments, it is not necessary for people to own factories in order to define themselves, and the sentimental attachment one might have to a factory is based on the fact that one owns it; if one did not, there would be no such attachment.
Well, I may be making this even more complicated, but isn't the fact that one either built the factory, or achieved something else to allow one to buy the factory, part of the self-definition and sentimental attachment?
I mean, simply because you own a deed doesn't create as strong an attachment as if you had built the factory yourself.

The reason the proper formulation is the narrower one is that the fact that while in some societies, the bases for rights over basic possessions might apply to other kinds of property, societies which regulated those kinds of properties would not be oppressing people by denying them the capability to define themselves (as a society which banned basic possessions would be.)
But can we really define a clear-cut ability to define oneself? Doesn't that change from person to person?
The things people use to define themselves obviously vary with environments, but some people still want to define themselves by proving that they are "better" than others, by achieving something great that is unique to them. In a society like ours, this will often result in trying to become rich and doing so by providing other people with nice things (which is a good thing).
In a society in which that ability is taken away, what else is there to choose? Can we guarantee or even hope that the alternatives people choose are as good for society as the example above? I think it was Keynes who argued that capitalism was good because it harnesses the nasty side of human beings and directs it somewhere where it does much less harm than in other systems.

I would roughly formulate it as the place where you live. So, no, next door or not, it doesn't qualify - especially if other people regularly go in and do the work there.
Well, just because you work there doesn't give you any sort of claim at ownership, even ownership through usage (given how many others work there, and that you're only using it to get a wage, not because the process of running a machine to screw lids on marmelade glasses is so appealing - although that might be a little part).
But how do you define the place you live? Where your bed is? Where you enjoy being most? Where you spend most of your time?

There might be economic benefits to guarding the secrets held in a factory, but state regulations of your factory do not violate your personal space the way state intrusion into your house would.
Well, undoubtedly the economic value of the lost privacy in a factory is greater than in your house.
And as for the sentimental value, well, your entrepreneurial spirit might attach quite a bit of sentimental value to his ideas and secrets, and can feel very violated indeed if someone steals them. It depends on the individual, I'd say.

Or, the local workers' council (which would represent everyone in a given area).
I don't really like the idea of councils. I've been to too many meetings where a few individuals just took over the debate, and the rest were pushed in the background, their ideas suppressed by the sheer noise (physical and emotional) made by some.

Or even the capitalist - but her ownership could legitimately be conditional and subject to regulation. There would still be a legal framework for determining rights and duties, it just wouldn't be a radical capitalist one.
But at least you'd respect at some point that the capitalist who either built or bought the factory has a right to owning it (even if it is conditional - but it is even in the Austrian fantasy world).

It isn't public precisely for the reason you mention - it loses all meaning if it becomes public. It's useless if it's public, thus there is no reason not to keep it personal.
And a factory doesn't lose all meaning and use if it is public? Doesn't a factory need a great mind to create it and to run it?
So far it seems that public ownership of industry if it doesn't totally destroy its usefulness, it at least greatly diminishes it.
And as a status symbol as well as something to attach sentimental value to, a public factory is less useful than a private one, I'd say. Although the second one could be debatable, but we have no means of measuring sentimental value anyways.

You're missing my point - of course somebody else can come along and build a factory, but it's rather difficult, and beyond the means of most people.
Just like getting that lion's tooth was.

If the product you gain in exchange is not personal, of course it does.
Well, I didn't build my new TV. But I did exchange it against my first two week's wages at my new job. Those wages were personal to me, and the TV reminds me of the story of how I came to owning it.

Vague areas would have to be dealt with somehow by social institutions, and that opens the question of how best to organize social institutions so that they protect both individual rights and the public good - a question to which I can claim no brilliant answers.
If anyone could, we wouldn't be having this debate. :)

Are you arguing in favor of the Labor Theory of Value?
Hehe, no. I'm not talking about how much the berries are worth, I'm talking about the fact that you have interacted with the berries, and added some (subjective) value to them. You value your work and get a certain number, and other people value it, and probably get a different value.
And then you meet and haggle for a bit to find a price to exchange that extra value with someone else, just like Marx' poor factory worker is allowed to exchange his labour for money from the boss.

Market-based theories don't deny that there is some personal aspect to the work you do, I think they very much depends on that value to find your own reservation price.

Although that did come out kinda wrong, didn't it...

So potentially used land works the same way then? So rather than exclusive ownership by usage, it's exclusive ownership by potential usage?

"Potential" was a bad word, because it's incredibly vague; I was moving quickly so I could get to the more substantive portions of this argument. The point is that even if the lion is not actively using all the territory, it is still within his broad "sphere of activity," which is why he cares about intruders.

I think we need to define what "natural" is. If we can reasonably expect that our modern world is the result of processes based on biology, then wouldn't the result be almost as natural as the processes themselves?

No. The fact that they are based on natural processes does not make them natural. Circumstances radically different from the circumstances in which human nature evolved are unnatural environments for humans, whatever caused them to come to be.

Does gravity apply universally? Can't we conceive a situation where humans can fly by flapping their arms?

If this hypothetical world is totally unrealistic, then does it really hold any value in the argument?

Because the issue in dispute is not whether the society is practical, it's whether it's moral.

Agree to disagree, hey? I'm not even that far removed from you, I think the potentially withing human beings is something very much worthwhile and should be protected.
But I also think that a lot of the moral worth of a human being is established by the actions of that person. I wouldn't give a Hitler the same moral worth as a bum as a Bill Gates.

Depends. I used to hold to equal moral consideration for all human beings, regardless of their actions, but I've mostly abandoned that view; I now think that the morality of a person's actions affect their moral worth. The life of Adolf Hitler or Osama Bin Laden is not equivalent in moral worth to yours or mine. I deny that anything else does, though - inborn talent, etc.

It's not really saying anything different though, is it?

Yes, it is. I'd call your framework for rights more pragmatic - you're looking for a framework that successfully accomplishes certain objectives. That's the way I tend to think, too. Natural rights theories tend to try to establish rights more directly, from nature rather than from their suitability for maximizing the good or creating optimal conditions.

That's probably a great topic for another thread.

It is. I don't think we've had a decent objective/subjective morality debate in a while.

Or cancel each other out, and we're left with an absolute zero (if everyone carries the same vote and the same ability to influence the outcome, they pretty much have to, don't they). That's no good either.

But different people share interests, though, and coalition building handles the rest.

Well, I may be making this even more complicated, but isn't the fact that one either built the factory, or achieved something else to allow one to buy the factory, part of the self-definition and sentimental attachment?
I mean, simply because you own a deed doesn't create as strong an attachment as if you had built the factory yourself.

But is it really necessary for us to be individuals? Is owning a factory the kind of right we need to have in order for us to be truly autonomous beings, and not merely part of the social mush? I don't think so.

But can we really define a clear-cut ability to define oneself? Doesn't that change from person to person?
The things people use to define themselves obviously vary with environments, but some people still want to define themselves by proving that they are "better" than others, by achieving something great that is unique to them. In a society like ours, this will often result in trying to become rich and doing so by providing other people with nice things (which is a good thing).
In a society in which that ability is taken away, what else is there to choose?

Competing for the esteem of others? Simply showing off one's intelligence, physical ability, etc.?

Can we guarantee or even hope that the alternatives people choose are as good for society as the example above?

When people compete for non-material things (and sometimes when they're competing for material things, too) one major factor is attracting the admiration of others. So, yes, it seems likely that the alternatives will be good for society.

It's possible that people will try to make a name for themselves by doing harmful things too - but that happens in capitalism as well.

I think it was Keynes who argued that capitalism was good because it harnesses the nasty side of human beings and directs it somewhere where it does much less harm than in other systems.

He may or may not have argued that, but lots of others have. I think it's a limited perspective, because it assumes that there can't be avenues for human aggressiveness and competition outside of capitalist economic competition. Yet of course there are - there are in our society, too. When people play a game of chess, are they apathetic about the results when there are no monetary rewards for winning? Anyone who's spent time in NS General knows how heated and competitive people can get in arguments, even when the "winner" does not gain any special prize.

It's not difficult to see how these outlets for competition could be applied to productive pursuits, too. Effective information about the consequences of certain government policies, for instance, could be (and are) attained through the prideful and aggressive competition of political scientists.

Of course, not all incentives work for everybody. But financial incentives don't work for everybody, either.

Well, just because you work there doesn't give you any sort of claim at ownership, even ownership through usage (given how many others work there, and that you're only using it to get a wage, not because the process of running a machine to screw lids on marmelade glasses is so appealing - although that might be a little part).

But isn't where we work a far more significant portion of our personal identity than what we own?

But how do you define the place you live? Where your bed is? Where you enjoy being most? Where you spend most of your time?

A private place where you spend a significant portion of your time, probably including sleeping.

Well, undoubtedly the economic value of the lost privacy in a factory is greater than in your house.

Undoubtedly. But we don't have a right to economic value, we do have a right to personal space.

And as for the sentimental value, well, your entrepreneurial spirit might attach quite a bit of sentimental value to his ideas and secrets, and can feel very violated indeed if someone steals them. It depends on the individual, I'd say.

But owning a factory is not necessary for a person to feel the kind of security in their possessions that I'm talking about.

I don't really like the idea of councils. I've been to too many meetings where a few individuals just took over the debate, and the rest were pushed in the background, their ideas suppressed by the sheer noise (physical and emotional) made by some.

It's an idea that needs some work, yes. Perhaps a democratically-appointed moderator would help, or even making the council meetings take place on an Internet forum.

But at least you'd respect at some point that the capitalist who either built or bought the factory has a right to owning it (even if it is conditional - but it is even in the Austrian fantasy world).

In a capitalist society, yes, because she made her decisions on the basis that she would be able to keep it.

And a factory doesn't lose all meaning and use if it is public? Doesn't a factory need a great mind to create it and to run it? So far it seems that public ownership of industry if it doesn't totally destroy its usefulness, it at least greatly diminishes it.

The sole significance of the tooth is its status as an exclusive item. The factory, however, has a material function; to produce goods. It could conceivably benefit the public good to regulate or even nationalize the factory, because when placed under public ownership, it will continue to function as a useful item; perhaps not as well, but it will continue to function. The tooth's value is based solely on its exclusivity, unlike the factory's.

And as a status symbol as well as something to attach sentimental value to, a public factory is less useful than a private one, I'd say. Although the second one could be debatable, but we have no means of measuring sentimental value anyways.

But, again, in a society where all the factories were public property and had been so for eternity, no one would be oppressed simply as a result of that aspect. On the other hand, let's say the computers we are using were public property, and had been so for eternity. As such, the state could freely regulate their use, and, if the state willed it, anyone who pleased could use them and view anything on them. That would be oppressive, as a violation of privacy and perhaps of sentimental value as well.

Just like getting that lion's tooth was.

But the lion's tooth's sole value is its exclusivity. Such is not the case with the factory.

Well, I didn't build my new TV. But I did exchange it against my first two week's wages at my new job. Those wages were personal to me, and the TV reminds me of the story of how I came to owning it.

Your TV is definitely a basic possession. If you had the only TV in the province, it wouldn't be, but as long as you're in Australia that's no obstacle.

If anyone could, we wouldn't be having this debate. :)

It's an excellent question you asked, though, and one that's going to have to be highly relevant if the practical implications of the point of view I'm outlining here are ever implemented. Right now I'm thinking something along the lines of putting basic possessions under a sort of Constitutional protection - they can't be touched by the government unless the government can demonstrate to the courts that they are either inaccurately classified as basic possessions or that there is some highly compelling need (say, people are going to die otherwise.)

Hehe, no. I'm not talking about how much the berries are worth, I'm talking about the fact that you have interacted with the berries, and added some (subjective) value to them. You value your work and get a certain number, and other people value it, and probably get a different value.
And then you meet and haggle for a bit to find a price to exchange that extra value with someone else, just like Marx' poor factory worker is allowed to exchange his labour for money from the boss.

Market-based theories don't deny that there is some personal aspect to the work you do, I think they very much depends on that value to find your own reservation price.

Although that did come out kinda wrong, didn't it...But why should (meaningful) labor be the sole determinant of who initially owns something but not the sole determinant of its initial value?