tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12471112.post2987025265191188229..comments2023-08-20T11:07:28.396+01:00Comments on Freeborn John: Property rightsPeter Risdonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17792275403997179926noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12471112.post-41100583043091280902009-09-09T16:27:28.395+01:002009-09-09T16:27:28.395+01:00"You argue that inaction and action are the s..."You argue that inaction and action are the same thing."<br /><br />Whatever. This discussion is clearly pointless. Enjoy your world where the question 'why did you choose not to help?' is a logical contradiction.Alderson Warm-Forkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14850852943973095836noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12471112.post-31259676775357771652009-09-08T19:20:10.515+01:002009-09-08T19:20:10.515+01:00You argue that inaction and action are the same th...You argue that inaction and action are the same thing. That being the case, I can't really add to the discussion. <br /><br />Instead, since I perceive the need to buy some milk, I'll go to the shop. I'll perceive the need not to kill any of the people I meet, and act on that - once I figure out what acting on that involves. While I'm figuring that out, I'll take no action, though that is presumably the same thing as taking action, so doesn't help. Hopefully, they'll understand.<br /><br />If they don't, I'm afraid I won't be able to explain it to them. No matter, I'll be so busy taking action (or is that inaction?) about all the things I'm not going to do, that I wouldn't have time to explain anyway.<br /><br />I may be gone some time...Peter Risdonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17792275403997179926noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12471112.post-23827790526684125092009-09-08T18:11:19.025+01:002009-09-08T18:11:19.025+01:00"That's similar to your thesis number 2.&..."That's similar to your thesis number 2."<br /><br />No, thesis number 2 includes both negative and positive rights. <br /><br />You mentioned, e.g., "a right not to be killed by another person". I spoke generally of "a right to have others act in a certain way". The former is an example of the latter. <br /><br />"such rights are natural. I'm not the only person who thinks that; the drafters of the UN Declaration of Human Rights did"<br />Yeah so do I.<br /><br />But the crux of the argument is <br /><br />"If we're going to use the word "agency" to describe the requirements these types of rights impose on other people, the word has different meanings for the different types of rights. In the case of negative rights, it's an imposition of inaction, not to kill, not to steal. In the case of positive rights, it's an imposition of action, to pay for another person's housing, or health care. On the one hand there's a limitation of action, on the other an enforcement of action. These are quite different and can be treated differently. That means that using the one word "agency" to describe both is potentially misleading."<br /><br />The word 'agency' has a shared meaning for both: a third party consciously perceives the situation, deliberates about how to act, makes a decision, and acts. <br /><br />We can tell that it has a shared meaning by the fact that the same sorts of questions are relevant: what was the motive for helping/not harm? how much difference did it make? was the decision right or wrong? <br /><br />And, in particular, 'how could we justify choosing in a certain way if the third party asked us?' <br /><br />"the form of words Norm used did suggest the existence of an agency that intercedes between the act of creation and the created object"<br /><br />But that would be a crazy thing to imply. Why not assume that he was actually implying the existence of an agency that intercedes between the act of creation and the creator's moral claims to the created object being respected by others? <br /><br />That's an interpretation which makes sense of the suggestion and is not crazy, because such an agency does exist. I'd think it was also obvious.Alderson Warm-Forkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14850852943973095836noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12471112.post-34584350599730690382009-09-08T14:37:32.128+01:002009-09-08T14:37:32.128+01:00"There are two possible theses..."
No, ..."There are two possible theses..."<br /><br />No, there are more than two. Another is that there are some natural (negative) rights - the right not to be stopped talking, not to be killed by another person, etc - and these are upheld, suppressed or ignored by society, depending on the society. <br /><br />Another thesis involves "positive" rights - the right to housing, for example - that impose an obligation on others. Societies sometimes uphold these and sometimes they don't. That's similar to your thesis number 2.<br /><br />I certainly do think that rights of the type "I have a right not to be murdered by another person" exist, and that such rights are natural. I'm not the only person who thinks that; the drafters of the UN Declaration of Human Rights did, as did those who wrote the American Declaration of Independence. I'm not pulling this out of thin air.<br /><br />You can attribute such rights to God if you like, but you don't have to. It's perfectly arguable that they are "natural" in that these negative rights do exist if you isolate a person, on a desert island, for example.<br /><br />If we're going to use the word "agency" to describe the requirements these types of rights impose on other people, the word has different meanings for the different types of rights. In the case of negative rights, it's an imposition of inaction, not to kill, not to steal. In the case of positive rights, it's an imposition of action, to pay for another person's housing, or health care. On the one hand there's a limitation of action, on the other an enforcement of action. These are quite different and can be treated differently. That means that using the one word "agency" to describe both is potentially misleading.<br /><br />When you said I'm "talking about natural consequences that don't involve any human agency" you were referring to two examples, one of which (digging) plainly does involve human agency. In fact, both examples did, the other was of a human dropping an apple. What they don't involve is any <i>third party</i> agency.<br /><br />The question of what reasonably constitutes a consequence of an action is well-rehearsed elsewhere. If I draw a picture, the existence of the picture is the direct consequence. If you hate the picture so much you want to kill me, and you try to do so, is that also a consequence of my actions? Homicidal Islamists argued so in the case of the Danish Mohammed cartoons. I think they were wrong to do so, their attitude was not a consequence of the act of drawing, but rather of the existence of a homicidal interpretation of a religion. In every case, drawing produces a picture. In every case, homicidal doctrines produce homicidal intentions. But drawing does not produce these in every case.<br /><br />So it's not a valid use of the word "consequence" to describe the responses of third parties. <br /><br />To get back to my original argument, the form of words Norm used did suggest the existence of an agency that intercedes between the act of creation and the created object, and that has the power to decide to award the created object to the creator. This is a separate question as to that of whether or not society subsequently chooses to recognise this ownership. And it is incorrect - there is no such agency.Peter Risdonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17792275403997179926noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12471112.post-61552970323774415252009-09-08T00:08:40.389+01:002009-09-08T00:08:40.389+01:00as an illustration, you offer, as against the '...as an illustration, you offer, as against the 'arbitrary' rules of desert or merit, the supposedly simple and robust idea that "people should receive the consequences of their efforts". <br /><br />That means nothing. If I see that someone has made a beautiful pot and decide to kill them and take it, they in dying are "receiving the consequences of their efforts", since the consequences turned out to be me killing them. Equally if the consequences turn out to be them getting married, or catching smallpox, or being slapped in the face.Alderson Warm-Forkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14850852943973095836noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12471112.post-29389996325170123112009-09-08T00:04:55.968+01:002009-09-08T00:04:55.968+01:00(on the fourth line from the end that should say &...(on the fourth line from the end that should say "can be empirically observed", not "can't")Alderson Warm-Forkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14850852943973095836noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12471112.post-83711690709076434192009-09-08T00:03:04.305+01:002009-09-08T00:03:04.305+01:00There are two possible theses:
1) the origin and ...There are two possible theses:<br /><br />1) the origin and basis of a right involves other people - i.e. it's up to 'society' to decide what rights people have. <br /><br />2) the content of a right involves other people - i.e. it is intrinsically a right to have others act in a certain way. <br /><br />Neither of us is arguing for the first, but the second seems quite obvious. A tornado that tears up your house and kills you hasn't violated your rights. Nor does tuberculosis. <br /><br />So my point is just that the phrase "I (by nature or Divine Law) have the right to own X" is equivalent to "other peoople (by reason of nature of Divine Law) should not use, damage, or destroy X without my permission or interfere with my use of it". <br /><br />You think that sort of right exists, I don't. But you do contradict, and suggest the absurdity I mentioned, by offering analogies like <br /><br />"That an apple hits the ground if I drop it is not a reward for letting it go."<br /><br />"Maybe they dug it up - in which case the lump of clay would not have been a "reward" for digging, but again the consequence of doing so."<br /><br />You're talking about natural consequences that don't involve any human agency. They're obvious, simple things that can't be empirically observed to follow for scientific reasons. <br /><br />But for my digging clay to produce an obligation on other people to treat me and the clay in a certain way is entirely unlike this, in that it does involve those people's agency. <br /><br />Saying that they choose doesn't mean they choose arbitrarily.They might choose rightly or wrongly. But they're making a choice and thinking about values and obligations, not about physical causation. <br /><br />So they can ask 'why should digging up clay produce certain obligations?' and one very natural answer is 'they deserve it as a reward'. You may think it's wrong but there's no 'imaginary' agency invoked.Alderson Warm-Forkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14850852943973095836noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12471112.post-51924309394003737492009-09-07T09:32:35.508+01:002009-09-07T09:32:35.508+01:00Alderson, it follows from your argument that there...Alderson, it follows from your argument that there are no natural rights at all, merely those things that society has agreed to recognise or protect. That's certainly arguable (though I think it's quite incorrect*). However, then to say simply that it is "very natural" to call this recognition a "reward" is simply begging the question, a straightforward logical fallacy. I disagree, and you've made no attempt to show why it's "natural" to call this a "reward", merely implicitly asserted that it is.<br /><br />It doesn't strengthen the fallacy to talk about things being "bound to my soul" in, I assume, an attempt to reduce to the absurd - nothing of the kind is implicit in anything I wrote.<br /><br />Whether or not there is a case for natural property rights, we'd need societal enforcement. Different societies have enforced different rights, so when talking about whether there's an absolute moral right to property, this gets us nowhere.<br /><br />*It's easy to see what rights we have naturally, and you touch on this in your comment. They are the rights we have when isolated: to life (more properly, not to be killed), to free speech, to property and so on; not to housing or income or health care. Society does not give us these rights, it recogises and protects them to varying degrees.Peter Risdonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17792275403997179926noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12471112.post-73892754190362372972009-09-06T17:48:00.553+01:002009-09-06T17:48:00.553+01:00"The idea that the consequence of some effort..."The idea that the consequence of some effort is a "reward" for it is unfounded. The consequence of the effort is just that, a consequence. That an apple hits the ground if I drop it is not a reward for letting it go. The word "reward" suggests an external agency providing the sculptor with a compensation for his effort. This isn't what happens, though. A consequence of moulding clay is that the clay winds up moulded. Nothing intercedes to reward the person with clay under their nails with the final shape of the material. It would be more meaningful to ask whether the clay was the sculptor's to mess with in the first place. Maybe they dug it up - in which case the lump of clay would not have been a "reward" for digging, but again the consequence of doing so."<br /><br />From where I'm standing this looks a bit...blind. <br /><br />Of course there's an external force that gives the owner a reward. That force is everybody else. <br /><br />If everybody else is not involved, and there's just one person, then everything is as direct as you say. But then all talk of rights or ownership is beside the point.<br /><br />If there are other people, then while the maker 'having' their product (in their hands, in their room, whatever) is a direct physical consequence of their effort, that also has nothing to do with 'ownership'.<br /><br />Ownership means that everybody else doesn't take that product away or destroy it (or that they "shouldn't"). <br /><br />That's not a 'consequence' of the maker making it, that's a consequence of other people, as a group of individually, choosing to recognise a moral/legal claim. <br /><br />Which is very naturally treated as a decision to 'reward'. <br /><br />Your analysis suggests that once I have made my pot, as a simple natural consequence, it is then magically bound to my soul and will fight off anybody else trying to use it without my permission.Alderson Warm-Forkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14850852943973095836noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12471112.post-22411181765247719072009-09-03T09:47:38.629+01:002009-09-03T09:47:38.629+01:00Norm sadly leaves out the most obvious (and true) ...Norm sadly leaves out the most obvious (and true) reason why the creator has rights over the creation.<br /><br />It is not a reward, it is not in return for labour or effort expended.<br /><br />It is to encourage the next creator to create something.<br /><br />Just like shooting Admirals, pour encourager les autres.Tim Worstallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13161727860817121071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12471112.post-75222998808189759332009-09-03T08:33:58.460+01:002009-09-03T08:33:58.460+01:00A super post.A super post.Jackarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04477130724830922566noreply@blogger.com