Libertarianism

[Coito ergo sum]

If you're walking alone in the forest, you have the right to stay alive and you have the right to pick stuff up and make your property, and you have the right to run around with your pants down singin' hallelujah (absolute liberty). That's inherent in being alone -- it's axiomatic

Again really depends on what you mean by rights, the desire to want to stay alive does not automatically translate into a right to do so. There is simply no logical link between wanting something and having a right to it. Now society expressed via a legal system may recognize this as a common desire and protect people interfering with it but there is nothing inherent about it

I was referring to the Lockean state of nature. “Want [lack] of a common judge, with authority, puts all persons in a state of nature” and again, “Men living according to reason, without a common superior on earth, to judge between them, is properly the state of nature.” (Second Treatise on Government).

The right to life in that instance is merely a negative right -- no person has the just authority to deprive you of it. If another man comes along, B, on what basis does B claim an authority to end A's life? There is none. And, vice versa.

The whole reason it is inherent is because A doesn't NEED a basis outside of himself to assert that right. That's why it's axiomatic.

The common judge becomes, under social contract theory, the government, which is created by the people and delegated the authority the people choose to give it, or not. The government is not, as you suggest, a thing unto itself, or an assumption, of an overarching, limitless power. The Lockean and Paine-ian ideas of government recognize the REALITY that governments are abstractions, created by people, to resolve disputes, ensure tranquility, provide for common defense, protect individual rights, and such other more specific things as are delegated to it.

[Seth]

This is where we disagree. Governments are indeed created by people, but rights are inherent and natural, a function of our status as living creatures in part, and a function of our status as thinking, sentient creatures in part.

I agree that rights are "derived" from the natural and inherent properties of being a human being. However, "rights" are a concept that exist only as concepts in the human mind. Without thinking beings, there are no rights. Rocks have no rights, for example. Dead people don't have rights. Rights, like morality, are concepts -- abstract ideas. They are not inherent aspects of things. But, those concepts are derived, according to Paine and Kant, from a reasoned analysis of human reality.

I disagree. Many species demonstrate behavior that expresses a hierarchy of rights. Two species that come to mind immediately are lion prides and wolf packs, both of which have hierarchies of who gets to do what when. Humans simply put a name on the observable behavior of balancing the exercises of freedoms by individual members of a community, be it bonobo monkeys, capuchin monkeys in Sri Lanka, lions in Africa, wolves in Canada or human beings in Detroit.

Rights are expressed in the animal kingdom as behavioral norms, but the identification and labeling of the phenomena is unique to humans. We have the intelligence to philosophize about rights and derive complex and nuanced hierarchies and methods of adjudication of the competing freedoms of action of individuals, but wolf packs enforce their structure of rights nonetheless, even though they don't have a name for the concept.

Your reductio argument is incorrect because government comes into being as a control mechanism for the expression of rights (freedoms of action) by one person that may impact the freedoms of action (rights) of another person. Government, it is true, has no independent existence, but you err in you analysis because government does no more than regulate and adjudicate the expression of rights (exercise of freedoms of action), it does not grant those rights.

I never said it did grant rights. Well, it CAN grant rights, but it doesn't grant the fundamental rights of man that are derived from nature. It CAN grant "civil" rights, which are different from natural rights.

Yes, government CAN grant freedoms of action that are not fundamental, like the right to have an abortion, but the argument here is whether any rights can be derived from nature and therefore be deemed "inherent" and "unalienable" and a consequent of the nature of the living being they apply to.

As I said, the right to life, liberty and property derive from the natural functions of all living creatures. Every creature will strive to stay alive by exercising freedoms of action including self-defense, acquisition of resources necessary for survival, and liberty engage in both actions. These basic biologic functions are common to all living creatures and translate directly to the right to life, liberty and property in the case of humans.

The right to life liberty and property are reasoned axioms derived from an attempt to think "objectively" about different individuals existing in the same world. If you're walking alone in the forest, you have the right to stay alive and you have the right to pick stuff up and make your property, and you have the right to run around with your pants down singin' hallelujah (absolute liberty). That's inherent in being alone -- it's axiomatic -- a man alone in the world owns everything, can do anything he wants within his physical capacity and has no limitations on his freedom other than physical ones.

Correct. The solitary creature has all rights and no constraints other than its physical abilities.

On to two people in a state of nature -- neither person can objectively claim an a priori right to anything -- they both can live, and they both can acquire property and they both can run around with their pants down singin' hallelujah. But, what are the limitations? Since both have a right to life, neither ought to be able to kill each other unless attacked. Since both have liberty, neither can block the other from running around with their pants down singin' hallelujah, except the property bit -- where one party has acquired real property, then he can limit the other from running around with his pants down singin' hallelujah ON THAT PROPERTY.

I disagree. The fundamental adjudicator of the rights of two individuals "in a state of nature" is force. That is to say the Law of the Jungle. He (or she) who is able to claim a resource or exercise a liberty and defend that claim or exercise successfully against infringement by another has the right to such use and enjoyment. That's the adjudication of competing rights in its most basic and primitive form. Everything that follows is merely a more complex method of adjudicating a conflict for resources or space that balances the competing claims somehow, for some reason other than the natural urges involved. A tribal society that has a hierarchy that controls who mates with whom may be an incident of an understanding of the dangers of close inbreeding, or merely an exercise of power by those at the top of the food chain. Laws are codifications of social balancing of competing rights that can be extremely complex and have multiple objectives, but the core principle is still the same: The rights precede the adjudication and balancing of the exercise of rights, and the adjudication only comes into play when there is a conflict for resources or space. This sort of adjudication is seen in many species, not just humans, which is why I claim that there are Organic Rights that can be directly derived from nature which include the right to life, liberty, property and procreation, and the right to self-defense and defense of acquired property.

And, so on...it expands from there.

Once we have humans living in groups and in close proximity, the conflicts among humans relative to these fundamental rights become common....soooooooooo...... to protect these rights....and to "secure the blessings of liberty" governments are instituted among humans....and, so, that becomes the purpose of government -- to safeguard the group as a whole, and to resolve competing rights and interests where they overlap.

Correct.

Whether those rights, and others that are more complex, are respected by a society is what governance, and therefore government is all about. All living creatures recognize some form of governance, from the cooperative actions of coral polyps or monkeys to the individual (libertarian) penchants of male mountain lions to respect territorial boundaries. How such social ordering is created is largely irrelevant, but all are more or less primitive forms of "government" either through the Law of the Jungle or some more complex adjudicatory and regulatory behavior. But in all cases the government is an artifact of the nature of life and the expression of the fundamental Organic Rights of life, liberty and property.

To say that rights are a function of, and flow from government is to put the cart before the horse, for without pre-existing rights, there is nothing to be governed.

Of course, I never said that rights were a function of or flow from government. So, all the rest of your critique is rendered inapplicable by the failure of that basic premise.

Others, however, have said that, so I felt it was worth addressing.

[Seth]

On what basis would we say that person A has more right than person B to live?

Easy if person A is me!, rights are only a possibility when it isn't a choice between person A or B surviving. Rights are a luxury a society has when the basics have already been sorted out.

I would have zero moral problems in robbing someone house if that was the only way I could get enough food to eat (no I'm not going to ask as if I'm told no it making robbing the house a lot harder), luckily we have a safety net so that possibility should never happen. Without such a safety net I don't think there is a moral case for locking that person up

By that same logic, the homeowner would be fully justified in killing you for trying, since you are imperiling his and his family's life by stealing what is not yours.

[Seth]

That is a fundamental misunderstanding of what natural rights are, and belies an individual who has not read the first thing about natural rights (e.g. Thomases Hobbes, Locke and Paine, and Immanuel Kant). Kant and Paine, of course, purported to derive natural rights through reason. Read, e.g. Paine's "Age of Reason" and "Rights of Man." And, see, Kant's "Groundwork on Metaphysics and Morals" and his "Critique of Pure Reason." The underpinnings for the Enlightenment thinkers in this area can be found in major ancient philosophers, like Lucretius (de rerum natura), the Epicurean philosophers, etc.

Sorry I've on going on the great philosopher Seth not that I'm big on philosophy its generally far too vague to have much use

Higher animals possess empathy which is a tool for deciding morality but in most cases of trial and error combined with natural selection (at a society level) is what determines it. Morality evolves which is why I have a serious problem with natural rights it assumes people who to me are just savages even if enlightened for their time get to decide what is right or wrong. Never mind 300 years old even 50 years ago people had views that would make them appear to be monsters today and hope in 50 years time people will look back and same about us, ie progessive politics and morality.

While I don't think rights are natural government certainly is, it comes from the word to manage and any two organisms will try to control or influence one another even if unconsciously. Wolves certainly don't have rights but they have clear and recognizable government.

I have problems with libertarianism because it dismisses the fact that for 7 billion people to survive on this planet they have to do things that they may not want to do, that while freedom can an enabler for people to be happy its the being happy bit that is important not the freedom.

The problem is that you mistrust others so much that you cannot conceive that people will voluntarily do things they don't want to do simply because they recognize that it is in their rational self-interest to do so. This is classic Marxism, which believes that the proletariat must be tightly controlled and ordered about because Marxists are unable to understand charity, altruism, rational self interest or the well-formed adult personality.

Libertarianism dismisses the fact that every human being is intrinsically and involuntary linked.

No, it does not. Your statement is merely an expression of your gross ignorance of Libertarian philosophy. Libertarianism DEPENDS on rational adults with well-formed personalities recognizing that communities exist because of dependencies upon one another. Libertarianism, however, believes that these dependencies should be undertaken voluntarily wherever possible, and that individuals can be trusted to do what is best for the community and themselves because the consequences of anti-social activity are expulsion from the community and retraction of social and economic interaction by other free persons who have an absolute right to deny social and economic intercourse with those who do not act as rational adults.

The only real distinction between Libertarianism and any other form of government is that of consent. Libertarians choose to allow people to make their own choices, and to suffer the consequences of bad, socially unacceptable conduct or enjoy the benefits of good, socially-appropriate decision making not by prior restraint or punishment, but simply by withdrawing economic and social intercourse from those who act in anti-social ways. Libertarians believe in enforcing moral codes on an individual basis, not using the blunt instrument of the Mace of State, which has a tendency to do the opposite of what is desired.

Thus, the fictional rugged, solitary individualist Libertarian that you and others like to throw out as a strawman is not in fact anything like what actual Libertarians are, or believe in. Libertarians are very social and sociable, they are honest and forthright, charitable and altruistic, friendly and open, and they honor their obligations and contracts because that's what the philosophy requires of them. What they are not is greedy, selfish, solitary, isolated or any of the other pejoratives that leftists like to toss out as deliberate provocations in their willful and deliberate ignorance of what Libertarianism actually is.

That every action a person does including breathing causes harm to others so therefore you can't say a person can do anything they want as long as it doesn't harm others as that is meaningless.

This is pure idiocy. My breathing does not harm others any more than theirs harms me, so there's a balance there. And Libertarianism is not about "doing anything they want" UNLESS it does no harm to others. For example, what color I paint my house, or what kind of clothing I choose to wear does not harm you, so you should have no control over such things. And if something I do actually does initiate force or fraud against you, then your recourse is to make a complaint to the courts and ask for relief or redress, not expect government to make a law that applies to everyone merely to resolve a personal issue you may have with my conduct.

We are harming each other every day the only question to be decided of is how much can you harm another person for your personal benefit and happiness.

Yes, there is a balancing of rights involved, but no Libertarian has ever claimed that harm done to another is justifiable, merely that it be actual harm that can be demonstrated, and that redress for such harm is between the individual harmed and the person doing the harm, rather than empowering government to intrude upon the same conduct by others that may be harming no one else.

Should you be allowed to go near other people with a cold despite the fact that your cold can quite easily kill someone who already in bad health. As a society we have decided that as colds are so common a few dead old people is a price worth paying for the majority of us to get on with our lives. Try replacing a cold with the ebola virus and most countries will if you are lucky lock you up in a hospital whether you want to go or not

In a Libertarian society someone who knowingly or negligently spreads disease and causes harm thereby is fully responsible for their actions and may be required to compensate their victims for that initiation of force. It doesn't matter if it's a common cold or Ebola, each individual is responsible for acting in socially appropriate ways so as to avoid initiating force against another, and others are entitled to defend themselves against such initiations of force by replying with force if necessary. So, if you have Ebola and aren't voluntarily quarantining yourself, the community can forcibly quarantine you in order to prevent you from spreading the disease because for you to do so is an initiation of force that harms others.

[MrJonno]

By that same logic, the homeowner would be fully justified in killing you for trying, since you are imperiling his and his family's life by stealing what is not yours.

When they is no civilization (ie government) there is no right or wrong, no moral or immoral no justified or not justified just survival and for the vast majority of the 7 billion people on this planet a very short and brutal life. Thats why quite literally what keeps me alive and 99.99% of the human race is a functioning government

[Coito ergo sum]

By that same logic, the homeowner would be fully justified in killing you for trying, since you are imperiling his and his family's life by stealing what is not yours.

When they is no civilization (ie government) there is no right or wrong, no moral or immoral no justified or not justified just survival and for the vast majority of the 7 billion people on this planet a very short and brutal life. Thats why quite literally what keeps me alive and 99.99% of the human race is a functioning government

Sounds like the "how can we be moral without a higher power" crap the religious folks are always carping about...

Even WITH a civilization there is no OBJECTIVE right or wrong, moral or immoral, justified or unjustified. The law and "society" don't create any sort of morality that doesn't already exist.4

Subjective morality is the only morality there is. Morality is, by its very nature, subjective. Governments don't make things moral or immoral. They punish things or they don't punish things. That's it. Some things a government makes illegal are clearly not "immoral" (imho) and some things that are immoral (imho) are clearly not "illegal."

[Drewish]

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Sorry, I'm not selfish enough.

[Woodbutcher]

If libertarianism depends on mature, intelligent adults cooperating for the common good they're just as silly as any other utopian society wannabes. Granted, there are some answering to that description, but a large majority are selfish fucks. A libertarian society would fall apart within five years, max, due to infighting and break-away factions. A central government is required to keep the assholes in line, if there is no fear factor, mayhem would rule. Utopias have been tried, and they have all failed, including communism. But the Amish live on.

[Seth]

By that same logic, the homeowner would be fully justified in killing you for trying, since you are imperiling his and his family's life by stealing what is not yours.

When they is no civilization (ie government) there is no right or wrong, no moral or immoral no justified or not justified just survival and for the vast majority of the 7 billion people on this planet a very short and brutal life. Thats why quite literally what keeps me alive and 99.99% of the human race is a functioning government

Meh. What keeps you alive is the competent, well-formed adult personalities of the 99.99999% of humans you encounter every day, who would remain sane and law-abiding even if no government at all existed. The government does not and cannot protect you from the 0.00001% who mean you harm, because, well, they don't give a fuck about the law and will rob, hurt or kill you just because it pleases them to do so. If you depend on the government to protect you from such sociopaths, you're going to make an ugly corpse because the government will NEVER be there to protect you.

Evidently that simple fact has escaped you.

You are not safe, Jonno my boy, not safe at all. You're just overly fearful of your fellow human beings and overly optimistic regarding how much your government can or will do to keep you safe from sociopaths. That's going to bite you in the ass good and hard one day.

[Seth]

If libertarianism depends on mature, intelligent adults cooperating for the common good they're just as silly as any other utopian society wannabes. Granted, there are some answering to that description, but a large majority are selfish fucks.

No they aren't, they are just ordinary people who look out for their own interests before considering yours. Once their needs are fulfilled, and if they have surplus resources and time, then they may be willing to consider your needs, but it's perfectly rational for everyone to look first to their own and their family's needs.

A libertarian society would fall apart within five years, max, due to infighting and break-away factions. A central government is required to keep the assholes in line, if there is no fear factor, mayhem would rule. Utopias have been tried, and they have all failed, including communism. But the Amish live on.

Nah, not if full Libertarianism is enacted. When that happens, no central government is needed to keep assholes in line because each citizen will do it themselves, both individually and in concert with other like-minded individuals who will use social pressure or force to keep assholes from initiating force or fraud.

And you might want to consider what the Amish have in common with Libertarians for a clue as to why their system works pretty well.

[MrJonno]

What keeps you alive is the competent, well-formed adult personalities of the 99.99999% of humans you encounter every day

One day I might meet such a person, human being are dangerous animals 100% of them and strict control is what allows any of us to have the modern quality of life that we have

[JimC]

What keeps you alive is the competent, well-formed adult personalities of the 99.99999% of humans you encounter every day

One day I might meet such a person, human being are dangerous animals 100% of them and strict control is what allows any of us to have the modern quality of life that we have

This time I may partially disagree with you. Seth is exaggerating, but there is a kernel of truth. For much of the time, we depend on a mutually useful interaction with other humans whom we can trust. It fails sometimes, and we need a government to manage the failed situations (as well as a multitude of other things), but we need to limit to some extent the degree we depend on government, and work together as human adults as far as possible...

[Clinton Huxley]

We don't depend on government, we create the government. The government works for us.

[JimC]

We don't depend on government, we create the government. The government works for us.

If only they thought so too...