Molyneux' FDR controversy is going too far

[BillKauffman]

So I choose to avoid using that term if anything then to avoid diluting the meaning of a contract, which I see as something that must be consensual, which must involve a "meeting of the minds". If Joe never met Jack, I simply don't see them having a contract of any kind, not even this "social contract". They never met. They're irrelevant to each other. No contract between them exists.

In classical liberalism - freedom is defined from a biological basis based on free will to contract with any other person.

In civic republicanism - freedom is defined from practicing virtuous behavior in small-scale, deliberative civic bodies.

[John Edward Mercier]

How do you know what an animal "knows" vs. what is instinctual?

Isn't instinct just knowledge that a creature is born with? It doesn't matter. I don't really care to argue which one it is. In fact, if it's instinctual, I think that's even more relevant to my point.

Knowledge requires sentience so that you have learned behavior by understanding the consequences of your actions via feelings. Animals don't have sentience.

Sentience - the faculty through which the external world is apprehended.

If it is instinctual then you can not ascribe human "knowing" to an animals actions. An animal does not "know" the consequences of it's actions.

Animal behaviorist will explain that this is an outdated theory... the same that infidelity and homosexuality were considered unnatural in that they were not considered to occur in the animal kingdom outside the human species.

[Tom Sawyer]

Knowledge requires sentience so that you have learned behavior by understanding the consequences of your actions via feelings. Animals don't have sentience.

Sentience - the faculty through which the external world is apprehended.

If it is instinctual then you can not ascribe human "knowing" to an animals actions. An animal does not "know" the consequences of it's actions.

A fucking dog is smarter than you Bill. They don't fool themselves with grand schemes that are built on foundations of sand. But they sure as hell, figure out the consequences of their actions. Excepting language, they have the mental abilities of at least a 5 year old human.

[BillKauffman]

But they sure as hell, figure out the consequences of their actions

How do you know?

Excepting language, they have the mental abilities of at least a 5 year old human.

If they can't tell you?

[Tom Sawyer]

A life time of observation... that's right Locke didn't tell me.

Just because some philosopher said it, no matter how much he got right, has all the answers. There are vast volumes of philosophy that are just flat wrong. A million pages of nonsense built on nonsense, I'm sure your library is full.

[John Edward Mercier]

But they sure as hell, figure out the consequences of their actions

How do you know?

Excepting language, they have the mental abilities of at least a 5 year old human.

If they can't tell you?

Your suggesting that a language/communication barrier is grounds to determine them not being sentient?

[dalebert]

They have done tests to see what they're capable of understanding. There are ways, for instance, of determining the presence of cognitive abilities like *persistence, something a dog develops far sooner than a person does. Not saying dogs are smarter than people, of course; just that their cognitive abilities develop faster. Part of the price we pay for our intelligence is it takes longer to fully develop.

I just find all these arguments about this fundamental difference between humans and other animals particularly uncompelling. They try to draw these hard lines and when an animal demonstrates some capacity to cross the line, they draw a new one. It's been language, the use of tools, then the creation and use of tools, and the latest I heard was appreciation for art.  Yes, I got it. They're not as smart as us. They don't think as much as us. You can draw lines wherever you want, but they will always be arbitrary.

* persistence: I'm pretty sure that's not the right name for it. Sorry. I studied child psychology and development a while back but I can't remember what it's called right now, but it's when a creature moves beyond the point of out-of-sight, out-of-mind. It means that the creature realizes an object still exists even though it can't see it anymore.

[BillKauffman]

It means that the creature realizes an object still exists even though it can't see it anymore.

How do you know the creature "realizes" anything let alone that of an object it can't see anymore?

All of these arguments seem like unwarranted justification for a belief in human behavior that is supposedly "natural" that isn't particularly helpful to harmony in a world amongst sentient creatures. Reminds me of why Herbert Spencer became the darling of social darwinists to somehow justify privilege.

[Giggan]

The Stateless Society is an incredibly modern concept.

This is not true. See the Iroquois Confederation.

Honestly, I know little about the Iroquois Confed.

Old Iceland and Ireland were basically anarchistic, but they didn't call themselves that. But gov't has historically spread like cancer. It pops up, and slowly eats away at the territory it consumes. Once it has consumed, liberty is never restored to it's original state. Even with revolutions, a bad gov't makes way for a not as bad government, and the cycle starts all over again. I'm sure there's governments on modern Indian reservations...

The idea of cutting out the cancer, removing the government, or any establishment allowed to preemptively aggress, is, however, a very modern concept. If territories were liberty-minded, psuedo-anarchist without knowing it (Iceland, Ireland, and possible the Iriquois Confederation, if you're correct) then they were not protected from becoming what they were not, a governmental structure. If they were not anarchistic because they saw the institutionalization of violence as wrong in itself, they were in no way prevented from seguing into it, as almost every area of the world has.

[dalebert]

How do you know the creature "realizes" anything let alone that of an object it can't see anymore?

You've got to be kidding me? This gets into the question of whether you "know" that anyone or anything is conscious other than yourself. How do you know that your senses are feeding you completely invalid information about everything around you? While that's technically remotely possible, we can make reasonable conclusions based on the animal's behavior about what it's thinking, particularly in a very controlled setting. A baby (or a dog) immediately shows clear signs of completely losing interest in an object that it was enraptured with the moment it passes out of sight until it reaches the age when its mind is capable of comprehending that it still exists. It's pretty obvious when you see it, just as it's obvious that a dog wants something you're eating as it stares and salivates all over the floor.

All of these arguments seem like unwarranted justification for a belief in human behavior that is supposedly "natural" that isn't particularly helpful to harmony in a world amongst sentient creatures.

Acknowledging that the sentience and will of other beings is on a fundamental level very similar to one's own is not particularly helpful to harmony in a world amongst sentient creatures? Whether you think the NAP is natural or not, are you saying you don't believe in it? What do you base your morality on?

All I'm talking about is an understanding that is crucial to moral social interaction. There is a lot more to morality than just that.

[memenode]

If all locations (which pre-exists human labor) were privately owned can those who don't own be considered in any meaningful way "free"?

The housing, water, and food are not provided for free in a city.

Yes they can be considered free because they have absolute ownership over themselves and other things too. You are an absolute ruler over your own property because it is just an extension of who you are (a result of all that you've previously done in life), just as others are. Yes, this does mean that if you want to pass through somebody elses property you need a permission, but those properties which are on locations that are suitable as transits between other properties have that specific market value which incentivizes its owners to permit other property owners to pass through, even if for a small fee per person. It also incentivizes them to impose only fair and acceptable rules of transit so that those who would transit don't seek to establish alternative routes of passing to wherever they wanna travel.

Liberty should not be confused with the "right" to move everywhere you wanna go. It's solely derived from property, starting and extending from self-ownership. By definition if you own yourself nobody else can own you and if you own products of your labor, nobody else can own those. By definition also, ownership is exclusive and absolute, therefore there are to be no compromises to ones ownership over something. If such compromises were allowed, they would violate your property and therefore your liberty. If you assume you have the right to trespass without permission, you also believe that others have the right to trespass your own property without permission, and this leads to the way "society" operates today: mutually assured violation (violence).

Water is a "free" good in nature, some housing (a cave) and some foods are also free goods in nature. What are the obligations to others to enclose "free" goods and how does that effect your notion of negative liberty?

There are no obligations. If you have encountered a resource that has not in any way been marked as someone elses property you can mark it yourself, homestead it, as your own. The acts of traveling to it, finding it, determining it's not owned (marked as owned) by someone else and then marking it as your own is the labor you invest into making it your own. Thus this newfound resource or land becomes the fruit of your labor and as such your property.

This is clearly consistent with negative liberty. You aren't forced to have positive obligations towards anyone with regards to the property you produce or homestead. They always become an extension of your self.

If territories were liberty-minded, psuedo-anarchist without knowing it (Iceland, Ireland, and possible the Iriquois Confederation, if you're correct) then they were not protected from becoming what they were not, a governmental structure. If they were not anarchistic because they saw the institutionalization of violence as wrong in itself, they were in no way prevented from seguing into it, as almost every area of the world has.

Good point. That is also a way to address criticisms which say that if anarchistic societies were so great and stable, why didn't they last longer. Well what you say is a good answer to that.

Yet the fact that even without deliberate effort and positive awareness of the immorality of coercion such anarchic societies still existed for however long they did speaks positively of the feasibility of establishing stable, peaceful and prosperous stateless. In a nutshell, if they could happen by accident, they sure as hell can be created by deliberation.

This is why what's happening in New Hampshire is so awesome, so long as there are enough voluntaryists, people who wont stop at merely "minimal government", but will work to remove all legalized coercionism completely!

[BillKauffman]

Yes they can be considered free because they have absolute ownership over themselves and other things too.

By what stretch of the imagination can you consider those that don't own a location free if no matter where they stand the have to labor for the right to stand there or have it gifted?

Does the right of self-ownership have to be purchased or gifted or are we born with this right?

[dalebert]

Bill, if we printed out every post where you stated that, word for word, just as you did just now, AGAIN, and placed them all edge to edge, you could cover the surface of the Earth with them three times over. Some would argue you had legitimately homesteaded the Earth and you could have your way. Personally, I would call bullshit because you're just cut & pasting.

Oh, and if anyone new and as yet ignorant of your borderline autistic affliction engages you in this discussion, AGAIN, and creates another endless thread about economic rent filled with your tired old cut & paste arguments that never convinced a single person here, AGAIN, I will personally violate the NAP by coming over to their place and chopping off their typing fingers.

[Giggan]

Bill, if we printed out every post where you stated that, word for word, just as you did just now, AGAIN, and placed them all edge to edge, you could cover the surface of the Earth with them three times over. Some would argue you had legitimately homesteaded the Earth and you could have your way. Personally, I would call bullshit because you're just cut & pasting.

Oh, and if anyone new and as yet ignorant of your borderline autistic affliction engages you in this discussion, AGAIN, and creates another endless thread about economic rent filled with your tired old cut & paste arguments that never convinced a single person here, AGAIN, I will personally violate the NAP by coming over to your place and chopping off their typing fingers.

So he succeeded in converting you to statism if you're going to suspend your belief in the NAP for a non-violent act 

[dalebert]

Meh, it's just my artistic license.