Ethics and morals.
Ethics and morals.
Posted May 6, 2011 20:38 UTC (Fri) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106)In reply to: Ethics and morals. by giraffedata
Parent article: Interview with Linus Torvalds (LinuxFR)
That is one definition, and not a very typical one. Under that rule possession isn't just 9/10 of the law--it's 100%. Congratulations, you've just defined away any possibility of theft. What the thief controls, the thief "owns".
A better definition is that one's property is that which others have no right to prevent one from using, subject to the same rights of others regarding their property. By convention, and to minimize conflict, this right is granted to the first user (homesteading), and one valid use of one's property is to voluntarily transfer this right to another (contract).
> To the extent that I can take my neighbor's money by voting for a tax..., that money was never my neighbor's property.
You're assuming that "property" means "legal property". So far as that goes, local law may not recognize private property at all. Not everyone shares the concept of property as a natural law (i.e. one which enforces itself, albeit in a somewhat more lax manner than the physical laws), but most do ascribe a more... concrete meaning to the term "property" than whatever the law might happen to say at the moment. Consider the concept of "confiscatory taxes"--if the rates are high enough, even the average person understands that taxes represent the seizure of what someone has rightfully earned for his/her own use, even if the tax is perfectly legal.
It is true that one cannot claim a moral or ethical imperative for private property without reference to a particular system of morality or ethics. There have been attempts to define universal ethics on praxeological grounds, but I personally prefer to sidestep the issue entirely: so long as you only respond to violations of your property rights in kind, it doesn't matter whether the other party shares your morals or ethics; any *proportional* response is automatically consistent with *their* effective morality and ethics, as demonstrated by their own actions. As such, they are in no position offer a rational objection.
Posted May 6, 2011 22:51 UTC (Fri)
by giraffedata (guest, #1954)
[Link] (3 responses)
OK, I wasn't precise enough, but I think this is definition everyone uses. I meant "can't" to be relative to whatever system of property you're talking about. If it's legal property, than "can't take it" means it would be illegal to take it (or the government will force you to give it back, or whatever). For moral property, it would mean that you can't take it without being evil. For de facto property, it would be as you say: 100% possession.
Those are the three kinds of property I think we've been discussing. They're all valid in my book, but you have to use it consistently. For example, if you're talking about a legal election, you have to talk about legal property. So no, you can't take someone's property by voting because anything you can "take" was your property to begin with. Likewise, if you're talking about the peasants rising up and voting to take control of the land they farm from an oppressive king, that's a moral vote to repossess moral property which was morally the peasants' to begin with, so no property is taken.
Posted May 7, 2011 0:48 UTC (Sat)
by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106)
[Link] (2 responses)
That's a perfectly reasonable analysis from the legal point-of-view, but the fact that the election is legal does not mean one can only analyze it from a legal perspective. From the perspective of natural law (or moral property rights, if you will), the election, however legal it may have been, had no effect on moral property rights. Speaking from that point-of-view, it is perfectly valid to say that people held a legal election and then, on the basis of that vote, proceeded to take others' property immorally for their own use. It is also reasonable to say that since the entire purpose of the vote was to determine whether or not to act immorally, the vote itself is immoral--by voting on this topic (or at least in favor) one is seeking permission to act immorally, or asking someone else to do so.
I understand that you may not agree with the moral code used in this example, but that isn't really the point. The legal, moral, and (though rather pointless) "de facto" aspects of property rights all apply to any situation simultaneously. You don't choose one based on the context and ignore the rest. Legal actions have moral and practical dimensions, and vise-versa.
Posted May 8, 2011 0:11 UTC (Sun)
by giraffedata (guest, #1954)
[Link] (1 responses)
You appear to be reading something rather different from what I wrote, because I didn't offer any analysis at all. I'm just defining terms and parsing sentences. And "was" is what I meant. By definition, if you're talking about a legal election and legal property, whatever the public can take by voting was the public's to begin with (eminent domain); the election merely exercises that ownership. There's no theft.
But you should be clear which one you're talking about in any given sentence, and especially avoid switching off from one to another mid-sentence. I also believe "moral property" is a pretty useless concept -- as I said in the beginning I'd rather someone say he favors highly individualized legal property than say he believes moral property is highly individualized and he is against laws that let you steal people's moral property. They both say the same thing, but the former makes it a clearer what the belief is. Maybe just because legal property is by far the most commonly discussed kind of property.
Posted May 8, 2011 4:59 UTC (Sun)
by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106)
[Link]
True. However, we weren't talking about legal property or legal theft. We were speaking of moral property and moral theft in connection with a legal election. Ergo, this definition is irrelevant.
> But you should be clear which one you're talking about in any given sentence, and especially avoid switching off from one to another mid-sentence.
I agree. However, there is no "switching off" occurring here. The entire statement was a moral statement, which just happened to refer to an legal election, i.e. one which is accepted by the law. It is not an error to refer to legal concepts like elections in a moral context. By example:
De facto: Those holding the vote have a near-monopoly on the use of force (police, military, etc.) Ergo, direct resistance to enforcement of the vote is futile.
Legal: The law permits ownership/control of property to be transferred to "the public" based on the outcome of a vote. Ergo, the property now legally belongs to the public. (It is still not inaccurate to say that the property was "taken" from its former private owner; the vote does not rewrite history. It merely makes the taking legal.)
Moral/Ethical: By my moral code, and my ethics as a libertarian, a vote (however legal and/or enforceable) has no effect whatsoever on the actual, moral ownership of property unless the owner voluntarily submits their property to said vote. Ergo, removing the property from the owner's control following the vote is (morally) an instance of theft, and thus wrong, again by my moral code. As such, I choose not to participate.
Ethics and morals.
By definition, you can't take someone's property by voting -- you can't take it at all. Property is what a person exclusively controls.
That is one definition, and not a very typical one. Under that rule possession isn't just 9/10 of the law--it's 100%.
Ethics and morals.
Ethics and morals.
For example, if you're talking about a legal election, you have to talk about legal property. So no, you can't take someone's property by voting
because anything you can "take" was[n't] your property to begin with.
That's a perfectly reasonable analysis from the legal point-of-view,
The legal, moral, and (though rather pointless) "de facto" aspects of property rights all apply to any situation simultaneously. You don't choose one based on the context and ignore the rest. Legal actions have moral and practical dimensions, and vise-versa.
Ethics and morals.