A Reply to “Putting the Non-Aggression Principle into Context.”
Brainpolice2 made a video here - where he describes a problem with the non-aggression principle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ_WMtcyClI
As I listened I found myself agreeing with him. I still do. I'd prefer to have proportional, measured responses to everything in life.
However, as I thought I discovered my objection to his statements - and I have just discovered another.
Brainpolice2 made a video here - where he describes a problem with the non-aggression principle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ_WMtcyClI
As I listened I found myself agreeing with him. I still do. I'd prefer to have proportional, measured responses to everything in life.
However, as I thought I discovered my objection to his statements - and I have just discovered another.
Problem one - BP2 describes a hypothetical situation where someone, Walden, for example, trespasses. This assumes that the property being walked on is owned by someone, for example, Wubzy. 
Walden walks onto Wubzy's property, and is now trespassing (Walden, Wubzy, Widget and Daizy are friends - this is just hypothetical)
Wubzy, seeing that his rights are being violated grabs his weapon and blows Walden away.
This is a gross over reaction to Trespassing.
BP2 asserts that, While Wubzy has a right to his property, a right to remain trespass free, that Walden has a right to continue living, and that death is not suitable restitution for minor trespass.
I agreed. I see the above case as a conflict between Wubzy's right to remain un-trespassed and Walden's right to remain un-shot.
But - how do we resolve the conflict in rights there?
Well, in Libertopia, Wubzy would approach Walden and say "we have a conflict, let's call an arbitration service and resolve this conflict."
Walden may say "I see the conflict, and I agree." Walden may say "I see no conflict, go away." Or Walden may say "What are you going to do about it, Wubzy, bounce me to death with your bouncy tail?"
Why would anyone agree to submit to arbitration in the case of a conflict?
They’d agree because the alternative is uglier, more painful and more costly.
If Walden chooses option three and says "Go bounce yourself." then it's important that Wubzy can turn then response dial up to the disproportional 11.
If Wubzy's response dial is locked down to a 2, then this invites a miscreant to injure Wubzy up to 1.9. Wubzy can go so far and no further in deterring aggression against himself.
Now - BP2's hidden assumption -
Wubzy comes out onto his porch and finds Walden trespassing - Wubzy may go inside and get his "Make-my-Day-inator 3000" and blow Walden to kingdom come.
But because he MAY do this, that doesn't mean he necessarily will. We trust Wubzy to own a weapon and use it responsibly to defend himself. That means we're generically trusting Wubzy to exercise good judgment while holding lethal force in his hand.
(Given Wubzy's history of playing kickety-kick ball in the house, my examples are growing more hypothetical as we go!)
If Walden knows that Wubzy may just up and blow him away, this gives Walden motivation to avoid such an ugly scene by being more careful of Wubzy's right and to be more open to a non-explosive form of dispute resolution.
-*-
This is the basis for ALL society, not just our hypothetical Libertopia.
As Jose Ortega y Gasset said - "All civilization boils down to an attempt to reduce the use of force to the last resort."
And this is true. The inverse is also true. Unless the threat of violence is present, then no one has any motive to tolerate it when arbitration or a judgment goes against them.
Although I strongly suspect that 95% of humanity would agree with BP2 - that for Wubzy to execute Walden for trespassing is grossly unproportional.
I think that potential for disproportional response is an energy which drives reliance on more civilized forms of conflict resolution.
If Wubzy and Widget came to me to arbitrate a claim about the wrongful death of Walden, I’d find that Wubzy was out of bounds and ask him to pay restitution to the estate of Walden as if for murder, less the penalty for trespassing.
But unless Widget or myself has a valid threat of violence about us, Wubzy has no reason to adhere to the judgment.
If we post it to the Wuzzleburg times that Wubzy wiped out Walden and then blew off the arbitration - then Wubzy is going to have a hard time finding work, and buying supplies. He's going to be shunned.
But unless there is the possibility of being shot - then we might find Wubzy robbing Widget, myself or Daizy.
So - the application of force is something that has to be distributed and available to anyone - or else distributed push "Submit to civilized arbitration" is going to be absent - and then it'll be Mad Max time.
My second problem with BP2's video -
How many rights-points is Wubzy's yard worth? Specifically, the part that Walden took when he trespassed?
How many rights-points in Walden's life worth?
There's no good measurement for the proportionality of one violation versus the other.
I mean we could measure the two in relative terms - money bid on the open market.
But these are different transactions. If you rent me a square meter of your yard for 30 minutes - that's a voluntary exchange - and how much its worth depends on how badly I want to stand in your yard and what the benefit is to me.
It would be immoral to purchase someone's entire life, but we have a sort of market mechanism from murder restitutions - But murder is not a voluntary transaction on the part of the murdered, so the restitution amount is bound to be less than the murder victims presumed price of "don't murder me."
So setting a proportionality scale for judging rights transgressions against is subjective and difficult at best.
Surely such vagueness can't be considered a codified ethical principle, can it? That would make Google's "Don't be Evil" statement an entire code of ethics in and of itself.
Walden walks onto Wubzy's property, and is now trespassing (Walden, Wubzy, Widget and Daizy are friends - this is just hypothetical)
Wubzy, seeing that his rights are being violated grabs his weapon and blows Walden away.
This is a gross over reaction to Trespassing.
BP2 asserts that, While Wubzy has a right to his property, a right to remain trespass free, that Walden has a right to continue living, and that death is not suitable restitution for minor trespass.
I agreed. I see the above case as a conflict between Wubzy's right to remain un-trespassed and Walden's right to remain un-shot.
But - how do we resolve the conflict in rights there?
Well, in Libertopia, Wubzy would approach Walden and say "we have a conflict, let's call an arbitration service and resolve this conflict."
Walden may say "I see the conflict, and I agree." Walden may say "I see no conflict, go away." Or Walden may say "What are you going to do about it, Wubzy, bounce me to death with your bouncy tail?"
Why would anyone agree to submit to arbitration in the case of a conflict?
They’d agree because the alternative is uglier, more painful and more costly.
If Walden chooses option three and says "Go bounce yourself." then it's important that Wubzy can turn then response dial up to the disproportional 11.
If Wubzy's response dial is locked down to a 2, then this invites a miscreant to injure Wubzy up to 1.9. Wubzy can go so far and no further in deterring aggression against himself.
Now - BP2's hidden assumption -
Wubzy comes out onto his porch and finds Walden trespassing - Wubzy may go inside and get his "Make-my-Day-inator 3000" and blow Walden to kingdom come.
But because he MAY do this, that doesn't mean he necessarily will. We trust Wubzy to own a weapon and use it responsibly to defend himself. That means we're generically trusting Wubzy to exercise good judgment while holding lethal force in his hand.
(Given Wubzy's history of playing kickety-kick ball in the house, my examples are growing more hypothetical as we go!)
If Walden knows that Wubzy may just up and blow him away, this gives Walden motivation to avoid such an ugly scene by being more careful of Wubzy's right and to be more open to a non-explosive form of dispute resolution.
-*-
This is the basis for ALL society, not just our hypothetical Libertopia.
As Jose Ortega y Gasset said - "All civilization boils down to an attempt to reduce the use of force to the last resort."
And this is true. The inverse is also true. Unless the threat of violence is present, then no one has any motive to tolerate it when arbitration or a judgment goes against them.
Although I strongly suspect that 95% of humanity would agree with BP2 - that for Wubzy to execute Walden for trespassing is grossly unproportional.
I think that potential for disproportional response is an energy which drives reliance on more civilized forms of conflict resolution.
If Wubzy and Widget came to me to arbitrate a claim about the wrongful death of Walden, I’d find that Wubzy was out of bounds and ask him to pay restitution to the estate of Walden as if for murder, less the penalty for trespassing.
But unless Widget or myself has a valid threat of violence about us, Wubzy has no reason to adhere to the judgment.
If we post it to the Wuzzleburg times that Wubzy wiped out Walden and then blew off the arbitration - then Wubzy is going to have a hard time finding work, and buying supplies. He's going to be shunned.
But unless there is the possibility of being shot - then we might find Wubzy robbing Widget, myself or Daizy.
So - the application of force is something that has to be distributed and available to anyone - or else distributed push "Submit to civilized arbitration" is going to be absent - and then it'll be Mad Max time.
My second problem with BP2's video -
How many rights-points is Wubzy's yard worth? Specifically, the part that Walden took when he trespassed?
How many rights-points in Walden's life worth?
There's no good measurement for the proportionality of one violation versus the other.
I mean we could measure the two in relative terms - money bid on the open market.
But these are different transactions. If you rent me a square meter of your yard for 30 minutes - that's a voluntary exchange - and how much its worth depends on how badly I want to stand in your yard and what the benefit is to me.
It would be immoral to purchase someone's entire life, but we have a sort of market mechanism from murder restitutions - But murder is not a voluntary transaction on the part of the murdered, so the restitution amount is bound to be less than the murder victims presumed price of "don't murder me."
So setting a proportionality scale for judging rights transgressions against is subjective and difficult at best.
Surely such vagueness can't be considered a codified ethical principle, can it? That would make Google's "Don't be Evil" statement an entire code of ethics in and of itself.
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