Sunday, January 31, 2016

Walter Block: Thoughts on the Farmer Dilemma

The following email exchange took place between Rick Miller and Prof. Walter Block:

From: Rick Miller
Sent: Sunday, January 24, 2016 10:28 AM
To: Walter Block; rw@economicpolicyjournal.com
Subject: Thoughts on the Farmer Delimma

Fellows,
It has been a very invigorating discussion so far!  Here are a few thoughts:

Any theory forwarded that does not address the primary issue of the child’s trespassing is atopical, and fails to reach the heart of the matter.  It is important to remember that the child in the scenario we are considering has committedtwo NAP violations- the initial and much more important one being trespassing.

To illustrate this, imagine the farmer has trained attack dogs to protect his orchard.  If one of the dogs were to escape, the owner would be responsible for any damages the dogs inflicted while outside the owner’s property.  However, if the child trespasses and is eaten by the guard dogs inside the property, the owner is not responsible and owes no restitution for the event that occurred.  This should illustrate properly the primacy of trespassing over all other considerations.

Dr. Block has discussed the way libertarians should view the owner who defends his property with deadly force:

“It is an illicit question to ask a libertarian, qua libertarian, if he would continue to hang on to or let go of the flagpole. Remember, libertarianism is a very limited political philosophy. Essentially, it asks only one question and gives only one answer. The question: under what conditions is the use of or threat of physical force justified? The answer: only in response or in reaction to the prior use of such force. The only germane question raised by this scenario is what to do with the homeowner if he shoots the flagpole sitter, or, forces him to drop to his death under the threat of the gun. 3. Looked at in this way, the answer is clear. The owner of the flagpole is totally within his rights to defend his property, both the flagpole and his apartment. It might be nice if he allowed the person in this precarious position to scurry back to safety, but he is by no means required to do so under the libertarian law code.”

In a private property society (PPS), the Castle Doctrine would be the rule- the owner would not be prohibited from acting with deadly force in protection of his property.  This upsets some, who in the words of Robert Wenzel, “…do not truly understand the logical road such a view leads to and I am sure that many recoil… to the punch in the gut as to the true nature of PPS.”  Discussions of proportionality answer the wrong question.


--
Rick


----

Dear Rick:

My response is that this is a very difficult case for libertarians. Why? Because it pits two elements of the NAP seemingly against each other. On the one hand we have the sanctity, the inviolability, or private property rights. Yes, the owner should be able to use deadly force to protect his person and property. But, on the other hand, and, yes, there is another hand, we also incorporate the insight that children are different than adults, and have diminished responsibility. How do I reconcile these seemingly irreconcilable elements of our philosophy? My claim is that yes, the owner should be able to have attack dogs roaming his property, but, if so, he must place fences with barbed wire around his territory, along with signs, large ones, warning of this danger. My analysis of booby trapping empty cabins in the woods is the same. This is allowed, but clear signage indicating the danger is also required. This allows us to have both our deontological and utilitarian cakes and eat them both, too. Private property is protected, and so are children. For that matter, so are accidental trespassers. They don’t call me Walter Moderate Block for nothing. For the importance of warning children and trespassers who lack mens rea, see my publications on “murder parks.”

Whitehead, Roy and Walter E. Block. 2002. “Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: A Property Rights Perspective,” University of Utah Journal of Law and Family Studies, Vol. 4, pp.226-263; 

Block, Walter E. 2002. “Radical Privatization and other Libertarian Conundrums,” The International Journal of Politics and Ethics, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 165-175; http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/radical_privatization.pdf

Block, Walter E. 2007. "Alienability: Reply to Kuflik.” Humanomics Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 117-136;http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do;jsessionid=0685BBB744173274A5E7CE3803132413?contentType=Article&contentId=1626605



Best regards,

Walter

Walter E. Block, Ph.D.
Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair and Professor of Economics
Joseph A. Butt, S.J. College of Business                   
Loyola University New Orleans

5 comments:

  1. Ancaps make all these judgement calls as if they themselves will be governing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. No. its still would be murder no matter what method you used, say attack dogs or mines or a rifle shot on sight, you are telling someone you will kill them. its unproportional to the original crime and disturbs the peace cos it will end in a war.
    All needs to happen is that the child gets passed on to your agents who will sort it with the agents of the parents, easy. no fuss, no bloodshed.

    ReplyDelete
  3. RM: It is important to remember that the child in the scenario we are considering has committed two NAP violations- the initial and much more important one being trespassing.

    Disagree. As a libertarian, I reject the thinking that property damage is equal to bodily damage. Violations of the NAP I take to be specific to causing harm to the person. "Aggression against property" distorts the definition of aggression to the extent the word no longer has much meaning.

    There are all kinds of complications to expanding the principle to property. Even if damaging a person's property does result in harming their body, the aggression is still against the person not the property.

    I understand the argument some make that "a person's property *is* the person as a product of their labor" but that logic only applies if the person did in fact use their labor to produce or purchase the property. We are getting pretty far off the reservation to use that same logic for inherited, gifted or found property. Why try?

    I treat property as property and person as person with the NAP applying to the latter only.

    RM: However, if the child trespasses and is eaten by the guard dogs inside the property, the owner is not responsible and owes no restitution for the event that occurred. This should illustrate properly the primacy of trespassing over all other considerations.

    Disagree. As WB points out, the child cannot be held responsible for its actions because it's not a mature person. As WB points out, the child by legal definition cannot possess mens rea (yet another sticky wicket for Rothbardians).

    RM: In a private property society (PPS), the Castle Doctrine would be the rule-

    Would it? Is that just a given? Who decides? The state? ;)

    Does everyone inherently understand "Castle Doctrine" the same way? Does an invader have to be fully in the house? Climbing into the house? On the front porch? Your "private protection service" says "on the porch" where you shot the intruder but his says "in the house"... and since his is equal to the 10th Mountain Div and yours the local webelos den... He wins. Sounds fair, just and libertarian, right? Nope. ;)

    RM: the owner would not be prohibited from acting with deadly force in protection of his property.

    Disagree. Unless a person is under clear and imminent lethal threat, he has no right under libertarian law to use deadly force on anyone anywhere at any time including on his own property.

    WB[quoted]: It might be nice if he allowed the person in this precarious position to scurry back to safety, but he is by no means required to do so under the libertarian law code.

    Disagree. The property owner I believe is required under libertarian law to allow the sitter to get to safety - even to help if safe to do so. In terms of harm, how much harm is caused to the property owner to allow the sitter to reach safety versus the harm caused to the sitter by preventing it? WB and RW's logic wrt PPS is not consistent with libertarian principles IMO.

    RW and WB are Rothbardian "propertarians" on these questions... not libertarian IMO.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Excellent comment, Spencer Fan. I especially like your last sentence.

    Let's take a look at the example of a farmer that keeps attack dogs on his property. If a child stumbles onto the property, I don't care how many signs you have up, if the dogs tear up the child, the owner is guilty of negligent homicide. If you have a pool and don't put a fence around it, you have an attractive nuisance:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractive_nuisance_doctrine

    Can the attractive nuisance be derived from the NAP? No. So why do we have it? Is it some sinister plot by the government? No. It evolved naturally in tort law based on the judgment of many people and based on the expectations of the average, reasonable person.

    It's like RW doesn't believe in courts. Who the hell would enforce this Castle Doctrine in a Private Property Society? Why would people want to live in a society like that? Judges that ruled in favor of children being torn apart by dogs would quickly lose business.

    Libertarians continue to misunderstand property. First, they think the NAP magically extends from self-evident self-ownership to property. It does not. You can't make arguments about bodily harm and just claim the same thing applies to property. It just does not follow. First, you need a theory of property. Second, you need to show moral equivalence between self-ownership and justly acquired property. I have not seen anyone address this adequately.

    Another problem is that libertarian believe that property is objective. In other words, they think there is some Platonic assignment of certain objects to certain people based on certain actions. I think this is silly. A property claim is a value judgment and not a fact. Therefore, it is subjective. How are prices set on the market? Based on the subjective values of a large number of people. I believe property claims work the same way. If a large number of people recognize a property claim, based on accepted principle, the courts will reflect those sentiments and rule in favor of the property claim. Thus, the property claim becomes enforceable. Much more could be said about this, but I will stop here for now.

    Thanks for the interesting discussion.


    ReplyDelete
  5. Frankly, Rick Miller is a guy with very strange ideas about the NAP, and I wouldn't let him live in any libertarian community that I was part of. For example he says that someone that acts as a spotter for a murderer by pointing out locations of potential victims is not violating the NAP, just exercising free speech!

    This indicates that there is a significant continent of libertarians that are literally autistic.

    http://www.targetliberty.com/2014/10/walter-block-defends-his-decision-to.html?

    We have already been over the PPS and arguments about why it couldn't survive. The main reason it couldn't survive is that you will have people clamouring for a state because of the basic moral abuses of a PPS (as envisioned by Wenzel).

    ReplyDelete