From a discussion with a friend:
From a discussion with a friend:
Friend: for example, a talk show host is a total free marketer. so he’s basically anarchocapitalist. He’s ambivalent on the idea of rights and is not sure they exist. But yet, he is against aggression (and supports non-aggression) and sees that a voluntary (capitalist) society would be better, etc. Yet I find those comments incomplete without the libertarian (pro-rights) view. How can one know what aggression is without defining rights? (or some other theory of possession?)
Friend: How do I know my actions are justified, even without the state, if there are no rights? What can the non-libertarian free marketer use to “justify”, a priori, laws if they also don’t believe in rights?
NSKinsella: I would say that rights are merely an outcome of what is justified. Not the other way around. I think I differ with most libertarians on this.
Friend: huh
NSKinsella: They ask first what rights there are, to find out what is justified. But I ask what is justified, and use the word “rights” as a shorthand to describe this.
Friend: I think this merits an article. It would fill in the gaps for a lot of people
NSKinsella: Perhaps. It is already implied in my work on rightgs theory but not spelled out specifically. [Causation and Aggression; Punishment and Proportionality: The Estoppel Approach; Defending Argumentation Ethics; Inalienability and Punishment; A Libertarian Theory of Punishment and Rights; New Rationalist Directions in Libertarian Rights Theory; Libertarian Advocates of Aggression (see links in last paragraph–discussions on Chronicles site etc. w/ Scott Richert, Ed Feser, et al. about willingness to admit one favors aggression); The Essence of Libertarianism]
Friend: there are a lot of people like me who are in this limbo. It’s been bothering me for months.
Friend: But if you start with justification, how does one proceed?
NSKinsella: By asking what it means to justify.
Friend: ugh
NSKinsella: What is one looking for when one is trying to justify something?
NSKinsella: Who is it that seeks to justify? Who is it that engages in the activity of justification?
NSKinsella: Hint: it is not criminals. It is those who seek justice–rightness; those who have a predisposition toward peacefulenss, and cooperation.
Friend: well, one could say that the criminal who steals and then wants “justice” even if he’s “wrong” is also predisposed to this (to see if he can get away with it). Anyway, I urge you to write about this, since it would maybe solve this issue.
Friend: so
Friend: I had a long talk with a friend about this and your stuff kinda makes sense 🙂
Friend: also relates to estoppel and justification
Friend: it also seems to fit a Rothbardian view of rights even if it’s better to see it from an estoppel/HHH argumentation view [more on discourse ethics].
