Wrote Robert Nozick in The Examined Life:

The significance of the Holocaust is more momentous than even these tracings can know and these responses can encompass. I believe the Holocaust is an event like the Fall in the way traditional Chistianity conceived it, something that radically and drastically alters the situation and status of humanity. … Mankind has fallen.

I do not claim to understand the full significance of this, but here is one piece, I think: It now would not be a special tragedy if the humankind ended, if the human species were destroyed in atomic warfare or the earth passed through some cloud that made it impossible for the species to continue reproducing itself. I do not mean that humanity deserves this to happen. … What I mean is that earlier, it would have constituted an additional tragedy, one beyond that to the individual people involved, if human history and the human species had ended, but now that history and that species have becomes stained, its loss would be no special loss above and beyond the losses to the individuals involved. Humanity has lost its claim to continue.

…Although we are not responsible for what those who acted and stood by did, we are all stained.

…If a being from [another] galaxy were to read our history, with all it contains, and that story were then to end in destruction, wouldn’t that bring the narrative to a satisfying close, like a chord resolving?

Reading this, one might wonder, what the hell is philosophy good for, if it produces this pompous, stupid, narcissistic, self-absorbed nonsense masquerading as “deep” thought? This is typical philosopher’s bullshit: notice he just asserts, as if he’s some authority, that because of the Holocaust, “Mankind has fallen.” Whatever this means. Even he does not know what he means: “I do not claim to understand the full significance of this…” So, he does not know. “Ah, dear reader, don’t expect even me, in my brilliance, to be able to fully understand the outpourings of that same brilliance… I’m so complex, so complex…” But he does know “one piece, I think”—you think? great!—”It now would not be a special tragedy if the humankind ended,” blah blah blah. Libertarianism individualism FAIL. [continue reading…]

I’ve noted before Rand’s bizarre and unlibertarian view that some peoples are “savages” who basically have no rights, like Native Americans and other nomads (so it was okay for Americans to kill them and conquer them), and Arabs who can be nuked (see my posts Centralist, Pro-War Objectivists on Paul and Rand on Collateral Damage; and Roderick Long’s The Justice and Prudence of War: Toward A Libertarian Analysis). And also the Objectivist view that American oil companies “really” owned the oil because the “savages” have no rights and/or because it was American oil companies’ technology helped discover under Arabian soil (and we know that “ideas” are the supreme rights according to Randians).

I used to practice oil & gas law, and the question of how libertarian principles would be applied to underground oil rights always interested me. I believe Rob Bradley suggested an approach in his Oil, Gas & Government [Bob Murphy’s intro], but one approach adopted in some Americna states is the “rule of capture“; and there are other theories in other states.

My own view is that the owner of the surface does not automatically own the minerals beneath but does have a right to use his surface to explore them; and once he finds some oil or gas or whatever, he is entitled to try to get it. I don’t personally think this gives him ownership over his neighbor’s surface estate to the extent he can prevent them from punching a hole in the same pool of oil (this is the rule of capture). I have always intended to develop this theory a bit further but have not gotten around to it yet. But in any case, it seems to me that the surface owners have a way to acquire rights to the oil beneath their land.

Now, it also seems to me that one can hire agents to do things for you, including homesteading or appropriating unowned resources. Thus, Hoppe, in his Property, Causality, and Liability (p. 92), writes:

We have no trouble … conceiving of an “indirect” act of appropriation. A, B’s boss, orders B to clear a piece of previously unowned land and drill for oil. B finds oil. Thereby A, not B, becomes the owner of the oil (although A is only the indirect cause of the act of appropriation).

So, under such a view, even if the Arabs were too primitive to have the technology needed to explore for oil, as owners of the surface they had the right to make a contract with people who did. Thus, when the Western oil companies came in and found oil under Arab land, they homesteaded certain oil rights for the surface owners, as agents of the surface owners. It doesn’t matter that the Arabs didn’t have the right technology–that’s why they entered into the deal with Exxon etc.

This is why Objectivist assertions that the Western oil companies “really” owned the oil because it was their technology that was used, has always seemed fishy to me.

(N.b.: Another friend, Daniel Roncari, mentioned to me that Rothbard wrote:

The Sabahklatura that runs the Kuwait government is immensely wealthy, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, derived from tax/”royalty” loot extracted from oil producers simply because the Sabah tribe claims “sovereignty” over that valuable chunk of desert real estate. The Sabah tribe has no legitimate claim to the oil revenue; it did nothing to homestead or mix its labor or any other resource with the crude oil.

It is reasonable to assume that the Sabah family stands ready to use a modest portion of that ill-gotten wealth to purchase defenders and advocates in the powerful United States.

I am not sure what exactly is the implicit theory Rothbard is relying on here to assert that “The Sabah tribe has no legitimate claim to the oil revenue; it did nothing to homestead or mix its labor or any other resource with the crude oil”. It could be that they are less legitimate than the people or natural owners of the soil; it could be he is adopting Rand’s view here; I do not know. But it seems to me that if the Western oil companies discover oil by using the surface owned by someone else, with the permission of that owner and subject to contractual conditions, then the Western oil company is not the owner–though who has a better claim on the oil in Arabia itself is another matter.)

But as my little buddy Geoff Plauché remarked to me, wouldn’t the mutualists, with their “occupancy” view of rights, have to side with the Randians here? After all, the surface owners didn’t occupy the oil fields–the oil companies did–it was their rigs and personnel sitting on the ground. In fact, by mutualist standards, the Exxons etc. would own the actual surface rights too, no?

• The Nature of the State and Why Libertarians Hate It

Rothbard described Mencken as “The Joyous Libertarian,” a label that could also be applied to Rothbard himself, called by Justin Raimondo “the happy scholar-warrior of liberty“–though he did famously quip that “hatred is my muse.”

Man collapses with ruptured appendix... three weeks after NHS doctors 'took it out'..

From Mises blog:

[Update: See also The Blockean Proviso (Sep. 11, 2007); and Michael Makovi, “The ‘Self-Defeating Morality’ of the Lockean Proviso,” Homo Oeconomicus 32(2) (2015): 235–74:

Locke’s theory of appropriation includes the “Lockean Proviso,” that one may appropriate ownerless resources only if one leaves enough for others. The Proviso is normative and obviously may be rejected on normative grounds. But it is less obvious that it may have to be rejected for positive reasons. According to Hoppe, private property is a means for minimizing social conflict under conditions of scarcity. But the Lockean Proviso would actually exacerbate social conflict. According to Demsetz, property emerges precisely when scarcity arises and there is not enough left for everyone. Accordingly, the Lockean Proviso may be logically incompatible with the very purposes of the establishment of property. Or the Proviso may constitute what Derek Parfit calls “self-defeating morality.” Several adaptations of the Proviso – including Nozick’s – are rejected as well, based on the impossibility of interpersonal comparisons of subjective utility and the problem of economic calculation.]

Down with the Lockean Proviso

[Archived comments below]

March 13, 2009 2:35 PM by Stephan Kinsella | Other posts by Stephan Kinsella | Comments (7)

My attention was recently called to Tibor Machan’s paper “Self-Ownership and the Lockean Proviso” (working paper version), which will be in his book The Promise of Liberty (Lexington, 2009). As noted in the Abstract, the paper argues as follows:

Locke’s defense of private property rights includes what is called a proviso—”the Lockean proviso”—and some have argued that in terms of it the right to private property can have various exceptions and it may not even be unjust to redistribute wealth that is privately owned. I argue that this cannot be right because it would imply that one’s right to life could also have various exceptions, so anyone’s life (and labor) could be subject to conscription if some would need it badly enough. Since this could amount to enslavement and involuntary servitude, it would be morally and legally unacceptable.

Other libertarian criticisms of the Lockean Proviso include Rothbard, ch. 29 of The Ethics of Liberty; Hoppe, p. 410 et pass. of The Economics and Ethics of Private Property; and de Jasay, p. 188 and 195 of Against Politics (also discussed on p. 91 in my review thereof).

See also my own critique of what I call Walter Block’s “Blockean Proviso“. As I note there, the Lockean Proviso says that you may homestead an unowned good but only if “enough and as good” is left for others—that is, if you don’t harm them by your homesteading action by making it more difficult for them to have a similar opportunity to homestead some goods of that type. Both Block and I would reject this. But the Blockean Proviso would say that you can only homestead property that is a potential means of access to other unowned resource so long as enough and as good access to the unowned resource remains available!

Archived comments:

Comments (7)

• Lucas
• I got a good gist of this from Narvesson, Respecting persons…

• Published: March 13, 2009 4:15 PM

• David C
• I disagree with this. Human action is the ends in itself, not property. Property is usually a consequence of human action, because without it all that is left is “might makes right” – which tends to minimize human action.”… that this cannot be right because it would imply that one’s right to life could also have various exceptions…”

  There are various exceptions. If I’m locked in a cage with you, and there is only although water for one person to live. My right to live is as much as yours – irrespective of property or claim.

  However, in larger populations, all claims like this are a fraud. It will be “every man for himself”, long before any leader ever claiming to represent the greater good could “wisely” allocate the remaining scare resources.

  Philosophies that don’t make maximization of human action the ends will always run into unrealistic problems. EG. someone claiming a continent, and then violating peoples liberties in the name of “property rights”

• Published: March 13, 2009 10:28 PM

• newson
• david c says:
  “might makes right” – which tends to minimize human action.”you mean it tends to minimize productive, rather than re-distributive human action? or human action in general?

• Published: March 13, 2009 11:28 PM

• Gil
• I disagree – moral might does make right. A problem with a lot moralities is the way they preach Pacifism. If a moral society is to last then they should follow a moral creed that preaches the moral to be strong warriors and teach this strength to their descendants. Pacifists act surprised when they keep finding themselves overrun by criminal gangs again and again. It’s almost a crime to good strong people taking their knowledge ‘to their graves’ because they’re afraid the next generation might use the knowledge for evil never thinking for a moment that criminal gangs immediate school their children in their criminal ways.

• Published: March 14, 2009 12:22 AM

• Aeon J. Skoble
• I think Nozick already defused this issue. The proviso is ONLY applicable in the hypothetical state of nature. It’s a hypothetical limit on original appropriation in the S of N. In the real world, the proviso is always met* because you have either literally created new stuff, or obtained something via trade, thus automatically “leaving” something for others.
  *unless you’re stealing of course

• Published: March 14, 2009 9:31 AM

• Richard Garner
• Aeon,I am inclined to agree with you on Nozick. However, one point to pick up on:
  

  I think Nozick already defused this issue. The proviso is ONLY applicable in the hypothetical state of nature.

  Actually, Nozick doesn’t mean it just to apply in the state of nature. In a footnote to page 55 of ASU he suggests that the proviso may apply to prohibiting acquiring property so as to trap somebody in their home (by acquiring the property around the person’s house). The implication of those, though, is that the proviso is not simply about “the principles of justice in acquisition,” but also about “the principles of justice in transfer,” since it would allow a third party to impose conditions upon the terms by which one person sell’s their land to another. In the end, though, it means that, by allowing the proviso, Nozick’s theory of justicie ceases to be a historical one and beomes a patterned theory. It also seems not conform to a “will” or “choice theory of rights,” making it open to incompossibilities of rights or duties.

• Published: March 16, 2009 12:02 PM

• Michael A. Clem
• Reading the original Locke, I didn’t see where he provides any real argument in support of the proviso–he just sort of throws it out as an assertion. The closest he comes to an argument for it is that God gave the world to man in common. Clearly not a good, logical argument.Thus, I think it’s safe to just ignore the proviso–it doesn’t hurt the rest of his argument for the initial acquisition of unowned resources–and don’t see a need to dance around it, explain it away, or anything else.

• Published: March 16, 2009 1:04 PM

See also:

• C.P. Snow’s “The Two Cultures” and Misesian Dualism
• The Trouble with Libertarian Activism
• The Trouble with Milsted
• Engineers’ Syndrome

From the Mises Blog, Aug. 2, 2006

Archived comments below.

C.P. Snow’s “The Two Cultures” and Misesian Dualism

TAGS Philosophy and Methodology

See also C.P. Snow’s “The Two Cultures” and Misesian Dualism

From Mises blog

C.P. Snow’s “The Two Cultures” and Misesian Dualism

August 2, 2006 5:45 PM by Stephan Kinsella | Other posts by Stephan Kinsella | Comments (8)

I’ve long been fascinated by C.P. Snow’s “The Two Cultures” (excerpts) thesis, which concerns misunderstandings between the sciences, and the humanities. But it always seemed … incomplete. To be missing something. In part, this was its triteness: engineers don’t read Dickens; humanities and artsy types don’t understand math and science. Yawn. But mainly I think it is a lack of rigor; a failure to appreciate the problems with scientism and positivism.

It always seemed to me that Snow’s thesis ought to be re-cast with the benefit of Misesian insights into the nature of science.

In The Moral Case for the Free Market Economy, Tibor Machan touches on these issues. Machan rejects the type of dualism that says anything other than the natural sciences must be relegated the the unscientific realms of mysticism. As Machan notes, if one holds that some aspects of reality can be understood scientifically and systematically, and others cannot, this is a type of metaphysical dualism. “Indeed, that was the theme of British author C. P. Snow’s famous article about the ‘two cultures’: the arts, the humanities, the human sciences are left to one dimension of inquiry. The others, the hard sciences, natural sciences, are the most organized and orderly fields, are left to another dimension.”

Machan rejects this metaphysical dualism and believes that ethics and politics, for example, can be understood scientifically–albeit not by the methods appropriate to the natural sciences (predictability, etc.). I take this as compatible with Misesian epistemological dualism, which sees economics as a teleological field of study and the natural sciences as engaged in the study of causal phenomenon. Different methods of study are appropriate to each. See, e.g., Hoppe’s Economic Science and the Austrian Method (1995); Mises, The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science.

As Hoppe notes,

In view of the recognition of the praxeological character of knowledge, these insights regarding the nature of logic, arithmetic and geometry become integrated and embedded into a system of epistemological dualism. The ultimate justification for this dualist position, i.e., the claim that there are two realms of intellectual inquiry that can be understood a priori as requiring categorically distinct methods of treatment and analysis, also lies in the praxeological nature of knowledge. It explains why we must differentiate between a realm of objects which is categorized causally and a realm that is categorized teleologically instead.

Nor is the scientific approach limited only to non-normative fields like physics, or economics. A science of ethics is also possible; witness Hoppe’s extension of Misesian type epistemology and scientific methodology to ethics (see also Argumentation Ethics and Liberty: A Concise Guide). Note Hoppe’s interesting statement about his proof of libertarian ethics:

Here the praxeological proof of libertarianism has the advantage of offering a completely value-free justification of private property. It remains entirely in the realm of is-statements, and nowhere tries to derive an ought from an is. The structure of the argument is this: (a) justification is propositional justification—a priori true is-statement; (b) argumentation presupposes property in one’s body and the homesteading principle—a priori true is- statement; and (c) then, no deviation from this ethic can be argumentatively justified—a priori true is-statement. [Economics and Ethics of Private Property, p. 208]

So, are there “two cultures”? Well, certainly it remains true that arts and humanities types often do not appreciate natural science. But that takes no special thesis to understand. There are differences in aptitudes, and there is a division of labor and specialization, after all. But the natural scientists, as well as many humanities types, seem to have accepted the scientism-positivism of our age. This is rampant among engineers, for example (Yet More on Galambos, Libertarian Activism–comments), who cynically dismiss philosophy, economics, ethics, as being loosey-goosey and non-scientific. Economics, of course, has conceded this and adopted positivism a long time ago.

The real two cultures are the mainstream natural scientists and artists and intellectuals, on the one hand–those who have accepted scientism, the view that only causal fields are truly scientific; and, on the other hand, Misesians and others who recognize that fields outside the natural sciences can be true sciences but need not ape the method of the sciences.

To unite or provide a bridge between the “two cultures” of natural science and the humanities, both “sides” need a little bit of epistemological education.

Update:

• The Trouble with Libertarian Activism
• Engineers’ Syndrome
• Yet More On Galambos
• Libertarian Activism–comments
• IP discussion with an engineer

Thank God He’s Gone, that is. What an evil person. The quality of the human race was briefly raised yesterday. As a friend said, “Al Gore created the Internet so that we could mock the death of Ted Kennedy on it.”

For those soft-heads who think this is mean-spirited–my sympathy is with Ted Kennedy’s millions of victims. I ain’t got none left over for him.

[Update: Koepsell on IP]

An interesting (and amusing) post on Leiter Reports, How Not to Respond to a Bad Book Review, led me to the work of David Koepsell, author of The Ontology of Cyberspace: Philosophy, Law, and the Future of Intellectual Property (Open Court, 2000) and Who Owns You? The Corporate Gold Rush to Patent Your Genes. (UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), and of the blog Who Owns You?, which discusses gene patents and IP law.

The Leiter Reports blog remarked on a debate between Randy Mayes and David Koepsell on human gene patents at the Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies site (Leiter Reports unfairly implied Koepsell had made matters worse by the way he replied to a very critical book review–I disagree with this assessment, as will be evident from my comments linked below). I ended up writing a few responses, including one posted in Are Libertarians For Intellectual Property?: Comment on David Koepsell’s “Why I Believe Gene Patenting is Wrong”; and see also Comment on Koepsell’s “A methodical response to Chris Holman’s ‘review’”.

In correspondence with him I learned Koeppsel says his theoretical background is informed by Austrians, and he has studied Menger, Mises, and Reinach and studied under Barry Smith. In his book The Ontology of Cyberspace he undermines the classifications between works of authorship and other machines, using Reinach. I’ve just ordered it.

[Mises blog cross-post]

My response to this post (made here because of length limitations on Koepsell’s blog comment feature):

Dr. Koepsell,

I already responded at length to some of the criticisms leveled against you in Comment on David Koepsell’s “Why I Believe Gene Patenting is Wrong”.

Let me comment on some of the above specific issues. First, as a patent lawyer–it does not bother me if you got some of the minor details of the existing patent system slightly wrong. First, the law is always changing. Second, the basic thrust of your points is valid, and anyway the little details do not affect your case against IP. Mr. Holman is simply evading your normative argument.

Third, it is extremely annoying that the patent bar tries to dominate the right to have an opinion on this topic–it’s as bad as feminists who say only women have a right to an opinion about abortion. It’s bad enough they parasite off of society thanks to patent law; they want all the victims to shut up, too! After all, if you aren’t an expert on IP law, you should not be allowed to say anything about it. And if you are an expert, there’s a 99.9% chance you’ll be in favor of it, just like government school teachers are happy to help pass along the state propaganda about the benefits and necessity of government thought control and policemen say the state is necessary, and so on. You write: [continue reading…]

[Update: Koepsell on IP]

My comment on the debate between Randy Mayes and David Koepsell on human gene patents at the IEET was posted in “Are Libertarians for Intellectual Property?” (Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies, Aug. 26, 2009:

Mr. Koepsell,

I read with interest your comments above criticizing IP from a self-professed libertarian perspective. I am a libertarian and a practicing patent attorney and I too oppose patent rights (one of the few patent attorneys who dare to)–patents are, as you say, unnatural and artificial privileges granted by the state at the expense of real property rights. My website contains various articles, books, and speeches on this topic, including Against Intellectual Property, and my recent speech “Intellectual Property and Libertarianism.” I’m also affiliated with the Mises Institute, so I suppose Mr. Mayes has my work in mind when he unfairly, uncharitably, and falsely disparages and dismisses us as “idealogues.” [continue reading…]

Progress!