Libertarian Dilemmas
January 31, 2014 at 9:14 pm
(This post was last modified: January 31, 2014 at 9:25 pm by Tea Earl Grey Hot.)
Libertarianism assumes an absolute right to property and an absolute right to self. The things you own you own completely and no one else is to touch, use, or take those things without your consent. Your body is your own too and no has the right to touch, use, or take it either without your consent.
What if your neighbor owns a nuclear bomb. Presently it's not harming anyone. But it does have a giant red button that if pushed would ignite the bomb destroying everything nearby. The neighbor promises never to push it but perhaps the neighbor might hit the bottom accidentally. Would it be wrong under libertarianism to forcefully take away the bomb because it poses a risk?
What if somebody does not like seeing your house? They think your house is ugly and they don't like to think about it. Them seeing your house puts a thought in their mind that they don't like. Are you violating their right to self? Something of yours is affecting their body (specifically their brain) in a way they don't like.
If your 8 year kid does not like living with you (perhaps he doesn't like the cereal you buy), would it be violating his right to self to deny him leaving the house? If not, why so?
How does something become one's property? Say you have a future space explorer arriving at an uninhabited planet? Is the whole planet automatically his? Is it just the part he stepped on? If he settled on the planet and then somebody else settled on it on the other side of the planet, are they violating his property?
And say that this planet has non intelligent life (imagine earth without humans), is he taking property away from the animals? Do animals not have a right to property? Why not?
And can we legitimately own animals? We just scooped them up from the wild and put them in zoos. We bulldoze their rain forests. Why aren't these violations of the two principles of libertarianism?
What if your neighbor owns a nuclear bomb. Presently it's not harming anyone. But it does have a giant red button that if pushed would ignite the bomb destroying everything nearby. The neighbor promises never to push it but perhaps the neighbor might hit the bottom accidentally. Would it be wrong under libertarianism to forcefully take away the bomb because it poses a risk?
What if somebody does not like seeing your house? They think your house is ugly and they don't like to think about it. Them seeing your house puts a thought in their mind that they don't like. Are you violating their right to self? Something of yours is affecting their body (specifically their brain) in a way they don't like.
If your 8 year kid does not like living with you (perhaps he doesn't like the cereal you buy), would it be violating his right to self to deny him leaving the house? If not, why so?
How does something become one's property? Say you have a future space explorer arriving at an uninhabited planet? Is the whole planet automatically his? Is it just the part he stepped on? If he settled on the planet and then somebody else settled on it on the other side of the planet, are they violating his property?
And say that this planet has non intelligent life (imagine earth without humans), is he taking property away from the animals? Do animals not have a right to property? Why not?
And can we legitimately own animals? We just scooped them up from the wild and put them in zoos. We bulldoze their rain forests. Why aren't these violations of the two principles of libertarianism?
My ignore list
"The lord doesn't work in mysterious ways, but in ways that are indistinguishable from his nonexistence."
-- George Yorgo Veenhuyzen quoted by John W. Loftus in The End of Christianity (p. 103).
"The lord doesn't work in mysterious ways, but in ways that are indistinguishable from his nonexistence."
-- George Yorgo Veenhuyzen quoted by John W. Loftus in The End of Christianity (p. 103).
