We also know that property rights exist and are empirically valid, because systems completely denying them have failed before being fully implemented.
(of drugs) sold only upon medical prescription.
Let's use your example, then. What if the thief steals from someone who has accumulated his wealth with unethical business practices? And then, what if our thief is a Robin Hood sort of fellow, and instead of asserting ownership over what he steals, he gives what he steals to the needy?
That's a difficult argument to make. What of those systems which have thrived which do not recognize property rights? Feudalism did not fail before being implemented, instead it thrived all over the world for centuries.
Let me first address Robin Hood, what he actually did compared to what most claim he did.
Robin hood took money by force from the tax collectors and their beneficiaries and returned the money to the people from who it had been originally taken. Ownership entails the right to defend property with force if necessary, and likewise to use force in recovery of stolen goods. Such rights can be delegated to other people. By returning money to those who were the original owners, taking only a large enough cut to stay in operation, Robin Hood was acting morally.
If Robin Hood had merely robbed from the rich to provide for the poor, then such an act would have been immoral.
Ownership includes the ability to give something away, so even stealing to give to the poor would necessitate the thief to claim ownership over the stolen property. (You can't give away something you don't claim ownership to)
Feudal lords did recognize property rights to a small degree (and to a great degree among themselves), but it is clear that humans lifted themselves out of poverty once they gained more universal recognition of their property rights and the emergence of a middle class.
That might be correct, although I have two questions:
1. How can you have determined that this current capitalist system has not failed?
2. At which point does the determining of theft as detrimental require a moral decision?
I'd like to draw your attention to this definition of 'ethical':
This is not strictly a moral version of ethics, it is a definition based on the medical safety and most medically trusted action - now that isn't morality. The doctors in question are not trying to prevent 'bad' or cause 'good', they are trying to cure illness and prolong life, nobody has to say that illness is 'bad' or that health is 'good', they are what they are, look up their definitions,
and refrain from the frankly annoying use of morality in trying to determine whether some action should be legal or not, for inevitably extreme generalizations are made - in fact 'good' and 'bad' are extreme generalizations in any case, and perhaps one might be right in saying that laws and secular society should never be extreme in its process of ascertaining laws,
at least for the benefit of those who accidentally commit crime - if we were extreme then there would be no such crime as manslaughter or negligence, one either murdered intentionally or not in an extreme legal system.
Laws would be better made with regards to empiricism, and perhaps made experimentally rather than founded in religious doctrine that does not account for financial equality (corporate 'crimes'), beneficial crime (Robin Hood) or detrimental law-abiding (nicotine addiction as opposed to moderate cannabis use).
First, no one delegated such right to the Robin Hood.
Even then, I think you missed the point. Robin Hood robbed from the rich,
Read: and gave to the poor because the poor had been exploited by the rich.
Thus, he was justified in recovering the property of the exploited.
Therefore, there are cases of blatant theft, punishable by law, which are, none the less, justifiable.
I think this boils down to convenient language. If we look at our example, the stolen money was not so much given away to anyone, but to people we assume to be victims, the rightful owners. Sure, the thief must possess the property, but not necessarily assume ownership.
Feudalism lasted far longer than modern capitalism has, and anything resembling property rights under feudalism have absolutely no relation to the property rights of modern liberal thought. If you are going to discount the successes of all past systems because at some point they failed, you are allowing yourself to be biased by the fact that liberal democracy is modern.
He made the assumption that the serfs would rather delegate such rights to him, then take the risk of recovering the money on themselves.
Just like you might assume a choking man would rather you violently squeeze his abdomen than allow him to continue choking.
Read tax collectors, and the nobles who ordered the taxes collected (taxes R.H. believed to be unjustified.)
ead: And distributed the money to those whom it was stolen (taken unjustly) from
Read: Thus such action was moral.
Justifiable because it is in agreement with natural moral law.
Proscribed law has nothing to do with morality.
The alleged thief must assume ownership only if he does not return the property to the rightful owner.
If feudalism was equal to or better than modern system, does it not stand to reason that we would be much more reliant on feudal inventions for our quality of life, then on modern inventions? Quite obviously Feudalism is a clearly deficient method to organize a society.
It is not possible that a society based on the complete denial of property rights could succeed even for a generation
And denying some people property rights and affirming property rights of some others cannot be moral, since when applied to all people, is not consistent or empirically supported. (There is no major biological or intrinsic difference between the two classes of people such a system attempts to create)
You want to quote some text to show that he assumed anyone would delegate any right to him? I do not think so. Just like your choking man, there is no need to even consider rights. There is simply the right thing to do. Robin Hood, a character in a feudal society, would not have any concept of individual rights. Much less would he assume that such a right, of which he has no concept, was delegated to him.
So we have a case in which theft is justified. Therefore, theft is not always immoral. Theft can, depending upon circumstances, be moral.
If the prescribed law is in agreement with natural moral law, and therefore justified, obviously prescribed law has something to do with morality.
Right, meaning Robin Hood, or any similar thief, does not assume ownership when he steals, nor does he assume ownership when returning property to the serfs.
No, I do not think so. Again, this seems to be a bias of modernity more than anything else. Of course technology is more advanced today than it was 1000 years ago, but I do not see how technological advancement points to a more successful form of government.
Cuba, if you like a modern example. For a generation, even with a US embargo, the island nation has managed to handle it's own affairs. You may object, but consider this, despite the many faults of the Cuban regime (I'm no friend of that government), for 50 years the Cubans have been without war. The western liberal democracies have been bogged down in constant war for 50 years.
Cuba aside, it is naive to say that without property rights, a society cannot stand a generation. Obviously, this is false. Again, feudalism in medieval Europe, and in China, all without property rights, lasting for centuries.
What property rights? You said that "property rights exist and are empirically valid, because systems completely denying them have failed before being fully implemented". However, systems completely denying property rights have also succeeded for centuries.
Now let me ask you this - today we supposedly have property rights; however, few people own property (land). Property rights seem to be the gift of a few with money; surely this is not consistent, and as you point out, there is no biological or intrinsic difference between the classes. So why do some have property rights, and others left out?
If...the machine of government...is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.
Henry David Thoreau
That is whenever following the law would cause you to break natural moral law, then it it is justified to break such a law.
Furthermore, common law was codified in 1154 that relied on local previous custom. Property was understood to exist in a pre-enlightenment age, albeit in a cruder form. Like gravity was understood to exist before Galileo studied it, but in a less accurate manner.
If you mean.. Theft as in taking something without permission from someone else's possession,then yes. Theft as in taking property from it's rightful owner without consent, then no.
Merely coincidental. The full form of the proscribed law states, it is wrong to steal unless you are the king or have a bigger army than the king does.
yes, exactly, and this avoids the contradiction that causes theft to not be a moral principle
1000 years ago the rate of technological development was almost flat and at zero. Today technology is increasing at an increasing rate, leading to a doubling of the average lifespan in Europe. If that's not a form of success, what is?
Fuedalism/ communisim are based on the denial and forcefully reallocation of some property rights (all governments are) but is not based on complete denial of all property rights.
The theory of property rights states that a man can claim things as property though contract or first use, and then can morally use such things in accordance to his values, and that such a claim if made would be moral. It does not state that such a claim must be made in order for a man to be moral, and it does not state that a person must defend these claims, only that if they choose to defend such claims it would be moral.
What if the law and the moral law are one in the same, like in Social Contract Theory?
I think we may have some obligation to justice (what ever that means) but I don't see any particular support for respect for law without evaluation.
It's easy enough for any of us to look over the various laws throughout history and fine some we think are unjust (we likely disagree as to which ones to one degree or another.) So I think we can easily agree that at least some law is unjust (thus immoral at least to the degree that we embrace justice as a moral good.) Non contradiction would indicate that if a law is immoral then obedience to the law is also immoral.
We may also choose to respect a particular law or set there of for other reasons than moral obligation, and many (most?) of us do so all the time. There are many laws that I obey only because my cost benefit analysis ends up assigning higher value to the results of compliance, than to the benefits of disobedience in these cases.
There are limits though. There are laws that have existed that would invalidate the government entirely in my view and I'd be forced by my moral emotions to either expatriate or revolt. All such laws of which I can conceive involve extreme violations of justice.
There is good pragmatic support for a principle of "apply only the least, effective force." Whereby one only responds with the minimum nessasary violence in defence of oneself. This can prevent unnecessary escalation in most cases. Some forms of civil dissobediance may quilify as an example, as would politics more generally.
I think that for me at least ,any "obligation to law" felt by me is not from the law at all, but is rather a result of either my respect for justice or an appeal to pragmatism.
What if the law and the moral law are one in the same, like in Social Contract Theory?
The theory of an implicit social contract holds that by remaining in the territory controlled by some government, people give consent to be governed. This consent is what gives legitimacy to the government. Philosopher Roderick Long argues that this is a case of question begging, because the argument has to presuppose its conclusion:[INDENT] I think that the person who makes this argument is already assuming that the government has some legitimate jurisdiction over this territory. And then they say, well, now, anyone who is in the territory is therefore agreeing to the prevailing rules. But they're assuming the very thing they're trying to prove - namely that this jurisdiction over the territory is legitimate. If it's not, then the government is just one more group of people living in this broad general geographical territory. But I've got my property, and exactly what their arrangements are I don't know, but here I am in my property and they don't own it - at least they haven't given me any argument that they do - and so, the fact that I am living in "this country" means I am living in a certain geographical region that they have certain pretensions over - but the question is whether those pretensions are legitimate. You can't assume it as a means to proving it.[9]
[/INDENT]
Property was understood, and there were legal mechanisms do resolve property disputes. However, prior to enlightenment thinking (to the best of my knowledge anyway) any notion of property rights as being some natural right was non-existent.
And that's the point. Those serfs did not have rights, and no one had given much thought to what rights all men should have. Robin Hood was justified in his theft, his blatant disrespect for the law, because in disrespecting the law he was doing the right thing. We now might say he was doing the right thing because he was protecting people's rights, but the modern notion of rights was non-existent. Robin Hood would not think himself justified because he was protecting rights, but for some other reason. Perhaps he would think he was justified in correcting tyranny of nobility who had overreached their hereditary rights.
Because the form of government is not responsible for technological advancement.
Feudalism recognizes property rights of monarchs and their vassals, communism recognizes property rights of the state at large, and property rights so far as the common people have use and possession of some property, and assuming the state does not find that property more useful in someone else's possession.
So, sure, you have property "rights" under these systems, unless the king or government decides you do not. In such cases, the people do not have property rights, the government has property rights.
So people without property are in such a condition because they chose not to defend their claims to property?
1. This current system is nowhere near pure capitalist, and even the most communistic governments there was a person who had the ability to exercise property rights over the means of production. Under a capitalist system there could be some sort of disaster, but certainly human life and happiness are possible under it. How long do you think a society where individuals could not even be sure of their ownership of the bread in their hand, could possibly survive. how long do you think farmers could raise wheat by needing to steal a tractor every time they wanted to plant, and a combine every time they wanted to harvest, how long would the combine run when no person could be sure if weather the maintainence applied to it would benefit them.
Illness is the failure of an organism to act at 100% of the genetic potential of a specific organism or species. Health is how closely a organism is at carrying out the full genetic capacity of itself or it's species.
Biochemical reactions and medicine are far removed from the realm of conscious choices.
Also, what grounds could a doctor have for making a patient take a medicine that he did not want to do, unless in fact he considered health "good"
"should never...." Isn't that an extreme generalization? (you propose as an absolute for secular society, that secular society should not base laws on absolute principles) Since it is not possible to simultaneously use and not use absolute principles, one could never be right in saying such a thing.
Nowhere have I proposed a system of criminal law, only one of common law. If an act is immoral, then the person injured can bring forth a case to secure restitution. Certainly the amount of intention or negligence present in an action would affect the result.
If there is no complaint, then there is no case.
The problem with experimentally based law, is how can experiments be justified?
I think that one should be able to follow their own morals, yes. If a mass murderer can justify his actions then all the better for him. However, I believe it is up to societies morals(as a majority) to decide what is "right" and what is "wrong".
Mass murder is civil disobedience right?
In a scholastic since such notions as natural rights were not well developed yes. The fact though of someone claiming a thing exclusively as his own presopuses that he believes it right for people to own things. The fact that formal systems were set up to defend these claims is evidence that there was a demand for such rights, limited as they may have been.
No, but it can certainly be responsible to slowing such advancement. The kings and nobles knew they could not control a populace with an amount of wealth and were not motivated to pursue R&D outside the implements of war.
You are failing to make a very important discernment here. The state, and the governments are abstractions describing an individual or group of individuals.
Also "more useful" demands the question... More useful for what, and by whose standard" Whichever individual makes the decision is claiming the right (correctly or incorrectly) to use such thing to what he the values that he chooses is claiming ownership over it.
This is not what I said, and a strict reading would not lead to this conclusion. The conclusion that is lead to is "some people not owning property does not mean that people cannot morally claim things are property"
I think that one should be able to follow their own morals, yes. If a mass murderer can justify his actions then all the better for him. However, I believe it is up to societies morals(as a majority) to decide what is "right" and what is "wrong".
Mass murder is civil disobedience right?
I think that one should be able to follow their own morals, yes. If a mass murderer can justify his actions then all the better for him. However, I believe it is up to societies morals(as a majority) to decide what is "right" and what is "wrong".
Mass murder is civil disobedience right?
....
A government is not an abstraction. And I think the distinction you want me to make is exactly my point - the government, a monarchy, is comprised for an elite few people. Only those elite few have any rights, the rest of the people exist to serve those elite few per their feudal bonds.
In the case of monarchy, the decision would be the king's or his minister's. Those in possession of the property have no authority over the property.
And still the initial question is unanswered: So why do some have property rights, and others left out?
