hfavr@mtuxo.UUCP (a.reed) (12/09/85)
In reply to the claim of Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes, that my earlier definition of ownership was circular, I wrote in round 3 that my >> definition of ownership is not circular, merely generative, >> that is, it is a recursive definition whose first step is subsumed in >> its second step. The recursion may be laid out as follows: >> >> 1. When exercised for the first time in human history, OWNERSHIP >> is the right to use an entity in any way that does not invade, >> or threaten to invade, the person of another. >> 2. Once it has been exercised by somebody, OWNERSHIP becomes the >> right to use or trade the owned entity in any way that does not invade, >> or threaten to invade, the person or property of another; where PROPERTY >> is the ensemble of things over which a person exercises ownership. >> >> .... I would be surprised by a claim that generative or recursive >> definitions are inherently either not valid or impossible to understand. At this point, an honest intellectual correspondent can take one of two approaches to my argument: (a) challenge the validity of recursive definitions explicitly, or (b) challenge the validity of this or some other definition used in my argument on other grounds. Instead, Carnes replies with: > .... What is your definition of "owned"? > (Please do not use "ownership" in the definition.) .... in effect demanding that libertarians come up with a non-recursive definition of "ownership" (which is rather like asking mathematicians for a non-recursive definition of "integer"). Carnes claims that this is a > .... very reasonable request that the argument be stated without > the use of own-terms or terms whose definitions contain own-terms, > since they seem to cause confusion. Not in my mind they don't. But since I don't want the discussion to go off on a tangent, I am re-casting my argument into a completely non-recursive form for Carnes' benefit. Here it is: A RIGHT to do something is the condition of not being subject to morally or politically legitimate interference in doing it, or to morally or politically legitimate coercion in consequence of having done it. A RESOURCE is the ensemble of all things that may not be changed without interfering with a given human activity. It follows from the previous definition of a right that, if one person has the right to use a resource, and is exercising this right, then no other person may have the right to change that resource, since this would subject the first person to interference with something that the first person has a right to do. The condition in which one person exercises a right to use a resource, and no other person has a right to change this resource, will be called OWNERSHIP (of the resource by the person who has the right to use it). PROPERTY is the ensemble of resources over which a person exercises ownership. It follows from the above definitions that a resource that has never been used by humans cannot have been owned, that is, it cannot have been a part of anyone's property. LIBERTY is the set of rights which, when applied to every person in a society, maximizes the aggregate of activities that people in that society have a right to engage in, subject to the condition that no one may have the right to invade the person of another. A moral right which belongs to this set is called a LIBERTY RIGHT, and would constitute a legal right in a LIBERTARIAN SOCIETY. Prior to the first use of resources in human history, liberty obviously corresponds to a condition in which every person has a right to do anything he or she can physically do, in any way that does not invade, or threaten to invade, the person of another. This logically includes the right to initial use of any discovered resource. But, as shown above, it follows from the previous definition of a right that, if one person exercises the right to use a resource, no one else may have the right to change this resource. Thus, property does not exist prior to the first human use of resources; the first resource used by a human becomes the property of its first user. FREEDOM is the right to do anything one can physically do, as long as this does not invade, or threaten to invade, the person or property of another. It follows from previous definitions that when property exists, as it necessarily does once people have started to use resources from a postulated condition of liberty, liberty becomes the set of rights which maximizes the freedom, in the above sense, of individuals in society. It follows that when a person finds a resource which can be used without invading the person or property of another, he or she has a liberty right to start using it. This use constitutes an exercise of ownership, and the resource henceforth becomes the person's property. An aside: I am grateful to Richard Carnes for a discussion that, in spite of a regrettable lack of civility, stimulated me to refine these ideas. Adam Reed (ihnp4!mtuxo!hfavr)