flink@umcp-cs.UUCP (Paul V Torek) (01/04/86)
In article <28200489@inmet.UUCP> janw@inmet.UUCP writes: >[--Paul V. Torek, soon at umich!torek, now at umcp-cs!flink] >>Yes, but it seems to me that the current practice of the courts in this >>respect is very un-libertarian. That is, I would think that a libertarian >>regards an individual as the best authority on the value of his own life. > >There are *two* individuals involved. For each of them, some part >of their infinitely-valuable life is at stake (one can prolong or >expand one's life with money). A finite estimate is the only >practical thing to do, not libertarian or unlibertarian. Wrong! (Well, actually Kirk ... it IS the only practical thing to do, but the point about *two* individuals being involved doesn't cut it BECAUSE:) ONE of those individuals is the (would-be) polluter and the other is the (would-be) victim, and if a person has a RIGHT -- a "moral trump card", a la most libertarianisms I know of -- not to be imposed upon without consent, then the polluter must compensate the victim according to the victim's opinion of the worth of his own life, PERIOD, and tough toenails for the would-be polluter. >I am just reading Nozick; probably he would do, though he seems >over-complicated to me (but he does invent some useful con- >cepts). Perhaps you would simplify him in the process. Rand's >books I've read (all of them) but only half-agree (she would have >resented that; but I like her). They are very readable. But you >seem to insist on seeing libertarianism as a theory where a com- >plete social order is deduced from a few ethical axioms. I would >distrust any theory like that, whatever the axioms. Like it says >in Faust, theory is gray, but the tree of life is evergreen. Which >is not to argue against ethical principles, just against rampant >deductivism. Leave room for empirical data and common sense. But where does the deductivism leave off and the empirical data application begin? I agree it must happen before one gets to "a complete social order", but I think you are trying to constrict deductivism further than most hard- line libertarians would want. Anyhow, there have been a few requests for my critique of Nozick, so I'll do that whenever I manage to get around to it... --Paul V. Torek, now at umcp-cs!flink, soon at umich!torek
torek@umich.UUCP (Paul V. Torek ) (01/15/86)
In article <28200546@inmet.UUCP> janw@inmet.UUCP writes: >If the right is all on *one* side and if the violation is in the >*future* ("would-be polluter") then you are absolutely right. Thank you. >Both conditions are necessary. Granted. >Now consider two people breathing in a stuffy room. *Both* are >polluters, both victims and by the same process. None holds a >moral trump card. If, for whatever reason (say, a garlic diet), >one pollutes *more*, there is still no trump card - it is a >matter of degree; he has a right to breath; finite compensation >is appropriate. How did they get in that room; who built the room, etc.? Perhaps the following sort of case is what you want: two people breathing in a stuffy natural enclosure (cave, say) where both were born. In that case, I'd say that libertarian principles require each person to choose between: a) living in the (a) way that inflicts minimal possible discomfort on the other; b) meeting the other's price for deviations from a). >"A right not to be imposed upon" is ambiguous. >You interpret it as "right not to be harmed or inconvenienced". >By your definition, if the *existence* of someone gets on >my nerves and shortens my life, that person owes me whatever >I ask (such as to terminate his existence). Wrong. Your reaction to his existence is self-imposed. He owes you only for discomforts he *causes* you. Or at any rate, that must be the distinction libertarianism would rely on here. If such a distinction cannot be drawn, so much the worse for libertarianism. >And for some reason you consider this bizarre position libertarian. Your straw man, not mine. The fundamental concept of libertarianism is the "right not to be imposed upon". If you feel that I have misinterpreted what it means to "impose" upon someone (I don't think I have), I invite you to supply a better interpretation. >See above. Pollution is morally superior to confiscation. See above: no it's not. Pollution, like confiscation, is an imposition. Mere existence, even if someone else chooses to react to it, is not. --Paul V. Torek torek@umich