Author: Curt Doolittle

SENTIMENTAL, MORAL, RATIONAL, EMPIRICAL: LEGAL DECIDABILITY

We can construct libertarianism as a sentimental, ratio-moral, or ratio-legal, or legal-empirical framework. But if we rely upon sentimental, and ratio-moral construction, then statements are not decidable, and opinion still influences the decision – we leave open not only the possibility of, but the preference for the addition of subjective preference into any decision. That is why we cannot construct rule of law upon ratio-moral arguments – revisionism and evolutionary corruption. This is why libertarianism in the anglo tradition has been constructed as a legal framework rather than moral framework of the cosmopolitan and continental traditions – by using strict construction and original intent. However, while this construction – as a system of calculation, which prohibits, unlike rationalism, the introduction of information not present in the original construction – still leaves open the question as to what determines the scope and limits to property upon which a that ratio-legal law is calculated. Empirical-legal evidence tells us that if we wish to construct a libertarian society, that we must define property as that which people treat as property by defense of it, and retaliation for violations of it. Without this knowledge we cannot eliminate demand for the state as an imposer of arbitrary norms, and suppressor of retaliation for violations of property that humans demonstrate they intuit as their property. There is only one way to eliminate the state, and that is to eliminate demand for it, by providing a sufficient body of property rights law, that all disputes are rationally decidable without the addition of subjective information.