Curt Doolittle

Author: Curt Doolittle

  • For Tom Woods: On Thick and Thin

    Tom, Great of you to weigh in on this topic. You’ve also provided Rothbardians with an ‘out’ that I didn’t think of. That the NAP is fullness of libertarianism but not the fullness of life. I’d thought that the only ‘out’ was that rothbardian libertarianism was sufficient for the moral interaction of states, but insufficient for the construction of a polity. THE PROBLEM IS LAW It’s true that aggression is immoral and it’s true that aggression must be illegal. But is it rational for humans to join a voluntary, anarchic polity, if the basis of **LAW** is “non-aggression against intersubjectively verifiable property”, or must the basis of law be either based on something other than aggression, or broader in scope than intersubjectively verifiable property? What is the minimum basis for the law upon which it becomes rational to join a voluntary, anarchic polity? If we have a choice between: (a) a totalitarian capitalist society, like say, China. (b) a contemporary social democracy, like say the States. (c) an anarchic polity in which one CAN bring suit against immoral and unethical actions (say, blackmail, and fraud by omission). (d) an anarchic polity where unethical and immoral actions are expressly licensed by the law, and retribution for immoral and unethical actions is forbidden. 1) Then which of these will which people of which moral biases, choose? 2) How will members of that polity be treated by members of the competing polities? 3) How will the territory and trade representatives of that polity be treated by competing polities? I think that an intellectually honest analysis of those questions produces an obvious, and remarkably consistent answer. That is, that either aggression is the incorrect test of peaceful cooperation, or intersubjectively verifiable property is an insufficient test of the scope of property that must be protected from violation, or more likely both. The current proceeds of anthropology, genetics, and cognitive science, tell us that violations of the evolutionary preference for cooperation, are reducible to ‘free riding’: that is non-contribution. Since in any set of individuals, if we do not require productive contribution, then some are the victims of free riding (parasitism) and others benefit from free riding (parasitism). MORALITY If we analyze the common prohibitions of all moral codes under all family structures, and we remove moral constraints that are purely ritualistic, these moral codes are universally reducible to necessary prohibitions on what we would call ‘property violations’ in an effort to facilitate mutually beneficial cooperation. Moral Prohibition Spectra: 1) Agression: Harm/Oppression, 2) Trust: Subversion/Betrayal/Cheating, 3) Purity: Inobservance of Norms/Behavioral impurity/Pollution All of these are reducible to shareholder rights and obligations. Humans universally demonstrate a greater interest in punishing moral violations than we demonstrate self interest. IN fact, we justify our pre-cognitive moral punishments without even being able to articulate why we hold them. We are wired for morality. We evolved language and punishments violations of these moral intuitions in the form of criminal, ethical, and moral prohibitions: 1. Violence (asymmetry of force) 2. Theft (asymmetry of control) 3. Fraud (false information) 4. Omission (Omitting information) 5. Obscurantism (Obscuring information) 6. Obstruction (Inhibiting someone else’s transaction) 7. Externalization (externalizing costs of any transaction) 8. Free Riding (using externalities for self benefit) 9. Socializing Losses (externalization to commons) 10. Privatizing Gains (appropriation of commons) 11. Rent Seeking (organizational free riding) 12. Corruption ( organized rent seeking) 13. Conspiracy (organized indirect theft) 14. Extortion (Organized direct theft) 15. War (organized violence) PROPERTY We can empirically observe that people treat a broad spectrum of things as their property, and that they intuit violations of that property, and act to defend that property. I. Several (Personal) Property Personal property: “Things an individual has a Monopoly Of Control over the use of.” Physical Body and Several Property: Those things we claim a monopoly of control over. II. Artificial Property Shares in property: Recorded And Quantified Shareholder Property (claims for partial ownership) Trademarks and Brands (prohibitions on fraudulent transfers within a geography). III. Kin and Interpersonal (Relationship) Property Mates (access to sex/reproduction) Children (genetic reproduction) Consanguineous Relations (tribal and family ties) IV Status and Class (reputation) Social Status Reputation V. Institutional (Community) Property (i) Institutional Property: “Those objects into which we have invested our forgone opportunities, our efforts, or our material assets, in order to aggregate capital from multiple individuals for mutual gain.” (ii)Informal (Normative) Institutions: Our norms: manners, ethics and morals. Informal institutional property is nearly impossible to quantify and price. The costs are subjective and consists of forgone opportunities. (iii)Formal (Procedural) Institutions: Our institutions: Religion (including the secular religion), Government, Laws. Formal institutional property is easy to price. costs are visible. And the productivity of the social order is at least marginally measurable. ECONOMICS We can judge economic impacts of high trust societies that practice near total prohibition on criminal, unethical and immoral actions. And we can compare those to low trust societies that suppress fewer unethical and immoral actions. CLOSING So under what reasoning, would it be logical to support the Non Aggression Principle under Intersubjectively verifiable property (NAP/IVP) as the basis for the law, which explicitly licenses unethical and immoral action and prohibits retribution for it? The NAP/IVP has been a detriment to liberty wherever advocates argue that it is a sufficient means of determining moral and legal rules of cooperation. Because it’s not. And we cannot pursue an alternative to the existing high trust society without providing people with an alternative that is morally SUPERIOR to the state. And the NAP/IVP fails that test. Curt Doolittle The Propertarian Institute Kiev.

    Nonaggression is a part of, but not the fullness of, morality. Virtue and excellence need to be cultivated, too. “I don’t punch people for no reason” isn’t the beginning and end of a decent human life.

  • Moral Realism: The Prohibition On Free Riding

    (pulled out and reposted) [L]ibertarianism argues that Non Aggression, (NAP) + Intersubjectively Verifiable Property (IVP) constitute a universal moral natural law. This is ‘almost real’. And any claim that natural rights or natural law exist is to claim moral realism (constant correspondence.) Now, I disagree with IVP and NAP, because I have learned that human moral standards are universally higher than that. That no groups exist and can exist by treating internal members as such. And that peoples who use the NAP with outsiders are usually outcast and exterminated. However, if we look at universally demonstrated human behaviors, we see that it is quite possible to identify a small number of constant moral constraints upon our action. And that these moral constraints reflect our reproductive strategies – and must. Further, that all cultures may implement more or less of these moral constraints, and that many of these moral constraints are mixed with signaling (which is not a moral constraint, but a signal of commitment to moral constraints – usually ritualistic costs that one must bear). This means that all moral systems include the universal moral rules, a level of adoption of those rules that suits their reproductive structure within the particular moral structure of production available to them, and a body of rituals and signals. And that all moral codes in all groups can be reduced to technical descriptions on the axes I have described. If this is true, and I am correct, and I think the evidence suggests that I am correct, then the underlying moral code is on that is in favor of cooperation while prohibiting free riding, where failing to engage in cooperation is also free riding. As such, the underlying moral intuition begins with the prohibition on free riding. Further that depending on a number of environmental variables such as geography and competition, humans will produce predictable moral codes, albeit a wide variety of signals. And yes, the genders differ in the distribution of weights that they give to those underlying moral codes. As such, we have finally uncovered the logic and science of morality. And as such, morality is both real, and non arbitrary. Thus the only means of moral action we possess is voluntary, fully informed, warrantied exchange, free of negative externalities, in which we contributed to production. It implies that one cannot refuse a trade that causes one no loss, takes no effort, exposes one to no risk, and benefits another. Everyone has something to trade. Even if it’s merely respect for life, property, manners, ethics, morals and rituals. And that is enough to trade for the benefits of the market, and the opportunity to conduct other trades with those who likewise enter into the bargain.

  • Moral Realism: The Prohibition On Free Riding

    (pulled out and reposted) [L]ibertarianism argues that Non Aggression, (NAP) + Intersubjectively Verifiable Property (IVP) constitute a universal moral natural law. This is ‘almost real’. And any claim that natural rights or natural law exist is to claim moral realism (constant correspondence.) Now, I disagree with IVP and NAP, because I have learned that human moral standards are universally higher than that. That no groups exist and can exist by treating internal members as such. And that peoples who use the NAP with outsiders are usually outcast and exterminated. However, if we look at universally demonstrated human behaviors, we see that it is quite possible to identify a small number of constant moral constraints upon our action. And that these moral constraints reflect our reproductive strategies – and must. Further, that all cultures may implement more or less of these moral constraints, and that many of these moral constraints are mixed with signaling (which is not a moral constraint, but a signal of commitment to moral constraints – usually ritualistic costs that one must bear). This means that all moral systems include the universal moral rules, a level of adoption of those rules that suits their reproductive structure within the particular moral structure of production available to them, and a body of rituals and signals. And that all moral codes in all groups can be reduced to technical descriptions on the axes I have described. If this is true, and I am correct, and I think the evidence suggests that I am correct, then the underlying moral code is on that is in favor of cooperation while prohibiting free riding, where failing to engage in cooperation is also free riding. As such, the underlying moral intuition begins with the prohibition on free riding. Further that depending on a number of environmental variables such as geography and competition, humans will produce predictable moral codes, albeit a wide variety of signals. And yes, the genders differ in the distribution of weights that they give to those underlying moral codes. As such, we have finally uncovered the logic and science of morality. And as such, morality is both real, and non arbitrary. Thus the only means of moral action we possess is voluntary, fully informed, warrantied exchange, free of negative externalities, in which we contributed to production. It implies that one cannot refuse a trade that causes one no loss, takes no effort, exposes one to no risk, and benefits another. Everyone has something to trade. Even if it’s merely respect for life, property, manners, ethics, morals and rituals. And that is enough to trade for the benefits of the market, and the opportunity to conduct other trades with those who likewise enter into the bargain.

  • Dark Enlightenment, Propertarianism, Aristocratic Egalitarianism

    [T]HE DARK ENLIGHTENMENT IS A CRITICISM. [P]ROPERTARIANISM IS AN EXPLANATION. [A]RISTOCRATIC EGALITARIANISM IS A SOLUTION.*

  • Dark Enlightenment, Propertarianism, Aristocratic Egalitarianism

    [T]HE DARK ENLIGHTENMENT IS A CRITICISM. [P]ROPERTARIANISM IS AN EXPLANATION. [A]RISTOCRATIC EGALITARIANISM IS A SOLUTION.*

  • Sovereignty Begins with Violence, Morality is Made by Violence

    —“Right is not the offspring of doctrine, but of power. All laws, commandments, or doctrines as to not doing to another what you do not wish done to you, have no inherent authority whatever, but receive it only from the club, the gallows, and the sword. A man truly free is under no obligation to obey any injunction, human or divine. Obedience is the sign of the degenerate. Disobedience is the stamp of the hero.”—

    [I]f we apply our wealth of violence to the suppression of free riding in all its forms, then we create the most productive and meritocratic moral code for any body of people that is possible. But that result is an aristocratic moral code – a meritocratic moral code. Merit is to the disadvantage of the incompetent and degenerate. Christianity is merely a rebellion against aristocracy. But unable to suppress aristocracy, and aristocracy uninterested in suppressing christianity, the west was a product of the dialectic between the christians and the actions, habits and traditions of the aristocracy. Might makes whatever right it’s wielder chooses to. But there is only one optimum moral principle available to man, to which we all adhere to different degrees: upon choosing not to use violence, and instead to cooperate, we create the problem of free riding. To suppress free riding we create moral rules. To enforce moral rules we create authority. By creating moral rules we create free riding by corruption. To enforce moral rules against free riding by corruption we must suppress the state. To suppress the state requires that we use violence to suppress free riding in all its forms: criminal, unethical, immoral, conspiratorial, and statist. Might makes whatever right we choose. One can choose an objectively moral right: the suppression or free riding. Or one can choose one of the many others – all of which institute some form of free riding.

  • Sovereignty Begins with Violence, Morality is Made by Violence

    —“Right is not the offspring of doctrine, but of power. All laws, commandments, or doctrines as to not doing to another what you do not wish done to you, have no inherent authority whatever, but receive it only from the club, the gallows, and the sword. A man truly free is under no obligation to obey any injunction, human or divine. Obedience is the sign of the degenerate. Disobedience is the stamp of the hero.”—

    [I]f we apply our wealth of violence to the suppression of free riding in all its forms, then we create the most productive and meritocratic moral code for any body of people that is possible. But that result is an aristocratic moral code – a meritocratic moral code. Merit is to the disadvantage of the incompetent and degenerate. Christianity is merely a rebellion against aristocracy. But unable to suppress aristocracy, and aristocracy uninterested in suppressing christianity, the west was a product of the dialectic between the christians and the actions, habits and traditions of the aristocracy. Might makes whatever right it’s wielder chooses to. But there is only one optimum moral principle available to man, to which we all adhere to different degrees: upon choosing not to use violence, and instead to cooperate, we create the problem of free riding. To suppress free riding we create moral rules. To enforce moral rules we create authority. By creating moral rules we create free riding by corruption. To enforce moral rules against free riding by corruption we must suppress the state. To suppress the state requires that we use violence to suppress free riding in all its forms: criminal, unethical, immoral, conspiratorial, and statist. Might makes whatever right we choose. One can choose an objectively moral right: the suppression or free riding. Or one can choose one of the many others – all of which institute some form of free riding.

  • The Current Propertarian Canon (Reading List)

    (in suggested reading order)

    Note that I do not list the usual works of ‘lament’ about the fall of the west. I assume that we all understand that. But understanding it isn’t a means of countering it. Countering it requires we understand the origins of liberty, the constitution of liberty, and act to restore our liberty. As such I focus on how to construct and reconstruct informal and formal institutions that will do a better job of protecting our liberty than did classical liberalism. However, doing so requires that I dismantle the fallacy of rothbardian ghetto ethics, and german rationalism, and instead, rebuild the case for liberty on science and history.

    THE RESTORATION READING LIST Ricardo Duchesne: The Uniqueness of Western Civilization JP Mallory: In Search of Indo Europeans John Keegan: A History Of Warfare Joseph Campbell : The Hero’s Journey Karen Armstrong : The Great Transformation William Tucker: Marriage and Civilization Emmanuel Todd: The Explanation of Ideology Emmanuel Todd: The Invention of Europe Daniel Hannan: Inventing Freedom Alan MacFarlane : Origins of English Individualism Gregory Clark: A Farewell to Alms Matt Ridley: The Red Queen Dale Petersen: Demonic Males Steven Pinker: The Better Angels of Our Nature Daniel Kahneman: Thinking, Fast and Slow Francis Fukuyama: Trust Sam Harris : Lying Steven Pinker : The Blank Slate Jonathan Haidt: The Righteous Mind Stephen Hicks : Explaining Postmodernism Hans Hoppe: Democracy The God That Failed Doolittle: Propertarianism. High Trust Ethics Necessary for Anarchy

  • The Current Propertarian Canon (Reading List)

    (in suggested reading order)

    Note that I do not list the usual works of ‘lament’ about the fall of the west. I assume that we all understand that. But understanding it isn’t a means of countering it. Countering it requires we understand the origins of liberty, the constitution of liberty, and act to restore our liberty. As such I focus on how to construct and reconstruct informal and formal institutions that will do a better job of protecting our liberty than did classical liberalism. However, doing so requires that I dismantle the fallacy of rothbardian ghetto ethics, and german rationalism, and instead, rebuild the case for liberty on science and history.

    THE RESTORATION READING LIST Ricardo Duchesne: The Uniqueness of Western Civilization JP Mallory: In Search of Indo Europeans John Keegan: A History Of Warfare Joseph Campbell : The Hero’s Journey Karen Armstrong : The Great Transformation William Tucker: Marriage and Civilization Emmanuel Todd: The Explanation of Ideology Emmanuel Todd: The Invention of Europe Daniel Hannan: Inventing Freedom Alan MacFarlane : Origins of English Individualism Gregory Clark: A Farewell to Alms Matt Ridley: The Red Queen Dale Petersen: Demonic Males Steven Pinker: The Better Angels of Our Nature Daniel Kahneman: Thinking, Fast and Slow Francis Fukuyama: Trust Sam Harris : Lying Steven Pinker : The Blank Slate Jonathan Haidt: The Righteous Mind Stephen Hicks : Explaining Postmodernism Hans Hoppe: Democracy The God That Failed Doolittle: Propertarianism. High Trust Ethics Necessary for Anarchy

  • (joy of philosophy) The problem of arbitrary precision never occurs in voluntary

    (joy of philosophy)

    The problem of arbitrary precision never occurs in voluntary exchange.

    Information is alway sufficient for decidability.

    Buridan’s Ass never starves.

    This is one of those things: once you get it, it’s like relativity was for physicists – the world is a much simpler, and very different place.

    Operationalism solves the problem of reducing all statements to empirical (observable) and therefore sympathetically testable terms.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-06-14 10:31:00 UTC