The difference between being coerced and coercing

[pvn]

From another thread:

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What is the difference between your child tripping outside and being impaled on a knife and dying... and me charging at your child with a knife and stabbing her to death?

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I see none.

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The reason this person sees none is that he is only looking at one narrow aspect:

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In both instances my child would be dead, I would be sad, and I would remove the hazard after the fact (too late for my child, but hopefully in time to save others from the same fate).

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In other words, he is only observing that someone died.

He is totally ignoring that in one case someone *acted* and the other one didn't.

There is a difference between looking at cases where one is forced to do something and looking at cases where one forces others to do something. There is not a one-to-on mapping.

People are forced to "work or die" every day. People are "forced" to eat to survive. But there is no moral agent at the other end making a *decision* to force people into these situations. There is nobody to blame. Yet those who only see someone being coerced think that *someone* must be "made responsible". Yet there is nobody who can justly be saddled with the obligation to remedy these conditions.

This is the critical fallacy that has struck a long line of distinguished politics posters, including moorobot, propertarian, and most recently jogger.

[Nielsio]

One force is the force of nature, and the other is force between human beings (and most notably: human beings with moral capacity and thus responsibility).

[bkholdem]

You should cross post this in SMP to see what they have to say about it. I think that forum has more traffic.

[vhawk01]

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You should cross post this in SMP to see what they have to say about it. I think that forum has more traffic.

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I think this is a decent idea, but I gotta say, I think its gonna be pretty unanimous support for the OP.

[mosdef]

The difference between someone falling on a knife versus being stabbed is evident (even to me).

I think a more interesting scenario is the case of a "criminal" in an AC world who is not locked up but who can't find anyone to transact with him because of his criminal past. Now, the "AC citizens" (slight misnomer, but I think you'll know what I mean) aren't really aggressing on the criminal with violence. But if the guy starves to death or is eventually shot for trespassing because he can't find anywhere to go, well then it didn't make much difference to him that the citizens killed him in a passive way rather than an aggressive way. I think there is a richer debate to be had regarding this situation where the intent is to exclude the criminal from society, and even though it is done passively rather than with violence aggression the intent is still the same. The outcome here isn't accidental.

[BCPVP]

Yet in this case, the criminal has no right to interact with other people against their will. People do have a right not to be stabbed by other people.

[mosdef]

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Yet in this case, the criminal has no right to interact with other people against their will. People do have a right not to be stabbed by other people.

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But if the criminal owns no property at all (other than himself) and no one who owns property will allow him reside on their territory or interact with him, that person has been deemed by the others to have no right to live. Is it morally superiour to starve him to death on the basis of property rights rather than to execute him on the basis that he's just a terrible person?

As a side note, I'm not really "challenging" AC here with this edge scenario. I just think it's a more interesting, if somewhat irrelevant, hypothetical.

[NeBlis]

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But if the criminal owns no property at all (other than himself)


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he owns himself and that is the basis of every belief re: property


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Is it morally superior to starve him to death on the basis of property rights rather than to execute him on the basis that he's just a terrible person?

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either or really .. although killing him causes less suffering that starvation so you could argue that killing him outright is more humane therefore more moral.

[mosdef]

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But if the criminal owns no property at all (other than himself)


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he owns himself and that is the basis of every belief re: property

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I know, one of the troubling aspects of this (to me) is that if you own no real estate and no one wants to buy the fruits of your labour, you have the right to self ownership but not the right to live anywhere on earth. It's largely a theoretical "problem" with property rights but it's somewhat disconcerting to link my right to exist with the marketability of my labour.

[BCPVP]

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Yet in this case, the criminal has no right to interact with other people against their will. People do have a right not to be stabbed by other people.

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But if the criminal owns no property at all (other than himself) and no one who owns property will allow him reside on their territory or interact with him, that person has been deemed by the others to have no right to live there.

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FYP

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Is it morally superior to starve him to death on the basis of property rights rather than to execute him on the basis that he's just a terrible person?

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He is responsible for himself. Why should anyone else be morally required to provide for him? The alternative to allowing people to choose to interact or not interact with this guy is just more coercion from someone who forces other to provide for him.

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As a side note, I'm not really "challenging" AC here with this edge scenario. I just think it's a more interesting, if somewhat irrelevant, hypothetical.

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No worries, thinking is fun! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]