I decided to move some discussion from this post up to the top level here. Specifically, Watoosh wrote: "Well, if violence is defined as initiation of force (which, of course, presupposes certain property rights), then I think Rockwell is correct..." Well, if we define cats as elephants, then many people keep elephants in their house. More seriously, firstly, violence is not usually defined that way. It's defined as, you know, violence, so that, say, someone may respond violently or non-violently to someone who aggresses against them. Otherwise, it would make no sense to say, for instance, "He punched me, but I did not stoop to violence in response." And, secondly, the libertarian usage of "initiation of force" is very offbeat. If I wander onto someone's meadow, most people would not say I had "initiated force" -- I mean, sure, I used "force" against the earth to push off walking, but that's not force directed against...
I think Walter Block is just a lost cause at this point. He has sailed beyond the event horizon of insanity.
ReplyDeleteBlock's own view doesn't fare much better than Rothbard's concerning the "right to abandon." What Block does (according to his 2004 paper) is merely narrow down the cases in which a parent can starve their child to death "justly" (in accordance with libertarianism). The parent would have to make known the fact they were giving up their ownership of the child and would not legitimately be able to use their property (such as the boundaries of their home) to block a path to reaching the child. However, if no adult was willing to take in the child, for whatever reason (lack of information, immoral character, impracticality, etc.), then we are still left with the absurd consequence of the child's death.
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