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From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: The origin of ownership--THE libertarian stand
Message-ID: <5462@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 11-Apr-85 15:55:30 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5462
Posted: Thu Apr 11 15:55:30 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 11-Apr-85 15:55:30 EST
References: <886@wucs.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 36

Ah, Walter, you have presented the Nozick stand. I wouldn't go so far
as to say that it is *THE* libertarian stand. Most libertarian philosophers
I know do not like Nozick's principle of recompensation at all. They like
absolute property rights betteer.

The most practical reason to distrust compensation schemes is that people
do not universally agree what things are worth. If I take your wallet
so I don't have to work for a living and can devote myself to praying to
the volcano God to spare your life when Mt. St. Helens next blows, then I
may think that you have a wonderful deal. You might disagree. Impasse.

What is worse is your notion of what happens when Robinson Crusoe sets
ashore on Toronto Island. Toronto Island is already divided up. Should
the inhabitants of Toronto Island have to give 1/population+1 th of
their property to Crusoe? If this is the case then it seems that the
stored goods I have earned in order to make my life better are all at
the mercy of my neighbours who might decide to move to my island. I
suspect that we are about to rediscover ``war'' on the grounds that
simply moving to the island is an act of agression -- after all if
enough people move the existing inhabitants will all starve...

Libertarian ethicists will also not agree that your principle of
non-coersion is an absolute. Eric Mack, for instance, argues that it
is a detonic corallary of ethical egoism, which he calls ``eudamonic
egoism''. And then there are libertarians who argue that property is
a nuisance and that property rights are only very megre additions to
more fundamental human rights. A fair bit of libertarian thought is
directed at convincing these well meaning souls that without property
rights there can be no human rights.

For this reason, some libertarians take property rights as given. 

There is much to argue about.

Laura Creighton
utzoo!laura