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From: flink@umcp-cs.UUCP (Paul V Torek)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Pollution: no libertarian solution
Message-ID: <2694@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 4-Jan-86 15:47:11 EST
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.2694
Posted: Sat Jan  4 15:47:11 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 5-Jan-86 20:47:12 EST
References: <374@umich.UUCP> <28200489@inmet.UUCP>
Reply-To: flink@maryland.UUCP (Paul V Torek)
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 42

In article <28200489@inmet.UUCP> janw@inmet.UUCP writes:
>[--Paul V. Torek, soon at umich!torek, now at umcp-cs!flink]
>>Yes, but it seems to me that the current practice of the courts in this
>>respect is very un-libertarian.  That is, I would think that a libertarian
>>regards an individual as the best authority on the value of his own life.
>
>There are *two* individuals involved. For each of them, some part
>of their infinitely-valuable life is at stake (one can prolong or
>expand one's life with money). A  finite  estimate  is  the  only
>practical thing to do, not libertarian or unlibertarian.  

Wrong!  (Well, actually Kirk ... it IS the only practical thing to do, but
the point about *two* individuals being involved doesn't cut it BECAUSE:)

ONE of those individuals is the (would-be) polluter and the other is the 
(would-be) victim, and if a person has a RIGHT -- a "moral trump card", a
la most libertarianisms I know of -- not to be imposed upon without consent,
then the polluter must compensate the victim according to the victim's
opinion of the worth of his own life, PERIOD, and tough toenails for the
would-be polluter.

>I am just reading Nozick; probably he would do, though  he  seems
>over-complicated  to  me  (but  he  does  invent some useful con-
>cepts). Perhaps you would simplify him  in  the  process.  Rand's
>books I've read (all of them) but only half-agree (she would have
>resented that; but I like her). They are very readable.  But  you
>seem  to insist on seeing libertarianism as a theory where a com-
>plete social order is deduced from a few ethical axioms. I  would
>distrust any theory like that, whatever the axioms. Like it says  
>in Faust, theory is gray, but the tree of life is evergreen. Which
>is not to argue against ethical principles, just against  rampant
>deductivism. Leave room for empirical data and common sense.

But where does the deductivism leave off and the empirical data application
begin?  I agree it must happen before one gets to "a complete social order",
but I think you are trying to constrict deductivism further than most hard-
line libertarians would want.

Anyhow, there have been a few requests for my critique of Nozick, so I'll
do that whenever I manage to get around to it...

--Paul V. Torek, now at umcp-cs!flink, soon at			umich!torek