Disqus Continued

“, would it be harmful for people to investigate living without taxation?"

> I'm sure you could guess what my response to this would be from my other post. 

Having me guess your position is risky. I am not immune to the Internet plague that has people projecting their various attitudes or caricatures of their intellectual opponents onto others. 

>I see taxation as retroactive adjustments in property holdings. Do I think we should live in a world in which each person decides, individually, whether to contribute towards public goals and projects like roads, police, courts, and a welfare minimum? No.

But that is not the question. At the most basic level, the question is why would you object to other persons investigating alternatives. Does this put persons who do not participate in danger? Or are you just being stodgy?

On a different level, the question is not whether we should fund shared benefits, but which benefits should we fund and how should we fund them. Unless the status quo is immune to all criticisms, we could at least consider the possibility of improving things. Most of the public services you mention are recent innovations, should we stop innovating? 

You may not want to live in such a world, but no one is forcing you to. Why do you wish to prevent others from trying it out? If an artificial anarchist island appeared in the middle of the ocean, would that destabilize the rest of the world? 

> I think we should decide together, collectively, the terms under which people have exclusive control over things, and how the burden of contributing towards public goals should be distributed.

We should or we do?

 And we could not do that without taxation? 

Do the differences between the various jurisdictions in the world disturb you? Or does the nation state have something special about it that gives it immunity to this principle limiting diversity?

> I think collective action and free rider problems would prevent public projects from being funded, and holdouts would hold large public projects hostage.

Assuming you see that as a bad thing, why do you think people would find it attractive? Or are you just hoping to prevent my imagined volunteers from making a mistake they would regret? 

>I just think periodic retroactive adjustments to property holdings is both necessary and a good thing.

Is this a moral principle; a scientific principle; or is it your subjective evaluation? Something else?

 Necessary for what, and good by what standard?

Owning bitcoin

I just finished listening  to a podcast featuring Stephan Kinsella.  He basically reiterated his argument concluding that bitcoin is information, and therefore it cannot be owned. The following thought experiment occurred to me: 

Say I use a telescope to watch you type your password into your bitcoin wallet. I then use that password to transfer the entire balance from your wallet to someone else. You later come into possession of a video showing me doing this, and network logs corroborating that I am the one who transferred your bitcoin to someone else. When you confront me, I admit that I am the one who executed this transaction. If you take this dispute to a fair arbitrator, and none of the facts are in dispute, will the arbitrator decide that I have taken nothing from you and owe you no restitution?

Are bitcoins scarce/rivalrous? I can’t double spend the same bitcoin. If I have one bitcoin associated with a specific private key, I can’t use the same private key to transfer one bitcoin to each of several different new “owners”/controllers/private keys.  If I attempt this, and the bitcoin mining network behaves as designed, only one of these transactions will be completed.  I can make as many copies of my key, of my wallet or of the ledger as I like, but the use of the key and the ledger to transfer that amount can only happen once. The architecture of the software and the network (we hope) prevents double spending. It creates artificial scarcity. 

So is it scarcity that enables ownership, or physicality? Something else? 

Because of the way the bitcoin network is designed to protect identity,  it does not include a way to prove or establish title except to demonstrate that one has knowledge of the private key associated with a ledger entry.  But that is no different from demonstrating possession. There is no separate means to demonstrate justified possession, that is not a concept implemented by this system. Bottom line is, it would be very unusual and difficult to find convincing evidence regarding who actually carried out a transaction with a particular private key. It could’ve been the “rightful owner“, the person the owner is accusing of theft, or anyone else, the bitcoin network doesn’t know or care. Ordinarily, the person who received stolen goods could provide evidence regarding the identity of the source, but not in the case of a bitcoin transaction. 

Ownership is a social layer built on top of possession that distinguishes between justified and unjustified possession. While bitcoin eliminates much of the paper trail that helps establish ownership for ordinary items, its status as artificially scarce makes it capable of being owned. In this odd case, however, most potential owners of bitcoin prefer simply to possess it anonymously. While we could probably create a variant of bitcoin that allowed possessors to establish title to their bitcoin, or perhaps could use some separate mechanism to allow owners to establish and transfer title to their bitcoin,  that would defeat the purpose. The transparency required would undermine  the anonymity that gives bitcoin much of its appeal. 

 So, perhaps  we could own bitcoin, but we don’t want to. 

Nothing depends on free will

We can't draw any practical conclusions or implications from the truth or falsity of the idea of free will.

Some critics of the idea of free will seem to think that this issue has important implications for the penal system and for how we treat criminals. If they could not have done otherwise, what good do we do by saying to them, "You should have done otherwise"? They seem to think that I might as well scold my Roomba for missing that spot in the corner and punish it by putting it in a box.

Let's assume they are right, that persons are just unusually complicated robots.

Whether we have free will or not, we can't change the past. "You should not have done that" never means "go back, erase what happened and do it differently". What we say to each other about the past, and what we do to each other in reaction to the past all orient on the future. 

 

If we are all robots, we are complicated robots that change their behavior depending on the complicated inputs we receive. "You should not have done that" might or might not cause a particular robot to change its behavior in the future. This is an empirical question depending on the programming of the robot and the other inputs, not on the truth or appropriateness of any moral judgement expressed. It is a counterfactual and an input to our processing. It has the (perhaps?) unusual property that it might work if the robot believes it, whether or not it is literally true. (Many social norms have a similar characteristic, that if everyone expects things to work in a certain way, and acts accordingly, things will work that way.)

This case presents a perplexing (perhaps rare) philosophical situation, where a statement about reality seems to make a strong distinction between how things are and how they are not, but persons who believe one variant have no reason to act differently from their philosophical opponents.

We can imprison people because we think they have free will and "deserve" it, hoping that they will "repay their debt to society" and perhaps learn from it, gaining some rehabilitation; or we can imprison people because we think they are robots and being imprisoned alters their programming in a positive way while keeping them away from innocent persons they might hurt. We can scold people because we think they have free will and scolding might change their attitudes, or we can scold them because we think they are robots and scolding might alter their programs. The truth of free will does not enter into the equation. People learn from experience and change their behavior in either case. If we can discover technical or environmental supports that help people act more responsibly toward each other, we can use them whether or not people have free will. Free will is not empirically observable, responses to interventions are.

Maybe "You have free will" is a lie. But maybe it is the sort of programming that helps hairy robots grow and develop. Or maybe it is harmful or irrelevant. These are empirical questions, but the empirical result does not reveal the truth value of the statement "I have free will".

Voluntary government steelman

Huemer argues that we cannot currently interpret the US government as deriving its political authority from the consent of the governed. In a previous post, I briefly summarized his persuasive case against that idea.

Now I want to consider the question: how could the USG transform itself so that it did have the consent of the governed, while changing almost nothing else? What changes would they need to make?

Let's pretend the government is a corporation composed of its citizens or members and they all sign a contract agreeing to shun all noncitizens (unless they have a visa or are located outside of US territory). They could treat the US constitution as their corporate bylaws. Persons who opt out of the contract become noncitizens. At any moment, citizens can consent, emigrate or secede. If they secede, their neighbors will deny them passage through the neighbors' property. They are still able to occupy their land, but no longer entitled to use public roads or the other local infrastructure (sewers, electricity, gas, water, etc.). They are enclosed. (Their property would technically no longer lie within the territory of the USG, but it would be treated as still part of that territory for the purpose of determining who citizens can/can’t interact with.)

How does this differ from the status quo? Someone needs to write up the citizenship contract and see to it that they all either sign, secede or emigrate. Landowners would be able to secede and create new territorial clubs outside the government's jurisdiction. And the government could make good on its brag about deriving its authority from the consent of the governed.

Contract

I hereby chose to: (choose one only)

[  ] consent to the contractual terms below. 

[  ] emigrate. (I will leave the country before submitting this contract, so that no one needs to shun me on my way out.)

[  ] secede, separating myself and the land I own from the infrastructure, territory and jurisdiction of the USG.

Terms

1. Shun: I will refuse to do business with or communicate with or allow to pass onto or through my property any noncitizens of the US who lack valid visas or green cards and who are located within the territory or former territory of the US. I may do business with citizens of foreign countries so long as they are outside the US or within the US on a legal visa or green card. I will shun all stateless emigres and secessionists, refusing to speak to them or assist them in any way.
2. Enclose: If I have authority over any utility, road or other communication or transportation infrastructure or useful service, I will deny access and service to any noncitizen lacking a visa or any property outside the territory of the US unless authorized by law.
3. Obey: I agree to pay any tax and obey any law that is duly established by Congress according to the Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court.
4. Receive: The US government agrees to refrain from causing its citizens to shun me so long as I fulfill these terms. I also may vote in elections if I satisfy the legal criteria and register according to law.
5. Consider: As consideration, I will deliver one dollar along with this signed contract to the appropriate authorities.

Citizen/noncitizen signature____________________

Date_______________

On behalf of Government: signature_________________

Date_______________

Can the government demand that we sign such a contract, leave the country or secede? Would that place us under duress? What, other than my lack of training in writing contracts, would prevent this contract or one similar from binding anyone who signed it? 

Would in even need to be legally binding, since every citizen at every moment is free to opt out of the contract? Instead of disputing the bindingness of the contract, a citizen who wishes to break free of the contract can do so at any time by submitting a new contract declaring they have emigrated or seceded. The only possible point of dispute would be how to interpret obedience, not whether or not the signatories are bound by the contract.

Failure to submit a contract or use of US infrastructure equates to choosing obedience. So a much shorter version of the choices would be:

• I have emigrated.
• I have seceded and separated my property from all US infrastructure.
• I will obey.

Would people be willing to sign this contract? Why not? What does it commit them to that they have not already accepted? In what way does the government violate their rights to demand that they choose? No one is morally obligated to do any of the things the contract prohibits them from doing, nor is anyone morally entitled to any of the things that would be withheld from secessionists and emigres.

Libertarians believe in freedom of association, which includes the right to refuse to cooperate with someone. Do they have a right to refuse individually, but lack the right to do so as a group?

Unlike the situation criticized by Huemer, the citizens are not placed under duress, persons who consent are treated differently than those who refuse, the government does commit to provide something to those who consent and explicit refusal overrides implicit consent. So all the USG must do to transform itself into a “voluntary” government (well, from the standpoint of its citizens only, not that of foreigners) is to announce the existence of this contract which provides all citizens with a way to opt out, and then pass a law against interacting with former US citizens who have seceded or re-entered the country illegally. 

Boom.

Ethics of Voting, Revisited

Can I vote ethically? 

Voters, in effect, direct candidates to implement the promises the candidates made during their campaign. We can think of the election as creating a conditional contract - if enough people vote for it, it takes effect. Although the voters cannot literally instruct the office holders after they are elected and have no recourse if the candidates renege on their promises, by voting the voters do in some sense give instructions in the form of those campaign promises to their chosen candidates. The candidate says “this is what I plan to do” and the voters reply, in effect, “yes, you do that”. And so one prerequisite for voting ethically would be for the candidate one chose to solemnly and credibly promise not to use the power of their office unethically.

Principals who direct an agent to act for them share responsibility for the consequences of the action. If the principals have no right to act on their own, they cannot delegate such a right to their agents.

Even if the deed is never actually done, a principal cannot ethically command an agent to do something unethical. Just as I would be wrong to shoot at you and miss, I would be wrong to give the order to kill you, even if no one obeys the order. Principals can direct agents ethically only if the principal gives ethical directions and the agent carries them out ethically.

Voters lack some of the rights of principals, but still share responsibility for the plans of the candidates, as if the candidates acted as agents for the voters. The details differ, but the same principle applies. If I intend to cause something to happen, I am responsible for the consequences. I am included among the persons who should pay compensation or make amends.

So, the ethics of voting depends on the ethics of the candidate and the candidate's campaign promises. If I could hire the candidate to carry out those instructions without violating ethics, I can vote to have them carried out without violating ethics. Voters can vote ethically if they find candidates who credibly promise ethically to fulfill their campaign promises. From a voluntaryist standpoint, this appears theoretically possible but practically impossible.

Voluntaryist ethical concerns about the ethics of political office holders might include the ethics of:

• instructing enforcers to enforce legislation and taxation upon persons who have not consented,
• fulfilling the duties and prerequisites of office, such as taking the oath of office,
• accepting a salary and an office budget funded by taxes,
• perpetuating the institution of government, the social environment it creates and its illusion of legitimacy.

I wonder, will the candidates exceed their campaign promises in an unethical way? Are they credible? I could argue that principals share no responsibility for an action taken by their agent if the action violates their instructions. But I could also argue that this holds only if the principals have good reason to treat the agents as credible or have the power to monitor and end the principal/agent relationship as soon as they learn of unethical behavior. If the principals know that the agent is prone to ethical violations, and they have no means to nullify their contract, they can hardly avoid taking some responsibility for entrusting that person as their agent. If there is no way for me to monitor or constrain my agents, I must take extra care in selecting them, and if I fail to choose wisely I share the blame for the agents' actions.

So the question, “can I vote ethically”, boils down to, can I find a candidate that credibly promises to behave ethically while holding office? By voluntaryist standards, no such candidate has ever run for office or likely ever will. Such candidates could theoretically behave ethically, but only if they would vote “no” on every bill except repeals and refuse to accept any tax-funded benefits until taxation and obedience to legislation were made voluntary. 

Social contract criticisms

I’m not enough of a scholar to really illustrate the history and details of other peoples social contract theories, but I sketch out some notes below. 

Hobbes' idea amounts to a metaphorical social contract that justifies anything the state does. Any situation that we consider bad because of the depredations of the state can be made worse by imagining a mob carrying out the same depredations but adding new victims in the form of those who for whatever reason would have been safe from the state. No one can amend the social contract and the state faces no limit. It is purely pragmatic, based on no principle more lofty than “might makes right” or “as bad as this is, it could be worse.” This version of the social contract justifies anything done by the state, including genocide.

Locke had the idea that rights precede the social contract. The social contract merely provides a means to enforce those pre-existing rights.

Rousseau wrote about the general will and direct democracy on a small scale. 

The social contract means government authority consists of the consent of the governed. Citizens consent to pay taxes and obey laws, and the state promises to protect the rights of citizens. Both the citizens and the state accept obligations as parties to a contract. Agents of the state may coerce citizens because the citizens have agreed in advance and because the state organization fulfills its obligations. But if they have not agreed, or if the state fails to fulfill its bargain, then the social contract fails to justify political authority.

Huemer gives several criticisms of the social contract. The social contract as described by Locke (or any of the others) is not historically accurate (as pointed out by Hume). Citizens cannot be viewed as giving passive or tacit consent, because consent is not voluntary if 

• Consent was obtained under duress, if one must obey or be forced to sacrifice something to which one has a right,
• explicit dissent has been expressed, which overrules implicit consent,
• explicit refusal to consent would not change anything (the contractual counterpart will do the same thing regardlesss of consent), or
• the counterpart reneges on its contractual obligations, or in fact has none.

Huemer argues that these exceptions describe all existing states to some extent, so that none truly can claim authority on the basis of the consent of the governed. We have a right to free association, including a right to our jobs, our friends and families, and property rights to our land. If we cannot opt out of state authority without emigrating and sacrificing all these, the first condition applies. If anarchists are subjected to the same laws and taxes as superpatriots, then the second and third conditions apply. Huemer cites several court cases that conclude that the US “federal” government owes no specific obligation to any specific person, but only a general duty to the citizens as a group. Hence, if the social contract obligates the state at all, it has failed to fulfill those obligations. Huemer says, “One cannot maintain that the individual owes duties to the state but that the state owes nothing to the individual.” He concludes that social contract theory does not apply to the USA or any other modern state.

Huemer has a separate chapter dealing with the hypothetical social contract of John Rawls. Read Huemer's book if you are interested, I’m not prepared to give a serious summary of that argument.. 

Andrew Kern has a series of blog posts criticizing conventional social contract 

Conventional approaches to social contract seek to justify existing states by weakening the meaning of consent. The bottom line is, if we regard the social contract as an actual contract requiring actual informed consent, existing states cannot use the social contract to justify their activities. But what if we used a strong concept of consent and seriously applied the idea that legitimate authority flows from the consent of those affected? I want to answer that question next.

[This is part of my project on the purely voluntary society]

Purely Voluntary Society project meta information

This blog has been a bit random so far. I am embarking on a project that will unify at least most of the new entries. I’ve been generating tons of notes on various ideas that are related. I guess if I was well organized and knew what I was doing they would turn into a book outline. But I don’t know what I am doing. So I’m going to start putting out blog entries on a single narrow question each. Each entry will include questions that I’ve left unanswered that I am aware of. Then eventually I will write entries to answer each of those questions. I hope that at some point this network of related ideas will be able to be turned into an outline that makes some sense. But at first it’s going to skip around a lot.

The first questions consider the idea of the social contract. I want to review Heumer's reasons (and some others) for rejecting the conventional social contract justification of state authority. Then I will consider how the social contract idea changes if we apply a stronger version of consent.

As with all my blog posts, in these I am thinking out loud. Please put suggestions, criticisms or corrections in the comments. I will appreciate it.

A common law perspective on abortion

Who has standing to bring legal action on the part of the child/fetus/entity, only the child's guardian, or everyone? How does fertilization create obligation? 

Implicitly, the pro-life position claims that everyone has standing to bring charges against the mother at any time for killing her child or failing to care for the child until someone else can take over. Does this position make sense?

I interpret common law to say that persons only have standing if their consent has been violated, or if they act as agents for persons whose consent has been violated. (Damaging someone's property accidentally without their consent constitutes a tort, purposefully using their bodies or property without their consent constitutes a crime.) This prevents busybodies from from bringing frivolous cases or violating the free association of others. To bring suit, one must have standing. No standing, no case. If the person who has been harmed does not wish to sue or to bring charges, no suit or charges should be brought. If some third party wishes to sue or bring charges, they must show how they have been damaged or had their consent violated. So even with regard to murder, it might be the case that some persons have standing to bring charges and others do not.

Children do not have standing on their own, only competent adults can sue or be sued. This means that children need guardians to stand for them in court. But the role of guardian does not only consist of standing for them in court and taking responsibilities for any crimes or torts they commit. It also requires the guardian to nurture the child. The owner of a domestic animal also stands for the animal in court, but the role of guardian is more intimate and has more obligations associated with it.

If the mother refuses to act as guardian of her child, the father may take this role. If the father is also unwilling, any relative may take on the role. If no relatives exist, or they are all unwilling, then the child can be put up for adoption. But while the child is not viable outside the womb, only the mother can actually fulfill all the requirements of a guardian.

In an ordinary murder case, the victims have standing, and since they are dead, their heirs have standing to bring charges, at least. Perhaps anyone has standing to bring charges of murder of an adult or independent child. The case of a pregnant woman is no different, if we assume the child is viable outside the womb.

If a child is murdered in the womb, it is the guardian who has standing to bring charges. Or is it everyone? Let’s consider both.

Consider the period of time when the child is not viable outside the womb. During that time, the mother is the only person who can truly act as guardian for the child. Only she can nourish it and nurture it. If that is the case, only she can act as guardian, and only she has standing to bring charges. If I sue her, seeking to be declared the guardian of her child, I can bring the most compelling sorts of evidence and yet I am physically incapable of  replacing her. No matter how good my arguments are, if I am unable to physically replace the mother and sustain the child's life, the suit is futile, there is no remedy available. Either the child is removed from the mother's womb and dies, or it remains and the mother's consent is violated.

Imagine that I was able to become the legal guardian in spite of this. Clearly I am violating the mother's consent. She is forced to continue the pregnancy unwillingly. What obligates her to do so?

Some would say that when she engaged in sexual intercourse, she tacitly agreed to the consequence. I think there are good reasons to consider this tacit agreement not binding. Specific performance of a contractual obligation to perform services is a form of slavery or indentured servitude, and does not belong in the jurisprudence of a free society. In ordinary contracts, when a party to the agreement wants to incentivize another to assure performance, the remedy is to have collateral involved, so that failure to perform the service triggers a change of ownership of the collateral. This remedy is not available for tacit agreements such as engaging in sex. And with whom is the agreement made, to whom is the obligation owed? The child does not yet exist, and they will not be competent to enter into contractual agreements for a long time, should they come into existence. Since the mother is the default guardian of the child, this is an agreement between the woman and herself. No one has standing to sue the mother for violating this contract. Maybe the father? But then the father could give consent for the abortion. And as pointed out before, the father cannot fulfill the role of guardian while the child is not yet viable.

Perhaps she is obligated because the fetus is a human being. Then maybe everyone has standing to bring charges. Can they bring charges against a woman for getting a hysterectomy while not pregnant? Can they bring charges against a man for ejaculating and not rescuing all the sperm? If it was technically feasible to fertilize all of a woman's eggs, would she be obligated to do so? Would a man be obligated to rescue every sperm that escaped his body, or even a significant fraction, if it were technically feasible to do so? How does fertilization create obligation? 

Fertilization marks a significant milestone in the development of a child, but there is no obvious reason to consider it to create a line between when an egg is part of the mother's body and when it is a human child. Eggs and sperm are human, and they are alive. Catholics worry about unfertilized eggs, but even they give up with sperm. 

The alternative is to give the guardian the choice of when and whether a pregnancy represents a person who cannot be killed. She has standing to bring charges against a murderer. No one else does. Unless she prosecutes herself, she cannot be prosecuted.

There is a period of time when the child is potentially viable outside the womb, but to remove the child from the womb without killing it will be very costly and difficult for the mother. The new guardian is responsible for all expenses and perhaps for compensating the mother.

I conclude that for anyone to have standing to prevent an abortion, they must be willing and able to act as the child's guardian, and in fact take on that role immediately, paying all medical expenses, etc. There is a period of time during which this is technically infeasible. During that time, the mother may abort the fetus at will, demonstrating her withdawal of her consent from the pregnancy. She has no agreement with any other person, and if she did it would not be binding. As the guardian of the potential child, only she has standing to bring charges against herself. 

As technology improves, the duration of this period will probably become shorter. We all can look forward to the day when all such children can be rescued without violating the consent of the mother.

This is where the blog post should have ended. But during editing I found a big error.

Rather than rewrite the whole thing, I want to leave it as is and now discuss the big error. You get to experience it just like I did!

What if a person was murdered by his heir? If only the heir has standing, then no one can bring charges of murder against the heir. This is a huge problem.

What does this establish about who has standing to bring charges of murder? We don’t want it to only be the guardian or the heir, or those persons have a free pass to commit murder. It sort of works with the guardian, since persons who would have been willing to become guardian could have standing. Once the child can live apart from the mother, she has an obligation to transfer guardianship rather than kill the child. Can we find a parallel for heirs? I would have been willing to adopt the victim into my family, so I have standing to bring charges of murder against the heir? Or just anyone can bring charges against the guardian or heir? 

Anyhow, this undermines my argument.

Imagine that a pregnant woman is involved in an accident that makes her miscarry. She may be heartbroken by the death of her child, or she might feel relieved of a burden. She gets to choose the significance of that event for her. If she chose not to sue the tortfeasor, who would have standing to sue them  against her wishes? This implies she has the power to choose. If instead she confers with an abortionist to terminate her pregnancy, is this really different? If it was an accident, she is within her rights to forgive the person responsible. She could also forgive an attempt at murder against herself, though others might want to prosecute.

Does the mother get to decide, am I the guardian of a child, or the possessor of a domestic animal or lump of tissue? If I am the guardian of a child, no one may kill my child. If I am the possessor of a domestic animal, I may kill it. If the child cannot be rescued, others must accept her attitude. Once it is possible, they may rescue the child.

Can she bring the child to term and continue to consider it a domestic animal? If so, someone can sue to become guardian.  Guardian trumps owner. Can you imagine the court proceeding? One person arguing she owns the child as a domestic animal, the other side arguing that they wish to adopt the child. I think the guardians ought to win, even in the case of an actual domestic animal. If someone is willing to rescue an animal from a factory farm and make it their pet, I think they have a case. Someone willing to rescue a child from being treated as an animal has even better grounds for taking action..

When should we have empathy for the potential child? Do we have empathy for unferilized eggs and individual sperm cells? Why? Now conception happens. Why should I feel empathy for a single cell organism? The cell may divide and become embedded in the mother's womb. When should I feel empathy? I think it is when the mother commits to herself to the pregnancy. And if she changes her mind before the child can feasibly be rescued, I do not want to coerce her to fulfill her commitment. I think it should be voluntary from beginning to end. No one should hold a gun to her head, even if they promise to take custody of the child at the earliest possible and agreeable moment.

This is a draft, feel free to suggest improvements in the comments.