An eight–step “cross examination”
The key here is to get agreement on a step–by–step basis and refer back to points that have already been agreed upon, should the other person ever contradict themselves at any point in time.
Here’s how I would approach it:
First step
Let’s say we want to establish a set of rules of preferable human behaviour that lays out what people should or should not do (ethical framework). Do you agree that at the very least the framework you come up with in the end should not allow for the mass genocides, enslavement, or displacements of large number of peaceful people by others? Do you agree that we can safely say that a framework that prevents mass genocide, imperfect and improvable as it may be, is at the very least better than one that does allow for such depredations?
So what I want to establish here is a sine qua non for any ethical framework. Everyone knows that people will not always follow rules with perfection, that’s a given. But let’s make the assumption, for the sake of the opposing side’s potential arguments, that people do follow the ethical framework we come up with with complete perfection. Shouldn’t we make sure at the very least that under that assumption the framework does not allow for any of the unspeakable horrors that we have seen throughout history? Given that people don’t follow any framework with complete precision, surely if it already allows for mass murder under perfect compliance, then how can it possibly be viable once people start deviating from the rules proposed?
If you can’t get the other person to agree with you on this, then there really is no point continuing the discussion. As you will notice reading on, agreement on this point eliminates certain tricks that dishonest and inconsistent people tend to use whenever they have no more arguments to support their ethical framework.
Second step
Do you agree that any set of rules about human behaviour is always and by necessity absolute and immutable?
This is formulated as a question but it really is an axiom. The other person needs to understand this and fully grasp it. There is no way to deny that any proposed ethical framework is immutable and absolute. There is no way around this.
Why? Well, this is because even in the most extreme case where somebody says that there should be no rules at all he is in effect proposing an absolute and immutable rule: That you should not establish or follow any ethical rules.
With the average statist you’ll be having the conversation with it’ll be a lot easier. He may say something like “No, I think the majority may, at times, change the rules imposed, through the process of voting.”
So unwittingly he is, again, proposing an immutable, absolute, and overarching rule, and that is that whatever rules the majority votes on are the rules that should be followed.
Again, don’t bother continuing the discussion unless you get agreement here.
Third step
Do you agree that any immutable human behavioural rules proposed should apply to all humans equally, no matter what their colour, religion, race, origin, location, etcetera?
This is the requirement of universality. A crucial definition for any ethical framework, just as with any other scientific framework, is that its rules need to apply to all its subjects, in this case human behaviour, equally. The idea of equality for all before the law is pretty widespread. So it shouldn’t be too hard to find agreement on this question.
You may not get a racist to agree with you here, but then, why would you want to debate a racist on such complex matters anyway!
Fourth step
Do you agree that any such set of absolute and immutable behavioural rules has to be consistent and free of contradiction?
This is testing the person on his acceptance of logic, meaning his connection to reality. Again, if someone disagrees on this fundamental point, you can stop talking to him right then and there. If one says you can have a moral framework that says “You should never rape others.” and then in the next sentence “You are allowed to rape others.”, then he’s not someone to be taken serious.
Fifth step
Okay, let’s say you find something useful in nature that nobody else has touched or used before. You take control of it and transform it for your own use. For example, you find trees, chop wood, and build a small one person cottage. Do you agree that if someone else tried to occupy your cottage against your will, that you should be allowed to assert your control over it, and, if he initiates violence against you, use violence yourself to defend it?
This is a crucial step. The answer to this question establishes property rights as derived from homesteading.
I will go through the different possibilities of rules regarding preferable human behaviour to deal with this situation now, always keeping in mind the four points that we have agreed to above:
Denial of ownership claim
Let’s say the answer is that you’re not allowed to use violence to defend your control of the property and that it’s okay for the other person to occupy your cottage and to use violence if you insist.
Thus the absolute, universal, and immutable rule would have to read “Everyone should be allowed to take control of things that another person controls.”
The rule essentially tells you not to assert any claim to things that you’re in control of. But at the same time it tells you that it’s okay to assert claims to things that others are in control of. But the very moment someone takes something from you, he takes control of it and violently asserts a claim to what he now controls in so doing.
Now you would again, according to the rule, have the right to assert your own control over the cottage against the other person’s will. It would be an endless back and forth.
So the whole rule defeats itself. You can’t establish a rule that says “You ARE NOT ALLOWED to assert claims to control things that you have gained control over and you ARE ALLOWED TO assert claims over things that you have gained control over”, and expect it to comply with the requirement of logical consistency established under the fourth step.
Democratic approach
One could say that the other person does have the right to occupy your property against your will if the majority of people within some relevant territory agree to the appropriation, in other words, “if it’s majority will”.
This would mean that any group of people could always, and at any time, kick another group of people out of their houses, if only they get fifty–one percent of the vote, or whatever other percentage the rule requires.
If the people whose homes were being intruded dared to raise a gun to assert their control, this would mean that in last resort the majority representatives would have the right to gun them down in order to gain control of the properties in question.
Thus invoking majority will, and acting in complete accordance with the principle, allows for mass genocide or at least enslavement and displacement for the disowned on a large scale, without any violation of the moral principle proposed.
So if your conversation partner agreed to the first step, then he cannot possibly support this approach to the question of property rights, since, as we said, any ethical framework should at the very least not allow for mass genocide or displacements of innocent and peaceful individuals, which our peaceful homesteaders in our example are without any doubt.
Nobody should control anything
Another consistent and universal moral rule would be to say that nobody should even homestead anything at all in the first place; that we should all be without control of any goods provided by nature.
Since I think it is safe to assume that anyone who’s debating you does not do so in the nude (at least I would hope so), this proposition can be discarded relatively quickly. But even without clothes, anyone you’re debating must be standing, sitting, or lying somewhere.
He is thus using up and controlling, at least for a brief period, room provided by nature. Thus it would look pretty silly for him to make the case for no ownership at all while violating it on every possible level.
Furthermore, if he agreed to the first step above, then it is pretty clear that he would be contradicting himself in any case here. For if humans should not take control of anything in nature they would all starve to death within a few days. Any ethical framework that desires to prevent mass starvation has to discard of this option completely and unconditionally, if it is to be taken even remotely serious.
Property rights
Another possibility to approach this question would be to say that nobody should occupy another person’s homesteaded property against his will. From this follows that the homesteader may use violence to prevent the initiation of the occupation of what he has homesteaded. Otherwise, if he was not allowed to, then we’d be back to the start, which is invalid.
This is, out of all the options of establishing an ethical rule to address the question, the only consistent one that also conforms with the four aforementioned requirements.
Sixth step
Do you further agree that if you and another person decide to exchange your homesteaded goods between one another, that no third person may initiate violence to prevent the two of you from doing so?
This question establishes the right to free trade.
If the fifth step has already been agreed upon, then the sixth step logically follows from that. If one were to initiate violence to prevent the transaction from occurring then he’d be in violation of the very property rights established for homesteaded goods under the fifth step.
Seventh step
Do you agree that nobody should be allowed to occupy, against your will, any of those goods that you have acquired in such free exchange?
This question can be approached in exactly the same fashion as question the fifth step, just that here the goods have been acquired in exchange and not via homesteading, except that point c is not relevant here since the denial of free exchange and enforcement thereof would violate the conclusions from the question in the sixth step.
This, then, fully establishes that any form of theft of peacefully acquired goods, be it homesteading or be it mutual voluntary exchange, is to be universally proscribed in any valid ethical framework.
Eighth step
Do you agree, then, that people who initiate the occupation of things that others have obtained via either homesteading or free exchange (such as government bureaucrats via taxation), are violating the absolute rules established above?
This question fundamentally establishes the unethical and immoral nature of the concept of government. It simply follows from everything that has been said above. It leads to the natural conclusion that, if one has agreed to all the prior points, the government has to be abolished completely and unconditionally.
It will be very hard to get explicit agreement here, even when people fully get in their heart of hearts that it has to be answered in the affirmative.
However, the good thing is that any counter arguments that people will advance at this point will in one way or another always contradict the points they have already agreed to before.
Conclusions
So you will now always have a way to go back to previously agreed upon principles to demonstrate to people who object to voluntaryism, that their belief system at the very least faces some serious problems that they might want to work out before flat out objecting to a system that happens to be nothing but the necessary outcome of rigorous logic and reasoning from first principle.
Also, don’t get caught up in the lure of pragmatism. People will, even after agreeing to all of the above, often say that we’re just not in a position to make such radical changes and that we have to work within the system etcetera…
Such objections are missing the point. It may be true that in our lifetime valid ethical rules will not be able to permeate all of society. But that has nothing to do with the validity of the concepts proposed. People at some point also did not believe that the earth was round until sufficient evidence was provided. Abolishionists did not harp on the practicality of abolishing slavery, but on its moral necessity. Feminists accurately pointed out that denying women the right to property ownership was immoral, nobody would say today that their ideas were invalid because they were impractical at the time.
True change takes time. What has been destroyed and eroded over multiple generations will not be fixed in the timespan of a few years or even decades. What is important is to consistently and unabashedly point out the rank immorality at the core of the system to as many open and curious people as possible. The corresponding societal changes will follow sooner or later.
Unit Four
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