Note that we are essentially discussing the end of the dream of equality of opportunity here and instead saying the poor kids should receive as poor an education as their parents economic status afford them.

..and that's all fine and dandy.

However the issue of police forces stand. Why should I pay to protect some jerk's property across town?

That is based largely on the assumption that the dream of equality of opportunity exists today. Today, are the poor given the same educational opportunity as the rich? Of course not. The difference is that in my world, the poor would at least have an option of schools that they would send their children to. The quality of those schools would not be as good as others, but again, equality in education would is not desirable. The University of California-Berkeley is a better school than the University of Oregon. Should we be outraged? No. Harvard is a better school than Northeastern. Am I outraged? No. Of course there will be differences in the quality of education at schools, that is the nature of competition and competition is what makes private schools great, just look at our colleges.
No, it doesn't stand, Turnea, c'mon. You're continuing to say something that you don't actually believe [that security is not interconnected] in an attempt to make me appear to be inconsistant. If you're not willing to admit that you actually believe that security is interconnected and that one home's security is inexorably tied with the safety of it's surrounding area, then what's the point?

CP

Ah, that's where you're wrong.

I don't believe security is interconnected and I don't need to in order to to support my own world view. Facts is those with the funds can make themselves secure without the government's help as sure as they can provide education for their children.

If Oprah hired Blackwater there's no need to call the cops, her own security has bigger guns anyway. I mean for pete's sake not too many police forces can call in an armored vehicle.

I argue that those without the funds for either should receive support from taxpayers.

Our govt is formed on the assumption that society existed prior to govt; society through its citizens hold all rights given by God; society cedes certain of those rights to form a civil govt, and the govt's authority is limited to the rights ceded to it by society.


"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." US Const Preamble

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." US Decla of Indep


Implicit in these two statements is the understanding that morality exists among men independent of govt, just as rights do. Government is a means to secure one's rights, and in so doing the law, which is the very essence of govt, may serve to codify certain elements of morality, but as our govt is a "limited" govt, limited by its Constitutional documents, then clearly the law is a minimum and incomplete standard of behavior, at best, and therefore less complete and restrictive than a moral code. Indeed, moral codes may vary in many particulars, so the law would arguably be (i) those minimum moral standards (ii) about which a discernable majority agree (iii) that are necessarily codified to create a govt to secure the inalienable rights of men.

Of course, one does not have to agree with the assumptions of our Founders about the source of man's nature and his natural rights, all of which pre-exist government.

I would suggest, as a general statement, that law is a codification of the minimum moral standards needed to create an orderly, civil society. Law can be more than this--like in a theocracy---but never less.



Why? Because if one man's property is at risk, then all men's property is at risk. The lion may not eat you first, but eat you he will....

And so do I, simply for a reason different than yours. So what exactly is the benefit from continuing to go back and forth regarding whether or not security is interconnected? Where is it actually leading us? Perhaps a different route would be the best idea. So let's try this. Remember, I have stated that the only legitimate acts of government are ones that protect the rights of the people. Do we not have a natural [not to mention Constitutional, but this isn't a law-related thread, it's philosophy] right to be secure in our persons. In a natural state of being, we are secure, it is only when other people are put into the equation that we become unsafe. So I submit to you, that if you do not buy into the theory that security is interconnected [and I don't think either one of us is changing our mind regarding that], that we have a natural right to security, whereas we do not have the natural right to education [in a natural state of being, we are not educated, we have to take care of that ourselves].

CP

I disagree. Child mortality rates teach us that we are not at all naturally secure. We have to take care of protecting ourselves.

I would also argue that we do have a right to education and I'm not alone.

It's article 26 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

greetings all (yet again)

since the topic has shifted ground to a discussion of the benefits/pitfalls of compulsory State education, i wonder to what extent such legislation was enacted in order to benefit the industrialist/manufacturing class, which, as the techniques of manufacture became ever more complex, required an literate, educated work-force.....surely this has some bearing on the place and role of compulsory public education and the struggle over curriculae?

Child mortality can be caused by several man-made reasons, and usually is. As for instances of disease, having a disease does not make one insecure, it makes one unhealthy...Which, by the way, illustrates that healthcare is not a natural right.
As for education, I obviously disagree. Simply because in the 1940s a group of people decided that education is a "right" does not make it so, and it certainly does not make it a natural right.

On edit:
Captain Swing, that's an interesting thought, but compulsory education does not equal quality education. While it is obvious that businesses and other industrial groups would benefit from a better educated society, it is also clear that such a society does not necessarily exist as a result of state-run education.

CP

I would argue that inability to retain one's life is great insecurity.

Also, we are born without property is their a natural right to that?

Being born without property and having the ability to own it in a natural state are two different things. It is natural, if we own something, for it to be ours and no one elses, therefore, taking it away from us would be an infringement, if that answers your question.
What you're talking about his health, not security, health pertains to forces within your own body, security pertains to forces outside of yourself.

CP

It doesn't. Ownership is an artificial concept.

Nothing in nature says "what's mine is mine."

I disagree. Look at it from a different angle. In nature, if a parent has a child, is that child not, "his" or "hers"? Same concept. Another example, in nature, we all need to sustain ourselves with food and water, right? So, if I kill a deer and eat it, that food was mine. Attributing one thing as belonging to another is natural, not artificial.

CP

A child is naturally a parent's in the associative sense, not the ownership sense. A country may be "my country" because I am a citizen, it doesn't mean I own any of it.

..and that covers actual property not one bit.

Laws are by definition a codification of the mores of a society. In your example above, if a society determined that indeed not following a certain religion was a capital offense, then not only would such a law likely come about but it would also follow that society's morality. There are many things that one society might consider immoral that another society does not. While I won't argue that laws can be passed in the short term that go against the mores of a society, those laws won't last long. The people that made them will lose power, and new laws will be enacted. This does not detract from the concept that laws are indeed a reflection of the mores of a society. Why else would some laws create such a furor? Consider the various gay rights issues. This is such a hot topic precisely because they are a reflection of society's morality, and some people feel it doesn't reflect their morality.




Far be it for me to disagree with Ron White! Tater Salad!

One more quibble. Laws do not necessarily reflect society. In non-democratic systems they simply reflect the wishes of the powerful.

If we want a foolproof definition we must look in the direction I mentioned earlier.

That is laws are tools for codified coercion.

Historically, consider the race issue. Despite the moral views of society these laws were removed.

This, in my opinion, is why laws are not the equivalent of the morality of the society. They are the equivalent of the morality of the State that governs the particular society.

it would seem just as "natural" then that the "RIGHT" (so called) of the STRONG to deprive the weak of their property is also a NATURAL RIGHT

i mean, if it happens in the NATURAL world, it must be a NATURAL right? eh?


(the first property was communal property - the privatization of property was hardly a "natural" occurrence - it happened in the modern era only by the backing of a strong central government and with the force attendant thereto - (cf. the "enclosure acts" of england, circa 16th century for more on the NATURAL state of common property and the alienation of a Free People from the land known as THE COMMONS)



certainly the "rights" of countless numbers of "lesser breeds" to "property" have NOT been respected by the tribunes of Private Property through-out the ages!







"quantity has a quality all its own" - j. stalin

heh

"quality" is a of a subjective nature, is it not? there are certain QUANTIFIABLE standards tho, which we can use to determine quality - and from the standpoint of business, the "quality" of an education would be reflected in the REAL world by the ability of the schools to satisfy the needs of business of an adequately educated workforce, and from this perspective, it seems that the compulsory system of State education seems to be functioning adequately

one might argue, however, that as our country's industry are still "forced" (that is a debateable point as well, as many older software engineers might possibly attest to!) to seek outside the USA for the skilled workforce they require - but how much of this is the result of a poorly functionning educational system and how much the result of a cultural bias against intellectualism?! (cf. richard hofstedter (sp?)'s book "anti-intellectualism in american life")

(questions, questions, flooding the mind ofo america's youth...")

regards,


Swing

Wow!! I know I've seen others state this, but I don't think the topic or question of debate is what we are debating.

AS concerns the topic.

I have to agree with MOIF, laws are equivelant to society to societies morals. Look morals are the social conditions placed on us since birth. They are not some innate feeling of right or wrong, they are rights and wrongs we are trained to believe in. That is why morality is inconsistent on a personal level, as well as a State level.

For instance, killing people is not morally wrong. Killing people illegally is.

So what are laws, but the conditions of what we can... but mostly what we in society can't do?? Laws tell society what is right and what is wrong.

Onto a sub-debate.

CP, you've done it now... a whole can of 'em

Truly, what are natural rights?? You think you have a natural right to anything?? The rule of the jungle states you only have a right to what you can protect, including your life.

Natural rights as we've come to understand them are man-made philosophical concepts. As such education is just as much a natural right as owning a home... if a society deems it so. Nothing is truly endowed by any creator.

If I'm hungry and you have food, do I not have the right to take that food?? Why or Why not?? You may wish to say no.... but wait.

Is food necessary for survival??
Is it a natural right to survive??

So now answer, if I have no food and you do, if I am able to take yours and you are unable to stop me is it not my natural right to survive, even if it is to your detriment??

Turnea has done the easy job which is to show you the blatant inconsistancies in your own logic. Your response is seems to be if there is no "violation of rights" it's o.k. But what I would like to know is who determined what rights are valid and which are not. How is this process tested.

It is a valid right because _________________ (fill in blank)

Droop, natural rights, by definition, cannot be man made. Natural and man made are mutually exclusive.
By taking my food you would be violating my rights, therefore your action is unethical.
This does not make sense, in large part because it is overly simplistic. Do I have the only source of food? How? Obviously if there is one meal on the planet and I have it, natural rights go out the window. Luckily that scenario is unrealistic to the point of absurdity and will play no part in society. I'll need a more realistic example in order to discuss this particular topic.
There are no blatant inconsistencies in my logic...Guess it wasn't as easy as you thought . You may disagree with it [and most people do], but it is consistant if nothing else. Droop, let me ask you the same question I asked Turnea [and I can't find his answer, it may exist, but through all of these posts I've either forgotten it or he hasn't answered], when do you consider it legitimate for the government to use force?
All rights are valid, some people just choose to invent rights that don't exist, like the "right" to education. It are those invented rights which are invalid. The easiest way to identify a false "right" is that enforcing it requires coercion. The "right" to education involve forcing people to give money to other's children [essentially]. The "right" to healthcare involves forcing people to give money to other people who are sick. The only legitimate right who's enforcement is properly handled through force, as I said, is security/defense.
Smooth transition to:
My point was attributing one thing as bound to another is natural, and essentially that is what ownership is. In addion, you didn't include in your quote my example of food. If I'm hunting and bring down an <insert animal here>, it is mine, is it not?
Captain, explain to me how someone can deprive another of property in a way that does not violate their rights? Then explain to me how you think the "strong" deprive the "weak" of property.
Again, an interesting theory, but I do not buy that the state-run education is running solely to feed the industrial complex. The theory ignores that after passing through state-run education, many [if not most] students study in private colleges where they choose their career path. I think you're giving the state and the industrial complex a little too much credit.

CP

Ownership as association are two very different things. Ownership is a concept which implies that one has a right to keep one's property. Like all abstract concepts it is artificial.


Says who?

What is this "yours" concept and where does it come from?

They are varying degrees of the same thing, that is my point. Ownership and association are closely related, my parents will always in some way be bound to me and vice versa. What I own will always be bound to me and vice versa.
Is that your answer to the question, "is it mine?" In a natural setting, if I hunt and kill something, is that food mine, yes or no?

CP

I dunno. I mean if someone snatches my wallet it ain't' bound to me no more...

My natural state, the one I was born in, is wallet less, so what right to I have to keep it?


According to nature, that depends on whether you can fight off yonder bear.

Of course it is, it simply is not in your possession. It would still be yours had a person not acted to take it away. Much like my money would still be mine if the government had not acted to take it away and subsequently give it to someone else.
Of course, you purchase the wallet to make it your property. That is undisputable and not something I'm attempting to play down. My point is that in a state under which positive law does not exist, that wallet would be your property. In other words, there is nothing that gives anyone the right to take it.

That is neither a "yes" nor a "no".

Just a thought, but if there is no natural right to property, than if you were the only person on this Earth, by definition, you could not own anything, is that right? If ownership relies on positive [man made] law, than without other people, you could not own anything. I reject that notion.

Why do you think it is wrong for someone to take another's property, Turnea?

CP

Being that law is man-made, you could. If you are a one-person society, you create the laws. You could own everything. This assumes, of course, that, being the only person on earth, you were aware of the concept of possession. In absence of other people, ownership is irrelevant.

Nor is their any natural law that gives me right to keep it. After all purchase can only take place when we "put people into the equation" as you put it.

..and nothing says they "owned" it either.


I believe there is a right to property for the same reason I believe there is a right to education. Neither are natural phenomena and I posit that rights do not come from natural status either.

I choose to believe in the right to property, which is an abstract, subjective judgment.

Well, I disagree with the premise that law is man-made, as all natural law theorists would. The ownership would certainly not be threated by anything [say, for example, taxation, or other means of confiscation], but that would not make that property any less under my ownership. It is man-made, positive law that threatens the natural conditions of ownership. If that were not the case, than in a natural state, there would be nothing to stop you from legitimately killing me and taking my possessions. In my view, that would be a violation of natural rights.

On edit:
If there is no natural law that gives me the right to keep it than there must be some law that allows someone to take it.
Right, and my question is why?

CP

Fallacy of the excluded middle.

..not all actions need to evaluable for "rightness".

In the absence of the concept of ownership involuntary changes in possession are simply neutral.


...because I choose to believe it is wrong to harm someone simply to gratify myself.

All values are choices.

And finally, we come to the ultimate source of our disagreement. I do not believe that involuntary changes of property are ever neutral...Which is essentially the definition of the natural law theorist's view on property rights. I don't think we can possibly take this particular offshoot any further than this. It all comes down to whether or no you believe that involuntary changes of property are only wrong because positive law deems it such or whether you believe they are naturally wrong. This is a philosophical disagreement, not one of logical fallacy.

Ah. So it is wrong for someone to harm someone for gratification. Would you not consider the taking of money "harmful"? With that said, would you consider the use of that money toward education [or another "social program/service"] "gratifying"? It seems as though you've just defined the "societal"/collectivist view of taxation and redistribution as "wrong".

CP

We'll see.

Does natural law theory deny the existence of any ethically neutral actions? Is winking right or wrong?

Why not exchanges of property?


Note the use of the qualifier "simply."

I don't believe it is wrong to harm someone to save my life, even though that would also be rather gratifying.

I don't believe it is wrong to inflict the harm of taxes to afford children to an education.

Natural law is not a prescribed theory for what is "ethical", per se. It only prescribes a theory for what government, or any other exterior forces should not do. It is a natural right to wink without government/exterior interference, that would be natural law's take on that gravely important issue .

Again, natural right explains what government and other exterior forces should not do. Property is a natural right because exterior forces have no right to take it.
How is that not simply gratifying the community. Education can be obtained without government interference, yet the government interferes. Positive law does not make an action inherently right. I noticed you answered no to the original question. Can I ask you then, if the government voted to reinstate segregation, why would that be wrong?

Also, and this is really just for my understanding of your ideology, Turnea, do you believe that we have "inalienable rights?"

CP

..but that put us back where we started. Why do they have no right to take it while you have a right to keep it?


As in the self-defense example other values are at play. It may gratify me to save my life, it doesn't mean it's wrong.

I believe my desire to live is paramount to someones desire to hurt me. (Unless I'm an immediate threat to someone else's well being).

I believe the benefit of public is more important that a person's wish to hold onto tax dollars.

I believe that desire to live freely trumps the desire of other to see segregation.


As ethical abstractions, yes. I also believe that they are artificial, not natural.

And again, if they do not have the right to take it, by default, I have the right to keep it. I'm holding a watch right now, you have no right to take this watch from me, nor does anyone else. As a result, I, by default, have the right to keep it, as no one can remove it from my possession.
And why is that? If man make all law and man wishes the law to separate the races, than it is only logical that that law is ethical and right.
So then it would also be ethical for man to take them away, after all, they are man-made, and if man can make "inalienable" rights, so can man take them away.

And with that, I'm done for the next few hours, dinner and a movie [anyone hear any good things about Ocean's 13?].

CP

That's circular.

What keeps me from saying they have the right to take it and that by default you have no right to keep it?


If we all stopped believing in them then yes. This is not a situation of majority rules but of ethics.

..I heard Ocean's 13 is pretty good, haven't seen it myself though.

The positive review is from a trusted source.

Okay. Then I am willing to bet that this thread is not about what it purports to be based on the very simple question posed. Positive law is man-made, natural law is unwritten. When you talk about societies it is assumed you are referring to positive law. You made no mention of natural law in your original post. The question posed is, therefore, a tad misleading. If this was about natural law, I wish you would have stated so in the original post.

But, as I stated, in absence of other people, ownership is irrelevant. If one was born without possessions and entered a world in which no other people existed, you would have no concept of possession.

I'm sorry, what "it" are we talking about? We've used so many examples, it's hard to keep them straight. You cannot have a natural right to another's property because having such a right would require force to take that property. Force, as I have stated, is only justifiable when protecting rights. If you use force to do something other than protect rights, you are naturally in the wrong. More to the point, property, along with other natural rights, existed before law, that is a fact; a fact which in and of itself make property natural and not artificial/man-made.
What if 51% of us wanted inalienable rights abolished, would that be legitimate? What makes absolute consensus necessary?
Misleading, no. Because this is such an incredibly broad, philosophical question we've branched off several times, but misleading not the right word. As to the rest of your commentary, again, property existed before law, so this is not so much a discussion of opinion/theory, but of fact. The protection of this right was enforced differently but that does not alter the fact that property existed before law and law exists, in part to protect property.

CP

Again, if you are the only member of a society, what meaning does property have? What point is there in claiming ownership of property when there is no one else around to give a damn? Protection of property has no meaning when there is nobody around to try to take it.

A state of nature is not the absense of people, it is the absense of positive law, Entspeak. The point is that property existed before LAW, i.e. in a natural state.

CP

You're the one who brought up the absence of people, CP. You stated that, in a system of positive law, if you were the only person on the planet, you wouldn't be able to own anything - you reject that notion. But, the fact is, if you are the only person left on the planet, ownership means zilch/zero/nada - ownership would be an intellectual exercise.

If law, in a natural state, existed before man, then property could not have existed before law. It would seem to me that ownership in a natural state would be an odious concept.

If that is how I came across, than I appologize. Simply stated, I misstated the definition of "state of nature". In reality it is defined as the absense of positive law, not the absense of humans. Wow, that's very embarassing, that is, in fact, what I meant to say in the beginning...and if I had, it would have saved myself and others some time and energy. I'm the natural law theorist...and I accidently misstate the meaning of "state of nature"...that is trully impressive.

Three cheers for me being an idiot.

CP

I agree with the theoretical concept that Natural Law should set the standard for Positive Law. In practice, however, the standard set tends to be perverted by the desires of those charged with implementing the standard (or the majority for which they provide representation). In essence, it is the desire that leads to ownership that creates the problem of setting an appropriate standard in Positive Law.

Ownership comes of desire and desire only occurs after an individual exists. Property is property because it is owned. In the beginning, there was just stuff. Man decided to own it. Protection of ownership, to me, doesn't seem to jive with the concept of a natural law. Property existed after natural law. Therefore, protection of ownership in positive law, would seem to be a violation of natural law.

You come into this world with nothing. If you accept natural law and that we are all equated equal from that point, then ownership does not fit into that concept.

While natural law may mean that one may do as one wishes so long as it doesn't infringe upon the rights of others, this has little to do - at its core - with ownership. That would be an attempt to adapt pure natural law to fit within the realm of a societal concept which includes the ownership of property. Kind of a "have your cake and eat it, too" situation.

I don't disagree with much of this. I would say that it is the disconnect between natural law and positive law that results in overactive government, but I do not disagree with some of what you say here.
Right, but the point is that property existed before positive law, do you agree with that or not?

That's all for me tonight, sadly, I'm working most of tommorow, see you guys tommorow night.

CP

But where and how does this disconnect occur? If natural law is something that everyone knows... the disconnect has to occur at some point. I just believe that human desire creates that disconnect.



I think there are some native societies that might disagree - at least to some degree.

Property existed the moment man gave in to desire. So, in theory, yes, I believe that it is possible that property existed before positive law. It might also be possible that there was a time when positive law existed without property. Positive Law as a true reflection of Natural Law would have no system of ownership, in my opinion. Have there been societies with a system of positive law that truly reflected Natural Law? I don't know, considering human nature, it would've been rare (or perhaps that's a pessimistic assumption), but I believe (or, perhaps, would like to believe) that such a society existed.

But considering the fact that property did not exist before Natural Law, I can't agree with the notion that ownership is a natural right.

Maybe this should be another debate, but I have to admit that I am baffled by the whole concept of "natural law." To me, that seems as impossible as "natural art." To be sure, I look at many of the wonders of nature and think them beautiful; but they are not art, which can only be created by sentient beings. In the same way, I cannot understand how there can be natural law or ethics or morality, outside of sentient beings who create them.

The obvious response to my objection is that nature is art, created by (at least) one sentient being, who also created natural law and so on. This is beyond the realm of what we are allowed to debate here. However, under a political system which is (in my view) not based on the presumption of (at least) one supernatural sentient being creating the law, I fail to see how human law can claim to be based on this hypothetical natural law; particularly since human beings have had wildly conflicting opinions on what the exact characteristics of "natural law" might be, even if they agree that it exists!

Similarly, it seems impossible for "property" to exist before sentient beings come up with the basic concept of ownership.

If there is any "natural" morality or ethics at all, it is based strictly on the fact that, as biological beings, we try to avoid pain; and since, as social animals, all human beings raised in all but the worst possible circumstances develop at least some small degree of empathy, the pain of others causes us pain. Therefore we create ethics and morality and law in order to reduce our pain.

This leaves a lot of room for thoughtful debate as to the best ways to reduce pain, of course.

You will see an attempt at creating a standard with the founding of this country's political system. The Declaration of Independence refers to Natural Law as a standard for Positive Law.



I agree.



An interesting idea that I'm going to have to toss about my brain for a bit before I can respond.

Are laws the equivilent of the morality of society?
Why, why not?

What a fun question. But I do not think that it really hits on the point you were looking for ConservPat. What is important is whose morality those laws represent. Do they constitute the morality of everyone in a given nation-state? Well that would be an absurd notion. It may even be questionable to say that laws constitute the morality of a majority of people in a nation-state. You find that more often then not that laws constitute the morality of a minority of people who are able to exert their influence on a larger population of indifferent or powerless people.

It seems that this thread has evolved into a debate on the validity of several property and its contention as a "natural right." And thats good because it is evolution that I want to highlight. No, not biological evolution or social evolution...but the philosophical and political evolution of ideas. If we want to talk about the emergence of several property as a central concept of civilization, we need to look no further than the Ancient Greeks. It has been said that the makers of the constitution of Crete had "taken it for granted that liberty is a state's highest good and for this reason alone make property belong specifically to those who acquire it, whereas in a condition of slavery everything belongs to the rulers" (Strabo, 10, 4, 16). So we can see how even the earliest of civilizations saw the connection between several property and freedom, as well as progress. Now, when it comes to the state of nature, there are various ways at which to look at the emergence of several property. The Lockean view holds that the purpose of the state is to protect property which had less emphasis on material possession but more on the life of the individual. The view that Rousseau had was that one day some guy said that "'this' was mine" and that was the creation of property - an arbitrary principle and something that I see many people on this board have adopted.

Several property emerged through thousands of years of evolution that began with the earliest artisans and traders. The blacksmith had his hammer, the sculptor had his chisel, and the soldier had his weapon. Without those possessions, they would not be a blacksmith, or a sculptor, or a soldier. It is only through an accepted notion throughout society that the blacksmith needed his hammer that several property became accepted. Simply, not everyone had the skills of a blacksmith. You could give an everyday person a hammer and they would not be able to forge a sword. But this one specific person had that ability which mean he made a useless object valuable due to the skills he expressed with it. The misconception that I am seeing, even by ConservPat , is that the law (even natural law) came first and property rights came afterwards. The truth is that property came about through no force of law or no malicious intent to gather resources for selfish purposes. Property came about through a spontaneous evolution of ideas and concepts that were seen as beneficial for the furtherment of society. And that was decided not by government, but by the people. The laws followed the principle because the benefits of creating a private sphere where goods can be protected and even traded without hindrance was seen as a no-brainer so to speak.

Spontaneous... as in out of nothing? I find that very hard to believe. In order to own something, you must first desire that thing. Without desire, there would be no concept of ownership.

But the earliest concept of several property did not originate out of desire for an object in and of itself. Early on, there wasn't anything valuable in the same manner that we considered jewels or gold valuable today. Things were valuable only in as much as they could be used to complete a desired end. Tools were the first objects of property. My example of the blacksmith fits well. Nobody desired a hammer or a chisel for its intrinsic value. What was desired was what could be achieved in using those tools. And it was only a select group of people who ahd the ability to make those tools valuable. You give a farmer a chisel and they couldn't sculp a statue. But give it to someone else and they could create a valuable artifact. It was spontaneous because the value that these objects had was based on the ability of the person who wielded them. One day a person took a chisel and sculpted a life-like statue of someone famous. There was no reason for it, it just happened. It was accepted that a mason had his chisel and that a blacksmith had his hammer. If the mason didnt have his chisel or the blacksmith didnt have his hammer, how could they sculpt or forge? Early civilizations had hereditary trades- meaning that if your father was a carpenter, so was his son, and so forth. This shows that property was also intellectual. Practical experience of a given trade had value and became a property of the family in a town or village.

I understand that the idea of a spontaneous order is difficult to grasp, but that is because it is beyond human reason. Nobody sat down and thought of it up and carried it out.

hi again CP

i just wanted to address this tiny issue

"ethics" is a science, yes? i mean, it is a part of the corpus of writings under the body of "philosophy", yes?

so to assert that an action, because it is "unethical" is, therefore, "unnatural" seems, at least to me to be somewhat of a stretch.



one can also quite easily imagine many other natural occurrences which would hardly be "ethical" to most of us 'civilized' folks..... (two carnivores fighting over a bit of carrion is as "natural" as two herbivores sharing a meal of clover, eh?)

anyway, it seems to me that man existed long before any "rights" and that our notions of "rights" are actually mere "social constructs". no right has proven to be entirely immutable throughout the history of man, as far as i can see

basically, rights derive from conflicts and struggles, and they can be lost also if WE lose them


that's what i think, anyway.

regards,


Swing

Which would give the tool an intrinsic value. An anvil would hold intrinsic value for a blacksmith... though, not necessarily for a cobbler.



I would believe that other people would've been the first objects of property.



When ever someone suggests that a particular theory is beyond human reason, I begin to laugh. A theory, which comes about as a result of human reasoning can't, by definition, be beyond human reason.

...is this not what I am saying? The tool has value for a blacksmith but not for someone else. The anvil is not deemed valuable, only what can be done with it by a person with certain skills. So, several property emerged because of what can be produced by a select few individuals, not because those individuals specifically desired the object. A person who had no smith skills never bought a hammer and put it on their wall.



I am quite curious to how you reached such a conclusion...seems kind of out of left field. Slavery does go as far back as the Ancient Greeks, but you would be wrong if you think that the Greeks saw slaves as "property" per say. In the ancient times (Greek, Roman), slaves were people who were forced to labor but this was not because they were "owned" by their masters. Many times it involved being in debt to their owner for any number of reasons. Slavery was also a spoil of war. Those dominated through force of arms were forced into slavery. The logical connection between slaves and personal property only would have occurred following a recognition of property rights...following the enlightenment thinkers. During early civilization (pre-Greco Roman times), people did not have the means to enslave others. They were nomadic at first, and then finally settled as they learned agriculture and other trades. Tools were certainly the first objects of property as they were used to hunt, build, and create.



Sure it can. The theory holds that there has never been a set guide or "plan" that was followed in the history of human progress. The emergence of various cultures, customs, ideas, etc... were the result of evolution and not reason. Much like biological evolution, cultural evolution is spontaneous and ever-adapting to environmental conditions. I find it to be hubristic to believe that human reason is limitless and that nothing in human history occurred beyond that which we had already conceived. Present day advances in technology and science have led to a number of assumptions about the ability for reason to solve problems. It assumes that all problems have a solution and also that reason alone can solve them.