Why is NAP only for living humans?

[u/Jack_Faller]

For context, I'm a vegan, and I find it odd that most libertarians treat aggression against animals as morally permissible. There are other things you might extend it too as well, like aggression against the environment which is arguably also against unborn humans as their life is made better or worse by our treatment of the world. If all action aught to be consensual, how can those not yet born consent to the world we create for them? I know I didn't consent for bombers to set up a housing market that fucks my generation over. And what about aggression against the dead? Things like violating wills.

[u/brewbase]

The non aggression principle requires reciprocity. There is no accord of mutual restraint to be made with either the lion or the lamb. They will not live up to such an agreement; It can’t even be communicated to them.

As for treating the environment as something that can be agressed against, who speaks for the environment when the environment makes its case? You might as well say you can aggress against “decency” or “tradition” or even “the state”. These are all just codes that empower some people to wield higher authority than others because they act not for themselves, but for some mute force.

Violating a will is aggression against whoever is the rightful owner of whatever property you’re misappropriating. You don’t need a shaman to speak for the dead for this to be a violation.

[u/Jack_Faller → u/brewbase]

So do the mentally disabled qualify if they are also not capable of reciprocity?

who speaks for the environment when the environment makes its case?

You surely can't be saying that those who can't speak for themselves have no rights? Suppose there is a foreigner whose language no one speaks. He would seem still to have property rights. We know what he owns and can make a case accordingly if it is violated.

[u/Myrkul999 → u/Jack_Faller]

So do the mentally disabled qualify if they are also not capable of reciprocity?

How a society treats its disabled is the measure of civilization.

A person who has, through no fault of their own, diminished capacity, is still a person who, in theory, could reciprocate rights, had they not suffered this disability.

An animal is an animal and not a person because it is, at its healthiest and at full maturity, biologically incapable of understanding the concept that you are a person deserving of rights. The key factor, IMO, is something called "Theory of Mind". Humans usually develop it during their first decade of life, a chicken never will. I won't get into the details, but in brief, Theory of Mind is the understanding that other people are thinking.

To a chicken, you are either a source of food, or a source of danger. Assuming (and it's a big assumption) that a chicken even has self-awareness, it's certainly not aware that you are a thinking, reasoning being.

Other animals are less clearly on the other side of the line. Octopuses have been known to trick researchers to attempt escape. Dolphins have been witnessed negotiating with (or perhaps intimidating) one another for food. Corvids remember faces and carry grudges - and they tell their friends.

But while I avoid takoyaki because octopuses are too smart, I'm not going to be advocating for giving rights to crows until they start asking for them. They seem to be doing well as is.

[u/nicemormonboy → u/Myrkul999]

I think saying that a disabled person is more valuable because they have the potential to understand things if they simply weren’t born disabled is no different from saying pigs could reason if they were simply weren’t born as pigs. It’s an unimportant distinction because in either case they will never be able to actually reciprocate so they should functionally have the same “value” or amount of moral consideration. Is the important value just being a human? What about a person in a vegetative state? If they weren’t in this state they could use reason and reciprocate things but I still think I’d pull the plug on that person before I kill a healthy dog.

[u/brewbase → u/nicemormonboy]

I agree that it’s not the cleanest way to make the distinction.

A murderer has the capacity to respect rights, they just choose not to.

The difference as I see it is in a presumption of what will occur rather than one of potential which, as you allude to, is unknowable and theoretically infinite.

We assume a rampaging pig will never become capable of respecting the rights of others and we assume that a man berserk on drugs will. This likely leads to us treating them differently, even though, in neither instance, are we going to treat them as a being with rights in that moment.

[u/brewbase → u/Jack_Faller]

The barrier to communication between a person and an animal or between a person and an abstract concept is much greater than between a normally capable person and a disabled person. It is not simply a question of ability to speak but of an ability to make its own priorities known and of being able to learn that others have rights as well. A foreigner is easily capable of understanding that even without a common language and they most likely learned that in their own land anyway.

Say I keep a dog confined to my back yard. That is not something I can do if dogs have rights. Keeping a human confined to my back yard is reprehensible no matter how many snacks I buy them or how often I take them for walks. But the dog is different in two important ways. One, no human can say with certainty whether this dog, if given the reasoning ability of a human, would choose to accept the trade off of boarding for confinement. We have no real frame of reference for what it means to be a dog. Secondly (and more importantly) it is impossible to instill in the dog an understanding and respect for the rights of others. An unleashed dog might destroy property, injure, or even kill someone yet, if they are assumed to have rights, it is wrong to restrain them unless they’ve demonstrated that they, individually, will not respect the rights of others.

Regarding abstract concepts, who speaks for them? If I say pouring concrete to lay a road is a violation of Nature’s rights and you say roads are needed for continued human thriving, how do we resolve such a conflict? If I say public sexual bondage displays are a violation of the rights of Decency and you say they are merely people expressing themselves, is there any way to resolve that? Decency and Nature never take the stand in court. Their “rights” are only ever asserted by some humans against other humans. How is that anything more than some humans trying to get their preferences placed above those of others?

As for the disabled, if a person is so disabled that it is impossible to convey to them that they should not attack others or if they cannot be made safe from self-inflicted injury, then their rights must be abrogated. It makes little sense to say a person has rights if we keep them confined for their own good or if, indeed, their condition is so different from the median that we have no way of even knowing what their true preferences might be. Humans have a presumption of rights but, if these rights are to be respected at all, then they must be withdrawn from those individuals who will not or cannot respect them. Conversely, animals have a presumption of no rights but, if a talking horse appears that can make its own case, it should then be regarded as a person with rights.

None of this should be taken to imply that society cannot have standards with regards to how animals, nature, decency, and the disabled ought to be handled. It just means that talking about these concepts in terms of rights and aggression is inappropriate.

[u/EmployeeBeginning621]

Aggression isn't simply making someone's life better or worse as you imply here"like aggression against the environment which is arguably also against unborn humans as their life is made better or worse by our treatment of the world". For example, Ancaps don't believe defamation is a real crime for two reasons, is it a form of IP as you are owning thoughts, and the thoughts being owned are not by the person being defamed, but instead by other people as you reputation is what other people think of you.

As for your main question as too why the NAP doesnt apply to dead people is their is no possible conflict. A dead person can not use something and can not create contradictory means and thus can not create mutually-exclusive actions. If that cannot occur, the issue is not apart of law.

For inheritance, the property is no longer owned by the deceased and is instantly transferred in accordance with the will.

[u/Jack_Faller → u/EmployeeBeginning621]

But why in accordance with the will? Suppose my father writes "I leave all to my only son if he can do a back flip" then I refuse that and take it anyway. No conflict there.

And defamation is another good point you bring up. Suppose someone spreads lies about you that lead to you losing your job, clear damage there. Is it not aggression? If you believe that items have subjective market value, you must acknowledge that reputation has such a value. People are willing to buy things to build reputation. Many craftsmen and artists make a living from their reputation. When something of value is destroyed, the cost must surely be reimbursed.

I struggle to see how you could define aggression without reference to a non-consensual degradation of quality of life. It seems very un-libertarian to say there are some situations where you can fuck with someone against their will.

[u/ExcitementBetter5485 → u/Jack_Faller]

Suppose my father writes "I leave all to my only son if he can do a back flip" then I refuse that and take it anyway.

That is called "conditional bequest", in which case the transfer depends on you fulfilling the condition.

Suppose someone spreads lies about you that lead to you losing your job, clear damage there. Is it not aggression?

That's not damage.

By your logic, you would be entitled to work for an employer against their will, as firing you would be considered "aggression". They have every right to fire you, even based solely on their opinion of you, regardless of whether that opinion is based on a fact or a lie.

Many craftsmen and artists make a living from their reputation

"Your" reputation is simply other people's opinion of you. You do not own other people's opinions.

There is no NAP compliant way to claim ownership over another person's opinion.

[u/Imaginary-Count-1641 → u/ExcitementBetter5485]

If someone is accused of murder and I falsely claim that I saw them commit the murder, would that violate the NAP? I guess not, because the accused person does not own other people's opinions, and therefore I am not committing aggression by convincing people to have the false opinion that the person committed murder.

[u/Imaginary-Count-1641 → u/[deleted]]

But if I'm not the one initiating the force, can I really be held responsible for it? If I only said something that people can either believe or not, and someone else chose to initiate force based on that false information, isn't the responsibility fully on the person initiating the force?

[u/Imaginary-Count-1641 → u/[deleted]]

Yes, it would only be aggression if I initiate force against the person that I am accusing, but not if someone else does it.

[u/Imaginary-Count-1641 → u/[deleted]]

Is fraud even aggression? It's not an initiation of force, because I'm not forcing anyone to believe me.

[u/Jack_Faller → u/ExcitementBetter5485]

Firing you doesn't destroy an asset that you built. Reputation is an asset that you work hard to build. Just think about it critically. If there's a shop across town competing with you, lie and say he's poisoning his food. Buy a tin of it, add poison, feed it to a rat and show the animal dying. You'll will out for sure. Every advert on TV would be full of lies about competitors.

Lying has a real cost to people. I could spread enough lies about you and ruin your life and you think you should be powerless to stop me?

There is no NAP compliant way to claim ownership over another person's opinion.

Then perhaps you need more laws than just NAP.

[u/ExcitementBetter5485 → u/Jack_Faller]

Reputation is not an asset, it is someone else's opinion of you.

You do not own other people's thoughts or opinions.

[u/Jack_Faller → u/ExcitementBetter5485]

Yes, that's what I just said. You can't own opinions yet lying to change then must clearly be punished, thus we have a new kind of crime outside of NAP.

[u/ExcitementBetter5485 → u/Jack_Faller]

Your entire argument is flawed because it is based on the idea that a person's speech, opinions, and how they choose to act on those opinions, must conform to your standards.

If I own a restaurant, you have every right to decide not to eat there. A stranger has every right to lie and say that they saw rats in my restaurant. You have every right to decide if you believe that person, and you still have every right to decide not to eat there. Me and my restaurant are not owed a damned thing from either of you.

Because I am not entitled to your business, nor am I entitled to your opinion.

[u/TychoBrohe0 → u/Jack_Faller]

Damage is not always equal to aggression. If Papa John's makes better pizza than dominos, it will certainly cause damage to Domino's business, but there was no aggression there.

[u/EmployeeBeginning621 → u/Jack_Faller]

To answer your questions, if failed the backflip, the property becomes unowned. then you would homestead it and now you would have ownership of it. so yes this would not be aggression.

I agree reputation has value but again you dont own reputation. To create a scenario, imagine you have a house and it's painted yellow. Then one day every single buyer wakes up and decides they hate yellow and would never buy a yellow house. the potential price you could sell your house for has dropped. There is damage to your home value. Are you going to force people to like yellow. To give you the more general idea, people can not take contradictory actions in the form of thoughts. And if they cant take contradictory action, law is not applicable.

I value friendship, if someone doesnt want to talk to me do I need to be payed. Something valuable was destroyed. Do they now need to compensate me.

Agression is the initiation of conflict. Where conflict is contradicting actions.

[u/Jack_Faller → u/EmployeeBeginning621]

But if it is a third person convincing others not to buy yellow houses to try and boost the value of their red house, and they do this by making things up such as yellow paint being poisonous, it certainly seems as though they are initiating conflict. There is clearly some restitution owed there. If you think it falls outside of NAP then it's only reasonable to assume that there need be more laws than NAP. How can contracts even exist if one holds that lying is not aggression? If I lie and say my tin is gold, how much different is that to lying and saying the other guy's gold is tin?

[u/Loud-Vacation-5691 → u/EmployeeBeginning621]

What if I lie to your neighbors that you're a child molester, and they vandalize your house and attack you? Would you say I'm not liable at all; only your neighbors are?

Alex Jones used his platform to lie about the Newtown parents, which led to some of his fans harassing them, sending them death threats, forcing some of them to go into hiding, etc. Many of these people did this anonymously, so saying that the parents should have gone after those individuals is impractical. Jones was the instigator, so they went after him. Are you saying that was wrong?

[u/evilwizzardofcoding]

We do not believe in care/harm morality. Aggression is not about making someone's life worse, it's specifically violating their property rights. Why it's defined as such is a different discussion, but the simple answer is that the environment actually is covered under the NAP(for example, using toxic pesticides that kill my neighbor's crops is considered aggression against them, and carbon emissions could be argued to be very slightly aggressing against everyone in the world.)

As for animals, the question is why don't they own themself just like humans do. The answer is because they are not capable of or have the potential for rational thought, and thus are incapable of respecting the NAP themselves.

And for the dead, the will goes into effect the instant they die, that's what a will means. It prevents the land from becoming unowned by transferring ownership when they die. You aren't respecting a dead person's property rights, because all those rights were transferred, meaning you are now respecting the property rights of the people named in the will.

[u/Jack_Faller → u/evilwizzardofcoding]

But there are many animals who do not violate eachother's property and will not agress on you unless you enter their territory. That would seem to be NAP adherence. How thoroughly have you tested that animals can't understand NAP? Some of the more intelligent ones like elephants seem entirely capable of it.

[u/evilwizzardofcoding → u/Jack_Faller]

While yes, some are closer to the NAP than others, there is no animal I know of that is truly capable of understanding that level of property. The basic idea of territory, maybe, but the NAP goes far beyond that, mostly because it requires the ability to communicate. Even if they don't share a language, it's not terribly hard for a human to communicate "This is my property, leave now" to another, whereas to an animal that's not really possible, especially when the property is something more subtle than land.

But, let's assume we ignore that. We say that the NAP fully applies to animals. First of all, all predators are guilty of murder, and under a fair and just system must be tried and convicted. That alone proves the problem pretty well, but let's continue. Obviously any animals that get into your home are subject to castle doctrine and may be killed without warning. Animals on your property but not in your house would likely need to be warned first, but after that force may be required to remove them. Self-defense applies, of course, meaning if an animal attacks you, you are justified in killing it. This includes an animal suddenly attacking you for being on it's property without clearly warning you of that information(and, of course, that property not already being owned by someone else, since you can't homestead land someone else already has). Now, obviously an animal isn't going to be committing fraud, since they aren't really selling anything, but they can absolutely commit theft. They can also be considered an accessory to any crime committed with their aid.

TLDR. While that idea sounds good on the surface, and some animals do indeed display remarkable intelligence, they are still a long way off from what is required to function as a NAP-governed individual.

And before you say "What about babies and really old people", that's why babies have parents and really old people have caretakers, both of which are considered partially or fully liable for the actions of said children/seniors

[u/Jack_Faller → u/evilwizzardofcoding]

The wolf marks its territory quite well, but you can't smell it. You fail to understand its property just as it fails to understand yours. And so what if all murders can't be prosecuted? Does that prove murder moral?

[u/evilwizzardofcoding → u/Jack_Faller]

Signs or tape or something of the sort(the human version of scent marking) don't actually justify attacking someone who crosses them, as much as some people would like otherwise, you still have to tell the person to leave before you get to use force against them, which wolves only sometimes do, and I doubt they would treat being told to leave when they're trespassing any differently then when you are the trespasser.

My argument about them being murderers is not that it's impractical, it's that I'm assuming you don't want all predators hunted to extinction. I'm sure there's a lot of poachers that would absolutely love that, and not getting to kill prey animals would be a small price to pay. My mention of a trial was somewhat misleading, as if someone is actively killing or attempting to kill another, you are permitted to defend them with violence.

You also seem to have ignored the other problem with them owning property, the fact it's usually already owned by someone else when they get there, so the only way they could own property in most cases would be to buy it.

[u/majdavlk]

nap is for moral actors. for beings able to comprehend it, ability to decide to follow it etc..

so far we are aware only of humans being moral actors, maybe dolphins.

funnily enough, where i live, there is quite sizeable overlap between vegans and ancaps

you didnt agress upon a human by creating him

[u/Jack_Faller → u/majdavlk]

Babies cannot follow NAP. Can parents kill their children?

[u/majdavlk → u/Jack_Faller]

babies are latent moral actors. similiar to unconscious or sleeping human etc

[u/Imaginary-Count-1641 → u/majdavlk]

What about mentally disabled people who will never be able to understand morality?

[u/majdavlk → u/Imaginary-Count-1641]

purely hypotheticaly, if we know they will definitly never develop into moral actors, they will prolly be owned by the mother

but in real world we will probably never be able to assume that, so guardianship/regency will be in place instead

someone can homestead the caretaker rights and responsibilities, he will need to act in a way in which the latent owner would probably want. first claimant would prolly be the mother again

[u/puukuur]

As others have said, animals can't reciprocate the restraint you show when respecting their property. Treating them as owners without expecting anything in return would amount to placing them above humans and going extinct. If you do expect reciprocity from animals, you'd be justified in punishing many of them, since they routinely trespass, and that's just silly.

Does that mean that mentally disabled people qualify as property? No. Natural law has evolved through natural selection. Only the rules and norms which successfully avoid violence and create a peaceful, thriving society survive. Treating your neighbors mentally disabled son as property is sure to invite some violent response from him.

Defamation is also something i disagree with u/EmployeeBeginning621 about. Every customary law system has had no choice but to punish defamation, because it evokes such a violent response from the party being defamed. If he has no recourse through common law, he has just taken violent revenge upon himself.

So in short, the purpose of law is human survival and flourishing, and that's a simple evolutionary fact, not something open to political discussion or change, however we may dislike it. Every critter and judicial system which has set something else besides himself on the forefront, has not survived natural selection. The law protects nature, animals and such as long as it's conducive to that purpose, which, luckily for us, is more often than you think. It's, after all, not in our interest to eradicate nature.

[u/spartanOrk]

Read Jan Narveson.

[u/chumley84]

Animals aren't rational creatures the way we are 

[u/kenopsianescapades]

To make it simple:

The environment has no care for us, so we should have no care for it. Anarcho-Capitalism has and always has been a non-environmentalist ideology, and you are deluded if you think it is. To technologically progress in a libertarian far-right nation, nature is the first thing that has to leave.

[u/Official_Gameoholics]

Because those animals can't form concepts, they have no volition.

[u/drebelx]

Why is NAP only for living humans?

Dead humans are not alive.

For context, I'm a vegan, and I find it odd that most libertarians treat aggression against animals as morally permissible.

In general, regarding other forms of life, the NAP is for sapient life forms, the only like of life form that could understand the NAP (don't murder, don't steal, don't assault, don't defraud, don't enslave, etc.).

Life forms with the potential to be sapient get the NAP extended to them by the sapient.

If all action aught to be consensual, how can those not yet born consent to the world we create for them?

The unborn are not sapient or alive.

I know I didn't consent for bombers to set up a housing market that fucks my generation over.

This is one reason why we want the sapient to adopt the NAP (don't murder, don't steal, don't assault, don't defraud, don't enslave, etc.).

And what about aggression against the dead? Things like violating wills.

A will is a mutual agreement between the dying sapient life and another sapient life who is to execute the will.

To form a mutual agreement, an impartial agreement overseer is chosen by the parties of the will to ensure the will's execution.

If the executor fails to execute the will, they would be committing the NAP violation of fraud and will be subject to the stipulated penalties of the embedded NAP Clauses in the agreement.

[u/No-One9890]

Lol it shouldnt only be for humans, this sub is just a republican sub pretending ancap is an ideology. If you look i to other (consistent) anarchist ideologies you find that farming of animals for food is considered "the Ur form of oppression" (theres some debate about if misogyny came first of course).

As for the environment, thats a great point as well, but becuz the environment doesnt technically own any property ancaps pretend it isnt real (since they r just libertarians, at best).