Thursday, January 8, 2026

Ethics

This blog post explains and defends an Aristotelian-Thomistic, Austro-libertarian ethics, grounded on the metaethics from the previous blog post.

The core argument is that if we are ethically bound to preserve the social conditions for truth-seeking (SPT), we must also preserve the objects of that search (the Intelligibility Principle, IP). By combining this with a specific “modern-scientific” Aristotelian hierarchy of being (HMSAT), I defend human rights and reject animal rights. Then, by combining that with a theory of agency, I argue that respecting private property preserves the intelligibility of the world, while aggression causes an “ontological crash,” degrading complex human plans into mere physical collisions; under the adopted metaethics, this amounts to defending a specific, limited form of the libertarian nonaggression principle (NAP). Although this ethic basically vindicates the laissez-faire result of Murray Rothbard’s demonstrated-preference theory of welfare, it does not vindicate all of his Ethics of Liberty, since we lack a suitable theory of punishment and damages, as I explain in the third part of the post, where some limitations of the theory are highlighted.

Contents

1. Intelligibility principle

This section builds the bridge between the previously constructed metaethics and the private-property ethics to be developed in the next section. This bridge is called the intelligibility principle, or IP for short.

1.1. SPT, the social-pragmatic truth-norm

The previous blog post established philosophical ethics on the fundamental deontic norm SPT, which, for ease of reference, I will restate as follows:

An act (or policy, practice, or institution) is morally permissible only if its general permission would remain compatible with the stable social enforceability of the philosophical truth-norm Τ—i.e., compatible with a social world in which people can rationally presuppose, as a standing background condition, that others will engage in truth-directed dialogue when it matters.

Therefore, it is morally impermissible (without exception) to perform, endorse, or institutionalize conduct whose permissibility would make Τ socially insecure—by licensing defections from truthful cooperation, or by undermining the background trust, standing expectations, or institutions required for ongoing inquiry.

Importantly, it was defended that SPT is absolute, that is, exception-free:

No context-indexed permissions may be granted for Τ-undermining conduct, because publicly unknowable “exceptions” destroy the very assurance that makes truth-directed cooperation stable. So SPT’s prohibitions are context-invariant: if a kind of act undermines Secure(Τ) when morally permitted, it is impermissible in every context.

1.2. Informal motivation of the IP: don’t burn the library

This blog post serves as a sequel to the previous post, “Dialogical metaethics”, which developed the social-pragmatic truth-norm, SPT. In that post, I had argued that the fundamental deontic norm (SPT) is grounded in the necessity of preserving the social conditions for philosophical inquiry, such as, specifically, the reliability of truth-telling speakers. Near the end of the post, I suggested that historical ethical theories, such as an “Aristotelian” theory and a “Kantian” theory, could be seen as grounded upon SPT, hence making SPT into a metaethical ground for ethics, which justified the title of the post. However, this was not developed in detail, and this will be done here.

The guiding thought of the intelligibility principle (IP) is that inquiry requires more than honest speakers; it requires a knowable world. It was argued that inquiry consists in seeking truth, which (as I informally conceive of it) is the conformity of the intellect to the thing. For this conformity to occur, the thing must be conformable—it must be intelligible. If the SPT commands us to safeguard the social practice of truth-seeking, it must derivatively command us to safeguard the metaphysical objects of that seeking, namely by not destroying them. To destroy the intelligibility of (objects within) the world is to burn the library of inquiry.

This post will introduce the intelligibility principle (IP), a formal constraint on conduct that flows from SPT, and illustrate how substantive ethical theories, such as a modernized Aristotelian-Thomistic (A-T) view, can be populated within this metaethical structure.

1.3. The bridge: from truth-seeking to object-preservation

The SPT, as previously defined, is a “firewall” around the truth-norm T; it forbids conduct that erodes trust in truthful communication. But consider a vandal who enters a laboratory and smashes the instruments, or burns the records, or drives a species to extinction before it can be studied. This vandal has not lied. They have not violated the conversational rules of the language game. Yet, they have clearly “blocked the way of inquiry” in a radical sense: they have reduced the quantity of truth available to be known.

If we are committed to the value of inquiry, we must be committed to the maintenance of the intelligibility of reality.

The Argument for IP.

  1. SPT Constraint: One must not act in a way that undermines the possibility of truth-seeking.
  2. Object Necessity: Truth-seeking is impossible without objects that are intelligible (capable of being understood).
  3. Decay as Sabotage: Acts that actively reduce the intelligibility of the world (making things less understandable, less structured, or removing them from the domain of higher-order laws) function as ontological sabotage of inquiry.
  4. Conclusion (IP): Therefore, one has a pro tanto duty to avoid decays in intelligibility and to preserve (or maximize) the intelligibility of the world relative to a given hierarchy.

1.4. Formalizing the Intelligibility Principle (IP)

We can formalize this within the philosophical conduct-defense dialogue (ΦCD) score.

The Intelligibility Measure. Let 𝒪 be the set of objects in the world (or the relevant domain of action). Let H be an Intelligibility Hierarchy—a ranking relation ≽H that orders objects based on their degree of intelligibility or “ontological richness.”

We posit a function IH(x) which assigns an intelligibility value to an object x based on its position in H.

The Principle. The Intelligibility Principle (IP) states that for any action α transforming a set of objects X into X′, the action is defensible only if ΔIH(α) ≥ 0. Roughly, “do not lower the intelligibility of (anything in) the world.”

This transforms ethical conduct into a game of ontological maintenance. When challenged (“Why did you do X?”), the agent’s defense must take the form: “My action preserved or enhanced the intelligibility of the materials involved,” or at least, “My action did not result in a decay of intelligibility.”

We say, “do not lower the intelligibility of (any part of) the world”, and not, “do not lower the net intelligibility of the world (as a whole)”. The social-pragmatic truth-norm, as was argued in section 8.2 of the metaethics, can only support absolute deontological rules; if a “Compensation Principle” were admitted, which would make it permissible, for instance, to lower the intelligibility of the West region of the world in order to create an expected greater increase in the intelligibility of the East region, then truth-seeking inquiry into the West region would not be secure, violating the security of the truth-norm. It is permissible to make something more intelligible—possibly temporarily making it less intelligible as a mere intermediate step, as when you must take something apart before putting it back together into a higher-intelligibility configuration—but not if it comes at the cost of making something else less intelligible.

1.5. Choosing the hierarchy H

The formal principle ΔIH(α) ≥ 0 is empty without a specified hierarchy H. What makes one thing “more intelligible” than another? This is where metaethics (the formal structure of ΦCD) meets substantive metaphysics.

Different ethical theories can be understood as competing proposals for H.

  • Deep Ecology: Might propose H where System > Individual.
  • Utilitarianism: Might propose H where Sentient > Non-sentient (based on the intelligibility of “states of welfare”).
  • Aristotelian-Thomism: Proposes a hierarchy where humans (rational sensitive living beings) > animals (sensitive living beings) > “plants” (living beings) > inanimate objects (nonliving beings).

Since I ultimately support a form of Aristotelian-Thomism, I will now elaborate upon how this can be supported via SPT+IP, but I will come back to other possible hierarchies after doing so. In the next subsection, I will drop the quotation marks and continue to speak as though plants lack sensation, which is not accurate in contemporary terms, but is part of how Aristotelian-Thomism was historically formulated.

1.6. Historically plausible justifications for Aristotelian-Thomism

I claim that it is not a departure from tradition to interpret Aristotelian-Thomism as being supported by SPT+IP. In order to support this claim, I give two historically plausible interpretations of how Aristotelian-Thomism can be supported by SPT.

  1. Nested Souls: The rational soul (human) virtually contains the powers of the sensitive soul (animal), which contains the powers of the vegetative soul (plant), which also contains whatever powers are had by physical things in general (inanimate objects). Intelligibility is to add powers.
  2. Internalization of Causes: An inanimate object has only the material cause of its movements within itself; it is moved entirely from without. A plant, in addition to the material cause, internalizes the efficient cause of (at least some of) its movements, since in self-movement/growth, the efficient cause is internal to the movement. An animal, in addition to the material and efficient cause, also internalizes the formal cause of its movements, since via sensation, it receives the forms of other things without their matter. Finally, a human, by means of rational agency, internalizes the final cause of its movements, directing himself toward ends explicitly understood. Intelligibility is to add internalized causes.

Although historically plausible, these justifications are vague. How does the ontology of powers work? Precisely in what sense do these movements “internalize” the four causes? How is one to defend the idea that all-and-only the four Aristotelian causes are involved in understanding something? I have no idea, and I do not envy the theorist who wants to pick up the project of defending ancient ideas as thoroughly as that. In what follows, I will reconstruct the Aristotelian-Thomistic hierarchy using a modern theory that doesn’t require answers to any of these questions, but which it is not historically plausible that any historical Aristotelian-Thomist ever held.

1.7. Modern scientific justification for Aristotelian-Thomism

For the contemporary theorist, we can justify HA-T by looking at explanatory depth via the scope of scientific laws applicable to an object. An object is more intelligible if it is the subject of more (and more complex) scientific domains.

  • Inanimate Objects (Class IV): Exhaustively described by Physics. (Intelligibility: Low. Governed by universal, blind mechanism.)
  • Living Organisms / “Plants” (Class III): Described by Physics + Biology. (Intelligibility: Medium. They exhibit functions, homeostasis, and evolution, which provide additional regularities and explanatory constructs; they are “physics-plus.”)
  • Sentient Animals (Class II): Described by Physics + Biology + Psychology. (Intelligibility: High. They have maps of the world; as subjects of experience, they can be understood in terms of representations, learning, affect, etc.)
  • Humans (Class I): Described by Physics + Biology + Psychology + Economics (Game Theory/Rational Agency). (Intelligibility: Maximal. Humans are agents in the space of reasons, intelligible as rule-followers and reason-givers. They are predictable not just by causes, but by rational incentives and norms, and as such, they require the norm-governed sciences of agency: economics, sociology, history, law.)

Under this modern-scientific A-T hierarchy (HMSAT), “raising” matter from the level of mere physics to the level of economics/agency is an objective gain in intelligibility. Intelligibility is about including an object under the laws of more sciences; “higher intelligibility” means that more autonomous explanatory levels are needed, and those levels are exactly what make the object intelligible in richer ways. This ties intelligibility to the actual structure of accepted inquiry-practices, rather than to disputed ontology. (If you enjoy using an ontology of grounding, where physics grounds biology and biology grounds psychology, etc, then it is also clear how you can use this here; I personally don’t care to do so, at the moment.)

1.8. Applied ethics via SPT+IP

With the metaethical framework (SPT+IP) and the specific hierarchy (HMSAT), we can derive concrete duties.

1.8.1. The ethics of diet (the “metabolic upgrade”)

Is it permissible to eat a cow?

  • The Challenger: “You destroyed a sensitive being! You violated the IP.”
  • The A-T Defender: “On the contrary. I took matter that participated in the laws of Psychology (the cow) and assimilated it into a form that participates in the laws of Rational Agency (me). The metabolic process is an engine of intelligibility upgrade. It lifts matter from a lower rung of H to the highest rung.”

In this view, nutrition is the physical process of imposing a higher form (Human) onto lower matter (Plant/Animal). Since Human > Animal in HMSAT, ΔI > 0.

1.8.2. The prohibition on homicide (the “ontological crash”)

Is it permissible to kill an innocent human?

  • The Action: Transitioning an object from Human to Corpse.
  • The Analysis:
    • Before: Object is subject to Economics, Psychology, Biology, and Physics.
    • After: Object is subject only to Physics (and perhaps transient Biology during decay).
  • The Calculation: This is a catastrophic collapse of intelligibility (ΔI ≪ 0). You have deleted an entire domain of laws (Agency) from that locus of reality.
  • Verdict: Indefensible under IP.

1.8.3. Animal rights versus A-T

This framework clarifies the disagreement between A-T and Animal Rights theorists. They are not arguing about “sentiments”; they are arguing about the structure of H.

  • Animal-rights H: Intelligibility is binary or flattened: Conscious > Unconscious. Under this H, eating a cow (Conscious → Human metabolic fuel) is a loss, because the “Conscious” status of the cow is destroyed, and the human was already conscious (diminishing returns).
  • Aristotelian-Thomistic H: Intelligibility is nested/cumulative. Under this H, the specific kind of consciousness (Rational vs. Sensitive) matters, making the assimilation defensible.

1.9. Conclusion: SPT+IP is pluralistic, but I am not

The beauty of the SPT+IP framework is that it allows for rigorous ethical debate without collapsing into relativism. The meta-norm is fixed: We must preserve the conditions of inquiry (SPT) and the intelligibility of the world (IP).

The debate then shifts to the proper form of the hierarchy H. Is the modern-scientific A-T hierarchy correct? Or does modern science suggest a different ordering (e.g., biocentrism)?

By forcing interlocutors to defend their specific Intelligibility Hierarchy, we move ethics away from mere intuition and toward a structural analysis of how our actions affect the knowability of the universe. In this way, ethics becomes the practical wing of metaphysics—the stewardship of the world’s intelligibility.

All that said, I think the modern-scientific A-T hierarchy (HMSAT) is more plausible than any alternative, so I will use it to build what follows. HMSAT clearly ties intelligibility to the domains of sciences, which seems like what intelligibility should be about. Utilitarians/consequentialists are usually explicit opponents of the absolute social-pragmatic truth-norm SPT, and it would be surprising if anything like their theory can be supported under it; no other theory comes to mind as worth addressing.

2. Agency ethics

This section takes SPT+IP and HMSAT for granted and builds a libertarian ethics upon it. It builds upon the proposal that I had vaguely hinted at in my critique of demonstrated-preference theory, but with a bunch of extra formal and academic scaffolding.

2.1. Informal motivation: human action is purposeful behavior

Ludwig von Mises begins his magnum opus, Human Action, by saying “human action is purposeful behavior”. Murray Rothbard, likewise, began his work Man, Economy and State by saying that “the distinctive and crucial feature in the study of man is the concept of action”, where “human action is defined simply as purposeful behavior”. The broad orientation of the libertarian ethics hereby attempted is to think that this stuff is pretty important, and that therefore, we may take human actions to be all-and-only those human behaviors which are assigned entities called “purposes”. Fundamentally, the way to understand human actions is to reason about their purposes, as well as the formal implications of the idea that human actions have purposes, which is the object of praxeology.

In the context of SPT+IP, if we claim that the concept of purposeful behavior adds additional regularities and explanatory constructs over and above the broader concept of behavior, then we are claiming that agents’ standing capacity to form, express, and execute purposes is also an object of intelligibility, to be protected by the intelligibility principle. Hence, we must avoid decay in this standing capacity, which happens whenever a purpose is thwarted. For the sake of inquiry, we must avoid unresolvable purpose-conflict.

When this theoretical target is achieved, we will get a result that supports (one conception or construal of) the traditional libertarian nonaggression axiom or non-aggression principle (NAP). But I emphasize here that this target goes beyond merely prohibiting aggression, in one important way: the informal idea of aggression (domination, intimidation, violence) is clearly a direct T-violation (it violates the pragma-dialectical Freedom Rule, for instance) and therefore directly contrary to SPT, without needing to bring in IP, nevermind HMSAT or agency theory. By contrast, libertarianism requires, and is entitled to require, a stronger notion of “aggression” which includes all violations of legitimate private property, acquired via an unbroken chain of nonfraudulent voluntary transactions leading back to self-ownership and the original homesteading of unowned property. This fuller, more substantial theory understandably requires stronger theoretical assumptions, and it is what I will derive here.

2.2. Background on agency theory: McCall and stit

We think of agency using a branching time model, drawing on the branching-time model of agency in Storrs McCall’s A Model of the Universe, as well as STIT (see-to-it-that) logic (a standard kind of logic of agency, which also uses branching time). I won’t explain this background in much detail. Basically, by using stit logic, we define a “purpose” as the act of constraining the open future to a specific subset of histories, which aligns with Storrs McCall’s view of the agent as a mechanism that selects its own future from a “Choice-Set.”

Storrs McCall models the universe as a branching structure where agents (by construction) face real “Choice-Sets” (multiple physically possible futures). Here, a “purpose” is formalized using the deliberative stit ($dstit$): an agent exercises agency by partitioning these possible histories and selecting a subset to actualize.

Property rights emerge as normative constraints on the branching structure to prevent historical impossibility (conflict). Since two agents cannot actualize disjoint sets of histories involving the same object simultaneously, the “first engager” acquires the right to dictate which branch the object follows.

2.3. The background: branching time and objects

We begin with the standard Horty/Belnap stit structure, augmented with an object ontology.

2.3.1. The temporal frame

  • Tree: A set of moments $M$ ordered by a tree-like precedence relation $<$.

  • Histories ($H$): A history $h$ is a maximal linear chain of moments.

  • Indices: Truth is evaluated at a pair $m/h$, where $m \in h$.

  • Open Future ($H_m$): The set of all histories passing through moment $m$. These represent the indeterministic possibilities physically available at $m$.

2.3.2. The object layer

  • Objects ($\mathcal{O}$): A set of physical entities (resources, bodies).

  • Trajectories: For every object $x \in \mathcal{O}$ and history $h$, there is a specific physical state-trajectory of $x$ along $h$.

  • Incompatibility: Two propositions $A$ and $B$ concerning object $x$ are physically incompatible at $m$ if they require $x$ to be in different states at the same future time. Formally:

    $$|A|_m \cap |B|_m = \emptyset$$

    (There is no single history where both $A$ and $B$ are true).

2.4. Agency: the Choice-Set and “purposes”

Following McCall, agency is the capacity to select from a Choice-Set. Following Horty, we formalize this via the Choice Function.

2.4.1. The choice partition

For agent $\alpha$ at moment $m$, the Choice Function $Choice_\alpha^m$ partitions the open histories $H_m$ into cells.

  • Each cell $K \in Choice_\alpha^m$ is a possible action.

  • By acting, $\alpha$ selects one cell $K$, thereby “pruning” the tree: $\alpha$ ensures the actual history will be within $K$.

2.4.2. Purpose as dstit

In action, agents demonstrate that they have a purpose to fulfill with an object. We identify a “demonstrated purpose” with the Deliberative Stit ($dstit$). A purpose is an effective constraint on the future.

Definition: Purpose (Demonstration). Agent $\alpha$ demonstrates a purpose $A$ at $m/h$ iff:

$$[\alpha \text{ dstit: } A]$$

This holds iff:

  1. Guarantee (Cstit): $Choice_\alpha^m(h) \subseteq |A|_m$ (The agent’s action guarantees $A$ will happen).

  2. Negative Condition (Non-triviality): $|A|_m \neq H_m$ (A was not inevitable; the agent made a difference).

This captures McCall’s requirement that agency involves selecting one branch over another.

2.5. Engagement: the ontology of use

We link the logical operator ($dstit$) to physical objects.

Axiom 1: Object-Involving Actions. A purpose $A$ is “Object-Involving” for $x$ if the truth of $A$ depends on the physical trajectory of $x$.

Definition: Engagement ($Eng$). An object $x$ is engaged by $\alpha$ at $m$ if $\alpha$ sees to it that $x$ undergoes a specific trajectory $A$:

$$Eng(\alpha, x, m) \iff \exists A [ (\alpha \text{ dstit: } A) \wedge \text{Involves}(A, x) ]$$

Axiom 2: Persistence of Engagement (Original Acquisition) If $x$ is unengaged (no agent is currently constraining its trajectory) and $\alpha$ performs $[\alpha \text{ dstit: } A]$ involving $x$, then $x$ remains engaged by $\alpha$ along the realized history until $\alpha$ explicitly performs a “release” action.

  • Intuition: By narrowing the open future regarding $x$, $\alpha$ captures $x$ into their agency-trajectory.

2.6. Conflict and the logic of property

Here is where the branching time model clarifies the libertarian “conflict.”

2.6.1. Definition of conflict

A conflict is an attempt by two agents to actualize disjoint sets of histories simultaneously.

At moment $m$:

  • $\alpha$ attempts $[\alpha \text{ dstit: } A]$ (restricting future to set $K_A$).

  • $\beta$ attempts $[\beta \text{ dstit: } B]$ (restricting future to set $K_B$).

  • If $K_A \cap K_B = \emptyset$, there is no possible history that satisfies both. This is a metaphysical impossibility labeled “Action Conflict.”

In ideal theory, $\beta$ could touch $\alpha$’s property if they knew for certain it wouldn’t conflict with $\alpha$’s choice. However, in application, $\beta$ cannot see $\alpha$’s internal Choice Function ($Choice_\alpha^m$). $\beta$ only sees the physical object.

Because $\beta$ does not know which future $\alpha$ is selecting, $\beta$ must treat all manipulations of the object as potentially incompatible with $\alpha$’s will. Thus, the property right manifests as a total right of exclusion (veto) to ensure the integrity of the agent’s capacity to navigate the branching future.

2.6.2. Property as priority of choice

To avoid the “wrongness” of conflict, we establish a normative priority over the branching structure.

Definition: Ownership (Right to Constrain). If $Owns(\alpha, x)$, then $\alpha$ has the exclusive authority to partition $H_m$ with respect to $x$.

The Exclusion Axiom (Veto Power): If $Owns(\alpha, x, m)$, then for any $\beta \neq \alpha$:

$$\text{Forbidden} \Big( [\beta \text{ dstit: } B] \Big) \quad \text{if } B \text{ is incompatible with } \alpha\text{‘s open possibilities for } x.$$

Because $\beta$ cannot know exactly which history $\alpha$ will select within $\alpha$’s choice cell (the epistemic opacity constraint), $\beta$ is forbidden from narrowing the histories regarding $x$ at all without permission.

  • Result: $\beta$ must choose a partition that is “neutral” regarding $x$ (i.e., compatible with any choice $\alpha$ might make).

2.7. Self-ownership: the McCall mechanism

Storrs McCall defines a free agent as an “indeterministic mechanism that selects its own future states.”

Derivation of inalienable self-ownership:

  1. The Body as Selector: The agent is the physical mechanism (brain/body) performing the selection of histories.

  2. Necessity of Use: To perform any choice $K$, the mechanism (body) must undergo the physical state transitions required to select $K$.

  3. Universal Engagement: Therefore, for any action $[\alpha \text{ dstit: } \phi]$, $\alpha$ is necessarily seeing to it that their body behaves in a certain way.

$$\forall m, \forall h: Eng(\alpha, Body(\alpha), m)$$

  1. Conclusion: An agent can never “disengage” their body while remaining an agent. The body is permanently engaged; thus, self-ownership is standing and inalienable.

That is, every action engages one’s body, and no action can explicitly disengage it. Due to the persistence of engagement, it follows that every agent, as long as they still exist as an agent, is always engaged (in action) with their body.

2.8. Contracts as conventional stit-events

Contracts are treated as specific types of “Seeing to it.”

Definition: Contractual Stit. A contract is a speech act $S$. Performing $S$ is a stit-event:

$$[\alpha \text{ dstit: } \text{Signed}(C)]$$

Convention (The Transfer Function): By social convention, if $[\alpha \text{ dstit: } \text{Signed}(C)]$ occurs, and $C$ specifies a transfer of object $x$ to $\beta$, the normative status changes in the branching frame:

  1. $\alpha$ “releases” the constraint on $x$.
  2. $\beta$ acquires the “Right to Constrain” (Ownership) of $x$ in all subsequent histories $h > m$.

2.9. Overview of metaethical grounding

To tie the agency logic back into the metaethics a bit more clearly: a plan is a teleological structure linking means to ends across time. Under HMSAT, a “Plan” is a Class I object. It is a structure composed of physical resources, biological effort, and psychological intent, held together by the laws of Rational Agency. An example:

  • Physical Object: A pile of wood. (Class IV)
  • The Plan: The wood is being dried to build a shelter for the winter. (Class I)

The wood, qua physical object, is governed by combustion and decay. The wood, qua capital good in a plan, is governed by time preference, marginal utility, and purpose. The latter description contains the former, but adds a layer of intelligibility. We can now precisely define libertarian “aggression” (a property-rights violation) in terms of the Intelligibility Principle.

Definition: Aggression (libertarian definition). Aggression occurs when agent $\beta$ interferes with object $x$ (owned by $\alpha$) in a way that creates a conflict with $\alpha$’s demonstrated purpose $A$.

This violates SPT+IP under HMSAT because, when $\beta$ aggressively seizes the wood from $\alpha$, $\beta$ is ignoring the Plan (Class I status) embedded in that object. $\beta$ interacts with the wood merely as a physical resource (Class IV) available for capture, or at best, interacts with $\alpha$ as a biological obstacle (Class III/II) to be overcome by force. By overpowering $\alpha$’s will with physical force, the interaction shifts from the domain of Argumentation/Contract (where Class I agents coordinate plans) to the domain of Ballistics (where physical bodies collide). Furthermore, the “Plan” is destroyed. The intelligibility of the situation drops. Before the aggression, the wood was intelligible as “capital for a shelter.” After the aggression, the link between the agent’s mind and the object is severed by brute force. The high-order laws of economics (voluntary exchange, planning) are suspended and replaced by the lower-order laws of raw power (mechanics). So, aggression (in the libertarian sense) is an ontological retrogradation; it forces reality to operate at a lower level of intelligibility than it did previously.

$$\text{Aggression} \implies \Delta I_{MSAT} < 0$$

To respect property rights is to maintain the world at the level of agency; to violate them is to drag the world back down to the level of zoology or physics.

Using the stit logic: let $\alpha$ have a plan $A$ involving $x$: $[\alpha \text{ dstit: } A]$. This plan presupposes the stability of the branching structure regarding $x$. If $\beta$ intervenes without consent, they introduce a chaotic variable into $\alpha$’s Choice-Set. $\alpha$ can no longer rationally “see to it” that $A$ occurs because the correlation between $\alpha$’s volition and $x$’s trajectory has been randomized by $\beta$. This destroys the predictability of the agency-environment interface. If property rights are not respected, the environment becomes unintelligible to the agent. One cannot plan (Class I activity) if objects behave randomly (due to theft). Hence, permitting aggression makes the high-order intelligibility of “an economy” impossible.

3. Directions for further development

This section makes some observations about this framework that I thought might be interesting to include.

3.1. Vindication of Rothbard’s welfare economics

In my blog post on Murray Rothbard’s demonstrated-preference theory, I pointed out the difficulty of grounding Rothbard’s reconstruction of welfare theory merely on the idea that “if, at time T, an agent S exhibits a behavior B voluntarily, then S demonstrates a preference for engaging in B at T” (VBDP principle). I pointed out that Rothbard also took for granted the further, stronger principle:

PPDP: At every time T, every agent S demonstrates a preference for continuing to possess, without any unconsented disturbance from any other agent, all goods that S currently legitimately owns and is not currently in the process of giving away, trading away, or throwing away.

And it seemed unclear how to derive this merely from Rothbard’s broad considerations about how “choice reveals preference”, but this was needed to derive Rothbard’s laissez-faire result, that (as I phrased it) “all-and-only actions that do not interfere upon legitimate private property can be said to increase social utility.”

The present framework has derived, from a very general model of agency (as well as SPT+IP+HMSAT, a concept of defensibility-in-dialogue which is at least congenial to Rothbard) a constraint on defensible behavior which permits all, and only, the types of behavior that Rothbard considered as nondecreasing of social utility. Although this is explicitly a moral norm, and not value-free (wertfrei), it is at least interesting how closely this approximates the very general and formal type of reconstruction of welfare economics that Rothbard was aiming for.

Although this theory is not value-free, I believe that it is at least stated in a clear enough form for the development of economic theory. To keep his theory value-free, an economist need only assess whether some outcome is in accordance with the NAP without, as an economist, defending the NAP itself (or its negation).

3.2. Pluralism on punishment, contract, and property

It is possible, from the version of the NAP defended here, to defend most of the results in Murray Rothbard’s The Ethics of Liberty, such as on bribery, animal rights, lifeboat situations, theft, and the illegitimacy of the state. The agency theory explicitly defines contracts as title-transfers, which also aligns with Rothbard’s conception of contract. A plausible interpretation of “demonstration-in-action” may also vindicate Rothbard’s results on children’s rights, but further work is needed to be sure of this.

3.2.1. No theory of punishment or damages

However, it is definitely not possible to derive Rothbard’s theory of punishment just from the NAP as given here. Rothbard himself did not attempt to do this, and instead, he simply postulated an additional axiom to support his theory of punishment:

Secondly, we may ask: must we go along with those libertarians who claim that a storekeeper has the right to kill a lad as punishment for snatching a piece of his bubble gum? What we might call the “maximalist” position goes as follows: by stealing the bubble gum, the urchin puts himself outside the law. He demonstrates by his action that he does not hold or respect the correct theory of property rights. Therefore, he loses all of his rights, and the storekeeper is within his rights to kill the lad in retaliation.

I propose that this position suffers from a grotesque lack of proportion. By concentrating on the storekeeper’s right to his bubble gum, it totally ignores another highly precious property-right: every man’s—including the urchin’s—right of self-ownership. On what basis must we hold that a minuscule invasion of another’s property lays one forfeit to the total loss of one’s own? I propose another fundamental rule regarding crime: the criminal, or invader, loses his own right to the extent that he has deprived another man of his. If a man deprives another man of some of his self-ownership or its extension in physical property, to that extent does he lose his own rights. From this principle immediately derives the proportionality theory of punishment-best summed up in the old adage: “let the punishment fit the crime.”

I’m not sure on what grounds or authority Rothbard decides to “propose another fundamental rule regarding crime”, which he does not bother to justify. To be sure, his idea is more reasonable than unlimited revenge, but that is all that can be said in its favor. Even assuming that the rule can somehow be justified, how are “extents of deprivation of rights” to be determined? That’s a question for the defenders of proportionality, among which I am not.

The ethics, as it stands, is completely pacifist, allowing no punishments that interfere upon the convict’s body or property without the convict’s consent. It also has no theory of damages: if I steal my neighbor’s car and damage it, property theory implies the car should be given back, that is, in its current state (since until it is given back, my neighbor’s property-right is continuously being violated), but the theory has no resources to derive the idea that I owe my neighbor compensation for the damages to the car, nevermind the precise extent of this compensation. This is another issue that Rothbard solved with an arbitrary postulate, his “two teeth for a tooth” rule, which is also indeterminate in application.

However, it is possible that some form of punishment (and damages) can be defended within our metaethics, SPT+IP+HMSAT, as overriding the action-conflict norm. This could, in principle, be made plausible, although I don’t know precisely how. For instance, a rehabilitative theory may see an intervention upon the convict’s body (such as by imprisonment, stripes, or therapy) as reforming the convict’s character and thereby making the convict more intelligible as an agent. This is something that someone should explore, but which I do not.

The present conception of the NAP, then, establishes a presumption of pacifism and a duty of restitution, with an undeveloped possibility, in principle, of a theory of justified punishment and forced compensation for damages. In saying nothing about how to develop such a theory, the present ethic is pluralist regarding conceptions of punishment.

3.2.2. Pluralism about contract and property

The theory is explicitly pluralist regarding how precisely contracts should be formulated, since it explicitly designates contracts as a social convention. The theory is somewhat more specific regarding property, which is appropriated by engagement of objects in action, and it does not accept the so-called “Lockean proviso”, favoring instead a “maximally permissive view of original appropriation” (SEP). However, the theory is, in some ways, pluralist about property itself, as I will explain now.

Edward Feser, in his Reply to Block on Libertarianism is Unique (PDF), pointed out that some questions are left indeterminate by the theories of self-ownership and nonaggression, as follows:

  1. Is there a right to suicide? As Feser points out, Locke says there isn’t. Our theory provides a strong prohibition against intervening upon a human body without consent, but our chosen metaethic grounded a rather strong prohibition against homicide (see section 1.8.2) which had no exception against self-directed homicide. Which of these ideas should prevail – may I intervene, by force, to stop my neighbor from committing suicide? Although most libertarians today would say I mayn’t, this theory takes no position on this, since it is possible, in principle, that homicide (including suicide) makes the world so much less intelligible that a violation of private property can be justified to prevent it.
  2. For the same reason (tension between the property-norm and the homicide prohibition), the theory takes no position regarding the far-fetched example Feser gives where a mad scientist, Jones, uses a device to suck all the oxygen out of the surrounding (unowned) square mile, leaving Smith only one minute of air in his immediate vicinity, and therefore very likely to soon suffocate. Has Jones murdered Smith? The theory takes no position on this.
  3. Feser says that if a child’s moral powers are formed by habituation, then a public culture of “sexual debauchery” or specific definitions of marriage (e.g., same-sex marriage) could be seen as damaging a child’s moral development, and thereby doing harm to the child. Feser’s idea can, in principle, be defended within the SPT+IP+HMSAT metaethic as something that overrides the libertarian property-norm: Feser need only make his theory of human development more explicit, and thereby show that habituating a child into sexual debauchery makes the world so much less intelligible (by destroying some form of higher-order human structure) that it is permissible to violate private property to protect children from such deviant upbringing. Our libertarian ethic can take no position regarding the possibility, in principle, of showing this.

Feser has two other examples of indeterminate property situations which are settled by our maximally permissive view on original acquisition, however. Namely, Feser considers a case where a person acquires all rights to the water supply in an isolated territory through perfectly just transfers, and then refuses to give water to the inhabitants or charges them crippling prices, knowing they cannot leave. Alternatively, Feser considers a situation where a mad scientist uses a device to make unowned objects disappear the moment you reach for them. Both of these examples may be very annoying, but it is clear that they do not violate the property-norm as here developed, and it is not clear how a different verdict on them could possibly be conceived of as defensible within the adopted metaethic. So much, then, for Feser’s examples.

I do not consider all of this very important. There are many clear cases of theft, and forbidding those is the core of libertarian theory. Once a society has this down, as our society doesn’t, then it can have civilized debate about the particulars, and reasonable people may disagree on those, with different persons favoring different conceptions of punishment and damages, standards of formulation of contracts, constraints upon homicide prevention, etc.

3.3. Scope of philosophical ethics (caution against intuitions)

Whoever thinks of pressing an objection against this ethics because it clashes with his moral intuitions must first consider the very limited scope of philosophical ethics as understood here. Philosophical ethics, as understood in light of the dialogical metaethics, is grounded on the necessary constraints for safeguarding truth-seeking inquiry, as such; it consists of all-and-only moral rules such that, if you propose that violating them may sometimes be right, you are, in an important sense, endangering inquiry, and hence may be legitimately ignored by a truth-seeking inquirer, much as Socrates ignored Thrasymachus’s suggestion that might makes right, since it is not possible to seek the truth when that sort of attitude is adopted.

Hence, appeals to “moral intuitions” are simply illegitimate in the context of philosophical ethics as understood here, unless they make an attempt to ground their moral norms on the social-pragmatic truth-norm SPT. All such objections must, therefore, be understood as doing something different from philosophical ethics, and irrelevant to it.

This view is narrow, but it has its motivations; I, for one, consider that the concept of “intuitions” is ruinously destructive of reasonable conversation, and I want nothing to do with it. I think it is really impossible to argue in a truth-seeking way with someone who wants to pretend that the vague feelings inculcated by his cultural background are somehow rational, by calling them “intuitions”; it is obvious that conflicting cultural backgrounds may equally do this, and with equal legitimacy. At any rate, philosophical ethics, as I understand it, is not concerned with that sort of thing, although other language games may very well countenance it.

Illustration for this post, drawn by Nano Banana.
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