What is Liberty?

[palou]

Final-Fan said:

palou said:

Yes, I should add that in the OP.

Libertarians look at an *instance* - and determine the valuation based on that.

-The vulture and the sellers both consented on the vulture purchasing those items, when that transaction happened. Yes, perhaps, other people also wanted to make a purchase - however, the seller preferred to sell all his stock immediately to the vulture. 

-Once the transaction is done, we enter a new *instance* - the property is now the vulture's. So it becomes natural that a transaction with the hurricane victims is only legitimate if the vulture consents of it. Because it's *his* property to give, not that of the sellers. 

This is in contrast to the case of Johnny Mexico, who would be willing to give *his* service/other property to outsiders, who would be equally willing to give him *their* services/property in return - however, Donald is preventing that transaction, even if both property holders would like to make it.

I see.  In that case, yes, proposal #3 is complete in the sense that it is a self-contained and consistent principle that can be applied.  #2, on the other hand, relies on something else such as morality to guide it.  However, I stand by my claim that #3 is not wholly adequate to do what we expect out of our civilization.  It's incomplete in the sense that by identifying its rigorous principle it gave up part of what I was looking for in "liberty".  For example, I would not consider free speech a transaction. 

Yes, that is an issue I have with it as well. As a whole... I feel that it's a morality that *cares* too little? I don't know.

 

I'm not really happy with any definition that I've found of liberty, so far, and I don't like the idea of guiding my decisions by something I can't define, so I try to avoid calling upon it, if possible, for now.