Note: Updated and revised version included as chap. 5 of Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston: Papinian Press, 2023).
Update: Libertarian Answer Man: On Restitution going Beyond Two Teeth for a Tooth
See also:
- Ben O’Neill and Walter Block, “Inchoate Crime, Accessories, and constructive malice under Libertarian Law,” Libertarian Papers 5 (2) (2013): 241-271. Abstract: Inchoate crime consists of acts that are regarded as crimes despite the fact that they are only partial or incomplete in some respect. This includes acts that do not succeed in physically harming the victim or are only indirectly related to such a result. Examples include attempts (as in attempted murder that does not eventuate in the killing of anyone), conspiracy (in which case the crime has only been planned, not yet acted out) and incitement (where the inciter does not himself commit the crime he is urging others to undertake). The present paper attempts to analyze these inchoate crimes from a libertarian perspective, based on the non-aggression principle.
- Matt Mortellaro, “Causation and Responsibility: A New Direction,” Libertarian Papers 1, 24 (2009). Abstract: In “Property, Causality, and Liability” and “Causation and Aggression,” Hans-Hermann Hoppe and Stephan Kinsella & Patrick Tinsley, respectively, argue against the Rothbardian position on criminal liability, especially with regard to the issue of incitement. This essay takes a critical look at the suggested approaches of both and attempts to defend the Rothbardian position on incitement from their criticisms. Further, this essay examines the views of Walter Block on incitement and attempts to correct inconsistencies in his position with regard to murder contracts and threats.
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“A Libertarian Theory of Punishment and Rights,” Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 30, no. 2 (Jan. 1997): 607–45. Loyola version; PDF (my scan); text version with italics and some formatting missing.
This article is similar to “Punishment and Proportionality: The Estoppel Approach, J. Libertarian Stud. 12, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 51–73. It builds on and expands the analysis in my earlier “Estoppel: A New Justification for Individual Rights,” Reason Papers No. 17 (Fall 1992): 61–74. See also “The Genesis of Estoppel: My Libertarian Rights Theory” (Mar. 22, 2016).
An updated and revised version will be included as chap. 5 of Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023). This chapter is based on the 1997 Loyola Los Angeles Law Review article, but also incorporates some material from the 1996 JLS version that was not present in the Loyola piece. The current draft of chapter 5 is here: LFFS ch 5 draft – PDF.
Errata may be found here.
“ Any person arguing long enough to deny that truth is the goal of discourse contradicts this denial because that person is asserting or challenging the truth of a given proposition.”
This does not follow. One may refute a general statement by giving a counterexample. If the opponents of truth as the goal of discourse were arguing that “no one ever engages in discourse with discovering truth as their goal,” then their own actions would provide a self-refuting counterexample. But this is not necessarily what they assert. They could instead claim that “sometimes persons participate in discourse for purposes other than discovering truth.” This specific thesis can survive the existence of any number of counterexamples. So while that claim could be mistaken, it is not self-refuting.