Anti-Coericion/Non-Agression/Zero Agression Axiom/Principle

Link This is my favorite ethical principle. Since, there was another ethical thread, I decided to post my favored ethics. I view it as essential to all correct ethics. Self-ownership is also an important concept. Liberty is one of the thee unalienables. Negative liberty and Positive liberty are two subarticles. The former is associated with individualism, classical liberalism, libertarianism, objectivism, etc. The latter, progressivism.

edited 8th Mar '11 11:42:05 AM by secretist

Well to that I say "feh!". I'm a fan of aggression, myself.

It's the most idealistic of all policies. And I like it, but there are times for it to step back...

Like when Nazi Germany was stepping all over a good chunk of Europe.

Read the article closer. This isn't pacifism. At all.

Germany and Italy declared war on us and Japan attacked us, so it didn't violate the axiom to go to war with them.

Never start a fight, but always finish it. — Babylon Five

Oh I know, but realize that due to the politics at the time, let's just say that there's a legitimate theory that the government allowed Pearl Harbor be bombed, moving the public from apathy into wanting action, allowing for the US to fight off a major enemy before things went too far south.

Long story short, the president and cabinet were wanting to move into the war before the bombing occurred.

Of course, you can call that long term self defense, but whatever.

edited 7th Mar '11 1:47:50 PM by Usht

Of course, this would rather more directly justify Pearl Harbor in the first place, since the reasoning for that was that the US ceasing oil exports to Japan was an act of war.

They were still trading with the Allies though while shutting down many trades with the Axis. They were allying themselves with the Allies.

The Golden Age by Gore Vidal is an interesting look into the war propaganda of WWII prior to Pearl harbor.

There is a lot of misc background to Japan joining with the axis, partly because of their eagerness to play an imperial role on the world scene, but getting blockaded by the existing superpowers who said, You're too late to the party. Sorry.

They were still trading with the Allies though while shutting down many trades with the Axis. They were allying themselves with the Allies.

I meant that that was Imperial Japan's justification. They really needed oil, and the US knew it. Point is that under this ethical principle, I think they would be justified.

General support of the principal.

The root problem with this principle is that it forbids yet requires ideological hegemony.

By this ethic, you can't force everyone to attend public schools so that they internalize this ethic. Indeed, the principle is typically advanced as forbidding taxation, which throws all education into the private sphere. Parents would be free to instill ethics that view initiating force as sometimes correct.

Yet ideology hegemony would be absolutely essential in such a society. "libertarian anarchists, as strict adherents to the non-aggression principle, argue that security should be maintained by voluntary payment to private defense forces, rather than taxation." The leader of every private defense company must believe in libertarianism so rigidly as to never violate the non-aggression principle. If any decides to believe in, say, feudalism, that company may find it rational to attack a weaker private defense company and take the right to impose new contracts on its "serfs".

I'll ask the one question I always ask to people who are into this sort of axiom....

Is pollution an act of aggression? I don't mean all the time. But can it be?

I guess another (in my mind important) question..how about a boss who says to a worker, don't do X (off the job) or I'll fire you. Or worse, because someone has done X (again, off the job), they just get fired.

edited 7th Mar '11 6:24:38 PM by Karmakin

Yeah, no. Aggression is sometimes necessary.

Regarding the Axis example: Had we acted before we were attacked, the Holocaust could have been prevented. Actually, make that would have been prevented.

Actually, no, that wouldn't work, unless breach of contract counts as aggression, and they probably didn't have a contract anyway. Oh well.

EDIT: Misunderstood, again.

edited 7th Mar '11 6:36:57 PM by Tzetze

Is pollution an act of aggression? I don't mean all the time. But can it be?

Yes.

I guess another (in my mind important) question..how about a boss who says to a worker, don't do X (off the job) or I'll fire you. Or worse, because someone has done X (again, off the job), they just get fired.

No, I don't think so, especially if you agreed to them beforehand. But non coercion isn't my only axiom. I also like freedom. While there are still a a lot of reason an employer can and should be able to fire you for that aren't on the job, some things, like freedom of association, are basically sacred and should be enforced as such.

edited 7th Mar '11 7:19:10 PM by Roman

I thought Savage Heathen created this thread...you seem to be his twin though. Anarchist weed lover and all.

This is my favorite ethical principle. Since, there was another ethical thread, I decided to post my favored ethics. I view it as essential to all correct ethics

Explain please?

edited 7th Mar '11 9:43:15 PM by ViralLamb

Actually I'd say the basis for libertarianism is a dogmatic (and correct) belief in self-ownership. The NAP is a consequence of self-ownership, but self-ownership is vastly more important.

Explain self-ownership please? Just because I don't share your beliefs doesn't mean I don't want to understand them.

Self-ownership, also known in more radical circles as individual sovereignty, is the notion that a person fully and completely owns his/her own life and body. Aside from respecting the equal liberty of others, each person is absolutely entitled to make with their life whatever the Hell they want.

Any prohibition on an act that does not violate anybody's rights is, by definition, tyranny, and should be fought against. Each violation of individual sovereignty is an act of oppression.

edited 8th Mar '11 4:51:31 PM by SavageHeathen

Seems dangerously vague, can you give me and example of how these rights are being violated day to day to people in America? Stuff you want to see ridden of?

edited 8th Mar '11 8:38:23 PM by ViralLamb

I am generally in support of things along the line of a Non Agression Principle. But I'm not exactly a doctrinaire libertarian because I'm a cynical bastard who believes sometimes a government has to intervene to protect people against themselves.

There are some problems like abortion. Mary Ruwart (one of the biggest proponents of NAP) is pro-choice, but logically pro-lifers do have a strong case to make.

Drug prohibition, mass surveillance, bans on prostitution, gambling, an absurdly high drinking age with draconian penalties for violating it, an absurdly high age of consent, motivated by the idea that teenagers should stay abstinent (18 is an unrealistic age of consent, 16 is much better), brain-dead restrictions on euthanasia or assisted suicide, sin taxes, abstinence-only education, censorship or restrictions on free speech, restrictions on the right to privacy, anti-abortion laws... Electronic mass surveillance and censorship in defense of copyrights, stupid patents that restrict innovation, blah, blah, blah.

The whole social conservative agenda, that's what I want to get rid of.

Gun control is also something I'd want to kill dead.

edited 9th Mar '11 9:28:38 AM by SavageHeathen