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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Scott Arthur writes:
> LP POINT 2
>
>
> Larry
> If an individual were to find him/herself in your propertyist dreamland with
> no food, no water, no education, no money, no property and starving. What
> rights would he/she have? Which right would be strongest:
>
> 1. The right of the property owner to shoot him/her for trespass
> 2. The right to sustenance?
Quick answer, for closure. Under a property rights analysis, there is no
right to sustenance, per se. There is a right to offer to trade for or pay
for or ask for charitiable sustenance but no requirement that anyone in
particular actually enter into a voluntary transaction.
Current law holds that deadly force as defense against mere trespass is not
generally allowed. I'd tend to sympathise with that view. But there are edge
conditions, if the owner is a little old lady and the starver won't move on
after she brandishes her 45 but instead continues to advance...
Under a pure utilitarian analysis, ignoring second order effects such as
increased lawlessness later, the grain the property owner loses is a small
loss in happiness compared to the large loss of happiness of the starver
when he expires. But can you safely ignore second order effects? Hard to say
without all the needed assumptions in place to flesh out the situation (and
thus make the two calculi more complex). WHY is this guy here, now, what
went wrong before, etc.
I tend to try to explain these examples away as not very likely (usually the
starver doesn't get to this desperate strait, there is charity, etc...) and
in the rare cases where they were for real, the defense is that there is no
utopia possible.
That may not be a very satisfactory answer. This example or one very very
very like it was discussed in very great depth long ago in this forum, one
way to do better at finding it is to look for Ed Jones as part of your
search string since he was a participant and hasn't been of late, which will
help narrow. But I can't give a more specific ref without actually
performing the search myself.
++Lar
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | LP POINT 2
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| LP POINT 2 Larry If an individual were to find him/herself in your propertyist dreamland with no food, no water, no education, no money, no property and starving. What rights would he/she have? Which right would be strongest: 1. The right of the (...) (24 years ago, 27-Nov-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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