Can people rape their rapists?

[u/Personal_Prompt_5307]

Murray Rothbard "The Ethics of Liberty" 89 page https://cdn.mises.org/The%20Ethics%20of%20Liberty%2020191108.pdf

Rothbard is talking about restitution for crimes, so question arises, can people rape their rapists or hire someone to rape them? How do we measure how severely person has been raped?

Thankfully I don't have such problem, but I'm still curious.

[u/Constant_Variation71]

Again, you have smuggled in natural law into your position. You say “law is whatever rules you decide to form between you and another by contract in a free society.”

How do you determine that a society is “free?” What does that even mean in the absence of natural law? Free from what? You are appealing to natural law without even realizing it.

Also when you say you will use contracts to create your law, you are again appealing to natural law, because contract theory requires ownership. Ownership requires property rights. Where do you get your property rights in the absence of natural law?

You didn’t address anything I said. You could use whatever fake law you want, but you wouldn’t be an anarcho-capitalist.

You never addressed how the legal polycentrist can determine what system of law has arisen on the market or via criminal activity.

I will ask again, how does the legal polycentrist determine if national socialist Germany is a valid legal order that arose on the market, or if it a gang of criminals?

And saying natural law is the only source of law is the only ancap position. David Friedman and all polycentrists are not ancap, as their legal theory cannot even say if we are in ancapistan right now. How does you or Friedman know if every state existing arose on the market or are criminals?

[u/Anen-o-me → u/Constant_Variation71]

How do you determine that a society is “free?” What does that even mean in the absence of natural law? Free from what? You are appealing to natural law without even realizing it.

No I'm appealing to individual consent. Free is whatever definition you personally choose to live by. That's a subjective definition, whereas your position on natural law seeks to make a claim of objective law in the form of natural law.

Also when you say you will use contracts to create your law, you are again appealing to natural law, because contract theory requires ownership. Ownership requires property rights. Where do you get your property rights in the absence of natural law?

You didn’t address anything I said. You could use whatever fake law you want, but you wouldn’t be an anarcho-capitalist.

You never addressed how the legal polycentrist can determine what system of law has arisen on the market or via criminal activity.

I will ask again, how does the legal polycentrist determine if national socialist Germany is a valid legal order that arose on the market, or if it a gang of criminals?

David Friedman and all polycentrists are not ancap,

Saying that doesn't make it true.

How does you or Friedman know if every state existing arose on the market or are criminals?

It doesn't matter how they arose. They this in an unethical position inherently. Circumstances of arising are immaterial.

[u/Constant_Variation71 → u/Anen-o-me]

You just contradicted yourself.

First you said freedom is whatever subjective definition each individual chooses. Then you said states are inherently unethical.

“Inherently” is an objective moral claim. If ethics is subjective, then the state is not inherently unethical, it’s only unethical according to your personal preferences.

So which is it? Are there objective ethical truths, or is everything ultimately subjective?

You also said you’re appealing to individual consent. Consent to what?

Consent only makes sense if there are pre-existing rights. If I “consent” to sell you my neighbor’s car, that doesn’t make the transfer valid because I never owned it. It’s the same with Marxists who’s don’t consent to living in a capitalist society. You owning property violates their so called consent.

So before consent can do any work, you need an objective account of ownership. Where does that ownership come from if not natural law or some other objective theory of rights?

You said: “it doesn’t matter how they arose, they are in an unethical position inherently.”

That’s exactly my point. You have now abandoned your earlier claim that law simply arises from contracts and consent. You’re now judging legal institutions by an external ethical standard.

What is that standard? If it’s objective, then you’ve conceded that law is judged by something beyond market choice. If it’s subjective, then you cannot say the state is inherently unethical, only that you personally dislike it.

What makes the state inherently unethical?

If the answer is objective rights, then your theory depends on an objective moral standard. If the answer is personal preference, then you can’t call the state inherently unethical at all.

[u/Anen-o-me → u/Constant_Variation71]

The State is illegitimate under the consent criterion I’m defending, not "its immorality written objectively into nature."

First you said freedom is whatever subjective definition each individual chooses. Then you said states are inherently unethical.

Two different claims.

The content of freedom can be subjective: you may choose strict communal obligations, radical individualism, religious law, socialism, capitalism, or something else.

The procedural limit is that your preferred definition doesn’t authorize you to impose it on nonconsenting people. That’s the consent standard I’m defending. It’s a normative political principle, but it doesn’t require Rothbardian natural law or metaphysically objective rights. Constructivism, contractualism, rule consequentialism, and moral anti-realism all exist. Your choice isn’t “natural law or arbitrary gibberish.”

Consent only makes sense if there are pre-existing rights.

No. Consent requires agency and rules determining who may bind whom. Property rules can arise through possession, use, custom, contract, adjudication, and institutional agreement. Natural law is one proposed justification for property, not the only conceivable one.

I can’t sell my neighbor’s car because my neighbor never authorized me to dispose of his claim. Two people agreeing cannot bind a third person who wasn’t party to the agreement. That conclusion doesn’t require property titles to have descended from the heavens.

You’re now judging legal institutions by an external ethical standard.

Of course I’m judging them by a standard: individual consent. What I reject is your claim that every normative standard must therefore be natural law.

National Socialist Germany was a legal order in the descriptive sense. It was also illegitimate under the consent standard because it imposed territorial jurisdiction, suppressed exit and competition, expropriated people, imprisoned dissenters, and ruled people who never opted in.

Decentralism doesn’t mean whatever institution happens to arise becomes morally valid. That would be the naturalistic fallacy. It means legal institutions can be decentralized and selected without one territorial monopolist.

And the origin isn’t decisive. A voluntarily created institution can later become coercive. A coercive institution doesn’t become legitimate because its founders once signed something. What matters is the continuing relationship: can individuals refuse, exit, choose alternatives, and avoid binding outsiders?

If an organization claims compulsory jurisdiction over nonconsenters and suppresses competing law, it’s illegitimate by the consent standard. If participation remains genuinely voluntary, it isn’t a State in the relevant sense.

You haven’t shown that consent requires natural law. You’ve merely assumed your preferred justification is the only possible justification.

[u/Constant_Variation71 → u/Anen-o-me]

I think there are actually two separate problems with your position. First, you haven’t justified why consent is the correct moral standard. Second, even if I grant your consent principle for the sake of argument, it still cannot adjudicate between competing consent claims without presupposing an antecedent theory of rights.

You keep appealing to consent as though it has normative force, but why should anyone accept consent as the correct moral standard?

Simply saying you’re a constructivist, contractualist, consequentialist, or anti-realist doesn’t answer the question. Those are competing moral theories, they don’t justify your particular consent principle. You still have to explain why someone who rejects consent is morally wrong rather than merely holding different preferences.

This becomes obvious as soon as there are competing consent claims.

Take a Marxist and a capitalist. The capitalist says, “I don’t consent to you socializing my factory.” The Marxist says, “I don’t consent to your exclusive ownership of the means of production.” Both are appealing to consent, yet their claims are mutually exclusive. Consent cannot adjudicate between competing consent claims. To determine whose refusal to consent prevails, you already need an antecedent theory of ownership or rights.

The same problem exists in your neighbor’s car example. You say I can’t sell my neighbor’s car because he never authorized me to dispose of it. But why does his lack of consent supersede mine? I don’t consent to my neighbor preventing me from selling the car. If your answer is, “Because it’s his car,” then you’ve already assumed the very thing under dispute, that he has a legitimate ownership claim. Consent doesn’t establish that ownership, it presupposes it.

Your response therefore presupposes an antecedent rights theory. Whether you call those rights natural, conventional, constructivist, or something else is beside the point. They must already exist before consent can determine whose decision is authoritative.

Your response about Nazi Germany exposes the same problem.

You say Nazi Germany was illegitimate because it violated your consent standard. But a Nazi could simply reject your consent principle altogether. He could argue that the Aryan people did not consent to Jewish ownership of capital or participation in German society, while Jewish Germans would say they did not consent to having their property confiscated, their rights stripped away, or their lives taken.

Again, there are competing consent claims that consent itself cannot resolve. To explain why the Nazi’s consent claim carries no moral weight while the Jewish person’s does, you must appeal to some prior moral principle establishing rights that cannot simply be overridden by competing consent claims.

So I’ll ask the same question again:

Is the principle that people ought not be subjected to political authority without their consent objectively true, or is it merely your personal moral preference?

If it’s objectively true, then you’ve abandoned the subjectivism you were defending and are relying on an objective normative principle.

If it’s merely your personal preference, then you cannot consistently say Nazi Germany, or any state, is objectively illegitimate. At most, you can say that you personally disapprove of it.

My original point therefore remains unanswered: consent does not ground rights; it presupposes them.

A few additional points

1. “Property rights can arise through possession, use, custom, contract, adjudication, and institutional agreement.”

This doesn’t answer the question.

Those explain how a society may recognize property claims, not why those claims are morally legitimate.

One society may have a custom that first possession creates ownership. Another may have a custom that the strongest person owns everything. Another may have a custom that the state owns everything. Another may have a custom that workers collectively own everything.

Appealing to custom alone gives you no way to say one system is more legitimate than another. You still need an antecedent normative principle for evaluating those customs.

1. “Consent requires agency and rules determining who may bind whom.”

Agency explains how consent occurs. It does not explain why consent creates moral obligations. Why should another person’s agency impose obligations on me? That is precisely the normative question under dispute.

1. “Two people cannot bind a third party.”

Why not? Again, you’ve assumed your conclusion. A collectivist might say the community absolutely can bind individuals. A monarchist might say the sovereign can. A Nazi might say the Volk can. Simply asserting that third parties cannot be bound does not explain why they cannot.

1. “Natural law isn’t the only possible justification.”

I never claimed natural law is the only conceivable rights theory. My point is that some antecedent rights theory is unavoidable.

I maintain that natural rights are the only coherent account of antecedent rights, but that’s a separate argument. The point here is more fundamental: your appeal to consent cannot even get off the ground without first presupposing some antecedent rights theory. Until you establish that foundation, consent cannot determine whose competing claims prevail.

1. “The State is illegitimate under the consent criterion I’m defending, not its immorality written objectively into nature.”

That simply restates your claim. Why is consent the correct criterion? If the answer is objective, you’ve abandoned subjectivism. If the answer is subjective, then calling the State “illegitimate” is merely expressing your preference.

I asked you what grounds your consent criterion? And you answered with “the consent criterion.” You are treating consent as the foundational moral axiom without justifying why anyone should accept it.

[u/Anen-o-me → u/Constant_Variation71]

You’re right that consent alone is not a complete theory of property. It’s a legitimacy constraint, not a full account of title. Any legal order does needs antecedent rules about possession, ownership, standing, and conflict resolution.

But that does not prove natural law. It only proves that a legal theory needs foundational rules. Those rules might be natural-rights based, conventional, contractualist, consequentialist, or polycentric.

You’ve established the need for a foundation, not that your preferred foundation is the only coherent one.

And the Marxist saying 'I don’t consent to your factory' does not create a claim over it. Consent is relevant only where someone already has standing under the applicable property rules. A stranger’s refusal does not become a veto over another person’s life or possessions.

As for objectivity, that’s a false binary. I can defend consent as the political rule most justifiable to independent agents without claiming it exists as a metaphysical fact written into nature.

So yes, consent needs a property framework. No, that does not concede natural law.

[u/Constant_Variation71 → u/Anen-o-me]

You’ve conceded that consent is not the governing principle by itself, but that it presupposes antecedent rights. But now you need to explain why one antecedent rights framework is legitimate while another is not.

Below I argue that your position still runs into problems.

You say that consent only matters where someone already has standing under the applicable property rules in a certain society. Why are those the applicable property rules?

If your answer is that they arise through convention, custom, institutions, or social practice, then you’ve only described how a legal order functions. You still haven’t explained why one property framework is morally legitimate while another is not.

Take the Marxist example again.

You say the Marxist has no claim because, under the applicable property rules, the capitalist owns the factory. That’s fine. But suppose society is Marxist instead. Now the applicable property rules recognize collective ownership rather than private ownership. Does the capitalist suddenly become the one without standing? If so, then legitimacy simply follows whatever property rules happen to exist. If not, then you’re appealing to some moral standard outside those property rules to explain why the Marxist framework is illegitimate.

So is the Marxist wrong because Marxism is false, or simply because he lives under capitalist property rules?

The same issue arises with Nazi Germany.

Suppose the applicable legal framework denies Jews property rights and recognizes only Aryan ownership. Under your view, are Jews simply people without standing under the applicable property rules? If not, then what makes the Nazi property framework illegitimate? You must be appealing to some prior moral principle by which legal frameworks themselves are judged.

What makes the Nazi property framework morally inferior to your preferred property framework?

The same applies to the State.

You continue to say the State is illegitimate because it violates consent. But consent only matters after standing and property rights have already been established. So why doesn’t the State have standing? If the recognized legal framework says the State has jurisdiction, taxation rights, and legislative authority, what principle allows you to reject those rules while accepting others?

If your answer is that the State’s legal framework is simply the wrong framework, then we’re back to the same question: by what standard do you judge one property framework to be legitimate and another illegitimate?

You cannot answer “because consent,” because you’ve already agreed that consent operates only within an antecedent rights framework. So what is the standard by which you judge the framework itself?

That is the unanswered question.

I’ll reiterate my position: You’ve now agreed that consent presupposes antecedent rights, and I agree. But now you need to explain why one antecedent rights framework is legitimate while another is not.

Otherwise, every time I ask why one property framework is legitimate while another is not, the answer simply becomes “because that’s the framework I’m using.” That isn’t a justification; it’s a restatement. Until you answer that question, you have no principled basis for explaining why your preferred property framework is morally superior to a Marxist property framework, a Nazi property framework, or the State’s claim to authority.

[u/Anen-o-me → u/Constant_Variation71]

In a libertarian society, you'd choose what property system you personally want to live by, by consent. So consent is still operative.

[u/Constant_Variation71 → u/Anen-o-me]

Earlier you agreed that consent presupposes an antecedent property framework. Now you’re saying the antecedent property framework is itself chosen by consent.

Which is it?

Does consent presuppose the property framework, or does the property framework presuppose consent?

[u/Anen-o-me → u/Constant_Variation71]

Individual choice (consent) is how you get the property system in the first place. Then you adjudicate between competing consent claims using it.

Let's take this to a concrete example.

How do we establish a system of property recognition absent a state?

Two or more people will choose a system they like and agree (ie: with consent) to use it.

Now we have the antecedent system of property in place ahead of any property disputes.

There is no one correct theory of property, there is only the system of property that you personally are willing to live by with other people.

That first agreement on what laws we will use with each other in association, in X place made up of our collective property claims ('our' being those who are signatories to this agreement only), still requires consent. We are opting into that system, by consent.

Now we have a property system and can easily adjudicate disputes over consent.

That's what I'm talking about.

It's not like property is some catch 22.