The Concept of Non-Aggression of Murray N. Rothbard and Its Correction

Pojem non-agrese u Murrayho N. Rothbarda a jeho korekce

Lukáš Augustin Máslo

E-LOGOS, 2021, vol. 2021, issue 1, 69-79

Abstract: The author of this paper attacks the concept of non-aggression of Murray N. Rothbard making use of the paradox of a non-aggressive murder as the author calls it. The author's ambition is nothing less than to undermine the very foundations of Rothbard's political philosophy. To this purpose, he makes use of the non-contradiction principle, i. e. the fact that a disproval of the contradictory opposite is - under a condition of a complete disjunction - equal to a proof of the truthfulness of the thesis in question. The thesis in question is: in some cases, positive rights and duties do exist, i. e. in some cases, rights and duties do exist which do not follow either from a contract or from a preceding aggression. About this category of rights and duties Rothbard says that it does not exist at all. Rothbard gives the following reason: any such positive rights and duties would violate the self-ownership of the obliged subject or the obliged subject's right to his own person and property. The author of this paper, on the contrary, proves the existence of such positive rights and duties by pointing out the untruthfulness of the contradictory opposite ("positive rights never exist") which he demonstrates by the exposition of the paradoxes of the encircler, the boat owner, the host and the jumper. A certain concrete property right cannot be held by a subject A and a subject B at the same time and to the same extent. However, while Rothbard contends that a property right can only follow from a contract or from a preceding aggression (as a right to a recompense), the author of this paper argues that a property right does not need to follow only from a contract or from a preceding aggression. The author proves this statement by the existence of cases when a denial of an extra-contractual property right implies a paradox of a non-aggressive murder: a subject which plans a premeditated murder does not commit an illegitimate aggression. Which is a contradiction. Ergo, a thesis "positive rights never exist" is not true. Ergo, the thesis defended by the author of this paper is true. So, extra-contractual rights and duties are within the intension of the correctly conceived concept of self-ownership and a premeditated murder is never in the extension of the correctly conceived concept of non-aggression.

Keywords: non-aggression; self-ownership; libertarianism; positive rights; negative rights; non-agrese; sebevlastnictví; libertarianismus; pozitivní práva; negativní práva (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.18267/j.e-logos.485

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