Sailer on Fundamental Moral Obligations

Perhaps we all just need a refresher:

Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory.[1] It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no pure legal definition can be provided.

For centuries past, the idea that a state could be sovereign was always connected to its ability to guarantee the best interests of its own citizens. Thus, if a state could not act in the best interests of its own citizens, it could not be thought of as a “sovereign” state.[2]

The concept of sovereignty has been discussed throughout history, from the time of the Romans through to the present day. It has changed in its definition, concept, and application throughout, especially during the Age of Enlightenment. The current notion of state sovereignty contains four aspects, or different ways of understanding the term:

Domestic sovereignty – actual control over a state exercised by an authority organized within this state,[3]

Interdependence sovereignty – actual control of movement across state’s borders, assuming the borders exist,[3]

International legal sovereignty – formal recognition by other sovereign states,[3]

Westphalian sovereignty – lack of other authority over state than the domestic authority (examples of such other authorities could be a non-domestic church, a non-domestic political organization, or any other external agent).[3]

Often, these four aspects all appear together, but this is not necessarily the case – they are not affected by one another, and there are historical examples of states that were non-sovereign in one aspect while at the same time being sovereign in another of these aspects.[3]

For more discussion about the nature of those pesky little varmints we call governments, read the rest:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty

I have to agree with Steve Z.

Bryan, where do you think property rights come from? Rights aren’t god given they are people agreed upon, and exist based on custom, and if you are lucky enough a strong state to enforce them with force. But thinking in some real way that you own a piece of land, that it belongs to you, is really odd. Property has no value, like money, it exists because we all say it does. If everyone says differently tomorrow, well good-luck bryan. Seriously you have some really odd conception of property rights that is absurd on its face

Correction: I meant to write “allodial” not “alloidal.” My lexicon of feudal property terms seems to be gathering dust.

Philo: To the extent that Bryan is asserting that there is a right to freely immigrate that trumps the rights of property holders and citizens, this argument assumes the conclusion, because this premise is the precise conclusion he has been asserting.

Philo writes:
@ Matt:

“Rights aren’t god given they are people agreed upon, and exist based on custom . . . .” Is that all you think there is to rights: custom, the conventional agreement of (enough of the right kinds of) people? What about the Enlightenment “Rights of Man”—perhaps not “God-given,” but at least having an objective basis independent of their recognition by any particular group of people?

How circular! “Rights of Man” in order for the rights of man to exist men must exist. Thus the existence of rights is dependent upon the existence of men. Numerical concepts on the other hand may exist independently of men. This is a big issue in philosophy.

Rights (morals) if they exists independently of people, what are they? What kind of mater makes them up? Where do they live? The answer is they don’t.. I won’t get into numbers, but the laws of physics won’t stop working when humans cease to exist.

@Matt,
You write:
Rights aren’t god given they are people agreed upon, and exist based on custom, and if you are lucky enough a strong state to enforce them with force. But thinking in some real way that you own a piece of land, that it belongs to you, is really odd. Property has no value, like money, it exists because we all say it does. If everyone says differently tomorrow, well good-luck bryan.
Would you say that’s true of your right to your body? Is it a right simply because people agree on it? If the government decided tomorrow that it, or I, for that matter, had a right to your body, would you disagree? I think you would but on what basis would you disagree? The government could argue that your alleged right is just “based on custom,” couldn’t it?

To all the commenters arguing we have no rights except what our fellow ctizens grant us – so what you are saying is the Founding Fathers were full of it with their “endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights” and all that nonsense?

@David R. Henderson and MikeP
I won’t speak for Matt, but I hold the same view he’s espousing, so my answer is that not that “Might makes right” but that “ongoing enforcement of agreement” makes right.

What do you mean by government? If “we” get together and decide today that we each have a right to our own bodies, and we will create mechanism to enforce that right, we’re in essence both creating the right and establishing a government (as a mechanism to protect that right). It’s a means to the end of furthering the voluntary agreement of its citizens.

The right exists only so long as it’s agreed upon and enforced.

Thus, if the rest of you get together and decide to kick me out of the group and force me to give up my body, you don’t have a “right” to do so, and I don’t have a “right” to try and stop you, even though I will.

I’d say, “don’t do that, you’re breaking our agreement, and if you break it to attack me, someone will likely break it to attack you, and soon enough there will be no agreement and no security for anyone”.

If the people controlling the government respond that it’s merely “custom”, I’d argue no, it’s a matter of contract. And when the group breaks a contract with me, revoking my agreed upon and recognized right rather than protecting it, then yes, it’s abandoning custom, but it’s also breaking contract in a way that should make everyone in the group consider themselves at risk for being next on the chopping block.

“Custom” also cuts both ways. The folks most likely to employ the idea that your right is revoked because it’s just based on “custom” are actually the folks that want to take the right away. They’re the guys saying no one should have the right to… (fill in the blank for yourself with any of the things we generally consider to be socially objectionable, but should not want to eliminate by force of law).

This analogy makes perfect sense if (a) the government is the true owner of what I incorrectly call “my” house, and (b) I merely reside there with the government’s permission. Otherwise, the analogy makes no sense at all.

The analogy is one of agency, not trespassing.

Why doesn’t the son have the right to allow someone to move into the house? Because the son doesn’t have the authority to transfer an ownership interest to a third party.

Why doesn’t the son have the right to have someone do his chores for half his allowance? Because it’s a nondischargable duty.

Although I’d argue in the latter case that the nondischargable duty must be made explicit. Absent that condition, I don’t see the problem.

Besides, I don’t think very many jurisdictions prohibit illegal immigrants from leasing or purchasing a home. If an illegal immigrant purchased a home, I doubt any jurisdiction would negate the sale based on the immigrant’s status. The government isn’t really exercising a superior ownership interest to the property owner.

Your trespass argument works better against nondiscrimination laws.

““Rights aren’t god given they are people agreed upon, and exist based on custom”

I think that is an oversimplified, and in important ways mistaken, view of rights—considered not as a moral or legal category but as a description of behavior. It’s worth noting that property rights predate our species-there are lots of animals which engage in territorial behavior, a primitive version of property rights in land. An individual claims territory, other members of the species mostly respect the claim. The explanation is not agreement, government, or custom but a mutually recognized pattern of commitment strategies.

For details on that way of looking at rights, see my essay on the subject.

Steve Sailer:

I read this as saying that your indifference point (or reservation price, if you please) for ending world poverty is reducing American GDP/capita by 1 cent. Am I misreading you?

Also, would you answer change at 0.5 cents or at 2 cents, or would those still be in your region of indifference?

The whole notion that illegal immigration is a trespassing problem is an open-borders strawman, or perhaps I should write “tar baby.” I have never seen a “restrictionist” bring it up first. Rather, open-borders advocates introduce it specifically so they can burn it down, hopefully while “restrictionists” are tangled up in it.

The right of citizens to exclude unwanted immigrants from some region is not rooted in the law of trespass. No thoughtful “restrictionists” say that it is, except carelessly while trailing some open-borders-advocate excitedly down a garden path decorated with open-borders strawmen, frantically trying to straighten him out.

Let me show you how we get diverted onto this kind of silliness:

Modal-ethics person M wants to restrict immigration. Libertarian L disagrees and wants to offer an argument to show that M’s views are wrong. Now, libertarians often prefer to argue that all valid ethical rules stem from private property rights– that’s part of their culture. Fine. So L thinks “how do restrictions on immigration violate [my] property rights?” (It’s a bit of a puzzler, since the person most prominently affected by an immigration restriction is the would-be immigrant, not the local property owner.)

“Let’s see… I know!” exclaims L. “Private property owners have the right to exclude (the right to privacy) and immigration restrictions derogate that right because they can only be enforced by violating private property to seize and deport illegal immigrants!” [L will call them “willing workers.”] Any interference with L’s visitors (even before they arrive) violates L’s property rights!

(In other words, L leaps from an essentially negative property right (the right to exclude unwanted visitors) that everyone basically agrees upon, to an essentially positive claim against society (the right to import anyone from anywhere and force everyone else to accept him as a neighbor) which people don’t agree upon, without proving any logical correspondence.

This is the point where M gets suckered. M engages L’s argument at the apparent soft spot, L’s supposition that property rights are simple and absolute. M comes up with some hypothetical involving a condominium or better yet, a club good, to show L he’s wrong. (In math this would be an attempt at proof by contradiction.)

Naïf that he is, M doesn’t realize that L has gone over this angle in innumerable 3AM dorm-room bull sessions. L pounces: “Your examples all involve private contracts! Limiting immigration requires the government to Initiate Force (® L.P.). If you get the government involved that means you think the government owns everything, which means you are a SOCIALIST MOOCHER! HAHAHA! I GOT YOU!!!”

Anyway, I’ve been in poor M’s shoes, suckered into an argument that L expects to win in step 4, 5, or 6 because L cheated in step 2 without M noticing.

The right to exclude from private property does not necessarily subsume a right to import anyone from anywhere onto said property. The difference is that invitees or tenants may pose problems for neighbors which a private property owner cannot or will not avert.* There’s a big difference in the danger to neighbors from empty land compared to land occupied by, e.g., Romanian Gypsies. The implications of this simple fact have long since given rise to the ethical maxim sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas.

It is moral even for libertarians to engage in self-defense. The right of self-defense necessarily includes the right to coöperate with others and use agents to defend against general and/or diffuse threats. Logically, self-defenders may take reasonable steps to avoid or avert threats as well as steps to interrupt or punish (for deterrent purposes) actual attacks. No reasonable person thinks “private property” is a moral bastion from which a “property owner” may aim a loaded cannon at his neighbors while denying their self-defense right to force him to point it somewhere else.

*The problem doesn’t turn on the distinction between tenants and owners, nor can it be resolved by reducing government interference with property rights (e.g., repealing the Civil Rights Act so landlords may choose among tenants more efficiently). Even if you leave landowners with absolute dominion over their land, you cannot expect them to control their visitors’ every action– or if you do, you are logically condoning slavery.

Sailer’s whole corporate directors analogy is begging the question. Of course they’re contractually obligated to existing shareholders. But the contract itself could be unethical, right? Is this issue addressed? No.

The only reason it works in a corporate environment is because corporations are usually bound by laws… and even then you still get occasional shenanigans. You don’t get the same result if you tell a law-making authority to “take care of its own”.

How circular! “Rights of Man” in order for the rights of man to exist men must exist. Thus the existence of rights is dependent upon the existence of men.

Rights are grounded in the nature of man; specifically, the requirements for man’s survival qua man in a social context. The existence of man isn’t dependent upon the existence of rights. So how is that “circular”?

Numerical concepts on the other hand may exist independently of men.

Concepts don’t exist outside of a conceptual consciousness; the only being we know of with conceptual consciousness is man. So, no, numerical concepts don’t exist independently of man. (And yes, I am aware that there is a venerable school of philosophy that gets this horribly wrong.)

In Steve’s example, not only is the government the only owner of all property within a nation, but all of its subjects are mere children to be cared for/ordered about by the adults in the government.

Actually, that is Bryan’s position. If you do not have the power over your government, than you have no sovereignty, you are in the position of a serf to a king.

To Bryan Caplan:

I think the consenus is overwhelming that your ideas are nonsense. One can quite rightly hold the same conclusions that you hold, but your thought process on this issue is deeply flawed. And this is coming from your online audience, who are presumably biased towards you if at all.

Rights are not necessarily absolute. Many rights are partial rights. You can believe in free immigration without having to resort to your silly ideas.

A lot of libertarians discusses property rights as stemming from “initial acquisition” without even noticing, that they assume that “initial acquisition” is moral and that everyone will agree it is moral (for example, for me claiming something, which is not owned by anyone, is not necesarily moral)

(provoke by one sentence in insights by Friedman)

1. Open immigration
2. Welfare state
3. Democracy.

Pick two

I’ve lost the reference to where that came from. It’s not too crazy. 1+3 would be a Libertarian-like position. The problem with that is that “3” usually leads to “2”.

I think this discussion is going further afield than it needs to. Yes, there are probably circumstances in which Sailer would advocate open borders (for the specific benefit of the immigrants). No, we are nowhere near those circumstances.

But the larger fact is, countries that control their borders sometimes survive. Countries that don’t control their borders always fail. When has this pattern EVER been broken?

Perhaps Caplan’s arguments would be better applied to Japan, China, South Korea, Norway, Sweden, Canada, and so forth. They all have much more restrictive borders than the US does. I would pay $500 for a videotape of Caplan putting forth his moral argument for open borders to said countries’ representatives, and for their responses. Maybe we can get a pool going.

MikeP, I may need to reframe my comment in a modern context. That said, if native americans had been able to control their borders, we’d be having a much different discussion.

The argument in this post, though, is clearly invalid. The premise that people’s judgment on universal issues of morality is biased in favour of in-groups is not relevant to this discussion. The vast majority of Americans believe that the Belgians, Ethiopians and the Romanians have a right to exclude immigrants if they judge open borders inconsistent with their national interests. They may be wrong about this, but it isn’t because they have pro-Ethiopian biases.

I’m reconsidering the reframe. I think the important point is, borders have less need to be controlled if the border is between ethnic groups of roughly the same human capital. Canada and the US, for instance, or much of europe (sans roma, perhaps). However, when there’s a significant difference in HBD, particularly in terms of human capital, there’s more reason to control the border (sometimes in both countries’ eyes). This is modified by ease of transportation, welfare state status of each country, discrimination against migrants, etc etc etc.

I feel like I’m retreading pretty standard ground here. Surely I don’t need to spell everything out?

“The first 300 years of American history” was certainly not an example of open borders. See the immigration time-line set out in Peter Brimelow’s Alien Nation: ‘1620, the “Open Door Era” – Immigration actually regulated by colonies, later states, until 1875, with object of keeping out criminals, paupers and occasionally other groups considered undesirable, such as Irish servants)’.

…with object of keeping out criminals,…

That’s okay, provided the crime is antisocial.

…paupers…

More properly, people that there was cause to believe would become wards of the state.

…and occasionally other groups considered undesirable, such as Irish servants…

Yeah, that worked well.

The acceptance rate at Ellis Island during the end of those three centuries of open borders was 98% in steerage and 100% in first and second class. And the entry rate was 100% at the southwestern frontier.

If that’s not open borders, it’s close enough for most people’s tastes. At least there was a specific reason individually applied for those 2% that were rejected rather than “the quota of the type of you has been exceeded.”

A lot of libertarians discusses property rights as stemming from “initial acquisition” without even noticing, that they assume that “initial acquisition” is moral and that everyone will agree it is moral (for example, for me claiming something, which is not owned by anyone, is not necesarily moral)

This is why I’d argue the legal interpretation of rights (we bring rights into existence through the rational act of mutual agreement) is the way to go.

I wouldn’t dismiss Friedman’s notions that this rational act follows upon instinctive behavioral strategies, but as sentient beings, it’s our capacity for reason that lets us promote our well-being at something beyond an instinctive level, and give fulfillment to the idea of having rights and freedom.

“property rights predate our species”

A Right is a conclusion of a series of arguments, It requires a rational species to conceive of Rights.
Man is the only rational animal (Aristotle).

RE: Inalienable rights are
1) Conferred by the Creator (according to the Declaration of Independence).

Do libertarians recognize the Creator?

2) They exist by the (created) human nature. But nations too exist by the human nature.
The City (e.g. Nation) exists by nature (Aristotle).
and the City is Prior to the Individual and the Family (Aristotle).

So there are two options
1) The classical position- of City being Prior to the Individual
2) The liberal position-The individual being prior to the City (or nation or tribe).

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