No, I’m saying that our self control does not amount to ownership. You don’t need a right to control yourself because your control is inalienable.

I think this is a case where the English language is a stumbling block preventing communication. There is a subtle equivocation that is going on in this conversation because we do not have separate words for the kind of external control over inanimate objects we have, and the kind of internal control we have of our bodies.

Let’s use the word animatrol to refer specifically and exclusively to the kind of internal control we have over our selves (our body which includes our brain and thus our thoughts). Let’s use the word extrol to mean external control.

Now be careful. I am pretending that we are using a language in which it makes no sense to literally say “I animatroled my self”. Because that would imply that they our bodies are external to ourselves. It would be like saying, “I run passed my self”, since you can only run passed external objects.

Individuals animatrol of them selves is not alienable. As actors we cannot turn over the animatrolation of our bodies to others. Nor can we turn over animatrolation of our minds to others (in the sense of controlling our thoughts since I mean a broader control than mere body part movement).

A right is an entitlement. In the case of ownership the entitlement is to exclusive extrol of some entity. We need this exclusivity because it is possible for several different actors to simultaneously try to extrol an object, and in ways that conflict.

In the case of extrol ownership in this sense is possible. It is possible to have an entitlement to exclusivity of extrol of some entity. The entitlement prevents conflict of uses, and also conflicts of plans.

The whole purpose of the ownership, the entitlement, is to prevent the conflict of uses, and plans. That’s what justifies it.

Since extrol is external it is also possible to give or trade away the entitlement to such extrol, or merely immediate active extrol of an object.

Since it is impossible for someone to animatrol another persons self (or body) the issue of exclusivity doesn’t even arise. There is no need to resolve a conflict here. There is no need to entitle you to animatrol of yourself because no one else can animatrol you, nor can your animatrolation be alienated. Nor can you give or trade away your animtrol.

So not only can’t you own animtrol, you can sell it, nor give it away. Nor is there any potential conflict over it. In other words you cannot own yourself.

Now it is possible for others to treat a slave as if he were an inanimate object. They can certainly attempt extrol over him.

It also makes sense with regards to other actors (slave masters) that they will want the entitlement to exclusive extrol over the slave in order to eliminate conflict. They might even want to give or trade the entitlement to extrol of the slave to others. In other words, the word ownership in slavery makes sense if the slave is treated as an inanimate object, not as another actor.

There are a problem with this that cause it not to be true ownership. The problem is that the slave is not an inanimate object.

Slaves exhibit animatrol, internal control. Thus they do have control over themselves even if they don’t have ownership over themselves, as I stated above. As you will see they don’t need to have self ownership in order to make the slave masters claims to true ownership false.

The slaves animatrol, internal control, can and will conflict with any extrol, external control, attempted by the slaver. All that need happen is for the slave to have different goals or plans. Even if harmonious at one time it can still come to conflict when the slave and the masters interests diverge. Since a person cannot alienate their animatrol this is always a potential even if they are “willing slaves”.

A slave is also an actor in exactly the same sense as your potential slave master. Thus the kind of ownership of slavery does not in fact resolve all conflicts of control between all actors. There is still the conflict between the owner and the slave.

Thus slave ownership does not resolve conflicts of uses and plans.

The owners claim of entitlement to exclusive extrol, and thus control, over the slave’s self is in fact impossible. The slave is in fact an actor whose uses and plans for his own self will conflict with the slavers.

Since this entitlement does not fully serve the purpose of ownership it is not true ownership. It rests on the falsehood that other actors are inanimate.

The only possible way to resolve this conflict is not through exclusivity of extrol, a false ownership, but through freedom.

“That’s hilarious, since the majority of Muslims (Arabs) are Semitic.”

No, what’s hilarious is that I know what Semitic means but you don’t know what antisemitic means. Hint: hotdogs aren’t made of dog meat.

“All I’m saying is you don’t need to cower under your bed fearing you’ll be killed by any Muslim you meet. No need to demonize them.”

I don’t. I was making a point about Islamic philosophic grounding. You were too dense to get that. It was a discussion about the philosophical basis of Islam, not Muslims in general. I said, “Islam for instance doesn’t care about self ownership.” It doesn’t. Islam advocates murder and force in dealing with non-believers.

The “they” in my comment refers to those who take these religious rules seriously. There are plenty of those. Historically Islam has killed over 90 million people.

Suppose I had said the following:

“Communism for instance doesn’t care about property rights. Property is owned by the State, and if you are not following the States rules then you are wrong. No argument about it, they just take your stuff and if you resist, kill you.”

Would you then feel obligated to inform me that “most communists are nice people, and wouldn’t think of trying to steal my stuff, or murder me”. Would you inform me how you had traveled to the USSR and not once been put in the Gulag. Do you really need to go out of your way to do that?

You need to start reading anti-Islamic writing the same way you’d read anti-communist writing.

I’ll badmouth Islam and those who kill in it’s name all I want.

You’re suggesting we don’t have a right to control ourselves?

If he told you you’d be killed if you went to Pakistan he wasn’t being honest. I was in Indonesia for four years and Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) for two. I’ve never been to Pakistan, but I know people who’ve been there (many times), and they all came back alive and well.

That’s also why they hate Israel. Islam is rabidly anti-semetic.

That’s hilarious, since the majority of Muslims (Arabs) are Semitic. And historically, Jews have been better treated in Muslim lands than in Christian lands.

You claim that there is no requirement for you to follow Allah’s law in Muslim countries. [...] I just think you were under their radar.

Nope. During Ramadan, police go around cafes and restaurants making sure there are no locals eating lunch, etc. They don’t bother the foreigners.

Likewise the behavior of most respected representatives of Muslim countries from around the world operating in the UN. You believe they are for free speech, and self ownership.

I do? That’s news to me; I thought I believed the polar opposite! I’m not saying Islam is a good thing – it isn’t. No religion is. All I’m saying is you don’t need to cower under your bed fearing you’ll be killed by any Muslim you meet. No need to demonize them.

Ever heard of this little thing called a “proof”; I hear mathematicians are big on those.

That I physiologically have control of my own body may be an ontological fact, but that is not the same thing as “self-ownership” as an ethic of personal sovereignty. I could physiologically have control of my own body while being a slave, and thus to argue that I am “free” or that the ethic that I should be “free” is implicitly proven by the fact that I act as such is to conflate ethics and ontology.

While it might be true that having such a physiological capacity to purposefully act is a logical prerequisite for having rights, the capacity itself is not what it means to have rights. Rights are not intrinsic in this sense – we do not all inherently have the *actualization* of rights, otherwise there would be no need to talk of them prescriptively and we’d all already live in a purely libertarian world.

Hence, the attempt to “prove” such ethical propositions *as if* they are ontological facts of nature, as if they are intrinsic properties that we have, is to completely drop context and try to derive an is from an ought in an absurd way. If they were ontological facts, then they would not be ethical propositions in the first place, it would just be an inherent trait.

Using such a method, one could argue thus: I have control over America, therefore this proves that I have an objective right to control America. There is no absolute or direct logical connection between the two, this is just bare fallacious assertion. The same goes for “I have property, therefore I have an objective right to this property”. Oh, yea? What if it’s a thief’s property? This is context-dropping and oversimplification to the Nth degree.

I’m sorry, but Walter Block’s “voluntary slavery” notion is confused. Slavery qua slavery is not voluntary, and it is impossible to alienate the will from the body. Hence, rights are inalienable.

Once again, my entire point is that you are redefining “self-ownership” to be an ontological thing, the mere fact that you have a will and purposefully act. But that is not “self-ownership” as an ethic of personal sovereignty.

“Self-ownership” as an ethic of personal sovereignty is NOT intrinsic, it’s a goal. The fact that you cannot directly control someone’s mind doesn’t mean that the person actually has personal sovereignty. All it means is that that have their own will. Having a will does NOT equal “self-ownership” in an ethical sense.

When libertarians speak of “self-ownership”, presumably they do not meant to imply that we are inherently free in this way. The entire fallacy of the Hoppean argument is that it is conflating is and ought. It conflates the fact of purposeful action with the sovereignty to act without interference.

The fact that I have a will is not “proof of self-ownership”, it’s proof that I have a will. The notion that the fact that I have a will is “proof” of the ethic that my person should not be infringed upon is simply philosophically absurd. The idea that a slave is a “self-owner” in a libertarian sense is outrageous.

This entire thing is based on bad philosophy.

Nope. Ownership is the right to control, not direct control. Otherwise if I steal your car I am the owner. Control and right to control are different things.

“You assume that “ownership” and “rights” exists. “
Because they do just like marriage exists.

You can be a slave in a voluntary way (accept a masters orders) or you can be slaved by someone by force. Either way, you accept self-ownership and sovereignty by accepting being a slave or not accepting being a slave. The point of the argument is that you cannot avoid having self ownership because the contrary is impossible – you cannot own someone’s else body with your mind, nor can the master control his slave’s body with his mind – he has to resort to COERCION in order to achieve a result, but only because YOU as a slave own you own body. The master requires your acquiescence, otherwise he gets nothing, precisely because he cannot OWN your body.

To me, the definition of ownership inherently signifies a relationship between a person and an object. Therefore, we cannot possibly own ourselves, because we are the person/subject. If you are to say that “we” are doing the owning, then it cannot be “us” that is owned. If you are to say that “we” are the owned, then it cannot be “us” that is doing the owning. Welcome to the logical trap of self-ownership as a dualism.

Also, note what was said in the statement you were responding to: he said that ownership is the RIGHT to exclusive control. Not the FACT of exclusive control per se. He’s saying that, by default, we already do in some sense have such control. However, this doesn’t prove the RIGHT to exclusive control, all it proves is what we already knew – that we purposefully act. You’re conflating the fact that people purposefully act with the ethic of personal sovereignty.

Which, as you said, is the definition of ownership – therefore we own outselves. QED.

You assume that “ownership” and “rights” exists. You could be right, but you might be wrong. Since you might be wrong, the argument that follows based on the assumption is invalid.