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Objections to 3L

16 min read

Answers to common objections against the 3L Philosophy

  • Limited imagination: “What would happen next?”
    • It is easy to jump to the problems that might stem from decentralising power and allowing people to be free.
      • ‘Who would build the roads?’
      • ‘What about those less fortunate than ourselves?’
      • ‘What about national defence?’
    • Instead of relying on others for the answers, ask yourself: ‘What would happen next?’
      • ‘What would happen if the law strictly prohibited aggressing tax-funding was no available for road building, social welfare and national defence? Would people still want these services? And if so, what would stop them from voluntarily funding or providing these services?
    • We were skeptical when we first heard of these ideas. But if we keep an open mind long enough, voluntary solutions start to emerge, especially when we think about what behaviour adherence to the Aspirational Values would encourage.
      • Maybe you will devise new innovative solutions of your own to some of these problems!
    • The goal of peace is worthy of our best intellectual and creative efforts. The only alternative is a world condemned to eternal conflict between groups competing to force their desires on everyone else… seem familiar?!
  • Stubbornness: “When should someone be legally permitted to aggress against a peaceful person?”
    • It is difficult to change our minds and be open-minded to conclusions contrary to our own. Many of our most valuable lessons are first learned by being wrong. We should be delighted to be wrong, especially on essential issues.
    • Almost every member of 3L was at one point advocating for achieving our worthy goals via aggressing.
      • Robbie’s personal anecdote
        • When I first heard a phrase like ‘tax is theft’, I rejected it. “Tax is tax, not theft”, I replied. And then someone patiently explained that if I ‘chose’ not to pay my tax, I would eventually end up in jail. If I resisted arrest, violence would be used against me. So I had to concede that tax was indeed a form of theft via coercive threats. Similarly, I believed that because climate change seems like such an existential threat that of course we need the government to step in and do something about it. But again, my patient mentor highlighted that governments have completely failed to mitigate the causes of climate change. Even if they did want to mitigate climate change, a ‘tax and subsidy’ does not actually tackle the root of the problem. If man-made greenhouse gas emissions are a pollutant (which needs to be determined in court), then climate change is a legal issue, not a political one. 3L offers such a legal solution to all issues that stem from aggressing (like pollution). For the first time ever, I had found what I was looking for: a solution to the unsustainable path of environmental degradation. The huge bonus was that it also solved the social and economic issues I care about, by removing victimless crimes. I was so eager to get involved!
    • Those who disagree with the Legal Principle that we must not aggress against each other should ask themselves: “Under what circumstances should anyone legally be permitted to substantially threaten or initiate nonconsensual physical force or to engage in fraud or coercion against another peaceful person?”
      • If your answer is ‘to accomplish xyz worthy goal’, then what objection would you offer others who want to aggress against you for a different goal they find important?
      • And what do you say to a competent adult who doesn’t want to be aggressed against for any reason?
      • Not aggressing against others, even for worthy goals, is the price we pay for a free and peaceful world.
  • Making exceptions for governments (or other groups): “If individuals can’t aggress, where does the government get legitimacy to do so?”
  • Fringe cases that challenge the Legal Principle?: “What scenario would warrant aggressing if it undermined the integrity of a system that would bring peace to earth?”
    • Even if it was possible to image a scenario in which a person might be justified in aggressing, would it be worth making this exception that would jeopardise the integrity of a system that would otherwise bring freedom and peace to earth?
    • There is a saying among legal professionals: ‘hard cases make bad law’. We should not compromise a system that works well 99% of the time to satisfy 1% of cases. No law is perfect in 100% of all factual situations. The Legal Principle does not claim to be perfect, but merely that is is superior to what we have now. If we’re presented with a better system, we remain open-minded to join that movement instead!
    • Jury nullification is an excellent mechanism to prevent the law being unjustly applied to the rare circumstances nonconsensual physical force may arguably be the right course of action.
  • **Complex, unforeseen issues: “**Wouldn’t we teach a child to always find an alternative to aggressing?”
    • Life is unpredictable. From endless possibilities arise endless possible problems.
    • Aggressing to solve any problem is lazy, immoral and demonstrates a failure to reason through the issue carefully. Wouldn’t we teach a child to find an alternative to aggressing? Instead, we can rely on collaboration, creative thinking and persuasion. Necessity is the mother of invention. Entrepreneurs are constantly searching for new issues to solve. Aggressing should always be rejected as a solution – a peaceful solution will eventually be discovered. The hypocrisy of promoting peace while employing aggression will not be lost on those you seek to convince.
    • History is replete with examples of how aggressing has failed to solve problems. The ongoing war on drugs, the alcohol prohibition in 1920’s USA, or the Soviet Union’s Collectivization of Agriculture in the 1930’s that triggered famine are some among many examples.
    • Grounding all solutions in a commitment to not violate the Legal Principle would be much superior than the ever changing and arbitrary principles applied by politicians today.
    • Though applying the formula resolves most disputes fairly and consistently, the Legal Principle does not present a simple answer to every problem. We encourage challenges and questions for continuous improvement.
    • The fact that different communities will adopt different local rules for different reasonable interpretations of the Legal Principle does not negate nor undermine the need for fundamental guiding principles to calibrate the laws, rules and regulations. The absense of these principles is what is currently plaguing the world and causing such unnecessary suffering.
  • Interpretation problems: “Do you prefer letting the local community decide, or continuing the endless cycle of law-fare?”
    • Factual disputes, grey areas and different risk tolerances of different local communities will all lead to slightly different solutions. When reasonable minds genuinely committed to the Legal Principle disagree after full and fair discussion/debate, we can conclude there is more than one reasonable interpretation of how the Legal Principle applies; local communities can then choose whichever reasonable interpretation they prefer.
      • No-one may impose their preferred interpretation on everyone else when reasonable minds disagree on how the Legal Principle should be applied. Doing so would breach the due-process principle that no-one may be the judge in their own case. Allowing each person to resolve for themselves whether they have violated the law would, of course, result in chaos.
    • Resolving uncertain moral issues (relating to the Aspirational Values) should be resolved in whatever way best comports with that individual’s conscience and sense of right and wrong.
  • Caution of utopias: “3L is not perfect, merely the best available”
  • Imposing good moral views on others (for ‘equality’): “There is an infinite supply of worthy causes – does that justify infinite aggressing?”
    • Well-intentioned people often seek to employ the coercive mechanisms of government to accomplish good things, such as helping others who are less fortunate. Are you one of these kind-hearted people?
    • Because there are a never ending supply of worthy causes, we can predict a never ending supply of disputes unless we resolve not to import our preferred morality into the law and impose it on others. Instead, we should encourage charity, remembering that actual charity is always voluntary, not coerced. Theft remains wrong, even if the proceeds are used charitably.
      • The story of Robinhood resonates with many, as it should. It is a story of taking back the money that King John had stolen via unjust taxation. It is a story about restoring justice, not a message that it is justified to steal money from ‘the rich’.

    Poverty

    • It is tempting to see extreme poverty in the world and desire to force others, some of whom may be financially successful, to alleviate that suffering through the coercive mechanisms of taxation and redistribution. The 3L Movement shares this goal of urgently alleviating extreme poverty. This goal is entirely consistent with the Aspirational Values.
    • However, even if we ignore the substantial moral and legal problems inherent in coercively appropriating the money of others to fund the moral causes you care about, there still exist endless other practical issues to resolve. For example:
      • How do you define “poverty” such that a person is entitled to financial assistance?
      • How do we determine whether people qualify?
      • Who will administer the program?
      • Will more money be forcefully appropriated to fund the program administrators?
      • Should people receive equal amounts of assistance?
      • How do we decide?
      • What if the person in poverty can earn a living but lazily rejects the idea?
      • What if someone is poor solely as a result of reckless gambling decisions or drunkenness?
      • What if the person receiving the financial assistance opts to use the money to buy drugs or alcohol or take a vacation?
      • What if the person uses their financial handout to aggress against another person?
      • Are you thinking about people experiencing poverty in your city? Your state? Your country? Somewhere else in the world?
      • When should the funding occur?
      • In what amount?
      • How often?
      • What about people who cannot afford to contribute?
    • There are countless other issues to fight about while implementing your decision to force everyone to fund your chosen charity. Besides, many people understandably resent being bossed around even if they agree with your moral conclusions. Forcing others to spend their money in ways they reject gives rise to an endless struggle where everyone has a perpetual interest in forcing others to spend their money against their will. Does this seem like the road to freedom, peace, and prosperity?

    Where does it stop?

    • Countless other worthy causes that reasonable people value and rank differently fill our world. What about heart disease research? What constitutes a worthy cause is itself the source of endless debate.
    • The wisdom of relegating even our most obvious moral views to the domain of persuasion should be evident.
    • What objection will you offer when others with different moral views attempt to force you to comply with their moral judgments? Do you object that the law should force you to comply with the Muslim concept of Sharia law? If so, on what basis? That your morality is the better morality? People with moral views you disagree with will inevitably also attempt to force you to comply with their moral judgments via the law.
    • It is easy to see why attempting to import your morality into the law creates an endless struggle for control among people with competing moral views. There are infinite moral issues upon which people of goodwill honestly disagree. Does this free-for-all situation where everyone competes to force everyone else to comply with their different moral preferences via control of the laws seem familiar to you? This reality is the problem we have now.

    Conclusion

    • We have only two options: 1. We each endlessly struggle to impose our moral judgments on everyone else by incorporating them into the law, or 2. We agree to keep our moral judgments out of the law. If we truly desire a peaceful world, the latter option is the only reasonable choice.
    • Instead of imposing our morality on others, let’s vigorously and peacefully advocate for people to voluntarily adopt the Aspirational Values.
    • Just as we cannot legislate our way to a virtuous society, we cannot use force to convince people to value peace.
  • Disagreement with concept of ‘property’: “Do you own yourself? If not do you mind others controlling your body?”
    • Some argue that, if you go far enough back in history, all land was at one time stolen from someone else. This is most likely true. The 3L Philosophy does not hold individuals accountable for the actions of others, including their ancestors. We cannot resolve the crimes of history, especially via more violence. We can put an end to the cycle of aggressing – that means accepting property rights as they are, imperfect a solution as that is.
    • Some also argue that property ownership is not natural. But, across the animal kingdom, most species instinctively recognize and defend territory, making it one of nature’s most universal survival strategies. Territorial behaviour is found in most vertebrate groups (mammals like lions and hippos, also birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians) and many invertebrates (ants, bees, etc).
      • Virtually all tribal or small-scale societies also claim, control and defend territory. These territory’s may be collectively owned by the whole tribe or specific families, but that control is still exclusive control; outsiders are not communal owners. Some tribes among the Pacific Northwest Coast peoples or Polynesians recognise individual rights to pockets of land, dwellings and items.
    • Without respect for property rights, there is no basis for laws to protect freedoms.
    • There are 3 ways of relating to property: no respect for property rights (chaos), selfish property ownership (freedom) and generous property ownership (peace).
  • The Social Contract: “Did you sign your social contract? Can you opt out? Wouldn’t 3L be a better social contract?”
    • Do you genuinely believe in a social contract, or are you merely scrambling for some concealed way to aggress against others? Not only does it not exist, it is neither ‘social’ nor a contract, and is barely even known of outside of philosophy classrooms, let alone a consensual agreement to whatever you believe the terms are.
    • “If you don’t like it, you can leave”…
      • Is this your position? How does this position differ from merely seeking to impose your will on others by force?
      • Imagine a teacher advising a kindergarten student that if she doesn’t like the other kids forcefully taking her toys, the proper remedy is to relocate to another class. Do you side with the robber and the misguided kindergarten teacher?
    • “It is implied”…
      • If you argue that people implicitly agree to a sweeping social contract by their mere presence in a geographic location, disallowing them to explicitly refuse to consent overthrows any arguable implicit consent.
      • While the implied consent argument correctly applies to someone who voluntarily enters another person’s property knowing the owner’s applicable rules, the same cannot be said for your preferred social contract as applied to an owner on their property.
    • Conclusion
      • The ‘Social Contract’ is not a contract but rather a forced imposition of your personal moral preferences, otherwise known aggressing. That it is thinly veiled as a forcefully imposed “contract” is irrelevant.
      • Whatever terms you seek to include in your social “contract” can effectively be contradicted or replaced by another person’s imagined social “contract,”. This leads to endless arguments about whose social “contract” is imposed on everyone else.
      • Of all the terms that could exist, a term prohibiting people from aggressing against others seems likely to be included. If this is true, social contract theory gets us to the 3L Philosophy.
      • Therefore, if you insist on social contract theory despite these arguments, you should adopt the 3L Philosophy as the best version of any social contract.
  • There are other paths to peace: “How can we achieve peace while aggressing is legal?”
  • The status quo is fine: “Why would we ever want to imprison someone for a victimless crime?”
    • Would basing our legal system on the Legal Principle yield better or worse results than our current legal system? Given that there are over ten million people currently imprisoned worldwide, there seems to be ample room for improvement.
      • The current criminal justice system in the United States has resulted in the highest incarceration rate of any civilized country – it is hard to imagine the land of the free and the land of the incarcerated are the same place.
      • Why would we ever want to imprison anyone who themselves not aggressed?
    • So long as the law permits aggressing by anyone to accomplish even worthy moral goals, we can reliably expect conflict to result. To reject the Legal Principle is to argue for legalized aggressing in some form.
    • Although a utopian world is impossible, dramatically improving our society and world by reducing aggressing remains achievable.
      • Most criminal justice systems worldwide have gone wrong mainly because they enforce laws that criminalize conduct that does not violate the Legal Principle.
      • All victimless crimes are examples.
      • Overcriminalization is undoubtedly one of the main reasons the United States and many other countries have such unreasonably high incarceration rates.
  • Maybe you are unreasonable: “Would you want to be aggressed against?”
    • Rejecting the Legal Principle means, by definition, you favor initiating or at least substantially threatening to initiate nonconsensual physical force or engaging in fraud or coercion against another person or their property at least on some occasions for some purpose.
      • On those occasions, reason cannot be employed as a communication tool because aggressing is your chosen tool to accomplish your goals.
      • Regardless of whether an aggressor is a person, group, corporation, or government, aggressing necessitates abandoning reason as the preferred means to achieve a goal.
      • Indeed, this inability or refusal to reason and cooperate as a means to accomplish goals is the very nature of aggressing.
    • Reason employs the tools of conversation, argument, and persuasion. When we reject these civilized tools in favor of resorting to aggressing to accomplish goals, we necessarily reject reason itself.
      • When someone abandons reason, the person who rejects it is unreasonable. This conclusion is merely the meaning and essence of the word unreasonable. Therefore, at least when you favor aggression, you cannot be reasoned with.
    • It is understandable to reject the Legal Principle without being fully informed of its meaning or having had a full opportunity to contemplate it. Unfortunately, this is the current state of affairs in our world.
      • I have not met anyone who prefers being a victim of another person’s aggressing. To support aggressing against others but oppose it as applied to yourself is a hypocritical and arrogant position that is completely unfair to others.
      • Reasonable people of the world substantially outnumber the unreasonable ones. However, many reasonable people have not yet paused to carefully consider the concept of legalized aggressing and how it has fueled so much unnecessary conflict in our world.
      • Aggressing has been camouflaged mainly by well-intentioned people seeking to accomplish worthy goals or by applying a different standard to individuals employed by corporations or governments. Nonetheless, the wrongfulness of legalized aggressing is the same evil as illegal aggression. **Aggressing remains wrong, whether legal or illegal.**
    • Freedom is essentially “self-rule”. Democracy is essentially majority rule or “mob rule,”
      • A fair election does not alter the analysis of whether a peaceful person was aggressed against.
      • Involuntary interactions are wrong even if the majority approves of them. Imagine all your neighbors get together and, determined by a fair vote, decide to take your patio furniture without your consent for use at the neighborhood picnic. Despite the fair vote, this conduct remains a trespass and theft of your property. Wrong does not become right merely because most people agree to some action.
    • The challenge of the 3L Movement is to inspire the reasonable people of the world to carefully consider and adopt the 3L Philosophy. When that occurs, the unreasonable people of the world will no longer be permitted to wrongfully and forcefully impose their will on others through the mechanisms of the law. At that time, and for the first time, we will give peace a real chance.

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