/liberty/ - Liberty

Sounds like you have every reason to believe that this person will return and continue to steal your stuff. You have every right to ensure this person no longer is a threat to your property, liberty, or life.

>>18155

By stealing two grapefruits from him. I think apples would also suffice.

>>18158

But why two apples and not three :/

>>18159

One apple as reparation for your loss. Now he stands as if he had never stolen to begin with. This is compensation.

Another apple so he has one less fruit than would hypothetically be his right if he had not committed the theft. This mirrors the situation you found yourself in following the theft, and it is okay according to the maxims under which he stole from you. Therefore, you treat him the way that follows from his own principles.

Now, if he only stole because he was very, very hungry, the latter may not hold anymore. I haven't figured this problem out yet.

>>18161

I guess that makes sense ethically but it could make crime too profitable if we only catch people like 20% of the time

Having violated the social contract, he may no longer rely on its protections. You may do with him as you see fit. Take back your fruit. Take some of his fruit. Take all of his fruit. Take his life. Take nothing. Give a stern lecture. Read Vogon poetry. All of these are ethical options.

>>18162

Crime prevention is a fairly contrived field. There's a dozen theories out there as to what causes crime, some of whom have significant overlap. There is a bit of a consensus that a rational cost-benefit-analysis only ever occurs when it comes to white-collar and organized crime. A lot of crime is the result of spur of the moment decisions, often by youngsters or people with low impulse-control. These are not the types who think about whether stealing is a

That said, if the monetary punishment for stealing something small is also damn small, then that might encourage these crimes. That's not the end of the world, though. There's a social component to crime prevention, too. Generally, people with stable relationships and a steady job don't commit crime. And punishments that are not seen as stigmatizing, but are so-called reintegrative shaming, have a nice preventive effect, too. Guns should also work, I think, or better surveillance in areas that are prone to crime.

To sum it up, the low deterrence, at least as far as small crimes go, can be balanced or even overshadow by other ways to prevent crime. The kind of punishment I mentioned does have a nice side effect too, though: It actually punishes the crime solely by how heavy it is, with people who commit crimes out of desperation having it easier. This way, the punishment not only reminds delinquents of the crime, it also draws a better distinction between severe and less severe crimes, and that is something that could be worked with.

>>18163

Hobbes, plz go. ò_ó

>>18167

think i'm closer to Locke, really

>>18168

Well, you can stay, Locke. :-)

Seriously, though; Hobbes gets too much shit. He is antidemocratic and authoritarian, but not totalitarian.

>>18155

>Let's say I live in the wilderness.

In the night I wake up to find that someone has eaten my favourite grapefruit, and is now running away.

>How much is it ethical to punish him?

>asking for a friend

That's a fucking stupid hypothetical. I am going to change it to favorite birdhouse, because you would have to be a complete fucking retard to become sentimentally attached to a grapefruit, because #1. it's a fucking fruit #2. it will decay pretty rapidly so you can't have it as a keepsake for any length of time. A tree could be a "keepsake" of sorta. Maybe. One fruit? No.

Let's say this person destroys the birdhouse a dead relative made for you, it was well made too. That, or they sell it. First of all, if you have no proof this happened, your knowledge of the criminal's identity will be of no use to you in a statist society- social enforcement of basic norms is impossible when economic ostracism is "MUH ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION" and completely irrelevant due to the welfare state, social ostracism is also irrelevant because statism de-emphasizes the importance of close relationships with people (virtually forming your own insurance companies and "tribes" in a free society, but in a socialist society the incentive to provide value to people who you will one day depend on is gone because you get their resources regardless of how much of a cunt you are.) However, your options are much better in a free society. Let's say you saw him- but you don't have video cameras and the only evidence of his crime is ashes that are dispersed in such a way you can't link them to him/your birdhouse. In a statist society, the courts will not help you, best case scenario they punish him and the criminal provides you no restitution.

In a free society most people would be high IQ and psychologically healthy, because you can't have liberty with a population averaging around 95 IQ. You pretty much need 110 and above, and NEGOTIATION during childhood (if children are exposed to mutually beneficial non-violent conflict resolution, I would guess that they would favor such methods as adults). Why am I saying this? Because the unhealthy or low-IQ people susceptible to crime will be known to the community. This is assuming you live in a personal 150 person "tribe" (this doesn't mean rural, it just means that you have close relationships with a distinct community, whether that be an entire big apartment building, or a portion of a suburb.) This means that everyone has about 149 character references, or 149 witnesses to their poor character. When you say "this guy we all know is low-IQ, not in stable relationships, etc. burned my shit" there's a lot of social pressure you guys can exert against him. Assuming the likely scenario, where the victim is reputable and the criminal is not, chances are the criminal is understood to be a delinquent and they will try to punish him without outright ostracizing him. Now, by virtue of this person being able to associate with your community, we know implicitly that your community is either doing him a charity (because he's obviously predisposed to delinquency and they're trying to help him anyways) or he's a high-IQ sociopath sadist, in that case, if you were also a high-IQ individual, you would be best to NOT let that sociopath sadist know you saw him, tell some of your closest friends about the incident, and try to gather proof he's a fucking sociopath sadist; you don't want to accuse him outright because if he's really good you'll just look crazy. It's important to note that even the most brilliant sociopath manipulators will seem "off" after a while, to most perceptive individuals.

This means that the individual that committed the crime is one of the following:

-someone who is only accepted into your community as an act of charity, people will recognize that you are not lying, and seek to punish him/provide restitution to you without punishing him so severely he feels hated by the community

-The criminal is some evil mastermind sociopath, and you need to gather further proof of this before you proceed with action against him (inciting your community to ostracize him as a predator, because while most sociopaths are "okay", a sadist sociopath is just going to be a threat to the community)

-Someone stole and destroyed your birdhouse by accident

-Someone in the community, who is at least somewhat reputable was pissed off at you and stole your birdhouse and burned it. Except, this would never happen, because a high-IQ, mentally healthy, reputable person wouldn't resolve their dispute in such a childish way. They would seek arbitration for this, and you should be able to resolve any dispute with some kind of exchange of value or at least agree to a "white peace."

>>18173

It wasn't talking about in an anarchist 'society' or anything.

I just mean in the abstract, how much is it ethical to punish someone for a violation of natural rights

>>18187

Property rights allow us to know when a violation has occurred, not to what degree a violation should be punished. This would have to be determined by the community. As members of a community know that they may be falsely convicted, have empathy for both victims and perpetrators, and want to discourage crime, they will be able to come up with their own common law rules of thumb with restitution- they won't say "no restitution" as this would encourage crime, they won't say "pay 1,000 times the value of what you destroyed" as this would make it far too profitable to frame someone. One way this could work is that people are required by their communities to pledge certain amounts of restitution to individuals, so for instance, I could promise to pay $10 million (or more if I'm really rich) to any victim of murder (at which point I would pay and be ostracized to a "prison hotel") and I might promise to pay $1 million if I'm convicted of forcible/date rape (you might say "that's low" but prostitutes cost a lot less than $1 million) and I might promise in more simple/less traumatic cases of property rights to pay at least the value of the property destroyed up to five times the value (if the crime was especially malicious). I would then be insured by "This Person is Not a Criminal, We Promise, Insurance", because no one would trust I could pay $10 million to their surviving relatives/friends just with my own money. You might say "durr, but what if some rich dude wants to murder a whole bunch of people, he only has to pay $10 million?" Well, obviously, the insurance company could reserve the right to drop people if they refuse to get a psychological evaluation after committing a really major crime (like murder) and if they refuse drop them. Not to mention, rich people would not get rich by making obvious displays of sadism. Any high-IQ person who got to that status, was able to hide his intense sadism, and wanted to pay $10 million for the pleasure of killing someone, would find ways to do it within or outside of a free society.

>>18155

You may punish him equally. Reclaim the apple or plus damages (the time it took to return the apple, the opportunity lost from not having the apple during the time of its absence). If he's eaten the apple then you're entitled to its value plus the above damages.

>>18205

>people won't be framed because that would be profitable

topkek

>>18233

No, you retard, people will say "let's not have people forced to pay 1000 x the cost of what they stole/broke", if they do have that standard, it encourages someone to fake a crime to get that sexy 1000 x reward.

>>18172

What definies totalitarianism is that the state recognizes no limits to its power - on that account, Hobbes was totalitarian as fuck, - and that he strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life. I don't remember reading anything about that in Leviathan, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Then there's the fact that Hobbes actually recognized a right of self-defense against the state. If the state set out to kill you, no matter how justified it might be according to Hobbes' own theories, then you have the right to defend yourself by all means possible.