How do you know you're a person open to reason?

[a500lbgorilla]

Law is the arbiter of theft. Ownership does not exist outside of law.

[wufwugy]

Law is the arbiter of theft. Ownership does not exist outside of law.

The social concept of ownership does not exist because of the legal concept; the legal concept exists because of the social concept.

This was all covered fairly thoroughly already by others, but I'd just like to point out that your definition of theft is more arbitrary than the one provided by law. One could easily imagine you aimed this comment at yourself, not unlike this whole thread.

I haven't proposed a definition of theft, at least not one that is any different than the accepted definition of theft. What I've proposed is that the concept exists without the law.

Determining which instances are theft does have some level of arbitrariness to it, but that's also a different topic.

You're trying to argue that theft and murder are some universal concepts that exist outside human culture.

I'm not sure I would say it's universal. Some people may not have concepts of "theirs" in the first place. But what we do know is that we do have a concept of ownership and theft regardless of what the law says.

You can remove the word "criminal" from this sentence and it still means exactly the same thing.

It wouldn't. It would undermine my entire position because I would be saying that the concept of theft is dependent on the law.

Go ahead and try to define theft without invoking property rights.

Go ahead and try to define property rights without invoking some rule making body.

I would certainly be in a quandary if I was talking about the law.

Let's say you live in the woods. You find some seeds. You clear a space, till the soil, plant them, guard them, nurture them, etc., then eventually you have tomatoes. You start picking your tomatoes and are going to eat them, but then somebody else comes along, punches you, and takes your tomatoes. Even though there is no law designating ownership or conduct of any sort, the reality of the situation is that those things exist because of your efforts and purpose, and that before you could fulfill the purpose for which you created those things, somebody else took them.

This is where the concept of theft comes from. The law is a reflection of these basic physical and social realities, but that doesn't mean the law determines the existence of the physical and social realities.

it is much lamented that America got its land because it displaced people from said land. Those people did not believe (or even understand) that land could be property. The notion of property of said land was explained to them when they were killed for going where they'd always gone.

So property is a conceit - and one that not all human cultures adopt.

So the idea that "taking" is the same as "theft" on some deep, human level is demonstrated to be false.

The concept is probably not universal. But we have it, so the concept exists for us.

[a500lbgorilla]

The social concept of ownership does not exist because of the legal concept; the legal concept exists because of the social concept.

It may be a bit of cat and mouse, chicken and egg, but the concept of ownership does exist because of the legal concept. Otherwise, you're left to the law of the jungle and you only own what's in your belly and already integrated into your person.

[wufwugy]

It may be a bit of cat and mouse, chicken and egg, but the concept of ownership does exist because of the legal concept. Otherwise, you're left to the law of the jungle and you only own what's in your belly and already integrated into your person.

Animals of the jungle fight over what's "theirs" all the time.

[a500lbgorilla]

Animals of the jungle fight over what's "theirs" all the time.

Yeah. People fought over what's "theirs" all the time. Eventually we've settled on a system where you don't have to fight over ownership because we've developed rules to govern ownership called Laws.

There wasn't ownership before law, there were just animals fighting.

[wufwugy]

Yeah. People fought over what's "theirs" all the time. Eventually we've settled on a system where you don't have to fight over ownership because we've developed rules to govern ownership called Laws.

There wasn't ownership before law, there were just animals fighting.

Why do you think the law created the concept? How do you think people viewed things they fought over and protected before there was law? When two things are the same except for a law saying they're not, what makes them different other than the law?

[a500lbgorilla]

Why do you think the law created the concept? How do you think people viewed things they fought over and protected before there was law? When two things are the same except for a law saying they're not, what makes them different other than the law?

You want to make it seem like you don't need a law degree to identify theft but what happens when two people claim ownership over the same thing?

Either it becomes an issue about legal ownership or it becomes a conflict that needs to be resolved by some other means including violence.

With law we have a method to identifying what someone does or does not own. Without law, ownership literally becomes a logistical problem of what you can secure from others. Law secures your ownership. If, for example, someone steals your car, you can sick the cops on them. As opposed to taking the law in your own hands and hunting them down yourself, or whatever it is you imagine a person needs to do to secure the things he claims to own.

[CoccoBill]

I haven't proposed a definition of theft, at least not one that is any different than the accepted definition of theft. What I've proposed is that the concept exists without the law.

Determining which instances are theft does have some level of arbitrariness to it, but that's also a different topic.

What is the accepted definition, if it's not the legal definition? Accepted by whom? Your implied definition of theft includes taxes. Since we are talking about social constructs, I can only think of two frameworks to define them, formal (laws) and informal (morals). Your definition is clearly not the formal one, so it must be the informal one. If you had originally said "in my opinion, taxation is morally the same as theft", I don't think anyone would have had any beef with it.

I'm not sure I would say it's universal. Some people may not have concepts of "theirs" in the first place. But what we do know is that we do have a concept of ownership and theft regardless of what the law says.

A moral concept based on each individual's beliefs on what's acceptable and what's not. Indeed very non-universal. You're arguing that your morals are more correct than those of others, and those defined by [a set of] laws. I'd argue that the legal definition is the least incorrect. This also as a response to ImSavy's earlier comment.

[wufwugy]

What is the accepted definition, if it's not the legal definition? Accepted by whom? Your implied definition of theft includes taxes. Since we are talking about social constructs, I can only think of two frameworks to define them, formal (laws) and informal (morals). Your definition is clearly not the formal one, so it must be the informal one. If you had originally said "in my opinion, taxation is morally the same as theft", I don't think anyone would have had any beef with it.



A moral concept based on each individual's beliefs on what's acceptable and what's not. Indeed very non-universal. You're arguing that your morals are more correct than those of others, and those defined by [a set of] laws. I'd argue that the legal definition is the least incorrect. This also as a response to ImSavy's earlier comment.

I'm not arguing for my moral beliefs. I've addressed what I'm arguing for in recent posts to others. The short of it is that the distinction between taxation and theft is merely a legal one. From this, I believe it is reasonable to appeal to the reason of others by claiming they're the same.