The libertarian creed rests upon one central axiom: that no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else. This may be called the “nonaggression axiom.” “Aggression” is defined as the initiation of the use or threat of physical violence against the person or property of anyone else. Aggression is therefore synonymous with invasion.
Murray Rothbard – For a New Liberty.
Above is the Non Aggression Principle (NAP) It uses the word axiom instead of principle. The point is the same. Stated in simple terms it means the person who starts aggression is in the wrong. There is a very important word that is often glossed over when talking about the NAP. “Initiate” is the word, and it is important for 2 reasons. First, it is necessary to keep the principle from being self-defeating. Second, it makes the principle about a very specific thing. It is about who is in the wrong in a conflict. What the NAP doesn’t say, as it’s stated, is what happens after someone has done wrong. There are many approaches to what is a legitimate response. These would require another separate principle or the NAP needs to be scratched and restated to include response to violations.
How can we tell what is a good response to a NAP violation? One extreme would be some sort of uber-pacifism were literally nothing is done (I use “uber” because there are other legitimate forms of pacifism). On the opposite extreme there would be anything goes reaction. Ex. killing someone for stealing a pencil. Hopefully everyone can agree that these are illegitimate. Now we can discuss various degrees in between.
Think of a knight, sword and shield in hand in a fight. The first approach I will call defensive force. I know others have used this term without really defining it. My use is probably a bit different and narrower to differentiate between other types. With defensive force the knight is just using his shield to deflect attacks. Maybe a variant would include shied bashes and blocks with a sword. This is probably a type of pacifist approach.
The second approach would be reactionary force. In this one and all of these someone attacks first or is an imminent threat (charging at you sword drawn). Think of a knee-jerk reaction for this one. It can be careless but seem necessary in times of desperation. This is like reacting by spinning 360s with your sword. You might just hit your attacker, but there could very well be other stuff damaged in the process. At least you’re alive, but now you have to pay for the extra damage that was done in the process (assuming you aren’t forgiven upon explaining your desperation).
Responsive Force is the 3rd one. It is similar to reactionary force in that you are still using your sword. But, you are more intentional with your counter-attacks, focusing on the initiator at hand. It’s more like a skilled swordsman focusing on the enemy.
Delegated force is just what it sounds like someone else helps you out. You flag down an archer to take out some of the multiple knights attacking you.
Tactical Force is kind of different, it could involve any combination of the above or more. This is a well planned counter-attack. It may involve an entire militia or security force. It probably has multiple steps like recon, blockades, intel, strategy, etc. Let’s say you have a known serial killer. You create a plan to do recon, so you know how to get to him, and then you need a way to neutralize him and capture or kill him.
All this probably brings up the question of how much force is too much force? Of course, we are talking about max response. Settling for something less is always an option. The standard eye for an eye seems like a good starting place for max punishment. With this approach, you often have to settle for something less because it’s impractical to do something like an actual eye for an eye. You can’t really get any use out of someone else’s eye. It makes more sense for something like a pencil for a pencil. Even there, max punishment shouldn’t be something anyone had a problem with. I don’t think the eye for an eye was ever meant to be that literal anyway, it just means that if you make someone blind you should do something to compensate for his blindness, even if that means being his eyes for him. Or providing a seeing eye dog. Or whatever. It doesn’t really make sense to exceed eye for an eye unless, you are counting various fees and inconveniences that may occur in the court process. Even then, those fees would just be separate eyes for eyes. The pencil would be an eye. The court fees would be an eye. The inconvenience fees would be an eye. 3 eyes for 3 eyes. When someone does initiate force, they are initiating it multiple times, not just a mere single eye theft. They are also initiating the need for someone to use a court service. And time theft for causing the person to not be able to do what they otherwise would have been doing.
I may continue this later, it’s already getting long. The more I type, the more stuff I think of to type about.
future topics:
Illegitimate force. Excess force. Preemptive attack. how to choose. many methods.
