Non-aggression principle
The non-aggression principle is a concept in which "aggression" – defined as initiating or threatening any forceful interference with an individual, their property or their agreements – is illegitimate and should be prohibited. Interpretations of the NAP vary, particularly concerning issues like intellectual property, force, and abortion.
Like the Golden Rule, the Non-Aggression Principle follows an ethics of reciprocity, in the sense that whether a person's action is permissible, depends upon the preceding actions of others.
The non-aggression principle is considered by some to be a, or even the, defining principle of libertarianism. It is a common principle among libertarians of both minarchist and anarchist beliefs.
History
The non-aggression principle has existed in various forms. A number of authors have created their own formulation of the harm principle which NAP supporters argue as a form of non-aggression principle as shown in the table below.| Year | Author | Formulation |
| 1689 | John Locke | Locke states: "Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions." |
| 1819 | Thomas Jefferson | In a letter to Isaac Tiffany, Jefferson argues: "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law', because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual. No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him." |
| 1851 | Herbert Spencer | Spencer formulates the following: "Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man." |
| 1859 | John Stuart Mill | In his book On Liberty, Mill states that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." |
| 1923 | Albert Jay Nock | In the second chapter of his book Our Enemy, the State, Nock refers to the legendary king Pausole, who stated only two laws, namely "hurt no man" and "then do as you please." |
| 1961 | Ayn Rand | In an essay called "Man's Rights" in the book The Virtue of Selfishness, she formulated: "The precondition of a civilized society is the barring of physical force from social relationships. In a civilized society, force may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use." |
| 1963 | Murray Rothbard | In "War, Peace, and the State" which appeared in Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays, Rothbard states: "No one may threaten or commit violence against another man's person or property. Violence may be employed only against the man who commits such violence; that is, only defensively against the aggressive violence of another. In short, no violence may be employed against a nonaggressor. Here is the fundamental rule from which can be deduced the entire corpus of libertarian theory." |
Justifications
The principle has been derived through various philosophical approaches, including:- Spirituality: The historical pedigree of the Non-Aggression Principle includes religious roots such as Taoism, Jain Buddhism, and Christianity. Such religions see ideas along the lines of the NAP as a spiritual duty or way of being associated with the will of the divine or the path of right conduct, above and beyond mere worldly concerns.
- Consequentialism: some advocates base the non-aggression principle on rule utilitarianism or rule egoism. These approaches hold that though violations of the non-aggression principle cannot be claimed to be objectively immoral, adherence to it almost always leads to the best possible results, and so it should be accepted as a moral rule. These scholars include David D. Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, and Friedrich Hayek.
- Objectivism: Ayn Rand rejected natural or inborn rights theories as well as supernatural claims and instead proposed a philosophy based on "observable reality" along with a corresponding ethics based on the "factual requirements" of human life in a social context. She stressed that the political principle of non-aggression is not a primary and that it only has validity as a consequence of a more fundamental philosophy. For this reason, many of her conclusions differ from others who hold the NAP as an axiom or arrived at it differently. She proposed that man survives by identifying and using concepts in his rational mind since "no sensations, percepts, urges or instincts can do it; only a mind can". She wrote, "since reason is man's basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil."
- Argumentation ethics: some modern propertarian/right-libertarian thinkers ground the non-aggression principle by an appeal to the necessary praxeological presuppositions of any ethical discourse, an argument pioneered by anarcho-capitalist scholar Hans Hermann Hoppe. They claim that the act of arguing for the initiation of aggression, as defined by the non-aggression principle, is contradictory. Among its advocates are Stephan Kinsella and Murray Rothbard.
- Estoppel: Stephan Kinsella believes that the legal concept of estoppel implies and justifies the non-aggression principle.
Definitional issues
Abortion
Propertarians/Right-libertarians who are pro-life and pro-choice both justify their position on NAP grounds. One question to determine whether or not abortion is consistent with the NAP is at what stage of development a fertilized human egg cell can be considered a human being with the status and rights attributed to personhood. Some supporters of the NAP argue this occurs at the moment of conception while others argue that since the fetus lacks sentience until a certain stage of development, it does not qualify as a human being and may be considered property of the mother. On the other hand, opponents of abortion state that sentience is not a qualifying factor. They refer to the animal rights discussion and point out the argument from marginal cases that concludes the NAP also applies to non-sentient humans.Another question is whether an unwelcome fetus should be considered to be an unauthorized trespasser in its mother's body. The non-aggression principle does not protect trespassers from the owners of the property on which they are trespassing.
Objectivist philosopher Leonard Peikoff has argued that a fetus has no right to life inside the womb because it is not an "independently existing, biologically formed organism, let alone a person". Pro-choice propertarian/right-libertarian Murray Rothbard held the same stance, maintaining that abortion is justified at any time during pregnancy if the fetus is no longer welcome inside its mother. Similarly, other pro-choice supporters base their argument on criminal trespass. In that case, they claim that the NAP is not violated when the fetus is forcibly removed, with deadly force if need be, from the mother's body, just as the NAP is not violated when an owner removes from the owner's property an unwanted visitor who is not willing to leave voluntarily. Libertarian theorist Walter Block follows this line of argument with his theory of evictionism, but he makes a distinction between evicting the fetus prematurely so that it dies and actively killing it. On the other hand, the theory of departurism permits only the non-lethal eviction of the trespassing fetus during a normal pregnancy.
Pro-life libertarians such as Libertarians for Life argue that because the parents were actively involved in creating a new human life and that life has not consented to their own existence, that life is in the womb by necessity and no parasitism or trespassing in the form of legal necessity is involved. They state that as the parents are responsible for that life's position, the NAP would be violated when that life is killed with abortive techniques.
Intellectual property rights
The NAP is applicable to any unauthorized actions towards a person's physical property. Supporters of the NAP disagree on whether it should apply to intellectual property rights as well as physical property rights. Some argue that because intellectual concepts are non-rivalrous, intellectual property rights are unnecessary while others argue that intellectual property rights are as valid and important as physical ones.Force and interventions
Although the NAP is meant to guarantee an individual's sovereignty, propertarians/right-libertarians greatly differ on the conditions under which the NAP applies. Especially unsolicited intervention by others, either to prevent society from being harmed by the individual's actions or to prevent an incompetent individual from being harmed by his own actions or inactions, is an important issue. The debate centers on topics such as the age of consent for children, intervention counseling, involuntary commitment and involuntary treatment with regards to mental illness, medical assistance, human organ trade, state paternalism and foreign intervention by states. Other discussion topics on whether intervention is in line with the NAP include nuclear weapons proliferation, human trafficking and immigration.Objectivist author Ronald Merill criticizes the anarcho-capitalist view of force. He states that the use of force is subjective, saying: "There's no objective basis for controlling the use of force. Your belief that you're using force to protect yourself is just an opinion; what if it is my opinion that you are violating my rights?"