Work
Van Dun published his book Het Fundamenteel Rechtsbeginsel (Dutch for The Fundamental Principle of Law) in 1983, in which he argued that a rationally convincing answer to the question "what is law?" can only be found by respecting dialogue and argumentation. He thus adheres to argumentation ethics justification of private law society or anarcho-capitalism. Based on this premise, Van Dun argues that every natural person (individual) has a lawful claim on his life, freedom and property. This claim is absolute, insofar it does not prohibit the equivalent claims of other natural persons, i.e. insofar as argumentation is respected.
Van Dun clearly distinguishes the lawful (ius) and the legal (lex). In his view, Western positive law systems reduce people to human resources, artificial persons with merely legal status. Positive law defines the legal but can only be lawful insofar as individuals have full secession rights from the institutional framework that is making said positive law. It logically follows that no judge can be forced upon a person who is willing to search a lawful solution for any conflict.
Van Dun claims that the correct interpretation of the non-aggression principle (NAP) is praxeological rather than physical, because property is a "means of action". He thus claims freedom before property instead of freedom as property. This implies that it's not necessarily only the last action in the chain of social causations that is unlawful. Consider the following examples:
- With regards to land encirclement, a praxeological NAP could imply a "freedom proviso" when the encircling land owner refuses to discuss a reasonable solution.
- With regards to copyrights, a praxeological NAP implies that the use of one's signature (as an expression of one's body as "means of action") could reasonably be considered more important than the physical freedom of exactly copying another person's signature with one's paper and ink.
- With regards to freedom of speech, a praxeological NAP could imply that it is unlawful for an individual to order an unlawful act, e.g. a general ordering a murder of someone willing to seek lawful solutions.
The freedom before property interpretation of the NAP is not widely accepted within the libertarian community. For example, Walter Block adheres to the freedom as property interpretation.
Read more about this topic: Frank Van Dun
Famous quotes containing the word work:
“The woman and the genius do not work. Up to now, woman has been mankind’s supreme luxury. In all those moments when we do our best, we do not work. Work is merely a means to these moments.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Enough if the work has seemed,
So did she your strength renew,
A dream that a lion had dreamed
Till the wilderness cried aloud.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Some are “industrious,” and appear to love labor for its own sake, or perhaps because it keeps them out of worse mischief; to such I have at present nothing to say. Those who would not know what to do with more leisure than they now enjoy, I might advise to work twice as hard as they do,—work till they pay for themselves, and get their free papers.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)