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 better a work is, the more it attracts criticism; it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens.”
—Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880)
“Work is an essential part of being alive. Your work is your identity. It tells you who you are. It’s gotten so abstract. People don’t work for the sake of working. They’re working for a car, a new house, or a vacation. It’s not the work itself that’s important to them. There’s such a joy in doing work well.”
—Kay Stepkin, U.S. baker. As quoted in Working, book 8, by Studs Terkel (1973)
“Women are in bondage; their clothes are a great hindrance to their engaging in any business which will make them pecuniarily independent, and since the soul of womanhood never can be queenly and noble so long as it must beg bread for its body, is it not better, even at the expense of a vast deal of annoyance, that they whose lives deserve respect and are greater than their garments should give an example by which woman may more easily work out her own emancipation?”
—Lucy Stone (1818–1893)