The initiation part of the third definition is vital. If violence is used in retaliation against those who initiate it (for example by Ms. Smith to get her stolen watch back) it is not aggression. The first use - initiation - of force contrasts with retaliatory or rectificatory force. Before the mid-20th century most anarchists appealed, not to the NAP, but to a similar principle - the law of equal freedom (law of equal liberty).
This principle was often cited in the 19th century by libertarians and anarchists of all stripes. The religious pointed to scriptural foundation: seeing the Golden Rule as saying essentially the same thing. The more philosophically-minded saw the law of equal freedom as a direct moral application of Kant's categorical imperitive. Note that the law is about freedom, and not equality in the modern redistributive sense. Spencer was careful in using precise wording: "like liberty" rather than "equal liberty." The equality is only in what others should not forcibly prevent you from doing. It is equality in a condition: absence of legitimate authority over someone else's life. It is not equality of talent, wealth, ability, productiveness, or beauty, but equality of moral jurisdiction. Spencer's Law of Equal Freedom is redundant. For if every man has freedom to do all that he wills, it follows from this very premise that no man's freedom has been infringed or invaded. ... The concept of "equality" has no rightful place in the "Law of Equal Freedom," being replaceable by the logical quantifier "every." The "Law of Equal Freedom" could well be renamed 'The Law of Total Freedom.'" - Murray Rothbard, Power and MarketHow is the non-aggression principle related to the law of equal freedom? The LEF talks about "the fullest liberty ... compatible with ... the like liberty" of others. Clearly aggression constrains liberty, thus is not compatible with maximum liberty. Also, aggression makes the aggressor more able to "exercise his faculties" than the victim, at the expense of the victim, thus violating the "like liberty" condition. If you grant that the only way to violate rights or violate the LEF is by using aggression, we have an equivalence between the two principles. "Equal liberty means the largest amount of liberty compatible with equality and mutuality of respect, on the part of individuals living in society, for their respective spheres of action." - Benjamin Tucker, Instead of a Book, |
| Against Authority | page 18 |
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