War, Peace, and Aggression
Or "How I Learned to Say Nope to the NAP"
What is the Non-Aggression Principle?
The Non-Aggression Principal or NAP is considered to be a defining principle of libertarianism. It been presented in different ways, each with slightly different implications. Infogalactic lists seven formulations of the NAP by thinkers dating back to John Locke. Of the seven, it is the Mid-20th Century formulations by Murray Rothbard that have had the most influence, and upon which we’ll focus:
Murray Rothbard (1963): “No one may threaten or commit violence ('aggress') 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.”
In addition to being a fundamental principle of libertarian thought, the NAP also appears as a second-order principle (derived from more fundamental rules) in many other ideologies. Many religions, typically those which do not espouse complete pacifism, espouse some variant of the NAP. Lockean liberalism espouses some variant of the NAP as well.
Because libertarians tend to be highly intelligent, highly disagreeable, and extremely online, virtually every aspect of the NAP has been extensively debated; the corpus of conversation about it almost approaches theological proportions. Since my readers here at Tree of Woe are also highly intelligent, highly dis—well, anyway, since you guys probably know most of that stuff, I’m not going to explore the NAP in breadth.
Instead, I’m going to drill down one particular aspect of the NAP which I have always found problematic: The issue of non-physical aggression. Thinking about non-physical aggression has persuaded me that the NAP is not correct, not for individuals, and not for nation-states.
When can violence be used against non-physical aggressors?
Consider the following hypotheticals:
Donald is at home when Brandon bursts in to his home with a MAC10 and starts shooting at him. Donald calmly draws his Sig Sauer 9mm and dispatches Brandon with a shot to the head.
Donald is at home when Brandon opens his unlocked door with a MAC10 and tells Donald “I’m going to take everything from you.” Donald calmly draws his Sig Sauer 9mm and dispatches Brandon before he can do so.
Donald is at the movies with his wife when Brandon goes to his home and steals his prized collection of Star Wars action figures. Donald tries to recover them through a lawsuit, but the jury unreasonably finds for Brandon. Donald hunts down Brandon and demands that Brandon return them anyway. When Brandon refuses, Donald unsheathes his genuine replica lightsaber and threatens to beat Brandon with it unless Brandon hands over Greedo, IG-88, and the rest of the Kenner collection. Brandon refuses, so Donald beats him unconscious. Then he takes his action figures and leaves.
Donald does a Google Search of himself and discovers that Brandon has written a defamatory article about him in the Washington Poo, falsely stating that he is a child molester and Neo-Nazi. Brandon knows these claims are false, and is acting out of jealous malice because of Donald’s large hands and attractive wife. The article goes viral, and as the “news” spreads, Donald loses his job, his spouse, his friends, and so on. Donald sues Brandon and the WP for defamation, but his country has defamation laws that make it nearly impossible for plaintiffs to win, and so he doesn’t. Now unemployed, bankrupt, homeless, and divorced, Donald travels to Brandon’s house with a baseball bat. He threatens to crush Brandon’s skull unless Brandon publicly admits he made it all up. Brandon refuses, so Donald smashes in his skull.
Donald wakes up one morning to discover that all of the banks in the United States have come together to implement a new social credit system throughout the country. Those with high social credit scores receive special banking perks and privileges, while those with low social credit may lose their bank accounts entirely. Donald ends up with poor social credit because he rants about how much social credit systems are immoral. He soon loses his bank account; and worse, since doing business with someone with low social credit reduces one’s own social credit, everyone decides to stop doing business with Donald even when he tries to pay cash. He can no longer buy food, pay his rent, or anything else, not even buy a ticket to a country that isn’t a dystopian hypothetical. Desperate and starving, Donald finds the developer who wrote the social credit score algorithm, and forces him at gunpoint to hand over the keys to his Lexus. He then pistol-whips the man into unconsciousness so he has time to escape, and flees the country in the stolen car. Later, he sends the developer a check for the cost of the car and hospital stay.
Same as 5, but Donald unites with other desperate and starving victims of low social credit scores to stage a guerilla insurgency against the banking cartel. Over the next 10 years, they kill hundreds of banking officials, and accidentally but unavoidably kill dozens of bystanders. Eventually, the government passes a law banning the social credit system and offering amnesty to the insurgents. Donald and his comrades lay down their arms.
In which of these hypotheticals has Donald violated the NAP?
Clearly not in hypothetical #1, where he literally was being attacked and used force to defend himself. Indeed, only the most ardent pacifist would condemn Donald in hypothetical #1.
He doesn’t seem to have violated it in hypothetical #2, either, since Brandon broke into his home with a weapon and threatened him.
In hypothetical #3, Brandon has clearly violated Donald’s property rights. He trespassed into his home and then stole his personal property. However, Brandon did so without using force or even threat of force. He is arguably a non-physical aggressor. Things start to get murky here. Some libertarians would argue that Brandon physically aggressed against Donald when he took his property, that Donald exhausted all legal and non-violent means of recovering his property, and therefore Donald is justified in using force to recover it. Others, however, would assert that having lost at court, Donald is not allowed to “take the law into his own hands,” or that nonviolent theft cannot be met with violence.
In hypothetical #4, Brandon has committed non-physical aggression in the form of defamation and fraud, knowing and malicious. The damages to Donald have been utterly ruinous and Donald cannot get legal recourse, because his country has de facto abolished defamation as a cause of action. Conan the Cimmerian would clearly side with Donald, and I would too. But I think most libertarians would have to say that Donald violated the NAP when he crushed Brandon’s skull.
In hypothetical #5, Donald has essentially encountered cancel culture on steroids, to the point where his low social status puts his life at stake: If no one will sell him food, he will die. He can’t go somewhere else because he can’t buy even passage. He can’t hire a lawyer to contest the law because no lawyer will do business with him. In choosing to attack the developer of the system, and only with sufficient force to knock him out long enough to escape, Donald has used violence proportionate to the problem. In sending the check afterwards, Donald has tried to compensate for any injustice. Has Donald violated the NAP? Again, I think most NAP adherents would have to say he has. After all, in libertarian terms, nobody has aggressed against him at all! Nobody has violated any of Donald’s libertarian rights. The banking industry has voluntarily put in place its social credit score system, and the people refusing to do business with Donald are voluntarily complying with that system. They feel it’s in their rational self-interest to let Donald starve rather than sell him bread. The NAP makes no exception for private monopolies or murderous ostracization.
In hypothetical #6, the situation is similar except that Donald has taken up arms. Here his violence is disproportionate to the harm he has suffered. He, after all, is still alive, while the bankers he has killed are not. Has he violated the NAP? A strict Rothbardian would have to say yes, for the same reasons as above. Moreover, a strict Rothbard probably would argue that the government itself has violated the NAP when it passed a law preventing private banks from implementing their social credit system!
To the extent that we believe that Donald was morally justified in using force in at least some of the hypotheticals #3, #4, #5, and/or #6 (and I certainly do), we must conclude that the non-aggression principal is not “the fundamental rule from which can be deduced the entire corpus of libertarian theory” — or if it is, that libertarian theory is fatally flawed because it forbids actions which ought to be morally justified.
When can war be used against other countries that have not attacked?
Just as individuals may aggress on each other, soo too can states aggress on other states.