Girl in the Shower: Several Solutions

The point of my blog was that the NAP didn’t restrict the guy from secretly photographing the girl in the shower. That’s because there was no initiation of physical force. I have seen no comment to the contrary from anyone. I commented because I thought this was a clear case in which the NAP by itself is insufficient as a guide to social behavior. I have made the same point in the past with regard to blackmail, slander, character assassination and privacy.

Contrary to that portion and only that portion of Bob Wenzel’s blog that referred to “Rozeff’s law” (by which he meant allowing the peeping Tom to peep and photograph), I didn’t provide or propound or argue for any such law or practice. I only argued that the NAP couldn’t in and of itself be the grounds for such a law.

I did not express an opinion about a solution to this situation. Wenzel attributes to me a view I do not have and didn’t express. He writes “If there were more Rozeff’s [sic] in an area, private property would be overruled by his view which would open up all females to being filmed naked (even in the bathroom) on all property even if a large majority of us didn’t want this to occur.” It’s the NAP that allows the females to be filmed naked under the stipulations of the case. I’m not endorsing this outcome. I’m only saying that it is the outcome of the NAP. If one doesn’t like this, then one must come up with a different basis for ruling it out. To his credit, Wenzel does propose such a basis. It alters the situation in an important way. It changes the stipulations from the world as it is now, with one code of law, to a world in which many codes are feasible.

Wenzel suggests that each property owner determine on his own property the rules of social interaction that apply. This is a possible general rule. This is possible with panarchy, which I support and mentioned in the blog. It is one possible outcome if states become voluntary associations. Other solutions may transpire, such as a central law-making body. The individual property-owner as rule-maker solution may not be the only solution, but that need not detain us from trying it on for size in this case.

First, let’s tie this into the NAP. If the NAP holds, then private property owners are accorded rights to use their property as they see fit. No one may aggress against legitimately held private property. Therefore, no one can complain if a private property owner has rules for his property that disallow smoking, or vile language, or drunkenness, or voyeurism. Barring externalities or other problems that may arise, in this scenario, the problem of the girl in the shower disappears. She enters a building at her own risk. It is presumed that in this private property-owner rule-making world, the knowledge of the rules is communicated to entrants to any piece of property. The girl knows what she’s getting into if she goes into a building in which voyeurism is allowed. She has no case at law if someone photographs her. If she’s photographed in a building where it’s disallowed, then she has a case at law.

Block and several of his correspondents attempt to attain a prohibition of the voyeur in the girl in the shower case by invoking “something” between her and the boy-voyeur that gives her grounds for legal relief. Various writers who are against the boy-voyeur’s behavior refer to this “something” by such terms as a tacit agreement, an implied contract, a customary arrangement, a reasonable expectation, a sort of barter, a quasi illicit title transfer, and a property interest in a verbal contract.

We have the Wenzel private property solution. We have the Block et al solution. We have the solution from existing law, as mentioned in my blog too. I will add to that by mentioning some peeping Tom law.

Evaluating these is beyond the scope of this blog.

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