Letter 1:
From: Otar Matchavariani
Sent: Monday, December 09, 2019 12:54 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Children’s rights
Dear Professor Block,
I am a huge fan of your work. I strongly agree with your evictionist argument. I was wondering about children’s rights and I found Rothbardian outlook on that subject which didn’t sound too libertarian to me. Because he considers children to be straight up property of their parents, who can starve them to death. I have heard your argument that parents who are not feeding (“wasting”) their children should let others adopt them. I would like to hear you opinion on this subject, more specifically can parents deny education to their children or force them to study one specific area. Thank you in advance.
Best Regards,
Otar M
Letter 2
From: Walter Block <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2019 9:34 AM
To: ‘Otar Matchavariani’ <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: Children’s rights
On Wed, Dec 11, 2019 at 9:39 PM Walter Block <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Otar:
Please send me the exact quote to which you are referring. Then, I can better react to what you say.
Best regards,
Walter
Letter 3:
From: Otar Matchavariani <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2019 9:49 PM
To: Walter Block <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Children’s rights
Dear Professor Block,
Thank you for your reply, basically my question is regarding the following passage from “The Ethics of Liberty” by Murry Rothbard:
“Applying our theory to parents and children, this means that a parent does not have the right to aggress against his children, but also that the parent should not have a legal obligation to feed, clothe, or educate his children, since such obligations would entail positive acts coerced upon the parent and depriving the parent of his rights. The parent therefore may not murder or mutilate his child, and the law properly outlaws a parent from doing so. But the parent should have the legal right not to feed the child, i.e., to allow it to die. The law, therefore, may not properly compel the parent to feed a child or to keep it alive. (Again, whether or not a parent has a moral rather than a legally enforceable obligation to keep his child alive is a completely separate question.) This rule allows us to solve such vexing questions as: should a parent have the right to allow a deformed baby to die (e.g. by not feeding it)? The answer is of course yes, following a Jortiori from the larger right to allow any baby, whether deformed or not, to die”(p100-101).
In my opinion since parents gave birth to the child they took on the responsibility of keeping their child alive and thus are obliged by law to provide necessary means for survival or should give him up for adoption. I’ve heard similar idea from you in one of your lectures where you compare this situation with a landowner who owns a circular piece of land but doesn’t own the center of it, and forbids people from using it. My question is does this apply to education? For example can a parent deny his child of any education or can he force his child to study only one field? Thank you in advance.
Best regards,
Otar M
Letter 4:
Dear Otar:
I disagree with Murray on this issue. In my view, the parent who no longer wishes to care for, be the guardian of, the baby, has an obligation to bring that baby to an orphanage, a hospital, a police station, a church, synagogue, etc. Nor, I claim, does this violate the libertarian proscription against positive rights. I make this point in my publications on the bagel, or donut, see below:
Block, 1977, 1978, 1998, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2008, 2010A, 2010, 2011, 2016; Block and Whitehead, 2005; Epstein vs Block, 2005
Block, Walter E. 2010. “Van Dun on Freedom and Property: A Critique” Libertarian Papers; Vol. 2, No. 4; http://libertarianpapers.org/2010/4-block-van-dun-on-freedom-and-property/; https://mises.org/library/van-dun-freedom-and-property-critique
Block, Walter E. 2016. “Forestalling, positive obligations and the Lockean and Blockian provisos: Rejoinder to Stephan Kinsella.” Ekonomia Wroclaw Economic Review. http://ekon.sjol.eu/category/22-3-2016-529; file:///C:/Users/Walter/Downloads/Block%20(2).pdf
Libertarianism, Positive Obligations and Property Abandonment: Children’s Rights and other publications, such as some of his articles on abortion: e.g. “Terri Schiavo: A Libertarian Analysis”; “Compromising the Uncompromisable: A Private Property Rights Approach to Resolving the Abortion Controversy”; “Stem Cell Research: The Libertarian Compromise”; “Abortion, Woman and Fetus: Rights in Conflict?”; “Toward a Libertarian Theory of Abortion.” Van Zandt on Lighthouses
See below for my publications on abortion, where I answer these questions, deal with these objections. Please read at least some of what I have written on this subject:
Abortion:
*
I. For libertarian publications on evictionism, see Block, 1977, 1978, 2001, 2004, 2008, 2010A, 2011A, 2012, 2013, 2014A, 2014B, 2014C, 2014D, 2014E; Block and Whitehead, 2005; Dyke and Block, 2011.
II. For critiques of these essays, see, Akers, 2012A, 2012B, Davies, 2012; Parr, 2011; Presley and Cooke, 1979; Shaffer, 2012; Wisniewski, 2010A, 2010B, 2011, 2013.
III. For rejoinders to these critiques see Block, 2010B, 2010C, 2011B, 2011C, 2011D, 2013B, 2014C, 2014D, 2015
IV. Afterward
I. Libertarian publications on evictionism
Block, Walter E. 1977. “Toward a Libertarian Theory of Abortion.” The Libertarian Forum. Vol. 10, No. 9, September, pp. 6-8; http://www.mises.org/journals/lf/1977/1977_09.pdf
Block, Walter E. 1978. “Abortion, Woman and Fetus: Rights in Conflict?” Reason, Vol. 9, No. 12, April, pp. 18-25.
Block, Walter E. 2001. “Stem Cell Research: The Libertarian Compromise.” September 3; http://archive.lewrockwell.com/block/block5.html
Block, Walter E. 2004. “Libertarianism, Positive Obligations and Property Abandonment: Children’s Rights,” International Journal of Social Economics; Vol. 31, No. 3, pp. 275-286; http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContainer.do?containerType=Issue&containerId=18709; http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/block-children.pdf; https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/03068290410518256; https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/03068290410518256?fullSc=1&journalCode=ijse
Block, Walter E. 2008. “Homesteading, ad coelum, owning views and forestalling.” The Social Sciences. Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 96-103; http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1890872
Block, Walter E. 2010A. “A libertarian perspective on the stem cell debate: compromising the uncompromisible,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. Vol. 35: 429-448;
http://jmp.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/jhq033?
ijkey=oczT7ytzmoAD1cz&keytype=ref; http://jmp.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/jhq033?ijkey=oczT7ytzmoAD1cz&keytype=ref ; http://wipimd.com/?&sttflpg=78eaf87fd81ebaaa7a245cca600b15bba8497c2cfbf1284c08a0260ba068d4ad&cmpgp0811Ueh016=ICD20811TEH0PkRLpL1IF; http://wipimd.com/?&sttflpg=4b842f7f4697bce38422e0bfe03e6ccad53070377a9303d5#JAL1
Block, Walter E. 2010B. “Objections to the Libertarian Stem Cell Compromise,” Libertarian Papers 2, 34; http://libertarianpapers.org/2010/34-block-objections-to-the-libertarian-stem-cell-compromise/
Block, Walter E. 2010C. “Rejoinder to Wisniewski on Abortion.” Libertarian Papers; Vol. 32, No. 2; http://libertarianpapers.org/2010/32-block-rejoinder-to-wisniewski-on-abortion/; http://libertarianpapers.org/articles/2010/lp-2-32.pdf
Block, Walter E. 2011A. “Terri Schiavo: A Libertarian Analysis” Journal of Libertarian Studies; Vol. 22, pp. 527–536; http://mises.org/journals/jls/22_1/22_1_26.pdf; http://libertycrier.com/walter-block-terri-schiavo/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LibertyCrier+%28Liberty+Crier%29
Block, Walter E. 2011B. “Response to Wisniewski on Abortion, Round Two.” Libertarian Papers; Vol. 3, Article No. 4; http://libertarianpapers.org/2011/4-block-response-to-wisniewski-on-abortion-round-two/
Block, Walter E. 2011C. “Response to Wisniewski on Abortion, Round Three.” Libertarian Papers, Vol. 3, No. 6, pp. 1-6; http://libertarianpapers.org/2011/37-block-response-to-wisniewski-on-abortion/
Block, Walter E. 2011D. “Evictionism is libertarian; departurism is not: critical comment on Parr.” Vol. 3, Article 36, Libertarian Papers;
Block, Walter E. 2012. “A Not So Funny Thing Happened to Me in Tampa.” August 30; http://archive.lewrockwell.com/block/block208.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNTAmwUHcLM
http://conza.tumblr.com/tagged/evictionism
http://jmp.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/jhq033?
ijkey=oczT7ytzmoAD1cz&keytype=ref; http://jmp.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/jhq033?ijkey=oczT7ytzmoAD1cz&keytype=ref
Block, Walter E. 2013. “Rejoinder to Parr on Evictionism and Departurism” Journal of Peace, Prosperity & Freedom, Vol. 2, pp. 125-138; http://jppfaustralia.weebly.com/current-issue.html; http://jppfaustralia.weebly.com/uploads/1/4/5/5/14558572/journalpeaceprosperityfreedom_single.pdf
Block, Walter E. 2014A. “Should abortion be criminalized? Rejoinder to Akers, Davies and Shaffer on Abortion” Management Education Science Technology (MEST) Journal. Vol. 2, No. 1, January, pp. 33-44; http://fbim.meste.org/FBIM_1_2014/Sadrzaj_eng.html; http://fbim.meste.org/FBIM_1_2014/_04.pdf
Block, Walter E. 2014B. “Evictionism and Libertarianism.” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. Volume 35, Issue 2, pp 290-294; http://jmp.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/04/27/jmp.jhu012.full?keytype=ref&ijkey=3n1zc8zcBRnT586;
http://jmp.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/jhu012?ijkey=3n1zc8zcBRnT586&keytype=ref
Block, Walter E. 2014C. “Should abortion be criminalized? Rejoinder to Akers, Davies and Shaffer on Abortion” Management Education Science Technology (MEST) Journal. Vol. 2, No. 1, January, pp. 33-44; http://fbim.meste.org/FBIM_1_2014/Sadrzaj_eng.html; http://fbim.meste.org/FBIM_1_2014/_04.pdf
Block, Walter E. 2014D. “Response to Wisniewski on Abortion, Round Four.” Management Education Science Technology Journal (MEST); Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 1-14;
http://www.fbim.meste.org/FBIM_2_2014/Sadrzaj_eng.html;
http://www.fbim.meste.org/FBIM_2_2014/4_01.pdf
Block, Walter E. 2014E. “Toward a libertarian theory of evictionism,” Journal of Family and Economic Issues. June; Volume 35, Issue 2, pp. 290-294; http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10834-013-9361-4;
http://www.springerlink.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.1007/s10834-013-9361-4; http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/463/art%253A10.1007%252Fs10834-013-9361-4.pdf?auth66=1385583057_5dd1e3442d2db3f98c91dcf5a5d5fa43&ext=.pdf; http://www.springer.com/home?SGWID=0-0-1003-0-0&aqId=2507833&download=1&checkval=feff928fe5dfc72bc210032f220ca40a.
Block, Walter E. 2015. “Question and response on rape and evictionism theory.” June 23;
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/question-and-response-on-rape-and-evictionism-theory/
Block, Walter E. and Roy Whitehead. 2005. “Compromising the Uncompromisable: A Private Property Rights Approach to Resolving the Abortion Controversy,” Appalachian Law Review, 4 (2) 1-45; http://www.walterblock.com/publications/block-whitehead_abortion-2005.pdf; http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/block-whitehead_abortion-2005.pdf; https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228125532_Compromising_the_Uncompromisable_A_Private_Property_Rights_Approach_to_Resolving_the_Abortion_Controversy?ev=prf_pub; http://www.walterblock.com/publications/compromising-the-uncompromisable-a-private-property-rights-approach-to-resolving-the-abortion-controversy/
February 14, 2017. Mike Burbie, Manager & Producer, Preuss Media LLC, PreussPodcast.com, [email protected], @IThinkFreely13; on abortion; https://hangouts.google.com/call/rubwfb4uhrdbdpstpiik5niljie
Your other question about educating the child is much tougher. I think this is a continuum problem, with no clear answer, and I expand upon that point here:
Block, Walter E. and William Barnett II. 2008. “Continuums” Journal Etica e Politica / Ethics & Politics, Vol. 1, pp. 151-166, June; http://www2.units.it/~etica/; http://www2.units.it/~etica/2008_1/BLOCKBARNETT.pdf
Best regards,
Walter
1:42 am on January 30, 2020
