From: D
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2018 6:33 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: vintage car wrecks
Dear Dr. Block, Regarding this blog of yours: (https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/libertarian-punishment-theory-austrian-subjectivism-reconciliation/). (Consider) the pain and suffering a vintage car owner experiences when a vintage car is wrecked, what about the pain and suffering all the vintage car enthusiasts who pass the wreck feel? Or the loss to the people who used to visit it at the car shows? Or the gut punch many people felt when an ancient rock formation in Utah’s Goblin Valley was toppled? Can any of these people claim pain and suffering damages? Maybe we’d better not go down that road of considering how much more valuable other vintage cars and ancient rock formations then become and who then owes who what. Regards, D
Dear D: Thanks for raising this interesting point. But, I don’t think that any of these other stipulated or even actual sufferers have legal standing. That is, they are not property owners, merely bystanders. As I understand libertarian law, none of them would be entitled to any damages. They are mere “stakeholders” and their pain and suffering should be ignored, by law. But not, of course, in reality. It cannot be denied, as a practical matter, that the welfare of such people has been reduced.
11:03 pm on March 5, 2018
