Comments Elsewhere

Scott:

I don’t think you suggest a persuasive reason why one cannot make purely positive claims about property

Why not? If a statement P just is a normative claim, then doesn’t it follow that you can’t make “purely positive” (i.e., non-normative) claims about whether or not P is true? And isn’t it true the claim “S owns P” just is a claim about the rights that S has toward P (and thus what would constitute legitimate use, legitimate defense, thieving, etc. with regard to P)? And aren’t those normative claims? So doesn’t any theory which says anything about the truth-making conditions for claims of the form “S owns P” a claim that necessarily deals with normative considerations?

I said:

…treating government edicts as if they had unlimited authority to determine legitimate property rights is not conducive to libertarian politics.

Scott replied:

That may be true, but “treating government edicts as if they had unlimited authority to determine legitimate property rights” is conducive to acceptable legal argumentation. … The alternative is likely to get the judge to rule against you.

The second sentence only provides support for the first if the criterion of “acceptability” in legal argumentation is the argument’s ability to ensure that violence is not used against you, rather than the logical strength of the argument and the truth of the premises. But why should we accept that? How is that any different from a textbook example of the fallacious argumentum ad baculum?