Corporal Punishment (Re: Our response to Dmytri Kleiner's misunderstanding of money

[Lethn]

Another person who can't form an argument.

What's the point in arguing with someone who thinks using violence to get their way is perfectly acceptable in life? You're just an arrogant imbecile and nothing more.

[hashman]

They are their own property at birth.

If ownership is defined as exercising exclusive control over a scarce, tangible resource then children own their bodies as soon as they develop a nervous system capable directing the actions of their body. This would place the beginning of self-ownership prior to being born.

That also shows why parents can't be said to own their children. Only the child can control his own body and parents are restricted to persuading, threatening or physically coercing the child into taking or refraining from actions. This is prima facie evidence of who actually owns the child's body.

I guess another relevant question is at what point do you own the neighbor and his kid and have the right/obligation to step in.

Russell Peters makes a good counterargument:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn5jlrxcpkI

 enjoy

[Lethn]

At what point does this get fairly locked, since the mod always has the last word before the lock?

Yep, this is probably what's going to happen in the end, the only way the moderator is going to be able to keep any moral high ground is if he keeps this thread open otherwise he'll have proved me right

One final thing I will say though before giving up on this stupid conversation, all these pro-corporal punishment advocates, I wonder if they have ever been on the receiving end of a punch? Or any other kind of physical pain? This I suspect is what enables them to be so arrogant about what they believe and think it's okay, I'd be very surprised if anyone who has experienced physical abuse would say it works as a method of disciplining children.

Before you go ranting about how great 'corporal punishment' is, try getting on the receiving end and experience it yourself first.

[Rudd-O]

I only took one glance at this and immediately knew what it was about though I read through just to be sure, the problem with these 'corporal punishment' advocates is they assume they are correct in what they are teaching their children, they aren't, in a lot of cases I've seen parents use violence against their children they are nothing more than power tripping cuntbags. You should check out one of George Carlins video where he rants entirely correctly about how children should be taught to question what they read and how parents won't teach them to question anything because they're afraid their own bullshit will be questioned as well.

This is all it is, it's power tripping, in most cases the parents are wrong and children are far more intelligent than adults are ever willing to admit, haven't you ever wondered why in a lot of criminal cases etc. involving children or in documentaries about children there often isn't a child to be found? Or for that matter if they are talked to it's usually with a bloody parent hovering over them making sure they don't say anything they don't like. It's a bit like with how stupid parents blame video games for their children's violence yet what they do is leave their child alone for ages, never talking to them and so the child only really has a video game to go on when it comes to what the real world is like.

If you need violence to communicate words then you're a fucking moron who shouldn't have had kids in the first place, ever tried speaking to your child? Or are you so thick you can't form a coherent sentence?

You are brilliant and 100% correct.

[Rudd-O]

For the record, user blahblahblah is on my ignore list -- I can't read what he says, and that's deliberate -- because not a few hours ago he exploded on a gratuituous tirade of verbal abuse and insults (standard statist response to being out of arguments).

[Rudd-O]

They are their own property at birth.

If ownership is defined as exercising exclusive control over a scarce, tangible resource then children own their bodies as soon as they develop a nervous system capable directing the actions of their body. This would place the beginning of self-ownership prior to being born.

That also shows why parents can't be said to own their children. Only the child can control his own body and parents are restricted to persuading, threatening or physically coercing the child into taking or refraining from actions. This is prima facie evidence of who actually owns the child's body.

This is true.  However, don't get your hopes up and think that "my children are my chattel" believers will be persuaded by this evidence.

[Rudd-O]

Another person who can't form an argument.

What's the point in arguing with someone who thinks using violence to get their way is perfectly acceptable in life? You're just an arrogant imbecile and nothing more.

I have to agree.  Whoever said "Another person who can't form an argument" in response to an argument (I saw the argument, and I concur, it is an argument and it is valid) is clearly trying to derail and discredit ideas he can't meaningfully respond to.

[Rudd-O]

One final thing I will say though before giving up on this stupid conversation, all these pro-corporal punishment advocates, I wonder if they have ever been on the receiving end of a punch? Or any other kind of physical pain?

I'm pretty sure they have been abused so extensively as to conclude that abuse is okay.  Every child abuser was a child abuse victim himself.  There is no such thing as the mythical beast that abuses children but wasn't abused himself.

The difference between a person who beats up children and a person who doesn't beat up children is simple: the brain of the person who beats up children was damaged by abuse beyond the point of self-repair.  Those of us who were abused (yelled, beat up, or sexually) but didn't buy the bullshit "for your own good / it's a necessary evil" are the ones that got saved from repeating the cycle of abuse.

(Note: I want you all to notice how closely the excuses for belief in child abuse resemble the excuses for belief in statism.)

[Lethn]

I still have things to learn about that sort of thing, I did watch a very interesting video just recently, it has a lot of emotional argument as you'd expect but it did make an interesting point about the trauma that physical abuse from parents causes to children as well as actual damage to the brain?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NrVMGmsHmo

I'll have to look up more stuff about this, it was about the Judge William Andrews case where he beat his disabled daughter allegedly for filesharing.

[Rudd-O]

I still have things to learn about that sort of thing, I did watch a very interesting video just recently, it has a lot of emotional argument as you'd expect but it did make an interesting point about the trauma that physical abuse from parents causes to children as well as actual damage to the brain?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NrVMGmsHmo

I'll have to look up more stuff about this, it was about the Judge William Andrews case where he beat his disabled daughter allegedly for filesharing.

http://fdrurl.com/bib

[asdf]

Child does something I don't like... the only solution is violence.

[myrkul]

I guess another relevant question is at what point do you own the neighbor and his kid and have the right/obligation to step in.

You never "own" the neighbor, or his kid. But third-party defense is the same whether the victim is an adult or a child, and whether or not the aggressor is his parent.

Of course, like any third-party defense situation, you're likely to end up having to defend yourself, too.

As to Sv. Peters' "counterargument," there's plenty of operating space between "Somebody gonna get hurt real bad." and "Fuck you, mom!" Just because you shouldn't beat them doesn't mean you should let them run all over you. It is, after all, your house, not theirs.

[scribe]

There's an interesting thread in here somewhere. As a quick straw poll, who here actually has kids?

It's interesting to me as I'm raising a 2-year-old at the moment, and persuading them to do or not do things is a fascinating challenge. I tend away from using extreme physical power not because I'm ethically against it, but because I don't believe it's an effective teaching tool. In other words, I don't believe that tying together a particular target (the child) in a particular situation with physical force from a particular person (me) encourages the child to think for themselves. And at the end of the day, there's no way I have time or patience to tell them what they should or shouldn't do as new situations come up.

But that's also a general issue around judgement. I do not believe judgement should be assessed from an "imaginary" point of view, ie. imagining what someone else would like us to do. Survival requires adaptation and learning. Experimentation and subtle, Bayesian-style feedback is far more important than the social judgement invoked whenever one person directly uses extreme force - physical or mental - on another.

Obviously, though, I have to use some kind of "force" to influence my child's behaviour, otherwise they probably would get run over indeed. However, the key point is that this force is always appropriate force - appropriate to avoiding a situation getting worse.

Crossing the road is a good example. You could spank your child to be afraid of running into roads. Or you could introduce them to roads in a safer manner - even hand-holding is a form of "corporal" power in this case (as it physically restricts a person's movements), as is putting a child on your shoulders. However, they have far subtler effects and side-effects than extreme physical power.

This spectrum between the child doing what it wants, and forcing them to do otherwise, is what I would call "civility" but obviously that's just a personal definition. The child is free to explore within limits, and in doing so understands why those limits exist through experimentation over time. And pushes through those limits.

It has nothing to do with "ownership" and "rights". It is merely finding an effective way to ensure the longevity of one organism within an environment. From an effectiveness perspective, "owning" your own body is not as useful as knowing how to take care of it. I own a car, but it still gets dirty and runs out of oil. Would I feel more responsibility for it if I was borrowing it? Or would I feel more if I wanted, for some reason, the car to be running in 5 years' time, regardless of who owned it?

To bring that back to the purpose of money, I believe the essential point to be whether money allows us, as its users, to exist in the long-term in our environment. The interaction that decides how our monetary system(s) judge our behaviour as a whole, and what feedback we receive for our actions, is really what we're discussing here.

More later maybe.

[MoonShadow]

I'm glad to see a couple of thinking adults have joined the coversation.

They are their own property at birth. As the person who gave them that property, it is your responsibility to educate them on how to properly use it so as to not destroy it.

Okay, if they are their own property at birth, why is it my responsibility to do anything?  I know, rationally, that they exist as a result of my own actions, and that they will likely perish without my parenting.  But if they are my responsibility, how am I not the slave, then?  And what about my religious perspective argument "All children are God's children, and I'm his representative"?

Again, I'm not pulling these arguments out of my rear.  All versions of the pro-corporal punishment argument that I have thus far presented have already been argued extensively by libertarian philosophers for decades.  Pre-age-of-reason children remain an unresovled issue.

The "hot stovetop" example was used early on in this thread. It is morally acceptable to intervene to prevent damage to their property (ie, slap their hand away) but not to punish them after the fact. If your child is jumping (or about to) on a glass tabletop, it is acceptable to intervene to prevent damage by grabbing them off the table, but not to then spank them after the fact. Children are smarter than you think. As soon as they can talk, you can reason with them. You may have to use simpler concepts, but if you can talk to them, and they can talk to you, reasoning is possible.

Why is behavior conditioning not morally acceptable?  You know, Myrkul, that stating your position, even repeatedly, doesn't an arguement make.  As for reasoning with a toddler, this is possible & desireable under ceratin conditions and with certain children; but it does not apply to all situations or all children.  I'm arguing that corporal punishment, used sparingly, is an effective method of behavior modification and that it's use (as a last resort) does not qualify as abuse.  Others are arguing that corporal punishiment is always and in every situation abuse.  That's an absolute position to take, and there are very few absolutes in the real world.

Tell me, what does spanking a child after they have endangered themselves do, besides instill a fear not of the dangerous situation, but of the parent? The child very much wants you to be happy with him or her, and simply telling him or her that going out into the road like that could get them hurt, and their getting hurt would make you sad will amply drive the point home that running out into the street is not something Mommy and Daddy approve of.

But what if simply telling them does not drive that point home?  What then?  If you do exactly as you say, and never utilize corporal punishment as behavior modification despite the fact that your child repeatedly ignores your verbal warnings of the potential for great harm, and he finally runs out in front of traffic and is killed.  Have you, then, not failed as a parent?  How is that not neglect?

If you want to raise self-owning adults, you should treat them as self-owning children.

Certainly as soon as that is possible.  But what if it's not?

[MoonShadow]

They are their own property at birth.

If ownership is defined as exercising exclusive control over a scarce, tangible resource then children own their bodies as soon as they develop a nervous system capable directing the actions of their body. This would place the beginning of self-ownership prior to being born.

That also shows why parents can't be said to own their children. Only the child can control his own body and parents are restricted to persuading, threatening or physically coercing the child into taking or refraining from actions. This is prima facie evidence of who actually owns the child's body.

Bingo. I think you may have also defined a good cut-off point for abortion.

Oh, but wait!  Why are they only self-owned at birth?  If they own themselves at birth, dispite lacking the capacity to reason, converse or even eat without aid; why don't they own themselves the day before?  Why not the month before?  Why not nine months before?  Why not a month before conception?  If the potential to be a human being with self-ownership (by the logic of being able to reason, or any other logic) why don't they have such rights across time?  Wouldn't contraceptives be akin to murder?

[MoonShadow]

There's an interesting thread in here somewhere. As a quick straw poll, who here actually has kids?

I have five.

It's interesting to me as I'm raising a 2-year-old at the moment, and persuading them to do or not do things is a fascinating challenge. I tend away from using extreme physical power not because I'm ethically against it, but because I don't believe it's an effective teaching tool. In other words, I don't believe that tying together a particular target (the child) in a particular situation with physical force from a particular person (me) encourages the child to think for themselves. And at the end of the day, there's no way I have time or patience to tell them what they should or shouldn't do as new situations come up.

Indeed, it's certainly preferable to talk it out with your child whenever that is a practical option.  I don't and haven't contested that.  As I mentioned before, I very rarely use corporal punishment and never do with my adopted children, but for different reasons that relate only to them.  But that doesn't mean that corporal punishment isn't a vaild method, when others fail.  And I assure you, they will fail sometimes. 

But that's also a general issue around judgement. I do not believe judgement should be assessed from an "imaginary" point of view, ie. imagining what someone else would like us to do. Survival requires adaptation and learning. Experimentation and subtle, Bayesian-style feedback is far more important than the social judgement invoked whenever one person directly uses extreme force - physical or mental - on another.

Obviously, though, I have to use some kind of "force" to influence my child's behaviour, otherwise they probably would get run over indeed. However, the key point is that this force is always appropriate force - appropriate to avoiding a situation getting worse.

No, the bigger question is who gets to determine what level of force is appropriate.  I say it's (almost) always the parent.  These other guys seem to think that they get to decide for me, and don't consider that statism.

Crossing the road is a good example. You could spank your child to be afraid of running into roads. Or you could introduce them to roads in a safer manner - even hand-holding is a form of "corporal" power in this case (as it physically restricts a person's movements), as is putting a child on your shoulders. However, they have far subtler effects and side-effects than extreme physical power.

True enough, but again, corporal punsishment is a sliding scale; a matter of relative degree and not an absolute.  Is it corporal punishment for me to slap the hand of my child before he puts his hand into the blue flame?  Yes, and it does hurt; but it is both less harmful and far less lasting than a third degree burn.  Yet, what if, instead, I grab his hand to prevent the contact, and then smack his hand?  ave I just commited a crime against my child?  While it's possible that he might associate fear of parent with the stovetop, and that is undesireable, is that not still more desireable than a third degree burn next time?

[myrkul]

I'm glad to see a couple of thinking adults have joined the coversation.

They are their own property at birth. As the person who gave them that property, it is your responsibility to educate them on how to properly use it so as to not destroy it.

Okay, if they are their own property at birth, why is it my responsibility to do anything?  I know, rationally, that they exist as a result of my own actions, and that they will likely perish without my parenting.  But if they are my responsibility, how am I not the slave, then?  And what about my religious perspective argument "All children are God's children, and I'm his representative"?

Again, I'm not pulling these arguments out of my rear.  All versions of the pro-corporal punishment argument that I have thus far presented have already been argued extensively by libertarian philosophers for decades.  Pre-age-of-reason children remain an unresovled issue.

To my mind, it has been resolved, and all those previous arguments are an attempt at rationalizing away the cognitive dissonance caused by the realization that using force is wrong and the fact that their parents (whom they consider to be quite good) used force upon them. Another form of Stockholm Syndrome.

As to why it is your responsibility to teach them how to operate their body without causing harm to themselves or others, as you pointed out, it's your doing. If you break a window, it's your responsibility to see that the owner of that window is compensated for its loss. If you create a person, it's your responsibility to make sure that person is civilized. Likewise, the child's care and feeding until such time as it can take care of those operations itself is your responsibility the same as though you had caused a person to become incapable of doing those themselves - because you did. You created a person who is incapable of taking care of themselves. Now, it's possible to delegate that responsibility, for either case. In the case of causing an adult to lose those capacities - say, by putting them into a coma in a car accident - this delegation is called "paying their hospital bills." In the case of a child, it's called "hiring a nanny." the end result is the same.

The "hot stovetop" example was used early on in this thread. It is morally acceptable to intervene to prevent damage to their property (ie, slap their hand away) but not to punish them after the fact. If your child is jumping (or about to) on a glass tabletop, it is acceptable to intervene to prevent damage by grabbing them off the table, but not to then spank them after the fact. Children are smarter than you think. As soon as they can talk, you can reason with them. You may have to use simpler concepts, but if you can talk to them, and they can talk to you, reasoning is possible.

Why is behavior conditioning not morally acceptable?

Because, as I said below, you're not conditioning the child to be afraid of the situation. You're conditioning the child to be afraid of you. While the surface results are the same (the child no longer runs out into the street), in one case it is because they know it is dangerous, and potentially harmful, and in the other it's simply because you said not to, and they're afraid you'll hit them again if they do.

Tell me, what does spanking a child after they have endangered themselves do, besides instill a fear not of the dangerous situation, but of the parent? The child very much wants you to be happy with him or her, and simply telling him or her that going out into the road like that could get them hurt, and their getting hurt would make you sad will amply drive the point home that running out into the street is not something Mommy and Daddy approve of.

But what if simply telling them does not drive that point home?  What then?  If you do exactly as you say, and never utilize corporal punishment as behavior modification despite the fact that your child repeatedly ignores your verbal warnings of the potential for great harm, and he finally runs out in front of traffic and is killed.  Have you, then, not failed as a parent?  How is that not neglect?

Indeed it is, because you have failed to impress upon the child how dangerous walking into the street unescorted can be. Perhaps you should not have just told him. Perhaps you should have been more proactive, and showed him, and demonstrated the correct way to do it. Just because you can't hit him doesn't mean you can't teach him.

If you want to raise self-owning adults, you should treat them as self-owning children.

Certainly as soon as that is possible.  But what if it's not?

Then what you have is an animal, not a human being.

They are their own property at birth.

If ownership is defined as exercising exclusive control over a scarce, tangible resource then children own their bodies as soon as they develop a nervous system capable directing the actions of their body. This would place the beginning of self-ownership prior to being born.

That also shows why parents can't be said to own their children. Only the child can control his own body and parents are restricted to persuading, threatening or physically coercing the child into taking or refraining from actions. This is prima facie evidence of who actually owns the child's body.

Bingo. I think you may have also defined a good cut-off point for abortion.

Oh, but wait!  Why are they only self-owned at birth?  If they own themselves at birth, dispite lacking the capacity to reason, converse or even eat without aid; why don't they own themselves the day before?  Why not the month before?  Why not nine months before?  Why not a month before conception?  If the potential to be a human being with self-ownership (by the logic of being able to reason, or any other logic) why don't they have such rights across time?  Wouldn't contraceptives be akin to murder?

What you have quoted above is the revision of my position of "at birth" to "at the point of neurological development sufficient to control their limbs." This, by the way, is just prior to the start of the third trimester, so, not far from the legal abortion cut-off anyway. Prior to this point, they are effectively an organ, a part of the mother's body.

Contraceptives (and pre-25th week abortions) kill cells. Not a person. I'm against abortion in general, but using the above cutoff, I can't legitimize using force to stop a woman from excising an organ from her body. Would you violently prevent an appendectomy?

Oh, and I have twin daughters, whom I will be raising in this manner. I'll let you know how they turn out.

[MoonShadow]

To my mind, it has been resolved,

Not an argument, Myrkul.  I've come to expect much more from you than this.  You can argue the finer points of ancap theories and Austrian economic theories, but you can't present something here better than "I believe" or "I feel"?

 and all those previous arguments are an attempt at rationalizing away the cognitive dissonance caused by the realization that using force is wrong and the fact that their parents (whom they consider to be quite good) used force upon them. Another form of Stockholm Syndrome.

Perhaps I do have some cognitive dissonance here.  So show me, I'll listen.

BTW, it's an irony that I, personally, grew up in a non-corporal-punishment home; but the harshness of "non-violent" forms of punishment are just as bad and more insidious.  I can, quite vividly, remember being put into the corner; and left there for hours.  Once they forgot that I was there, and I feel asleep in the corner.  I awoke in the early morning hours, and then went to bed.  My mother drug me out of my bed at 6:30 am and stood me back in the corner for the audacity of choosing to go to bed without permission.  My parents were also anti-gun and anti-military, but when I joined the USMC those drill instructors had nothing on my own parents concerning psychological methods of abuse.  I can, again vividly, remember my older sister begging to be spanked for some infraction, like her friends might have endured, because the suffering would end quicker.

No, sorry.  But no stockholm sysndrome here.  Parental cruelty has little to do with the methods employed.

As to why it is your responsibility to teach them how to operate their body without causing harm to themselves or others, as you pointed out, it's your doing. If you break a window, it's your responsibility to see that the owner of that window is compensated for its loss. If you create a person, it's your responsibility to make sure that person is civilized.

Strange, an AnCap arguing that I have a responsibility to serve someone that I have not harmed nor agreed to serve.  If I have zero ownership, I have zero responsibility.  I don't owe
 them anything, do I?  If I do, how did I incure such a debt?  If you don't yet see where I'm going with this, it's you that has cognative dissonance.

Likewise, the child's care and feeding until such time as it can take care of those operations itself is your responsibility the same as though you had caused a person to become incapable of doing those themselves - because you did. You created a person who is incapable of taking care of themselves. Now, it's possible to delegate that responsibility, for either case. In the case of causing an adult to lose those capacities - say, by putting them into a coma in a car accident - this delegation is called "paying their hospital bills." In the case of a child, it's called "hiring a nanny." the end result is the same.

I commited an action that resulted in a new life.  I commited that act for my own reasons, the life that resulted was a secondary event.  What harm have I committed against that life?  None that I can think of.  So therefore, to whom do I owe this debt/obligation of responsibility?

Tell me, what does spanking a child after they have endangered themselves do, besides instill a fear not of the dangerous situation, but of the parent? The child very much wants you to be happy with him or her, and simply telling him or her that going out into the road like that could get them hurt, and their getting hurt would make you sad will amply drive the point home that running out into the street is not something Mommy and Daddy approve of.

But what if simply telling them does not drive that point home?  What then?  If you do exactly as you say, and never utilize corporal punishment as behavior modification despite the fact that your child repeatedly ignores your verbal warnings of the potential for great harm, and he finally runs out in front of traffic and is killed.  Have you, then, not failed as a parent?  How is that not neglect?

Indeed it is, because you have failed to impress upon the child how dangerous walking into the street unescorted can be. Perhaps you should not have just told him. Perhaps you should have been more proactive, and showed him, and demonstrated the correct way to do it. Just because you can't hit him doesn't mean you can't teach him.

You dodged the point, and you know it.  You know, intuitively, that not every child will have the capacity at an early age, towards reason or towards recognizing hazards, even after all of your efforts.  Yet, you also know, intuitively, that as the parent I have an obligation to do all that I can to protect this child until he is old enough to reason.  To whom, then, do i owe this obligation (debt)?  You know that answer intutively also, you just can't bring yourself to say it.  Cognative dissonance, indeed.

If you want to raise self-owning adults, you should treat them as self-owning children.

Certainly as soon as that is possible.  But what if it's not?

Then what you have is an animal, not a human being.

What is the difference?  What if a chimp taught sign language was able to communicate an understanding of individual rights, self-awareness and reason via said sign language.  Would that chimp still be a animal, owned by a zoo?  Not free to choose to return to the jungles?

Oh, and I have twin daughters, whom I will be raising in this manner. I'll let you know how they turn out.

Then you should consider yourself lucky in this regard, and I'm sure that you will do fine.  Most of the time, a strict no-spanking parentling style would work well enough, and is actually unlikely to expose the child to a great many hazards in our modern & hyper-vigilant & safety consious society.  But I'm not taling about the rule, I'm talking about the exceptions.

Girls are also easier to raise in this regard, until about 14.  It's usually the boys that are truely "fearless".

[augustocroppo]

Then what you have is an animal, not a human being.

This is a false premise.

We, human beings, are all rational animals driven by certain natural instincts which are irrefutable and uncontrollable. We are made of powerful forces from nature and only rationality is what differ our species from others animals. Hence the natural tendency to resort to physical aggression, which is an observable aspect among many irrational animals. Therefore rationality is what allows our species to suppress the underlying and natural will of violence.

Moreover, the act of birth is a act of violence against the offspring which comes to exist outside the safe protection of its progenitor (at least in the case of mammals and other animals which host the offspring in a form of shell or womb).

Is interesting to note that no user in this discussion have argued from a naturalist point of view. There are many examples in nature which shows that certain species have to endure violence before to reach maturity and act outside the protection of its progenitor. That does not imply that every rational animal - human beings - should or could be violent. It only demonstrates that violence is not an unnatural aspect of human behavior.

[MoonShadow]

Is interesting to note that no user in this discussion have argued from a naturalist point of view. There are many examples in nature which shows that certain species have to endure violence before to reach maturity and act outside the protection of its progenitor. That does not imply that every rational animal - human beings - should or could be violent. It only demonstrates that violence is not an unnatural aspect of human behavior.

I considered that perspective, actually, but chose not to go there mostly because simply restating the position from the religious and libertarian/ownership perspectives created a lot of confusion.  I also don't consider the 'naturalness' of the use of force to be a particularly relevent point, one that I'm not willing to attempt to defend.  I'd lose anyway.  After all, the instinct to reproduce is a very natural drive, but that would not in any fashion excuse a rape.