This is the third entry in my series attempting to answer Bob Murphy's tough questions for libertarians. This is the post introducing the series and listing all of the questions: #458128
Question
Does Argumentation Ethics imply that everyone is entitled to enough land to have an argument from?
Context
This question is closely related to the previous question about animal rights and argumentation ethics that I addressed in this post: #463762. I'm going to use the word "rights" a bit loosely in this post, for the sake of expedience. As I detailed in the previous post, Argumentation Ethics is a different philosophical foundation for libertarianism. It is consequentialist, rather than deontological, so "rights" are really meant as conventions consistent with the goal of peaceful dispute resolution.
Also, as I noted in the previous post, this question is about Argumentation Ethics as I (or you) articulate it. The point isn't whether Hans Hoppe or Stephan Kinsella have really clever sophisticated answers. Like I said in the first entry of the series, these are tough questions for libertarians, not necessarily tough questions for libertarian philosophy.
This particular question is getting at why Hoppe diverged from his doctoral advisor Jurgen Habermas. In Habermas' Discourse Ethics, he does conclude that people are entitled to the resources necessary for survival, because they can't have a conversation if they're dead.
Hoppe does pursue this line of reasoning, but since he already established that there is no "right" to coerce others, the answer cannot be that others are obligated to provide you resources. So, if you need resources to be alive to have an argument, but others are not obligated to provide them, we are left with each individual having a right to obtain resources from nature. That's homesteading. We can also easily establish a right to transact with other owners of resources, since this is about dispute resolution and voluntary transactions are not in dispute.
That's most of libertarianism right there. Self ownership, homesteading, and free trade.
What about this issue though of actually needing to occupy a physical space with your body? Sure, no one is required to give you the space, but you do have to be somewhere. If all the land were owned and none of those owners grant you access, what happens to you?
Answer
We can flip this question around and I think see what the answer might be. Does the owner of wherever I am have the right to relocate me? Well, they don't have the right to put stuff on other people's property, so if no other owner is willing to take me, then they don't have anywhere to rightfully put me.
That doesn't grant me ownership, but it does imply that we have something like a temporary easement to the space we're currently occupying, until the owner finds somewhere to put us.
This line of reasoning will likely come up again for a later question.
Late me know what you think in the comments.