RE: Rights- reciprocal or absolute?
I'm not overcomplicating things. I'm attempting to be more precise. The lack of precision in asserting that a right to non-aggression is a priori true, without any additional examination, is why you've arrived at the conclusion that this right is absolute.
"Does it violate anyone's rights if you use force to stop them from initiating force, against you or against a third party?
No. No one has the right to initiate force, so stopping them doesn't violate them."
"Does it violate anyone rights to attack them if they didn't violate you first?
Yes. You have no right to initiate force."
Either of these can be true, but not both, and this is the issue I've been trying to drive home. It does not follow that because you can defend yourself from a person attack you, that an uninvolved third party can do the same absent some pre-existing obligation to do so. The third party was not violated by the attacker. By your own rule, the third party cannot use force against the attacker without violating the rule you've established. This illustrates the problem with using imprecise language. It invites all sorts of equivocation.
However, if you move beyond non-aggression, into the fundamental private property right from which it arises, it is plainly evident why you can come to the defense of a third party, and why it would not be initiation of force from you as a third party to the conflict.
"...this right is absolute"".
ALL rights are absolute. That's the definition of "rights", like it or not.
Every right stems from the fundamental private property right. Again, precision of language makes it simpler to understand the issue and arrive at the solution. You have a right to ownership in your body, and this is a priori true. From this arises every other valid right that exists. However, this right is contingent upon you extending those rights to others. Once you violate those rights in others, you estop yourself from claiming it in your defense. Put another way, the act of violation of the right to ownership in another's person or property is an explicit rejection of that ownership. That explicit rejection means you cannot claim it in your own defense. This is why self-defense is justified.
When I say this right is reciprocal, it means that, when there is a conflict, the party who rejects this right is the one who cannot use it in his or her defense. The victim, who has not rejected it, is ethically blameless from using violence to prevent further abrogation of his or her property, either in their person or their external property.
If you demonstrate that your reject a right, you forfeit your ability to appeal to it. This is estoppel, and this is why you can justify self-defense of others.
"You have a right to ownership in your body, and this is a priori true. From this arises every other valid right that exists."
Right.
"...the act of violation of the right to ownership in another's person or property is an explicit rejection of that ownership. That explicit rejection means you cannot claim it in your own defense."
Good luck with that.
Whether a person can claim something or not doesn't make it go away. Unless it is what I call a privilege and you call a right.
"When I say this right is reciprocal, it means that, when there is a conflict, the party who rejects this right is the one who cannot use it in his or her defense."
Nice, but that's not what people mean by "reciprocal". I guess you need to define the word as you use it.
And, I will say I mostly agree, all except in the warped way you are using the word "reciprocal". So, really, it's just a matter of speaking different languages. We agree on the concepts, just not the words to describe those concepts.
How isn't that what is meant by reciprocal? This is from Black's Law Dictionary 5th Ed.:
Since this is a discussion of legal responsibilities and entitlements, there's only one relevant meaning for reciprocal. We're not talking about math, right? Reciprocal means both parties extend the same to the other, and that if one party doesn't do so, the other party isn't required to do the same.
This is precisely why it's important to understand the underlying principle beneath non-aggression: the right to not consent. Since this is, in fact, a right, you're arguing that the right to not consent must be absolute. If that's the case, then self-defense can never be justifiable.
We're on the same side, here. If I gave you the impression I'm arguing with you that non-aggression is incorrect, that wasn't my intention. You're also correct about what you said about phrasing in the other post. Put more precisely (which I should have done), you have a right not to consent - known more commonly as the right to private property ownership.
We have different definitions of "rights". What you call "rights" I call "privileges", and you don't seem to have a concept for what I call "rights".
To me a right is anything that doesn't violate anyone else's identical and equal rights. If it doesn't initiate force or violate someone's property, you have the right to do it. Period. That is obviously not the concept you have in mind when you hear/use the word "rights". Therefore, we are not communicating.
You're constructing rights as positive, not negative. This is another issue with imprecise language and not examining deep enough into the why question. There are no positive rights. Rights are legal descriptions of where property ownership applies. The ownership is a priori true, but one does not have a right to positive action. One only has a right to negative action (i.e. not having one's property violated). To argue that there are positive rights implies that there are positive duties, which is not a tenable position.
"You're constructing rights as positive, not negative."
As did you when you said "You have a right to ownership in your body...". This is a negative right worded in a positive way. Put in the negative form, it would be worded "No one has a right to ownership in anyone's body but their own". Wording it positively may be less precise, but it is how most people understand it better.
All rights are negative rights, as in "No one has the right to...". If you believe I have stated something incorrectly by phrasing it as a positive, then I apologize.