FAFO Is a Natural Right

You already knew that—but we're gonna prove it anyway. (DN 1.4)

Cover page | Preface | Introduction 1 | Introduction 2 | Introduction 3 |

(Part I) Why: 1.0 | 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.4 |

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Chapter 1: WHY

1.4 — Coercive and Protective Force

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When physically attacked, you feel completely justified in responding. Sometimes, you don’t even think about it—your response just happens.

When something is stolen from you, you know, to the bottom of your being, that you have been wronged—and that some sort of restitution or retribution is in order.

There is a reason why these reactions feel so natural.
Because they are.

There is a reason why they feel so justified.
Because they are.

You already know this intuitively. We do not need to rely solely on our intuition, however—we can also prove it, using brute facts of reality. And proof plus intuition is better than intuition alone.

We begin with two of those brute facts:

#1
No one is born to be the boss of you.

Using that brute fact as a baseline premise, we can, as we did above, reason our way to the fundamental axiom of nonaggression: that no one has the ontological authority to initiate force upon the person or property of another.

#2
You have exclusive, inalienable, personal control over your own thoughts, actions, and choices. 

Using that brute fact as a baseline premise, we can, as we did above, reason our way to the fundamental reality of self ownership: that you, and you alone, have dispositive decision-making authority over your own life, body, and being.

Put them together and what have you got?

Rights. 

You have a right to do whatever you want, so long as you don’t initiate force upon anyone else. And everyone else has the same right, and the same restriction. 

And yet…rights are not a magic force field. People can and do initiate force against one another, in spite of the moral prohibition. Even the fact that this moral prohibition is woven into the very warp and weft of reality does not stop them.

Tragically, there is often only one thing that can effectively resist the initiation of force:

More force.

It is not a happy thing; it is just a fact: sometimes, the only way to deal with an initiation of force is by deploying force in one’s defense.

We can thus forge a terminological distinction:

Coercive force:
Force initiated to achieve a purpose: to control, dominate, tyrannize, acquire resources, etc.

Protective force:
Force deployed in response to, and to defend against, coercive force.

When a little kid says, “Hey, he hit me first!” he is demonstrating an intuitive understanding that protective force is justified in response to coercive force. That there is a moral difference between the kid that hits first and the kid that hits back.

(As an aside—if schools were to recognize this difference and publicly rebuke the kid who hit first, while openly praising the kid who hit back, it would stop bullying in its tracks. But that won’t happen because so many of the people running modern government schools are utterly morally retarded.)

The moral permissibility of protective force isn’t technically something we have to justify or prove. We could easily just do what the natural lawyers and American Founders did and simply appeal to “right reason,” or use phrases like “self-evident.” Most people would agree, because most people have a clear, intuitive understanding of these principles.

We are not going to do that, however. We are going to “show our work,” as the math teacher says—just as we have been doing in throughout this chapter.

That way, when it comes time to note that every principle that applies to individuals applies equally to governments—and thus that NO FORM OF INVOLUNTARY GOVERNANCE IS MORALLY PERMISSIBLE—you will be able to be absolutely confident that we are taking the correct position.¹

Forging that confidence only requires a few simple, logical steps…

We can reasonably define authority as the license to compel actions and choices. That is, in large measure, what a ruler does: he compels you to do stuff you would otherwise not do.

We already know, from earlier demonstrations, that each individual has exclusive, inalienable, personal control over his own actions and choices. This control confers to each individual dispositive decision-making authority over himself. This authority has the character of a property right—exclusive title to one’s own life and being. This is most commonly referred to as self-ownership.

This is arguably an extra step, but just to be thorough, we can tie this in with the the brute fact that there is no such thing as ontological authority, and derive the following:

1. Authority is the license to compel actions and choices.

2. No one has ontological authority over others.

.˙.  No one has the ontological authority to compel the actions and choices of others.

This is the basis of a right. A right is a moral claim to which one is justly entitled. Whether people choose to respect the claim or not is another matter, but the claim itself is real. Every individual has exclusive, inalienable title to his own choices, and no one has the natural authority to interfere. Violations of this claim are violations of fundamental principles.

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This is the moment in which, in some circles at least, the needle goes scratching across the record and there is an audible gasp:

You have violated Hume’s Guillotine. You have derived an OUGHT from an IS!

Needless to say, I respect Hume’s brilliance and accomplishments, as I respect my friends and colleagues who deem Hume’s Guillotine to be important. 

I, however, do not.

Moral principles are obviously a real phenomenon. They cannot be weighed on a scale or stacked on a shelf, but they are real. They exist in our lives. If we do not derive them from what IS—from reality—then from where do we derive them? From what ISN’T? That makes no sense.

Evidence and justification for moral principles is all around us. It’s all there to be found—through intuition, observation, and induction, capped off with careful deductive reasoning.

Some call this view “ethical naturalism.” I just call it common sense. 

Derive oughts from what is? You’re damned straight. And, in the immortal words of Gordon Cole, “Take another look, Sonny—it’s gonna happen again!”

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Anyway, as I was saying…

Your right to exist and act, free from the initiation of coercive force, is a just moral claim, rooted in the ontological facts of the universe. 

However, for a moral claim to have any value, it has to be usable. We cannot have the claim but not be able to use it. It is useless, for example, to assert a right to life if one cannot defend one’s life. 

Since only external players can prevent us from using his claim, the claim must be enforceable against such interference. A moral claim needs teeth.

Just as with our previous demonstrations, we can use these premises to forge a formal argument for the notion that protective force is morally justified:

1. The individual has a just moral claim to self-ownership (and all the rights it confers).

2. The individual requires this just moral claim to be useful.

3. To be useful, this just moral claim must include the right to defend the claim. 

4. Defense of the just moral claim of self ownership (and all the rights it confers) may require the deployment of protective force in response to, and to defend against, the initiation of coercive force.

.˙. Thus, the individual has the right to deploy protective force in response to, and to defend against, the initiation of coercive force in order to defend the just moral claim to self-ownership (and all the rights it confers).

This is a fancy, philosophical way of defining something we already know. It is the flip side of, and necessary corollary to, the nonaggression principle: You do not have a right to initiate coercive force. You DO have a right deploy protective force in your own defense.

Thus, ours is a philosophy of peace, but not pacifism. 

In his 1980 anarchocapitalist sci-fi classic An Enemy of the State, F. Paul Wilson described it as “peace…or else.” Today, it is often described with the colorful acronym FAFO: F*ck around and find out. It amounts to the same thing.

Naturally, there are areas for deeper inquiry: When is protective force appropriate? How carefully proportional should it be? Is preemption ever justified?

Set those aside for the time being, however, and just know that you have a natural, moral right to defend yourself against initiations of coercive force. 

Of course, you already knew that intuitively, because it is a natural fact. Now you know exactly why.

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1. No, I’m not a Boomer, and yes, I used all caps. Deal with it.