An Anarcho-Individualistic Remark on Natural Law: Lysander Spooner and His Theory of Law
Muzaffer DülgerLysander Spooner (1808-1887) is an important but oft-neglected figure of 19th-century American political philosophy. He was a lawyer, entrepreneur, and political essayist. Ideologically, he was an individualist anarchist, abolitionist, and an exponent of the labor movement and free market. He was also a natural law theorist who developed forceful arguments on behalf of an individualistic conception of natural law philosophy and private property rights in opposition to authoritarian governments, state-interventionism, legislative and taxative activities, and all forms of paternalism, whether moral, legal, or political. Thus, he stood generally between the two main philosophical positions of natural law philosophy and of a radically individualistic type of anarchism. As a result of his unique philosophical character, he became a highly influential figure among contemporary libertarians and anarcho-capitalists, and his books and pamphlets have also served as rather convenient sources for understanding and analyzing the libertarian legal theory, as well as its outcomes and claims regarding contemporary legal matters. However, he neither wrote any systematic treatise nor try to develop any systematic philosophy. Although he did write various works on law, he was unable to gather his views within a systematic work. This study’s purpose is to generally disclose Spooner’s conception of law through some of his legal views dispersed among his various book chapters and pamphlets and to reveal this conceptualization’s connection to natural law philosophy by concentrating on his thoughts regarding certain fundamental legal concepts such as justice, constitution, right, property, and crime. Specifically, this work will concentrate on discussing Spooner’s naturalistic answer to the question of what is law and will address in connection with this answer the true meanings of crime and property he held in his mind.
Anarko-Bireyci Bir Doğal Hukuk Yorumu: Lysander Spooner ve Hukuk Teorisi
Muzaffer DülgerLysander Spooner (1808-1887) 19. yüzyıl Amerikan siyaset felsefesinin önemli fakat sıklıkla ihmal edilmiş bir figürüdür. Bir hukukçu, girişimci ve politik deneme yazarıdır. İdeolojik olarak ise bireyci bir anarşist, kölecilik karşıtı ve emek hareketi ile serbest piyasa destekçisidir. Ayrıca otoriter hükümetler, devlet müdahaleciliği, yasa koyucu ve vergilendirici faaliyetler ve ahlaki, hukuki ya da politik her tür paternalizme karşı doğal hukuk felsefesinin bireyci bir kavranışı yönünde ve özel mülkiyet hakları lehine güçlü argümanlar geliştirmiş bir doğal hukuk teorisyenidir. Dolayısıyla o genel olarak iki ana felsefi konum arasında kendisine pozisyon edinir; doğal hukuk felsefesi ve radikal derecede bireyci bir anarşizm. İşte bu özgün felsefi karakterinden ötürü o çağdaş liberteryenler ve anarko-kapitalistler üzerinde oldukça etkileyici bir figür haline gelmiş olup, kitap ve broşürleri de liberteryen hukuk teorisini ve onun güncel hukuki meseleler hakkındaki çıktı ve savlarını anlayıp analiz edebilmek için oldukça elverişli kaynaklar halini almıştır. Fakat o ne bir sistematik çalışma kaleme almış ne de sistematik bir felsefe geliştirmeye çabalamıştır. Hukuk üzerine çeşitli eserler kaleme almış olmakla beraber, görüşlerini sistematik bir çalışma içerisinde bir araya getirememiştir. Bu çalışmada amaç, çeşitli kitap bölümleri ve broşürleri arasında dağılmış vaziyetteki hukuki görüşleri vasıtası ile, onun hukuk kavramını genel olarak açıklığa kavuşturmak ve bu kavrayışın doğal hukuk felsefesine bağlılığını, adalet, anayasa, hak, mülkiyet ve suç gibi bazı temel hukuki kavramlar üzerine düşüncelerine yoğunlaşmak suretiyle ortaya koymaktır. Spesifik olarak ise, bu çalışma ile Spooner’in ‘hukuk nedir?’ sorusuna verdiği doğal hukukçu cevabı tartışmaya yoğunlaşılacak ve bu cevapla bağlantılı bir biçimde suç ve mülkiyetin onun zihnindeki uygun telakki edilen manasını ele alacağız.
Lysander Spooner (1808-1887) is an important though oft-neglected figure in 19thcentury American political philosophy. He was an individualist anarchist, political essayist, and entrepreneur known for setting up a private post office in competition with the American government’s public postal services and for writing abolitionist essays. He was also a lawyer and natural law theorist. He developed forceful arguments on behalf of an individualistic conception of natural law philosophy and private property rights in opposition to authoritarian governments, interventionism, legislative and taxative activities, and all forms of paternalism, whether moral, legal, or political.
Spooner’s ideas on law are found dispersed among his various writings. One of the best known of these works is The Unconstitutionality of Slavery (1860). Spooner began his argument on the unconstitutionality of slavery with a question: “What is Law?” He answered this by defining law as the “natural, permanent, unalterable principle, which governs any particular thing or class of things” (p.4) “The natural, universal, impartial and inflexible principle, which, under all circumstances, necessarily fixes, determines, defines and governs the civil rights of men” (p. 5) was “simply the rule, principle, obligation or requirement of natural justice” (p. 5). According to Spooner, any so-called legal rules and regulations that are contrary to natural justice have no validity. Spooner reiterated these naturalist views in the following works, one conspicuous one that will be dwelt on here being his pamphlet titled “Natural Law or the Science of Justice: A Treatise on Natural Law, Natural Justice, Natural Rights, Natural Liberty, and Natural Society; Showing That All Legislation Whatsoever is an Absurdity, a Usurpation, and a Crime” (1882). As can be seen in the title, he also generated some radical ideas in this pamphlet against all legislative activities in the context of the formation of a legal system.
Another pamphlet he published titled “Vices Are Not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty” (1875), Spooner drew the line around a behavioral area insusceptible to legislative intervention. In this pamphlet, he objected to criminal legislation that interfered with the inviolable core area of individual liberty, especially those that criminalized vices, moral corruption, or the self-harm actions of an individual such as drunkenness, addiction to gambling, smoking, and idleness. Spooner stated therein (p. 2), “Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property.” In other words, while crimes are related with infringement on others’ natural rights (e.g., life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness), vices are the errors a man makes in the search for one’s natural right to pursue one’s own happiness. In this way, this viewpoint offers insight into a libertarian conceptualization of the separation of law and morality and of an acceptable form of criminalization regarding some human actions. This also had similarly become apparent in Anglo-Saxon legal philosophy through the Mill-Stephen and Hart-Devlin debates.
Some contemporary libertarians and anarcho-capitalists regard Spooner as one of their most influential philosophical predecessors because of his substantial arguments in support of private property rights and natural liberty. However, placing him at the central point of libertarian thought is not easy because of some his skeptical views on contemporary capitalist practices. However, he was a follower of Locke’s natural right philosophy and individual property rights as a natural right, he was also a hard opponent to all forms of involuntary servitude, not just to slavery and other coercive public obligations but also to the wage labor dependencies regarding oligarchic capitalist exploiters. Consistent with these thoughts and doubts, he became an exponent of a private property regime that supports intellectual labor and free entrepreneurship. For an understanding of his conception of property rights in this manner, this article will look at his book titled “The Law of Intellectual Property” (1855).
In short, the purpose of this work was to bring Spooner’s concept of law into view through some of his book chapters and pamphlets and by dwelling on Spooner’s previously mentioned theory of natural law. In order to analyze his thoughts regarding law as a holistic term, this article will then examine his views regarding certain fundamental legal concepts involving legality and illegality, such as rights, crimes, misdemeanors, the Constitution, and property rights, which he defined here and there among his various works. Consequently, the article will then try to reveal Spooner’s theory of law, which prioritized the individual as a unique moral being in opposition to all collective bodies such as the state and other authoritative societal institutions. In this way, an anarcho-individualist conception of natural law will be shown to emerge through Spooner’s thoughts and critical works.
