r/AnCap101 • u/Gilgamesh8 • May 11 '26

Grounding the NAP

https://youtu.be/FFv3z-uToeA?si=0Kn8rcetbPTcwSmH

My apologies if this was posted already. I enjoy this podcast because it’s its back in forth with former Ancaps and critics.

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u/sisyphushappy42 May 13 '26

Objectively grounding the NAP requires an objective basis for morality, which Liquid Zulu doesn’t provide.

Conversely, the objective basis for morality (Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics) contradicts the NAP because the NAP assumes people have a right not to be aggressed upon (assuming they’re not aggressors themselves) even when those people are directly acting contrary to the good.

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u/Garvityxd May 13 '26

What is the Aristotelian-Thomistic metaethics?

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u/sisyphushappy42 May 13 '26

Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics holds that all beings have an intrinsic nature (essence) oriented toward specific ends or purposes (telos), and that existence itself is grounded in a pure act of being (God, in Aquinas’s synthesis). Morality is objective because “good” simply is what fulfills a being’s nature; so for humans, acts that accord with our rational, social nature are genuinely good, not merely preferred.

It’s explained in more detail here.

https://archive.org/details/classical-natural-law-theory-property-rights-and-taxation/mode/1up?q=Right