Warning: The title of this article will make some people automatically assume that I advocate victimizing other people or that I no longer believe in peaceful coexistence which is not even close to true at all.
To answer the question 'Why won't you take a N.A.P.?," it's important to understand what the N.A.P. is first. The N.A.P. short for the non-aggression principle is a very simple basic standard that's been understood and lived by since the dawn of time (even though it was never referred to as or called the non-aggression principle for thousands of years). It's simply the idea that it's wrong to hurt other people and does implicate an emphasis on the self-defense principle as well. Or to put it even more simply, it's wrong to do what no one having a single reason in the first place ever asked for (well that pertains more to the don't be a dick principle but it comes from the same essence as the N.A.P. which is natural law which just simply means there's consequences for your actions).
So now since we know what the N.A.P. is, let's answer the question 'Why won't you take a N.A.P.?' The problem ultimately has nothing to do with the N.A.P. itself, but how a lot of people misinterpret it with deontological ethics which is essentially judging an action by it's adherence to "rules" and not by it's consequences at all times regardless of the situation in the real world. Essentially believing the N.A.P. is the only objective moral compass that anyone can have and if it's even slightly disobeyed, "force" all the way up to including deadly can be totally justified.
Taken from that context, a lot of things can easily turn ugly from turning a blind eye to gray areas and not taking proportionality into the equation. Let's use some examples to explain further what I'm talking about.
Imagine you found a baby locked in it's parents car strapped to it's positioner and obviously couldn't get out and it was crying for help. But you also found out immediately from the only neighbor around that the parents are gone and won't be home until the next morning (and it's currently noon not midnight). And you both can't get in contact with them. And you both don't want to call the cops because of the chance that they get CPS involved and take the baby away. If one of you guys were to shatter the car window to get the baby out for good reasons concerning not wanting to risk the wait for someone to show up that the parents know or themselves because the baby could possibly die, according to the misapplied imbalanced N.A.P. logic when integrated with deontological ethics, the one who did it violated the parents consent if they didn't agree to have their car window shattered, "private property rights," hence violated the N.A.P. which means you can (will) deserve punishment possibly all the way up to including death even if you offered to pay for the damage. But hey, the one who did it violated the non-aggression principle right!? Serves him right!!!
Take for example another situation where suppose you had a kid who wanted to go swimming one day during the summer at a water park. And when you took your kid, he kept going near the deep swimming area where the diving boards are and you know he can't swim. And as your telling him to stay near you, he doesn't listen. And right as he's about to grab the handles and step foot onto the ladder to get on the diving board, you grab him with force away from the diving board and take him where he can swim without drowning and he gets angry and emotional. According to the same logic, you violated the non-aggression principle and deserve punishment. It doesn't matter that you saved his life, according to the logic of deontological ethics amalgamated with the non-aggression principle, because you initiated force against him, you committed a wrong doing and deserve punishment. But what's the big deal? He violated the non-aggression principle!! Serves him right!
The last example I'll use from a direct experience some of my friends from Pennsylvania experienced in the beginning of the decade. A homeless man one night snuck in through their side entrance of their house and came into the side door to steal food from the refrigerator because he was starving. And he pulled it off without anyone noticing until later. Once again according to the same logic, he deserves punishment all the way up to death. Can you begin to see how utterly ridiculous this logic and way of handling conflicts really is?
The reason Kantian based ethics with deontology or other ones are so misleading is because it's not the same as having principles while pretending to be. There are certain actions that one can commit at all times (not including gray areas & stewardship) off of his/her own volition and flawlessly get the same results. Suffering. If one person takes a gun and randomly shoots and murders who ever he feels he wants to for absolutely no reason, at all times in the universe that will be an act of wrong doing that's totally fucked up and deserves restitution (but not by getting people to "follow orders"). Not because we or he think it's wrong, but because it takes the self-ownership of another person's life. But what the same ethics totally ignore is that when gray areas pop up because reality is always more stranger than fiction, it's totally justified to use force that wouldn't otherwise be justified. According to Immanuel Kant's philosophy, one must never disobey the "moral law" regardless of the circumstances and that your feelings don't matter. This is what he called the Categorical Imperative. While yes if you steal $500 from someone and get away with it, you'll be more financially stable than before (not even including the examples of wallets left lingering around). But that will never make it justified.
Vice versa on the flip side, if you apply the same logic to gray areas with an ever evolving aspect of subjective morality & stewardship, with the examples I used and infinite other ones that can be used, because the initiation of force was commenced, it can be the same as committing murder or robbing someone's house at gun point.
This is exactly why deontology is a cul-de-sac and a spook. It's literally external "authority" disguised and forged as natural law. Despite some of Immanuel Kant's amazing contributions, he was flawed on a lot of stuff. And trying to create a perfect formula for morality was one of them.
While it's true that there is an objective aspect to morality despite all the endless gray areas that can manifest, that doesn't mean that morality is purely objective (determinism). And on the flip side while it's true that there's a subjective aspect of morality, that doesn't mean that morality is purely subjective (moral relativism/solipsism).
The truth also is that there's a myriad of things that people can do that's fucked up without violating the N.A.P. (being a narcissistic asshole, certain forms of doxing, etc.). And that's why proportionality and common sense always have to be taken into the equation which is the antithesis of deontology and blindly following orders.
And as Larken Rose pointed out in his 3 part article series Age Of Consent: " A lot of the underlying principle here can be found in the teaching, “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.” But to make it a bit more specific, for purposes of this discussion, we should add the element of cognisance and understanding: “Treat others how you hope they would treat you in the same situation, if they knew and understood the whole situation but you didn’t.”
Bonus: As a caveat, even though there are definitely some things that Walter Block says that I disagree with (not just in the debate), he totally won the debate against Stefan Molyneux back in December 2013 which you can watch below
Extra Bonus: Stefan Molyneux's reaction to this article
Sources/References
https://steemit.com/voluntaryism/@larkenrose/age-of-consent-part-one
https://steemit.com/voluntaryism/@larkenrose/age-of-consent-part-two
https://steemit.com/voluntaryism/@larkenrose/age-of-consent-part-three
