Now you are changing the hypo! Yes, if someone else is entitled to your support, taking some risk
Positive obligations are obligations to act in some way or another. I don't believe that you have any of these unless you:
(a) voluntarily assumed them by your free choice (e.g., if you accept my money in exchange for your promise that you will build me a brick wall, you need to get my brick wall built or you will owe me money damages)
(b) assumed them by some coluntary course of conduct on your part that resulted in your owing said duty to someone. (e.g., if you shove some poor stranger into an icy creek, you thereby assume a duty to rescue him from the peril that you have put him in)
Negative obligations are duties to refrain from acting in some way or another. Obviously we all have an obligation to refrain from conduct that violates the life, liberty, and property of others.
That is a pragmatic concern, not a question of justice or rights. Yes, it could be that being willing to help defend your neighbor means that he will be more likely that he will pitch in to defend you. That doesn't mean that you have a duty to do any defending, unless you have voluntarily created such an obligation for yourself.
Some people may want to skip that personal obligation. Some people may choose for religious or philosophical reasons to be total pacifists and never use violence, even against aggressors. I believe that they have the right to live that way, and to accept the consequences of living that way.
Again, sometimes people choose to forgive debts. Sometimes people choose not to fight back. If I knew that someone was a conscientious pacifist, I would probably not use violence to defend them.
If someone is just unprepared for defending himself, well, I might try to help and figure he would be motivated to pay it forward later.
Yes, though of course suicide is sad, it is not appropriate to use violence to stop a person from committing suicide (assuming that they possess the mental capacity to make such a decision; I think I would probably feel just fine about stopping a drunk guy from jumping off a roof or something, and I suspect he would ratify this action later when he regained his faculties). And in general, I would certainly try to persuade a suicidal person to reconsider.
I believe that every individual ought to be able to act as he chooses to promote his best interests as he sees them, so long as he does not violate the property rights of others, including their right to their bodily integrity.
Basically, this is about the shortest statement of the libertarian "non-aggression principle" that I can muster. All my policy positions are derived from that simple philosophy. I don't view it as "selfishness" (a word which we both know has a negative connotation in modern usage, except among Randians/Objectivists), but rather rational self-interest.
Not changing the hypo...those things are always there, even if not stated.
Sure, selfishness has a negative connotation in today's SOCIALIST nations (and I will assume that you know what I am meaning in that as they love to manipulate things). But it is only negative if it negatively impacts on another.
Same goes for aggression, it's not bad to be aggressive, but what the aggression is used to do. If it wasn't for aggression, humans would die out without a whisper. We just call it survival instinct instead, trying to pretty things up. Aggression and selfishness are two key components of survival.
Just because "society" or government says something, does not make it so.
But now we are saying the same things, just in different words. Every individual is responsible for all consequences for the actions they choose to do, whether they are known before hand or not....ignorance is not an excuse.
As for the suicide thing, I would also ask "why" in order to see if the reason why they are choosing to do so can be fixed (whether to help them or to help others), but I would never in my logical sense be able to directly stop them. But it should be left for the individual to CHOOSE not to carry out the suicide as per their right. Yes, for a lack of a better word, "convince" them... but that should be done by correcting the issue not stopping them directly.
As for the drunk guy, of course one would be good to stop someone who is drunk, they may not even be trying to commit suicide, but merely being an idiot... but of course to that I say let them fall as individuals must deal with all consequences both known and unknown for the choices they make.
As for violence being used to stop suicide, I'm not sure where you were going, that doesn't make sense. Wouldn't that violate the non-aggression principle?
It is impossible to victimize yourself.
However, every individual does have obligations to every other individual.. and no it's not collectivist...it's recognizing we are not alone and that we have to work together.
Every individual has an obligation to all others to stop a crime and various other things (like not destroying the public park so others can enjoy it) . If you choose not to, especially if you have the means to do so, you are just as guilty as the one committing the crime/wrong (principle of the good Samaritan) .
For instance, someone breaks into your house or robs a store you are in. But you choose to do nothing to stop it and they get away. By choosing to do nothing, you just chose to sentence another person to suffer a similar or worse crime later on or even right that moment. You have no right to do that. By doing nothing, you might as well be helping commit or committing the current or next crime yourself.
Every choice has consequences we can see before hand and ones we may never know of...but we are responsible for both either way, though we may never directly feel them come down on us nor realize it.
Of course if you have no means to stop the crime, how would you? Everything within reason of course.
Now, obligation is not a requirement. One may be obligated to do something, that doesn't mean they are required to do it, but that also doesn't mean it doesn't still come with recourse.
