As others have noted, pollution is a hard problem for those libertarians who endorse some version of rights absolutism—roughly, the view that rights (typically self-ownership and property rights) carry infinite moral weight such that they’re never outweighed by competing moral considerations such as welfare.
Is the solution that property rights must be efficiently enforceable? Evidently, enforcing a right against trespassing costs less than what is gained by enforcing that right, but a right against air pollution costs more than it is worth.
Should it ever become efficient to enforce a right again air pollution, it would make sense to enforce that right.
To argue for the silliness of rights-based libertarianism, you're assuming that rights-theorists would insist that there's a right not to have other people's particles in your lungs. What if there's no such right? Take Nozick's claim, that people have rights and there are (thus?) things people can't do without violating those rights. Say that's true; it doesn't tell us just what rights we have. It could easily be the case that we don't have a right to have our lungs free from particles emitted by other creatures. Indeed, how could there be such a right? That would mean merely existing would be a violation of others' rights. That's absurd. So, there can't be such a right. So, it can't be an argument against rights-theory libertarians that such right leads to a reductio ad absurdum.
That's fair--the challenge, then, is to provide an account that explains why we don't have a right to have our lungs free from particles but doesn't also imply that we don't have a right to have our couch free from considerate trespassers.
The reason it's absurd to think we have a right to have our lungs free from others' particles is that it would make existing impossible. A social convention of property rights doesn't do that. "Stay out of my lungs" violates compossibility; "stay off my couch" doesn't.
Is the solution that property rights must be efficiently enforceable? Evidently, enforcing a right against trespassing costs less than what is gained by enforcing that right, but a right against air pollution costs more than it is worth.
Should it ever become efficient to enforce a right again air pollution, it would make sense to enforce that right.
Is that how you think about it, too?
Yep, that's more or less my take too.
To argue for the silliness of rights-based libertarianism, you're assuming that rights-theorists would insist that there's a right not to have other people's particles in your lungs. What if there's no such right? Take Nozick's claim, that people have rights and there are (thus?) things people can't do without violating those rights. Say that's true; it doesn't tell us just what rights we have. It could easily be the case that we don't have a right to have our lungs free from particles emitted by other creatures. Indeed, how could there be such a right? That would mean merely existing would be a violation of others' rights. That's absurd. So, there can't be such a right. So, it can't be an argument against rights-theory libertarians that such right leads to a reductio ad absurdum.
That's fair--the challenge, then, is to provide an account that explains why we don't have a right to have our lungs free from particles but doesn't also imply that we don't have a right to have our couch free from considerate trespassers.
The reason it's absurd to think we have a right to have our lungs free from others' particles is that it would make existing impossible. A social convention of property rights doesn't do that. "Stay out of my lungs" violates compossibility; "stay off my couch" doesn't.