Is the idea of praxeology only applicable to economics? If so, fair enough.
To be perfectly honest, I don’t really know the value in praxeology.
Maybe not for human action, but wouldn’t the costs of maintaining living standards for the coma patients be pertinent to economic analysis? I’d imagine it would be very important given the possible effects of a given overall economy or healthcare system on the standards of maintience on coma patients, who cannot economically act for themselves.
No, I didn’t. Literary devices can confuse those unfamiliar.
As I said, this cannot be decided by the person in a coma, who cannot act. It can only be decided by acting people who will decide the fate of the comatose person.
Indeed, dunno how I missed that when the last sentence refers to next of kin. A bit embarassing, actually.
Eliotn, one more point. In terms of pure economic theory, it isn’t necessary to prove that all individuals in the economy are actors in the Misesian sense (that can never be proven in any case, even if you and I are debating all it proves is that we are acting, not any body else in the economy). All that is necessary is that we assume that everybody in an economy is an actor. In terms of empirical applications of Austrian theory, then we must assume that actors in the economy are indeed actors, in the Austrian usage of the word. All things given, it isn’t such an unrealistic assumption, especially when compared with the mainstream defintions of economic man, who is a perfectly “rational” optimizing individual with perfect knowledge of his own value scales and perfect knowledge of all goods for sale.
Thanks everybody! [;)]