By the way, if you do post your question to Dr. Long then can you perhaps post his response on the forums or message me it? I am always trying to perfect my arguments.
when a statement is true about something, like the statement ‘the cat is in the tree’ is true about the cat being in the tree, it describes what is real. cats can really be in trees. and some cat is really in a tree. and you can say true statements about that. or false ones.
now, when a moral statement is true about something, like the statement ‘Ted Bundy butchering innocents is wrong’ is true about the fact that its immoral for ted bundy to have killed people, it describes what is real. killing innoccents can really be immoralm and some people really do commit immoral acts. and you can say true statements about that, or false ones.
Good idea. As far as I have seen, no one currently posting on the board can even define natural law or natural rights as well-formed, unambiguous concepts, so to see how they could form any kind of basis for libertarianism stretches the imagination.
I’d be happy to.
Not only is it a proposition that is supported by empirical experiences with the behavior of man, but it is also a position that is supported by our current understanding of evolution. Man is an animal whose insticts are often to kill, rape, and steal, and who must control surpress those natural instincts in order to live in a civil society. To deny the fact that aggression is not in man’s nature is an absurdity.
And I have seen the opposite. The question is which is more likely to be the actions of man and since we’re not all constantly raping, murdering and stealing like some Sadian world, then I find that my argument is the correct one.
From Wikipedia (emphasis added)…
No one denies that aggression i not in man’s nature. I think that the idea of natural rights is an approach to establish an objective morality. Every natural rights theroist is a moral absolutist, and wants to keep his “premises” valid everywhere and everytime. So they build a system based on some values that we all have (or should) hold as valid. The libertarian natural rights try to establish that initiating active physical aggression is immoral; I think that if we are a little civilized we can get this idea. The other one is that the legitimate owner of a scarce good is the person (or people) who first homesteaded that good. I try to keep the concepts as simply as they can get, as the idea of natural rights doesn’t seem so “natural”, they maybe called something like “rational rights”, as they belong to reason (based on real facts, like scarcity and “body ownership”).
Note to new readers: we are discussing the definition of “objective morality.”
So far so good.
All right, now what does an action being “wrong” mean? A few of the many possible interpretations: “I/we disapprove of X,” “X is against established customs or laws,” “if we allow X, consequences that I/we/you will probably not enjoy will ensue,” “God disapproves of X,” etc. And if “wrong” cannot be defined, please articulate why.
well, of course, i disagree :-0
The opposite is man surpressing his instincts, anyone who says that they do not have violent insticts is a self-richteous liar.
You lack any comprehension of what I have just said, for I have explained why man does not do those activites today,: if man desires to live in society, he must supress those instints in order to live in society, and living in society is far better than living life as life as a lone brute who seizes everything he desires by force. It is not hard to supress one’s violent insticts, even easier when one realizes the alternatives.
In addition, to claim that violence is a behavior that is not naturally in man, then how does one explain that wherever man travels, violence between men follow?
I believe you are strawmanning Rothbard. Rothbard offers ‘consequentialist’ arguments for property rights and free exchange. For instance, he has argued that without property rights or free exchange, humans will have decreased productivity. He has never advocated any ‘historical’ arguments such as the ‘fact’ that humans have indeed killed, raped, or stolen from one another. He has classified property rights and free exchange as ‘natural’ because of their increased productivity. However, Rothbard has never justified why he categorized that maximizing productivity as ‘natural’.
Sure, an organism require productivity to survive. However, why should an organism ‘maximize’ its productivity? Rothbard did not explicate the goals of his ‘natural law’. Also, an organism can choose to starve in the future while still remaining consistent with the notion that ‘natural law’ presupposes the survival of the organism. This does not logically prescribe the same organism to maximize his productivity in the future.
ok, why is whats good for the goose not good for the gander?
you ask what does ‘wrong’ mean but you dont ask what does ‘false’ mean.
the philsophical challenge to answering those questions are similar and analgous, despite our cultural bias being to accept rational scientific realism on the one hand and be moral arealist skeptics on the other hand.
Or maybe violence is the suppression of his non-violent instincts.
So unless an individual is living in a group, then he cannot be non-violent?
I’ve never spoken on the topic of Rothbard.
Again, have I spoken of this?
How does this even correspond to what I’ve said?
The irony is is that your entire post is a strawman of my position. All that I have stated is that violence is in man’s nature, I have not spoken anything else, nor have I elucidated any conclusions from the statement - I never even mentioned Rothbard.
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No: the Desert Fathers, and other ascetics would be examples to the contrary. Nevertheless, society is one of the greatest motivations for man supressing his insticts, but it is not the only one.
If “immoral” were unambiguously defined, we could at least attempt to evaluate the idea. Until then, with the many possible interpretations of “immoral,” the notion is cannot even be evaluated and argued for/against without assuming a definition (thereby inviting accusations of strawmanning).
i read you as saying that netiher violence nor non-violence are mans nature seeing that neither is central to the definition of ‘man’. this leaves things like rationality as candidates for things that are actually mans ‘nature’.
but i think the nature talk is a red herring, its supposed to clue you into moral realism, not empirical accountings of what you see people always do and what you notice that they never do. and calling the former natural and the latter unnatural…
Why would you want positions that do have important differentiae to have the same name? You seem like a nice guy, so I would hope it’s not a tactical ploy… lumping decent people like me, who differ with you regarding meta-ethics, but who subjectively regard the state as evil, along with quasi-Machiavellians who deny good/evil altogether-- and the stigma attached to them.
All right, change “false” to “logically false.” “Logically false” has a well-understood, unambiguous meaning, does it not? Now what do you logically mean by “wrong”?