…this is a jump. Using a man and woman for clarity of pronouns: Although a man must recognize that his opponent was in fact able to freely express herself at the time she made her propositions, that does not mean that he must himself recognize any of her rights (or recognize any of her rights as valid, or even as existing, or even as “rights” being a meaningful concept).
Hoppe’s original statement said too much: “It is only as long as there isat least an implicit recognition of each individual’s property right in his or her own body that argumentation can take place” (emphasis mine). But there need be no implicit recognition, as I just showed.
Lilburne did not use the term ‘moral subjectivism’ in the sense that whatever an individual or government precribes will automatically make that prescription ‘right’. Lilburne instead has used the term ‘moral subjectivism’ in the descriptive sense that humans have empathy and remorse which he has categorized as ‘subjective’ ‘preferences’.
Lilburne wants to spread the idea that ‘ethical systems’ presuppose that the believer of the ‘ethical system’ has a sense of empathy and caring about other people. Otherwise, he will have no incentive to enforce the ‘ethical system’ because he has no sense of empathy to care about other people. Lilburne has labeled this idea under the ambiguous term ‘moral subjectivism’.
I think a lot of you are missing the point that subjectivity does not preclude consensus. On the other hand, objectivity requires a single frame of reference, which in the case of morals would be most difficult (I would argue impossible) to determine.
Without these rights that are, then no defining will happen. No exploring can even occur without these rights. How do you explore human nature or otherwise without living (life), choosing [(liberty) i.e. without being able to choose to explore this, that, or other], or person [(property) i.e. without being the human that you are? can’t
As for natural law: A=A (law of noncontradiction), etc…
Having a right (justified claim) means being permitted to do as one pleases with the good they have a right to. We could just as easily replace the word right with interpersonal norm of non-interference w.r.t. the given object. And then we could have a theory of norms instead of rights. I think you are getting to caught up on word choice and are ignoring the meaningful concepts they represent.
How about you give me your theory of epistemology, so that we know we’re on the same page when it comes to terminology and reasoning. Then we can argue over whether or not ethics fit into this theory and come to a common agreement. Sound good?
No, the problem is your logic and who knows what else for I said:
Life is.
Liberty is.
Property is.
and have pointed out that these are natural rights…Anybody can call an orange an apple but that doesn’t mean it’s truly an apple… A is not non-A… (you were correct)…
Under any terminology I have seen, no “right,” “justified claim,” or “interpersonal norm of non-interference” is required in order for someone to have mere knowledge that someone else’s argument was given freely and without coercion. It’s common sense to see that any person who has spoken, has spoken freely precisely if and only if that person’s speech has not actually been coerced. Rights, justified claims, etc. are unnecessary for that knowledge.
What Hoppe apparently tried to do was make the word “recognition” mean two different things: 1. knowledge, and 2. belief in rights as valid.
Hoppe seems to want to say: “You must recognize (know) that the person has spoken freely. Therefore, you must recognize (believe as valid) the fact that the person has right the right to speak freely.” He cannot have it both ways.
The onus is on the one expounding the proof to explain any non-standard/non-obvious terminology or epistemological foundations. It would be like a mathematician walking up to me and saying, “i = the square root of -1,” and I say, “How can negative numbers have square roots?” And he says to me, “Well how about you give me your take on number theory?”
You seem to be using recognition and knowing interchangeably. I don’t think you can, or at least not in this context. Knowing is passive. It’s mere behaviour. I could be walking down the street as an action and just happen to know something. Recognition, on the other hand is an action. It means that I am deliberating and coming to some conclusion about the truth of a proposition. While usually the difference in common speech is unimportant, in this case it is because, what we are arguing over is the difference between actively acting in accordance with a norm and passively not coercing.
I would say that what he means is, understanding that a proposition is true. In this case, it means understanding that there exists an underlying norm adopted by both participants in the argument.
It would seem to me that the mathematician, rather than copping out, is willing to use your definitions to do his proof since you reject his definitions.
You have your natural rights theory and I have mine. And it’s natural. Just look at the empirical evidence. And anything that’s natural must be right. So murder, enslavement, and crime are right.
In that case, Hoppe’s statement is a simple non sequitur: “You must understand as true that the person has spoken freely. Therefore, you must understand as true that there is an underlying norm adopted by both participants in an argument.” In other words, “The fact that each person spoke freely implies that each person adopted certain norms toward the other participants.” That clearly does not follow.
After all, in many situations it is impossible for either party to coerce each other during the argument anyway. Consider two men conducting a philosophical argument over the telephone, one in Japan and one in New York, where neither man has the ability to coerce the other. No rights or norms need be mutually recognized for them to merely know that each is making uncoerced statements."
Nevermind that Hoppe starts with the underlying notion that an ethical theory can only be justified in an argument, implying that Hoppe’s ethical theory wasn’t justified until he argued about it with someone else(!!). Besides being patently ridiculous, it appears to include an inverse ad hominem fallacy for good measure. He also hints at an appeal to psychology fallacy with his talk of the arguer being uncoerced. Or else, he means justified to mean something other than “valid,” hence allowing any ethical principle at all to still be valid.
And even in the fairy-tale world where Hoppe’s non sequitur holds, he still has nothing to say about those who would advocate that everyone with kidneys be forced to give up one kidney for scientific research. After all, the advocate may well have given up his kidney, and people can still argue fine with one kidney. Hoppe fails even on his own terms.
I do not here advance any ethical position myself. I only point out that Hoppe’s logic here is flawed beyond repair, and I hope he comes to grips with this so as to advance libertarianism on a sound basis and not open himself up to easy demolition like this, because the casual observer may throw out the baby (strong arguments for libertarianism) with the bathwater (glaringly fallacious arguments like the argument of Hoppe’s we are discussing).
He is asking you to clarify the way you use certain words that are highly prone to ambiguity for the discussion to proceed more smoothly; hardly an unreasonable request.
So it’s not normal for people to not coerce each other when they enter into an argument? Is that really what you are arguing? This isn’t a mode of operation that is necessarily adopted?
A norm is still adopted. If I adopt a norm of not drinking or smoking, the fact that there are no cigarettes or booze around doesn’t change that.
Obviously, justifying means proving to someone else. It’s not just a matter of convincing oneself. Also, what is being justified is a set of norms. And these norms exist whether anyone justifies them or not. Hoppe’s proof is a proof that only certain norms can ever be justified. Valid means that the conclusions of an argument logically follow from its premises.
But this is ruled out by the universalizability principle which is also presupposed by argumentation. Going into this is unecessary since the OP only asks whether the is/ought gap can be bridged. I think I have sufficiently backed up Hoppe and demonstrated that some norms are indeed valid and objective.
After having read a number of different versions of his argument, some of the sources that he cites, a few of the critiques of his theory, and some of the defenses of it, I get a different impression. I think he has considered the work of many other philosophers. His proof is only a conservative logical innovation building on top of many other philosopher’s work. In some sense you are right about strategy. While his proof has ultimately answered the question for others and myself over whether an objective ethic can be proven, and which ethical systems are sound, it will never have mass appeal. It is to complicated and most people are too stupid or lazy to get it. Simple utilitarian style economic arguments will probably be the most decisive in the long run. The style of Democracy:The God That Failed is far more effective at bring others over to libertariansm. So, I think you’re right that something else is needed to market to the casual observer.
wrong… you’re lacking an epistemology based on a metaphysics of the nature of natural rights.
life is.
liberty is.
property is.
Once you intellectually apprehend what the quiddities of life, liberty, and property is (of human nature) and gain knowledge, their natures will be understood. Until then your logical fallacy of murder is life, liberty is enslavement, and crime (I guess) is property is a doublethink where A is not-A.
sort of… I’ve been thinking about this, but I’ve had help understanding the terminology and concepts by reading Aristotle’s “Ethics”, then Aquainas “On Human Nature”, and an excellent book that I highly recommend to everybody is a peak achievement in understanding natural law called “Natural Law” by Heinrich Rommen. He was a german practicing lawyer (who later became a professor at Georgetown University after fleeing Germany after being imprisioned and released when no evidence could be found against him - he wrote of the injustices of the nazi’s so naturally they came after him) who witnessed the Nazi’s take over the legal system since their system was so heavy with positivism that natural law became so clouded they could not explicitly realize anything unjust, bad, and wrong enter into their legal system. The Nazi’s took over as their legal system was based on the historical school of positivism (if I have that specific kind of positivism correctly categorized) in which their law was based on custom and society. Hence, as I’m sure most know, it became all about germany, a strong nationalism, the aryan race, etc… It was actually their final end of incorporating positivism into their state for over a century. To define the law they had to define what a real german state was, and eventually whoever wasn’t considered german, the aryan race, then they were killed. It’s positivism gone insane forgetting it’s roots. The real roots of any law is in natural law, but natural law considers intellect and positivism considers will. Positivists will it. They don’t intellectually apprehend what is and realize the natural order of being. They push passed reason and will it as inanimate objects. They want to be a rock and force it through without knowledge and knowing of what is. Natural law understandings practical reason, which is the combination of intellect and will. Positivism inclines only upon the will. It’s a heck of a book with Part 1 a history of Natural Law’s realization. And a Part 2 of the philosophy of natural law [a full chapter on how being-ought, on how (being) is-ought works in concert to name one] with this second part having a chapter called “Natural Law and Positive Law”. It’s either one or the other at play, with a combination of both the general story of western civilization (he doesn’t cover outside of this civilization in this book) with Natural Law peeking in human intellect along the way some more than other times.
It’s an amazing book. One of the biggest recent eye-openers for me with his history, in-depth philosophical inquiry, and the clarity in his comparison’s on what is natural law and what is positivism. I could say so much more out of excitement, but I’ll let it go at that. I have more to read in that book and I realize the depth and magnitude of what’s happening. Much more to learn…
That’s because you don’t have enough knowledge on the subject. It’s basically that simple and I’m stating your lack of epistemology and metaphysics all in one small post.
