So a sense of injustice is objectively found in all who are rational actors? Were you an individual who agreed that ethics is a subjective field because what you are saying is close to what natural rights theorists propound, you even use Lysander Spooner ‘mine and thine’ quote. He too was a natural rights theorist.
Yes, and that describes subjective ethics, because it is the sense of injustice that is objectively recognized, not injustice itself.
As a parallel example, Austrian economist can objectively recognize that a rational consumer has an inner sense of value. That doesn’t mean he subscribes to an objective theory of value.
As for “mine and thine”, they’re words, not a quote. “Thine” is just an antiquated word for “yours”. Using the same two English words as a natural rights theorist doesn’t make me a natural rights theorist.
That makes no sense. How can a sense of injustice be objectively known yet injustice not objectively defined? How can we objectively sense an ambiguous concept? How can we sense that murder is an injustice yet not declare that murder is an injustice?If we are all objectively revolted by murder, enslavement etc. then why is it wrong to say that in all cases, objectively, they are wrong/immoral?
Have you considered my Austrian economist example?
An outside observer can objectively recognize the subjective senses of injustice of persons A through Z. He can objectively recognize that persons A through Y subjectively regard aggressive killing as wrong, and that Z, who happens to have been dropped on his head as a baby, subjectively regards aggressive killing as a-ok.
You’ve not addressed my “they’re just words” point.
No because I think you are not distinguishing that there are two types of subjective value theory in Austrian economic philosophy as pointed out by Roderick Long and they are explanatory subjective value and normative subjective value. Plus you are using a ‘value-free’ discipline with a value system.
So you think that because there are crazy people out there who do not feel that murder is necessarily wrong means that objectively is gone? By chance how would such a legal system work if no one could actually objectively establish that murder is wrong in all cases? I think you are engaging in polylogicism and are on a slippery slope to nihilism because there will always be an irrational individual or individuals. You even admit that in your paragraph about how people who don’t feel repulsed by murder are somehow defective. At the very least you are establishing a system in which all that matters is your rights and not someone elses which then leads to the paradox of why you have them and they don’t.
I think Lilburne is getting at the distinction between two statements like the following.
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It is an objective fact that we are revolted by murder, enslavement, etc.
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Murder, enslavement, etc. are objectively wrong.
I say 1 and 2 are not equivalent. Alternatively, if you are interpreting the word objective so as to make 1 and 2 equivalent - i.e., objectively wrong means it is an objective fact that we are revolted by it - then it seems we are all on the same page.
Apparently Stephan think the rights sceptic says no one has a right to do anything in the sense he uses the word. But a better analogy would be that anyone has the right to do anything.
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I agree completely. I think that the average “rights skeptic” is not actually a skeptic with respect to whether rights exist as Kinsella and others defined “rights” but instead a skeptic with respect to whether some sort of objective demarcation of what rights an individual possesses exists.
It is different. Someone with an effective argument argues from what is or derives from what is, not from what they have faith exists, but can’t see or detect.
I am not skeptical of rights as a legal concept, as a persuasive notion appealing to the moral sense, as a rhetorical device, or as a useful shorthand
It wouldn’t even be strictly correct to say that I reject “objectively valid rights” per se, because I have still never seen a coherent conception of objectively valid rights, objective ethics, or anything of the sort - and I’ve been looking. I have seen conceptions of “objectively valid rights” that are ambiguous or incoherent, but I have not seen any that are unambiguous and coherent.
Some would say, “Even if the theories are slightly ambiguous, interpret them in a common sense way.” The problem is, if I interpret the conceptions I have seen so far in a common sense way, then I end up with a theory that is clearly flawed or incoherent, rather than just ambiguous.
By the principle of charity, and in fairness to the many scholars and others who hold to these positions, I must ask for clarification rather than just assuming the theory to be in error. I leave the door open for a coherent conception of objectively valid rights and/or objective ethics, but I am certainly not holding my breath.
You haven’t considered the possibility that maybe you fail at understanding the problem ? It’s not that you’ve refuted moral realism - it’s that you just don’t get it.
I really do not understand why you post. You rarely actually construct an argument. Almost all of your posts are empty.
Really ?
Yes.
You mean, unlike you, I don’t devote endless messages to quibbling about whether a spade should be called a spade ?
Granted, you probably don’t get it either, like the rest of the great ‘skeptic philosophers’ of the forum.
By the way, this
is just an empty assertion - or do you think you’ve constructed some sort of ‘argument’ eh ?
Do you even know what my position is?
No. It is just a broad empirical observation which I do not desire to substantiate because such substantiation would require me to spend more than a few hours gathering and interpreting data.
I said nothing about your position. Though IIRC you never bothered to tell me what your position is when I asked. Not that I care much…
Are you making fun of yourself ? Or is irony dead ?
Whether some one “get[s] it” somehow relates to their position. If I “probably don’t get it”, I necessarily probably do not hold a sensible position. Is that I probably do not hold a sensible position not an assertion about my position?
No.
I really have no idea what you tried to convey there.
Besides quibbling, what else can you do ?