We cannot possibly know with certainty why another acts the way he does in a given moment. We can never know his higher-order preferences, which change, or at least can change, from moment to moment. We can only make guesses, or, “inferences,” about these things. However, we can observe that at the moment, the laborer is choosing to labor rather than performing any of the other activities available to him.
He’s still alive while he’s in the process of ending his own life, isn’t he? So because he’s living while e.g. putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger, by your reasoning, he’s demonstrating a preference for life (i.e. his own life). Another way of saying this last part is that he’s demonstrating that he holds value for his life - right?. Yet his actions will presumably result in his death, so it follows that he must be valuing something else at least more ultimately than his life. Therefore life cannot be the “objective ultimate value”.
Again, I’ll note that “objective ultimate value” to me means “a value that one must hold above all other values (i.e. it’s impossible for him to do otherwise)”. I see no other way to parse that phrase of Rothbard’s.
No, it seems to me that Rothbard is arguing that it’s literally impossible for anyone to ever hold anything as a value over his own life. It’s one thing to argue that one can’t refute certain notions within argumentation. This is the same sort of argument as the one for the self-evidence of Hoppe’s argumentation ethics. However, argumentation does not encompass all human action.
Rothbard’s argument means that, if a person states that he no longer wants to live, right before pulling the trigger of a gun he’s put to his head, that person is necessarily contradicting himself. The contradiction appears because, according to my reading of Rothbard, it’s literally impossible for a person to hold anything as a value over his own life. Yet pulling the trigger of a gun one has put to his head will presumably result in his death, which means he’s contradicting his own necessary value scale (again, with his own life as the highest value).
How not? If “higher-order” preferences or values can also be revealed through action, then it’s possible for a person to reveal that he now values something more than his own life.
Again, because a person can reveal that he now rules something more than his own life, this means that one’s own life is not the objective ultimate value.
Rothbard argues in Chapter 7 of The Ethics of Liberty that not only is production necessary for life, but exchange is also necessary. I fail to see how the latter is true, because a person can survive without ever entering into any exchange. But if it can be shown that life is not the objective ultimate value, then the above isn’t necessary to refute Rothbardian ethics.
I understand and agree with all of that. But I don’t think it answers my questions about “higher-order” preferences and time preference.
Strictly speaking, we don’t observe time preference. All we observe - and thus know with certainty, as you point out - is what someone is doing in a given moment. However, I don’t see that as meaning that time preference does not, let alone cannot, exist. Indeed, Mises argues in Human Action (Chapter XVIII) that time preference must exist in spite of the fact that it’s not directly observable. Not only does he argue for the necessary existence of time preference per se, he also argues that present goods must be held more valuable than future goods.
He’s still alive while he’s in the process of ending his own life, isn’t he? So because he’s living while e.g. putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger, by your reasoning, he’s demonstrating a preference for life (i.e. his own life).
This is getting really weird. The above is an example of what I meant by the fudge factors I mentioned earlier. As I have explicitly stated, someone who commits suicide is not demonstrating a preference for life. He is ending it. Does a man who eats demonstrate a preference for hunger? Does a man who showers demonstrate a preference for body odor? Does a woman who cleans demonstrate a preference for filth?
I really don’t understand what you’re trying to get at with this, nor why you are trying to get at it in this manner. Yes, if one is not alive, one cannot commit suicide, nor do anything else. But committing suicide is not an affirmation of life. Arguing is.
No, it seems to me that Rothbard is arguing that it’s literally impossible for anyone to ever hold anything as a value over his own life.
Well, let’s find some evidence. If Rothbard ever made the argument you attribute to him, I will immediately agree with you that there is (at least) one problem with The Ethics of Liberty. I have others, actually, but on other topics.
What I believe he argued is that anyone who bothered to argue against life as a highest value had lost the argument as soon as he started it. Anyone in the business of being alive is demonstrating a preference for life, without which none of the rest can occur or be enjoyed. If he in fact argued that it was “literally impossible for anyone to ever hold anything as a value over his own life”, let’s see that passage, because I would disagree with Rothbard and agree with you.
I didn’t mean to imply that it doesn’t exist. I was answering your post to which I first replied:
We can’t observe time preference because preferences can only be demonstrated instantaneously. You kind of made my point. Time preference exists, and we can deduce it, but it cannot be demonstrated.
Re: EtymologiaAnarkhos – Commentary on Nielsio’s Critique of Rothbardian Political Philosophy