Do you really think that just saying “false”, without providing a comprehensive argument of your own explaining why, suffices as an adequate response to people’s posts? It’s rather bizarre that you seem to think that you can completely skip over the substance of people’s arguments and automatically declare victory. Neither does the fact that someone strongly disagrees with you about an issue necessarily mean that they do not understand the substance of the various positions on it.
When no argument is provided for me to respond, I respond with no argument. That’s how I roll. Don’t like it–tough. And why must you strawman all the time? Seriously. This: “Neither does the fact that someone strongly disagrees with you about an issue necessarily mean that they do not understand the substance of the various positions on it.” is a whining fucking strawman. Kill it now.
What do you mean by special pleading? And why does it falsify arguments a priori?
Wrong zefreak. By the way, I think I asked you at least twice what sort of knowledge is ‘observable’.
I’ll ask for the third time - what sort of thing do you deduce “from facts of observation” ?
In your amoral universe moral propositions are not justifiable ? You already repeated that…a thousand times ?
But the moral fact remains : you can claim control over your fellows - might-makes-right - but you can’t morally justify such control.
exactly.
life is, liberty is, and property is… thus intellectually apprehended, understanding is in order… it’s a logical process…
Brainpolice, What sort of argument do you think actually justifies non-aggression ? Can you present a concise argument of your own ?
This.
Because it shows an inconsistency manifested as a performative contradiction.
I’m expecting to hear the argument from uncoolness. “hey man, that just ain’t cool”
Well I don’t think that one can coherantly argue for non-aggression without taking consequences into account to one degree or another. I don’t think that non-aggression is valuable for its own sake so much as in relation to other values and in a specific context. In this sense, I don’t treat non-aggression as being a fundamental, but more as an instrumental part of the end of flourishing. It cannot coherantly be justified as an end in itself. If someone initiates aggression, there are many consequentialist reasons why it will not likely ultimately lead to their flourishing as an individual.
I can only argue for non-aggression if people value certain other ends in the first place, such as life and happiness. I can then possibly try to demonstrate that it is in the mutual self-interest of them and others that cooperation and production is a more efficient means of obtaining their ends than aggression is and that a social context in which aggression is not institutionalized provides the framework for them to pursue their ends in the most maximizing way - that the consequences of such a social order will be most beneficial to both their survival and their flourishing. For the sociopath, however, this will simply never work.
In short, I don’t think that there is such thing as an axoimatic, knock-down justification for non-aggression in the absence of a social context and consequentialist considerations. I think that non-aggression can only be justified as part of a broader bundle of values, and that all attempts to justify it in a vacuum as an end in itself inherently fail. I think that this is much more reasonable and intellectually honest than any of the attempts to justify the NAP in as a categorical imperative or a contextless rule that is somehow supposed to be valid for its own sake. In the absence of taking other related values and people’s underlying motivations into consideration, noone is likely to accept it at face value.
lol… as if a sociopath will accept anything at face value and be logical… so let’s build more reasoned walls that somehow will magically stop an illogical person - let’s bombard an illogical person with more and more reason and maybe they will listen… ah, too late, the murderer committed the act using their own free-will. if only another reasonable deduction could have been given before…
it comes down to free-will and that concept continues to baffle some… if only the sociopath could have been fed this reason or that reason and the maze and traps grows larger and larger…
None of your arguments are going to work any better on a sociopath. No argument of any sort will function as a physical barrier or forcefield to someone murdering you. That’s obvious and beside the point.
self-defense will or will not (contingent)… a sociopath is a human with said quiddites (life, liberty, and property), but of course repercussion for such ill-will, unreasonable actions of said sociopath are in order but that’s leading into another topic…
free-will seems to dance and bothers you or something… it connects to the fortress of reason that you seemingly erect due to a flaw in your foundational premise which is why I stated basics repeatedly come up due to your lack of insight on such basics. The labyrinth of the minotaur that you seemingly built trapping yourself as you yourself state can’t be stopped - if a sociopath desires to kill he or she will kill or attempt to do so. They have free-will. They essentially have liberty, life, and property being the humans they are… Education is in order for we are rational beings and we can intellectual apprehend other ways to enact life, liberty, and property… on and on this can go, but an education built on a false foundation will not reach the aimed target without serious errors leading to more and more unnecessary patchworks that could have been avoided if the foundation was built well due to sound understanding.
BP,
Can your position be described as some variety of utilitarianism ?
The Kantian Golden Rule and the universalizability test function like ‘utilitarianism’ in the sense that they require one to imagine if it has positive and negative outcomes. For instance, Kant’s argument against ‘theft’ is ‘utilitarian’ in the sense that the absence of property will decrease prosperity.
Rothbard also incorporated an ‘universalizability test’ for free exchange based on the ‘utilitarian’ argument that trade restrictions will create decreased prosperity of society.
Deontological ethics is a form of consequentialism in the sense that we can define an ‘inherently good act’ as a ‘good consequence’ and an ‘inherently bad act’ as a ‘bad consequence’.
Contrastingly, ‘rule-consequentialism’ is indistinguishable from some forms of ‘deontology’. Most '‘consequentialists’ are de facto ‘deontologists’ in the sense that they will respect moral prescriptions such as “don’t steal” and “don’t murder.” Most ‘deontologists’ are not ‘absolutists’ in the sense that they will not always apply their prescriptions in lifeboat situations.
According to the above meanings, ‘deontology’ and ‘consequentialism’ distinction is a false dichotomy.
In fact, we have seen many debates within the so-called ‘deontological libertarians’ and the so-called ‘consequentialist libertarians’ that confuses their terminology. For example, some self-identified ‘consequentialist libertarians’ conflate ‘deontological libertarianism’ with ‘moral absolutism’, which in fact that deontology is not inherently ‘absolutist’ in enforcing moral prescriptions. Some self-identified ‘deontological libertarians’ define ‘consequentialist libertarianism’ as a form of ‘moral relativism’ in which it allows ‘whatever it goes to maximize some group of individuals’. However, most self-identified ‘consequentialist libertarians’ disallow theft at all contexts (except lifeboat situations) just like that most self-identified ‘deontological libertarians’ disallow theft at all contexts (except perhaps lifeboat situations). The so-called ‘controversy’ is primarily based on the different definitions of ‘deontology’ and ‘consequentialism’.
To clarify, we do not think that the controversy is purely semantic. We just think that the terms ‘consequentialism’ and ‘deontology’ are so ambiguous that we should not use them without clarification. See our above conclusion that ‘deontology’ and ‘consequentialism’ in their broad senses are indistinguishable.
However, Austrian economists usually define “utilitarianism” as an ethical doctrine which enables technocrats or rulers to intervene economically and make utility calculations. They define “utilitarianism” as socialism which makes cardinal utility calculations.
Broadly speaking, however, Rothbardian ‘natural law’ and the categorical imperative are a forms of ‘utilitarianism’ in the sense that it applies the universalizability tests to the free market and free exchange. Rothbard even discusses the maximization of ‘psychic utility’ (or ‘profit’). Most self-identified ‘utilitarians’ will agree that ethics which maximizes ‘psychic utility’ is a form of ‘utilitarianism’. However, Rothbard has a knee-jerk reaction against the term ‘utilitarianism’ because he conflates ‘utilitarianism’ roughly with ‘socialism’.
it’s getting longer and longer and longer… hmmmm…
What a waste of time. As far as I’m concerned, this topic ended in the is/ought thread created by lilburne. I am interested in debating whether or not argumentation ethics has any validity as a method of justifying an ethical system, but I will not be pulled into a debate that I consider dead and burried. Some people refuse to learn, and I’m not going to throw myself against the wall to try and change their minds.
Thank you for conceding that you’re wrong.
I don’t advocate the Kantian Golden Rule and the universalizability test. In fact, I’ve blogged repeatedly on why I think that universality by itself is insufficient, and sometimes too rigid. In either case, you’re correct that the traditional deontology/utilitarian dichotomy breaks down in the sense that deontology collapses into consequentialism the moment that it takes consequences into account at all and utilitarianism collapses into deontology the moment that it makes use of “general rules” (hence becoming “rule utilitarianism”, which is a softened deontology). Deontology in a “pure” sense is problematic because its rigidity cannot take moral dillemas into account without making using of consequentialism and ceasing to be “pure”, while utilitarianism in a “pure” sense is problematic because it can lead to an endorsement of things that rub up against most people’s “common sense moral intuition” in the name of pursueing consequences and ceasing to be “pure” as soon as we water it down to take such things into account.
But to address the original question, I’m not exactly a utilitarian (in the sense of making use of a pleasure/pain principle or in the sense of trying to make morality metric). For one thing, I don’t consider utilitarianism and consequentialism to be completely interchangable terms in the first place. Utilitarianism often has collectivist connotations in the vague sense of “the greatest good for the greatest number” taken to the point of violating an individual in the name of detached abstract notions of “society” or “humanity”. It has a certain instability that actually risks devolving into a form of hedonism or amoralism, which can only be avoided by moving towards “rule utilitarianism”. The “3rd way” that is often left out of the discourse on ethics is some sort of virtue egoism, which fits neither the traditional definitions of utilitarianism or deontology. It is neither a rigid system of “categorical imperatives” or a purely metric “pragmatism”.
False.
See what I did there?
In all seriousness, this attitude is precisely why debating with you would be a pointless endeavor. How you became a moderator I have no idea.
zefreak as if you even stated anything of intellectual value… so you were met with similar cause. So I wouldn’t whine about something you did.