Well I see it as thus:
If an individual believes in ‘ethical subjectivism’ then even the NAP is not applicable to all cases. I would have to ask in which case is it not a universal objective good. And if the NAP is objective then why do we think the NAP is correct? Because behind it there is a concept of property…and liberty.
yeah I wonder which case the ‘ethical subjectivists’ have discovered in which the NAP isn’t applicable.
I’ve compiled and edited several of my blog posts into a “Mini-Manifesto of Liberty”. In it, I write the following:
I feel assault, plunder, and enslavement are wrong. Implicit in this feeling is a belief in property rights. I don’t derive this feeling from some philosophical doctrine. It’s just part of me. It arises from my heart, not my reason. I believe most of humanity feels the way I do. I believe most of humanity, in spite of widespread evidence to the contrary in today’s society (which I will deal with below), deep down has an intrinsic respect for property rights. Academics often talk about the importance of the tradition of property as a factor in “how the West got rich”. But I believe property is more than just a tradition; it’s an instinct.
There is a burgeoning school of thought in evolutionary biology and the cognitive sciences (led by Marc Hauser and Steven Pinker) which contends that morality is not just cultural artifice, but that it is an intrinsic feature of the human mind which evolved over the countless millennia of humans living together. There are some needs which are common to all man. There is an overwhelming general need in the human species for self-restraint and fellow-feeling if it is to flourish. It only makes sense that this overwhelming general need would mean that familial groups who tend to have certain highly-functional moral feelings would end up prospering and propagating their genes, while familial groups made up of individuals who were constantly killing and plundering each other would have died out.
Economic science teaches us that the most highly-functional moral feelings are those concerning ownership (both of one’s bodily self and of external objects). I believe it is no coincidence that we find in experience and in history that these same moral feelings concerning property are, of all moral feelings, the most timeless and universal.
I believe that this is why when we take up some unused thing and begin to use it, we automatically think of it as our “ours”. We take reflexive affront when our person or our property is aggressed against by others. We feel involuntary outrage when we see the person or property of others aggressed against. And we spontaneously feel guilt when, or at least after, we aggress against the person or property of others. Of course there are exceptions (as with those suffering from neurological disorders), but these facts are true for the overwhelming preponderance of humanity.
We don’t need to be taught to feel revulsion toward murder, plunder, and enslavement; it has been stamped on our hearts by nature. And implicit in our natural revulsion toward murder, plunder, and enslavement are property rights: imperatives from one’s own conscience that says, “this is mine, that is thine”. I would go so far as to say that anyone who says they don’t feel such proddings of the conscience are either impaired or lying. And the fact that a great many people every day override that revulsion and go ahead and murder, plunder, and enslave anyway is owing to two causes. First of all, frailty is just as much a part of human nature as morality is. Moral urges are one kind of urge among many, and sometimes they lose the tug of war over human action. The second cause is that institution that fosters and feeds upon human frailty: the state.
So you are for objective rights now?
Sounds like someone has been reading Spooner… [;)]
an eudaemonist too?
I’m not saying that the timelessness and preponderance of these subjective valuations make them objectively valid. I’m merely explaining how I believe these subjective valuations come to be held. I’m also hinting at how, practically speaking, society will not fall apart without objective ethics, because humans are similar enough in their subjective valuations.
Actually the “mine, thine” bit was inspired by one of Ralph Raico’s lectures. Although he might have gotten it from Spooner…
To me the answer is very simple:
The ‘ethical subjectivist’ school must demonstrate, by means of a value-free analysis of human action, how aggressing upon actor B, impacts the happiness of aggressor A.
This provides a scientific reason why A may want to abstain from aggressing upon B, though the ultimate choice whether to proceed with his aggression is ultimately a choice A makes.
The ‘ethical objectivist’ school tries to arrive at an “objective” reason (some reason not open to A’s choice) why A “should not” (absolutely) aggress upon B. When pressed in debate why A should not aggress upon B, the objectivist ultimately offers an answer such as: Because doing so will diminish A’s “flourishing.”
So the answer given by the objectivist ultimately reduces to the statement that A should not aggress because it impacts his happiness. It is the same answer given by the value-free subjectivist.
But the problem is, since the objective ethicist has spent all his/her time trying to find elusive “objective universal values,” he/she actually has no theory that demonstrates, rigorously, how aggression impacts the happiness of the aggressor. The claim that aggression diminishes one’s “flourishing” is, as a rule, only made in debate, as a last resort, when all the claimed “objective universal values” cannot be reasonably mainained.
So the answer to the question is: The value-free subjectivist attempts to demonstrate explicitly, by Mengerian/Misesian praxeology, what the objective ethicist uses as his fallback position, when Randian/Rothbardian “objective value” ethics fails the test of reason, as it always does.
The value-free subjectivist tries to explicitly demonstrate how aggression harms one’s “flourishing” or “eudaimonia”, while the objective ethicist only puts forth this reason for abstaining from aggression as a last resort, when the objective universal values inevitably fail to materialize.
Like I told LM…
I’m not saying that the timelessness and preponderance of these subjective valuations make them objectively valid. I’m merely explaining how I believe these subjective valuations come to be held. The flourishing of certain familial groups LEADS to certain subjective valuations. The flourishing does not make for objective value.
It’s like in a hasty read of my post, you saw the word “flourish” and you reflexively thought, “Hey Eudaimonists use that English word, too! He must be a eudaimonist!” without even considering how the context in which I’m using it might be different. Very frustrating.
So they aren’t “timelessness”? And I guess you’re saying the NAP isn’t value? don’t go and run thinking these questions are made to be anything other than questions - explain yourself please in other words.
this doesn’t make sense… objective ethics will not fall apart because humans have “similar enough” valuations. What is “similar enough”? I guess we don’t all feel moral obligations only “similar enough” (vague)?
so the NAP isn’t valid? as I asked in the other post.
So you can’t say flourishing is a fact? It doesn’t happen to certain familial groups?
no I didn’t - don’t straw-man me
How can something be “timelessness”? If you’re asking if these subjective values are timeless, then strictly speaking, no. I was using the loose, almost poetic, meaning of “timeless”, as one might when saying that any human impulse or tradition is “timeless”.
The NAP is a matter of subjective value.
Will you please read more carefully? I said “society will not fall apart” not “objective ethics will not fall apart.”
So what the ethical subjectivist suggests “scientifically” in order to abstain isn’t true? How can scientific and not true even be in the same understanding?
Nope, the agent-relative objectivist arrives at a scientific truth that due to free-will it is a choice of A to heed the current truth, in this case, the NAP.
That’s why the question is in what case doesn’t the NAP apply according to an ethical subjectivist. so far you haven’t answered that question, but I haven’t finished reading your post.
Is that what a value-free subjectivist would say? It seems to be according to you.
plenty of books that show how redistribution doesn’t work so I don’t know what your trying to say here and how murder kills, etc… The field of justice is full of sad stories of people getting raped, murdered, etc…
So the NAP has a flaw?
So how did you reason this out and conclude this?
No. The (neo-) Aristotle position is a science. It is demonstrated by axioms. That’s what an axiom is. It is when the principle is demonstrated in the act of trying to refute the axiom, thus, the axiom holds true since even in an attempt to refute the axiom, the axiom is demonstrated and a performative contradiction happens.
So what is the flaw of the NAP?
So what is it’s flaw? In what case isn’t it applicable? Not when it is violated. When it isn’t applied. Two different things.
You said: “society will not fall apart without objective ethics” So without the NAP (an object) society will not fall apart and it will flourish?
“One ought not to aggress” is not objectively, universally valid. It is a subjective valuation that can be held subjectively. It is held consistently by me. It is held, however inconsistently, to some degree by the preponderance of man. I believe the inconsistent manner in which it is held stems from the fact that most people have been convinced of the “Lifeboat Lie”.
Also from my mini-manifesto:
The Lifeboat Lie
As I said, I feel assault, plunder, and enslavement are wrong; I regard them as crimes. I don’t see any reason why an act that I would consider a crime if committed by any other man should not be considered a crime simply because it is committed by a man wearing a badge, dressed in fatigues, or bearing a license. In other words, I make no exceptions for the state.
If morality is natural, then why do others make this exception?
As I’ve contended thus far, there is a moral code written in our hearts. This inherent moral code is only shoved aside when we enter conditions of extremity (known as “lifeboat situations”), in which circumstances have forced the human community to devolve into a war of all against all. In those cases, the involuntary urge for survival overwhelms the involuntary urge for moral behavior, and we therefore cast aside our communal moral feelings for the sake of extreme short-term selfishness. In other words, we allow ourselves “necessary evils”.
The state has deceived the bulk of humanity into believing that society is inherently in constant extremity: a perpetual “lifeboat situation” in which a great many “necessary evils” must be committed by the state, else the “lifeboat” of society will keel over and everybody will drown. This is a lie. Society does not require for its survival, or even for its flowering, that certain men be above natural morality. The acts of murder, plunder, and enslavement committed by the state are not necessary evils. They’re just plain evils; just as much as if you or I committed them as private individuals.
AND…
The Role of the Libertarian Intellectual
Now, if it weren’t for state propaganda, there would be no need for libertarian intellectualism, because again, morals relating to property are written on our hearts. A man doesn’t need to understand the politics of war to know that murder is wrong; neither need he understand how markets work to know that stealing is wrong. Again, the problem is that the state, through its false economics and false political philosophy, has convinced mankind that the world is in a constant state of extremity, such that, without some men being given the power to murder, steal, and enslave with impunity, civilization will descend into chaos. False theory can only be fought effectively with true theory. The role of a libertarian intellectual therefore is not to weave intricate theories to justify justice itself (there is no need for that); rather it is to unweave the tangled fabric of state lies. That is why we need economics and political philosophy: to show exactly how the state’s purported necessary evils aren’t actually necessary, and thereby reveal to people their inner libertarian. Were the “Lifeboat Lie” to be exposed, I strongly believe the inherent decency of man would then kick in (just as did with me once Austrian economics taught me about the natural workings of a free society). Good men would no longer tolerate (or indulge in) “necessary evils”, and evil men would have nowhere to run.
It is incoherent to look for a “flaw” in a subjective valuation. It’s like asking for a flaw in the proposition: “Roses are beautiful.”
As a subjective valuation, it is not applicable to beings which do not hold it.
No I’m saying that even if you and other objective ethics advocates don’t convince mankind of the alleged objectivity of the NAP, society will not fall apart, because to some degree it is subjectively held by most everyone, and would be held consistently by most everyone if the lifeboat lie were dispelled.
a) crime doesn’t impact the happiness of A. Otherwise A wouldn’t aggress.
b) your meddling with aggressor A doesn’t square with your ‘value-free’ approach to laissez-faire - why should you pretend to know what’s good for A ?
c) when seeing things from a common sense point of view, which is certainly not the case of ‘ethical subjectivists’, it seems to me that there’s something very wrong with being concerned with the happiness of criminals.
d) as per your own ‘ethical subjectivism’ A is not an aggressor, he just does what he feels like doing, which is no different than what’s right ‘for him’.
So both are wrong.
But he can’t.
So you are saying that, in lifeboat situations, I have the right to coercively prevent another from boarding a lifeboat if I choose to ignore the NAP?
So if it’s a lie, then are you saying the NAP is true?
that’s called agent-relative in neo-Aristotelian.
Being objective means there is an object that can be defined. The NAP is an object that can be defined. Whether or not somebody defines it is agent-relative, so, either way it has definition. Not in the Plato sense of ideals, but in actions taken as human’s be. It is an object, meaning it has definition, that is lived. And to name any object is an intellectual activity (defining). But also the nature of the object has definition unto itself. If a person has truthfully defined the object, the person has simply recognized the objects own definition/nature. Science does this everyday. Justice is a science full of investigative cops, forensic anthropologists, criminal investigators, geneticist, and so forth (the list is long). Each recognizing the definition of objects and being as truthful as the current science of the day is capable of.
For you to even speak about evolution would be for you to only be professing material that science, in other words, objectivists have discovered so that would be disingenuous of “ethical subjectivists” to bite the hand that feeds them.
How do you dispel a lie? I notice you blog about it. Therefore you are intellectually apprehending an object and naming it the: “lifeboat lie”. You further went about and theorized on what that means not only for you but for the most of society as you say above, “would be held consistently by most everyone”. Objectivists feel too, everybody is human, so I wouldn’t argue from that or argue about who’s being more calm cause those are based on personalities of a particular individual and wouldn’t be genuine as a philosophical argument. Also feeling peaceful is again something definable or else a person wouldn’t be able to understand those words at all. Now whether a fuller definition beyond perception (intellectual apprehension) can be accurate or not is whole other venture unto itself. That feeling is conceptualized by the very words printed here in order to communicate how I feel when you obviously can’t see how I feel. But your mind can comprehend that I feel at peace cause I put it into thought, I named those feelings and communicated them here, unless you think I’m lying but that would be your perception.
No. Here, I’m not making a normative statement. I’m just making a factual proposition. I’m saying that in lifeboat situations people, in practice, tend to ignore the NAP within them. And I’m saying that in practice people in our society so often ignore the NAP that resides in their hearts, because they think that “society is inherently in constant extremity: a perpetual “lifeboat situation” in which a great many “necessary evils” must be committed by the state, else the “lifeboat” of society will keel over and everybody will drown.”