I’m just wondering where people come from with regards to ethics. Are you a Rothbardian natural rights person? Hoppe’s argumentation ethics? Utilitarian? Aristotlean? Nihilist? How did you come about to that belief?
Natural rights are way older than Rothbard. Although I have read two of his books thus far, “For a New Liberty:…” and “The Ethics of Liberty”. Yet, Aristotle talked about Natural Law (may have even mentioned natural rights I think, but I’m not sure about this). Yet, it seems the Stoics in ancient greece discussed natural rights and that is more their origin in philosophy than Aristotle (Aristotle included such things as the State is natural, which I find to be a perversion to human nature). So therefore, natural rights have been discussed by numerous philosophers in western civilization. I have yet to know all of them. Off the top of my head others are John Locke, Francis Hutcheson {who apparently came up with inalienable and alienable in his book A System of Moral Philosophy (1755) and also came up with a systemic approach to defining the ‘pursuit of happiness’ from what I understand in the book An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1726). Though I’ve heard parts this latter book I have yet to read any of his books in full yet. Jefferson read his works and thus added this concept ‘pursuit of happiness’ to the Declaration of Independence, which is an expansion of understanding property}, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and I’m sure many, many others.
It’s just that I have only recently woke up to what natural property means and now tracing back to all who have mentioned them before. I may have even read about them before and never really intellectually “caught it”. For example, I’m wondering if Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau discussed them for they were very well much into natural philosophy. I’ve read some of their books, but may have just glossed over those terms (Natural Law, natural rights, etc…) in their books without realizing what they meant. And that’s just discussing philosophers.
I know when I was little in an urban area my parents told me to get off other people’s property and to not go on them. They even told me if my ball went over there I might even lose the ball. They would say, “Oh, you lost your ball. You’re not allowed over there, so, go next door, knock on their door, be nice, and ask them if you can get your ball back or else you might not ever see it again.” So this has really been all around me and undoubtedly much more commonly spoken of and even philosophized not only in the U.S. as common knowledge, but also the framers of the Constitution and those that ratified the Declaration of Independence weren’t intellectually struck with something all too new. Much of the arguments were already understood. Natural rights was a much more common understanding it seems back then, and has been buried by the emergence of logical positivism (I think this emerged most heavily in the 1800’s with Auguste Comte and he also introduced it into the social sciences, meaning societal learning, too, in the early half of that century), and thus the current State school system that’s brainwashing the people into possibly not even knowing what free-will is anymore to pathetically put it.
I haven’t read Hoppe or many others as of yet, so, maybe more to add as to who influenced me later.
I like Lao-tzu, Basho, Zhuangzi, and Zen/Chan (Dogen and Huineng type) too. I also think the Dali Lama is a curious fellow. Black Elk, Lame Deer, and Sitting Bull are huge influences on me as well. Leonard Crow Dog is a curious fellow too. I know (some would call this faith) God exists and God is the Creator (yet I find it mind-boggling to even get into ‘what does God have to do with this’ type scenario’s. God’s over my head so to speak, meaning, God’s hard to fathom for me.). This was to name just a handful of others.
I also have had a metaphysics of quality influence added to my understanding by reading such books as “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values” and “Lila: An Inquiry into Morals” each by Robert Pirsig.
Also I would add a tremendous involvement in my life has been living in the country where farms and woods are plenty. Growing up with hunting, fishing, gardening, walking in the woods, swimming in the river and creeks, circled around fires with friends while we bullshitted about life, and camping in the local woods without having to drive anywhere, etc, etc… had an influence on me as well as to noticing the freedom and then noticing how stupid the State is.
So, do I like Rothbard…lol… yes!
Neo-aristotelian. Came to it after reading Rasmussen and den Uyl’s Norms of Liberty and Liberty and Nature as well as the Nichomachean Ethics. I like Aristotelianism because it lends no credence to silly false dichotomies. On rights in Aristotelianism I recommend Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle’s Politics by Fred Miller. I should mention I originally came to libertarianism through Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness, and the general flavour of the works I’ve mentioned is in that direction.
The Nihilistic egoist, to borrow the title of RWK Paterson’s book on Max Stirner. Also a moral noncognitivist, moral fictionalist and moral skeptic - depending on the way you define ‘morality’, and what you want to say about it. Also an existential, amoral or ‘philosophical’ egoist,. Egoist because I believe it is existentially necessary that one’s own values are personal and contingent on your particular mental construction - both conscious and otherwise. So everyone is sort of necessarily an egoist, though not all of them like it or will admit it. They are ‘involuntary’ egoists, or idealists, or ideaologues.
I tend to be a Max Stirner type of guy
Yeah. I find he’s often had a lot of the same thoughts as me.