Heya, i’m a recent high school grad (private school of course [8-|] ). I first got interested in libertarianism and economics when I was like 13, because my dad had a bunch of books by Friedrich Hayek.
I’ve been lurking on www.mises.org for a couple of years now and i decided to join, specifically to demand more David Gordon! He provided some of my favorite points of disputation for my civics and economics professors last year, he’s so smart!
David Gordon tells some of the funniest jokes that almost no one ever gets.
Sounds like you are a handful for your teachers haha.
I just put this up last night.
yeah, he’s a source of good philosophy jokes
i try [6]
i listened to that when it first came out. i liked the sections on hegel
You probably have this but just to be sure:
i do [8-|]
lately i’ve been reduced to using google video to find him at the Libertarian Alliance and such
What do you like about Gordon? Perhaps I can recommend some other authors who have similar fields of study as he does.
the level of philosophy, the interdisciplinary stuff and the hegel jokes.
i also like economics jokes. i enjoy bob murphy and tom woods, though for different reasons
If you like philosophy then I might Roderick Long. He mixes philosophy with praxeology, the epistemological methods of Austrians etc. He also does some history.
i have listened to long on economic methodology and his praxeology and ethics lectures. he’s interesting, though i dont entirely agree with him
Por Que?
i think his view of happiness as the ultimate goal is not indicated by praxeology, all praxeology indicates is that within the framework of a particular given actor one aims at satisfaction. but such satisfaction is ontologically or materially distinct. thus the satisfaction aimed at for some supercomputer is analogous, but not equivalent, to that of a particular person; they can only be established as the same in the way in which they motivate behaviour, physically and subjectively they are different phenomena. i don’t think anyone is ever going to be able to rehabilitate Summum bonum or virtue ethics.
This is why i consider myself a contractarian liberal, and not a believer in natural rights or the Nicomachean alternatives.
Ah yes but to use an example of Long. Let us theorize that you have ends for both Ice cream and fame and you are confronted with a choice between the two. You can either choose fame or choose ice cream. There must be a third ‘aim’ that allows you to rationalize which end to choose. That is the eudiamonia that Long speaks of, the overarching third party that rationalizes constituent means to overall ends.
Do computers act on means to achieve ends?
Well eudiamonia is a subjective goal for each individual. My eudiamonia could be intelligence or a family while yours could be something you desire. However, eudiamonia is objective in the sense that it can be applied to all without expection for no one walks through life without being confronted with two beneficial choices and the need to choose one of them.
So you believe that unless we are in contractual agreements with all then we have no rights?
i disagree, because i don’t think this is indicated by the methodological singularism of praxeology; it is at most a psychological possibility. that being said i still don’t find it plausible because the ultimate constituents of reality that ultimately make up the pattern of our cognitions are not themselves conscious, and the utlimate pattern and dominance of values is reducible to the simple fact of their arrangement in one way or another. as Mises said, ends are beyond rational examination. i don’t buy explanations to human behaviour that are not theoretically constituted of entirely material processes, though (contra the positivists or empiricists) i do not think this is incompatible with the existence of goal-oriented consciousness.
There is certainly no reason they could not, human beings may be unusual but we are not exceptional. Like us, they would do so in accordance to a self-referencing framework of ends and ideas about how to achieve them.
action is only decided by one being of a higher intensive or assertiveness than the other, which is ultimately beyond rational or conscious examination.
i don’t think ‘rights’ could be anything but a metaphor, since they have a meaning which has nothing to do with metaphysical endowments. i believe people have liberties, and there is an epistemic requirement for those who claim the authority to interfere with them to prove it. liberties, unlike rights, are unlimited and, what is more, unlike rights are not just a term badly borrowed from contract law.
I think rights are metaphysical. rights are being (they are). life is life and is good of life to be such (life in and of itself) in other words, it is alright for life to be life. life affirms itself. it doesn’t negate itself. that wouldn’t be A=A (logical)
Why not? Praxeology is merely the study of action. Thus means/ends, preference, choice
You have no overarching goal in your life? Do you just move from one end to the next without any forthought?
Mises held that value was normative subjective. However, praxeology need not be such. Praxeology only been to be explanatory subjective.
Well we have yet to create a computer with such free will capacity as to choose which means best achieve its ends.
Well now you are contradicting Mises in saying that rational action is unexplainable. Action is explainable through explanatory subjective value.
Well let us try a hypothetical to see how this term is used. However, I have the feeling that liberties / rights are just a semantical difference. Let us theorize that I like your pen. Am I at liberty to take it from you?
I think rights are metaphysical.
ithink life is descriptive of tendency, and not descriptive of construction or constitution. especially not when it comes to something like specific consciousness. evolution doesn’t work like that, and complex objects are not coherently interpretable as being ontologically singular, they are complex objects
methdological singularism of praxeology focuses strictly on what is necessarily true of action, not that which may be true of particular psychologies and constructions. anything which is no strictly implied within the category of action is not part of praxeology.
you’re confusing recursiveness and integration with the particularity of action in a given instant. the psychological courses of mind are recursive and variably integrated in their cognitive and emotive aspects, but it is only the highest value which actually impels action which is relevant for the purposes of action and, therefor, praxeology.
that’s true, but i think Mises was basically correct. for one, because no one can be in a position to critique the values of another; that is an epistemic block on intersubjective normatives. even if they existed, it would be impossible to demonstrate them
but the same contrast is possible between two given human beings. all humans are physically, metaphysically and cognitively unique and singular in their relationship to their perceptions.
not at all - i am saying ultimate ends are beyond rational examination, exactly what mises said
your statement presupposes that it is my pen. i would say that we would, if we had a claim which we took to arbitration, have to prove which of us had a prior (finders, keepers/first come, first serve) connection which allowed one of us to prevent access to the other. the presumption of liberty entails the liberty to use property, and to prevent access to property requires (either before or afterword) a proof of a claim prior to those we were prohibiting.
Are you trying to state that preference and ends are psychologies?
And eudiamonia is the highest value hence why I call it an ‘over-arching’ end. It is the end we wish to achieve most of all through our life of action.
I would point to Rothbard’s Power and Market and Ethics of Liberty as a critique of normative subjective value.
Well are you now saying that we do have eudiamonia but that is unexaminable to another individual?
Ooo why must you be so coy? [:P] Ok you buy the pen [ or make it ]
Is not saying ‘I like the pen’ more then enough to prevent access to you using the pen?
Grabs a bucket of popcorn and chicken wings, then sits down to watch. [8-|]