I disagree with all sorts of people here on all sorts of topics. My issue with you is your poor behaviour and dishonesty.
It may be. I am not a state apologist, so you have more experience with that perspective than I do.
That’s totally irrelevant. Numerous members of the forum could see Danny doing precisely what you are doing. Dodging and evading, refusing to own up to an ends justify the means position. It is ironic that you bring him up as some sort of bulwark against my capacity to criticize.
If you weren’t concerned about your lack of credibility, you would not have asked me to stop posting about it.
I’m sorta tired of answering you, since you haven’t done anything but a lousy job at damage control for the last day or so. Unless you have something new and relevant to offer, my advice, take it or leave it, would be to get about rehabilitating your image with your peers. Moaning and pleading with me won’t erase your lack of credibility stemming from a profound lack of forthrightness.
As a participant in that thread, I have to say, what the heck are you talking about? I’ve just reread much of it, and i suggest you do the same. Danny took a bad argument made by a “prominent philosopher,” which was already being torn apart, and defended it extremely poorly. When everyone did not immeadiately agree with him, he resorted to name calling. As for his superior “knowledgable about political philosophy,” he demonstrated very clearly that he does not understand the difference between positive and negative rights.
Your contribution to that thread, as I recall, was akin to, “You should listen to Danny. He’s smarter than you.” Sadly, up until that point, I had usually respected your opinion. I didn’t always agree wih it, but you made me rethink my own ideas.
LibertyStudent, as far as I’m aware I’ve neither dodged nor evaded any of your questions. I’ve spent many pages now trying to give you a clear explanation of my views, or more correctly lack thereof, on a multitude of issues. I’ve explained that I’m simply not well read enough on political and ethical philosophy to make such grandidose claims as you do. Perhaps this is not sufficient for you, but let me emphasize this, I’ve attempted to answer every question of yours in detail and have been polite about it. I’ve told you what I think would be the only answer that could possible satisfy you but if you have a clear set of questions you’d like to ask me, perhaps we could go through this yet one more time. That said, I don’t think you have an interest in such an exchange, perhaps understanding my position is of lesser interest to you than “exposing” me is.
As for Danny, I think there were numerous members (myself, Sage, Brainpolice, Stephan Forde to name a few) who saw him doing the exact opposite. Namely, trying to give you what he believe to be a nuanced view of what he saw as a thorny issue. More to point, he had numerous philosophers behind him who are far more respected in the field that Rothbard and Hoppe are. But if you’d be so kind as to provide a detailed list of your experience of political philosophy, perhaps you might be able to take off the bias that is already against you.
I’m really not concerned about what you perceive to be my credibility. Let me put it this way, I’ve had numerous assurances that I’m able to keep up with the discussion on these fora and that I’m a reliable source of information. Perhaps not from the same people you’re talking about, but from some people whose opinions I respect nonetheless. That Wilderness, Anarchist Cain and yourself disagree is of little concern to me.
Brainpolice actually attempted to engage in debate, and presented his ideas. Danny was name calling by his 10th post in the thread. Further, he had exactly one (not numerous) philosopher behind him, one who is no where near as respected in the field that Rothbard and Hoppe are.
I don’t see how the appeal to authority is relevant. The issue I had with Danny was not with what he’s read or any degrees he has. It was in his critcal thinking and possibly his reading comprehension. Oh, and when condesendingly he told me I didn’t understand what negative rights were, including a link to wikipedia. Ironically, the link refuted his position.
If i say anything off base or incorrect, please feel free to correct me. If there is a flaw in the logic of an agrument I present, please point out that flaw. If one of my pemises is incorrect, please point that out, too. But please don’t engage in ad hominem argumentation. One’s qualifications should have no bearing on the validity of one’s argument.
How did I evade it? I told you, I read it. Since you didn’t ask a question, I didn’t see a need to respond.
You’re entitled to your opinion. If it is clever or ignorant, that’s for someone else to decide.
Now, if you have a question, feel free to ask it. I’ll respond when I can. But if you expect me to respond to any member making any comment about me or my posts at all times, then you have an unreasonable expectation. I do more here than read and post, and already spend more time than I probably should.
Giles, It’s funny that you consider Donny to be the most qualified with regards to political philosophy/ethics when he doesn’t understand Hume’s Guillotine and, although he rejects Rothbard’s philosophy for being “based on faith” proceeds to expound his own “objective” natural right ethic. He never did address his inconsistency when I pointed it out to him. Studying philosophy (or any subject) in school has dick to do with understanding or comprehension.
Now, I think we agree more than not when it comes to Economics (value free, etc, on the fence regarding monetary disequilibrium). While I think rampant anti-intellectualism is counterproductive, so is the opposite. Discrediting the ideas of State workers with PHD’s is as nonsensical as discrediting those without. I don’t think you really mean that one’s qualifications is directly related with the truth value of one’s ideas.
Zefreak, I’m not the most knowledgable when it comes to philosophy so perhaps I wasn’t able to see flaws in his writings when I should have been able to. But that was never really my point, I wasn’t so much saying that Danny is the best philosopher on the forum (although I certainly think he’s one of the more informed members of the forum both in terms of formal training and breadth of literature) but that he went about the debate in a better way than anybody else. I believe that he was genuinely attempting to come to some reasonable confusion as opposed to merely “knocking down” his opponents in debate. Although, I’m not so sure Donny does attempt to expound an objective natural right ethic. From his blog I’d say that he doesn’t believe in objective rights.
Perhaps if I have said that one’s qualifications are directly related with the truth value of one’s ideas I’ve been overstating my case. Although, I’m not sure I’ve said such a thing. My point was essentially that one cannot easily substitute that intense formal training that one receives during a PhD for self studies. Perhaps it isn’t entirely impossible, but I’d argue that all advances in economic science over the past 100 years have been by those holding PhDs.
Jack, looking back on the topic I believe Danny attempted to engage in the debate, as can be seen by the length of his posts. I can certainly understand why he did resort to name calling given the attitudes of those with whom he was engaging. As for the philosophers he had behind him, well I believe his position was reasonably supported by David Schmidtz, Robert Nozick and Gerry Gaus. If you believe they’re not as well respected as Hoppe and Rothbard then I don’t really know what to say.
As for the alleged appeal to authority. It was no such thing, if you had clearly shown his position to be untenable I would make no claims regarding his education. However, given that he’s very well read and has formal training in the area, I’m going to have to say that there’s a bias against you. Look, I’m not expert when it comes to philosophy, far from it. But when I see knowledgable and respectable intellectuals such as Gene Callahan and Roderick Long praising Danny’s work, I’m going to have to say that I think he knows what he’s talking about. His blog tells me that I’m correct in saying this.
Mises didn’t have a PhD. He got a JD (law degree) at age 25 (the same age that most people today get their law degrees). Hayek and Schumpeter too had JDs (Hayek also had a two-year doctorate in political science). In case you think Keynes made advances, he had nothing more than a single crash course in Marshall before lecturing at Cambridge. And as far as I can tell in researching it, Marshall himself didn’t have a PhD, and neither did Pigou nor Pareto.
I think you’re being a little pedantic about Mises, Schumpeter and Hayek. Since I would argue that their studies in their JDs helped with their later works in economics (and in the case of Hayek, with his work in legal theory). As for Keynes, I don’t think he made significant contributions. Granted, he asked some interesting questions but I don’t think the way he went about answering them or the answers he gave advanced economic science.
As for Marshall, Pigou and Pareto. I know the first of these three went to Cambridge to pursue higher education. Pareto didn’t do huge amounts of work in economics and taught at a university anyway (same applies to Pigou on the latter). Moreover, Pigou and Pareto died shortly after 1909 which is my cut off point. So I’m not sure your objection is entriely valid.
Nonetheless, their graduate studies didn’t have the intensity regarding dissertations, peer review, poring over mathematical research, and focusing entirely on economics for 5+ years that is usually associated with a PhD program.
Your mistake was a meaningful one (though certainly not a terrible one). Precision is not pedantry.
Nonetheless, I’d argue a PhD is useful in the skills that it teaches you even if those skills aren’t specific to economics. Just like I think a philosopher might be able to contribute to economics even though their PhD was in philosophy. It’s the intense years of dedicated study that are the main purpose of a PhD, keep in mind the intellectual atmosphere in Vienna was profoundly different to how it is now.