Of course personal value judgments are implicit in all actions. The existence of value judgments can be verified/falsified. It does not follow from that that the CONTENT of value judgments can be verified or falsified.
Again, as Mises wrote in the quote I posted above, attempts to express value judgments must not be confused with the value judgments themselves. So someone’s proposition, “striking your face is now and will be in the future better than shaking your hand”, as an alleged expression of value judgments, can be falsified if the speaker shakes the addressee’s hand when he could have struck him instead. But then it is not a value judgment being falsified. It is the speaker’s statement regarding his value judgments that is falsified. If the speaker not only said the “striking your face is better…” statement but also acted accordingly, striking the other person’s face, and therefore actually held the judgment of value he expressed in words, that judgment of value can neither be true nor false.
Ok. But that says nothing about some people holding different values of judgment. Person-A values X. Person-B values Y. So what? They value different things. Now person-A values striking person-B in the face. Person-B values that such a thing not happen. Again so what? But what that is in real terms is the very essence of what an ethical situation is.
Why are you arguing with me over my values on having private property? Why do you try to philosophically attack my private property?
Why are you, Lilburne, and Liberte philosophically attacking my value judgments? It’s very hypocritical. Lilburne gave quotes of Mises, which I have not argued against, and yet, you three are not heeding your own words. Why is that?
Are you saying my argument is somehow “drunken” or “ugly”? If so, how so?
ERO,
You repeatedly ask me to respond to Hoppe’s ArgEthics. You finally give me something to chew on, so I do so with a fully Misesian analysis of Hoppe’s vain attempt to refute a value judgment, and all you have in response is childish teh-internetz-speak? And you have the nerve to say you’re embarrassed by me?
Whether something is justified is a judgment of value. Judgments of value are not existential propositions, and therefore they can neither be validated nor invalidated.’
hurt–piece
Whether something is justified is a judgment of value. Judgments of value are not existential propositions, and therefore they can neither be validated nor invalidated.’
hurt–piece
Whether something is justified is a judgment of value. Judgments of value are not existential propositions, and therefore they can neither be validated nor invalidated.’
Because, for one, if I go by your logic, then you can’t refute Hoppe’s value judgment. Yet you tried. But I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. Makes me wonder why you quoted Mises and then go on to try to refute judgements of value.
Secondly, this is what is being said: you can’t refute what you have to enact in order to refute. It’s axiomatic.
We are not arguing with you over your values. There couldn’t be anything further from what we are doing, since we are arguing that it makes no sense to argue over ANY values in the first place. You value natural law doctrine. Your valuation can neither be true nor false. But the doctrine itself is false. Pope Urban VIII valued the doctrine of geocentrism. His valuation was neither true nor false, but geocentrism is false.
Hoppe is not making a value judgment, he’s making an existential proposition about a method of discovering the alleged validity/invalidity of value judgments.
Only propositions can be refuted. And propositions cannot be enacted. Value judgments can be enacted. But value judgments cannot be refuted (although propositions about the existence of value judgments can be).
Yet you haven’t demonstrated that you know what natural law is. Rid the Mises quotes on natural law that’s a done deal. He doesn’t bring it up in accord with the A-T tradition.
And yes. You are arguing over private property. You are arguing that my existence is not true.
Put this way: You are arguing that my life, liberty, and private property are false.
Yes. In fact, you are arguing against not only what I value, but my very life. Why don’t you understand that? Natural rights are life, liberty, and private property. My life, liberty, and private property. That’s exactly what it means. Yet you argue against my life, liberty, and private property. Why! Why do you abhor my existence? This is the very root of the philosophy of natural law. It doesn’t mean what Mises said. Mises was wrong. Natural law is based on every single individuals own life, liberty, and private property. Yet you argue against some people being able to have life, liberty, and private property. The very people that value it. Why? I don’t know why you do this. This is the natural law doctrine. It is alive and breaths. It is the very human existence. This is exactly what it means and has always meant. Mises never in any one of those quotes talked about or tried to refute the very real acts of life, liberty, and private property. Mises never did. He never talked about refuting life itself. Or liberty itself. Or private property itself. Yet you go on arguing against human’s being able to possess life itself, liberty itself, and private property itself. Why? Even Mises said ‘protect life, liberty, health, and private property’. Have you completely given up on the very core value of that some people hold in being able to live?
Understand. This is completely the doctrine of natural law. When you attack philosophically natural law you argue against life itself, liberty itself, and private property itself. Where’s the economic action? Why do I need to bring up economic action to you, because I think you only think about economics and don’t think about the very valued life, liberty, and private property that people possess. I say that because you argue against it. That’s all you’ve been doing for how many posts now? Arguing against people valuing their own life, liberty, and private property, why?
Lilburne: “Hoppe is not making a value judgment, he’s making an existential proposition about a method of discovering the alleged validity/invalidity of value judgments.”
No. He discovered that you can’t refute life, liberty, and private property because in order to refute it you have to use life, liberty, and private property (property by definition includes in ones person). You can’t refute what you have to use while refuting. It’s a living act. That’s what axioms are. They are negatively demonstrated.
Lilburne: “Only propositions can be refuted. And propositions cannot be enacted. Value judgments can be enacted. But value judgments cannot be refuted (although propositions about the existence of value judgments can be).”
Propositions are acted when you argue. The proposition itself is also an act as it does act in the world, meaning, it is real. Propositions are embedded in the verbal argument and even when a person doesn’t argue their very existence, meaning, what they are doing demonstrates an argument/proposition. Those propositions or terms are grounded in very real empirical or abstract events.
Secondly, arguing is an act that uses life, liberty, and private property (property by definition is in ones person). So in order to refute life, liberty, and private property you have to use life, liberty, and private property. You can’t refute what you have to use. That’s the definition of an axiom. Human action can’t be refuted because in order to refute it, then it has to be used. You can’t refute what is used while refuting. It’s the defintion of an axiom.
bloom: “Who is the legislator of natural law? Who is the executor? Who is the judge?”
I’ve got to hand it to you bloom. You know how to ask the right questions. Spot on.
You’re usually very perceptive. I don’t agree with your gov’t slant, but especially of recent, I’ve been finding your posts very perceptive. I’ve been complimenting you on them and I mean what I say.
Natural rights regard life, liberty, and private property. They are not synonymous with those things. You have life, a certain degree of liberty, and certain amount of private property: these are verifiable/falsifiable facts. Natural rights doctrine, despite all you say, asserts that in some universal sense you OUGHT to have these things. Ought statements can only represent a non-verifiable/non-falsifiable judgment of value, therefore the value judgments promoted by the doctrine are neither true nor false, and the doctrine itself is false.
I do no such thing. Say you and I are walking down the street. Someone steals your wallet, and runs off. You and I both run after him; I am actively trying to help you catch him so as to return your wallet back to you. While we’re chasing him you shout out to the thief, “We are both humans, and both have human natures, therefore you should return my wallet!” That strikes me as odd, but of course I continue on anyway. I tackle the thief, wrench your wallet away from him, and send him on his way with a kick in the rump. I give you you’re wallet and say, “You know, what you said back there doesn’t really logically follow.” Then, according to your current logic, in spite of everything I did to return your wallet, I would then be exhibiting an abhorrence for your private property.
This is why you are completely misinterpreting natural law and what EO quoted of Hoppe.
No. Natural rights are not “regarding” those things. They are those things. Remember the A-T tradition is a realist tradition. That’s why they are axioms. Now to further elucidate on what a “right” is as it is already semantically the possession of ife, liberty, and private property, that further elucidation is a theory. Axioms being the real things are part of theories. So based on the already existent state of affairs that all people already possess life, liberty, and private property (again this as an axiom means in ones person) a theory or theories can be drawn up.
Do you see why you have been strawmanning natural rights yet? Natural law is not just words. It’s the very existence, in terms of human nature, of the real, live, breathing person. That’s why propositions in all the intro. to logic books I’ve read state that they are: not only abstract and not only empirical data. Same goes for axioms.
As for your example, the ‘wallet’ does logically follow from the axiom of property. But it involves further logical steps that include still again ‘who was there first’, ie principle of orginal appropiation. I’m not going to write out all the theories in this post. That would be books long.
So, after the axioms, the rest is all theory. And there can be as many theories about axioms as there are people in the world in the past, present, and future. It just so happens though that there are logical implications involved in some theories that are true or not. Yet as all theories some parts of any one theory may not be fully developed. Same goes for economics. The socialists at the Fed. are doing economics. Yet Austrain economics is supposed to be economics. So who’s right? Same thing goes when it comes to your example. That example is an ethical situation. Now who gets the wallet entails theories by the robber as well as the people trying to get the wallet back. Same thing, who’s right? In other words, who has the better theory on who is to have the wallet. Theories are not always put into practice. The Fed. puts theories into practice all the time, but fail. A robber can put something to practice but the example of everybody logically being a robber, fails. Because if everybody is taking everything from everybody then nobody has anything and logically that is impossible in the same way that socialism is impossible.
No they are not. Value judgments are enacted when you argue. Propositions are only expressed when you argue.
No, the formulation of, reflection upon, or utterance of a proposition is an act. A verifiable/falsifiable proposition itself is not an act. If it was, then there would be such a thing as a refutable action, which is nonsense.
No. Again, action only demonstrates a value judgment, a preference.
No, human action can’t be refuted because it is not a proposition in the first place.