Liberte and Jesse,
Thank you both for your kind words regarding my patience.
Lilburne: “No they are not. Value judgments are enacted when you argue. Propositions are only expressed when you argue.”
expression is an action
Lilburne: “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.”
You rephrased what I said. I don’t know how what you said follows from what I said. A refutable action happens. A proposition that say is false. Is a false proposition. What is real about them are they are real false propositions. Phemenology.
Lilburne: “No. Again, action only demonstrates a value judgment, a preference.”
You’re misunderstanding what I’m saying. The act of a preference is an act and does act. Yet I can acknowledge my preferences in action and make propositions about them. Those propositions, if true, were or are demonstrated when I act. Those propositions are founded on preferences acted and those preferences acted are potential propositions. So those propositions being potential about any one person’s actions are demenstrated in the acts themselves. Whether or not I’ve put those propositions into words is irrelevant.
Lilburne: “No, human action can’t be refuted because it is not a proposition in the first place.”
I told you that already. And who are you responding too? Why are you saying “no”? I gave you the definition of what an axiom is which human action is an axiom. Are you saying human action isn’t an axiom? Why did you say “no”? Look at my quote. Did I say human action is a proposition? The definition of an axiom of human nature which is different from mathematics is it is an axiom when it is negatively demonstrated. Aristotle had already proved this point.
That’s why I said to you long ago remember? What is missing about you asking E.O. to make a proposition about argumentation ethics? What is missing about you asking for a proposition of private property? Now do you see what I meant?
If human action is natural law, then all the awful things humans do are as much a part of that law as private property and liberty are, correct?
Also, I appreciate the compliment.
Human action is a natural law. Not the only one.
Private property by definition is the person. Liberty is another word for choice or judgments of value.
All people already are these. People become ‘awful’ or do ‘awful’ things when they try to do what is impossible and end up dying off. I mean this in the most general way. I gave one example in a recent post in this thread. If all people became robbers, then no person would possess anything because everything would be taken from everybody else. That is the robber’s theory.
It’s an impossible way for humans to exist. Does society handle this from time to time? Most certainly, and it is the breaking points or crisis that some people try to avoid so the whole of society isn’t sucked into the robber theory of doing what is impossible.
The robber’s theory is logically impossible because we can see if everybody did it, it wouldn’t work. It is not that the act of robbery isn’t impossible. It happens. It’s who’s theory is best for human nature. Everybody being innocent or everybody being a robber. Clearly the innocent theory is sustainable. The robber theory is not. But will existence on this earth enjoy a time when all people follow the innocent theory and finally get rid of the robber theory. Probably not.
edit: I mean Lilburne, Liberte, and Jesse are all three arguing over the fact that people are not to possess life, liberty, and private property. So who knows. I know they don’t mean to, but they don’t know what natural law is, clearly none of them have demonstrated this knowledge. They argue against natural rights which are a theory that include the very axioms life, liberty, and private property. So philosophically attack natural rights in the A-T tradition and such a debater is attacking the very life, liberty, and private property. In a court of law these are the very subjects under question. Innocent until proven guilty is based entirely upon this notion that it takes peace to have a person in the first place so all people are assumed peaceful/innocent until otherwise if the act of justice is enacted in symmetrical fairness, meaning, all parties involved are given just equality in the face of the law. A society that can’t maintain justice in whatever way the society interprets their common law theorizing to be, if they can’t maintain it, then in real terms it will be lost.
Expressions are indeed themselves actions, but that-which-is-expressed (which includes propositions) is not.
No, I said the opposite of what you said. You said that propositions are acts. I said that they are not.
No, the preferences are the potential subjects of propositions. They never can become propositions themselves.
I’m agreeing with the conclusion “human action can’t be refuted”, but disagreeing with how you arrived at that conclusion. The reason why it can’t be refuted has nothing to do with the fact that argumentation is an action. It can’t be refuted simply because it’s not a proposition in the first place.
What I am finally seeing ever more clearly with every one of your posts is the source of your confusion. You don’t understand the distinction between words and the things they represent. You are indeed a something of a realist, but not in the Aristotelean sense, as you claim. In fact you seem to be plagued by the kind of realism Aristotle and Aristoteleans throughout history had to combat. In many of your notions, you are a conceptual realist, in the tradition of Plato and medieval thought before Abelard.
If everyone chose to rob and kill at the same time then society would break down. However, there is a risk involved in these activities that not all people are willing to take. Therefore, some people will choose to do “wrong” and others will choose “right” based on the level of risk they’re willing to take.
The innocent theory may be sustainable but it is impossible. Crime pays. It always will. In fact, the more innocent people there are, the more it potentially pays to be a criminal. So there will always be people who respond to those incentives and steal. They’re as much a part of human action as the innocent people are if you ask me.
EDIT: I think I’ve realized what you’re saying. Human action is natural law and natural law is human nature therefore human action is human nature. Right?
1 - The proposition is in the expressed act it is acted. We must be using different definitions of this because I’ve already cited my source (“Intro. to Logic” by Cohen).
2 - In Aristotelian terms what is real is an act or potential act. Again I think we are using different meanings.
3 - Ah. I see what you’re saying. I was talking about the full proposition. Not the preferences being only the subjects of the propositions. I was already including that the preferences (subjects), ‘are’ (copula), and what is predicated upon the subjects. I didn’t realize that you were only referring to the subject of the proposition. But I did point out to you that terms are abstract and empirical data too. Then I went on to point out in a previous post that terms are not names. I said there is a difference. The names are the words. The terms are what I have defined them as.
4 - Argumentation isn’t a proposition either. I still don’t know why you said “no”. It appears we are agreeing here on this point.
5 - You never mentioned “words” anywhere before until now. That’s the first time you brought that up. I know the difference between words and what they represent. I’ve been pointing that out to you already and have already stated that you are conflating the words with the acts themselves. Go back some posts. I had already mentioned this to you. It’s ironic that you’re now saying I’m doing this. I’m not sure why you have come to this conclusion.
We’ve really gotten off topic since the OP. Haha.
Welcome to our world.
bloom,
That’s why I said that there probably will never be a full enactment by all people using the innocent theory.
Well, I thought we were talking about the natural law of human nature. There are natural laws that the natural sciences discover. Human action is of human nature. Human nature in generic phrasing means: ‘the definition of a human’. Nature in that context and is readily used this same way in other contexts means “definition”. Nature=definition in that context.
Well then you must admit that if there is a human nature, it is not entirely innocent.
It depends on how much your trying to define what human nature is. For instance, the essense of human nature is innocence, meaning, it has to be peaceful because life can’t exist in pure destruction. But individuals of humans do have the tendency to do harm to other humans and to themselves. Human nature does have that tendency.
wilderness,
You have often conflated words and things they represent, refer to, or in some other way are related to. You don’t understand that natural rights refer to life, liberty, and property (and even that, only in libertarian doctrines), and are not those things themselves. You don’t understand the difference between a proposition and the utterance of a proposition. You don’t understand the difference between a proposition and the judgments of value that its utterance implies. And you don’t understand the difference between a judgment of value and a proposition about a judgment of value. Notions that are in truth distinct, seem to float about in your head, commingling and fusing in all manner of ways.
I think human nature is to weigh potential benefits against potential costs. That’s why some people choose innocence and some people choose to be the robber, based on their individual values and preferences and how they respond to said incentives. So that’s why I think Lilburne and Esuric are right in that economics is the better approach to convincing people because it simply says that if you do A, you will get B. It doesn’t say whether you should or shouldn’t want B, it just says that if you try to do something other than A to get B, you won’t get it. Cost/benefit. Much more convincing based on human nature imo. What do you think?
First, I said that natural rights are a theory. That theory, now that you brought up words into the discussion, involves words. Some theories are put into practice so on that point there is no difference when a theory can be applied. It’s a matching 1 for 1 for the words directly labeling a particular act.
Secondly, I had said that natural rights theory is based on axioms. Those axioms are life, liberty, and private property. The axioms within the theory are axiomatic and not propositions because they are the very life, liberty, and private property that are not words but it is obvious that when I type them here they are words labeling the very acts.
Thirdly, a proposition and utterance of a proposition are two different things. I most certainly had recognized that.
Fourthly, I had already gone through the steps with you on how judgments of value can be made into propositions. I had said that judgments of value are potential propositions and putting those propositions into words is irrevelant to the demonstration of the judgements of value. That doesn’t mean the judgments of values are the propositions themselves that become words. But it does mean that propositions are grounded in real judgment of values (the empirical data) and the propositions are abstract. Propositions include evidence and abstraction (words). I have said this about three times now, but until now I didn’t think I had to make it explicit that “abstract” refers to words, etc…
Fifth, your last sentence was covered in my ‘fourth’.
bloom,
These are simply two different subjects. There is economics but there will always be the need to maintain a society. Economics doesn’t happen without private property. There will always be the need for justice. Economics is based on human nature because it is humans doing the economic action. Economic action only happens in peace ala Mises in “Socialism”.
They are two different subjects but the original question was something like “which is more persuasive?”
Imo, because human action tells us that human nature is to weigh things based on personal values and desired ends (which you basically just agreed to), it makes more sense to tell people the economic argument and spare them the moral argument because you will be appealing to their natural human tendency to weigh things based on self interest.
The other thing about natural law is that the term “law” makes it sound legal, which it isn’t. You’re really arguing that human nature is literally a universal law like gravity. So the terminology is confusing.
'There is an important difference between morality and moralism.
moralism |ˈmôrəˌlizəm; ˈmär-|nounthe practice of moralizing, esp. showing a tendency to make judgments about others’ morality’
Just to ask, are you saying that libertarians can or cannot criticize the morality of others? Because if it is cannot then what is the defense against a state?
‘By “take ends as given” I mean not trying to change whatever ends other people might have. I don’t mean supposing that they have any particular ends (desiring freedom, prosperity, and non-violence).’
Oh, I see you mean ends that we are just naturally born with in the Misesian sense?
‘The “show him/her that it is beneficial to do A or B” bit is a matter for economics and the technical arts and sciences. The natural rights theorist has nothing to add save wishful thinking and rhetoric. As Mises affirmed in Human Action, natural rights is simply rhetorical nonsense’
Well ethics is apart of science. The social sciences. A subfield of philosophy. What I see in your argument is a sprint from A to B. Point A [ values ], Point B [ effects ]. You’re saying how economics can show all these wonderful things at Point B, which it does, but you are ignoring Point A.
Bloom,
Do you think that economics and praxeology imply a certain set of normative ethics? Just to be clear, this is what Wilderness believes.
Grayson, I, and others have been arguing that it does not; indeed it cannot. This doesn’t mean that ethics doesn’'t exist and should never be appealed to (although some would maintain this).
@Jesse, I don’t really know. Normative codes are legal concepts to me. Laws require external enforcement.
Economics and praxeology seem to come with their own internal enforcer; human nature. Ethics really don’t. They need external enforcement.
Dunno if that really answers your question or not though.