If objective morality doesnt exist, what justifies libertarianism? Why go through the trouble to make the world better and more libertarian instead of pragmatically making one’s own life better and more comfortable, whatever its ideological implications be?
Why even acknowledge moral ideas for oneself instead of ignoring any kind and working from there? Letting go of the morals seems like letting go of a big burden to me.
Be sure that you’re not confusing ontologically objective with epistemically objective.
What makes you think objective morality doesn’t exist?
I read through the natural law thread and no one seemed to manage to prove its existance. Most of the attempts to do so seem like linguistic or logics tricks to me, like the argumentation ethics that was discussed there.
Objective morality does exist, but I wanna hear Bawa answer this question.
Why would you want to make your own life better and more comfortable?
To answer your original question, it all depends on the individual. Self interest does not exclude acts of kindness or sticking to rules, and neither does utility maximization. There is a physiological basis for empathy, and only a particularly naive ethical skeptic would jump to the conclusion that autonomy and respect of the individual doesn’t matter. It may be that the psychological and emotional benefit of respecting others and the common delineation of property outweighs the benefit of possessing desired material goods. It may be mutual respect and cooperation that brings the most happiness, and one would be acting in his self-interest to abide by the NAP.
Or, it may not. Hence why it is up to the individual to decide.
Don’t forget epistemological arguments for libertarianism a la Anthony de Jasay and Nassim Taleb.
Epistemological arguments for libertarianism are precisely the ones that have been so heavily debated on this forum, as ontological arguments for morality rely on a non-secular worldview (which is fine, but unpersuasive).
I doubt he has “forgotten” about these arguments, considering the two threads he mentions having read consist of them.
Would you be so kind as to provide links to these discussions? The Natural Rights and Argumentation Ethics threads (the two threads the original poster mentioned) contain very little discussion of epistemological arguments for libertarianism. Thanks in advance.
P.S. By Epistemological Argument for Libertarianism I mean an argument that contains ONLY epistemological premises.
Cause it is better? And he likes comfort?
Why is it better? Why should he do what he likes? Why shouldn’t he kill himself or light the world on fire, instead of doing what he likes? Why should he do anything at all?
What is the point of these questions?
Would you want to make your own life better and more comfortable, but at the expense of others?
The natural rights thread directly below this one (with Zavoi and AJ) deals with epistemological arguments for and against natural rights. Read Zavoi’s latest few posts for an example.
Argumentation ethics is an epistemological argument for libertarianism! It is based on the (flawed) notion that the act of arguing is essentially a synthetic apriori from which libertarian ethics can be deduced.
edit: just saw your edit. There was a thread not too long ago (don’t know if nandnor read it) between nirgrahamUK and myself regarding Anthony de Jasay which sort of died because I lost interest. I will be into a discussion, critiquing and posting until work, after which I will be too tired and the conversation will have changed too much to get into it again. If you are interested, I can find the thread. After being introduced to his arguments, I argue that a consistent application of Jasay’s reasoning is more of a justification of moral subjectivism than the NAP and homesteading.
It’s better to him. Doing what he wants satisfies him by definition. You are asking the wrong questions: he doesn’t have an obligation to satisfy his wants, nor does he have an obligation to avoid such satisfaction. It’s not good or bad in the ethical sense, but its ‘good’ for him in the colloquial sense.
You always make these ad hoc statements. I have never read anything of yours that actually explains with certainity why anything is flawed. I say anything meaning I’m not only talking about this particular discussion, but go on and discuss this particular “flaw”. I’ve been waiting.
To show that those who accept ethical subjectivism don’t actually escape the problems of ethical objectivism like they think they do.
Arguments using epistemological premises AND ethical premises ARE NOT epistemological arguments (in the way that I stipulated it). Also, I didn’t say that application of Jasay’s reasoning leads one to accept the NAP. Instead it shows that statists (and anyone who would restrict liberty) aren’t in a position to know what they must know in order for their arguments to pull their own weight. They literally require what is unthinkable in order to justify statism. Of course they could reject any attempt to justify statism altogether and simply do it whether they have a reason or not and the epistemological arguments for libertarianism would have nothing to say about it. You must look beyond epistemology to justify getting up in the morning, but epistemological arguments tear the hell out of statism while basically leaving libertarianism relatively untouched.
My questions were rhetorical. See the response to scineram in this post.
It is not better. There is no “better” in a world without objectivity. It is just a preference. But then everything else is also a preference and therefore equivalent. So why presume that the “instead” instead of striving for libertarianism must be making your life more comfortable? Why not have the “instead” be tortuting yourself and inflicting bodily harm onto yourself?
Or why not have the “instead” instead of striving for libertarianism be striving for libertarianism?! What does it matter? Where everything is a preference you can not make a case for striving for X over striving for Y, therefore you can not based on this make a case for striving for X over striving for a libertarian world as the OP attempted.
I like this so far. Provide the “problems” neither escape from.