I would argue that the NAP by itself cannot be the foundation for Rothbardian ethics. The Homesteading Principle plays as large a part of forming his ethics as the NAP.
Damn guys, this is getting awfully off topic.
Maybe i need to explain it further. What I mean is, why keep the libertarian ethical argument in ones head when reasoning how to act. That argument is often a (or the) counter balance for doing otherwise useful stuff (making money from the state, using state power for self interests, exploiting the non-libertarian aspects of intellectual and regular property, etc).
The Lilburne manifesto and other answers just seemed to say “'cause it feels right”. This seems like a mystical fantasy to me, not unlike any religion or cult. I think that having that as the basis for libertarianism puts it on the level of a religion, nothing else. I do feel its affects from time to time, but given that ignoring it is not hypocritical or contradictory at all, why not do so?
There can be nothing more than a personal answer to your justified question. Here’s my own: I restrain from taking the “look the other way” path, avoid getting involved in politics, even by “mere” voting, let alone by actively plundering my conationals, although there is a 99% chance that this would be my only way of living in anarchy (at the price of imposing slavery on others), I renounce all such things not out of a mystical belief in “objective” morality, but simply because thus my own utility is maximized, my own desire is satisfied. Nothing more that that can “compel” you to be a libertarian, or justify the philosophy.
Because the intrinsic structures of libertarianism are against using the state for dominance. We would be contradicting the means/ends of libertarianism if we say put everyone and concentration camp and told them they were free. People can do such but I wouldn’t call them libertarians. They are something else.
The so-called libertarian ethical arguments only apply to political theory in a monopoly context (they could of course still be useful in jurisprudence). In the case of the old libertarians and classical liberals, this monopoly context was minarchy.
Under minarchy, you need libertarian principles to justify government actions and restrictions on those actions.
What I think has happened is libertarianism has started to move away from the monopoly paradigm, into anarchism or panarchism as a dominant political theory instead of minarchism. I think the switch from monopoly to non-monopoly is a fundamental paradigm shift that has caught many off guard - including Rothbard, Hoppe, and many others. This becomes obvious when, for example, an advocate of anarchy (entailing no monopoly on force) implies that certain rules (such as the NAP) will be upheld absolutely in a given society, without making it clear that this is just an educated guess at how things will turn out.
As for reasoning how to act, we all will do this in our own self-interest, under a sufficiently broad definition of self-interest (to include empathy for others, any religion one follows, etc.). How best to further one’s own self-interest is a huge question and I think quite beyond the scope of this discussion.
I think you have it backwards. People who believe in some higher ethic - an objective ethic - that has not been proven are at the level of cult/relgion. Having libertarianism grounded in consequences, economic science, epistemology, and selfishness seems to be far more realistic.
monopoly, not a monopoly, these are old concepts. nothing new.
Angurse,
when i think of “cause it feels right” the first thing that pops into my head is Obama’s personality cult and the waves of people standing in the massaive crowd in Chicago when he gave his acceptance speech. Politicans are not reasonable. There isn’t one government theory that holds intellectual water. Politicans therefore are the archetype of how to rouse the feelings of others and how to make others feel like they are independent and can feel inspired to do something individually. so many people cried for joy that day…lol… it made me laugh so loud. Politicans have a knack for making a larger amount of people feel that what the politican is saying is what they have felt for so long. The individuals in the crowd feel he is saying what they have been feeling individually all this time. Politicans know how to tap into this. They don’t have reasons to offer to they go with emotional appeal.
Good point, whenever a country is facing a crisis situation it is the emotions that are appealed to, not reason.
What do you think would happen to you if you did such actions? And what if everyone did?
If objective moreality does exist, then what justifies libertarianism? Nuthin’, and doesn’t matter.
Some would consider not having sex before marriage to be moral and it’s opposite to be immoral. This is the subjective part. The objective part has to do with stealing when not faced with an instinctual situation, i.e. steal or starve.
If you steal you will piss off the person from whom you stole. The objective moral here is NAP. Violence initiated leads to consumption. Consumption=destruction. If this principle were subjective, then we would not need anyone to produce anything. The moral is objective in the sense that the more it is adhered to, the more prosperous the aggregate population is. It is also objective in that the less it is adhered to the greater the number of people are denied justice. Every time you justify a violation of the NAP you help tip the balance of two forces Liberty/Violence in favor of violence. Likewise, if you adhere you tip the scales the other way.
Morality is subjective, because every man justifies his action before acting. Morals are what humans use to justify their actions and deter negative emotions e.g. guilt, shame, helplessness, solitude.
The term Moral Compass is a metaphor used to convey the message that the journey of life is difficult, and that if you use this compass to find your way, then you will find joy in your life, and that if you ever lose your way to refer back to that compass.
It is in this sense that morality is objective.
Wilderness,
Your absolutely right. But I’m not defending libertarianism on the “cause it feels right” appeal. I’m not trying to appeal to peoples emotions to persuade them, nor am I telling them they are acting immoral because of some objective ethic or natural law - I cannot see much difference between that and just saying “because God says so.” I reakky don’t find justification along moral or ethical lines. Rather, I’ve argued for its basis through logic and epistemology. I find this to be a far more rational approach. (A politician would never try such a thing!)
Hehe, well let’s see.
A good deal of the ‘philosophers’ in this site have confused economics (which deals with the price of potatoes) with moral philosophy.
Since it’s been revealed in the Book of von Moses that ALL VALUE IS SUBJECTIVE, it follows that “morality is subjective”. The fact that subjective morality is absurd and, get this, useless, doesn’t bother the subjectivists since all their ‘knowledge’ comes from a revealed and ‘a-priori’ ‘principle’.
I’m guessing that moral subjectivists are people who don’t feel comfortable with some things they do (or did) so they feel the need to justify themselves (hehe) by pretending that no actions can be justified, or that anything can be justified at the ‘subjective’ level. Or maybe they just like to feel superior by indulging in puerile skepticism, or maybe they have some other ‘personal’ and equally twisted reason(s). Who knows.
So. What. What matters is whether the justification is correct or not.
Well throughout the history of natural law, natural law has always meant intellectual law. It is logic and epistemology, metaphysics, etc… It wasn’t until Spinoza and Hobbes came along and changed the definition of natural to mean where the beasts roam and that the state is legitimate cause it is bringing civilization out of the beastly inclinations of nature. They completely perverted what natural meant in natural law for their own manipulative ends. History is a war of definitions over the labels, at times, and sometimes it can be tracked down on who started spreading the lies, in this case, Hobbes and Spinoza.
I’m going through History of Economic Thought vol. I for the Mises book club [ which everyone should join ] and I’m surprised how much history there is to natural law written by Rothbard. It’s good stuff.
I agree. All I am saying is that men act on false justifications. They use morals to reach these justifications.
Maybe that’s a book I’m closer to reading. Currently I’m reading “Economics in One Lesson”, Adam’s “Wealth of Nations” (that book is freakin’ 900 pages), and Kurt Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle”.
I don’t agree with Rothbard on some things… Anyhow, I’m sorry but you are confused. Neo-Lockean homesteading, property rights, proportionality, etc. are all corollary to (deduced from) the non-aggression principle.