Between May and June I will be taking part in an independent study program with my school. As such, I was considering doing my project on Hoppe’s Argumentation Ethics, which fascinate me. Does anyone know of any extensions of Hoppe’s arguments beside Kinsella’s paper on Estoppel? Does anyone have any ideas as to what I could do my study about? I was considering doing a paper on some issue that could be presented both ways via argumentation ethics or using Hoppe unconventionally to argue an uncommon thesis but I was worried that might be too ambitious?
Yes I have. Thank you very much though. I had forgotten about all those footnotes to follow up on. I would feel better about my project if I could attempt to come up with an addition or some contribution. I had considered arguing that abortion cannot be defended argumentatively because argument assumes birth and life. I thought to argue against abortion would require self-contradiction and that was my idea for the longest time. But I’m still not sure on the whole question so I was really looking for something to fall back on. I’m kind of stuck.
the power of argumentation ethics is that supposedly, so long as some crazy socialist at least deigns to ‘argue’ about the ethics of ‘private property’ he would fall into contradiction in so doing.
perhaps ,you could send e-mails to various prominent socialists, first asking them to state opinions about private property. and then in a follow up, you point out to them their performative contradictions (if they have performed them!) , and monitor the responses for quality of argument / cognitive dissonance. etc.
Jurgen Habermas I believe orginally developed Discourse Ethics. hoppe was one of his students and re-formulated along libertarian lines. Frank van Dun developed a similar theory to Hoppe independently back in the 80s though didn’t develop it as fully as Hoppe. I think he has since expanded his thesis and has defended Hoppe in at least one paper.
In addition to explaining Hoppe’s “macro” AE, begin an inquiry into the “micro” implications of AE. For example, is suicide a denial of one’s own free will, and therefore immoral?
Explore the foundations of Hoppe’s AE: Habermas’s discourse ethics.