Then what is traditional utilitarianism?
Good question. I would say that there isn’t really a ‘traditional utilitarianism’, just as there is no ‘contemporary utilitarianism’. Rule-utilitarian and Act-utilitarian (especially Bentham) ideas have been around quite some time. People like Adam Smith and, especially, David Hume fit in the rule-utilitarian tradition. I’ll grant that Mises was really clear in defending his position on utilitarianism; but he himself acknowledged that he was part of a bigger tradition - a statement I tend to agree with. I’m not disagreeing that much with you; I only disagreed with the statement that it was radically different (or how did you formulate it?) Mises fits within a bigger philosophical tradition imo.
“You haven’t given me a reason why one needs to convince another person that aggression is okay (i.e. not morally wrong) before engaging in aggression against that other person.”
Excuse me & why do you think I would I need to?
“What I’m saying is that the evaluation of (particular) violations of self-ownership as right or wrong cannot be proven correct. The evaluation is entirely subjective. Does that make better sense?”
It would be a case by case basis, is that what you are getting at? i.e evaluation of the facts of what happened in that particular case. I understand that. It however does not render an axiomatic-deductive objective ethics within the political philosophical sphere (ie. Libertarianism - which determines rights and the proper role of violence in society) obselete.
"Leoni (1961) provides a theoretical framework on which we can build an answer to this question. We offer a sketch of his theory. In a market, economic operators regard prices to be ultimate data upon which they base their calculations and actions, fully realizing that these are flexible to some extent, but quite fixed for a particular transaction. By analogy, Leoni suggests that legal operators regard legal norms to be the ultimate data upon which they base their actions, fully realizing these are flexible to some extent, but fixed for a particular adjudication. Extending the analogy, Leoni notes that the economist does not regard prices to be fixed at all, but subject to immutable rules of distribution acting on contingent facts. Likewise, the proper legal theorist does not regard legal norms to be fixed, but subject to immutable rules of argumentation acting on contingent facts of cases within particular cultural contexts. Indeed, the direction of causation of these social elements is often misapprehended. It is the offers to buy and sell in the market that causes prices (the norms of the market) to settle into relative fixity; they are not fixed before agents enter the market, though it appears that way to most economic agents. Likewise, it is the advancing of legal claims in an adjudicative setting and hearing the arguments on both sides that determines the outcomes of proceedings; and the outcomes of many proceedings thereby establish legal norms. It is not the case that legal norms are fixed before legal agents advance their arguments, although it appears that way to lawyers who learn legal norms in law school and then apply them to cases to guess how judges will rule on cases.
But does this mean that legal norms could be anything at all? No, and a number of libertarian theorists have explained why.
As Hoppe pointed out, by rationally advancing your claim against another, you are implicitly claiming that your claim is rationally defensible to a greater extent than your opponent’s: “…any ethical proposal, as well as any other proposition, must be assumed to claim that it is capable of being validated by propositional or argumentative means.” (Hoppe 1993, Ch. 10) All who make claims; or who criticize torts, crimes, legislation, laws, and judicial decisions—in short, all who debate legal norms—implicitly hold that there is a standard against which these decisions are to be measured…" - The Role of Subscription-Based Patrol and Restitution in the Future of Liberty, Gil Guillory
“Thanks for linking to it.”
No worries. I’d also recommend New Rationalist Directions in Libertarian Rights Theory - Kinsella
“If I’m not making a straw man here”
You are.
Well, my original question was, “why would I need to convince that you don’t own yourself when I can just steal your stuff, beat you, and/or shoot you?” The word “why” there indicates a request for a reason. So if a reason isn’t given in a response to that question, or the response is that no reason can be given, I wouldn’t say that the response answered it. Would you?
No, sorry. That’s not what I’m getting at.
I’m not talking about a hypothetical libertarian society at all. My statements were not context-specific in that regard. Does it help to substitute “mental evaluation” for “evaluation”?
Great, thanks again.
Okay, then can you help me understand what you were really arguing? Because what you’re calling a straw man is my understanding of what you wrote.
It’s different because it’s individualistic and value-free.
The standard versions of utilitarianism, like John Stuart Mill’s version, assert that a certain goal — human welfare, happiness, pleasure, satisfaction — is intrinsically valuable and worth pursuing, objectively so. And then our job is to pursue it.
Clearly Mises can’t mean that. Since Mises thinks that there are no objective values, when Mises embraces utilitarianism he can’t be embracing the view that human welfare is an objective value. What Mises means by “utilitarianism” is a little bit different from the kind of utilitarianism that people like John Stuart Mill advocate. By “utilitarianism” Mises means something like simply giving people advice about how to achieve the goals they already have. So you’re not necessarily endorsing their goals, but utilitarianism says that really the only real role for any kind of evaluation is simply to talk about means to ends, because you can’t evaluate the ends."
For Mises, the reason why liberalism can give “blanket” advice is that there is a “harmony of interests”. The overriding concern of humanity is secular well-being: greater abundance, health, security etc. Now, regardless of whether one only is concerned for the secular well-being of himself, for his immediate family, for his community, for his country, or for the world as a whole, economic science shows that the secular well-being of whichever portion of humanity is concerned with would be much better promoted by a liberal social order than by any other order.
“Well, my original question was, “why would I need to convince that you don’t own yourself when I can just steal your stuff, beat you, and/or shoot you?””
You don’t need to & hence:
"Are you going to claim that your actions are justified? If not, well congrats - then you’d at least be consistent… all the way to jail or whatever the PDA is going to do with you [via their clients wishes of course]." Way ahead of you.
“My statements were not context-specific in that regard. Does it help to substitute “mental evaluation” for “evaluation”?” -"“What I’m saying is that the mental evaluation of (particular) violations of self-ownership as right or wrong cannot be proven correct. The evaluation is entirely subjective.”
So you’re saying the mental evaluation, without the attempts at verbal and argumentative justifications? lol.
“Because what you’re saying is a straw man looked like what you were arguing to me.”
lol. If you read the estoppel approach it might be more clear, or even Rothbard’s Punishment and Proportionality. In essence, to the extent you violate someone elses rights, you lose them yourself. Hence: “Are you going to continue to initiate violence? Well then you’ll probably end up dead in a gutter. (And if you’ve shot & killed someone who is innoceant, that’s probably where you belong)”
So it’s not at all: “it is true that X is wrong because, if you were to commit X, you would be punished for doing so”.
“As can be seen, the heart of the idea behind legal estoppel is the idea of consistency. A similar concept, “dialogical estoppel,” can be used to justify the libertarian conception of rights, because of the reciprocity inherent in the libertarian tenet that force is legitimate only in response to force. The basic insight behind this theory of rights is that a person cannot consistently object to being punished if he has himself initiated force. He is (dialogically) “estopped” from asserting the impropriety of the force used to punish him, because of his own coercive behavior. This theory also establishes the validity of the libertarian conception of rights as being strictly negative rights against aggression, the initiation of force.15”
That’s merely what I was referring to, although not explicitly. I apologise, I believe I’ve assumed too much about your base knowledge.
As am I.
Natural Righter here.
That would mean that there weren’t utilitarian theories that weren’t individualistic and value free; a notion I’m not convinced of. It’s true that John Stuart Mill his utilitarian had a more specific notion about what people ought to achieve, but this wasn’t (or, to the very least, not as) true for Bentham. (Pushpin and Poetry…) Obviously; Bentham had other problems; one being that he was more of an almost cardinal act-utilitarian.
It is true that the notion of value-free is used more consistently than any other philosopher before (as far as I know). Older philosophers who had a rule-utilitarian notion (like Hume or Smith) combined this often with other moral theories. I’m not that convinced that the notion of ‘individualistic’ is that revolutionary; but I can’t comment in full on that one.
In any case; I still see no real reason to call it that ‘radically different’. Mises was working within a established tradition - which was actually led astray by the people who coined the term (Mill and Bentham) - and was (probably) the most consistent and clear defender of it up until that time. (Obviously; Hazlitt’s ‘foundations of morality’ really improved upon Mises.)
I would say non-cognitivist. I agreed with argumentation ethics before it was pointed out to me to be wrong.
I would agree that that would be an exaggeration (although I don’t think Ryan used the word “radically”). I would say “importantly different”. You’re right that Mises was indeed working in an established tradition: one that he himself said extended all the way back to Epicurus.
The historical role of the theory of the division of labor as elaborated by British political economy from Hume to Ricardo consisted in the complete demolition of all metaphysical doctrines concerning the origin and the operation of social cooperation. It consummated the spiritual, moral and intellectual emancipation of mankind inaugurated by the philosophy of Epicureanism. It substituted an autonomous rational morality for the heteronomous and intuitionist ethics of older days. Law and legality, the moral code and social institutions are no longer revered as unfathomable decrees of Heaven. They are of human origin, and the only yardstick that must be applied to them is that of expediency with regard to human welfare. The utilitarian economist does not say:Fiat justitia, pereat mundus. He says: Fiat justitia,ne pereat mundus. He does not ask a man to renounce his well-being for the benefit of society. He advises him to recognize what his rightly understood interests are. (Human Action, Chapter 8, Section 2)
All the way back to me? woot
Haha, jk. I admittedly just picked this name because it sounded cool.
But, according to Conza’s description, I would say I am a utilitarian.
The world was ‘totally’, apparently. 
In any case; than there is no more difference in opinion, I would say.
Well, I guess that is an answer to the question, albeit an oblique one. So I suggest answering more directly in the future. I also got hung up on the following part about “[going] all the way to jail or whatever the PDA is going to do with you”. That and its obliquity apparently lead me to miss it. Sorry about that. No need to be snarky, though.
What I’m talking about is a person believing that something is right or wrong absent any prior premises. For example, one can believe that violating self-ownership is wrong a priori. But can he or anyone else prove that belief to be correct or incorrect? No.
I guess both “evaluation” and “mental evaluation” weren’t good terms to use. Sorry for the confusion.
No problem. I understand the concept now, but can you or anyone else prove or disprove the proposition “it is true that estoppel is right”? My point is that you have to assume the notion of estoppel as a premise. You can’t use it to prove the notion that “it is true that X is wrong” in absolute (i.e. premise-free) sense.
Finally, how does laughing at me help me to understand your position? Or is that not your goal here?
I guess I am a moral nihilist, or at least close to one. I try to stay away from the word “nihilist”, because I am not a nihilist, but moral nihilist probably describes me closely enough. I don’t know too much about the definitions of these different ethical philosophies, but I’m somewhere between moral nihilism, moral relativism, and ethical subjectivism.
Can you explain what “moral nihilist” means?
Can you explain what “moral nihilist” means?
I don’t know if I should bold certain statements next time or what… as I wrote,
I don’t know too much about the definitions of these different ethical philosophies…
But, I did check the definition on Wikipedia before posting that. Wikipedia says,
Moral nihilism (also known as ethical nihilism or amoralism), is the meta-ethical view that nothing is moral or immoral.
I disagree with that.
For example, a moral nihilist would say that killing someone, for whatever reason, is neither inherently right nor inherently wrong.
If my interpretation of the word “inherently” is correct, then I agree with that.
Moral nihilism must be distinguished from ethical subjectivism and moral relativism, which do allow for moral statements to be true or false in a non-objective sense, but do not assign any static truth-values to moral statements.
My thought process: “Oh OK, then I guess I am probably closer to an ethical subjectivist.” The article goes on to categorize moral nihilists as moral skeptics, and I am not a moral skeptic.
Moral nihilism would claim that moral statements are not truth-evaluable. Thus, asserting that “murder is immoral” has no factual content. There are not morals, out there in the world, awaiting our discovery. Furthermore, assigning morality to subjective fancy seems a poor maneuver, and it undercuts the powerful thrust most people assume morality has.
We so badly need a “roll eyes” smilie.
Morals are values, values are subjective. It really doesn’t get a lot more complicated than that.
Thus, asserting that “murder is immoral” has no factual content.
I believe that morals are factual insofar as the individual is concerned. An individual might really believe murder to be immoral.
EDIT: Not to rekindle the utility argument, but this seems to undermine your case. Utility is subjective, as well. Does that mean there is no such thing as utility?
Furthermore, assigning morality to subjective fancy seems a poor maneuver, and it undercuts the powerful thrust most people assume morality has.
So? What if I don’t believe morality has a “powerful thrust” (whatever that is).