That is getting to a point, which I think would be good for you to understand. You’ll never find the truth you profess to be seeking until you drop your fuzzy synonyms.
Being implies change and rest. That does not mean it is a principle of change and rest. More fuzziness on your part.
Yes it is.
Wikipedia: “Discourse ethics, sometimes called argumentation ethics, refers to a type of argument that attempts to establish normative or ethical truths by examining the presuppositions of discourse.”
Hoppe’s argumentation ethics argument CONSISTS of trying to establish ethical truths. What ethical truths is Hoppe trying to establish? Rights. And what method of inference is he using to establish them? Deduction. QED.
This sounds good, but I don’t think it is actually correct. Argumentation ethics is a negative proof. I’m sure you are familiar with performative contradiction. It is the same thing as Mises saying that nobody can deny that humans act, because that denial is itself an action.
While we would probably still call this conversation an argument, it isn’t the same as an argument in a court drawn to rectify private property disputes. I think this latter form of arguing would be a distinct category of action, or in Reinach’s terminology a different type of “social act”.
In both cases, the person arguing against libertarian grundnorms is caught in logical contradiction, but only the latter form of argument is our concern, as the goal of any legal theory is to justify punishment. Whether it is deductive or not really isn’t important though. I think Kinsella’s estoppel reformulation is much more convincing as to the validity of argumentation ethics.
Mises (and I) say that the protection of life, liberty, and private property are the most appropriate means to everybody’s ends (save ascetics and sadists). But we do NOT derive the notion that those things should be protected from nature.
Am I a “natural law theorist” by defending Hoppe? I really don’t see the point in using the term “natural law” at all looking forward. We’re concerned with human actions, so that those are natural (or not) seems kind of irrelevant.
Anyhow, I didn’t quite get why you went after me in another thread for quoting this paper by Block, where he said:
In [Mises’] view, it was reasonable to deduce what the law ought to be from purely economic considerations, provided only that we take as a given the utility of the normal or average man, who is in this case the typical advocate of government intervention, as the lodestar of our analysis.
I thought maybe Mises somewhere else said some things about justice, but this seems to be exactly what you are saying now. Isn’t the problem then though that we aren’t talking about the suitability of the sadist or the average man in achieving their own preferred ends. We’re asking whether the sadist’s (“criminal’s” sounds better to me) actions are in line with those we say are vital to human society and the process of civilization, and this is where AE comes in.
Last, I have been making an effort to be civil to people here and just ignore those that repeatedly employ fallacies or are just off in left field. What still irks me most is when I spend my time writing out a response (like this one) and the person it was addressed to (in this case you) says something like this:
ERO,
Your analogy would only work if your lazy, “But what about Argumentation Ethics?” could even be considered a “swing”. It can’t.
Again, if you want something from me, give me something concrete to respond to that you think undermines my position, even if it’s only a single paragraph, and I’ll respond.
But I don’t write monographs on cue.
How was there nothing concrete to respond to? I just basically repeated the same thing here and I will probably have to again and again in new threads on this perennial topic. I only skimmed this one, but I might not still understand your position. If you really think your case against argumentation ethics is that solid, please stop arguing against wilderness and spend your time making a Mises Daily on it or something. I also would appreciate if the original AE thread here was stickied. Ones like the nuclear disarmament thread could at least go in a master sticky of topics that have threads. I spent a good bit of time on writing the last response there, let alone thinking about it, and it seems all for naught. My time is scarce too, but I spend a great deal of it reading about law and hoping to contribute to libertarian theory. When what I say is baselessly rejected out of hand it’s pretty off-putting if I think about contributing more.
I never said being was a principle. I’m not being fuzzy. You’re again assuming things so that’s about as “fuzzy” as it gets. Where in my post do you see the word “principle”?
Reason is part of nature. You have already agreed to that. So what are you stuck on now?
Wrong. You’re conflating axioms with logical deductions. I highly recommend Morris Cohen’s “Intro. to Logic” book that Mises had recommended. Also Aristotle’s “APrior” gets into this a bit too. Aquinas’ “Human Nature”. And there’s some others.
“…attempts to establish normative or ethical truths by examining the presuppositions of discourse.”
Lilburne do you know what the word “presupposition” means? You have yet to answer that as it was also within that previous quote. So what are these presuppositions that are norms and facts? You are stalling.
Logical deductions are NOT argumentation ethics because you’re not answering the full quote. Don’t “confuse” (a favorite word of yours) the apple on the apple tree for the whole apple tree. You would first need to figure out the other part of quote (presuppositions of norms and facts) before you are able to make a complete definition of argumentation ethics. Part of something is NOT the whole thing.
Maybe someone should just ask Hoppe if he meant for argumentation ethics to be deductive.
I admit that I haven’t read Hoppe on this subject, but from what I know of his methodology, and from what I know of argumentation ethics, I don’t see how it possibly could be inductive.
Read the article. The quote Lilburne even pasted says the ‘rights’ are deducted from the “presuppositions of norms and facts.” The meat of argumentation ethics is the ‘presuppositions’. The deductive aspect is minor and secondary.
Hoppe commits basic logical fallacies in his claims. Read my buddy Danny Shahar’s post on the subject.
Murphy and Callahan have their own critique here.
Knott has a summary of his critique of argumentation ethics here. You can also email him for a pdf of the full version of his critique of Hoppe’s argumentation ethics.
The article I linked is Kinsella rebutting Murphy and Callahan. Murphy and Callahan didn’t understand Hoppe. Kinsella convinced me. And Knott is all over the place on some basics so he’s definitely not a credible source to even take on some posts in this forum. Knott very frequently conflates psychology with logic.
I don’t know the first one. I’ll check it out.
The presence of presuppositions doesn’t make an argument non-deductive.
Read the article. You’re way off on interpreting this.
What makes you think you know what Hoppe says when you never read what Hoppe says? Think about that for a moment.
I can’t even begin to answer your post as it doesn’t address the subject at hand.
The basic problem with Hoppe’s Argumentation Ethics, as with most ethical theories, is that it presupposes what it needs to prove: that there is in fact logical content to normative claims, and that ‘justification’ (in the normative sense) is either necessary or possible. If one rejects (according to thoroughgoing value subjectivism) the notion that normative ‘justifications’ make any sense, and that there is any such thing as an ‘imperative’ outside of a particular individuals value judgements and theories of means, the whole enterprise collapses before it has begun. Aside from the logical conflations Hoppe engages in (and I don’t even want to talk about Kinsella), he starts his arguments supposing that people are trying to justify their use of resources. But this in itself makes no sense!
Liberte,
it is presupposed that during an argument there is a person engaged in the argument. Do you deny this?
I deny that there is cognitive content to normative claims. An argument is “a series of connected statements intended to establish a proposition” (according to Monty Python). An ‘argument’ devoid of logical content is therefor not an ‘argument’, it is a verbal spat which is no more capable of coming to a ‘conclusion’ than a fist-fight is, which is to say one or another person may eventually give up or be unable to continue.
So there is a person in the argument? You are a person? You post. Thanks for proving Argumentation Ethics. Humans Act.
Good Night.
An argument is “a series of connected statements intended to establish a proposition” (according to Monty Python)
You came to the wrong forum, this is abuse
You came to the wrong forum, this is abuse
Practically coercion!
HUMANS ACT, D00D
This dialogue is a bit of a straw man, but I think Hoppe’s argument isn’t laid out firmly enough for it to be obviously so. As far as I can see, and please give feedback on this, Argumentation Ethics gets its teeth from presupposition of consent, rather than self ownership as Hoppe claims.
[Edit]I realized the whole distinction between normative and factual statements doesn’t work, becuase you can still argue over factual statements. Let me instead say that an argument occurs whenever people are trying to come to an agreement using language.
Arguing with someone presupposes that you want them to consent to your views. So you can’t argue to John’s face that John should be enslaved, because even if he agreed to it, it would be voluntary slavery which is impossible by definition. [End Edit]
On the other hand, you can tell John that you plan to enslave him. He can piss and moan about it. but making a statement to someone doesn’t presuppose anything, other than maybe they can hear and understand you. You can also argue with John whether or not Peter should be enslaved, because we’re not presupposing that we are trying to get Peter to consent.
I don’t know if you should call this argumentation “ethics”. All this bs is coming out of habermas/kant, so if you realize that ethics just means rational action I think it comes together a lot better. There’s still performative contradiction, but rests on the arguer presupposing that his goal is to get the audience to consent to whatever propositions.
AE still gets to say that statism is bunk, because arguing vis-a-vis for slavery is impossible.
Again, would appreciate feedback. There was always something Hairy about AE, but maybe this ultra slimmed down version can be something useful.
