semper necessitas probandi incumbit ei qui agit
If you do not retract your assertion or provide some evidence as to its truth, then you are not engaging in reasonable debate and are simply wasting my time. I will answer your other questions if and only if you start engaging is reasonable debate.
Oh this is rich. I have the burden of proof but I cannot ask you questions to build that proof. That’s like asking a lawyer to prove a case without being able to question the person he is trying. I await your answer to my question, perhaps after that, I will show you the proof. It depends on the answer really.
No it isn’t, it is much more like the police interrogating you about a crime that they have ZERO evidence that you committed. You would be in the right refusing to answer their questions if they don’t have any evidence. The burden of proof would be on the police to show that you committed the crime, not on you to show that you didn’t. Either present evidence that I conflated ethics with religion or else retract that assertion.
Solid,
As I inquired at the beginning of this thread if anybody else knew what “this meant”, it obviously showed my lack of understanding on the subject. I’ve been thinking and wondering. Let me know if I’m being any bit accurate. Is the quest of the NAP with epistemology have to do with ethics in this logical manner:
I know from reading Aquinas’ commentary on Aristotle’s “Human Nature” that it was logically surmised that ethics is informed by reason and intellect. Therefore a person(s) epistemology informs their ethics. What this accomplishes is, 1) a person can study and try to make more accurate a particular ethics with what knowledge the ethics already has in possession or 2) the ethics can be informed by not an already extant knowledge inherent in the ethics from a previous, thus, past given knowledge, instead go to the knowledge itself, change how the understanding of how knowledge is acquired - the epistemology - and thereby the ethics will be informed by a more accurate reasoning. This can then make the ethics more accurate by changing what informs ethics. Being that the effort is to make accurate an NAP type relation with the world (an anti-statist agenda), then a non-coercive, a more deliberately chosen reason by an individual based upon a liberty epistemology informing ethics rather than a more statist (or what have you. I was thinking of the contrary of what a liberty theoretical would be).
make sense?
Fine if you don’t want to answer the question then I agree, this discussion is going to be fruitless. Ta ta.
I refuse to debate with those that do not conform to the basic norms of reasonable discourse.
You seemed to be getting sidetracked about what I meant by “epistemological” and “ethical” (probably due to that fact that people were misrepresenting my and de Jasay’s view). The claim I was making is that libertarian principles can be derived from epistemological premises, but not only epistemological premises. You can have two arguments for the same conclusion that rely on different kinds of premises.
For instance compare these two arguments for the existence of God (please don’t get caught up on the soundness of these arguments; I am not debating theology, but merely need an example that doesn’t involve political theory):
1.)
P1: There is an objective moral law.
P2: If there is an objective moral law, then there is a source of the moral law.
P3: If there is a source of moral law, then there is a God.
There is a God.
2.)
P1: It’s an empirical fact that the basic physical constants are precisely in the narrow range of what is required for life to be possible.
P2: The best explanation for this fact is that the basic physical constants were caused by an intelligent being intending to produce life.
P3: If these two things are true, then it’s reasonable to believe that the basic structure of the world was set up by an intelligent being (God) intending to produce life.
It’s reasonable to believe that the basic structure of the world was set up by an intelligent being (God) intending to produce life.
Argument 1 and 2 arrive at the same kind of conclusion, but 1 uses moral principles as premises and 2 relies on physical and epistemological premises (but here I am not trying to argue that these particular premises are true).
In the same way it is possible to arrive at libertarian principles using different kinds of premises. What I was arguing (and what de Jasay makes a good case for) is that libertarian principles can be deduced from epistemological premises (where as traditionally they have been derived from ethical premises). This does not mean that arguments that use non-epistemological premises are unsound or that they are inferior, only that both are possible and fruitful.
Does this clear up what I mean or do you have an additional questions? I can’t really get too far into de Jasay’s argument without writing essay sized posts unless you are already familiar with some of the theories of epistemology (like Logical Positivism, Critical Rationalism, and Bayesianism).
[The arguments I listed for the existence of God are from Harry Gensler’s logic textbook “Introduction to Logic”]
yes I see what you’re saying. I guess I was wondering about unity. With premises of ethical base and epistemological base, what’s the unity? I know the unity is in human action, but isn’t epistemology of judgement and understanding therefore of reason purely. Whereas ethics is the inclusion of reason and will (deliberate and non-deliberate action), so, I’m wondering how they inform each other (epistemology and ethics, thus, the unity question). Or maybe I’m not asking the right question. I admit I’m not completely informed on such speculative philosophy and I’m more a novice than well-learned in this.
Well here is where you differ from De Jasay for Jasay is a non-cognitivist and thinks that ethical statements are useless and neither true or false. Therefore according to an understanding of that theory then the ethical approach to libertarianism is not possible.
what I wrote, Solid_Choke, about Aquinas’ commentary of Aristotle in Human Nature, above, fits. I found a missing piece of what I personally was looking for, namely ‘imperatives’. I finished reading Kant’s Introduction to Logic and as I was trying to nail this term down in my own mind, Kant defined it with clearness. Here’s a quote in Kant’s book:
“Everything in the end verges towards the practical, and it is in this tendency of all theory and all speculation in reference to their employment that the practical value of our knowledge consists… And that part of philosophy which treats of morality must therefore be called practical philosophy, although every other philosophical science may also have its practical part, that is, may contain, drawn from the theories set forth, a direction for the practical employment of them for the realization of certain ends.”
(what I said above is without a critique of De Jasay, I am simply trying to surmise this according to what I figured from the discussion we were having in this thread)
I don’t think Laughing Man was really off on what he was saying and neither are you, Solid_Choke, but I’m not completely sure and I want to avoid speaking for either of you as I don’t fully know what you both are trying to convey in the discussion between the two of you.
Actions informed by facts are honorable.
For Solid Choke
I cannot repeat enough, how excellent this interview is.
It’s wonderful to listen to a thoughtful thinker explain libertarianism without excessive moralistic baggage. It’s similar to listening to Taleb.
Thanks. I used to argue from a mostly Hayekian and Nozickian basis against Progressives and it would inevitably get to the point where they would claim that “we simply have different moral intuition” and so it would end there. Now that I incorporate more of de Jasay’s ideas in my arguments, my opponents don’t have that escape hatch.