But just because you don’t like this arrangment doesn’t mean they are doing it wrong, any more than an engineer is doing his job ‘wrong’ because he designs a bomb that will be used to kill you.
This is a faulty analogy. I’m not even going to bother to parse the rest above and point out all the mistakes and problems with definitions.
Human beings tend to promote conflicts. There will always be conflicts of interest.
Human beings tend to promote conflicts. There will always be conflicts of interest.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t systemtic differences in patterns of organization and institutional structure. Most classical and traditionalist conservatives (Burke and Nisbet) were anti-statist in this sense, the veign of state-authoritarian conservative is really conservatism corrupted by leftist institutional systems.
The state is, for most purposes beyond aligning the clericy and the underclass, both useless and percnicious. It is probably the most internally and externally dangerous, expensive and counter-productive form of organization ever devised. And it was born in and for the purposes of militaristic democratism and egalitarianism. There is no ultimate difference, in aims or ultimate result, between ‘social’ anarchism (Sydnicalists), New Leftist Grass-Roots/Activist democracy (Maoism) and Left-communism (the Paris Commune). The State is the embodiment of the Egalitarian plan; because totalitarian centralism is the only thing that can even come close to enforcing 'equality. Since eventually even the leaders of these states usually want to avoid the total social chaos involved in their premises, they will make a shift rightward. This makes them even more internally violent (and externally agressive) because they must now protect their true right-wing dictatorship against legitimit claimants to leftist doctrine; and their nominally ‘responsible to the people’ positions. Thus the internal violence of a Stalinist Russia and Hitler’s Germany.
All of it made sense to me.
Sorry, it took me a while to come back to this.
- Universality should not be confused with objectivity.
To quote Lilburne again for context:
Again, universal does not mean objective. The dictionary definition of objective is “Not dependent on the mind for existence”. By very definition, there is no such thing as a desire that is not dependent on the mind for existence. Therefore there can be no such thing as an “objective desire.”
Using this definition, logic is not objective, because it is dependent on the mind for existence. Like Mises said, Logic is a tool, a construct of our minds to help us comprehend this universe into which we are thrown - yet logic does not differ from person to person, although any one individual’s understanding of it could potentially be flawed. Does this mean it is merely “universal?” I think this is creating a dichotomy where none exists; logic is objective because the veracity of its conclusions does not rest upon the subjectivity of those employing logic. Likewise, there are certain biological ends which are also objective; they objectively exist, and their content is objectively the same for any human beings that have existed, do exist, and will exist.
And, 2) the ranking of desires; that is, valuation. That a man will suffer from lack of food, and that he may have a desire to not feel pain, isn’t very significant without looking at the man’s scale of desires. If your reasoning is focused on the existence of the desire alone… well, aren’t our desires limitless? What good is it to merely say we desire food?
It is important because it demonstrates that there are some ends implied in our humanity and our biological nature. It shows that not all ends must be accepted as “givens” based on an actor’s actions; instead, some can be known from our nature as human beings.
I don’t see what is unsatisfactory with, “It is a biological fact that man requires sustenance to survive. And as man commonly prefers life over death, and the absence of pain over the feeling of pain, man will commonly seek food.” Why go beyond this and attempt to prove the objectivity of the matter? Ditto for moral sentiments.
Although “commonly [preferring] life over death” is as far as I can analyze that part, everyone prefers the absence of pain over the feeling of pain (again, ceteris paribus). It is a known fact deduced from our nature as human beings.
“Food” isn’t a homogenous category. For example, I eat good cheese and drink good wine because I derive pleasure from doing so, but I drink protein shakes because I want the protein. I’ve known people who derive very little pleasure from eating, for them food is merely a means to an end. They eat because they need the nutrition to perform their daily tasks, not because they particularly enjoy eating.
I think this misses the point. I was using the overarching category of “food” for reasons of simplification - it could just as easily have been “nourishment-providing edible items,” the idea being that humans are by nature compelled to satisfy their biological desire for such items.
When we analyze whether a person is “correct” or not in their actions, we ask whether a causal connection exists between their means and their ends. But more than just the advisements from their subconsciousness determines what their ends are. Do you really believe that, if I intend to go on a hunger strike, my body “proves [me] wrong” once I start to feel hungry? Believing that is implying that those advisements are infallible. But, for an example of the faculty of one which is complete failure in the modern world, see taste. Just because chips or whatever taste good to me does not mean that eating them is a means to my ends.
Yes, I would say that pain is infallible. Pain occurs because you are doing something, or something is happening, that will ultimately lead to injury, loss of bodily function, or death. Taste is irrelevant to this discussion because your body will soon enough inform you (through pain, again) if what you ate was not substantive.
Also, I think that the point that Lilburne made recently was very important. You might be able to say that people always, as a “biological fact”, have the “desire” to eat; saying that probably is correct. But what you are missing is that the ends of other people that people should use to judge whether that person is “correct” in their actions is their highest valued end. If I prefer going to Spain to going to France but I still want to go to France, going to Spain is not being “incorrect”.
France vs. Spain is like the Mozart vs. Bach or Coke vs. Pepsi examples. I completely agree that they’re not analyzable as ends. I don’t think it is possible, nor do I have any desire, to analyze every single end of each individual.
In the same way, if I prefer going on a hunger strike to eating but, based on what my subconsciousness is telling me, I still want to eat, going on the hunger strike is not being “incorrect”.
But see, I would argue that it is incorrect. The desire to go on a hunger strike is based on faulty or inconsistent premises that fundamentally contradict your nature. You can still choose to go (after all, morality implies choice), but soon enough you must accept the conclusion that you either eat, or you perish. I haven’t yet figured out if death is subject to moral valuation, but I believe pain is; your first option is to eat, thereby alleviating your pain (implying you followed the course of action that is proper to your nature), while your other option is to continue to ignore your pain (i.e., follow a course of action contrary to your nature) and thereby pay the consequences.
Good point. I’m worried that some Misesians may take radical subjectivism too far and end up nihilists.
Nonsense. People cut their hands off to free themselves from being stuck and dying. In your view that is an objectively wrong course of action to take.
Pain has nothing to tell you about man’s “nature”. It is merely an aspect of his biology.
I ran across this problem in my own exploration, I would suggest you two actually don’t disagree you both just have part of the truth. One is saying man values pain over not pain that is his nature, and the other is saying no pain isn’t his ultimate end man can choose freedom over pain. They are compatible viewpoints: man can value pain over not pain and still put something above pain.