Did Rothbard deal with Hume’s refutation of the notion of natural law? I find Hume pretty convincing on this point, which makes me want to look elsewhere for the basis of libertarian ethics.
Yes. Introduction to Natural Law - MNR
Argumentation ethics then. Read Hoppe.
You’ll do what you think best.
But I want to make some philosophical points about this as follows:
Natural law semantically means intellectual apprehension of reality.
Be careful with Ludwig Von Mises too. Mises abhors natural law, but he writes and defines a natural law of might v. right, or kill or be killed version which is Thomas Hobbes and Spinoza’s version of natural law. That in no way is the natural law tradition that is rooted in Aristotle-Thomist which is the tradition that Rothbard was in. Also, Mises in his “Liberalism” writes that a liberal is to protect life, liberty, health, and private property. Those are word for word John Locke’s natural rights which of course is the tradition of natural law Rothbard was in. In Mises “Socialism” he abhors natural law too but again only talks about Hobbes’ version and Plato’s version. Mises even in that book discusses how the private property evolves in peace, not violence, which mirrors the natural law traditionalists ontological becoming (evolution).
When reading these various philosophers-economists it’s best to know what they mean and don’t go by their words only. Clearly if Mises, being a liberal, says a liberal is to protect those natural rights wouldn’t mean Mises is contradicting himself when he says he’s against natural law. He still may have been against natural law as Rothbard says he was though I still have yet to get into the papers that discuss this in-depth, but it’s also clear that Mises advocated protecting natural rights - even though he doesn’t call them that.
There’s a deeper argument in all of this which my link in my signature addresses and E.R. and I. Ryan both introduced good posts that bring up the philosophical arguments that exist on such deeper levels but that’s not necessary to address at the moment. But if your interested in reading up on those posts any time in the future with all the articles by various other extant philosopher-economists that address these deeper concerns I linked them. I would read through the threads, not just the OP’s of those threads as more links to various other articles were given in the other posts of those threads. If you want a good starting point as to which articles might be best to read first to help introduce you to the subject, then let me know and I can do that as well.
I don’t know how Hume has refuted that there is an intellect (logic) and a reality (universe). The is-ought gap is a false dichotomy when it comes to describing conflicts of scarcity. The is-ought gap is an armchair, ivory tower philosophy. It is a mental abstraction detached from the rest of the world, and there are reasons for me saying this. I’m not making any blanket statements void of intellectual insight.
edit: And before it appears that I know fully Mises attack on natural law yet he uses natural law language, wouldn’t mean Mises is a natural law theorist. Here’s another article on that point that I found sensible.
Thank you, everyone.
It wasn’t Hume’s goal to refute the intellect and the universe, at least not in his discussion of the is/ought distinction. (I do know that Hume didn’t think very highly of the intellect, but for other reasons). The existence of scarcity does not, in and of itself, imply the existence of any moral laws. It definitely makes us want to look for them, but they would have to be found elsewhere. If you can derive a moral law from the existence of scarcity, please show me how this is done. (Don’t use teleological language, this is itself embedded with “ought” claims.)
One does not have to resort to Hume’s argument (whatever its strengths or weaknesses) to refute Rothbard. Rothbard makes no attempt to prove natural law at all. He doesn’t even make reference to other alleged proofs. He states ‘some people claim that man has no nature’ and then moves on acting as though they did. As though making facetious comments is some kind of demonstration.
‘Natural law’ is fine in the sense of epistemic and procedural norms combined with market and social emergence of customary law. As some sort of moral dictate, it is gibberish. I take de Jasay’s position, that ‘justice’ and ‘morality’ are two different concepts, and are confused to the peril of both.
Rothbard was a decent economist, he was a mediocre philosopher.
I agree with the second half of that statement. What do you have against him as an economist?
Nothing, in particular. I said he was decent. But he was no Mises.
Fair enough, but that seems like quite a high standard. Mises was the economist par excellence, but Rothbard was still a great economist.
All I’m saying is there are conflicts of scarcity. Person A wants scarce economic good X. Person B wants scarce economic good X. A judgment will be made no matter what over who will get X. The judgment will involve either Person A, B, and their individual education background (meaning almost an infinite amount of people that have contributed to the knowledge base of human beings for as long as they have existed on this earth thus that includes person A and B). Person A and B will either fight for X or join the free market, meaning, peaceful exchange. But Person A and B will not simply come to this conclusion out of thin air as it takes a knowledge base provided to them to be able to make these judgments of value. It is purely descriptive until somebody has to make the decision. In the real world there is always a decision made. Who will get X? The is-ought can’t decide who gets X. It will note that either A or B got X by a particular mean. In the end they do decide and somebody of an is-ought can take notes on whether A or B got X but the is-ought is void of intellectual decision making skills. The is-ought fails to adjust to the fact that A or B makes a judgment and they do end up deciding to resolve the conflict of scarcity over who gets X.
Again, why does a person need to logically deduce a proof that intellect and reality exist? It’s not necessary as it is self-evident that the intellect comprehends reality.
Which has absolutely zero to do with normativity.
I only defined natural law and where it comes from. How a decision is made over scarcity having absolutely nothing to do with the individuals involved having an intellect and there being a reality outside of the intellect which thereby involves a scarce item alludes me. Yet you set it up that way so you explain.
Scarcity of resources in absolutely no way implies normatives.
I’m not having this debate with you again, Wilderness. I don’t care what you think.
Of course scarcity has everything to do with property and potential arguments/conflicts.
It’s only an argument if I care what you think, though. If everything is my property to do with as I can, then there is no ‘dispute’. No normatives are implied whatsoever. Any actual disputes are only disputes over survivable terms we come to rest upon because we fear the power of other people, direct or indirect. It does not mean I ‘ought not’ steal from you, nor that because I don’t take ‘your’ money that I need regard it as ‘yours’.
Seriously, you are just jumping straight into space from underground. There is no connexion between the existence of valuing entities in an environemnt of scarce resources and moral norms; except that moral norms - just like values - are arbitrary and can not be justified.
Agreed.
Obviously everything isn’t your property cause I exist and you exist and heck there’s other people in the world too. You can dispute that but you can’t control other people. You could potentially kill them all and after that then who cares?
It really doesn’t matter if you don’t think you ought to not steal or take my money. What matters is if you try, then I’ll make a judgment of value to stop you. Conflict of scarcity. Your judgment versus my judgment. Mine and thine. Who wins? That’s the conflict of scarcity and natural law is absolutely involved unless you want to make the case that humans don’t have an intellect and there isn’t a reality outside of the intellect. I’ll undoubtedly be waiting forever for that argument to arise.[:P]
They are justified in the real world not in some ivory tower detached from real life action that you’re trying to pass off here. In term of how everyday living happens either people fight, negotiate, or argue over scarcity. People affirm their justifications by their very actions. It’s a range of ordinal values that each individual will absolutely decide upon with input from any other people involved.
Jumping straight into space from underground is the only way passions acknowledge through the eyes that indeed, yes, there is actually a universe here.
Jesse you are scarce.
Obviously everything isn’t your property cause I exist and you exist and heck there’s other people in the world too. You can dispute that but you can’t control other people. You could potentially kill them all and after that then who cares?
Can you control the molecular structure of your shoes?
I’ll even grant you that, and rephrase: there is my property, and there are obstacles. To the extent I can make a thing do what I want, it is my property (it is under my control, bent to my purposes). This includes people. A ‘contract’ is no less a means of control than a stick or a gun. I do whatever suits my ends, without regard for anybody’s so-called ‘rights’. The only ‘right’ that matters is what is ‘right’ for me - what I please to do.
It really doesn’t matter if you don’t think you ought to not steal or take my money. What matters is if you try, then I’ll make a judgment of value to stop you. Conflict of scarcity. Your judgment versus my judgment. Mine and thine. Who wins? That’s the conflict of scarcity and natural law is absolutely involved unless you want to make the case that humans don’t have an intellect and there isn’t a reality outside of the intellect.
This is absolute gibberish. Nothing about the fact of cognitive patterns in a particular objects implies I ought to concern myself with it, debate with it, or consider its desires. Who wins? Whoever does. I win if I can get it under my control - and if you win, you are the stronger, but I recognize no ‘right’ you have to it.
You basically make no sense.
That’s true… but, completely irrelevant.