The link you gave merely asserts that men own themselves and builds up natural law from there. Where is the argument that men own themselves? Where does he refute the view that no one owns themselves or anyone? There is no argument for men owning themselves except a supposed RAA of the position that everyone owns everyone else. This doesn’t exhaust the posibilities and so in the end just takes self ownership as given. I’m not saying Rothbard is in a particularly bad position here; he is assuming no more than Rawls or Cohen. But this isn’t to say that he has provided a sound argument for natural rights, simply that his opponents do the same thing so he is under no special duty to provide an argument.
Babeuf claimed natural law gives everyman an equal share of the Earth resources, Hitler claimed natural law gave Germany the right to enslave the slavic people, Grotius claimed natural law gives the victor of a battle the right to slaughter the captured, and Adler claimed that natural law gives people the right to “a decent livlihood”. Why are all of these people wrong but Rothbard is right in claiming natural law only provides other with the right to their justly acquired property and life?
“Natural rights” is a rather ambiguous term which I don’t find very useful. Solid_Choke, I invite you (and others) to read Hoppe’s argumentation ethics and offer your critique.
‘owning yourself’ is shorthand for the presumption of freedom that De Jasay talks about for example. I would encourage you to approach it understand it through that prism if it helps.
its the progressivist philosophy that people have rights to healthcare, income etc.. iotw positive rights.
Really? I was taking it as something similar to Stirnerite rejection of “rights”? Can’t we just call that “collectivism”? I thought I saw it being used as an attack on libertarian ethics.
I’ll admit I haven’t read much Jasay, but I remember one thing from him (and I forget where) saying, “Let the exclusion stand.” Is that related to these articles posted before? I’ll try to look over them sometime.
You are right when you say that moral sentiments are subjective in nature; but from this, we cannot conclude that an objective system of ethics is impossible. Let me use some economic analogies to better elucidate my point. Value is also subjective, but the interplay of subjective desires yields objective prices. Likewise, each individual firm sets up their own capital structure and combinations according to their own plans, but broad market forces (price mechanism) smoothes out the various individual plans into a coherent and logical capital structure in the aggregate or macro level. The realities of scarcity and human action necessarily make this so.
The same can be said for ethical judgements. The subjective moral judgements, when confronted with reality (both social and natural) leads to an objective system of laws (not in the legal sense). This is the inevitable result of praxeology and other natural constraints (objective and unchangeable phenomena). It is the necessary and logical outcome. Governments interfere with this law for their own self-serving reasons, the same way that they interfere with the price mechanism and capital accumulation. But social interventionism, like economic interventionism, is an untenable condition.
The thief who brakes into your house may not care about the natural law, just like the businessman who doesn’t care about current market conditions, but in both scenarios, there will be inevitable ramifications/consequences.
Once you understand reality the is/ought divide vanishes (at least, this is the way I see it). One mustn’t eliminate private property as a social institution.
For one, it’s not only Rothbard, but I believe you are talking about a philosophical class of individuals.
Secondly, that’s easy. Because of the starting point or values that Rothbard holds. Rothbard does exactly what Mises does by asserting that economic action starts with private property. Mises asserts that peace is what lead to private property prosperity. Mises asserts that social law is what maintains a society in order to thwart violence against the society. What Rothbard did was compliment Mises on efforts by taking some time to think about private property and how it is defended.
Basically you’re arguing against agent-relative values or what some people, though philosphically primitive word usage in my opinion, like to call subjective values.
I mean are you asking something more? How nitty-gritty is your question?
Edit: I’ve posted this link before to Nitroadict but I don’t know if he has read it yet. I assume not as he’s still bolding questions, meaning, he’s not offering knowledge only still wondering what particular things mean, ie. bolding a question, etc… I don’t know if either of you have read Mises “Socialism” but he writes about ownership at the beginning of that book of his as well.
I invite you (and others) to read Hoppe’s argumentation ethics and offer your critique.
Lol.
Also, what is “rights-ism” exactly?
The attempt by late-liberalism to enumerate ‘rights’ as a way to establish political liberty and social organization, which grew out of the confused concept of ‘Rights as Englishmen’ from the classical movements like the Levelers. It is incoherent, meaningless and basically anti-liberal (in the sense of minimal liberalism, that is that people are free to do anything that is not specifically and coherently forbidden as a tort, or which they have no agreed otherwise in the form of a contract, I.E. a real right as corellary of a duty).
The economics on Mises.org are great. The philosophy is pure hocus-pocus and second-rate gibberish. John Rawls is better than this stuff, and he’s basically wrong about everything.
Yup. The Westminster confession agrees with me on this point, if that means anything to you.
Monergism is a misrepresentation of my position. But you’re right, this is another discussion. As it pertains to this discussion, I don’t see how you could read the bible and not come away with the understanding that God is in control of the destiny of men. Regardless, there are particular stories of God striking people dead; and certainly this is not something that is ‘okay’ for us to do. My only point is that revelation is necessary. It seems that you agree with this to some degree.
All knowledge is propositional. The distinction between ‘knowing’ God and ‘knowing about’ him is a false one. In this context, they both mean the same thing. Perhaps we can know God to some degree without an appeal to revelation (i.e., we can know some things about him), but I don’t think ethical knowledge is included. All ethical knowledge requires revelation.
I don’t see how I’m doing this.
Either ethical knowledge comes from God alone, or it does not. Either A or non-A. This is the definition of a dichotomy. Your argument needs to show how God’s creation reveals ethical knowledge. If you have an argument for this, I’d appreciate seeing it (one that doesn’t appeal to any sort of verbal revelation). I don’t think the argument in Romans 1 supports natural law; all Paul is claiming is that men are “without excuse” because they have a conscious, and because God’s attributes are on display throughout the universe. If you can turn this into an argument that favors natural law, I would honestly like to see it.
What you are doing is ditching the name “morality” but then just explaining the same thing. Sure, most people see “morality” as a sort of absolute, objective type of thing. Many people even reject “utilitarianism” and “consequentalism” as not even about “morality”. Probably the reason that most people see it like that is because it is easier to just program every one to accept these things as ‘dogmas’ than it is to try to prove it with arguments referring to connections between means and ends. But at the root of morality is a nexus of means and ends, whether people understand that or not.
Supposing I grant you this there remain, from a formal position, two differences which remain:
Morality is generally supposed to involve things that should or should not be done by other people. It is not generally understood to be a purely hypothetical and accidental structure of mores adopted for personal convenience. Violating morality is an affront. Violating a hypothetical imperative is simply demonstration of value diversity or failed reasoning. The two are different ‘sin’ and ‘failure’.
In relation to the former, morality involves signaling and emotive aspects that I do not experience in relation to my decisions. I have no ‘problem’ with lying, except it doesn’t work. Nor do I feel disapprobrium towards people who lie - though I may hesitate to take their word on some things.
And, yes, as regards the sociobiological background of morality, and the adoption of norms in congruence with propertarian jurisprudence for socio-darwninian reasons, I agree. If course, I don’t feel compassion. But I can understand, abstractly, why animals might. Nonetheless, as a philosophical proposition, morality remains false. As a purely descriptive thing, i.e. that people engage in normative signaling and have feelings and thoughts about other peoples behaviors not directly related to simple means-ends relations, would be absurd to doubt.
Liberte, what determines what is and what is not a tort in this minimal liberalism?
Custom, that is to say, the tradition of those having been involved in disputes in the past.
Of course, here comes the OMG THAT KULDZ BE NETHING LIKE WIMMIN ARE NAUGHT ALLOWED TO OWN CARZ.
It’s true. Oh well. That’s how reality works, that’s how justice works: it’s just something people made up to advance their own interests (as they see it). If enough of them have a strong enough predilection for certain norms, and the contrasting forces (say, economic pressure) is not great enough to cancel them out, they will make themselves felt as the force of law. As they well should, since we’re living in the real world where actual interests count and there are no imaginary ‘good’ rules just as there are no ‘good’ guys’.
Frankly, I’ll take my chances with waky customary laws as against government bullshit.
By customary law I assume you mean common law. Obviously, Rothbardians also prefer decentralized, private law. But today, the customary law is government law.
Rothbardians attempt to construct a system to transition from our current customary law (govenment law) to a new customary law (private law). But are you not ideologically bound to defend the status quo, if justice is whatever people decide it is?
Just as justice and morality are seperate things and should not be conflated, so are justice and law.
I am well aware that modern complex society is impossible without property (I am an individualist anarchist for crying out loud), but how could I possibly check whether what Rothbard believes are the “true” natural rights are really the right ones, rather than what Babeuf, Hitler, Grotius, or Adler think are the “true” natural rights? Where do I look? What experiment do I run? Which proof can I check the validity of that will tell me which “rights” are the “real” natural rights? I haven’t heard a good answer to that, so I question the ontological status of natural rights. Simply because something is needed in order for human society to function doesn’t mean it is “natural” in the sense that Rothbard means. Why not think of private property as a nash equilibrium in a game where individuals with different preferences try to cooperate (in their self-interest) to find Pareto improvements? Why does it need to be “natural”?
What experiment do I run?! Do you even know what apriori / emprical means?
Whats the experiment or proof you need to ‘run’ to "verify’ the axiom action?
“Whether we consider the Action Axiom “a priori” or “empirical” depends on our ultimate philosophical position. Professor Mises, in the neo- Kantian tradition, considers this axiom a law of thought and therefore a categorical truth a priori to all experience. My own epistemological position rests on Aristotle and St. Thomas rather than Kant, and hence I would interpret the proposition differently. I would consider the axiom a law of reality rather than a law of thought, and hence “empirical” rather than “a priori.” But it should be obvious that this type of “empiricism” is so out of step with modern empiricism that I may just as well continue to call it a priori for present purposes. For (1) it is a law of reality that is not conceivably falsifiable, and yet is empirically meaningful and true; (2) it rests on universal inner experience, and not simply on external experience, that is, its evidence is reflective rather than physical7; and (3) it is clearly a priori to complex historical events.” [-](http:// http://mises.org/rothbard/extreme.pdf)
Self ownership -
Elsewhere, I have written: “if a man cannot affirm a proposition without employing its negation, he is not only caught in an inextricable self-contradiction; he is conceding to the negation the status of an axiom.” Rothbard, Individualism, p. 8 Crusoe Philosophy - TEOL, note 6
I’m really answering these as honestly as possible. Some are simple answers because you gave simple questions. Yet I’m sure you may have been referring to something else because lot’s of what I may say below is really self-evident.
1st question: Use all means that ‘test’ truth. Obviously logic and evidence is important.
2nd question: in the world
3rd question: Run the experiment of living your life and current technology. Depends on what you are testing for.
4th question: There are different theories of natural rights as you point out. Brussel’s has announced that it is a right to vacation. D.C. has announced that it is a right to have healthcare. The Nazi’s used the same rhetoric. The terms are beaten to death, but only because the history of the usage of these terms goes back centuries. One side, Aristotle-Thomist, hasn’t given up on their interpretation of natural rights. It’s the same debate now on if the words capitalism, liberalism, or free market should be abandoned. The same attack has been on natural law for at least 500 years back to Thomas Hobbes and Spinoza who were the first two people in history that changed the name of ‘nature’ and ‘natural’ to mean of the savage, wild world. Before that time and ever since in some circles, ‘nature’ and ‘natural’ have included reason in there meanings because humans are not detached from nature. In nature there is reason because humans have reason and humans are in nature. Imagine what the semantic turf war over liberalism might be in about another two hundred years. If statism isn’t gone by then, it might be as sharply divided as natural law has been. Threads on abandoning terms like liberalism or capitalism are small potato debates compared to what the term ‘natural law’ has gone through.
5th question: Marginal utility describes what is naturally occurring. Pareto improvements are what naturally occur when A is acted.
To focus only on the word ‘natural’ is missing the whole underlying theory that is full of substance. The theory isn’t the word ‘natural’. The theory is much more in-depth than that. Reading Aristotle, Aquinas, Menger, realist phemenologists, etc… get further into the nitty-gritty.
Except that ‘ownership’ is nothing but a legal term, not an ontological relationship (unless you mean ownership in the Stirnerian sense, i.e., control, in which case whomever can control you ‘owns’ you).
Human action implies ownership. No one person loses total control of themselves unless they go vegetable maybe? I don’t know if conscious choice is totally gone when somebody goes vegetable.