Do you mean this thread right here, or another thread? If the latter, can you link to it please?
Private Property’s Philosopher by David Gordon
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Our author’s conclusion follows from his premise; but why accept the axiom of self-ownership? Here once again I found my rereading instructive. I had, I imagined, the essence of Rothbard’s argument firmly in mind. He argues that all societies confront three alternatives: each person owns himself, some people own others, or each person owns a part of everyone else.[1]
So far, so good. But then I went wrong. I was inclined to think that Rothbard next resorted to moral intuitions. Isn’t it obvious that each person should own himself and that slavery must be rejected?
Rothbard’s actual argument is much more subtle and complex than the sketch embedded in my mind. He relies heavily in his defense of self-ownership on a point of fact. Everyone in reality is in control of his own will. If I obey another, I must always make the decision to do as he wishes; and the threat of violence on his part should I follow my own course leaves the situation unchanged. I must decide whether to accede to the threat.
“So what?” you may say. "Even if Rothbard is right that you cannot, in some sense, alienate your will, how does he get to the conclusion he wants? From the fact that you control your own will, how does the ethical judgment follow that you ought not to threaten violence against another self-owner? Isn’t Rothbard guilty of that dread fallacy, the derivation of an ought from an is?"
To our imagined objector, Rothbard would demur. He does indeed derive an ought from an is, but he denies that he is guilty of fallacy. Instead, he maintains that ethical principles follow from the nature of man. Because man has free will, it does indeed follow that he ought not to be coerced by others, unless of course he initiates violence: then, Rothbard holds, one may respond with all necessary force. (“Tolstoyan” is not, in our author’s vocabulary, a word of praise.)
Is Rothbard right? If he is, he has overthrown the dominant way of doing moral philosophy today. In making his case, Rothbard displays his remarkable scholarly ability to extract just what he needs from a vast array of sources. The works of little-known Aristotelian philosophers, such as John Wild and John Toohey, SJ, figure to great effect as Rothbard builds his argument.[2]
[:D]
“The aggressor, on the other hand, is not a producer at all but a predator; he lives parasitically off the labor and product of others. Hence, instead of living in accordance with the nature of man, the aggressor is a parasite who feeds unilaterally by exploiting the labor and energy of other men. Here is clearly a complete violation of any kind of universal ethic, for man clearly cannot live as a parasite; parasites must have non-parasites, producers, to feed upon. The parasite not only fails to add to the social total of goods and services, he depends completely on the production of the host body.”
[Y]
Also, this is an excellent example of circular reasoning. It is just a slick way of saying that you ought not to murder because you ought not to murder. Both premise and conclusion rely on each other to be valid!
Even though I agree murdering is wrong (or at least, I disagree with the act of murdering), I can admit sometimes the reasoning behind ‘murdering is wrong’ sounds circular.
It sometimes feels like it’s simply valid reasoning because it makes people feel better about themselves, but other times it does feel correct when one goes into “If you disagree that murdering is wrong, would you agree for someone to murder you if they didn’t think it was wrong?”.
It’s one of those areas that I’ve frequently ruminated on but have felt I haven’t reached a satisfactory conclusion and/or answer (much like the current natural rights debates, imo).
I don’t think murder is “inherently wrong” in the same way I don’t think sushi is “wrong”. I think both sushi and murder are distasteful; the difference is one of degree, and not of kind.
Similarly, I don’t think feeding someone sushi is “wrong”. It does not follow that if someone who enjoyed feeding others sushi tried to feed me sushi that I must acquiesce. While such an activity is not wrong, it is not something that I value, and action is based on the principle of utility maximization.
Highlighted because I think it is important to understand that a moral subjectivist can still make preference known without contradicting oneself. This line of critique has been used by people in the past and it lacks all merit.
Thanks.
Though I think your middle paragraph makes a very strong point, If I understood zefreak correctly he was pointing out a logical problem unrelated to the interesting point you raised.
I think zefreak would object to this line as being circular reasoning as well:
Counting to five is morally wrong. It follows: you ought not to count to five.
Although both parts of that little deduction are silly, the question zefreak is raising is: does one follow from the other? He claims they do not, that the second is really a restatement of the first, not a conclusion of the first. I agree. [Of course every assumed statement has itself as a conclusion. The problem is that then one hasn’t deduced it from anything but itself, which is circular reasoning].
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I said “if” because I don’t know, and I usually don’t much care who is the originator of an argument anyway. The ideas themselves are what interest me.
No, I’m saying there is no hope of this making any sense at all unless we recognize that values divorced from any notion of people valuing them is incoherent. That is one reason values cannot be derived from facts. However, someone may make a useful argument deriving value from value, via facts. For example,
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X is required in order to have Y (fact)
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Person P values Y (value)
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Therefore, person P values (or should value, if they are being logical) X as well (value)
Maybe, maybe not. If there are, then syllogisms of the form above would be useful. But of course, this isn’t deriving values from facts; it’s deriving values from values and facts.
The only reason I stated my response in that way I did is that there are so many people here who still seem to believe that values can be derived from facts, and it seems easier to attack that whole notion as incoherent (because it is) rather than to try to get into particulars about a conception that is doomed from the start by its incoherence. Strike the root!
It’s more than just circular. In fact, the premise “murder is morally wrong” means “you ought not murder.” It’s like saying, “I have a dog, therefore I have a canine.”
The underlying confusion source here and in most human communication is that words only represent concepts; they are not the concepts themselves. Consequently, most faulty arguments by otherwise competent thinkers are whipped up out of the fudge factor between exact concepts and approximate words, and can be exposed by looking at the definitions of the terms. It can’t but be that way, until someone hurries up and invents a telepathy machine so we can communicate using a more accurate medium than mere words, with all their ambiguity and inaccuracy (which most people take for granted because they’ve learned to “aim low” when communicating to others, because when they “aim high” by trying to communicate exactly what they mean in all detail and nuance, they strongly tend to fail - words are just not that robust, even for the clear writer).
Zefreak, are you mentally handicapped , dishonest, or both ?
If you read my whole post, instead of just quoting the first sentence ‘out of context’ you would realize that I explicitly said that the “ought” part is irrelevant/redundant. I didn’t try to provide a justification and failed because I used circular reasoning - you are attacking a straw man. You fail.
I stated that the problem at hand is to determine whether moral facts exist or not. “Murder is wrong” and “you ought not to murder” are two ways of saying the same thing.
Now, if you don’t think that murder is wrong - if you think that you are justified in killing people when you feel like it, maybe you might want to explain why that is so ? Or else admit that you are just another advocate of might-makes-right ?
Though of course you are not even honest enough to admit that, so you would rather say, as the great philosopher stratton put it : “might makes is” ?
Is anyone going to address my post? Or not…
I retired from this fascinating discussion when I hit the following brick wall:
Rothbard in that epic footnote seems to imply that his argument for disproving Hume is written in a book by Phillipa Foot , something about Virtue.
The magic internet doesn’t have a copy to peruse.
I hoped someone had an example to display of an “ought” deduction Ms Foot would say was valid. When that didn’t happen, I had to quit.
Your post seems to tackle the Hume Rothbard debate from another angle, an original contribution that I didn’t manage to grasp.
Aaaand we’re back to square one. (The whole passage culminated in a mere restatement of the same form as that under contention, with no additional support??)
Consequentialist arguments do make sense, yes [Y]
The whole point of Hume is that if moral facts exist, they cannot be discovered by reason.
Perhaps you are correct, and there truly is some sort inherent value in humanity. Perhaps everything has inherent value, and the human mind is unable to accurately attribute value to it. Perhaps God and the supernatural exist; after all, although reason fails in justifying theism, intuition can work wonders!
My whole point is that of course it is “possible” that moral facts exist independently of agents, but it isn’t a reasonable position. It is superstition.
Glad you asked 
A “fact” does not have an aim, a “should” does have an aim. A fact is objective, a should is not objective on its own. On what grounds could you say I “should” do something? Goodness? Badness? Efficiency? Preference? Those are all choices right? How should I act if I want badness is different from how I should act if I want goodness. To restate: what is does not depend on anything except reality, what should be depends on what the goal is.
But that isn’t deriving value from facts, its introducing a value premise and deriving a value.
IE
P1 (ought): Susan ought to go to the mall
P2 (is): A car is the only way to get to the mall
C1 (ought): Susan ought to use the car to go to the mall
A common statement I see on these forums is that one way to bridge the is/ought gap is to phrase it in a consequentialist manner. This is not accurate.
Copied from my post in the other thread:
"By the way, introducing purpose in the guise of an if-then statement does not bridge the is-ought divide. Observe.
P1) Zefreak desires to use his time productively (is)
P2) Posting in this thread is not a productive use of time because nobody will be persuaded either way (is)
C1) Zefreak ought to stop posting in this thread (ought)
This is not valid reasoning. There exists an undisclosed premise which, if introduced, will allow the conclusion to be validly deduced.
P1) Zefreak desires to use his time productively (is)
P2) Posting in this thread is not a productive use of time because nobody will be persuaded either way (is)
P3) Zefreak ought to achieve what he desires (hidden ought)
C1) Zefreak ought to stop posting in this thread (ought)"
Some might complain that the premise is common sense, but I find any amount of unclear or unstated assumptions will grind dialogue to a halt.
How does Gordon get from here…
to here
Gordon says that Rothbard admits he derives and out from it is, but says it is not fallacious (but does not prove it above), and then he says ethical principles follow from the nature of man. What is meant by that?
I don’t see what is proven here.
But what if the statement is viewed in the context of an axiom. For example, in Austrian Economics, is it not an axiom that humans act in order to achieve their desires? (von Mises definition of a rational human I believe)
Therefore, we need not mention that as a premise since “Zefreak ought to achieve what he desires (hidden ought)” merely follows from the axiom above. Which should always be assumed (in the case of humans).