As long as he has a post somewhere on here that doesn’t say “natural rights” those three propositions aren’t inconsistent.
Thank you for being as perceptive as I was Solid in catching onto to those quotes of mine.
Those are some awesome quotes of mine.
Nothin’ wrong in giving myself a pat on the back every once in awhile. It’s good for the spirit.
The terms ‘natural law’ and ‘natural rights’ just seem to confuse things. Isn’t this debate really just about subjective/objective ethics? i.e. take the phrase “stealing is wrong”, where stealing is defined with reference to the libertarian conception of property rights. Is this statement similar to:
- “Paris is the capital of France” (Objective), or
- “The Godfather is the best film ever made” (Subjective)
Wilderness is arguing that “stealing is wrong” is a fact like Paris being the capital of France. So he is saying “stealing is wrong” is a correct statement, and anyone arguing the opposite would be making an incorrect statement.
Grayson is arguing that “stealing is wrong” is opinion like The Godfather being the best film ever made. So he is saying “stealing is wrong” is just a preference, and anyone arguing the opposite would not be incorrect, but merely expressing a different preference.
All of us libertarians hold the view that stealing is wrong; the dispute is about what kind of statement this is. It’s an important question. If someone was claiming that Madrid is the capital of France, we would argue with him by referring to facts: we’d say “you’re incorrect” and then present proof. If someone was claiming that Jeepers Creepers is the best film ever made, we’d consider them misguided and strange but not incorrect, and we’d use persuasion and appeals to his tastes to try and convince them that The Godfather is actually a better film (“better actors!”,“better cinematography!”, etc), if that was our aim.
Subjective ethicists argue against the State by claiming “the State has bad consequences” and “the State stops you doing what you want”. Objective ethicists add the additional claim that Statists are actually making an error and that non-libertarian systems of ethics are actually incorrect, rather than just misguided and strange. The long tradition of natural rights theorists is the search for proof of that error; proof that libertarian ethics is, in fact, correct. Subjective ethicists believe they are chasing a chimera, because ethics has no correct or incorrect answers.
First off, I want to thank you for this fully thought out post.
Secondly, that’s not fully correct on what I’m saying.
I am saying stealing is wrong.
Not simply “stealing is wrong”.
After all, it is my theory.
- thank you
Right, but if you encounter someone who claimed “stealing is sometimes OK” would you think to yourself ‘this guy is incorrect’ (like you would if he claimed Madrid was the capital of France), or ‘this guy has a view I disagree with’ (like you would if he claimed Jeepers Creepers is the best film ever)?
In this possible world:
I am thinking [1] and He is thinking [1].
I am thinking his thinking is [2]. He is thinking my thinking is [2].
I am thinking [1] and I am thinking he is thinking my thinking is [2]. He is thinking [1] and he is thinking that I am thinking his theory is [2].
I am thinking [1] and [2] because I am thinking of my theory and I am also thinking of his theory. I am thinking during this thought experiment of my theory and his theory.
- thank you.
I’ll have to side with Grayson Lilburne and Liberté here.
Frankly, I don’t see why it is so tough to accept that any ethical system (including natural rights of any stripe and color) is by its very nature unable to bridge the is-ought gap. You cannot conclude that because something is, another thing should be. Furthermore, any ethical system is grounded in premises that constitute either arbitrary definitions of right or wong or extensions of these.
There just is no way to “objectively prove” the ethical correctness of a system of preferences. It saddens me that the field of libertarian theory, whose economic and historical applications bear so much potential, has been increasingly occupied by those who wish to put a square peg into a round hole. It’s ultimately an exercise in rhetorics that will most likely backfire.
Stubborn advocates of natural rights theory are giving the same impression of themselves as the current pope when he criticized the “dictatorship of relativism”: desperate defenders of a brittle system of values trying to immunize themselves from criticism.
Libertarianism has so much more to offer than a futile attempt to prove its “rightness”. I would advise everyone to explore these fruitful areas instead of spending even more valuable time with an idea discredited and disproven long ago.
Spahiron,
Thank you.
1 - This thread is not about the is-ought gap. There is material on that, that is very interesting but I would point you else where. Plenty of extant philosophers that I’ve read in association with the Mises Institute and some who may have never even heard of the Mises Insitute have either ended the debate or still debate it. But not this thread.
2 - Prove natural rights are disproved. Your post didn’t even address the nature of this thread. Sorry Spahiron, but maybe you were looking for another thread possibly?
3 - Now to the nature of this thread. Prove my theory of value judgments is wrong.
How are natural rights anything else than
a) an attempt to make an objective value judgment independent of individual preferences and
b) an attempt to bridge the is-ought gap?
I believe my post has found its proper place, wilderness.
I don’t know of any person that makes a theory that doesn’t originate with the person. Do you?
We are not talking about the is/ought gap in this thread. You could check the Rothbard v. Hume thread in Active Topics. It has addressed this. Unless of course you possibly could tie that into the OP.
Ok. You believe that to be so. But I am saying it is not. Check the OP. I wrote it. Thank you.
Not that I don’t think you can’t contribute to this thread. I do not believe that at all. You can contribute in a meaningful way and I do not doubt your intellectual skill. I am simply addressing this thread that’s all.
Natural rights, as a part of natural law, do not contain oughts, and therefore, in this context, there is no gap. Natural rights theory claims that I have the right to exclusive control of my person and property. It makes no claim that others shouldn’t, or are unable to, violate that right. If you steal from me, you have simply violated my rights. Where is the ought?
I just want to know which one you choose, if you feel someone robbing you is good or bad.
I almost just replied to this, then I remembered I can waste my time in better ways.
Sphairon,
I apologize. I thought the post I was thinking about was in the Rothbard v. Hume thread. Though undoubtedly that thread brought it up, but it was this thread that introduced more detail. Here was my response.
Essentially the two methods that clear away the imaginary construct of the is/ought purely analytic, non-grounded abstract, those two methods in meaningful substance are founded upon “is-ness”. As Jack pointed out in his post.
Of course to maintain the target of this thread, what I say above is essentially my theorizing.
- thanks.
Wilderness, your last post to me was confusing to me. I don’t see why what the other guy is thinking matters. You are comparing your theory (“stealing is wrong”) against his theory (“stealing is sometimes OK”). When you do this, do you feel like a physicist (trying to show that your theory is correct and his theory is incorrect) or a film critic (trying to convince him to adopt your preferences)?
The subjective ethicists would say that no statist could possibly do this, because your/our theory of value judgments (libertarianism) is neither correct nor incorrect. It’s simply a preference we all share. Our preference that libertarianism is the best ethical theory cannot be proven either correct or incorrect, just like the preference that The Godfather is the best film ever cannot be proven either correct or incorrect.
I really like your thoughtful input into this discussion. I really appreciate this.
It certainly does matter or else we wouldn’t know what he is claiming, correct?
It depends on what you mean by “comparing”. I believe that is a key point in knowing because I don’t want to knock the discussion into acquiring an assumption that either you or I are holding but not letting each other explicitly know. We may be holding two different assumptions on what you mean by “comparing” here and if we go far into the discussion holding two different assumptions we may find ourselves straying very far from each other in understanding. Then we may be wondering what created this ‘stray’ when it is too late possibly.
I am approaching this from he already has made a claim and I differ from his claim. At this point there is no convincing to adopt like a film critic and trying to show him the evidence like a physicists will do no good either. I am assuming that he holds his claim with certainty. I believe there is more to this, but I will wait for a response to “comparing” above.
Right.
The preferencing is what we all share. I don’t think everybody shares my theory. Everybody else in the world has their theory, though undoubtedly some theories cross paths and range in similarity.
Depends on what you are trying to prove. If you are trying to prove that libertarianism has to be maintained by certain socio-economic actions cerberus paribus those are the socio-economic actions that maintain any particular libertarian society. If B is the goal and A are the means to B, then doing A cerberus paribus the goal of B will happen. If you are trying to prove that private property is a necessary condition of economic action in a society, ie. an aggregrate of individuals, that desires certain socio-economic conditions, then the laws based on the protection of private property cerberus paribus maintain that particular society.
He is just expressing his subjective preferences and calling it his “natural law”.
By expressing your ultimate ends and then, through economics and other sciences, proving that the existence of “the state” is means to not achieving those ends.
A combination of my ultimate ends and my proof of what means are causally linked to them.
The conclusion relies on “a mere matter of preference”, yes.
It matters to me. It also matters to those people who share them with me.
Why should I want a claim over “any sense of universal justice”?
It does indeed; but whether that is true or not depends not on just on how uncomfortable it feels.
In metaphor, such is society. See this post, this post, including my quotations, and this post.
And the major flaw of the market is that it is not in a state of “perfect competition”. What I mean is that, whether or not reality conforms to a model, like what you are saying, the “perfect competition” model, or whatever, is not relevant to whether or not it is true, at least not directly. What I am saying might be uncomfortable to hold; but that does not impair its validity and soundness. If you want to try to disprove that it make sense, do it; but just appealing to your model of what you would like the situation to be and then blaming reality for not conforming to it is not helpful.
OK, bad wording on my part. What I mean is it doesn’t matter to you whether he thinks of ethics as an objective or a subjective discipline.
Comparing is what a person does immediately before an argument. When someone comes to this forum claiming “stealing is sometimes OK” you and I both compare that theory against the one that we both hold: “stealing is always wrong”. Through the act of comparing, we find that the two theories are different - so either we’re correct and he’s incorrect (or vice versa), or it’s all a matter of opinion with no one correct and no one incorrect.
You and I, at least, share the same basic theory when it comes to what is ethical/unethical; invasions of property rights are unethical. I am sure we would disagree over what the best film ever made is. If you disagree with my claim that The Godfather is the best film ever made, and I want you (for whatever reason) to agree with my claim, I will pitch the argument a certain way, tailored to your preferences, to try and convince you. If you claim the Earth is flat, it would be a very different kind of argument, I’d refer to science, evidence, and proof. When we argue with statists, we need to know what kind of argument we’re having.
Austrian economics proves these things. Its one step back from that. We first have to agree on whether we ought to adopt “maintain society” as a goal. As a value-free science, economics tells us that if we want to “maintain society” then private property is the best means for acheiving that end. Ethics is about what our ends should be, not what means we should use to acheive our ends.
If the objective ethicists are right, there will be a way of objectively proving, using logic, that everyone should adopt libertarianism as an ethic, and anyone who has a different ethic is incorrect, the same way that someone who thinks Madrid is the capital of France is incorrect. Has Hoppe done this with argumentation ethics? I honestly don’t know. (If you want to discuss Hoppe’s attempt specifically, I will have to remind myself of the arguments made by both sides by looking up old threads.)
An interesting video.
‘I am saying that is the only kind of ‘natural rights’ and ‘natural law’ that make any sense.’
Hobbes isn’t a natural rights theorist.
‘For many people, the pen is more powerful than the sword. But it is all power, and nothing but power.’
Wonderful platitude.
‘Some semblence of propertarian jurisprudential practices arise among various parties, allowing economic calculation and incetive alignment. The material effect of this allows them to rapidly overwhelm barbarized people.’
And what develops this sense of propertarianism? You cannot make law without existing morality.
'People find it in their own interest to arbitrate and develop norms that suit these interests. They enforce these through their power.’
Which contradicts your blog motif about everyone being at war with one another. So which is it?
‘I don’t ‘oppose the state’, at least in any normative sense. I am not ‘against’ the state, except wherein the state is ‘against’ me. I find most political theories and pro-state arguments to be absurd, but there is nothing ‘wrong’ with the state in some absolute sense.’
Those questions were addressed to a more general audience. I know your position on the state.
‘It matters to me. I’m not concerned about other people’s preferences.’
If you are no concerned with the preferences of others then I submit you cannot function for even simple exchange requires atunement to the interest of another individual.
**'**No, morality would be the most unstable foundation for justice. Actual justice (that is to say, jurisprudence) is founded upon the self-perceived interests of the parties involved in it. It is not (and never could be) anything else.
Like I said, talking to you people is pointless. It’s like you’ve never read ANY philosophy outside of the raving crankery on Mises.org or Rand novels.’
Morality is how law develops. This isn’t some Rousseauian fantasy where the great legislator can make up laws and people atune their moral value to it after.