Define relevant. Do you mean relevant as in: capability to affect the world around us? Because by that definition neoconservatives are the most relevant people in modern US politics.
The entirety of the left spent 8 years laughing at George Bush. Who was made irrelevant during those 8 years? Did the laughter stop any wars? Did it reverse any erosion of our liberties?
You’re all wrong.
i’m at the rape part of the book, it says people can’t involuntary rape, but what about the sleepwalking rape cases and automatism? replace the word rape with othe initiation of force crimes done under autmatism.
First he talks about UPB not existing (ok, fine!), but then he talks about UPB being “objectively verifiable” or somehow related to “objective reality”. Er… sense no-makey.
Behaviour isn’t objective anyway, it’s just… behaviour. It’s a verb. Behaviour is not a “thing” (object). Behaviour is what objects (e.g. humans) do (hence, verb). A ball rolls. A man farts. I get the sense that objective does not mean what he thinks it means.
Objective means we attempt to rule out human observers (i.e. subjective interpetations) wherever possible in our dissertation.
There we run into a problem, clarifying what objective and subjective means. There are various ways to give meaning to those terms. To me this is mainly a question perspective. Subjective is from the perspective of a person in time and space. Since it is the point of view of a person it is a perception that has to go through that persons senses and a process of interpretation until it can be given that subjective meaning. Objective on the other hand is a birds eye perspective cleansed from certain influences blurring personal perceptions.
I think a discussion of ethics is lost on this site, or forum.
For the most part Mises’ ‘subjective value’ has, because of a misunderstanding of that term, attracted almost entirely young moral nihilists who reject any objective value or morality as being superstition. Even quite easy to understand and conventional ideas are rejected and nitpicked mercilessly to this end. “Oh you think I need food to live? What if I’m Terry Shiavo and I don’t like it?” “I can’t lie? But what if I need to a tell a girl she isn’t fat?!?!”
To them capitalism entails suffering anyone’s and everyone’s opinion of what is true or false, as well as their actions, without exception as long as they own property or money. A situation where even schizophrenic guy is just as rational as the most rigorous scientist. “Don’t use your psychologism on me! Stirner says that having an ego means you’re right on!”
Some subjectivity may just be better then others.
Concerning human need ist may just be valid to work with some general minimum assumptions.
Also consider the confusion of methodological individualism with prescriptive political or cultural individualism.
You could be right. Truth be told I’ve only found out ‘facile’ was a word at all reading this article.
You are just so cute!
This is pretty spot on. For every respectable subjectivist, there’s a handful of extremists taking things out of context. You see the same sort of thing with the is-ought gap or Mises’ quote “there is no science of oughts.” Somehow this gets translated into: “there is no such thing as ought.”
One thing that was interesting to me about the exchange is this: What do we find out about David Gordon from reading his piece? Well we find out what he thinks of Stef, his book and the goal Stef had set out to accomplish in writing it, which is what his article is about. In other words we don’t find out anything about David Gordon that isn’t the theme of the article.
Meanwhile what do we find out about Stef from his reply? That is, what do we find out about him beyond what is the theme of his reply (ie that his book does not suck and why he thinks that is the case). We find out:
a.) That he has contacted mises.org about publishing his reply
b.) That he is always sceptical when a review starts with insults
c.) That he has studied playwriting and acting at the National Theatre School in Montréal
d.) That he spent a long time writing his book
e.) That he was disappointed at David for not discussing his seven ethical categories
No wonder he feels insulted when he can not seperate himself from his work. The discussion should be about the book Stef, who cares where you studied to be a playwright, etc.
Normative statements are statements about the world as it ought to be. Positive statements are statements about the world as it is. A statement can be both normative and positive, such as “Murder is against the law in America and ought to be against the law in America”, but you can see that there are really two separate thoughts in that statement.
I don’t know who is saying that there is no such thing as an ought, as it seems pretty obvious that people can make ought statements. But this does not mean that normative statements are objective. They are always subjective. If you’ve read any of my posts, you would notice that I very much have an opinion as to what morality ought to be. But just because I have an opinion does not make it objective, and I fully recognize that there are other people who do not share my opinions.
John Ess’s post completely misses the point of people who realize the truth that morality is subjective. His post his straw man heaven.
gotlucky,
Consider the statement: “If you want to acheive goal Y, then you ought to take action X.”
It isn’t normative, and it isn’t subjective. Action X is the best way to achieve goal Y – this is a fact about reality and doesn’t change based on your opinion. This is exactly the problem that I was agreeing with John about. There is a huge difference between morality being individualized and being subjective. The former says “the best way for me to live my life might not be the best way for you to live yours” and the latter says “the best way for anyone to live their life is whatever they think it is.”
For the record
a quick description on subjectivism:
The world of nature and the social world consists of facts The social world consists of facts within the perspectives of acting individuals on how they see these facts. If one is thinking of any form of or category of sociology, anthropology, ontology, epistemology, or if we must say it ethics, etc in relation of man to the social world - we are distinct from a natural science, or some abstract “platonic” world of triangles, etc in that we have to pay attention to these facts no less than to the facts themselves.
I don’t think most of us “subjectivists” are straying from this line of thought. Once again, I think the word “perspectivist”, or maybe even something like “kaledics” may be less confusing words for people who think we are misunderstanding things.
One thing that was interesting to me about the exchange is this: What do we find out about David Gordon from reading his piece? Well we find out what he thinks of Stef, his book and the goal Stef had set out to accomplish in writing it, which is what his article is about. In other words we don’t find out anything about David Gordon that isn’t the theme of the article.
Very well said, Marko. Dave Gordon is a professional.
Maybe I should start doing that as well. I remember when I was in high school…oops.
That is a normative statement. It is subjective. You are stating that you think action X is the best way to achieve goal Y. This is entirely different from the following statement:
That is not a normative statement, however some people may still use the word “must” as “ought”, in which case the sentence means entirely the same thing. To say “if you want to live, you ought to eat” is a strange statement. You have a duty to eat? No. Is this advice? Strange to call “an opinion offered” objective. A far more accurate statement is “If you want to live, then you must eat”. There are no two ways about it.
Those two words don’t belong together in the same thought. If it is the “best” way, then it is your opinion about what the best way is. “If you are hungry, then you ought to eat”, that is an opinion. There are all sorts of reasons why someone might choose not to eat when they are hungry. “If you don’t want to die of starvation, then you must eat”, that is a fact. But the two statements do not mean the same thing.
You keep throwing around the word “best”. There is no objective idea “best”. It is an opinion. And your statement about subjective morality is just a straw man. Not everyone shares the same morality. Nevermind individualizing it, there are people who just plain don’t agree about morality. Murderers think murder is good (at least at the time of the murder). I believe murder is wrong. We have our own subjective viewpoints. Neither is objectively right. Obviously I think my opinion is right, but it’s not right in any objective sense. The mere fact that there are murderers demonstrates that morality is not objective. People do, in fact, have different ideas about what is moral.
You can’t wish that fact away by stating that people who recognize this are moral nihilists. A fact is a fact is a fact, even if you name call (not that you did, but John Ess certainly did).
“If you want to acheive goal Y, then you ought to take action X.”
This is a subjective statement. You left an option open
Perhaps better stated:
“If you wish to achieve X, Y must be done”
If you wish to take that view, we can start there.
Nya nya, Vive! I beat you to it! I win.
lol. Well, I guess I’ll bow out disgracefully from this discussion than.
No, come back! I was just teasing
Vive,
I think the problem is that some of the more “extreme” subjectivists constantly lose sight of the fact that we are already immersed in the world, that there is always a context. Case in point:
I never use the word objective in my post, let alone talk about “objective best.” You’ve made nonsense out of this because you’ve stripped away the context. In the context of acheiving a goal, some actions are better than others, and there is nothing wrong with finding a best one.
People have different ideas about physics. Does that mean physics is subjective? No, of course not. Don’t confuse beliefs about X with X itself.
Regarding ought vs. must:
“If you want to acheive goal Y, then you ought to take action X.”
The reason I don’t say must is because its not really a must. If I want to be a successful musician, what is it that I must do? Practice my instrument everyday? Well, isn’t it possible that I become successful without doing that? I say I ought to practice everyday, because it is conducive to that end, it is more likely to help me acheive it.
Just because I can choose to do otherwise doesn’t make it subjective, it just means that I have the free will (don’t take this to mean anymore than it does in the context) to either act in accordance with or against this prescription. Must vs. ought is more of a debate about certainty, not about subjectivity.