Thanks[:D]
Absolutely.
Klemm has no justification in breaking Tom’s cabin.
When you infringe a property right there is never a justification for it. Now, when you are in an extreme survival situation I don’t think that you are going to stop and think about what is or not moral…
What Klemm has to do after breaking in Tom’s cabin is to repay the damages, both the moral and the material ones.
I get your point. Definition requires the law of identity. I should have said “the law of identity can create potential problems” instead of saying “I reject the law of identity.” The latter phrase can be very ambiguous.
Moral judgment requires empathy. Empathy is a biological instinct. Therefore, moral judgment depends on biological instincts.
Mises was a de facto psychological egoist. In Human Action, Mises made numerous claims that humans act to remove uneasiness.
Do all psychological egoists equate “satisfy one’s wants” with "attempts to satisfy one’s wants? The “actual experience” of satisfaction functions as a reinforcement signal that influences one’s attempts to satisfy or not satisfy the same want in the future.
In the above example of the killing someone for a drink, you trade off your desire to relieve thirst immediately to avoid the long-term expectation of guilt from killing him. You cannot “satisfy all your wants” because emotions constantly regulate, conflict, and trade off each other at the expense of other emotions. You cannot satisfy both your immediate desire to relieve thirst and your desire to not kill him at the same time. Desires constantly regulate other desires. Your desire to not kill him conflict with your immediate desire to relieve thirst. You cannot satisfy both.
How can you “maximize” both of these desires when they constantly regulate each other? It is too simplistic to assume that one can easily “add up” all the “utility functions” to one single utility function.
Preferences can also change. Utility functions are dynamic. How can you “maximize” one utility function when it can change? For example, I used to have no preference to debate with you on this forum. Now I have such a preference to debate with your guys because my preference has changed.
My point is that even though psychological egoism is logically consistent, it is far too simplistic because it avoids multiple conflicting desires, dynamic preferences, and that expectations do not equal actual experience.
The same thing occurs with Hoppe’s argumentation ethics. Even though argumentation ethics is logically consistent, it is far too simplistic because it disregards scenarios where a slave who does not own property but can argue. Argumentation ethics only assumes a black-and-white situation of either “no property rights” or “all property rights.” In the real world, there are many degrees of property ownership. Hoppe blatantly defends this black-and-white simplicity because this is the “a priori way” to do.
I also reject Descartes’ argument “cogito ergo sum” because it is far too simplistic. Although logically consistent, it is far too simplistic because it disregards the physiological complexities of the mind.
Logical consistency does not imply accuracy or soundness.
See my previous comments on the problems of maximizing pain and minimizing pleasure.
Also see Roderick’s Long critique of psychological egoism. Although I disagree with Roderick’s criticism and Aristotelian ethics, Roderick Long repeats the same points about multiple conflicting desires.
Can you give an example of a potential problem resulting from the law of non-contradiction?
edit: It seems foolish to claim that ethics depends on biology, when biology can only explain what is, not what should be. At most, biology and psychology can only explain why certain ethics are more attractive to individuals than others.
edit edit: You also disagree with the law of the excluded third? On what grounds!? Saying it is “too simplistic” as you have been, without justifying your assertion, is not what I am looking for.
No, it doesn’t. I don’t know where you got that nonsense from, but it certainly doesn’t disregard it. I suggest you re-read what Hoppe wrote.
[:)]
It would be good to get this thread back on track.
Maybe I will make a separate discussion with it… [;)]
But I still don’t see why this implies life is an end in itself, granted, every living person values their life, but that’s not to say that they don’t value it as a means to some other good: their family, their nation or even the “rest of society”.
Well, if I value life as the ultimate end, then I will want to do whatever I maximise it. At which point you may sure that this consists in living “a good life”, however, that is introducting other standards of value: namely rationality or whatever else “living a good life” means. If that is so then you cannot continue to maintain, as you have, that man’s life is the standard of value.
I’d want to do it because I value such a thing in and of itself, not as an addition to the value I place on my own life (although, the very fact that one can “add” something to ones ultimate value makes no sense, if you can add something to an ultimate value, then it isn’t an ultimate value).
What you’re essentially asking me here is “Given that life is (must be?) ones ultimate standard of value, why would I value [my nation/ my friends/ my family/ society/ whatever else] as my ultimate value?” Which obviously I can’t do. Which brings me to another point, you can’t say that killing oneself is immoral, because then life is not the ultimate standard of their value. But this means that life isn’t necessarily the standard of value of any individual, or, it needn’t be. In which case I don’t see how the Objectivist ethics can be just that - objective.
It seems to me what you’re doing is equivocating with regards to the word “should”, granted, I should live a good life. But that doesn’t mean I should live a good life in the moral sense of the word “should”. In other words, what you’re doing is taking the word good to mean that it promotes ones life (as in, it is a good means towards a given end that you or I hold, namely life) and saying that it is moral. I had thought this before, but Caplan’s essay made it clearer.
Why would it not be moral? Taken to an even more extreme level, if I lose my memory the moment I kill somebody, but keep their money, then clearly it may be in my long term interests to do so. In which case I don’t see how you can say that he is acting immorally.
But, as far as I’m aware, virtue ethicists try to ground their ethics in man’s nature as a rational being. However, if a rational being (which the man with memory loss could well be) has a different code of morality than another rational being how could this code of ethics be objective? Or at least, grounded in man’s nature as a rational animal?
Well, human beings are not born as a blank slate. So, I would disagree. There are certain parts of you that you cannot change, just like you cannot change the colour of your hair, you cannot change the fact that you feel uneasy about a beggar starving on the street corner, or a man kicking his dog.
By the way, Jon, if you wish to discontinue this at any time, it’s ok by me. I don’t really think I’m qualified to have this debate with you, and that we’re going around in circles. Which probably means that I’m not making myself clear, or don’t understand what you’re saying. In any case, I’ve got Liberty and Nature here and summer is approaching, so I’ll have time to come to terms with it soon, whether or not I’ll be convinced is another matter.
If life wasn’t an end in and of itself, why would someone still be alive? Why not commit suicide?
Because praxeology (and common sense) tells us that people value means, just necessarily less so than the end that they are means to. Which means that since life tends to be somewhat important in acheiving individual’s wants they will continue to maintain it, however, should life come into conflict with another, more important value, they will end it.
And, this is empirically true: people die for their nation, their God, their family, society, or for whatever other reason. Some people would even die just to kill somebody else.
In my mind, this is why I see a difference between pursuit of happiness (flourishing) and life. They are distinct in my opinion. I see life being a primary component of flourishing since how I interpret flourishing it has to do with human nature, which human nature is not just a birth-death cycle. They conflate with each other, but also can be reasonably distinguished.
From the perspective of human nature, I can live life and be a criminal of natural law and/or lack a quality life (poor health, slavery, poverty, etc…), amongst other things. But this doesn’t reach the potential of human nature which if a human be flourishing, then need not be a criminal or lack a quality life, etc… So I think while living, the ultimate end of life is to flourish, and not to simply live and potentially getting into all kinds of moral hazard events. There is a more ultimate end, than birth-death cycle life, and I think it is to flourish. At least isn’t that what were trying to do? Live the best life possible.
I don’t know how Rand sees any of this, haven’t read her works. I’m making a comment on an interesting discussion.
It strikes me that perhaps Jon and Giles are just talking past each other, yes a person can have personal ends that are uniquely their own, and they might be outwards oriented, (i.e. their family or friends etc). but Jon is making the point that its them that the family or friend is important to. I.e. Giles in your life your family might be who you strive and live for. whilst your family is therefore your own end, it is not an end for you divorced from your living but rather it can only be an end for you so long as you are engaged in actions (living), if you choose a death action as a way to promote your end (a sacrifice say) then after you are dead, of course you will then have both no ‘end’ and also no life. but prior to this, you have life and an end( or ends). the two go hand in hand. Its kind of existentialist, “find your own meaning in life, strive for your own ends”. (but you are doing this by actions in life, even the action to die is performed in life and only finds a terminus in death, if it is a chosen or purposeful death)
now please hug and make up.
Which they do (and which hardly requires psychology to be understood.)
Yeah, you’ve said so, and Mises already espouses that view anyway, that humans attempt to satisfy their wants (as does Rothbard, who after all refers to the ex ante benefits seen as arising in a transaction.) So, care to explain why this is relevant or is this just some pet peeve of yours…?
Right, whoever claimed all wants could ever be satiated?
You’re the one who spoke of maximisation so you tell me.
I don’t know, ask someone who thinks they can’t change? Like a neoclassical economist?
But it doesn’t, and if it did then Austrian economics is not based upon it because it recognises that preferences are dynamic and apt to change over time… and does not evoke the concept of maximisation.
Or all property rights reduce to one or the other (or the third alternative of all owning something, everything else being variants of these themes.) Then again I am not an adherent of arg-ethics, so whatever.
Yeah, thanks for the Logic 101.
I can see our actions grounded in life and completely dependent upon life. But I don’t even think the ultimate end of life is life (in the strictest sense of birth/death cycle). I think it’s to live the best life possible. Of course people go down dark paths and look back on their life and think, “Oh how I wasted all those years,” but that’s an affirmation of what they thought would have been a better life. A criminal may not look back and see his or her actions as “wasteful”, but they may actually love what they did and grovel in their blinded murderous deeds. But I don’t think a criminal is living human nature to it’s most beneficial or good end. And this is why we would want to stop criminals before it gets out of hand cause the rest of society perceives the danger to human nature in general if criminality became rampant.
This ^^^
Yes.
Can you elaborate on that ?
Maybe you can call empathy an instinct, though it doesn’t sound wholly accurate to me.
Well, without further clarification on your first point, I’m not sure what you mean.
I tried to move this discussion to another thread since we’ve veered from what this thread was about.
Fine, I think it might be better to resume the discussion once you’ve got a grasp of it.
Nir, this is exactly what I was attempting to explain to Jon and subsequently Bawaa. Praxeology tells us that people value the means to any end they wish to acheive, which obviates the “ok, then kill yourself” argument, since I believe life can be exactly that, a means to an end. That end can be any number of things.
Now, Roderick Long has a lecture more or less on this subject, so I’ll listen to that, since I suspect my objection will be answered. Until I’ve done that I don’t see much point discussing this further, as I told Jon.
And if you didn’t value the end, which is sustaining your life, you’d kill yourself. Pretty simple.