No, because I can value my life as a means to other ends.
I really think this discussion is getting circular cause it’s depending on adjectives and other additions to what life is to different people. “good life”, “sustaining your life”, “my life to other ends”. All about life, but I still think life is a basic birth/death cycle and so there is more than just surviving, in other words, simply life. There is more. Life itself has a more ultimate end. So if life (merely surviving) has a more ultimate end, then life isn’t the ultimate end. It’s a ground to a more ultimate end called flourishing.
And yet you can’t act if you’re not alive.
Check and mate.
Yes, which just proves that I need my life to acheive something else. In other words: it a means to another end (which is why I’ve been saying).
I disagree with both of you, LS and nirgrahamUK, due to I don’t think either of you are being distinct enough.
Living is not the ultimate end in and of itself for numerous reasons. For instance, my dog, a criminal, and a statist live the birth-death cycle (life). I do not call living these lives an ultimate end. Yet if I were to say, as both of you are saying, that life is the ultimate end then being a statist is a fulfillment of this ultimate need/end called life. I disagree that a statist is living the ultimate end. Though clearly a statist is living life. So life is an end, but not an ultimate end.
An ultimate end needs to be defined better than simply life or else I could be a statist and living my ultimate end. That is clearly not enough for me, and I clearly do not pursue that end. Why else would I be here in this forum if living life was all I needed as an end? So clearly life is not the ultimate end for a rational animal.
To say the ultimate end is life is not being distinct enough in what the effort and pursuance is of a rational animal. There is a further telos for a rational animal. There is a further, more distinct ultimate end, than simply the birth-death cycle (life). This more ultimate end that can be rationalized and made clearly distinct from living the birth-death cycle (life) is to live a good life, in other words, a flourishing, excellent, and quality life.
Living a flourishing life is not living a statist life. Yet they are both living and both have achieved the end called life. So life as an ultimate end is not enough. Life is a ground to a further ultimate end called flourishing or quality.
And yet you can’t act if you’re not alive. So it’s an end, because you’re sustaining your life so you can act.
Again: very simple.
It’s an end or an ultimate end? Cause a statist lives life and if that’s the ultimate end, then why bother? Life is a ground (an end) to a more ultimate end called quality or flourishing. Life is not enough to make distinctions between a dog, statist, and libertarian. As rational animals we can make these distinctions and know life is an end, but not an ultimate end.
I have never maintained that living is the ultimate end, i.e. that what is aimed at is life. rather I was explaining how having aims is an activity living things engage in and that the aims they strive towards determine how they ‘use’ their lives. ends are not possible without life, and the ends are precisely ends that have a relationship to ones life. I am not comortable with the ‘flourishing’ jargon. I plan on reading Aristotle as Jon seems to put a lot of stake in his ethics and I respect Jon’s opinion in these things.
And I can’t print documents without a printer, that doesn’t mean that the printer is my end. It’s just a means.
Likewise, I sustain my life so I can acheive other goals: whatever they may be.
It is the end which makes all other ends possible.
Without your life, you can’t have any goals.
Excellent! If you remember some time back we had a private conversation. This is exactly what I was saying then - exactly. Do you remember the word “better” I was using? Flourishing is living a better life. This was the distinction I was trying to make the whole time. This is exactly what the book, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” and “Lila” (both by Robert Pirsig) is all about. It is about quality. This is why I’ve been able to understand this without ever having read Aristotle, though, I intend to read up on some Aristotle to read up on quality some more. I knew quality, but I didn’t realize that the pursuit of happiness and flourishing fit into the same sphere until about 6 to 2 months ago respectively.
Makes them possible, so therefore, life is not the ultimate end. If life were the ultimate end, then being a statist fulfills all needs, and I disagree with that assertion. So life is an end, but not the ultimate end. Quality is the ultimate end.
well, i think in the context of ‘lives’ the word ‘better’ will be so personal as to not really be useful. I mean… any individual at any time might have some ultimate goals, that by virtue of the fact that they are their goals, we must call them better goals than other goals which currently are not that persons end, but they are just better for that person, only by virtue of the fact that they are. so it almost seems trite to say that they are ‘better’.
I really dont understand ‘flourishing is living the better life’, the only way I can interpret this with some meaning in is to assume that it is a statement about circumstances. I.e. someone would call themselves flourishing if they feel their life is broadly going how they would want it to go… but then im pretty sure that thats not what you mean, and that i dont know what you mean by it…
“The relationship between life and ultimate ends is one of praxeological compatibility, complementarity, and reciprocal reinforcement” [:P]
head explodes
Thank you, LS. Glad to see you’re as hardcore as ever. It amazes me that some individuals cannot see how they defeat their own arguments or introduce circular logic.
Finally, the question for which I have seen no answer: who is to decide what is justified? (In the context of property violation.)
To hopefully add something to the conversation… I have refined what I believe to be my personal viewpoint on what it means to be a libertarian:
Each individual possesses a single right: freedom from aggression against legitimately acquired property, absent initiatory aggression on the part of the individual.
To express this another way… individuals have no “right to free speech” or “right to privacy”, etc. Instead, those things are implicitly attained through the absence of initiatory aggression against them. For instance, privacy can be attained by constructing four walls and a roof. Because your property is protected, so are those additional things afforded to you by your property.
Well you would need to think it through and I need to think it through too. This is what we do in this forum the whole time. We have established for ourselves that ridding the State is better than having the State. It is a preference to be a libertarian. I think it is better than being a statist and I know you think the same. And I have rational arguments as to why I think it is better. Better is a small word with a huge amount of meaning. That’s the beauty of what is good. Good goes a long way and involves a huge amount of intellectual pursuance. I think there is definitely a quality to libertarian ways that statists lack.
It is how somebody “would want it to go”. To say, “flourishing is living the better life”, is a statement I could make about anything. A statist could say it. So we intellectually pursue an even better argument than a statist. Better is a pivot and ever-expanding conclusion in a persons life as long as what’s better is their telos. To strive for something that is better in life can be achieved by numerous means. Reasoning can lead to a better life as we can see in this forum what is better is argued all the time and sometimes what is better is argued very competitively. How do we know who’s argument is better? Reasoning is a very useful method to make the distinction between a good argument and a bad argument. We reason the free market is better than a centrally planned economy. But how we come to this conclusion are by various methods. And that is why flourishing or quality are an ultimate end cause to simply live life (birth-death cycle) is not enough for a rational animal. We want liberty (which is a virtue of flourishing).
I prefer to be rid of the state, I have reasons for my preference, (economics, morality etc.) , I think there are some horrible people (outright criminals and thorough statists) that actually deserve the state, it would be a fitting punishment. freedom for us libertarians, statism for them statists. This is a tangent though, how does the presence or absence of a state tie into my life ‘flourishing’ or ‘otherwise’, are you just saying i cant flourish under the state?, but only in freedom? if so, this only falls out from the fact that it is my personal aim to be free of the state, and so naturally if i am not free of the state, I am lacking an end, and so in that manner of speaking I may not ‘have flourished’, but I was finding it a lot more straightforward to talk about these issues without introducing (what to me) is obscure terminology. It seems like the flourishing that is being pushed is just a checklist of (what do I want, versus have i got it). But im quite sure this is different to what Rand and Jon etc are saying. so I guess thats enough until one of them can contribute 
That’s our argument in a nutshell - yes; except I don’t think there a people that deserve the State. I think they were diverted from a quality of life that is achievable. I tend to think it’s more sad than anything. I feel a bit empathetic. Under the State I don’t flourish as much as I would in freedom. My flourishing is suppressed. The State achieves a certain slavery upon us.
I think you understand. Flourishing happens to each individual in various ways. It is based upon a desire, but a desire that is good. A statist may become stagnant and happy with their life. Obama, Brown, Rothschilds, and Bernanke think they are doing what’s best for the U.S. and world. But are they really doing what’s best for people? I don’t think they are doing what’s best. I think there is a better way. Are they really helping or are they really hurting people? I think they are hurting people.
It’s not very useful if what is better is marginalized by a society that is, for example, more criminal than lawful. Yet what you and I find better when it comes to the free market is not completely personal. We agree on these issues. So you are not alone.