Knowing that human action is self-evident, and presumptions laid aside that this is all underlined by individuality, etc… I have a question.
Does wertfreiheit simply mean objective?
By objective, I mean independent of the agent’s biases, prejudices, and beliefs.
No; whether objective or subjective is a question of the material propositions (i.e. subjective preferences and subjective expectations or objective technological proportions or objective ideas).
What werfreiheit means is that the agent who combines these material propositions in a formal way does not reject any particular outcomes provided by logical inference because he dislikes them; rather, he is only concerned with whether they are true or not.
Truth cannot either be called objective or subjective, because material propositions can be both, and both types of material propositions (else their contraries) can be true. I borrow J.J. Toohey’s definition of true from his 1939 paper: “we may define a truth as (a piece of) information about a specified object, and a falsity as misinformation about a specified object” (504). Truth means full or partial identity with an object (or also a subject in the case of economic theory).
When Mises talks about value-freedom (wertfreiheit), he is referring to this:
(from “Economics and Judgments of Value” in Human Action)
"An economist investigates whether a measure a can bring about the result p for the attainment of which it is recommended, and finds that a does not result in p but in g. an effect which even the supporters of the measure a consider undesirable. If this economist states the outcome of his investigation by saying that a is a bad measure, he does not pronounce a judgment of value. He merely says that from the point of view of those aiming at the goal p, the measure a is inappropriate. In this sense the free-trade economists attacked protection. They demonstrated that protection does not, as its champions believe, increase but, on the contrary, decreases the total amount of products, and is therefore bad from the point of view of those who prefer an ampler supply of products to a smaller. It is in this sense that economists criticize policies from the point of view of the ends aimed at. If an economist calls minimum wage rates a bad policy, what he means is that its effects are contrary to the purpose of those who recommend their application.
…
In this sense we may say that economics is apolitical or nonpolitical, [p. 885] although it is the foundation of politics and of every kind of political action. We may furthermore say that it is perfectly neutral with regard to all judgments of value, as it refers always to means and never to the choice of ultimate ends."
I actually just had this same Mises quote up from Block on Reinach and Rothbard:
When I say objective (the definition I gave), I meant from the point of view of the scientist. Would that still fit? It seems to, but maybe not let me know, because if the scientist isn’t injecting their bias into what is, ie. ontic, and instead is theorizing on the ontic without trying to skew or distort what is with their own preconceptions, then what is includes (as I had already stated in the OP that this all presupposes human action and individuality) subjectivity in preferences, thoughts, feelings, atoms, chairs, single-celled organisms, etc…
Here’s another way of putting it maybe, but it doesn’t use the word “objective” the way I thought it would mean as I tried to provide a definition, but here’s the other explanation of what I thought meant being objective, because I am using the term ‘objective’ in the ontological sense which therefore entails truth or not.
What do you think?
Well, back to the original question about human action. The method here is axiomatic-deductive. The logical proof A->B is there for anyone wishing to do the experiment to see (to paraphrase Rothbard). So, it is wertfrei. The concern with personal bias and such comes when we play the role of historian or in making predictions.
But the first conjunction, e.g., “Austrian law” does present difficulties, at
least at the outset. After all, if “Austrian” means anything in common academic
parlance, it refers not to law, nor yet to a nation in Europe, but to economics.2
And this subject matter constitutes of course a value free, (Rothbard 1973b, pp.
35–39 and Block 1975, pp. 38–41) or positive science. Law, in sharp contrast, is
anything but positive3; rather, it is very much of a normative enterprise. We
have it on good authority,4that never the twain shall meet: specifically, that
from positive premises no normative conclusions at all can be drawn; or, alter-
natively, that one cannot derive an “ought” from an “is.” Since economics per-
tains to the realm of the “is,” and law to the “ought,” this translates into the
denial that from economics one can derive legal principles. If so, then there
can be nothing which can be described by “Austrian law”; any such termi-
nology must refer not merely to a null set, but to an actual contradiction in
terms.
Mises thought he had found a way around this difficulty, but ultimately he
did not. In his view, it was reasonable to deduce what the law ought to be from
purely economic considerations, provided only that we take as a given the
utility of the normal or average man, who is in this case the typical advocate
of government intervention, as the lodestar of our analysis.
He stated:
"An economist investigates whether a measure acan bring about the result
pfor the attainment of which it is recommended, and finds that adoes not
result in pbut in g, an effect which even the supporters of the measure a
consider undesirable. If the economist states the outcome of his investi-
gation by saying that ais a bad measure, he does not pronounce a judg-
ment of value. He merely says that from the point of view of those aiming
at the goal p, the measure ais inappropriate. (Mises 1998, p. 879)"
Mises did not try to find “a way around” the “difficulty” of the is/ought divide. He did not think of it as a “difficulty” in the first place; he fully embraced it as necessary for clear thinking.
Also Block is conflating two different things: Mises’ conception of liberalism and Mise’s conception of praxeology.
What Block describes when he writes, “In his view, it was reasonable to deduce what the law ought to be from purely economic considerations, provided only that we take as a given the utility of the normal or average man, who is in this case the typical advocate of government intervention, as the lodestar of our analysis,” is Mises’ conception of liberalism, which, as Mises clearly states, is a political doctrine, and not a scientific theory. Thus, Misesian liberalism cannot be correctly viewed as an attempt to discover “oughts” with pure science, because liberalism is not science.
Conversely, the passage from Human Action which Block quotes does not discuss liberalism, but rather economic science. This can be seen by the fact that the quote is not from the part of Human Action which discusses liberalism, but is from the part which discusses praxeology and value judgments in general; but mostly it can be seen in the fact that the goals in the description are variables; there are no “common man” concrete valuations involved, as you would have in a description of the political doctrine of liberalism.
Again this can only refer to the political doctrine of liberalism. And, contrary to Block’s and Rothbard’s depiction, advocates of liberalism, according to Mises, do not presume to know “what is in the mind of the advocate of interventionism”. Mises states this clearly:
“The champions of liberal doctrines are fully aware of the fact that their teachings are valid only for people who are committed to these valuational principles.”
Lilburne, I was about to head to bed so I will have to give you a proper response tomorrow. I just happened to be looking at the same quote as I went to reread that paper on Rothbard & Reinach. I have been also rereading Human Action, slowly and thoroughly. Let me just ask you this for now, what is Block basing this on?:
It seems like Rothbard then is looking at the broader scope of praxeology, in 1977 prior to Hoppe’s argumentation ethics. Now, I really don’t want to drive this thread too far afield, but consider this passage from Hoppe:
No worries.
Like I said, he’s describing Mises’ conception of the political doctrine of liberalism.
Well, (b) and (c) are false.
I would argue (b) and (c) are true. Its similar in form to Destutt de Tracy’s (also true argument) that all people have property because self-property is presupposed in the idea of ‘I’. Hoppe’s position is different (its in his 1995 collection of three essays), but its also a prior synthetic; based around the concept of argument = action.
Anyway; “value-free” means that whatever logical outcome appears is what is accepted. The economist must not say that one logical outcome “should be different because X or Y or I prefer it to be different.” A logical outcome is neither “good” or “bad”; merely “true” or false." "Good or “bad” are the subjective material propositions, not ways of judging the outcome.
I really am not prepared still to comment on the points Lilburne raised, but I am not just passing them over (nice day/ family visiting [:D] ). I need to find a few sections within HA, but Mises isn’t the central focus of the paper I linked anyhow. Also, in regards to what thelion just said, I agree. I think that we can coherently use words like “good” and “evil”, but prior to this, I am thinking about symmetry & asymmetry, intersection & disjunction.
Lilburne, I have a question, but first let me explain how I came to ask it:
I read what you posted about Mises saying economics simply tries to determine what is the best way to get from point A to point B.
Do you think he came to what he called “liberalism” as a result of the conclusions he came to in economics of how to get from point A to point B?
I guess this is a sort of chicken or the egg question, but I’m genuinely curious about the direction of his thought process. Was it from political to economic or from economic to political?
I hope this question makes sense.
Mises was a socialist before he began his studies into economics
What kind of socialist?
Someone should make a thread on the relationship between politics and economics.
Wow that’s amazing.
Interesting because my movement from left to right was mostly based on political reasoning (what I wanted to see society look like.) I tried to find an economics school that I could use to back up what I wanted to see done politically.
Btw, even if you don’t agree with the terms “left” and “right” as I’ve used them here, I think you probably still get what I’m saying. Just preempting.
There is no such thing. Ethics is precisely about questions of value. It is value-laden.
Then, once again, it isn’t (normative) ethics.
Justification isn’t purely analytic.
This is absolutely false for reasons that have been explained ad nauseum. Hoppe is engaging in simple sophistry.
Trying to stick to the OP, but it’s fine that people are bringing up some interesting points, but I would like to go back in this post to what I was trying to figure out.
When you say, thelion, above is what I would consider being objective.
For example, since this seemed to be something that may have initially had yourself state “no”:
John is angry.
I know John is angry.
I know John is angry, not because I inject my own bias or prejudice into the state of emotions thereby it is only my opinion that John is angry when he might not actually be angry. Rather John is angry no matter what I think about John’s state of emotions. John is really angry. It is a fact that John is angry. That’s being objective ontologically, or being a realist. Isn’t that being ‘value-free’, in other words, wertfreiheit? I say yes.
The value of the physical attacker is different from the value of the physical maintainer. A scientific ethic studies both sides, but that isn’t necessarily the ethical scientist view but rather the facts as to what an attacker does and what a maintainer does. And which one is logical and which one isn’t. Hoppe can logically come to the conclusions of this conflict, but that doesn’t mean Hoppe personally follows the logic of the attacker or the maintainer. He has described the logic of both and shown where instances of the attacker or maintained are logically false. What Hoppe does in his spare time isn’t necessarily brought up.
As thelion pointed out Hoppe isn’t talking about “purely analytic”, but rather synthetic aprior.
No it is not false. If you’re bringing back up Brainpolice’s property theory, then that’s a conflation into Hoppe’s property theory. In the natural law tradition property includes property in ones person.
Edit: With Hoppe as well, I don’t want to exclude this, with his argumentation ethics he is basing that off of human action (which action goes back to Aristotle as well as what follows); and argumentation in Aristotelian acknowledges Aristotle’s works that make explicit a philosophic attack (epicheirein) and defend (hupechein) also known as ‘maintain’. These are the argumentative roles discussed in his Prior Analytics, Topics, and Posterior Analytics (maybe others I’m not sure).