What book is "Tu Ne Cede Malis" from?

Miscellaneous General
21

It depends on what you mean by “morality”. It depends on what you mean by ethics. It depends on if you are conflating personal values with law or political-ethics. It depends on if this is a category error of providing an economic perspective when it’s about politics/law. It depends on a lot of things.

So Mises wasn’t against murderers? Mises didn’t think the free market was better than socialism? Better is a form of good. Mises never decided upon these things? I find that hard to believe. I mean throwing around words like “objective moral values” and without clarification on what “scientific ought” means doesn’t help. Science is rationalization. You just rationalized this all out by putting this into words. You tried to make Mises position meaningful, giving knowledge, and concepts. In other words there is no denying you gave thought to your post, ie. science is knowledge:

"Where conception is at all applicable, it takes precedence over
understanding in every respect. That which results from discursive
reasoning can never be refuted or even affected by intuitive comprehension
of a context of meaning. The province of understanding
lies only where conception and the concept are unable to penetrate:
in the apprehension of the quality of values. In the domain
open to conception, strict logic rules: one is able to prove and disprove;
there is a point to conversing with others about what is
“true” and what is “false” and to posing problems and discussing
their solution. What has been arrived at by means of conception
must be acknowledged as established, or else must be shown to be
either unproved or confuted. It cannot be avoided and it cannot be
circumvented. On the other hand, where understanding enters, the
realm of subjectivity begins. We are unable to impart to others any
certain knowledge of what is intuitively foreknown and apprehended,
of what has not been hardened in the forge of conceptual
thought. The words in which we express it bid others to follow us
and to re-experience the complex whole that we have experienced.
But whether and how we are followed depends on the personality
and the inclination of the one bidden. We cannot even determine
with certainty whether we have been understood as we wanted to
be understood, for only the sharp imprint of the concept ensures
unequivocalness; it is to a concept alone that words can be made to
fit precisely. In this respect, understanding suffers from the same insufficiency
as all other efforts—artistic, metaphysical, or mystical—to
reproduce the intuition of a whole. What we are confronted with
in these attempts are words that can be understood in different
senses, from which a person takes out what he himself puts in. As
far as the historian describes the political and military deeds of
Caesar, no misunderstanding can arise between him and his readers.

But where he speaks of Caesar’s greatness, his personality, his
charisma, then the words of the historian can be understood in different
ways. There can be no discussion concerning understanding
because it is always subjectively conditioned. Conception is reasoning;
understanding is beholding…

Again and again those who want to obliterate the boundary
between scientific knowledge and mystical intuition in personal
experience reproach science for stopping at the surface of things
and not penetrating into the depths. One has to recognize that science
is not metaphysics, and certainly not mysticism; it can never
bring us the illumination and the satisfaction experienced by one
enraptured in ecstasy. Science is sobriety and clarity of conception,
not intoxicated vision.
It is true, as Bergson has seen with unsurpassed clarity, that
between reality and the knowledge that science can convey to us
there is an unbridgeable gulf.45 Science cannot grasp life directly.
What it captures in its system of concepts is always of a different
character from the living whole.46 One may therefore, if one wishes,
even call it dead, because what is not life is death. But if one thinks
that one has thereby pronounced an unfavorable judgment on science,
one is mistaken. One can call science dead, but one cannot say
that it is not useful. It is indispensable in a double sense: first, as the
sole means that can lead us to whatever measure of knowledge we
can attain at all; and then, as the only foundation for an action that
brings us closer to the ends at which we aim. Whether we see the
greatest value in wisdom or in action, in neither case may we scorn
science. It alone shows us the way both to knowledge and to action.

Without it our existence would be only vegetative." - [Mises; “Epis. Pro. of Economics”]

What is intuitive, ie. understanding according to Mises due to the German usage as he explains, is that which can’t be explained, put into thought, in other words is not conceptual. But what is conceptual is science. Thought and knowledge are science. Mises doesn’t differ from Aristotle on this point. I have knowledge and take thought on what differentiates bad relations from good relations in the sense of ethical-law. It is a continual discovery as all knowledge is. Axioms and logical deductions based on scarcity and property help bring the focus to what conflicts need investigated, etc, etc…

22

I’m saying he wasnt a shallow reductionist type utilitarian, but one that gave space to higher pleasures, and acknowledge the pure pleasures of the mind etc…

‘objective moral values’ are such a red herring. the use of the word ‘values’ in that phrase is at such odds with the standard meaning of value that it makes the phrase a nonsense to me. I generally excuse people for saying it and assume for them that they meant to say objective moral rules (or principles).

Did Mises believe in ‘objective’ moral principles?, sure he did, just like Hazlitt.

Some Hazlitt:

Whether ethics is or is not to be called a science is, as I have

hinted above, largely a semantic problem, a struggle to raise or

lower its prestige and the seriousness with which it should be

taken. But the answer we give has important practical conse-

quences. Those who insist on its right to the title, and use the

word “science” in its narrower sense, are likely not only to claim

for their conclusions an unchallengeable inflexibility and cer-

tainty, but to follow pseudo-scientific methods in an effort to

imitate physics. Those who deny ethics the title in any form

are likely to conclude (or have already concluded) either that

ethical problems are meaningless and unanswerable and that

“might is right,” or, on the other hand, that they already know

all the answers by “intuition,” or a “moral sense,” or direct

revelation from God.

Let us agree, then, provisionally, that ethics is at least one o£

the “moral sciences” (in the sense in which John Stuart Mill

used the word) and that if it is not a “science” in the exact and

narrower sense it is at least a “discipline”; it is at least a branch

of systematized knowledge or study; it is at least what the Ger-

mans call a Wissenschaft.

A “system” of ethics, therefore, would mean a code, or a set

of principles, that formed a consistent, coherent, and integrated

whole. But in order to arrive at this coherence, we must seek the

ultimate criterion by which acts or rules of action have been or

should be tested. We shall be inevitably led to this merely by

trying to make explicit what was merely implicit, by trying to

make consistent, rules that were inconsistent, by trying to make

definite or precise, rules or judgments that were vague or loose,

by trying to unify what was separate and to complete what was

partial.

And when and if we find this basic moral criterion, this test

of right and wrong, we may indeed find ourselves obliged to

revise at least some of our former moral judgments, and to

revalue at least some of our former values.

now Mises:

The historical role of the theory of the division of labor as

elaborated by British political economy from Hume to Ricardo

consisted in the complete demolition of all metaphysical doctrines

concerning the origin and operation of social cooperation. It

consummated the spiritual, moral and intellectual emancipation

of mankind inaugurated by the philosophy of Epicureanism. It

substituted an autonomous rational morality for the heterono-

mous and intuitionist ethics of older days. Law and legality, the

moral code and social institutions are no longer revered as un-

fathomable decrees of Heaven. They are of human origin, and the

only yardstick that must be applied to them is that of expediency

with regard to human welfare. The utilitarian economist does

not say: Fiat justitia, pereat mundus. He says: Fiat justitia, ne

pereat mundus. He does not ask a man to renounce his well-being

for the benefit of society. He advises him to recognize what his

rightly understood interest are.

19

Nir:

not what his rightly understood interests might be, but what they are…as can be understood by utilitarian ethical philosphers who are familiar with praxeology, economics and the prosperity that justice brings…presumably…

I short, to say that Mises is a Utilitarian is to say that he held that ethics is a field of knowledge (science maybe?) and that he approached his understanding of the topic of ethics with a special appreciation for the importance of pleasure/pain/utility type stuff, and the consequences of actions. It is not possible to be a Utilitarian and to reject ethics as a thing to be systematic or well informed about…

now I differ from Mises on ethics, as do you, though we both from different directions. I do think that Mises is a step away from ‘radical’ ethical subjectivism because of his Utilitarianism, even as he is many steps away from me. At least we are all together in our reverence for economics and in welcoming prosperity (and we all three know/knew enough to advocate private property as the thing).

23

Indeed a red herring. I know.[:D] And I have no idea where that terminology came from in the first place. I have yet to read it in any of the literature. Good quotes. and yes Mises mentions private property as necessary for the free market. It takes philosophical maintaining and/or justice in the form of self-defense to maintain private property if an individual chooses/makes a judgment that the free market is better than socialism.

24

So what exactly are you three arguing about?

25

[ignore post]

26

I’m sure Mises had a personal and severe moral disinclination toward murderers. But whether any given killing is wicked or not, he did not consider a matter for science.

Human Action 39.2:

"While many people blame economics for its neutrality with regard to value judgments, other people blame it for its alleged indulgence [p. 883] in them. Some contend that economics must necessarily express judgments of value and is therefore not really scientific, as the criterion of science is its valuational indifference. Others maintain that good economics should be and could be impartial, and that only bad economists sin against this postulate.

The semantic confusion in the discussion of the problems concerned is due to an inaccurate use of terms on the part of many economists. 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."

When all things mean everything, each thing means nothing.

27

Mises did not believe ethical problems are meaningless and unanswerable. He believed they were meaningful and were answerable. He believed that the correct way to understand them and to answer them is the utilitarian way. He speaks of vices and evil, and bad as a utilitarian would, in those places where he is not judging the efficacy of an economic policy against its stated aim within the economic scientists idiom. Yes, you quoted him talking about economists bringing to bear their economic knowledge on proposed political economic policies without the need for moral judgement. Where is the quote banishing moral judgements from everything ? Can you find a quote where he talks about morals being meaningless and unanswerable? There are plenty of quotes where he says that utilitarian ethics are unassailable

28

Well that’s more Epicurean than Eudaimonian. Eudaimonism is the doctrine that there is one universal, highest end for all mankind.

Red herrings are things concocted by adversaries to distract from the main question. However “objective moral values” are no adversarial concoction; it’s the terminology used by Rothbard himself:

"For in natural-law ethics, ends are demonstrated to be good or bad for man in varying degrees; value here is objective" (Ethics of Liberty, ch. 2)

If you mean “rules” as in “If X, do Y”, then that’s not even something that one can believe or not believe, neither is it something that can be true or false. If you mean “rules” as in “every human in class X should do Y”, then the question is “why?” If the answer to that question is “because it’s against natural law”, then Mises utterly rejects that. The ONLY kind of “should” statement Mises accepts as non-arbitrary is the kind that runs, “If you want X, you should do Y”, which can be stated in a more unambiguously value-free way as, “Doing Y results in X, which you want.” But the science of human affairs which considers whether Y results in X is praxeology (and especially its sub-discipline economics). It has nothing to do with ethics (which Rothbard himself conceived as a science separate from praxeology.

Human Action 1.2:

The idea that the incentive of human activity is always some uneasiness and its aim always to remove such uneasiness as far as possible, that is, to make the acting men feel happier, is the essence of the teachings of Eudaemonism and Hedonism. Epicurean ataraxia is that state of perfect happiness and contentment at which all human activity aims without ever wholly attaining it. In the face of the grandeur of this cognition it is of little avail only that many representatives of this philosophy failed to recognize the purely formal character of the notions pain and pleasure and gave them a material and carnal meaning.

So Mises doesn’t laud the Epicureans for their “ought”-related doctrines, but rather for their novel, yet tenuous grasp, of a key “is”-related insight.

Mises is talking about instituting a useful (from the point of view of the individual ends of practically everybody) moral code, not scientifically discovering moral facts.

See Human Action 27.3:

“The notion of right and wrong is a human device, a utilitarian precept designed to make social cooperation under the division of labor possible. All moral rules and human laws are means for the realization of definite ends.”

And, again, the tool with which to discover what code is useful is praxeology, ethics has nothing to do with it.

As Mises says himself, by “rightly understood”, he means “long term” interests. He’s talking about the cognition that practically everyone, in the long term, each would have their individual ends best served under a code of private property. This cognition is provided by the economist; not the “ethical philosopher familiar with economics”.

See my Roderick Long quote from before.

Yes, indeed.

29

Science means knowledge. Mises had knowledge of this moral distinction.

You’re conflating economic science with political and legal views. Mises made decisions. So Mises was for or against socialism. His actions say he was against socialism. Wasn’t Mises a liberal?

No. It’s simply a matter of semantics. I’ll elaborate. Nature means intellect. Intellect and rationalization are part of human action. Science is rationalized for science is theoretical and open to logical distinctions and facts. Science is something knowledgeable as opposed to what Mises explains is intuitive. In other words, science isn’t derived of intuition in the way Mises speaks of intuition because intuition is meaningless and as Mises put it, intuition is where concepts can’t reach. Mises makes it clear that where science, in other words, theory is able to form happens not of the meaningless intuition but where meaning is given in the form of concepts. Mises contrasts meaningless with meaning with concepts. Where it is no longer possible to form concepts of a persons experience (in their intuition), then the experience is meaningless as it can’t be conceptualized. Mises doesn’t mean here that the experience is meaningless to the individual’s own intuition. The individual understands the intuitive experience and it is meaningful in the intuitive sense. But it is not meaningful in the theoretical sense, as intuition can’t be conceptualized and science being knowledge that is rationalized, this is as far as intuition can be rationalized. It can not be conceptualized any further and that boundary where intuition can’t be conceptualized any further is where intuition becomes meaningless in the rational sense of what Mises mentions.

And yes nature is intellect, the rest of the human, and the rest of the world. That’s semantically what it means in the natural law tradition. Not only has Hobbes, Hume, utilitarians, Spinoza, philosophically perverted the concept of natural law, but also the Third Reich of Germany did as well, as it only goes to suit their totalitarian needs to make up such propaganda for their totalitarian ends (and I’m not saying Hume nor Spinoza did this for totalitarian ends. I don’t know them enough. Also are current politicians philosophically perverting what a right is when they state all humans have a right to healthcare. They are preying upon the notions of natural rights without explicitly explaining that they are not explaining natural rights but another form of rights called positive rights. Yet, there is a case that Hobbes did in this very book I’m quoting from): “The Natural Law: A Study in Legal and Social History and Philosophy” by Heinrich Rommen:

"It is further deserving of mention that totalitarian propaganda, aware of the recent revival of natural-law thinking, has abused the term “natural law.” Such abuse of revered terms is indeed typical of totalitarianism: witness today the sorry abuse of the term “democracy” at the hands of totalitarian leftist regimes. As if out of reverence for them, terms like “natural law” and “natural rights of the nation” have been frequently used in propaganda and even in serious books. But it is quite evident that the term “natural” has here undergone an even more wanton disfigurement than it suffered at the hands of Hobbes, Hume, or the utilitarians. “Nature” no longer refers to the rational nature of each individual man or to man’s endowments of intellect and free will, on which rest the dignity, liberty, and initiative of the individual person; nor does it refer to the universal order of being and oughtness, to the transcendent reality of reason. On the contrary, nature is transformed into an altogether materialistic concept. It is viewed as the blood, the hereditary biological mass of animal nature, deprived of its personalist and spiritual values. Thus metamorphosed, the law of nature has but one principle: Right is what profits the German folk-community—just as a deformed proletarian natural law would yield the single principle: Right is what profits the proletariat. This vicious alteration of the meaning of the terms “nature” and “natural” makes it possible for Huber on one page to abuse the venerable terms in the interest of the blood-and-race ideology and on another to maintain that “there are no personal liberties of the individual which fall outside the realm of the state and which must be respected by the state. … The constitution of the Reich is not based upon a system of inborn and inalienable rights of the individual…

In the hands of Hobbes, therefore, the natural law became, paradoxically enough, a useless law, compressed into the single legal form of the social and governmental contract of subjection. The natural law effectively comprises only the basic norm, “agreements must be kept,” if one disregards the still more paradoxical natural law of the state of nature with its norm of selfishness. All else is pure will. Hobbes’ doctrine is the theodicy of Occam secularized, and the extreme consequence of the proposition that law is will.

Thus Hobbes altered the meaning of the words “nature” and “natural,” a process that characterizes the entire period of modern philosophy from the time of Descartes. “Nature” and “natural” become the opposite of civitas, “reason,” and “order.” In the philosophy of Hobbes and Baruch Spinoza (1632–77) human nature is at bottom governed by the passions and not by reason. The status naturalis is a condition without any obligation or duty. It is a state in which, as Spinoza repeatedly asserts, might is right…

What Hegel later says of the idea of the state, Hobbes, the nominalist denier of ideas, asserted of the individual historical state. The consequence of this change in the meaning of “nature” is thus clear. Since nature is bad, and since the status naturalis is a condition of “warre of every man against every man," the state becomes good, and its positive will becomes the supreme norm of justice, admitting of no appeal."

Reading this quote gives you what natural law means in the natural law tradition, as well as, it points out the historic individuals who had philosophically perverted it’s meaning outside of the natural law tradition. I have been discussing natural law from the perspective of the natural law tradition. That’s the only original, and meaningful way to discuss it. Thus Hobbes (and others in their own way as discussed throughout the book) altered “nature” and “natural” from what it means in the natural law tradition: civitas “reason” and “order”. And I would like to explain this from above: “nor does it refer to the universal order of being and oughtness, to the transcendent reality of reason.” What he means here is nature also includes the rest of reality (aside from the already explained human nature). Transcendent means here that which is beyond the individual human reason, which is that which the senses would understand (Thomas Aquinas explains this reality in his book “Human Nature” and so does this book and it’s not necessary to explain in-depth here as it is an aside). The universal order of being and oughtness is metaphysical jargon that the author used to explain how an individual comes to conceptualize that which transcends, in other words, that which is exterior to the human intellect, for example, a rock. What a rock is, thus, the nature or definition of a rock is conceptualized by a human individual by a process that includes senses and intellectual apprehension, etc…

30

No. There is an end, but that end varies. That’s what Eudaemonism is about. Anyways Mises on eudaemonism:

“However, a doctrine that rejects rationalism, individualism, and eudaemonism can say nothing about human action.” - strong words by Mises.

“If one rejects the method of modern economics and renounces the formal comprehension of action under the eudaemonistic principle that action aims without exception at the enhancement of well-being as judged by the individual according to his subjective standard of values, then the only choice that remains is between the procedure of instinct sociology and that of behaviorism.” - and before you pull a red herring or strawman making yourself somehow distinct by pointing out the word “subjective” in that quote, take note, natural law in the way Mises states this sentence I quoted here, does NOT disagree. Natural rights have always been of each individual. That’s the essence of what negative liberty means. I suggest not deconstructing natural law nor eudaemonism with all the numerous literature available on these topics. By deconstructing, I mean, please do not misrepresent what they mean.

It is. But you would need to put on the objective paradigm hat to understand what that means. Your discussion with me and nir is an objective discussion. You are being objective and coming to objective conclusions. But that doesn’t mean your individuality suddenly disappears, because you retain your self while being in this discussion. Whatever you put up in your post as either an agreement, rebuttal, or disclaimer of any sorts, that is being objective. But this is a tangent, and I’ve said it numerous times before to bring up a debate on objective and subjective and applying those terms to anothers position, as you did, is the red herring because it is a complete tangent from the meaning of what is being discussed in the posts. It’s a diversion from constructive pursuits.

31

There is only one way to conceptualize natural law and that is personally. Science is knowledge. Mises surely had knowledge of what murder is.

32

Seems like a rather romantic (randian) notion to have. :3

33

The debate continues here.

34

A crucial insight from “Peter” commenting on the Mises Blog!..

"I guess when Mises did learn latin at school he was still thinking in the german language. In German Vergil´s words would have to be translated in the following way:

Weiche dem Unglück nicht, nein, unverzagt gehe ihm entgegen!

I would translate Unglück in that context rather with some sort of disaster (not in the meaning of worst case). Missfortune does not fit – and evil does not fit at all.”.

35

I saw that. What say you, Lilburne?

36

I’m fairly convinced. I don’t know German, so I’m inclined to trust Peter’s interpretation. Like I said in the blog comments, now, when people ask about my wristband, I’m going to translate it as, “Never give in to disaster.” (I like that better than “misfortune” anyway… especially because “disaster” is so applicable to our times.)

37

Whether the phrase is “evil” or “disaster” is irrelevant since the value judgement is not isolated in that unique phrase.

“Do not give in”, is a an “ought” proposition in it self.

Why shouldn’t I give in to evil or disaster, why should I oppose?

What if my end is the end I would reach when I give up and do not oppose to evil or a disaster?

Natural Rights: What's Wrong With My Analysis?