Another response to mahall from here:
As I say earlier in this thread,
“The natural law tradition of Rothbard alleges that one can objectively discover what ends all men, by virtue of their nature as men, ought to have: that the ends, according to which men judge laws, can themselves be held up to a standard. This standard is, in effect, an alleged “super-end” that transcends individual human ends.”
Such a positing of “trans-individual ends” is untenable because, as I said in the OP of this thread,
“There can be no purposes other than individual human purposes. There can be no ends, other than individual human ends. There is no conceivable human standard by which to choose ends that would not by definition be an individual human end in itself.”
In his economics, Rothbard recognizes this truth. In his quest for a science that dictates why men ought to choose libertarian ends, he discards it.
Because there can be no conceivable ends other than individual human ends, the valuations that result from the prioritization of ends can also only be individual and personal. In other words all values, whether they have to do with how we treat goods, or how we treat men, are subjective. In his economics, Rothbard recognizes this truth. In his quest for an objective libertarian ethic, he discards it.
Furthermore, as Mises wrote in Theory and History, values are not “existential propositions.” Existential propositions,
“assert something about the state of the whole universe or of parts of the universe. With regard to them questions of truth and falsity are significant.”
Values, on the other hand,
“are voluntaristic. They express feelings, tastes, or preferences of the individual who utters them. With regard to them there cannot be any question of truth and falsity. They are ultimate and not subject to any proof or evidence.”
Science is about truth vs. falsity. Therefore, science can only ever be about analyzing existential propositions, and not judgments of value. In other words, science can only be “wertfrei” (“value-free”, in this particular sense).
Rothbard characterizes economic science in as wertfrei, but in his quest to “verify” libertarian values and “disprove” non-libertarian values, with regard to his “science of liberty”, he, in his own words, endeavors to
“cast out the hobgoblins of Wertfreiheit”
In sum, Rothbard’s ethical theory (in distinct contrast to his economics) abandons the methodological individualism, methodological subjectivism, andWertfreiheit that are each essential for all sciences of human action. In coherent theories about acting individuals, there is simply no conceivable place for universal ends or objective values that are posited as subject to affirmation or denial.