Question for Jackson Larose

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filc replied on Mon, Mar 1 2010 6:30 PM

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Jackson LaRose:

When I hear/read morals, I think, "normative rules of right and wrong".

I doubt you would actually be able to provide me a real world example of someone who acts arbitrarily for the good of it's own sake. Give me a man who acts the good samaritin and you will likely find some form of reasoning behind it. The belief that people act on a whim as you assert is a fairy tale notion you subscribe to and is anti-praxeological. 

Jackson LaRose:

Sure I have.  The ultimate end of behaving ethically, is to steer your action toward being "good", in the moral sense, as it will relieve your discomfort. 

And now we are back to praxeology. 

Why are our arguments going in circles? You said this several posts above. By this criteria anything is an ethical decision. If I have a thorn in my finger I may decide the moral thing to do is remove that thorn, to relieve my discomfort. If I feel alone and empty I may subscribe to some religion to deal with that. Ultimately there is always a reason, whether it's concrete, subjective, true, false, fictional or not fictional, big or large there is always a reason. Humans do not act arbitrarily. 

Jackson LaRose:

But why will worshiping Jesus relieve your discomfort? 

I don't know but it's not open for analyzation as far as ethics go. People can choose to beleive that it works or does not work, it's besides the point. Whether the end is arbitrary or not is besides the point. Why do people pull thorn's from their finger to releive discomfort? Ultimately the end is irrelevent, the point is that they have some premise to follow from which builds their moral code. That moral code directs their actions.

Why do people remove the thorn from their finger to releive discomfort? Well clearly they do not like discomfort and beleive that is a way to releive it. Why do people woship Jesus to releive discomfort? Well clearly they do not like discomfort and beleive worshiping Jesus is a way to releive it.

If your issue is with Jesus and the problems with that specific reasoning that is one thing, but it's an entirely other leap to abandon all ethics all together simply because you disagree with a religion. As I have shown not all beliefs are in error. Removing the thorn from your finger would be THE RIGHT thing to do to relieve discomfort. 

Jackson LaRose:

I am saying I disagree, that my comfort can be relieved without the pretense of property, ownership, or rights.

So your saying that you disagree, that your comfort is not relieved by removing the thorn from your finger? Isn't this just being stubborn?

Also, care to answer Esuric's question back on one of the first pages? Esuric stated he would like to take your arm from you. Sounds like you have no dog in the fight? Can you relieve your comfort while allowing Esuric to take your arm?

How about this, you work 2 months to pay for a computer so that you can participate on these forums. Are you telling me you do not necessarily need to take care of your computer, protect your possession of it, keep it virus clean, and maintain it to ease your comfort of posting on these forums? What happens when it is stolen/virus infected/or crashed?

If having possession of the computer is not necessary to ease your comfort why did you buy the darn thing in the first place?!?!?!  

I imagine you have an antivirus and a door lock to your house. Both of these exhibit signs of maintaining your property. Your own actions undermine your argument.

Jackson LaRose:

Hey, we agree!  I think assuming you have a right to eat or have a right to property is pretty silly too.

Thats because you've entirely re-defined the word property and miss understood it's point. People protect their assets not because they have an ideological belief of property rights. They do so because they toiled over it and know that in order to accumulate wealth they need to take care of the things in their possession and ensure that they remain in their possession.  People do so because they desire to satisfy various ends and discomforts. People want a car to drive so they buy a car, a chair to sit, a dog to play with. Whatever the reason, people recognize the fact that objects are scarce and that they must work to aquire them. What good is toiling for 3 months to buy a computer that someone else will use?

filc:

If ethics and morals are guidelines to the ends of a certain premise, what kinds of guidelines are the ends for specific premis's which are not ethical?

filc:

What specifically is confusing about my statement?

Jackson LaRose:

I literally cannot understand what the point of the sentence is.  The structure is terrible.

If ethics and morals are guidelines(Codes of conduct) to direct the action of attempting to achieve a specific end(Satisfy discomfort),

then

what kinds of guidelines are those which also aim to achieve certain ends but that are not-ethically oriented.

I'm not sure how best to write that heh. My sentence structure seemed fine to me, though I had several typo's.

Jackson LaRose:

What makes it his chair?

Simple, the fact that he has a gun and you do not. The fact that he is protecting the asset in his possession and desires to retain possession of it. What makes your wages yours? Why should you care if we tax you or not?

filc:

People choose to protect the wealth they have worked to obtain.

Jackson LaRose:

Yeah, I agree with that.

That IS the concept of property that your agreeing to.

Jackson LaRose:

I just don't see how this statement implies they have a right to the wealth they worked to obtain.

it is you who is assigning the baggage of "divine right to". If the man who owned the chair though he had some kind of universal right he wouldn't need to protect it with a gun now would he.

Also the ideological argument of property is just a tool, just like the gun, to protect property. People spread the ideology behind property as a more economic way of reducing the risk of lost assets. It is cheaper to have everyone around you agree to the concept of property rather then pay for a guard to tirelessly protect all of your assets. The ideology behind is is just another tool for people retain possession of their assets. 

Jackson LaRose:

filc:

What gives you any right to your labor, your wealth? What gives you a say in anything you work towards?

I don't think anything.

filc:

Perhaps nothing,

That's all I've been saying this whole time!

This is an example of you responding to each sentence in kind, while missing the punchline entirely.

Jackson LaRose:

filc:

but irregardless you will work economically to maximize your leisure and minimize your toil.

Exactly!!  So why do we need rights-based concepts for this to occur?

We don',t the only one here who is making that claim that Property inherently has to do with what is divinely right and divinely wrong is you as we have repeatedly pointed out.

Does anyone else here on this forum right now think that you are born and endowed with a divine right to a specific property? even if they did their belief would be superficial. People know they must protect what t hey have, that process of protecting their assets IS THE PROPERTY RIGHTS.

The Austrian's concept of property, correct me if I am wrong anyone, is that it is a natural phenomena that occurs consequentially out of various complex axioms and earthly conditions. We are not espousing to a religion, we are espousing to an economic method of thought there.

Property is the act of maintaining objects in your possession. Even Crusoe does this on his island alone. He protects the tools he's made even though he doesn't have to worry about theft. Does the rain violate his rights when it rains? No but he none the less will protect his tools from the rain, it is his property in this way. He has property(assets) and must protect his property(assets) from the elements just as the city goer protects his property(assets) from thieves. There is no difference, and both are doing so out of the concept of property.

Jackson LaRose:

You and I are working off of different definitions of property.  We seem to be describing the same concept, which is "objects you want to keep".  If we both think that concepts of "rightfully owning the things you want to keep" is superfluous to people having "objects they want to keep", then we are in complete agreement.

I have shown you that people act under the premise of property rights due to various unchangeable aspects of our earthly world.  People maintain and have "PROPERTY" because it is in their economic interest to do so.

filc:

Markets are emergent because indnividual human actors work in their own interest, and make efforts at working in an economicaly effecient manner. That includes maintaining possessions one aquires and coming to peaceful exchange with others.

Ethics have nothing to do with it.

Jackson LaRose:

Bravo, couldn't have said it better myself.

Then stop conflating property with ethics.

On a side note,

When a communist is arguing with a capitalist over who should have control over a specific tangible object, is this an ethical argument? If yes then how do you deal with such situations?

filc:

As an adult you make a conscious decision what to eat, and when to eat, and how to eat it.

Jackson LaRose:

True, but who's to say how much of that is a result of social conditioning.

You have done this social conditioning twice now. Keep your baseless assertions out of it. You have nothing to back up such a ridiculous claim as this. I don't eat spicy foods because I was socially engineered not to, I don't do it because I get indigestion. 

people have different preferences and make conscious decisions on what to do based on those preferences. If we were all socially engineered we'd all be eating the same thing now wouldn't we! As such I'll continue to dismiss the crankish social engineered argument.

filc:

Or would you concede that having this knowledge may increase his chances of success as a firefighter. 

Jackson LaRose:

Of course.

Good 

Jackson LaRose:

But people aren't "born to be firefighters" either.

Irrelevant.

Desire(Action),Goal(End)

Now explain to me this. Why is.

• I want to eat healthy because Jesus says I should and my goal is to please him.

An ethical statement where as

• I want to eat healthy my doc says I should and my goal is to live a long life.

A non-ethical statement.

Why

• I want to help people because I want to be a good person

Is different from

• I want to help people because it will improve my disposition in the community

Here are the only stances you can possibly take

A) You don't believe any are concrete ethical statements, you believe ethics do not exist at all and none of them are ethical statements. They are simply statements of the desires of various ends. Regardless of how real or fake the ends are they are simply statements. 

B) You believe all of them are ethical statements. But each of them ahve their own codes of conduct. You recognize that ethics may be subjective from one person to the next. More or less you agree with point A, just that you acknowledge that ethics are nothing more then a code of conduct for the attainment of specific ends.

You don't say that following that code of conduct will get you to those ends, only that they were designed to help you get t here. You don't say that praying to Alah helps you get to heaven, only that it was designed to attempt to get you there. The success of the code of conduct is not what is disputed, only that it is nothing more then a set of rules for the attainment of a certain end.

C) You believe they are ethical statements but some of them are wrong. You believe that the correct ethical statements are ones you decide, by whatever judgement you use. 

D) You arbitrarily choose at a whim which statements are ethical, and which are not. Which ones make you uncomfortable and which do not. You are essentially the same as point C, only to another extreme. Even though all these statements are guides for Action and Ends, you simply go down the list and arbitrarily decide what is ethical and what is not. This seems to fit your category. As such you have no real argument as your assignment of what is or is not ethical is entirely arbitrary and holds no real weight. 

I have asked this in nearly every post to you on this point. Either you believe the first sentence is an ethical statement and the second one is not, or they are all ethical statements, or none of them are ethical statements. You seem to cherry pick which doesn't really give you any legitimate argument to use.

Jackson LaRose:

That's one way of interpreting it, but I don't see how it is any more or less likely that the guy feeling justified in defending his claim.

The end for why he choses his actions doesn't matter. Whether he defends his property out of zealous ideology or does so because he just purchased it today makes no difference. His actions are not open for judgement, which you are doing Judging him for having an possible ethical system. 

The point is that he does act in this manner, man does act to protect his assets, he exhibits property ownership naturally on his own.

Jackson LaRose:

That's just an assumption on your part.  He may be, he may not be.

And it's an assumption on your part that he's doing it out of zealous ethical reasoning. 

Jackson LaRose:

No, I'm conceding a man is defending a chair with a gun.  Whether or not he invokes the concept of property rights to make himself feel his actions are justified, or morally good, is beyond my reckoning.

So then if you are indifferent to it why do you spend so much time attacking property on this forum?

Jackson LaRose:

It depends on your definition of property.

Let me ask you this.

If

• Goods were not scarce
• Time was not scarce
• and we did NOT have to occupy goods over time

Are you tellign me that people would still hold this radical ethical based concept of property?

Or is it more likely that property would seize to exist, not because it is built on an ethical framework but because it is built out of necessity due to the following reasons.

• Objects are scarce
• Time is scarce
• The occupation of objects over time is necessary to satisfy desires/needs

Jackson LaRose:

No I haven't!  Not at all!  All I'm saying is that I have no opinion whether or not "man should make an effort to protect the assets he has worked on".  You betray your ethical bias with the normative statement.

Then why did you say this?

Reply

Jackson LaRose replied on Mon, Mar 1 2010 7:56 PM

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filc:

And now we are back to praxeology. 

We only left in your mind.

filc:

Why are our arguments going in circles?

Because we are both bad communicators, at least when typing responses.

filc:

If I have a thorn in my finger I may decide the moral thing to do is remove that thorn, to relieve my discomfort.

Why would this have anything to do with morals?

filc:

Ultimately there is always a reason, whether it's concrete, subjective, true, false, fictional or not fictional, big or large there is always a reason. Humans do not act arbitrarily. 

I agree with that.

filc:

Why do people pull thorn's from their finger to releive discomfort? Ultimately the end is irrelevent, the point is that they have some premise to follow from which builds their moral code. That moral code directs their actions.

This must be where we disagree.  Why is the premise, or the moral code necessary?

filc:

As I have shown not all beliefs are in error. Removing the thorn from your finger would be THE RIGHT thing to do to relieve discomfort. 

You are using "right" in an amoral context here.  You seem to be confusing "morally right" and "best way to achieve end"

filc:

So your saying that you disagree, that your comfort is not relieved by removing the thorn from your finger? Isn't this just being stubborn?

How does this follow?

filc:

Also, care to answer Esuric's question back on one of the first pages? Esuric stated he would like to take your arm from you. Sounds like you have no dog in the fight? Can you relieve your comfort while allowing Esuric to take your arm?

I would try to prevent him from taking my arm, although not everyone might.

filc:

Are you telling me you do not necessarily need to take care of your computer, protect your possession of it, keep it virus clean, and maintain it to ease your comfort of posting on these forums?

No I'm not. But you already know the end I hope to achieve.  You cannot a priori, begin asserting I have to take care of a computer if I buy it.

filc:

If having possession of the computer is not necessary to ease your comfort why did you buy the darn thing in the first place?!?!?!  

malinvestment.

filc:

I imagine you have an antivirus and a door lock to your house. Both of these exhibit signs of maintaining your property. Your own actions undermine your argument.

How does with imply I believe that I have a right to protect my stuff?  Perhaps I am simply protecting stuff.  I imagine car thieves have locks on their chop shops.

filc:

Thats because you've entirely re-defined the word property

No I haven't, I just have a different interpretation of the word.  Ask wilderness, he'll tell you.

filc:

People protect their assets not because they have an ideological belief of property rights.

I know, that's what I've been saying this whole time.  Property rights are unnecessary.

filc:

They do so because they toiled over it and know that in order to accumulate wealth they need to take care of the things in their possession and ensure that they remain in their possession.

I totally agree.

filc:

People do so because they desire to satisfy various ends and discomforts. People want a car to drive so they buy a car, a chair to sit, a dog to play with. Whatever the reason, people recognize the fact that objects are scarce and that they must work to aquire them. What good is toiling for 3 months to buy a computer that someone else will use?

Glad you agree with me.

filc:

what kinds of guidelines are those which also aim to achieve certain ends but that are not-ethically oriented.

praxeology, biology, etc.

filc:

Simple, the fact that he has a gun and you do not. The fact that he is protecting the asset in his possession and desires to retain possession of it. What makes your wages yours? Why should you care if we tax you or not?

See, I knew you'd get it.

filc:

That IS the concept of property that your agreeing to.

The way you interpret it.

filc:

it is you who is assigning the backage of "divine right to". If the man who owned the chair though he had some kind of universal right he wouldn't need to protect it with a gun now would he.

I'm sure he would, maybe even more frenetically, due to his action being justified.  Righteous action is one of the most dangerous phenomena on the planet.

filc:

That's all I've been saying this whole time!

Me too!

filc:

This is an example of you responding to each sentence in kind, while missing the punchline entirely.

I read that passage, I can assure you.  Like I've been saying, we agree on pretty much everything, except use of the word property.

filc:

We don',t the only one here who is making that claim that Property inherently has to do with what is divinely right and divinely wrong is you as we have repeatedly pointed out.

That's how I interpret the word.  I'm sorry we disagree, but there really isn't any point of arguing about semantics.

filc:

Does anyone else here on this forum right now think that you are born and endowed with a divine right to a specific property?

I'm not saying specific property, I'm saying property in general.

filc:

People know they must protect what t hey have, that process of protecting their assets IS THE PROPERTY RIGHTS.

No.  As we agreed previously, you don't need rights to be able to defend things.

filc:

is that it is a natural phenomena that occurs out of various complex axioms. We are not espousing to a religoun, we are espousing to an economic method of though there.

Not to play devil's advocate, but you still have to take the axioms on faith.

filc:

Property is the act of maintaining objects in your possession

According to your understanding.

filc:

Then stop conflating property with ethics.

This is simply how I interpret the word property.  To me it describes a completely different phenomena than you are attaching to the word.  I'm sorry this bothers you so much.

filc:

When a communist is arguing with a capitalist over who should have control over a specific tangible object, is this an ethical argument?

Yes.

filc:

If yes then how do you deal with such situations?

I don't.  I think they are both full of it.

filc:

You have done this social conditioning twice now. Keep your baseless assertions out of it. You have nothing to back up such a ridiculous claim as this. I don't eat spicy foods because I was socially engineered not to, I don't do it because I get indigestion. 

Your claim is just as baseless as mine.

filc:

If we were all socially engineered we'd all be eating the same thing now wouldn't we! As such I'll continue to dismiss the crankish social engineered argument.

I'm saying that a concept of the self may be due to social engineering.  Without that, you would perhaps still learn by trial and error, but you wouldn't be "telling yourself" what to eat.

filc:

Here are the only stances you can possibly take

I'd say "A" probably.

filc:

So then if you are indifferent to it why do you spend so much time attacking property on this forum?

I don't attack, I am trying to figure out why people feel it so necessary to justify their action against some moral framework.

filc:

Are you tellign me that people would still hold this radical ethical based concept of property?

Some might.  People kill each other all the time over where they go when they die, although no one even knows if anything happens.

filc:

Seems you have a very strong opinion to me. You admit as much that you at the least would prefer to keep the wages of your labor to yourself. Just as the man in the chair would prefer to keep the chair to himself, regardless for what reasons.

There was no normative in my statement.  A subtle, but important difference.

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Justin Spahr-Summers replied on Mon, Mar 1 2010 8:41 PM

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wilderness:

The Late Andrew Ryan:

In this case when I use the term "objective value" I mean a thing or substance that has value inherently, which is of course impossible.

I agree with you.

Ethics does not try to determine an "inherent value" in a thing or substance, however. Objective ethics attempts to identify the morality of actions.

A knife is neither good nor evil. A man using the knife to kill another man is acting immorally (or evilly).

The Late Andrew Ryan:

They all say, for instance. that "killing is wrong" and that their system in by nature the very best that there is, and that it is then immoral to kill someone, once you say that value is based upon the individual valuation, then the entire idea of objective ethics falls apart

It was pointed out in another thread that "value" is a very overloaded term, and I think this is causing some confusion here. There's a great wiki article that might help clear things up.

wilderness:

An objective ethicists believes, as far as I understand from discussing with them as Justin who is one responded to me asking this very question earlier in this thread, that objective ethics are decided upon by an individual.  This is exactly my point to both sides.  If "individual valuation" is the only significant difference in which a subjective ethicist regards him or her self as being different from an objective ethicist, then the point becomes mute because objective ethicists know their theorizing is also based on individual valuation because only an individual can valuate.  That's why I don't readily see any differences, and therefore need, for objectivist and subjectivist ethicist.

Maybe I misspoke, or maybe I'm misinterpreting what you're saying here, but I disagree. I believe that an objective ethical code exists regardless of whether actors choose to consciously acknowledge it. The role of the individual is in attempting to delineate what this code is. Consequently, different individuals may have different interpretations of an objective ethical code, but that doesn't make them all equally valid. If a murderer says that "killing is good," that doesn't mean it is. It means he thinks it is, but it's up to everyone else to cognitively determine whether he is correct.

A subjective ethicist would say, "I do X because it agrees with my personal conscience." An objective ethicist would say, "I do X because it is an objectively good thing to do." Again, the latter may err in such an assertion, but that alone doesn't disqualify the notion of an objective ethical code.

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filc replied on Mon, Mar 1 2010 8:46 PM

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Jackson LaRose:

I imagine car thieves have locks on their chop shops.

Indeed they have property to.

Jackson LaRose:

No I'm not. But you already know the end I hope to achieve.  You cannot a priori, begin asserting I have to take care of a computer if I buy it.

I don't assert apriori that you do. I assert after observing as much. You care for your computer.

Jackson LaRose:

Not to play devil's advocate, but you still have to take the axioms on faith.

The following axiom's are not based on faith.

• Objects are scarce
• Time is scarce
• The occupation of objects over time is necessary to satisfy desires/needs

Jackson LaRose:

This is simply how I interpret the word property.

Why don't you just simply stop?

Jackson LaRose:

Your claim is just as baseless as mine.

No my claim is based on the 3 pre-existing conditions I posted above, and an understanding that property is a necessary consequence. That if any of those 3 conditions did not exist, property would also not need to exist. It shows that property is built as a natural consequence, not as an ideological belief from the divine heavens. 

Again those 3 pre-existing conditions are

• Objects are scarce
• Time is scarce
• The occupation of objects over time is necessary to satisfy desires/needs

Conversely your argument is based on a simple,consistent, but unsubstantiated assertion that rights are always implied with property. You have nothing to backup your argument and no evidence whether it be logical, or empirical, only anecdotal over situations you have perceived. You considers such situations at face value and never stopped to consider that what is not seen, the economic consequences that are implied when people protect assets. Praxeology alone refutes the concept that property is a right, as it shows that people ackwnowledge property not from an ethics stance but as an economic one. 

Jackson LaRose:

Without that, you would perhaps still learn by trial and error, but you wouldn't be "telling yourself" what to eat.

But after trial and error I can then proceed to formulate a code of conduct. I will touch the fire pit with my hand only once. After that I will make a rule not to do it again. Guidelines are in-escapable and ethics are just guidelines for specific ends.

Jackson LaRose:

I'd say "A" probably.

If you believe in A then we can safely use the word "Property" without assuming any prior ethical intent.

Jackson LaRose:

I don't attack, I am trying to figure out why people feel it so necessary to justify their action against some moral framework.

Thats your problem. People don't feel it's necessary to justify their actions against a moral framework. 

Jackson LaRose:

Some might.  People kill each other all the time over where they go when they die, although no one even knows if anything happens.

After such an answer I give up. If you truely beleive that with

No Scarcity

No limitation on time

And no need to satisfy desires

You still beleive there would be an "Ethical" concept of property well then I cannot argue with stubborness. Your only reason to dispute that is the unwillingness to be wrong.

I doubt any other reasonable person here would argue other wise.

Jackson LaRose:

There was no normative in my statement.  A subtle, but important difference.

A semantical play on words does not mean you don't hold an opinion. It just means y ou are good at sounding neutral. It has come at a cost though. Most of your response's are vague and meatless. But being the semantical king that you are no less does not mean you don't hold an opinion. You have already stated as much t hat you do hold opinions. In fact you've been arguing with me for 8 pages, if that is not evidence I don't know what is. :)

In fact many of your statements show strong signs of having opinions of others ideological beliefs, which only becomes an outlet for your own. For example..

Jackson LaRose:

I don't.  I think they are both full of it.

When an economist explains why socialism cannot calculate he is making an ethical argument eh? Why do you bother posting here again?

Any ways I am pretty much done so I will sum up our discussion as follows.

filc:

If:

• Goods were not scarce
• Time was not scarce
• and we did NOT have to occupy goods over time

Are you tellign me that people would still hold this radical ethical based concept of property?

Jackson LaRose:

Some might.