Anyone here read much into it? I would kinda like to believe it, i'd love for libertarianism to be an axiom, but it seems such a weak argument for such a strong claim. Others have pointed out various ambiguities but I think even if this was solved, ie it turned out there was no difference between ownership and use, I would still have the following problem with it:
Since argumentation ethics doesn't, and couldn't, say anything substantial about meta-ethics it is meaningless until it's combined with a theory that does at which point it's basically redundant anyway. There is no sense in saying the negation of ethical claim X is a performative contradiction without even describing what ethical claim X means. I wrote about it in more detail for a recent blog post of mine.
questions/criticism?
http://0welcometo1984.wordpress.com
I'm new to the subject of argumentation ethics and most things pertaining to meta-ethics, so please forgive my ignorance. How is Libertarianism a strong claim with a weak argument?
If the answers are in your blog, I'll check it out later - I'm in the middle of a job application.
I would suggest reading up Hoppe's essays about the topic before formulating an opinion. And I strongly recommend against taking second hand interpretations of it here on this forum. The opinions of it here vary greatly to those in favor, and those strongly against. I for one am in favor of it, but feel that most folks are largely disjointed on the topic, even some who think they are in favor of it.
So instead of trying to act a proponent my recommendation to you is to go read Hoppe's essays. This thread will likely just turn into one big massive argument.
And as a slight correction, argumentation ethics does not say that libertarianism is axiomatic specifically, more specifically it says that when you engage into discussion your making several objective assumptions upfront. Now it's commonly argued that out of those assumptions comes certain concessions in libertarian principles.
For example, by opening your mouth to speak with someone your assuming that the person is an individual, self sovereign, and capable of responding with reason. This is assuming the point of the discussion is to find a truth, not to pander to insulting and fighting.
Argumentation ethics does not apply to discussion with rocks, non-reasonable objects(like a rock), and non-reasonable people who seek to nothing more then an aggressive fight. A person may yell and scream at their computer for not functioning correctly, but argumentation ethics does not apply to such situations. It only applies when both parties are genuinely attempting to seek a truth. In such a case all the rules of logic can be applied. Obviously yelling at your computer, refrigerator, or rock, is unreasonable and illogical. The same applies to arguing with a belligerent fool.
I didn't mean libertarianism itself I meant this particular argument in favour of it. To say that it's a self-evident axiom the way Hoppe does would require quite a lot of justification. More than I've seen so far (though this could just be because I haven't seen enough yet).
Argumentation Ethics is most usefully applicable to discussion. It will really help you keep your arguments honest, and more easily able to point out the circularity of your opponent.
I have read some of his essays on it, admittedly not all of them, I'm not sure why you assumed I haven't. I've also read some other people's arguments for and against it. I just haven't seen anyone explicitly address this concern of mine. Also he does essentially say it's an axiom because he says it's negation could never be argued in favour of and all propositions have to be justified in argument. The result is it's supposedly self-evident.
However, can you recommend any particular essays on it?
This has been debunked so many times by some many critics, from the Liberty symposium to Murphy-Callahan to Brainpolice to Danny Shahar, only a fool would waste time on it.
JamesB:Also he does essentially say it's an axiom because he says it's negation could never be argued in favour of and all propositions have to be justified in argument. The result is it's supposedly self-evident.
Yes that is the point. There are several self-evident presuppositions that materialize the second you open yourself to discussion. meta-ethics need not apply. Here are a few to list from wiki.
JamesB:I have read some of his essays on it, admittedly not all of them, I'm not sure why you assumed I haven't.
Yes it would be incorrect for me to assume anything at this point.
JamesB:However, can you recommend any particular essays on it?
Have you read Hoppe's Economics and Ethics of Private Property?
The meta-ethics argument is a red-herring and not applicable. Don't let the word "ethics" take you too far down the wrong rabbit whole. Perhaps it should be called Argumentation Guidelines, and associated implications.
JameB:There is no reason why the impossibility of denying the fact you have to control your body to engage in argument would imply libertarianism
It's not implying libertarianism. Hoppe's AE simply exemplifies various libertarian principles, like private property. Hoppe's AE was built apon previous theories of discourse ethics. The whole of it is not his own.
JamesB:The problem is it says nothing about what it means for something to be ethical or unethical and once it is incorporated into a meta-ethical theory it becomes redundant.
It doesn't need to, as thats irrelevant to the goals of AE and discourse ethics. This is the red-herring I mentioned above.
One does not philosophize over proper way to ride a bike, so why the added baggage when providing a mutually beneficial way to debate?
I didn't mean libertarianism itself I meant this particular argument in favour of it. To say that it's a self-evident axiom the way Hoppe does would require quite a lot of justification. More than I've seen so far (though this could just be because I haven't seen enough yet)
Presumably if something is self-evident, it's precisely because it doesn't require justification.
Scineram:only a fool would waste time on it.
presumably we are all fools then.
Perhaps the reason you don't understand discourse ethics is because you hold an arrogant "I'm right, your wrong" attitude. For the life of me, I've never seen you concede a point to anyone, anywhere. I'm curious as to what percentage of your posts do nothing beyond calling people foolish. It wouldn't surprise me if you thought of yourself as nearly infallible. Which tells me your not here for discourse, and perhaps thats why you just don't get it.
This is why you cannot be taken seriously.
filc:Yes that is the point. There are several self-evident presuppositions that materialize the second you open yourself to discussion. meta-ethics need not apply. Here are a few to list from wiki. The presupposition that participants in communicative exchange are using the same linguistic expressions in the same way The presupposition that no relevant argument is suppressed or excluded by the participants The presupposition that no force except that of the better argument is exerted The presupposition that all the participants are motivated only by a concern for the better argument
Yes, and this is all true, but the difference between these and self-ownership is these are all simply descriptive statements about what it means to be engaged in debate. The problem with including self-ownership among them is ownership is normative concept so even if it is a precondition of argumentation you still have to engage in meta-ethics to explain what it means.
filc:Have you read Hoppe's Economics and Ethics of Private Property?
Parts of it
filc:It doesn't need to, as thats irrelevant to the goals of AE and discourse ethics. This is the red-herring I mentioned above. One does not philosophize over proper way to ride a bike, so why the added baggage when providing a mutually beneficial way to debate?
Because Hoppe is proposing a norm that's supposed to apply generally rather than just describing what debating means and even if he was doing the latter he would still have to engage in meta-ethics to explain the term "ownership" if it's to perform the task he wants it to.
EconomistInTraining:Presumably if something is self-evident, it's precisely because it doesn't require justification.
You still need to justify why any alternative is necessarily false though
You still need to provide a reason why the alternative is necessarily false though.
I think I see your point. Maybe this quote from David Gordon will help.
"Hoppe does not contend that the statement “People have libertarian rights” is a truth of logic: its negation is not self-contradictory. Rather, if one denies the statement, one contradicts oneself. It is asserting the statement’s negation that Hoppe claims is contradictory. Similarly, the statement “Reagan is dead” is not logically self-contradictory, but if spoken by Reagan its assertion involves paradox, since his saying it implies that he is not dead.
Paradoxes of this sort, often termed “performative contradictions,” are a lot of fun and have considerable philosophical importance. (A recent discussion is Roy Sorensen, Blindspots, Oxford University Press, 1988.) But although the contradiction just mentioned really is part of Hoppe’s argument, it is not the whole of it. The vital core of Hoppe’s case is that to claim that a statement is true is to claim that the statement can be supported by argumentation: and argumentation by its nature implies libertarian rights. The performative contradiction is just one step in Hoppe’s progress.
Thus, it is not right to say that Hoppe’s sole conclusion is that those who deny libertarian rights ought rationally to “shut up.” However desirable this state of affairs would be, it alone would not suffice to show that anyone has libertarian rights. It is the whole argument, if successful, that demonstrates this, not the contradiction considered in itself."
If this dosen't help than I guess I missunderstand your point.
The problem is that a performative contradiction neither proves or disproves any proposition in question, no more than it does with respect to so-called form/content contradictions. At best, it means personal hypocrisy but does not function to justify any position in question. Additionally, it's not at all clear that the things in question (such as a denial of "self-ownership" and neo-lockean property rights) really qualify as performative contradictions to begin with, or that such specific notions are quite the same thing as the baseline norms of "rational discourse", or that discourse can sufficiently function as a model for warranted action. It does not seem to be the case that the fact that one engages in argumentation necessarily means that they are principly commited to certain norms or that any statements they make that contradict such norms are automatically false.
If libertarianism was "self-evident", there wouldn't be much debate about it in the first place. There's nothing in argumentation ethics to justify the leap from what is allegedly presupposed or required by the norms of "rational discourse" to the validity of those norms, or interpreting one's political ideology into discourse itself. Basically, a very primitive is/ought fallacy arises. Argumentation ethics appears to try to automatically falsify all alternatives to a certain set of oughts by switching to a descriptive context when they are challenged, and acting as if one's own conceptual and value scheme is an apriori foundation. In effect, this does function to dubiously try to render one's views undebatable. The whole project hinges on rationalist foundationalism.
For example, if one were to say "people ought not own themselves", it does not follow from the act itself that people ought to own themselves. The statement does not auto-falsify. Perhaps someone would contend that one has to own oneself in order to engage in the act, but it is debatable that "ownership" is necessary for concious action to take place and, even if we momentarily speak in the language of "self-ownership", that one ought to own oneself would still not follow from the fact that one already owns oneself. In order for the argument to be make the denials of "self-ownership" are "performative contradictions", one has to switch to a metaphysical definition of self-ownership as something like "the fact that one can conciously act", at which point the discourse has nothing in particular to do with libertarianism and becomes a matter of semantics, philosophy of mind, and neuroscience.
JamesB:Yes, and this is all true, but the difference between these and self-ownership is these are all simply descriptive statements about what it means to be engaged in debate. The problem with including self-ownership among them is ownership is normative concept so even if it is a precondition of argumentation you still have to engage in meta-ethics to explain what it means.
Yes this than depends on your definition of ownerhsip and property. I don't see "Property" as being a type of "right, but property in and of itself is just a descriptive term.
Ethics and rights are applied on top of property. That is why there is "property", and then "property rights", the two being different things. So I don't see where meta-ethics come into play. It's just an adjective, a descriptive term, "property".
Can you expand on the apparent contradiction in more laymens terms for me?
IMHO there is severe obfuscation between the concepts of "Property Rights" and just simply Property.
@OP
argumentation ethics is redundant, circular, and incoherent...but that is why it is such a good tool! it's a way to trick people into becoming libertarians through sophistry, but it's sophistry for a good cause so don't knock it. the only problem is sometimes people will see the errors later, and then they might reject everything they learned and become pro-government, but that happens rarely enough that on net it could be beneficial. at least that is the idea.
All that argumentation ethics states is that anything but a private property ethic is impossible to argue. It doesn't say anything about any system being possible or not.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
In that formulation it is demonstratably false. Any ethic can obviously be argued, and indeed they are frequently.
filc:Yes this than depends on your definition of ownerhsip and property. I don't see "Property" as being a type of "right, but property in and of itself is just a descriptive term. Ethics and rights are applied on top of property. That is why there is "property", and then "property rights", the two being different things. So I don't see where meta-ethics come into play. It's just an adjective, a descriptive term, "property". Can you expand on the apparent contradiction in more laymens terms for me?
It's more just unclear definitions than a contradiction but this is basically it. We can distinguish between what we could call 'factual self-ownership' which would just be "this person is enjoying exclusive control over himself" and 'ethical self-ownership' which would imply an obligation to respect this control. You can have property in the factual sense without having any kind of property right (see: everything the state and it's cronies own) and to justify the latter means delving into ethics more deeply.
i'd love for libertarianism to be an axiom
It isn't, in fact it is impossible to be a libertarian, socialist, Christian, etc in any way outside of some customary/ legal terminology. That is to say, ia Christain can only be defined by making the sign of the cross before a meal and attending mass on Sunday or whatever physical observable criterea you may wish to use against whichever cultural backdrop you wish to identify with, one can not ontologically be a Xtian as the doctrine is nonsensical and can only be itself; as are all such labels as a thing is always, and can only be itself and concern itself with itself. To identify a libertaian by his physical creedal utterences or how he votes etc is doable, and subjective, but to think one of the term as an "axiomatic" label is not possible.
The market process is axiomatic...particularly if you enjoy civilization. Actual ethics, like any religion, on the other hand is literal jibberish. If something makes sense, it is most likely legal theory, custom, or simply good advice for a particular situation it is not and can never be ethics.
hear hear for common sense! it seems people are finally waking up to the semantic gibberish.
Don't be so obtuse. You cannot make the argument without a logical contradiction in the argument.
Well, there is nothing contradictory in unlibertarian ethics themselves. They are contrary to libertarianism, big deal. Not even Hoppe thinks there are logical contradictions.
Well, there is nothing contradictory in unlibertarian ethics themselves. They are contrary to libertarianism, big deal.
Right. In other words, Hoppe just begs the question of libertarianism.
Not even Hoppe thinks there are logical contradictions.
Molyneux apparently does, and it also seems like some people think Argumentation Ethics contends this.
Well, there is nothing contradictory in unlibertarian ethics themselves.
Yes - they violate ethics' claim to universality.
"Yes - they violate ethics' claim to universality."
This is true. I've yet to hear an ethical theory from a statist.
Usually if they have an ethical theory it is only applied to things under the state; like animal rights or the ethics of business or something like that. Never applying it to business, animals, and the state the same rules. Or saying that women 'have a right to their body' in the case of abortion, while not expanding upon the implication of course. In order to keep the state from those same demands.
Even if libertarianism is completely false and not justifiable at all, this would only make statism equally or more false.
JamesB:Since argumentation ethics doesn't, and couldn't, say anything substantial about meta-ethics it is meaningless until it's combined with a theory that does at which point it's basically redundant anyway. There is no sense in saying the negation of ethical claim X is a performative contradiction without even describing what ethical claim X means. I wrote about it in more detail for a recent blog post of mine.
My asssessment of argumentation ethics is actually the opposite -- that Hoppe creates a solid meta-ethical framework for how we might understand ethical propositions and evaluate their truth, but fails when it comes time to fill in this framework with actual ethical claims. I agree with BrainPolice's statement that
BrainPolice:Additionally, it's not at all clear that the things in question (such as a denial of "self-ownership" and neo-lockean property rights) really qualify as performative contradictions to begin with...
However, you (JamesB) evidently agree with that anyway. But suppose for a moment that Hoppe does succeed, and shows that all and only libertarian norms can be argued without performative contradiction. Would that be sufficient for an ethical theory?
I argue that it is. We can fix the meta-ethical problem by defining "ethical" as "able to be argued for without performative contradiction," leaving us with an ethical theory that perhaps feels somewhat unsatisfying (since we might have been hoping for an all-encompassing life-guide à la Ayn Rand), but which is really the best that we could hope for from an "objective" theory. (It is unrealistic to expect Hoppe to have an argument whose sheer persuasiveness changes everybody's ultimate values; this is ruled out by the is-ought distinction.) What this theory would be good for is providing a starting point for resolving disputes over rights, such as might arise in a court of law. So perhaps it's better to think of Hoppe's theory as a theory of law rather than a theory of ethics; thinking of it this way might lead us to have less unrealistically high expectations of what an argument like Hoppe's can do for us.
Zangelbert Bingledack:argumentation ethics is redundant, circular, and incoherent...but that is why it is such a good tool! it's a way to trick people into becoming libertarians through sophistry, but it's sophistry for a good cause so don't knock it. the only problem is sometimes people will see the errors later, and then they might reject everything they learned and become pro-government, but that happens rarely enough that on net it could be beneficial. at least that is the idea.
I think Hoppe mentions that he is working with a political ethical system, not a personal ethical system. The purpose of this system is to settle disputes which arise out of the inherent scarcity which exists in the universe:
Only insofar as goods are scarce are economics and ethics required. In the same way, just as the answer to the problem of political economy must be formulated in terms of rules constraining the possible uses of resources qua scarce resources, political philosophy too must answer in terms of property rights. In order to avoid inescapable conflicts, it must formulate a set of rules assigning rights of exclusive control over scarce goods.
But there are a gazillion ehtical systems solving disputes over scarcity, each permitting argumentation to take place.
Do these all presume the freedom of agents, and are they consistent with non-aggression?
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
You can claim to argue for any of these ethical systems, but you cannot make your argument without contradicting yourself (performance contradiction). If a political ethical system is supposed to resolve disputes, how can it be internally contradictory? Such a system is useless for resolving disputes and violates the very definition of a political ethical system.
None of what you say makes sense. What ethcial systems exactly are internally inconsistent? And the performative contradiction claim is false. Plenty of people have argued even under statism.
I'd love to engage you in a proper debate but I am afraid If I question the state I may be found later to have committed a crime of sedition so I will refer you to Hoppe's book.
scineram, can you offer a more specific description of what you find illogical with argumentation ethics? I feel like you’re only offering one liners and not any deep criticism. Are you confused about what it means to make a performance contradiction?