Hoppe's Argumentation Ethics: Stances of Prominent Austrians

"no other ethical system can be justified through reason."

Sure they can, all you have to do is to work around why the self ownership is unimportant. Universality is not expressed through action.

"no, it goes like this: by proposing anything, I affirm self-ownership. I cannot therefore propose anything contrary to self-ownership without inhabiting a performative contradiction. Theres no "should" involved. Just is. Arguing for communism is a performative contradiction. Its not a valid argument. This only means something to people who care about valid arguments. By engaging in argument, you implicitly affirm intersubjectively valid arguments. Therefore one cannot argue for communism coherently."

The intersubjective validity of the argumentation is unimportant, it makes no difference to the argument. All that matters is whether or not you are expressing your own rights through action, which you are. You are expressing your own self ownership, this does not mean that you would even oppose having it taken away from you. If I argue in favor of state communism then no performative contradiction is actually performed in my doing so.

"if you didnt hope to persuade me of your reasons, you would not attempt to persuade me. Your conclusion does not follow from your premises (rights arent part of being good looking, however affirmation of self-ownership is part of the act of argumentation)."

Why not? Who's to say that rights cannot come from being good looking? It's equally as valid as saying they're derived from self-ownership as both are equally arbitrary.

"I suggest you reconsider. Some things are necessarily implicit in the act of discourse. The (belief in) existence of intersubjective meaning is a necessary prerequisite for argument. The existence of invalid arguments is also implied, because if every argument were valid we could simply make propositions that we liked without attempting to justify them. Argumentation even implies that we have something in common (language) otherwise we would be unintelligible to each other."

I don't disagree with anything you have said here, but I argue that this doesn't actually matter for proposing, justifying, or dispelling any ethical system.

Sure they can, all you have to do is to work around why the self ownership is unimportant. Universality is not expressed through action.

If self-ownership were unimportant, self-ownership wouldnt be necessary to make the argument. Self-ownership is a prerequisite for the attempt to work around it. That makes the work-around incoherent.

The intersubjective validity of the argumentation is unimportant, it makes no difference to the argument.

you lost me here. If a green tribble argues that 7 implies oxygen molecules, is it the same as a human arguing that because Alex is a bachelor, he must not have a wife? The validity of those two arguments is irrelevant to you?

All that matters is whether or not you are expressing your own rights through action, which you are. You are expressing your own self ownership, this does not mean that you would even oppose having it taken away from you.

no, it means that I cant coherently argue against self-ownership. It doesnt imply anything about how I would feel if something happened.

If I argue in favor of state communism then no performative contradiction is actually performed in my doing so.

everyone says that but they cant actually do it. What premises would you use to justify state communism?

Why not? Who's to say that rights cannot come from being good looking? It's equally as valid as saying they're derived from self-ownership as both are equally arbitrary.

thats incorrect. Define "self-ownership" in a way that doesnt refer to some sort of "rights-concept" (I dont care what word you use).

I don't disagree with anything you have said here, but I argue that this doesn't actually matter for proposing, justifying, or dispelling any ethical system.

Fine, lets see you argue for a non-libertarian ideology.

Using your own definition, is it enough for me to say that ownership is an agreement over who has exclusive control over an object? In the case of self ownership, how does argumentation affirm any "agreement" over ownership of either individual? Or does the agreement purely constitute a consensus of who does control something, not who should control something?

I need to know this before I can reply.

It affirms the self-ownership of your counterpart in the discussion because if you didnt think it was important for him as a self-owner to consent to whatever, you wouldnt be petitioning him to accept your propositions.

yes, thats how I define ownership, as an agreement. Sorry if I was a little verbose.

But then why is it contradictory to wish to override their self ownership?

The desire isnt contradictory. The proposition is incoherent. You can want whatever you want, but justifying the claim to what you want is more difficult.

Why is the proposition incoherent? We can say that it's impossible for one to cede their self ownership, but everything else in the world is clearly alienable from them; so what have I contradicted by arguing that we should have full communism and he is forced to do things and he can't control property?

You havent attempted to justify your proposition. In order to do so, you must appeal to shared premises. The only premises we share are those implicit in discourse. Hence, self-ownership. Why should we have full communism?

"You haven't attempted to justify your proposition. In order to do so, you must appeal to shared premises. The only premises we share are those implicit in discourse. Hence, self-ownership. Why should we have full communism?"

So if we're back to this, then what has been proven by argumentation ethics? If I say, for instance "because it is the more appealing system to myself" and I then force you to adopt full communism, then what have I violated? If I convince you of this then it clearly works no matter what rights actually are since that would imply voluntary action, but you have not demonstrated why we should not have full communism.

 

I concede that it is physically possible to violate one's rights however I dont see you attempting to justify it through argument. The fact that communism is appealing to you doesnt imply anything for me, and so I wasnt persuaded. And I think you know that

given: a) communism is appealing to Neodoxy

it does not follow that:

b) everyone should adopt communism.

if you attempted to justify it I think you would discover that your premises (that would lead to communism) would contradict the a priori of argumentation.

And how does the shared traits of self ownership between you and I lead me to accept libertarianism if I find it unappealing?

They dont. If you dont care about being logically consistent, then AE has nothing for you.

What does AE have to do with it? And how am I being logically inconsistent if I say that I want to prevent you from accumulating property/confiscate your property to instate full communism?

As a description of your own desires, youre consistent. If we are engaged in discourse and you propose that my property be transferred to you, then that statement cannot be justified. By AE I mean argumentation ethics which is only concerned with what ethical propositions are justifiable through discourse.

"If we are engaged in discourse and you propose that my property be transferred to you, then that statement cannot be justified"

Why not?

"By AE I mean argumentation ethics which is only concerned with what ethical propositions are justifiable through discourse."

Ooooh right. Unfortunate coincidence of acronyms there...

Because you need to appeal to shared premises to justify your proposition. When we begin a discussion the only shared premises are the a priori of argumentation, which includes the concept of ownership. You would have to create a new premise to justify your proposition. But a premise that justifies involuntary expropriation would contradict premises you already accepted implicitly.

"Because you need to appeal to shared premises to justify your proposition. When we begin a discussion the only shared premises are the a priori of argumentation, which includes the concept of ownership. You would have to create a new premise to justify your proposition. But a premise that justifies involuntary expropriation would contradict premises you already accepted implicitly."

But this is not referring to what  I want ownership to be. I acknowledge that you own yourself, but this does not mean that I agree that all private property rights are legitimate, merely that self ownership is the case between myself and yourself. Once gain I don't see how I am breaking any premises here. Once again as you have stated, an ought cannot give us an is, so I can argue that property should belong to the collective and I have violated nothing.

For the record, Van Dun has a (slightly) different Argumentation Ethics then Hoppe. And Van Dun doesn't directly defends Hoppe's argumentation ethics. 

Don't ask me for the differences; not an expert. I just go by what Van Dun says himself. 

Pretty sure David Gordon does not agree with Hoppe's argumentation ethics. But he doesn't commentate on it directly anywhere in writing, as far as I know.