Mises ill-definition of Natural Law, why?

The format in the forum will undoubtedly make this a hodge-podge post but I'll give it a go. Does Mises ever understand natural law in the Aristotle-Thomist tradition? I've never seen one written line by Mises in which he actually defines it correctly. I've read Rothbard point this out too here (here the link: http://mises.org/journals/jls/4_3/4_3_5.pdf ). Here's two examples. First from his book "Socialism" p. 153 of the pdf version I'm using (I can't link it but I'll try to come back when that option is available): (1) "...old doctrine of natural law of the equality of all human beings. Rigidly applied it would prove absurd. It would permit no distinction between adults and children, between the sick and healthy, between the industrious and the lazy, or between the good and bad." That old doctrine of natural law is commonly understood within the tradition to mean 'in the eyes of justice' and that implies the person implementing justice is to pursue that each human that would happen to stand trail gets a fair just trial. That nobody gets special, unfair treatment before the law. How Mises goes from that to what I quote is only one of the numerous failings of Mises in understanding what natural law is. Second example as I'm not going to write out everything Mises says in all of his books you'll just have to read them. And it's not that Mises doesn't hit the mark on economics and other ethical-political ideas. Mises advocated a John Locke style natural rights/law implementation as to what a liberal is to pursue (Mises was a liberal and Mises stated "life, liberty, health, and private property" are to be defended in his book "Liberalism"). It's the fact that Mises ill-defines natural law in so many ways I wish somebody could give me an answer as to why he appeared to completely fail to know what natural law of human nature is. So here's a second example: (2)

Human Action, 27.3:

"There is, however, no such thing as a perennial standard of what is just and what is unjust. Nature is alien to the idea of right and wrong. "Thou shalt not kill" is certainly not part of natural law. The characteristic feature of natural conditions is that one animal is intent upon killing other animals and that many species cannot preserve their own life except by killing others..." That's not even Aristotle-Thomist (meaning Rothbard and somewhat Hoppe's) tradition of natural law. It is Thomas Hobbes and Spinoza's version. I'm not saying Mises even knowing all of this would still accept natural law, though obviously he said a liberal is to practice the defense of natural rights though Mises wouldn't call them natural rights. Of course not so in name only on this point he was against natural rights. He makes it either a semantics issue or doesn't even define natural law according to the tradition I presented. All I really want to know is why Mises made such a mistake in defining what natural law and natural rights are. Please don't turn this into a natural law debate or a nihilistic debate. There's already one going on and enough threads that cover that topic and I only say that because it would deviate from what I'm asking.

Mises:

There is, however, no such thing as a perennial standard of what is just and what is unjust. Nature is alien to the idea of right and wrong. "Thou shalt not kill" is certainly not part of natural law. The characteristic feature of natural conditions is that one animal is intent upon killing other animals and that many species cannot preserve their own life except by killing others...

I don't see how he goes wrong here. It seems a pretty correct understanding of natural law.

I think that Mises defined it perfectly right here:

Ludwig von Mises:

All nonutilitarian systems of ethics look upon the moral law as something outside the nexus of means and ends.

When he favored classical liberalism, he was not saying that he was building a system of ethics; he was merely injecting his judgements of value pertaining to political organization into his valueless system of economics.

I. Ryan,

And yet there are praxeologists that are natural law theorists.

Take it a step further.  Seeing that human action is an axiom then all ethics, including the natural law theoretical kind, would have all naturally been under the umbrella of praxeology since the dawn of man.

wilderness:

Does Mises ever understand natural law in the Aristotle-Thomist tradition? I've never seen one written line by Mises in which he actually defines it correctly. I've read Rothbard point this out too here (here the link: http://mises.org/journals/jls/4_3/4_3_5.pdf ). Here's two examples. First from his book "Socialism" p. 153 of the pdf version I'm using (I can't link it but I'll try to come back when that option is available): (1) "...old doctrine of natural law of the equality of all human beings. Rigidly applied it would prove absurd. It would permit no distinction between adults and children, between the sick and healthy, between the industrious and the lazy, or between the good and bad." That old doctrine of natural law is commonly understood within the tradition to mean 'in the eyes of justice' and that implies the person implementing justice is to pursue that each human that would happen to stand trail gets a fair just trial. That nobody gets special, unfair treatment before the law. How Mises goes from that to what I quote is only one of the numerous failings of Mises in understanding what natural law is.

The point at which you begin to quote Mises is misleading.  It makes it seem as though he is directly critiquing natural law doctrine as not distinguishing between the industrious and lazy etc.  He is actually critiquing socialist doctrine, and only incidentally noting that the egalitarianism of socialist doctrine was inspired by the egalitarianism of natural law doctrine.

Here is the quote in enough context so as to not be misleading.

There are four different principles upon which socialistic distribution can conceivably be based: equal distribution per head, distribution according to service rendered to the community, distribution according to needs, and distribution according to merit. These principles can be combined in different ways.

The principle of equal distribution derives from the old doctrine of natural law of the equality of all human beings. Rigidly applied it would prove absurd. It would permit no distinction between adults and children, between the sick and the healthy, between the industrious and the lazy, or between good and bad. It could be applied only in combination with the other three principles of distribution. It would at least be necessary to take into account the principle of distribution according to needs, so that shares might be graded according to age, sex, health and special occupational needs; it would be necessary to take into account the principle of distribution according to services rendered, so that distinction could be made between industrious and less industrious, and between good and bad workers; and finally, some account would have to be taken of merit, so as to make reward or punishment effective. But even if the principle of equal distribution is modified in these ways the difficulties of socialistic distribution are not removed. In fact, these difficulties cannot be overcome at all.

Regarding the Human Action quote, if you want an answer regarding your supposition that Mises misrepresented Aristotelean-Thomist natural law doctrine, you'll need to explain your grounds for that supposition.

And yet there are praxeologists that are natural law theorists.

Take it a step further.  Seeing that human action is an axiom then all ethics, including the natural law theoretical kind, would have all naturally been under the umbrella of praxeology since the dawn of man.

I think Mises understood natural law, but was weary of anything called "natural law" because it was usually disguised socialism/"social justice." Mises is essentially saying that people don't have a right to anything (a car, house, healthcare, et al.); but again, this isn't the version of natural rights I support. This debate is a semantical issue. I recently sent Jesse and email and he agreed with everything I said, but refused to call it natural law.

Semantic quibbling in letting words belay, instead of striking in perceptive depth on the actual meaningful substance, belittle's the pursuit of philosophical truth.

Yes, in the writings of Mises, so far, all I find is Mises taking on Marxism (the quote above on equality which I knew was Mises philosophical attack on socialism) and Hobbes might v. right version (the other quote above).  You've undoubtedly read more Mises than I and have more insight into this.  So you're only further affirming what my findings are.  Mises didn't address the natural rights version I support either, which has been my belaboring point for some time now.

wilderness:

Semantic quibbling in letting words belay, instead of striking in perceptive depth on the actual meaningful substance belittle's the pursuit of philosophical truth."

To you, I commit semantic quibbling.  To me, you make the meanings of words shift and merge in a myriad of ways until you manipulate them into seeming to support the incoherent doctrine you so desperately want to believe.

Anyway, when you embrace a deductive doctrine like argumentation ethics, you need to drop the defensiveness over "semantic quibbling".  As Mises wrote, the deductive method...

"leads along a sharp edge; on both sides yawns the chasm of absurdity and nonsense. Only merciless self-criticism can prevent a man from falling headlong into these abysmal depths."

It seems that the ardor of some libertarians has engendered an "anything goes" attitude toward pro-liberty arguments that flies in the face of the "merciless self-criticism" Mises espoused with regard to discursive reasoning.

It's rather like, "Sure, economic science proves the superiority of freedom.  But hey look, we can also use natural law to "prove" that statists are objectively evil!  That's a neat trick.  And what about this, we can even "prove" that statists can't even say statist things without refuting themselves; let's use that, too!"

Such an approach will only ultimately backfire.  If you want me and others to accept what as of now seems to me to be a completely fallacious doctrine, you are going to have to do a lot better than complaining about our "quibbling" or that we're "philosophically attacking your life, liberty, and property."  I'm willing to dedicate my life to liberalism, but I will never lie to myself for it.

It's rather like, "Sure, economic science proves the superiority of freedom.  But hey look, we can also use natural law to "prove" that statists are objectively evil!  That's a neat trick.  And what about this, we can even "prove" that statists can't even say statist things without refuting themselves; let's use that, too!"

Such an approach will only ultimately backfire.  If you want me and others to accept what as of now seems to me to be a completely fallacious doctrine, you are going to have to do a lot better than complaining about our "quibbling" or that we're "philosophically attacking your life, liberty, and property."  I'm willing to dedicate my life to liberalism, but I will never lie to myself for it.

I agree, but that doesn't really address the issue at hand. There are only two possibilities here: (a) I don't know what natural law is, or (b) you don't understand what I'm saying. There's also (c), you have some kind of ideological bias against natural law theories, but I assume that this isn't the case.

Esuric,

I'm not sure what set of propositions you refer to when you say you support "natural law", plus I regard you as an eminently self-critical and rigorous thinker, so the above critique wasn't referring to you.

wilderness:

Mises didn't address the natural rights version I support either, which has been my belaboring point for some time now.

Does what you support derive its suggestions from outside the nexus of means and ends?

wilderness:

And yet there are praxeologists that are natural law theorists.

"And yet there are" people who are incorrect about things. (I am not saying that "natural law theorists" are incorrect; I am just saying that you are not proving anything there.)

wilderness:

Take it a step further.  Seeing that human action is an axiom then all ethics, including the natural law theoretical kind, would have all naturally been under the umbrella of praxeology since the dawn of man.

I am not sure what you mean there.

Lilburne:

Anyway, when you embrace a deductive doctrine like argumentation ethics, you need to drop the defensiveness over "semantic quibbling".  As Mises wrote, the deductive method...

Argumentation ethics isn't deductive in demonstration.  This is exactly why there's no point in discussing this with you as the other thread and now this thread clearly shows. 

And what Mises said there isn't the deductive method at all, but only another one of your actions to quote him that mirrors Marxist emotional rhetoric of an unfounded assertion.

Esuric:

I agree, but that doesn't really address the issue at hand.  There are only two possibilities here: (a) you don't know what natural law is, or (b) you don't understand what I'm saying. There's also (c), you have some kind of ideological bias against natural law theories, but I assume that this isn't the case.

This.

I. Ryan:

Does what you support derive its suggestions from outside the nexus of means and ends?

How can any human derive its suggestions from outside the nexus of means and ends?

wilderness:

And what Mises said there isn't the deductive method at all, but only another one of your actions to quote him that mirrors Marxist emotional rhetoric of an unfounded assertion.

He was talking about using imaginary constructions.

wilderness:

How can any human derive its suggestions from outside the nexus of means and ends?

Does what you support suggest to people what to do based on their ends, your ends, or what?

I. Ryan:

"And yet there are" people who are incorrect about things. (I am not saying that "natural law theorists" are incorrect; I am just saying that you are not proving anything there.)

It wasn't intended to prove anything but to show what Esuric had said in his last post in this thread.  And all Lilburne could muster in reponse was emotional rhetoric about how Esuric is a critical thinker so thereby the post wasn't intended for him.  Implication noted. 

As Esuric had said.  '(Lilburne) isn't addressing the point.'  As I pointed out in the other thread this discussion slipped from:  all the quotes Lilburne made were not Mises addressing the natural law that I adhere to.  Shows Lilburne doesn't have the knowledge as to (1) what natural law is (2) doesn't understand me (3) Lilburne has a dogmatic, ideological bias against life, liberty, and private property (natural law).  Either way Lilburne isn't addressing the meaningful substance and has thus far quibbled about semantics.

I. Ryan:

I am not sure what you mean there.

What is an axiom?

wilderness:

And what Mises said there isn't the deductive method at all, but only another one of your actions to quote him that mirrors Marxist emotional rhetoric of an unfounded assertion.

I. Ryan:

He was talking about using imaginary constructions.

I don't know.  Lilburne said this:

Lilburne:

As Mises wrote, the deductive method...

And then followed the quote.

wilderness:

How can any human derive its suggestions from outside the nexus of means and ends?

I. Ryan:

Does what you support suggest to people what to do based on their ends, your ends, or what?

Why do I need to suggest to people anything?

wilderness:

I don't know.  Lilburne said this[...]

I meant that, in that quote, Mises was talking about "imaginary constructions".

wilderness:

Why do I need to suggest to people anything?

So you are saying that the system that you support makes no suggestions to other people?

wilderness:

I don't know.  Lilburne said this[...]

Lilburne:

I meant that, in that quote, Mises was talking about "imaginary constructions".

So he was or wasn't talking about the deductive method in that quote?

wilderness:

Why do I need to suggest to people anything?

I. Ryan:

So you are saying that the system that you support makes no suggestions to other people?

At first no, cause it's presupposed.

A self-evident principle or one that is accepted as true without proof as the basis for argument; a postulate.

wilderness:

It was intended to prove anything but to show what Esuric had said in his last post in this thread.  And all Lilburne could muster in reponse was Marxist emotional rhetoric about how Esuric is a critical thinker so thereby the post wasn't intended for him.  Implication noted.  As Esuric had said.  '(Lilburne) isn't addressing the point.'  As I pointed out in the other thread this discussion slipped from, first all the quotes Lilburne made were not Mises addressing natural law that I adhere to.  Shows Lilburne doesn't have the knowledge as to (1) what natural law is (2) doesn't understand me[...]

I am not sure why you are trying to drag me into this.

wilderness:

[...](3) Lilburne has a dogmatic, ideological bias against life, liberty, and private property (natural law).

Now you are just being silly.

wilderness:

What is an axiom?

An undefined, unproved starting point of a system, I guess.

wilderness:

So he was or wasn't talking about the deductive method in that quote?

Is coming up with "imaginary constructions" a part of his "deductive method"?

wilderness:

At first no, cause it's presupposed.

I have no idea what that means.

scineram:

A self-evident principle or one that is accepted as true without proof as the basis for argument; a postulate.

I. Ryan, we can use what scineram said here.  It's a decent definition except it needs tweaked.

An axiom is proved and is defined.  That's why it is self-evident.  There is evidence and there is something defined.

I. Ryan:

I am not sure why you are trying to drag me into this.

It's not that I dragged you into this per se.  I was answering you're question as to why I said there are praxeologists that are natural law theorists.  It was indirectly implied before Esuric made his post, but Esuric made it explicit so that's why I wrote it out more explicitly in regards to how Esuric phrased it.

I. Ryan:

Now you are just being silly.

I said that's one of the options.  I only repeated what Esuric said.  Why am I silly and Esuric isn't?  I didn't say he is this.  I said he's one of those three.  I mean those are the only options I can think of at this point.

wilderness:

An axiom is proved and is defined.  That's why it is self-evident.  There is evidence and there is something defined.

Being self-evident is not being proved or defined:

David Hume:

We come now to explain the direct passions, or the impressions, which arise immediately from good or evil, from pain or pleasure. Of this kind are, desire and aversion, grief and joy, hope and fear.

Of all the immediate effects of pain and pleasure, there is none more remarkable than the will; and tho', properly speaking, it be not comprehended among the passions, yet as the full understanding of its nature and properties, is necessary to the explanation of them, we shall here make it the subject of our enquiry. I desire it may be observ'd, that by the will, I mean nothing but the internal impression we feel and are conscious of, when we knowingly give rise to any new motion of our body, or new perception of our mind. This impression, like the preceding ones of pride and humility, love and hatred, 'tis impossible to define, and needless to describe any farther; for which reason we shall cut off all those definitions and distinctions, with which philosophers are wont to perplex rather than clear up this question; and entering at first upon the subject, shall examine that long disputed question concerning liberty and necessity; which occurs so naturally in treating of the will.

There, he is referring to "desire" as an axiom. If axioms were "proved" or "defined", every deductive system would be a circular argument or definition.

I. Ryan:

Is coming up with "imaginary constructions" a part of his "deductive method"?

We are talking about axioms.  I'll just get to the point of all of this.  "Pre-supposed" are axioms.  They are implied as self-evident.  They are common sense.  We've had this discussion before so we should be on the same page for the most part at this point.  Do you remember that discussion?  It was very fruitful I thought.

wilderness:

We are talking about axioms.  I'll just get to the point of all of this.  "Pre-supposed" are axioms.  They are implied as self-evident.  They are common sense.  We've had this discussion before so we should be on the same page for the most part at this point.  Do you remember that discussion?  It was very fruitful I thought.

Lilburne was using that quotation to refer to deductive systems, not just axioms, I think.

wilderness:

I said that's one of the options.  I only repeated what Esuric said.  Why am I silly and Esuric isn't?  I didn't say he is this.  I said he's one of those three.  I mean those are the only options I can think of at this point.

What was silly about what you said, which was not present in what Esuric said, was that you were saying that being a proponent of "life, liberty, and property" were synonymous with being one of "natural law".

 

I. Ryan:

wilderness:

So he was or wasn't talking about the deductive method in that quote?

Is coming up with "imaginary constructions" a part of his "deductive method"?

Yes, exactly.  According to Mises what makes the method of imaginary constructions require such care is that...

"...it can easily result in fallacious syllogisms."

"Syllogism" is the Aristotelean term for deduction.

And yes wilderness, Hoppe's Argumentation Ethics is deductive.  Read Rothbard on...

"Hoppe's logical and deductive mode of thought and writing, demonstrating the truth of his propositions and showing that those who differ are often trapped in self-contradiction and self-refutation."

Hume philosophically attacks common sense.  Hume isn't a good definer of what an axiom is because he shut them off.  This is why the debate today, at now in this forum, is about axioms.  Hume attacked what Arisototle said about axioms.  Kant rebutted Hume.  Karl Popper kept Hume's skepticism out of the natural science department so they could continue to do science without Hume's stuckness interfering.  The Feynman youtube rebuts Hume.  Hume ate so Hume is self-refuting.

The axiom is defined or else you couldn't say what the axiom is nor what if there was an axiom.  No definition.  Nothing there.

I've really got to make a side point here.  Hume really screwed up philosophy. lol  Though in the end I think Barry Smith makes a good point concering Hume.  It's good to be skeptical if we know reality or not, but that doesn't mean we can't be certain about some things.

I. Ryan:

There, he is referring to "desire" as an axiom. If axioms were "proved" or "defined", every deductive system would be a circular argument or definition.

Now we are talking about two different definitions of "defined" and "proved".  (1)  It is because of the very fact of circularity that it is "proved". (2)  We are talking about 'desires' so it is 'defined' as to what is being talked about. (3)  Desires are 'proved' because they simply are.  They are evidenced by my experience of them.  If somebody comes along that doesn't feel and couldn't validate that 'feelings' do in fact exist, then ok.  But most humans 'feel' and so they do in fact exist.

I. Ryan:

What was silly about what you said, which was not present in what Esuric said, was that you were saying that being a proponent of "life, liberty, and property" were synonymous with being one of "natural law".

It is synonymous for natural law theorists.  Why are saying that's silly?  Why are using rhetorical blabber in saying 'silly'?

wilderness:

Now we are talking about two different definitions of "defined" and "proved".

So we agree, good. (Maybe my use of "proved" and "defined" was misleading.)

wilderness:

It is synonymous for natural law theorists.

If so, Lilburne, Mises, and I are "natural law theorists". Cool.