In further attempt to garner a reputation as one of the Mises Community's original thinkers, I submit the following. ;)
To Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc.:
If you own yourself 100% (that is to say, exclusively), everyone else must own you 0%. That much is simple. To the extent that ownership represents the right to exclude control or possession, self-ownership necessarily entails that God (another moral agent), also, has no right to attempt to control your body without your permission. To claim otherwise is to imply that God does have the right to exclude you from the use of your of your own body as you see fit, which is not "self-ownership" at all if we are to add that God would not be acting unethically if he did such a thing.
And didn't God homestead you ex nihilo? I doubt he would have relinquished his ownership of you, as to do such a thing would imply that if he did later want to do something to you against your will he would be powerless lest he commit an ethical breach (God committing a sin!), even if he wished to save you from yourself. Nor do I believe that he would have relinquished partial ownership, which would necessitate his getting your hopefully-similarly-wise opinion before acting on your body's joint ownership. I doubt there is any input a man may give a God that would give him pause for reflection.
I am very close to claiming outright that Christianity (especially with respect to the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo) and the alleged "self-evident" status of self-ownership must be mutually exclusive, rendering acts such as murder or theft unethical not because they violate another's self-ownership (which doesn't seem coherent if every individual is divinely homesteaded and subsequently treasured as one of the 'God-owned'), but rather because they utterly fail to "love one's neighbor as oneself," and indeed run counter to that guiding principle. The fulcrum point, then, is love, which has nothing whatsoever to do with any notion of "ownership" or its claim of derivative rights.
To All:
If there's even a possibility that a Creator God exists (and I doubt anyone here would be so bold as to assert that there definitely is not), then necessarily the possibility of non-self-ownership exists (as we'll assume that the potential Creator God--or even multiple Creator Gods or Goddesses, for that matter--has homesteaded you and owns you as surely as you own the ants in your ant farm that, like you, cannot recognize the presence of their owner), casting a shadow of doubt on the alleged "self-evident" status of self-ownership.
To wit, saying that self-ownership is "self-evident" implies that the nonexistence of even the possibility of a Creator God (or Goddess, or what have you) is likewise "self-evident." But as one cannot prove a negative, self-ownership aficionados reach a speed bump: self-ownership's alleged "self-evident" status seems to come only with weighty metaphysical assumptions and their impossible burden of proof in tow. Consequently, "self-evident self-ownership" becomes a faith, perhaps even a foolish faith, as one implicitly believes that he has proven a negative.
The ants in the ant farm may believe that it is "self-evident" that they own themselves, having no conception whatever that an Agent greater than them (that would be you) has facilitated their existence. They can have no conception because they are not self-aware. But we are self-aware, and through our self-awareness we are able to recognize this possibility of a hierarchic structure of being that ascends beyond ourselves. "Self-evident" is foolishness when spoken of by the ants. Let's not be the ants.
"Melody is a form of remembrance. It must have a quality of inevitability in our ears." - Gian Carlo Menotti
Ownership means control. Regardless of whether or not God exists, God can't control you.
Edit: Even if there was "joint-ownership" between you and God, it would still be a violation of that ownership for someone else to control you.
Don't allow leftists to play games with definitions! Some of the libertarian-leaning leftists at this forum will try to redefine "left-wing" back to its original defition (Third Estate, limited government, free-markets, laissez-faire reforms, etc.). Fine! We non-leftists can't stop them from using their own personal definitions; they can use whatever labels they want to describe any concept they want.However, they have the audacity to then use their personal definition of "left-wing" (remember, the original definition, which is no longer valid) to prove that modern leftists are more libertarian than modern rightists! They will say that libertarianism is "inherently leftist" (again, using the original, no longer valid definition), and use that to insist that we should prefer and side with modern leftists over modern rightists.
Question their motives.
Ego: Ownership means control.
Ownership means control.
Incorrect. Possession means control, which is just another way of saying, "control means control"--a tautology. Ownership implies the right to exclude control from others.
If we go with your definition instead, we cannot extrapolate that I have acted unethically if I were to strike you. You may say, "I own myself!" to which I would reply, "So? A fruit fly controls himself. You control yourself? So what." So what, indeed. Without the implication of a right to exclude from others, "ownership" is a facade representing nothing more than mere possession. Given the tautological nature of your claim, what you have said, with respect, amounts to zilch.
The is-ought gap is not crossed.
Regardless of whether or not God exists, God can't control you.
I'm not sure if you're being serious here or not, but I assure you that if the God of one of the major religions is real, he certainly does own you and so certainly can control you, both in the physical sense and in the ethical one.
I'm atheist, but I was under the impression that God gave humans free will. In any event...
I did indeed use a poor definition: "ownerships" means "the right to control". Even if you and God have joint ownership of you, no one else other than you and God have a right to control you. Thanks for helping me clear that up!
Ego: Thanks for helping me clear that up!
Thanks for helping me clear that up!
Sure. :)
I'm atheist, but I was under the impression that God gave humans free will.
I'm not sure what connection this has to my post. Could you elaborate?
I was just saying that if God gives us free will, he probably doesn't want to control us.
When I speak of self-ownership I am approaching it from a Rothbardian perspective. In this case "natural law" is a deduction of self-ownership, not the other way around. To explain, the "natural law" that one should not aggress against another is imagined because property in oneself has first been "established." To claim that one should not aggress against one another because of "natural law," without providing a sound basis in self-ownership first, is to build a roof on the grass. Existence precedes knowing, and one cannot know that one should not do X or Y (say, aggress) if existential conditions (say, self-ownership) which facilitate that knowledge are not first brought to fruition.
I deny the two-tiered law of the "natural" and the "divine," and I fault Aquinas for pandering to the demands of his fellow philosophers in postulating the former's existence. To claim that "natural" law governs human --> human interactions while divine law governs human --> God interactions is to--with a flick of one's wand--define God out of the moral sphere of human interaction and so render him of no consequence to that domain. But what of the Bible? The Bible purports to be the word of God, and includes so many laws for human ---> human interactions. There is nothing "natural," if we are to believe its origin, about the Bible. Can we puff out our chests and say that "thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" is really the redundant hot air of a being who forgot for a moment that he had already built that rule into nature, and that it was waiting to be "discovered" with or without the aid of his breath? I think not.
I believe that many among us (I'm speaking of the earth as a whole) intuitively grasp a fundamentally similar ethic, but I do not at all believe that this is somehow related to "natural" law as made distinct from divine law. In fact, there are problems inherent in the idea of a two-tiered ethic to begin with. The horn of arbitrariness first raises its head, and not long after one must question the ontological dissimilarity between that of a divine standard that is a part of a non-contingent being, and so a structurally necessary aspect of reality and, thus, also the contingent creation that is a part of that reality; and that of "natural" law, which, being derived from "nature" is found to be a contingent, and so structurally unnecessary (in the ontological sense), standard, which, being unnecessary, is no standard at all (no more than a standard could be founded in you or I, as entities contingent and therefore unnecessary for the continued existence of known reality). So now we have aribtrariness and ontological dissimilarity.
I don't buy a "divine & natural" pairing. I buy a divine standard, the structural necessity of which may be founded in its non-contingent origin, and I deny all others.
Then again, I'm always willing to eat my words.
That's good sir; Dynamix.
I have evolved myself. I was for giving myself to all, and being a leaf in the wind. This devotion to all, is't cheap or easy when it comes to working at it. I have grown to realize that the morality of monasticism(poverty of christ deal), is fouled. I believe that a creative force exists which may not ever be scientifically explained. Maybe the practical sciences are all developed from scholastic methods and will never see why and how of the creative process without saying that a process goes on in everything. Even should that all in all duality be reconed, I still don't see science activly breaking the vail of eternal questions like why must we all strugle. Rather mentallism may evolve and not be rigorous to traditions given new light. Some folks prefer to follow traditions, cool. Just when traditionalism is subjugated among folks things get rank indeed.
I was really shed light by things like. "the unconsious mind remembers nothing", and polylogism is a falacious skill which may sometimes yield gains despite it's inconsistant method.
I don't give in to all anymore. I try not to be servant but to what is best for me, like my family, or tryin to get folks from hurtin' folks.
Perhaps if I'm a taoist whatever I will do will be part of the way. I don't feel that all is purposfull other than as a method. Whether there is a way or not I know one thing I can ball up like the best of baller uppers.
P.S. I'm afraid to be Charlie and loose all the great personality and knowlege I've gained. And, in a repair fassit it's not remembering exactly how something is done, but how the methods help one acheive repairs. Oops that may be polylogistic too.
Well, sorry if that is all blah blah blah.
Individualism Rocks
It's no more a faith than atheism is. Moreover, even if one were to discover the existence of a creator god it'd prove little to nothing, as that god maybe have accidentally created the beings in questiion, may have relinquished ownership, may by power of logic be forced to admit that its own claims of ownership over others are self-contradictory &c. When logical reasoning gives little to no good reason to believe in a god, or to doubt self-ownership, one can indeed assume it to be self-evident - more than can be said for the existence of any deity. It's self-evident to me that there aren't fairies flying around my head - that there might be is mere conjecture. I'll agree on one thing - self-ownership and the NAP cannot be taken as axioms. They require proof within the context of an ethical system.
-Jon
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
Bank Run: That's good sir; Dynamix. I have evolved myself. I was for giving myself to all, and being a leaf in the wind. This devotion to all, is't cheap or easy when it comes to working at it. I have grown to realize that the morality of monasticism(poverty of christ deal), is fouled. I believe that a creative force exists which may not ever be scientifically explained. Maybe the practical sciences are all developed from scholastic methods and will never see why and how of the creative process without saying that a process goes on in everything. Even should that all in all duality be reconed, I still don't see science activly breaking the vail of eternal questions like why must we all strugle. Rather mentallism may evolve and not be rigorous to traditions given new light. Some folks prefer to follow traditions, cool. Just when traditionalism is subjugated among folks things get rank indeed. I was really shed light by things like. "the unconsious mind remembers nothing", and polylogism is a falacious skill which may sometimes yield gains despite it's inconsistant method. I don't give in to all anymore. I try not to be servant but to what is best for me, like my family, or tryin to get folks from hurtin' folks. Perhaps if I'm a taoist whatever I will do will be part of the way. I don't feel that all is purposfull other than as a method. Whether there is a way or not I know one thing I can ball up like the best of baller uppers. P.S. I'm afraid to be Charlie and loose all the great personality and knowlege I've gained. And, in a repair fassit it's not remembering exactly how something is done, but how the methods help one acheive repairs. Oops that may be polylogistic too. Well, sorry if that is all blah blah blah.
Thanks for the kind words. With respect to problems that remain totally insoluble to science, I think you would very much enjoy Chapter 10: Two Types of Problems in E. F. Schumacher's book A Guide for the Perplexed. You can find the PDF here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?221cugxlgbz
Perhaps. But even if God doesn't control us, he might still own us, since other peopel can control my property if I give them permission to.
Jon Irenicus: It's no more a faith than atheism is.
It's no more a faith than atheism is.
Incorrect: it's no more faith than hard atheism is. Hard atheism claims, "I believe that there is no God." Soft atheism claims, "I do not believe that there is a God." See the difference? For the former it's a faith-based belief in a nonexistence which can't be proved, similar to the faith-based belief of the deist or theist in an existence which also can't be proved. For the latter it's the absence of a belief (i.e., unconnected with faith).
When logical reasoning gives little to no good reason to believe in a god, or to doubt self-ownership, one can indeed assume it to be self-evident [...]
*Sigh.*
"Self-evident self-ownership" is a faith, again, because it implies the self-evidence of the new proposition "there is no God as described in any of the monotheistic religions," which, via reason, cannot be deduced from observable facts.
My claim that the possibility of non-self-ownership exists on account of, if nothing else, the possibility of a theistic Creator makes prima facie good sense. Your objection that we should choose instead to believe in the nonexistence of a being that is already understood a priori, if he exists, to be conceptually unobservable because we lack, a posteriori, observable evidence of it belies a prior commitment to artificially narrowed methodological requirements, and misses the point entirely.
To clarify, your I-have-no-need-for-that-hypothesis presupposition is in this case the red-headed step-child of Ockham's Razor, as it denies a priori the legitimacy of the perfectly legitimate pursuit of the possible truth of immaterial (unobservable) things, which we are here concerned with (again, their possibility!).
equack:I fail to see how God's ethical notions can be contained within natural law.
I don't remember saying or implying that. My apologies if I did.
God does not act within our world [...]
Would you hold it against me if I asked for proof?
I also fail to see what ethical system you are proposing as well.
I haven't proposed any ethical system. What I have proposed is two-fold:
1. Self-ownership cannot lay claim to being "self-evident" or "apodictically certain" as long as the possibility of a Creator who's retained ownership of his homesteaded creation exists. And that possibility does exist. I'm in no way, in this thread, trying to disprove self-ownership as such. That isn't the goal of this thread. My goal is to transport "self-ownership" to a less lofty perch in light of a broadened horizon.
2. Self-ownership is probably incompatible with the conception of God as brought forth by the major monotheistic religions, as in these particular religions it is a given that God may "mess with you" without acting unethically, and he may do so against your will nevertheless. This, along with the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, is sufficient reason to believe that, assuming a major monotheistic religion is true, we are all as individuals God-owned, not self-owned. And we obviously cannot be both at the same time.
If God does exist and we can find his ethical beliefs in his words, taken to be the Bible, then do we start something similar to Christian communism? If what God says is correct and we have interpreted it correctly, then I see how some totalitarian monolith could be put into place to make sure we follow this great ethical will. Due to the fact that its ethical as its coming from the word of God, then we _must_ follow it. In the present, the only way to follow it is to have state planners making sure we follow it.
This is immaterial to the purpose of this thread (as outlined above) so I respectfully decline to respond to it.
How can God have effective ownership over us as well if he does exist? It does not follow that a creator has exclusive rights over the created. Nor does it certaintly follow that a creature of a separate dimension or world has ownership that extends into our material world.
You're right, it does not follow that "a creator" or "a creature" has exclusive rights over "the created." But if we are to be more specific and say that we are talking about, for instance, the Jewish conception of God (and in my defense I was in my original post referring to specific monotheistic religions), we would say that the Jewish God most certainly does have exclusive "ownership" over the things that he's created. We reach this conclusion because we cannot say that God has acted unethically by, say, "moving" you against your will, without also making reference to the ethical standard in question that would allow us to make that very judgment. Given that the Jewish ethical standard is derived from that same God, we see that such a claim as "God has violated his own standard" is senseless if we are to believe, as the [religious] Jews do, that God is absolutely holy and immutable.
By the way, heres a great systemization of natural law using formal logic. http://rothbard.be/english/articles/the-logic-of-law it would be of great utility to check out.
I have to admit that that's all like Arabic to me. I know others would be able to comment on it (like Donny with an A), but whether they'll show up in this thread or not, who knows.
Okay, and this is religious faith, how? It, being based on logic and the extreme unlikelihood of the existence of a deity does not seem to me to be the same as unsubstantiated faith.
Indeed.
And how did you derive this from it? Why should one believe in these so-called unobservables, for which there is no logical basis nor empirical evidence?
Right, and now one is supposed to embrace this belief on the basis of a possibility, however slight? As I said, you'll have to do far more than just prove the existence of a creator.
Possible? Yes. Now explain why one should lend any credibility to such unobservable, possible truths.
Here's my two cents worth:
The idea of God owning human beings seems to be based on the attribution of human qualities to a non-human entity.
It's like saying that a dog acted unethically when he bit my leg. That's the argument you're making when you say God can't act unethically, and therefore any intervention in our lives must be ethical, and therefore God owns us (in the same way that I own a car).
From a human perspective, God is "a-ethical".
I think this is along the same lines as the point equack was trying to make in his previous post.
Also, I believe this argument involves a performative contradiction.
Jon Irenicus: [...] the extreme unlikelihood of the existence of a deity [...] [...] possibility, however slight [...] [...] such unobservable, possible truths.
[...] the extreme unlikelihood of the existence of a deity [...]
[...] possibility, however slight [...]
[...] such unobservable, possible truths.
There you go. "Unlikelihood," "possibility," "possible"--that's all I was going for. I think you may have misunderstood me, as you seem to think that I was trying to prove too much.
I'm not at all trying to prove the existence of a Creator. I don't think I need to. "This belief" that you were referring to can be expressed as follows:
1. It is possible that one of the Gods mentioned in the major monotheistic religions does exist.
Now, as there is nothing internally contradictory about this proposition, we may say that it is true. It is possible, and to deny otherwise would be a proposition itself requiring the impossible proof that none of those Gods exist. You have said that I am expecting people to "embrace this belief"--which has already taken it's own possible falsehood into account, and, thus, also the concept of 'possibility'!--"on the basis of possibility."
I assure you that I am not asking people to believe that "it is possible that it is possible [etc.]" which is totally redundant. If:
1. Book X claims that God Z owns all of creation
2. It is possible that Book X is correct (about God Z's existence as well as his relationship with creation)
then
3. It is possible that God Z owns all of creation.
So:
4. The Torah, the Bible, the Koran, etc., claim that Yahweh, Yahweh, and Allah own all of creation, respectively
5. It is possible that the Torah, the Bible, or the Koran is correct (about Yahweh's, Yahweh's, or Allah's existence as well as his relationship with creation)
6. It is possible that Yahweh, Yahweh, or Allah owns all of creation
7. If it is possible that Yahweh, Yahweh, or Allah owns all of creation
8. I am a part of that creation
9. It is possible that Yahweh, Yahweh, or Allah owns me
10. If it possible that Yahweh, Yahweh, or Allah owns me
11. It is possible that I do not own myself
12. If it is possible that I do not own myself
13. It cannot be said that my alleged ownership of myself is "self-evident," "irrefutable," or any other such thing.
If I have implied more than this, I apologize.
tgibson11: Here's my two cents worth: The idea of God owning human beings seems to be based on the attribution of human qualities to a non-human entity. It's like saying that a dog acted unethically when he bit my leg. That's the argument you're making when you say God can't act unethically, and therefore any intervention in our lives must be ethical, and therefore God owns us (in the same way that I own a car). From a human perspective, God is "a-ethical". I think this is along the same lines as the point equack was trying to make in his previous post.
"Owning" refers to being able to rightfully exclude others from the use of a given thing. This is an ontological concept which requires no foreknowledge for its existence, i.e., we may say that we have a "right" to exclude dogs from biting our legs whether or not the dog is aware of these rules (which would be an epistemological, not an ontological, issue).
The point I'm trying to get across is that if say, Allah, exists, and he wants to use my body as he sees fit, and this is not to be understood as an immoral thing for Allah to do (which is true if we are to accept Islamic theology, and we are presupposing this already if we accept Allah's existence to begin with), then it is no way in my right to try to exclude Allah from using my body. And if I do not have this right, it must be because I do not have the right of exclusive control of my body, i.e., I am not self-owned.
Again, I am not saying Allah's existence or ownership of us is the case. I am only saying that it is possible. I fail to see how this is a hard pill to swallow.
I'm sure you're referring to Hoppe's argumentation ethics. To cut it short, the proposition:
1. I may rightfully exclude others from the use of my body
is unnecessary for the use as such of my body. All that I require is...a body! Mere possession. I possess my body, therefore I may, in the positive and not the normative sense, use it, whether for arguing or whatever. All argumentation requires is possession; it does not require ownership.
This is not breaking news. There are many even among the Austrians who have attacked argumentation ethics. I believe Robert P. Murphy is among them.
I understand your argument, but my point is why should the remote possibility of all these things being true (that is, those that cannot simply be ruled out as logically impossible, e.g. an omniscient and omnipotent deity) detract from something being self-evident? Now, I agree that self-ownership is not self-evident and requires further proof (e.g. resting on a right to liberty), but not on account of the highly improbable existence of some creator deity.
By the by, Hoppe's argumentation ethics is a little more complicated than that. It is flawed, but not for reasons Murphy or Callahan give (it is its agreement with the ought-is gap that damns it) - in fact, I think Frank van Dun disposed of their arguments entirely. Either way, a performative contradiction is not uniquely linked with Hoppe's arguments - it is characteristic of any argument that is self-refuting by denying the very notion which it implicitly rests upon (I think Rand termed this the stolen concept fallacy.) Kinsella's How we come to own ourselves relies on it without going into argumentation ethics.
Dynamix: "Owning" refers to being able to rightfully exclude others from the use of a given thing. This is an ontological concept which requires no foreknowledge for its existence, i.e., we may say that we have a "right" to exclude dogs from biting our legs whether or not the dog is aware of these rules (which would be an epistemological, not an ontological, issue). The point I'm trying to get across is that if say, Allah, exists, and he wants to use my body as he sees fit, and this is not to be understood as an immoral thing for Allah to do (which is true if we are to accept Islamic theology, and we are presupposing this already if we accept Allah's existence to begin with), then it is no way in my right to try to exclude Allah from using my body. And if I do not have this right, it must be because I do not have the right of exclusive control of my body, i.e., I am not self-owned.
I'm not saying the dog is innocent because it is unaware of ethical principles. I'm saying that it doesn't matter if the dog is aware of them or not - because it is a dog.
My problem with this chain of argument is where you say "this is not to be understood as an immoral thing for Allah to do". I'm saying the categories, "ethical" and "unethical", "moral" and "immoral", in the sense they are commonly used, can only be applied to human actions.
I do not see where you have justified the characterization of non-human actions as moral or immoral.
There's a very easy way to resolve this question - the one that I believe. God does own His creation by virtue of His being its Creator. But He doesn't exercise his right to control it all the time.
The analogy is imperfect - but consider this. You invite someone onto your property. You then have the full right to make them do whatever and exactly what you want, to make them into an automaton, acting exclusively in accordance to your desires - or remove them from your property.
Is that how you treat your guests?
Stipulating that the Christian God is the God, He didn't make mindless automatons. He made mankind in His image - meaning that we have something of His nature. We share His creativity, His capacity for reason, His self-awareness, and His self-autonomy. We own ourselves, by a Rothbardian analogy to Biblical reasoning, not because God doesn't have just title, but because He bestowed the title of ownership of each individual person upon that person.
Pro Christo et Libertate integre!
Jon Irenicus: I understand your argument, but my point is why should the remote possibility of all these things being true (that is, those that cannot simply be ruled out as logically impossible, e.g. an omniscient and omnipotent deity) detract from something being self-evident?
I understand your argument, but my point is why should the remote possibility of all these things being true (that is, those that cannot simply be ruled out as logically impossible, e.g. an omniscient and omnipotent deity) detract from something being self-evident?
I suppose we've been playing word games (or at least I have!). I limit references of "self-evidence" to tautologies, as they provide "evidence" for their acceptance from within the proposition itself, or, the "self" (so, "self-evident"). Any other propositions (ignoring momentarily the a priori / synthetic so as to get through this in less than four hours) must not be "self-evident," as they refer to, rather than the self, things other-than-self, therefore: "other-probable," or "other-improbable," or some such designation.
Anyway, on a totally different note, I'm not so sure that the existence of any deity can be "improbable," or even be "probable" or "somewhat probable," for that matter. Probability implies quantification (measurement of some sort, at least), and quantification implies observability, and as deities, if they exist, cannot to be observed, they cannot be quantified and, thus, cannot be said to have any probability associated with their existence. This is also why I refer to "possible" deities, and I leave out any reference to probability. I think a deity's existence must be just as likely as unlikely, which is to say that "likely" and "unlikely" are unmeaningful terms in reference to it.
Do you mean to say that self-ownership is not an instance of a truth that is analytic a priori, or for that matter that no self-evident truth can be anything other than truths that are analytic a priori?
tgibson11: I'm saying the categories, "ethical" and "unethical", "moral" and "immoral", in the sense they are commonly used, can only be applied to human actions.
I'm saying the categories, "ethical" and "unethical", "moral" and "immoral", in the sense they are commonly used, can only be applied to human actions.
Why must this be the case? Are we to say that, if Satan were to exist, the fact that he was a non-human moral agent means that anything he may have done must be amoral? Even though some consider him to be the most evil being in existence?
I was operating under the assumption of the truth of a monotheistic religious worldview, in which there would be--and would have been--many non-human moral agents who did both good and evil.
MacFall: You invite someone onto your property. You then have the full right to make them do whatever and exactly what you want, to make them into an automaton, acting exclusively in accordance to your desires - or remove them from your property.
You invite someone onto your property. You then have the full right to make them do whatever and exactly what you want, to make them into an automaton, acting exclusively in accordance to your desires - or remove them from your property.
I disagree. The Christian does not have the right to make an individual do "whatever and exactly what [he wants]," because the Christian has the prior positive obligation to act toward that individual in a loving way, which shrinks the teleological sphere of opportunity drastically.
The Christian may say that he has the positive ability to do to them whatever he likes, but so does the leopard. For a Christian to say that he also has a normative right to do whatever he wants to the other person is to blow the positive obligation toward love clean out of the water.
We own ourselves [...] because God [...] bestowed the title of ownership of each individual person upon that person.
Again, if you own yourself exclusively, then you have a normative right to exclude all others from the use of your body, and if someone were to make that infraction, we would say that he or she was acting unethically. But if you own yourself outright, God cannot own you, and if God does not own you, he may not use your body for any purpose against your will. Do you really believe that it would be immoral of God to use your body for his purposes against yours? Is it possible for the Christian God to be immoral? I sincerely believe that it is not, and I believe that he may do anything at all that he wishes, and would not be found immoral when compared to the ethical standard because he would be that very standard.
Jon Irenicus: Do you mean to say that self-ownership is not an instance of a truth that is analytic a priori
Do you mean to say that self-ownership is not an instance of a truth that is analytic a priori
Yes. Because if I have not misread everything I thought I understood, tautologies are the only category within the analytic a priori. And if the proposition, "I own myself" isn't tautological (and it isn't), then it likewise isn't analytic a priori.
or for that matter that no self-evident truth can be anything other than truths that are analytic a priori?
According to my definition of self-evident, yes. I don't want to leave any lingering semantic loopholes, so, yes. For me, the "self-evident" is the "analytic a priori" because tautologies are the only propositions which give "evidence" from the "self" (again, ignoring the issue of the synthetic a priori).
Have I overlooked something?
You are conflating general morality with the specific ethic of just title and right to control. That is fallacious.
Dynamix:The Christian does not have the right to make an individual do "whatever and exactly what [he wants]," because the Christian has the prior positive obligation to act toward that individual in a loving way, which shrinks the teleological sphere of opportunity drastically.
First of all, that has nothing to do with my analogy. Secondly, Christians don't have obligations in the Kantian sense you are describing. Third, you are conflating "rights" with "morals." That is a false premise.
As someone pointed out earlier, you are trying to ascribe natural ethics, and the rights that are their function, to a supernatural entity. If God were a human, then you would be correct. But because God is God, and not human - and because rights, postive and normative deal exclusively with man's relationship to man, it cannot be done. You might argue that man doesn't own himself because he doesn't control nature, and be wrong because ownership deals only with human beings. And you would be all the more wrong to apply the same reasoning to something that is not only non-human, but non-natural.
Your argument requires one to accept definitions for "ownership", "God", and "man" that are incorrect.
O woeful correction! Thank you.
Your post caught me in the middle of what Alfred Korzybski would call "a semantic disturbance," as the words that I have been using to describe what Korzybski would also describe as "the un-speakable objective level" were incorrect given their structural dissimilarity.
So now I have to fundamentally retool the way I describe the ideas that I've had so as to make them presentable (in fact, even coherent). The rust on my Aristotelian paradigm is still kicking its heels.
My apologies.
Also, to those interested, the book that I'm referring to when mentioning Korzybski's ideas is called Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. Some say his non-aristotelian system was just as revolutionary as the non-euclidean and non-newtonian systems that replaced their respective forebears. After becoming familiar with his ideas, I'm inclined to say, without much reservation, that they are correct. Korzybski denies the "law of identity," which leads to very interesting conclusions, the full meaning of which I've--obviously--yet to get a hold of.
I'm working on typing out an abridged version in a PDF so I can share it en masse, but it's taking some time. The actual book itself is a $40, 825-page Behemoth, so I don't expect many to buy it on only the weight of my recommendation. Thus my Herculean effort...
Dynamix, would you agree with this?
No one has the right to control anything (or anyone) he or she doesn't own. Even if god has joint-ownership over every individual, that doesn't give any individual the right to control another.
Ego: Dynamix, would you agree with this? No one has the right to control anything (or anyone) he or she doesn't own. Even if god has joint-ownership over every individual, that doesn't give any individual the right to control another.
Yes, if we assume those things, I would agree with that conclusion.
Now that I'm thinking about it, though (and this has nothing to do with your post, so please don't feel like I'm trying to rebut you...I'm just going on a tangent), I'm not even sure that such a concept as ownership is even coherent outside of a vacuum (like the Austrian ERE). I won't bother trying to explain because I'm only barely grasping the idea on an intuitive level, but as soon as I can bring it to the verbal level I'll try to sort it out. It does have to do with Korzybski's non-aristotelianism, though, and I'm thinking that a large group of seemingly-disarrayed concepts may be much more cohesive than I had once thought. Not in a Wittgensteinian kind of way where we say, "it was all just in your head / in the language!" but something more drastic and fundamental. Hmm.
You all surely think I'm insane. ;)
Ownership is an odd and easily misleading concept ("public ownership"!?). That's why I feel the best definition of "ownership" is "the right to control and transfer control to others".
That isn't what self-evident usually means, but alright, what you're driving at is that it's not a tautology. As for denying the law of identity &c., forgive me if I take such attempts but with a grain of salt. I'll check out the fellow's work anyway though.
Well, from my point of view, the self-ownership derives from a pretty easy to grasp fact. You can not control the actions of a human being. What you can do is take away options, or means if you like, so achieving his self-determined ends are harder to achive. Yet, in no way can another person, or entity, force someone to do something. You might kill someone, you might carry someone from A to B, but you can not make him do something. Actually you can not force a slave to work for example. You can set consequences before him, like if you don't I am going to beat, kill, imprison you. But, there is no way to make him do what you want.
Bottomline, ultimate control is always individual and therefor you own yourself, as you are the only one that can decide how to act under the current circumstances and with the current means available to you.
"You can take a horse to the water, but you can't make it drink"
Before you dismiss that approach, try to think some minutes about a way some third entity could possibly make you act without your consent.
Have a great day
In the begining there was nothing, and it exploded.
Terry Pratchett (on the big bang theory)
Smiles, if I remember it right, it was Korzybski that stated " the map is not the territory"? And, that basically brought me "back" to liberalism, in the classical sense, as being european, I still call myself a liberal :-) )
nhaag: Smiles, if I remember it right, it was Korzybski that stated " the map is not the territory"?
Smiles, if I remember it right, it was Korzybski that stated " the map is not the territory"?
That's the one! That's the classic example of his denial of identity. I was introduced to Science and Sanity through Hayakawa's Language in Thought and Action, which a friend recommended. How did you find him?
Now I see what you're trying to do; look at self-ownership under hypothetical situations involving omniscient and omnipotent entities. Well, I see some of your scenarios, but I don't get everything about them. When you bring in other dimensions with a God or different versions of that God, you start getting into a larger framework.
Now, to be scientific, that framework has to be well-defined and constructed logically in such a way that we can reach an apt conclusion. Can you be more specific about each scenario you want us to examine? Like I saw that you mentioned in the Jewish belief, God has negated our self-ownership, yet in Christianity, we have full or partial self-ownership.
Also, in these situations, do we say that nature is part of God's will and deny free will? Or does God only have some influence over physical events and not anything mental (assuming dualism)? If you could lay each hypothetical situation out and give me the conditions, I could tell you the conclusion of each as far as ethics would be concerned.
P.S. I see my Opera browser doesn't let me use this advanced text editor app for my posts. Now that I'm in IE, I can finally add paragraph breaks so my text doesn't look like a huge block.
equack: Now I see what you're trying to do; look at self-ownership under hypothetical situations involving omniscient and omnipotent entities.
Now I see what you're trying to do; look at self-ownership under hypothetical situations involving omniscient and omnipotent entities.
You got it, but...
Can you be more specific about each scenario you want us to examine?
...once MacFall put me in my place (which was the best thing that could have happened to me, in retrospect), I immediately noticed a correlation between what I was doing and the "semantic disturbances" that Alfred Korzybski talks about in his book Science and Sanity. My opinion has now changed radically regarding the whole situation, and it's even broader than the singular issue of "self-ownership" that we started with here. I'm talking the whole of ethics. In fact, I wouldn't hesitate to include it in the 2 or 3 paradigm shifts that I've had in my life. It's epic--at least pre-criticism--but it's still what you might call an intellectual fetus. It needs some time in the oven.
So I don't have any scenarios to mention at the moment. Thank you for your willingness to help, though.
Like I saw that you mentioned [...] in Christianity, we have full or partial self-ownership.
I don't recall saying that (could be wrong)--I believe Ego said something similar to that, though. In any case, I don't have anything more to say about "ownership." Not for a while.
Dynamix: That's the one! That's the classic example of his denial of identity. I was introduced to Science and Sanity through Hayakawa's Language in Thought and Action, which a friend recommended. How did you find him?
Not sure it is an example of the denial of identity, though it can be used for that matter. Korzybski's work in linguistics was one of the fundaments of what later became known as NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming). If you do not know what NLP is you might know Anthony Robbins though. He is one of the best known Practitioneers of that method.
I never read Korzybski so I can not judge on his way of thinking about this topic. Yet, the term "the map is not the territory" as it is used in NLP doesn't deny identity rather it strenghtens the individualistic view by stating that what one receives as the world, is filtered by his own thoughts and mind in general. Making better maps means getting closer to the real world and as maps are build by the individual, learning and increasing the amount of options one has to act will get the map closer to the real world.
I can not see how this would deny identity?
Have a great time