Related:
- Guy Kedem, “Dialogical Libertarianism: Ultimate Foundation of Ethics”: Hoppe’s Argumentation Ethics and Kinsella’s Estoppel Discussed in Hebrew
- “Argumentation Ethics and Liberty: A Concise Guide” (2011) and Supplemental Resources
מדע אומלל (“Unhappy Science” (?); @guy_carmell; Guy Kedem), Hoppe’s Argumentation Ethics: A User Friendly, Neighborly Introduction, (Dec. 25, 2011).
December 25, 2011
“What we cannot speak about, we must pass over in silence.”
–Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Humans act in incredibly stupid, as well as incredibly clever ways. Trade and production coexists alongside murder and rape. The application of deductive reasoning to actions such as trade and production (“praxeology“) gives us interesting insights into economics. We can deduce trade to be mutually beneficial and artificially low interest rates to cause an unsustainable economic boom. However to apply praxeology only to trade and production, as if they were the sum total of human activity, would be somewhat of an understatement. Us humans know some other tricks.
Other than the problem of our desire for goods and services, we also encounter other problems in our life. A very important problem, one that is at the core of much death and strife, is that of conflict resolution. Reality doesn’t provide unlimited plenty on mere request. In economical jargon, scarcity is pervasive. Some resources are rivalrous by nature. Differing ideas about how to use them can conflict. Though there are many motives for engaging in war, all acts of war can be reduced to this- a conflict over “resources”.
To illustrate, imagine a husband and wife both own a car, which they want to use for different aims at the same time. There is not only a relationship problem, but a conflict over a resource. Both can’t simultaneously drive the car to two different places. A car, by its nature, is therefore a rivalrous resource. A non rivalrous resource, for example, is the air we breath. Air is so abundant and all-around that conflicts over the use of it do not arise. We can freely breathe and breath as much as we want. Air is therefor not rivalrous but superabundant. People steal cars, but not air. Most goods of course are not air-like. And so, it’s only fair to ask the golden question of political philosophy… How should such conflicts be resolved?
At the most basic level, humans have two options:
- Fight for control.
- Talk it over.
Now, if one chooses to engage in violence against his wife over the use of a car, the choice has been made and option 1 was selected. This is the “animal like” choice, as non-human animals are mostly incapable of resolving conflicts in other ways. Only if the parties choose to avoid violence and instead engage in discourse to resolve their dispute, the question of what is justified arises. The parties are then engaged in an interaction. A goal oriented peaceful corporation, which we can now praxeologicly examine.
Trade is said to be mutually beneficial because by choosing to trade both willful participants demonstrate their common preference for the post-trade state of affairs over the pre-trade state of affairs. Otherwise they wouldn’t have voluntarily traded. Underling every voluntary corporation is some common goal… So, lets reflect on what goal is implied by engaging in argumentation as means to resolve a conflict. The implied goal is of course option 2. The participants prefer to resolve their dispute peacefully, without the threat of force.
Let’s put it in formal terms: Violence-aversion, i.e achieving peaceful conflict resolution, is the presupposition or demonstrated preference of the argument participants. The act of Argumentation, presupposes the basic norm of peaceful conflict resolution. Physically speaking, an actor engages in argumentation by using his body to express a proposition (i.e by moving his mouth, hands, blinking morse code, some combination of those, ext.). An argument is nothing but an exchange of verbal propositions. Thereby, it is by the very act of expressing a proposition that one demonstrates his preference to resolve the given conflict without the use violence.
But then you see, professor Hans Hermann-Hoppe asks, what if the actual content of your proposition is in direct contradiction with what is implied by the act of expressing it (the demonstrated presupposition of argumentation)? That is, what if the content of your proposition is something like- “I don’t care about what you have to say, violence is the only way to resolve disputes…”?
In philosophy propositions that contradict what is directly implied by the very act of expressing them are called performative contradictions. For example propositions like “I am currently dead”, or “I can’t express arguments” are performative contradictions. An attempt to argue them is just by itself contradictory. The very action of proposing them implies they are false… A participant who is engaged in argumentation and argues for violence is thus also engaged in such a performative contradiction. If argumentation implies “option 2” it’s contradictory to argue for option 1. This is all almost a matter of semantics.
Contemplating such propositions will make their incoherence even clearer. What point is there to argue with someone who openly states the result of the argument is of no interest to him? In effect that argumentation has no bearing on how the conflict should be actually bee resolved. And so, the presupposition of argumentation- violence-free conflict resolution, cannot logically be argued against (denied).
From this first presupposition we can now derive other, directly derived presuppositions, which also cannot be logically denied. For example, it is presupposed in argumentation that- “Claims need justification”. Trying to deny this (arguing “I don’t need to justify claims I make…”) contradicts the underling first presupposition of achieving conflict resolution based on non-violent (i.e verbal means). Because if anyone can just claim whatever nonsense he wants, with no need to provide justification, the dispute cannot be peacefully resolved on the basis of nothing but claims. So we can also deduce that “Claims need to be justified” is another, derived, presupposition of argumentation. “Language is capable of meaning” is another. We can see now that argumentation is not a bunch of random, free floating statements, but a practical affair with guiding underling presuppositions which cannot just be rationally denied.
So, now it is only sensible to ask, which other propositions (specifically which moral, normative propositions) can be consistently expressed without contradiction, in order to resolve a conflict? The answer is simple: It depends on the conflict… To explain, let’s first examine a situation where the conflict is over the use of the most important and basic resource human beings have: the humane body. That is, imagine a conflict where one person wants to put another person’s body to some use, but that other person has, say, a headache at the moment. Now, let’s suppose both want to avoid violence and so begin to argue the matter at hand.
Will one of them be consistent with the aforementioned presuppositions of argumentation if he argues “I can use your body as my own, because you are black and I am white”? or maybe “I can use your body because my eyes are green and your eyes are blue”? The answer is he wouldn’t. This is since both participants are moral agents fully capable of reasoning and discourse, and then, since it is presupposed that “Claims need to be justified” an arbitrary, deniable, moral distinction between them, by the very nature of being an arbitrary distinction, cannot be justified. That is, a person with blue eyes can coherently deny such a claim with no implied contradiction (or just as well assert the opposite proposition- “I can use your body because my eyes are blue and your eyes are green”). Acceptance of a norm containing in it such a subjective, arbitrary distinction is then also arbitrary. “Claims need to be justified”, and thus arguing an arbitrary norm contradicts a presupposition of argumentation, trapping the arguer in a performative contradiction.
In general slavery norms are therefor illogical, inconsistent propositions. And so since arguing arbitrary assertions is logically to be avoided, only universalizeble “same for all” norms can in principle be justified. It does not follow that all such universal norms are automatically justified, among them the universal norm- “Everyone should hug every kitten they see”, or “Everyone should get drunk every morning”. It only means that a norm which is not universal (i.e. particularistic) is by its very nature, a-priori, unjustified and inconsistent with the basic presuppositions of argumentation.
Slavery norms aside, by examining which universal norms can be used for resolving conflicts over a body, we can now show that only the norm “Every person owns its own body” can be justified in argumentation. This is because any other universal norm simply does not justify a person acting- i.e using his body at all. Partial ownership of body (every person having an equal very small share in every other person) nor a complete lack of ownership over body, justify an actor’s own independent choice to move, if only to engage in argumentation (Read in further detail here on this blog or read Murry Rothbard original discussion of this here). Thus, any non-self ownership universal propositions are contradicted by the very act of proposing them.
Not bad! We have now shown that argumentation must presuppose each person owns its own body. The denial of this is a performative contradiction. But wait… before we can go and calmly smoke whatever we want, knowing we justifiably own our body, we must first also deal with the question of conflicts over external, rivalrous resources. That’s what we’ll be smoking.
A norm used to resolve conflicts over external resources must essentially match (i.e link) between a resource and its owner. Such a link can be defined in a subjective manner (e.g. “whomever wants more the resource is its owner”, or “whomever noticed first the resource is its owner” ext.) or an objective manner, which will be discussed. A subjective norm is essentially nothing more than a verbal assertion of ownership (“I claim that I want it more, and therefore it is mine”). The other party could just as easily (and consistently) claim the contrary (“You are wrong, I want it more, and therefore it is mine”). No one can justify his claim, that is, objectively demonstrate his claim of ownership is correct, based on a subjective norm. Therefore holding such a subjective norm is inconsistent with the presuppositions of argumentation, and therefore contradictory.
As for an objective norm, unlike your body, which is naturally objectively linked to you just by virtue of your direct control over it and your use of it in argumentation, external resources are by default not objectively linked to anyone. To establish an objective link to a resource (what Emanuel Kant termed intersubjectively ascertainable) one must first act upon the resource to physically create a clear and evident link. As John Lock termed it- by “mixing ones labor” with it. This established link can than be used (by the actor or by others) to objectively resolve or avoid conflicts. An actor can put an apple in his pocket, or he can erect a nice white picket fence (If the rivalrous resource is land). This act is called Homesteading or appropriation. Homesteading creates an objective, intersubjectively ascertainable link to a resource*. No one can then justifiably use a homesteaded resource as this would disregard the prior objective link to it, thereby adopting some invalid subjective norm. If you have such a claim, you can now go and smoke…
Light it up, don’t be shy. We have now shown that the Non-Aggression Principle (A.K.A. NAP) is presupposed in every argument, and so only it can logically be justified. Initiation of violence cannot. We have now finally, after much hardship, proved that socialists are irrational! Yeeeha! Wait… didn’t we know that? Never mind, moving on…
So this was the ultimate proof of the freedom philosophy, which is implied in the very act of peacefully resolving disputes, as the civilized human beings we so often are not. As mentioned, this argument was formulated by Hans Hermann Hoppe during 1988.
In the next (short) post, I will deal with a few misunderstandings I encountered about this argument. Meantime, have a blast. Live Free. Tu ne cede malis.
UPDATE: Post here.
Notes
* Note that since such a link has been artificially created, it can also be disowned, redirected ext. And so one can also trade with others those resources he labored to homestead. Read more here (sec. “Property in External Things”).
** Note that the ownership extent of what homesteading grants is derived from it’s pupose- deciding who can justly act upon a resource. And thus Rothbard introduces the concept of relevant technological unit (RTU). Read here.
*** Resources about Argumentation ethics (It is recomended to also read Hoppe’s presentation of the argument and Hoppe’s explanation of the problem of social order, further discussing scarcity).
6 Responses to “Hoppe’s Argumentation Ethics: A User Friendly, Neighborly Introduction”
Intro
Argumentation Ethics is an argument that aims to ground the ethics of law on an objective, axiomatic, and irrefutable foundation.
Basing law on justifiable principles is not just an interesting intellectual exercise, but also a useful one. If we can justify the foundations of law, then our legal system will become more predictable, more coherent, and less prone to whimsical adjudication. Such a legal system will be fairer and more conducive to human prosperity.
In this article, you will find a version of Argumentation Ethics that I have adapted to be clearer, more terse, and easier to follow. Of course, at times, this may come at the cost of some rigor.
The History of Argumentation Ethics
Argumentation ethics has been developed by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, based on the prior work of his PhD advisor Jürgen Habermas. It was later expanded upon by thinkers like Stephan Kinsella and Walter Block. It is discussed today in Libertarian and classical liberal circles.
The Necessity of Ethics
Ethics, in general, prescribe how we ought to behave. And so, to describe ethics, we use ‘ought’ statements like: “One ought to keep one’s promises”. Such ‘ought’ statements are also called “normative statements” or simply “norms”. An ethics is thus described by the norms it prescribes. People may adopt ethics and the norms they prescribe for all kinds of reasons, some of which are to have better relationships, improve one’s character, or perhaps, for religious reasons.
There is, however, an objective reason for which we must adopt ethics, and it is to resolve conflicts that arise between different people. For example, what if two people want to drive the same car? We need a norm to decide who ought to drive it and who ought not. When different people want to do something but only one of them can, we need a peaceful way to resolve the conflict between them. If we don’t have an agreed-upon conflict resolution norm, chaos may ensue.
So let’s start our introduction to Argumentation Ethics by describing exactly when is it that conflicts occur, and the need for ethics arises.
The Nature of Conflict
Normally, people can act as they wish with no conflict between them. For example, one person can laugh, and another can cry at the same time with no problem. One, two, or a thousand people can whistle to themselves the same tune, also without any problem. A conflict occurs when an action involves the use of some resource in a way that prohibits its use by another. For example, if one person wants to drive a certain car, another person can’t drive it as well. This property that a car, or an apple, or money has, but a tune doesn’t, we call scarcity.
Where do we find scarcity? Air, for example, is a physical thing that we use, and yet, we do so freely and without conflict. This is because air, despite being physical, is all around and super-abundant. As a thought experiment, let’s consider a scenario where air is scarce. Say, what if the air supply was limited to a few air tanks? In this scenario, the question of who gets to breathe the air all of a sudden becomes a very important one. Only because on Earth air happens not to be scarce, but super-abundant, it is that everyone can breathe with no consideration for the breathing of others.
Let’s consider a more optimistic scenario and imagine that not only is air super-abundant, but everything else is as well. In this scenario, food and other goods appear before us out of thin air whenever we want them. For example, if we want to drive somewhere, the car we need just appears, with a tank full of gas, and we can drive it wherever we want. Do conflicts still arise? The answer, unfortunately, is yes. For example, what if someone wants to drive the car he had conjured, not to the mall, but rather over you? There is still only one of you, even in this scenario. Since we have but one body, we are scarce. And because we ourselves are scarce, we can never, no matter what, escape the possibility of conflicts and the question of how to resolve them.
Grounding Ethics
Any logical system of knowledge is based upon axioms, whether in mathematics, physics, or philosophy. Axioms are statements that are taken to be true, and it is from them that we can logically derive other true statements. In the natural sciences, axioms are often tied to observations. For example, Albert Einstein observed that the speed of light is constant in all frames of reference. With this as an axiom, he logically derived the theory of special relativity.
Since we wish to logically derive the ethics of conflict resolution, we might ask what our axioms should be. Can we, for example, observe that a particular norm of conflict resolution is “true”? If such a true norm can be proven to exist, similar to how we can prove the speed of light is C, or that gravity on Earth is G, then we can adopt that norm as the axiom of our ethics.
Enlightenment philosopher David Hume considered this question in the early 18th century and replied that we can only observe what “is”, but not what “ought to be”. Hume noted that from the fact that there is a tree, it does not follow that there ought to be a tree. Or, say, that someone ought to water that tree. Only if we first assume that there ought to be a tree can we logically derive that we ought to water it, since otherwise it will be gone. But the norm “there ought to be a tree” is not objectively provable. And so, Hume noted, there is a categorical chasm between descriptive “is” statements and normative “ought” statements. They belong to different logical categories. You can’t tell what ought to be from what “is”, nor can you tell what “is” from what ought to be. This insight was later named the ‘is-ought dichotomy’.
But if we can’t find any evidently true norms to serve as our axioms, then how is an objective grounding of ethics possible? Whether for conflict resolution or for anything else? We will examine this question and see that it is.
Human Action and Collaborative Human Action
It is interesting that while we do not observe norms, we do seem to feel them. For example, when we’re hungry, we feel we ought to eat. When we’re curious about something, we feel we ought to learn more about it. When we, as humans, act, we have a purpose. We act because we want something. An action, by definition, has a goal. The norm of achieving that goal is called the “norm of the action”, because it is the norm that guides the action. Of course, these norms are personal since every person has different goals. While norms of action evidently exist, as we can see people acting, they are subjective.
But not all human action involves only one person. Humans sometimes act together to achieve a common goal. For example, people rowing a boat towards the shore are collaborating. They all agree on the norm of action: ‘the boat ought to reach the shore’. In the context of a collaborative effort, the norm of action is shared, and so in this case, it isn’t specific to a particular person.
Performative Contradictions
When we act, we assert the norm of our action, just as if we had verbally said it. For example, imagine a defendant in court who was caught on video reaching into someone’s bag, taking their wallet, putting it in their pocket, and running away. Can he claim that this video proves nothing? Of course not, his actions demonstrate that he held the norm “I ought to steal”.
Let’s consider again the people rowing their boat to shore. What if one of them starts rowing backwards, away from shore? Can he be said to hold the shared norm of: “our boat ought to reach the shore”? By his actions, he asserts the opposite. His evident norm of action is “one ought to row away from shore,” and that contradicts the norm “our boat ought to reach the shore,” which is the norm of the collaborative action.
But some actions do involve words and explicitly making statements. While statements in general may be abstract, when they are stated, they are made in the context of a specific action. For example, the statement “I am stating nothing” is sometimes true and sometimes false, but when I am actually stating it and say, “I am stating nothing!” it is necessarily false. This also applies to normative statements like “I don’t want to make a statement”; this is also necessarily false when I am stating it. By the action of stating it, I asserted the norm “I want to make a statement”, which contradicts the actual statement I made.
The contradiction that results from a statement contradicting what is implicit in the act of stating it is called a “performative contradiction”. A performative contradiction is no different, logically, than any other contradiction; it just refers to how the contradictory statements were made, by explicitly stating them, or, evidently, by acting upon them.
Contradictions are, perhaps, acceptable in some situations. A poet may write: “I want to forgive, but I don’t want to forgive”. Taken literally, this is a contradiction. But this was written to convey a feeling, not to be taken literally. When we act to convey literal meaning, we have to accept the rules of logic, and so we can’t allow for contradictions.
Argumentation
Let’s return to our original mission of grounding the ethics of conflict resolution and examine the common scenario of two people who both wish to use some external, scarce resource, but only one of them can.
The two, of course, may simply fight each other over it. If they fight, each of them sees the other as nothing but an obstacle to his own goal, an obstacle to be removed. Fighting does not require any agreement between them. It is a purely rivalrous activity. But what if they don’t want to fight. They then must come to some agreement as to how the conflict is to be resolved. Since this requires an agreement, this is not a purely rivalrous but rather a collaborative action. The act of collobratively resolving a conflict we will call ‘Argumentation’. The norm of Argumentation, shared among the participants, would then simply be: “the conflict ought to be resolved collaboratively.”
The first order of business for the parties to Argumentation must be to agree on how the conflict should be resolved. What should be the conflict resolution norm that they use? Perhaps a coin toss? Perhaps rock-paper-scissors? We are now reminded of Hume’s is-ought dichotomy. Since no norms are evidently true, and since norms can only be derived from other norms, how can an agreement on a norm be reached?
But then, there is a norm that the parties necessarily agree on. That is the norm of Argumentation itself. Since they are engaged in Argumentation, they both assert it. Since this is the only norm they necessarily must agree on, they logically conclude that they must adopt it as an axiom and try to derive their conflict resolution norm from it.
The question now is: how can a conflict resolution norm be derived from the norm of Argumentation? Let us follow their line of reasoning.
Deriving a Conflict Resolution Norm
First, they note that any norm they suggest must, of course, not contradict the norm of Argumentation. For example, if they suggest the norm “We ought to fight to determine who ought to use the resource,” then this plainly contradicts the norm of Argumentation. Since they are engaged in Argumentation while suggesting this contradictory norm, this would amount to a performative contradiction.
The sides then note that for them to successfully resolve the conflict, as is their goal in Argumentation, the conflict resolution norm they use must point to something provable. For example, the norm: “whoever wants the resource more ought to use it” relies on a subjective measure – want. Using such a norm, they won’t be able to conclusively determine how the conflict should be resolved. Therefore, to avoid contradiction, their conflict resolution norm must point to something objective. In the terminology of Hume, it must point to something that ‘is’. This is their first insight.
The sides then note that since they both wish to use the resource, the conflict resolution norm they suggest must be one that allows them to successfully do so. Which means, it must point to something enduring. For example, what if they suggest tossing a coin? It is indeed objectively provable who won the coin toss, but then, what if the losing side wants to flip the coin again? Or perhaps another person comes and demands a toss himself. One may win the first toss but lose the next, and so won’t be able to actually use the resource and accomplish their original goal. Therefore, a conflict resolution norm consistent with the norm of Argumentation must point to something objective and permanent.
The sides then note that an objective, permanent conflict resolution norm must point at something specific to their conflict. If it isn’t, then all conflicts between them will always be resolved in the same way. For example, the sun is objectively and permanently yellow, but if that means one side should get its way, then this is the same as stating the rivalrous norm, “I should always have my way”. This norm is in contradiction, of course, to the collaborative norm of Argumentation. But what, other than they themselves, is related to the conflict at hand? The answer is: the resource in question. Therefore, the parties further conclude that their conflict resolution norm must point to something objective and permanent about the resource in question.
But, they then note, a resource has no natural link to a particular person. For example, a gold nugget lying in the ground for a millennium is not objectively linked to someone. Therefore, they conclude that they must accept that such a link can be established. For example, if someone digs the gold nugget out of the ground and forms it into a ring, now the physical properties of the gold nugget, turned ring, are linked to a particular person, since they are the result of that person’s labour.
And so the sides see that the only conflict resolution norm they can suggest in Argumentation without contradiction is this one:
“The person who mixed his labour with the resource in question in a provable and enduring manner ought to use the resource”.
Have you heard of this norm before? This is the homesteading principle formulated by the Enlightenment philosopher, John Locke. Locke had intuitively grasped that this is the only norm consistent with the cooperative resolution of conflicts, although a formal proof of that came centuries later via Argumentation Ethics.
Special cases
Let us consider a few special cases that do not conform to the most typical example of two people in conflict over a resource. This is not an exhaustive list of all such cases, but an illustrative sample meant to show how these can be approached through the lens of Argumentation Ethics.
1. Ownership of One’s Own Body
Unlike an external resource, the physical body of someone is naturally linked to a particular person, that is, the person who inhabits that body. Should this natural link be preferred to the homesteading principle? For example, let’s imagine a parent engaging in argumentation with his grown son, and claiming that, based on the homesteading principle, he who laboured to raise him is now his owner, and the son should forever do his bidding. However, for the son to respond and engage in argumentation, he must use his body. And so, to engage in Argumentation with the son, the parent must first recognize that the son has a right to use his body. This is inconsistent with the parents’ claim of homesteading. And so, in the case of conflict over one’s own body, it is only the existing link of self-ownership that is consistent with the norm of Argumentation.
2. Possession
An item can be used without any act of homesteading. For example, a hiker might pick up a stick and use it for walking, without transforming it in any way. While the hiker is in possession of the stick and can exert control over the stick, and that is an evident link between him and that resource. Possession may also be permanent; the hiker might keep the stick forever. Therefore, if one is in possession of a resource, even if one hadn’t mixed one’s labour with that resource, the possession itself conforms to the conflict resolution norm derived from the norm of Argumentation. If the hiker throws the stick back to the ground, the possession is no more.
3. Prior Agreements
The concept of Agreement is inherent in Argumentation, since the goal of Argumentation is to reach an agreement, an agreement over who may or may not use a resource. Any collaborative action whose goal is to reach an agreement must assume the norm that agreements ought to be respected. Reaching an agreement without assuming this norm is a futile effort. Therefore, implied in argumentation is that any prior agreements that exist between the sides ought to be respected.
4. A Gun to the Head
A person under threat of violence can be forced to ignore argumentation and commit violent acts himself. For example, he can be forced to steal money from his employer. Can he be said to have preferred violence? Not necessarily. Since he would have encountered violence no matter what he did, his actions do not, by themselves, show a preference for violence. Of course, there could be nuance to this matter, and the reader is invited to ponder that.
How to Think About Argumentation Ethics
Argumentation ethics shows that we can meaningfully reason about law without any prior assumptions. An existing legal system, a constitution, or the Ten Commandments are not a necessary starting point, for that; our mind is enough. However, to reach a code of law in the real world, Argumentation Ethics is not enough. In the real world, laws require many specific details. For example, what exactly constitutes homesteading? Is a fence enough to homestead land? How tall should the fence be? What if the fence has some missing parts? These kinds of questions are required for an actual legal code, and they cannot be answered by Argumentation Ethics alone. Argumentation Ethics provides the guidelines to which such a code of law must conform if it is to respect the bounds of reason.
Argumentation Ethics, however, is interesting not just for what it prescribes but also for what it precludes. Non-voluntary legal systems, like those imposed by states, are not just oppressive, but illogical. To argue for them is to contradict oneself, or to simply assert the purely rivalrous norm of violence. Concepts like Intellectual Property, which define ownership over a non-scarce resource like Ideas, are also precluded by Argumentation Ethics. These create conflicts rather than resolve them.
Perhaps it is time we move in that direction of Argumentation Ethics. Indeed, if we value reason, we must. Legal systems, voluntary or otherwise, will do well to move in the direction that Argumentation Ethics prescribes, as reason and prosperity are profoundly intertwined.
Further Reading
December 26, 2011 at 6:19 am[…] Lets review two common objections to the argument in the previous post. […]
April 3, 2012 at 9:24 pm[…] As Hoppe noticed, moral propositions are only really relevant in a certain context, come to think about it – in the context of discourse. And in this context of action, given the action axiom, some norms are already implied. […]
July 30, 2012 at 5:25 am[…] […]
August 4, 2012 at 11:20 pm[…] often hear that Argumentation Ethics (explained here) is guilty of equivocation. When I ask why, I’m told that since AE deduces self-ownership […]
September 26, 2013 at 1:34 am[…] then engaged in an interaction. A goal oriented peaceful corporation, which we can now examine. Hoppe’s Argumentation Ethics: A User Friendly, Neighborly Introduction | Dismal Stories Here is another which I think does a greate job. Understanding Universally Preferable […]
March 14, 2015 at 11:52 pm[…] אומלל, Hoppe’s Argumentation Ethics: A User Friendly, Neighborly Introduction, (Dec. 25, […]