What is wrong in all these cases?

Certainly, one can have rights and not exercise them, as in, happen not to exercise them, or choose not to exercise them. But one cannot logically have rights if one is in instrinically incapable of exercising those rights. It simply does not make sense.

Is that an adequate justification of my statement?

I also thank you for our discussion, it’s been a great pleasure.

Although I cannot agree with you on the last part. I think it is overstreching to claim that when situation X arrives, I must make my claim again (what if there is no one next to me?) and that others can interpret the purpose anyway they like (since “I must help” does not mean “I must help while simultaneously doing or not doing Y”). But I’ll leave it at that.

Thank you very much once again.

Regards,
RC

The Weakness in Hoppe’s Line of Argument

This chapter examines the problematic part in Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s essay “The Ultimate Justification of the Ethics of Private Property”1. Professor Hoppe offers his ethics to demonstrate that only the private property ethic can be justified argumentatively, because it is the praxeological presupposition of argumentation as such. He demonstrates that self-ownership of the own body is implied in the very act of argumentation, and therefore that self-ownership cannot be denied without committing a performative contradiction.

Then he tries to extend property rights out to things outside our own body. He builds a link between a person and some kind of resource by inserting the homesteading principle as a basic part into his theory.2 He notes3 that property rights must be axiomatic for argumentation because without the ability to appropriate natural resources, mankind would die out and there would be no such thing as arguments.

My objections4 begin with this: firstly, it is not a satisfactory methodical proof to draw a conclusion only from asking what would be in the converse case as Hoppe does (non sequitur),5 because he must implicitly presuppose two other things at the same time. He must presuppose that there is no other rule to bring appropriation into effect and that appropriation is always preferable and necessary for us not to die out. In the further discussion I will show that the weakness lies just in these presumptions.

Secondly, I think that ‘property’ must already be an abstraction from consent norms (what I will explain later). But with Hoppe’s argument there is no need for consent. It would be well enough for him if one firstly invested ‘labor’ into an unowned scarce resource and based oneself on the Lockean principle. He asks what would happen in the absence of acquiring the right of exclusive control over goods by homesteading action. “One would have to interrogate and come to an agreement with the entire world population to make sure that one’s planned actions would not change another person’s evaluations regarding his property.”6 Or in other words, nobody would invest labor; i.e. nobody would continue with his actions before he has not convinced the entire world population of his own enterprises. In this scenario, one’s own action would rest on the actions and evaluations of other people. Thus, because Hoppe sees the appropriation rule of homesteading as obligatory, he founds a positive law. In Hoppe’s view of true property only one law of absolute exclusive property right is necessary and possible, because it should be valid for all humans. If the rule were not valid for some people, then they could own the property themselves, and others could appropriate it again and again until everybody owns everything and nothing. (So Hoppe says: “Property rights cannot be conceived of as being timeless and nonspecific regarding the number of people involved.”) In short, this argument should make clear how absurd the hypothesis is that one could doubt about the first-in-first-own rule. But the result is a law. And that law simply discards my assumption above that property could be an abstraction of consent. However, this seems to me a fundamentally flawed understanding.

The world that Hoppe envisions in that is not so black and white. In the first instance, I could consult the same kind of logic as Hoppe. When Hoppe claims that homesteaded ‘property’ is necessary for humans to live at all, then it must be true that there is no kind of homesteaded property that itself would challenge human nature as such. Otherwise, that mere fact would reduce Hoppe’s logic ad absurdum at this point. I will bring such an example, but before I do, we must study another argument Hoppe uses to justify homesteading. He is using again an argumentum a contrario:

“If a person did not acquire the right of exclusive control over other, nature-given goods by his own work, that is, if other people, who had not previously used such goods, had the right to dispute the homesteader’s ownership claim, then this would only be possible if one would acquire property titles not through labor, i.e., by establishing some objective link between a particular person and a particular scarce resource, but simply by means of verbal declaration.”

The fact that someone (who, unlike you, has not invested any ‘labor’ in it) takes something from you confers no valid norm to the taker. Even the robber’s refusing to use the robbed good demonstrates his own claim to respect an exclusive right of possession. Such taking is rightly called ‘aggression.’ But the rest of the affair is fraught with problems. Firstly the ‘robber’ must not recognize the labor – maybe this is simply a communication problem. Secondly, he could undervalue your ‘labor’. He may claim that what you are doing is useless, and you should show that it has any need and is not excessively wasteful, only serving your well being or striving for power. So, he could say, you might feign the investment of ‘labor’ in order to get control of a resource, or you are exploiting a natural resource and he is asking for it to be rationed.7

Let me illustrate this problem by an extreme example: Someone is sucking off the air from the atmosphere in order to create a new planet in outer space or in order to produce solid matters from oxygen. He may do this since air is considered a free good, and he is investing labor into free air to transform it into his new end. At the same time he and his epigones are slowly withdrawing the natural basis of human life, and one day, people will realize that air is ‘scarce.’ Suddenly everybody would be responsible for his own air and his own atmosphere and everybody has to suck off air for his own aims. This example seems a bit far-fetched.

But please think about what happened in these kind of cases in the times of homesteading land and settlement. At first, there was ample land. As time passed the need for land grew decisively and people had more and more conflicts about it. They erected fences and they declared exclusive property rights to their lots of land. When immigrants were searching for new lots, this usage was probably mutually beneficial. However, where homesteaders encroach upon territory used by nomads, the latter will probably suffer if they cannot adapt their way of life.8 The problem is not that the sedentary way of live was the ‘better’ lifestyle.9 It was rather a change of paradigm with many unpredictable consequences. Finally it is a discussion of values with winners and losers in practice from the ethical view. Hence, I made clear that my far-fetched example of the accumulative homesteading of air has an historical precedent in the homesteading of land. (Of course, the originally historical cases were more complex than my easy picture here.)

In a nutshell, the absolute and exclusive property right, based on Lockean principle, cannot be derived as an a priori norm due to the subjective evaluation of ‘labor’. It can possibly be derived that someone who doesn’t respect the property of another cannot expect that he ethically creates own property by his performative contradictions.10 But one can actually ‘find’ these facts only within the process of interaction or consensus. And one cannot ex ante assume such facts as ‘property’ without implicit or explicit acceptance. Otherwise it would mean that performing any absurd ‘labor’ on a scarce resource would produce a legitimate claim to it. Hoppe didn’t solve this problem in his descriptions. In any case, this discussion makes clear that the Lockean principle doesn’t work due to the subjectivity of ‘labor’. Therefore, the principle of homesteading doesn’t belong to the catalog of a priori norms when there are different views about the respect of ‘labor’.

If you claim that “it is ethically impermissible for me not to help someone in need”, but there is not currently occasion for this rule to be put into effect, then there is no performative contradiction. However, if the day arrives when this rule my be applied, and you were to make that claim again (which you must for it to be put into practice), then you would be trapped in a performative contradiction. (Remember, if someone may legitimately coerce you into doing something, even with a stated purpose, they are the judge of that purpose, and if they believe that you must not argue as part of your obligatory help, you may not dispute that judgment.)

Thanks for taking the time for this discussion–it’s been the most enjoyable one I’ve had in a long time. Good night.

I will just like to touch one matter before we end our discussion.

You wrote:

“In the trolley problem scenario, you may help or not help the victims according to your own conscience; self-ownership is no less applicable in that case than in any other because if you were to claim at that moment that you may be compelled to save the lives of the people tied down, you would be trapped in a performative contradiction. Generally, when not in situation X, you can make all manner of claims about what is permissible in situation X, but once situation X arises, the same ethical rules as ever apply.”

This I do not understand. If I claim that “it is ethically impermissible for me not to help someone in need” and that moment one day arrives – I would be in performative contradiction only if I did not help. If I help, there is no performative contradiction. Notice that “it is ethically impermissible…” does not mean that it is ethically impermissible for me to act, just ethically impermissible for me not to act in a certain way (i.e. not helping that person in need). While untying the unfortunate people I can talk, sing, I can do whatever as long as I am helping them.

Regards,
RC

Not necessarily. I would argue that one can have rights and simply not exercise them, and the reasons why they do not exercise those rights are unimportant. At the very least, you have to justify this statement.

Early in this thread, FUNDAMENTALIST made the following comments:

“Philosophers since Hume have congratulated themselves for successfully defeating straw men versions of natural law. Feser shows how little Hume understood about natural law. Hoppe clearly knows little about natural law theory and has learned everything from the straw men arguments.
Natural law theory never did try to derive morality from human nature. In fact, nature in the natural law theory was nothing like what Hoppe, Rothbard or other mean by it. Today, nature refers to simply what is. In natural law nature meant the essence of something…Man(y) Austrians discuss natural law in the same way that Paul Krugman discusses Austrian economics, from a position a ignorance. That’s beneath Austrians. Austrians should apply the same honesty and rigor to ethics as they apply to economics. The odd thing about Hoppe’s ethic is that it uses essentially the same argument for property as does natural law, just with different assumptions. However, Hoppe makes a logical leap when he goes from self-ownership to property rights being absolute.”

These comments seem to say that Hoppe, Hume and Rothbard along with “many” Austrians are rather shallow thinkers when it comes to ethics. I read through this thread rather quickly and did not see where anyone challenged these rather serious charges. Having never thought that any of the three nor Austrians in general were weak on ethics, I was surprised that no one took up fundamentalist’s gauntlet to make a defense. I have taken fundamentalist’s suggestion and ordered the recommended book by Edward Feser, but until I read it, which will take some time, I don’t feel qualified to making a worthy defense. In the meantime, anyone else want to try?

No trouble.

The issue with the possibility of agreement is that in argument agreement is always possible, whereas if self-ownership is not exclusive, agreement is only possible under certain circumstances. (The case for exclusive self-ownership is a good deal more solid if we utilize the universalizability criterion, which I haven’t used because I don’t know Kant’s precise argument for it.)

As far as I know, Hoppe’s contract theory is identical to Rothbard’s. You and your mistress could live together happily and share as much pain as you wished, with the caveat that as soon as you (I assume you are the Submissive in this relationship) decide that you no longer desire to be subject to your mistress’s harsh whims, you are released from that contract. Self-ownership doesn’t prohibit you from allowing people to use violence against you. It merely means that you are the ultimate authority on how your body is used, reviewing any decisions you permit others to make in this regard.

In the trolley problem scenario, you may help or not help the victims according to your own conscience; self-ownership is no less applicable in that case than in any other because if you were to claim at that moment that you may be compelled to save the lives of the people tied down, you would be trapped in a performative contradiction. Generally, when not in situation X, you can make all manner of claims about what is permissible in situation X, but once situation X arises, the same ethical rules as ever apply.

As I mentioned above, Hoppe’s argument for private property in things other than arguers’ bodies does not follow directly from argumentation. The two are not unrelated, but the only thing we get from argumentation is that we must be permitted to appropriate resources. The details come from separate arguments.

I was concerned with my own arguments primarily–I’ve never presented them before, so I was a bit concerned about their quality. I haven’t looked at the links you’ve posted just yet, but I’ll be getting to them momentarily.

Sorry that the post turned up ugly – I was editing it and I did not finish, shucks. But I hope you will not have problems understanding it.

Thanks for replying, your explanation of “why we argue” is excellent. Of course, argumentation is neccesary in order to establish the truth (intersubjective agreement). I was merely pointing out that the conventional understanding of argumentation is “the act to give reasons for or against something” which does not neccesarily mean an attempt to establish truth. But I’m sticking with the understanding of argumentation that you have given, from now on. Now moving on…”In argumentation, there is always the possibility of agreement on some intersubjective truth–at the very least that there exists disagreement on some issue. If anyone else may use your body, then they can end the argument without agreement. Thus, argumentation requires exclusive self-ownership.”Yes, but like you wrote – they can. Can does not mean must. I generally do not think it is morally permissible to use others people’s bodies (with the exception of lifeboat scenarios and maybe some other extreme cases), but let’s say for instance that I enter into some BDSM relationship and agree to be a slave, with a provision that makes it permanent (don’t laugh, I’m trying to make a point here:p). Does that mean I cannot enter into an argumentation with my mistress? The way I see it, she may use my body at any time, and so end the argument without agreement. However, she may choose not to exercise that power; we may very well end our argument (on whatever subject that may be) in agreement. So it appears that while full self-ownership GUARANTEES that the argument will end in some sort of agreement, it is not neccesary for such an agreement to happen, IMO.”With respect to your other objection, you must accept self-ownership at the time and place of argument. So you can claim, for example, that you will not have the right to use your body in five minutes or on another planet, but in five minutes or when you are on that other planet, you will have to recant on that earlier claim. The assumptions of argumentation always apply because the need to identify intersubjective truth is always present.”Yes, but I mentioned a specific situation. If I have full self-ownership rights, then it is morally permissible for me, for example, not to help people tied to railroad tracks (the famous trolley problem). Since I did not coerce them in any way (someone else did the tying), I will not be responsible for their death if I do not help. So no one could throw me in jail. Yet I find something morally very wrong in this…
That’s why I gave the example of “it is not ethically permissible for me to not help someone in need”. If so, then I do not have full self-ownership. Yet I can still enter into an argument, because I did not deny that it is morally permissible to use my body, but just stated that “it is morally impermissible to use my body in situation X”. And my adversary cannot end the argument by making use of my body, since in this case I am using it in a ethically permissible way.”I feel the need to reemphasize that this is just what I’ve come up with on my own–I’m satisfied that it is correct, but I haven’t consulted with anyone else to get any kind of constructive criticism (and I do realize the irony of not having engaged in discourse concerning my ideas on discourse ethics). If you can provide some, I would be very grateful.”Do you mean criticism of Hoppe’s argument? If so, I recomment to you the criticism that Calahan and Murphy made, the brief comment by Roderick Long (it’s titled “Hoppriori”) and D. Friedman and a criticism that Eabrasu made in 2005 (I think now he somehow changed his position, although he probably still does not accept Hoppe’s argument). Also, did you read those that I have linked you? Here, btw, are the links:
http://praxeology.net/unblog05-04.htm#10
http://brunoleonimedia.servingfreedom.net/WP/051007_Mises_WP_Eabrasu.pdf
http://www.anti-state.com/murphy/murphy19.html
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/On_Hoppe.html“On your final point, it’s not that, for example, the food someone eats is their property–it’s quite possible that they stole it from someone else. Rather, they must be permitted to appropriate previously unowned food so that they can eat it later. I suppose if you were to scrape some berries off a bush with your teeth and started chewing immediately, the line between appropriation and eating becomes blurred, but appropriation comes first.”Yes, it is true that they must be ethically permitted to appropriate previously unowned food in order to survive. But isn’t that mere possession rather than ownership? If I pluck an apple and put it in my mouth, I have certainly appropriated it – but again, it seems to me I do not need to establish ownership of it to eat it. In other words, “it is morally permissible for me to appropriate unowned objects, but it is not morally permissible for me to use force against those, that will try to take it from me” does not seem to be a contradiction. If someone takes my apple, I will not die – I will get another one (only this time I will eat it as soon as I can).Regards,
RC

1. That something is ethically permissible implies that prohibiting it is ethically impermissible, so Rothbard’s definition is the same as the Hoppe’s. I prefer “ethically permissible” to “right” because it’s more precise, and I’m sure dedicated hairsplitters can find distinctions, but for these purposes they’re the same and I’ll be using them interchangeably below. They key point I wanted to emphasize before was not that the right exists in a metaphysical sense, but that we must recognize it in order to engage in argumentation. In a similar way, I cannot know if I have free will, but must assume that I do in order to act, which I cannot not do. That self-ownership is exclusive depends on the possibility of agreement, which I hope I clear up below.
2. We actually can know more than that the maker of a performative contradiction is a hypocrite. Since the assumptions required for argumentation are prerequisites for any claim to be made, any claim that contradicts these assumptions must be false.

All your questions seem to require an answer to the question, “Why do/must we argue?” I’m not sure if Hoppe explains this in his English writings, but this is at the foundation of discourse ethics in general, not just Hoppe’s interpretation. I don’t actually know how Habermas justified the discourse approach–this is just what I’ve put together:If there is only one consciousness in the world (say, you), then all truths are subjective. However, if there are multiple consciousnesses (say, you and me), then new possible types of truths arise. Before (with just you), if you see pink, fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows, that is the same as if there actually are such creatures; now (with both of us), whether we both see them, only one of us does, or neither of us does, has significance. We now have the possibility of intersubjective truths of two varieties: necessary and contingent. Necessary intersubjective truths are things like: space has three dimensions; events are ordered in time; man acts. Contingent intersubjective truths are things like: the sky is blue; trees grow upward; pink, fluffy unicorns are dancing on rainbows. Intersubjective is technically a more appropriate term than objective, since we are dealing strictly with objects within the realm of human experience. If we want to discover contingent intersubjective truths, we have to interact with other consciousnesses. We can discover necessary inersubjective truths (at least, some of them) through individual thought experiments. Thus, if we want to escape from solipsism and discover intersubjective truths about the world in which we live and act, we must engage in discourse–or argumentation–to compare our individual, subjective truths. And when we engage in discourse, we necessarily assume various ethical rules.

In argumentation, there is always the possibility of agreement on some intersubjective truth–at the very least that there exists disagreement on some issue. If anyone else may use your body, then they can end the argument without agreement. Thus, argumentation requires exclusive self-ownership.If you use discourse to try to convince someone that they should give you something, that is quite within the bounds of the discourse we’re dealing with. You are arguing with someone about the truth-value of the statement “I deserve such-and-such.” If you fail to convince your counterpart, then you have established that the statement is strictly subjectively true rather than intersubjectively true.

With respect to your other objection, you must accept self-ownership at the time and place of argument. So you can claim, for example, that you will not have the right to use your body in five minutes or on another planet, but in five minutes or when you are on that other planet, you will have to recant on that earlier claim. The assumptions of argumentation always apply because the need to identify intersubjective truth is always present.

I feel the need to reemphasize that this is just what I’ve come up with on my own–I’m satisfied that it is correct, but I haven’t consulted with anyone else to get any kind of constructive criticism (and I do realize the irony of not having engaged in discourse concerning my ideas on discourse ethics). If you can provide some, I would be very grateful.

On your final point, it’s not that, for example, the food someone eats is their property–it’s quite possible that they stole it from someone else. Rather, they must be permitted to appropriate previously unowned food so that they can eat it later. I suppose if you were to scrape some berries off a bush with your teeth and started chewing immediately, the line between appropriation and eating becomes blurred, but appropriation comes first.

Hope this clears some things up.

Hope you’ll see this. But before I make my observations, I would like to point out that Aiden Gregg made an interesting comment (in this thread) regarding argumentation ethics. Also, you may want to read these posts by Brainpolice:
http://polycentricorder.blogspot.com/2009/08/on-performative-contradiction.html
http://anti-libertarian-libertarianism.blogspot.com/2010/12/rationalist-libertarian-ethics.html

Now, I will try to be brief… You wrote:

“The way Hoppe considers argument is to abstract away from the particularities of any given argument, so that the ethical rules he discovers are implicitly accepted in every argument. He establishes absolute self-ownership using two characteristics of argument: the need for communication and the possibility of agreement. For the first, that the arguers are separate people, they have to employ their physical bodies in order to communicate with each other. Thus, an arguer implicitly recognizes that it is ethically permissible for him to use his own body. Similarly, he must recognize that his opponent has the right to use his body–if he does not, then he is not arguing, but soliloquizing. ”

OK. It is undoubtedly true that one has to use his/her body in order to argue. So if someone says: “I do not have a right to use my body” that person is in contradiction with his actions. But two things:
1. Does not self-ownership mean something more than “it is ethically permissible for me to use my body”? Rothbard, for instance, defined self-ownership as “the right to control one’s body, free of coercion” – in other words: it is ethically permissible for me to control my body and it is not permissible for others to coerce on my body. Yet freedom from coercion is not neccesary for me to act. For example, I can say that it is ethically permissible for me to use my body, but it is ethically permissible for others to do so as well. And I am not in performative contradiction, the way I see it.
2. Even if someone contradicts his/her actions, is that only a proof that he/she is a hypocrite? What I mean by this is: does proving that someone is a hypocrite automatically invalidate the norm he/she is proposing?

“Self-ownership is absolute (1) because there is no non-arbitrary reason to restrict it and (2) because restrictions on self-ownership conflict with the possibility of agreement. In any argument, there always exists the possibility of agreement among the arguers–at the very least, they can agree that they disagree. However, if one arguer has the right to make use of his opponent’s body, then he may end the argument without agreement between the arguers. If this is the case, then we don’t have an argument, we have a…well, I’m not entirely sure what this situation would be called, but it wouldn’t be an argument.”

Yes, but the question is: if one enters into an argument, does that neccesary mean that he/she is seeking an agreement? For instance, I may see that my opponent is strong, so a voilent confrontation may turn out risky for me – so I turn to argumentation. Yet, I enter the argumentation not to establish the truth (or establish who has the higher moral ground) but to try to convince my opponent to accept my position. However, by no means I am willing to give up my position – if I see that the argument is going wrong, I may end the argumentation as it is giving me nothing. So I think that argumentation does not neccesarily mean that the parties involved in it are seeking a peaceful agreement.
Second problem: you wrote that there is “no non-arbitrary reason to restrict self-ownership”. That may well be true. However, we are returning to the problem of performative contradiction. If I say: “it is ethically permissible to use my body, but only in some situations” then I am not in contradiction. For example, I can say: “it is not ethically permissible for me to refuse to help someone in need”. Simply because I engage in argumentation does not mean, IMO, that my norm is invalidated, for my actions are not in contradiction with my words.

And now the final thing. You wrote:

“Hoppe’s arguments for property rights in other physical objects are a good deal more complex, so there’s no good way to summarize them. Kinsella’s presentation is good and correct.”

Even if argumentation ethics does establish full self-ownership, does it establish property rights in all external physical objects as well? It is true that man must eat and drink in order to survive (and engage in argumentation), but does that mean that the food he/she has eaten is property? Is not mere possession of external objects enough?

But maybe the last part is unneccesary, as the external objects problem is another matter… just offered a quick impression.

Regards,
RC

> In other words, is there an internally consistent way to acquire ownership. Yes, through original appropriation or through voluntary mutual exchange.

Maybe, if we accept that. But what is original appropriation? Why may nobody save a rain forest in your world, and why may everyone pump as much ground water as he can?

> Hint: You are assuming your conclusion to be true. (Revisit how the article defines argumentation.)

I have no argumentation problem. I argue only that labor is subjective and not normative as such.

You are a philosopher? That’s your argument?I’m not impressed. Try harder next time.

Hint: You are assuming your conclusion to be true. (Revisit how the article defines argumentation.)

“In essence, Hoppe’s view is that argumentation, or discourse, is by its nature a conflict-free way of interacting,”

It that supposed to be “by nature” or “by definition” ?

They don’t become rights, they are rights that are elucidated through argumentation ethics.
Now if I understand correctly…
Hoppe says humans make arguments. You have two choices:
1)agree
2)disagree

If you disagree, then you are making an argument which proves his point.

So, humans argue. In order to make an argument you must be a self-owner. Otherwise you are a sock puppet and not making an argument.Someone holding a gun to someone’s head does not negate the requirement that arguments are made by self-owners. The problem you seem to have with this is: How can there be a requirement of self-ownership when it can be taken away by force and that person is still capable of making an argument? 1)They are not making an argument 2)forcible enslavement does not negate the concept of self-ownership.

If we have exclusive use to our bodies (self-ownership), then the concept of ownership exists. I.e humans can own. In other words, humans do have property rights. That which humans have property rights in is a different question.

If humans can own, then is there a conflict-free way to gain ownership. In other words, is there an internally consistent way to acquire ownership. Yes, through original appropriation or through voluntary mutual exchange.

There is no leap of faith here. Once you know x must be true, then any condition that must exist in order to make x true, must be true as well.

Hoppe claims that all people possess and necessarily use such concepts in their thinking. And that it is only a matter of demonstrating that such is indeed the case. And then it is a matter of applying these concepts consistently (otherwise, you can prove almost anything from a contradiction).

It should be clear from my reply that I don’t believe Hoppe’s claims can be applied universally, but only to certain types of people. I believe that it comes down to a choice to be made by each thinking person.