Put up

Today is a quick take or a reaction piece, a bit like I do at evolution~morality pieces papers.

I am going to look at some dogmatic selfing. It follows from seeing an unknown term 'Argumentative ethics' I saw in someone’s comment someplace as an aside to something completely unconnected, what is this 'Argumentative ethics' I thought? Perhaps this will end up as whole list like evolution~morality pieces, buttof bad selfing reaction pieces. Of course bad selfing is also bad worlding as these are in some proportion that our mathematics cannot nail down.

Besides my reaction to 'argumentative ethics’ of what in hell is that? My first thought was some portrayal of a lek-like Vahalla of daily battle and nightly carousing. No such luck.

While it can refer to the ethics of disputation, it mostly lives on as a Libertarian ‘ontology’. I use that word ‘ontology’ in a loose sense, to mean what people feel is special, or makes them special, and so therefore must/should/will exist in the real world.

My first actual websearch was “argumentation ethics primer” and low and behold there was one.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe. “A Primer on Hoppe’s Argumentation Ethics.” From chapter 13 of The Economics and Ethics of Private Property : Studies in Political Economy and Philosophy, Second, Ludwig Von Mises Institute, 2005, Auburn, Alabama [webpage].

My first reaction was ① here we go ② yes photographic proof that basically libertarians spend all their free time at the boundaries of their property yelling “MINE, MINE, MINE’ all the live long day ③ LOL ④ they are a charity case, typical.

Back put

Some background on the reactioneer here. I read Max Stirner when I was about 19, that is over 40 years ago now. That’s before I read any Marx by the way. And after Germaine Greer (whose father grew up my my hometown of Launceston, Tasmania).

Additionally I have pieces on a much more recent reading of Robert Ardrey's The Territorial Imperative. See also Figuring out the grounds beneath the world: noyau, lek and home, Robert Ardrey & Richard Dawkins: use of the Necker cube, and Home again : riffing on Robert Ardrey’s use of Jean-Jacques Petter's term of noyau as a label for a society of inward antagonism.

Now I am hoping 'argumentative ethics' would lead to this kind of discussion of our socially created arenas of debate and performance, with some evolutionary input, and not just getting a Reichsbürger without the ham. Maybe this explains the von in von Mises. Scratch a libertarian and you often get a frustrated robber baron (MINE MINE MINE). I used to have von in my name, where did it go?

All this disappointment before I have actually read the primer!

In addition it is good to know about the reactioneer (ME ME ME) that I have recently decided that WEIRD societies have created a social institution of the individual (substack) (see also linkpost), and expressions of this in more dogmatic forms (but not actually the pathology of narcissism) are things like: hippies, anarchism, libertarianism, and the sovereign citizen.

Now to actually read/react this primer.

Input

[Ludwig von Mises] calls this conceptual knowledge the “axiom of action,”

This might man we are alive, or a description of that animal movement. Okay.

he demonstrates in which sense the meaning of action from which economic theory sets out

So no evolution.

of values, ends, and means, of choice, preference, profit, loss, and cost, must be considered a priori knowledge.

No evolution and no wonder libertarians foist this list of efforts (the 'action' okay) back onto evolution, ignorance abhors a void, or is it voiding into ignorance abhors anything but itself? Especially when a origin myth is required (felt to be shoulded into place).

Most importantly, it cannot possibly be invalidated by any experience whatsoever, because any attempt to do so would already presuppose the existence of action and an actor’s understanding of the categories of action (experiencing something is, after all, itself an intentional action!).

Interesting way to twist the… —gap to serve one’s preferences (efforts).

Might need to reference my Alignment ⑥ Values are an effort not a coin here. Also Platotectonics.

The next paragraph is both hagiographic and dogmatic, a cultish bore, uses a argument from authority by proxy “modern Western tradition of rationalism”. I mean I like the action thing, but von Mises apparently uses this to inscribe the entire world into economics. As if economics is a paradise, a Valhalla, a bitchy heaven. Very Marxist really, if bitchy.

Economics can inform us whether or not certain means are appropriate for bringing about certain ends, yet whether or not the ends can be regarded as just can neither be decided by economics nor by any other science. There is no justification for choosing one rather than another end. In the last resort, which end is chosen is arbitrary from a scientific point of view and is a matter of subjective whim, incapable of any justification beyond the mere fact of simply being liked.

This is the example of blind dogmatism calling the dog a bitch, a form of pot-calling-kettle-black. Assuming economics without evolution is itself a ‘subjective whim’. An indulgence and all mentions of rationalism are distractions, hand-waving that seeks to world the self as the world, or at least once bias/prefernce/action/effort as the only entirety of the world, even if it calls the world an economy.

All this to avoid ‘ethics’, yet they should economics into an ethics. They think economics (a version of it) can save them from the world. They are blind to their own processes, it is the log in their own eye. See my owninvestigation of my sight at Why we should : An introduction by memoir into the implications of theEgalitarian Revolution of the Paleolithic, or,Anyone for cake? [also hosted PDF].

Without ‘ethics’ or other outcomes of worlding we would have no economics as an outcome either. Abjuring ‘ethics’ is like abjuring ‘economics’ in the name of religion or art or the nation. These abjurations are still the result of the worlding urge. Such abjuration is dogmatic, and when they are dogmatic they lead to bad worlding, and bad selfing for that matter. As selfing and worlding are a proportion of of gastrulations, or pivots of “action” to borrow von Mises or now Hoppe’s term.

Many libertarians have followed Mises on this point. Like Mises, they have abandoned the idea of a rational foundation of ethics. As he does, they make as much as possible out of the economic proposition that the libertarian private property ethic produces a higher general standard of living than any other one

A utilitarian in sheeps’ clothing as made into an Italian suit. By the same token worlding has produced more varieties of selfing experience, as we self the world among other doing the selfsame thing, and thus created economics in the first place, so worlding has produced ‘higher general standard of living than any other one’ due to the social learning of a social learning species.

No evolution means they only have dogmatism left to indulge their preferences as they self the world among others doing the same. I.E. argumentative ‘ethics’ prefers not to argue.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe sort of agrees with this,

But ultimately, as Mises certainly knew, such considerations can only convince somebody of libertarianism who has already accepted the “utilitarian” goal of general wealth maximization. For those who do not share this goal, they have no compelling force at all. Thus, in the final analysis, libertarianism is based on nothing but an arbitrary act of faith. […] In the following I outline an argument that demonstrates why this position is untenable[…]

Hoppe put

I [Hans-Hermann Hoppe] demonstrate that only the libertarian private property ethic can be justified argumentatively, because it is the praxeological presupposition of argumentation as such; and that any deviating, nonlibertarian ethical proposal can be shown to be in violation of this demonstrated preference.

Looks like he takes the social institution of the individual and whacks it down, atomised, in a lek that has appeared from nowhere, like Athena from Zeus’ thigh, so the question is will this be a Valhalla or, remade, the world.

For instance, one can say “people are and always shall be indifferent towards doing things,” but this proposition would be belied by the very act of proposition-making, which in fact would demonstrate subjective preference (of saying this rather than saying something else or not saying anything at all). Likewise, non-libertarian ethical proposals are falsified by the reality of actually proposing them.

Well dang. Looks like my selfing the world among other doing the selfsame thing does exactly what he says non-libertarian ethical proposals cannot do. But then Worlding is aware that economics/ethics/morality/art/performance/religion are outcomes of the worlding urge, and as such can easily circumvent this neat use of the… —gap as an accusation of rational failure. All because this line of argument forgets evolution.

And remember if you say some outcomes are dead or lost or lacking or forgotten they just get composted back into worlding, this applies to murdering an outcome too.

Like I said, I like the action part, that’s what the effort of shoulding could be called.

For one thing, no one could possibly propose anything, and no one could become convinced of any proposition by argumentative means, if a person’s right to make exclusive use of his physical body were not already presupposed.

This is actually hilarious. Where da fuck does that ‘right’ come from?

[…] for anyone who tried to justify any norm whatsoever would already have to presuppose the exclusive right of control over his body as a valid norm simply in order to say, “I propose such and such.”

Like I said the social institution of the individual, a recent development, has been thrown backwards into time.  And like all dogmatists the origin myth thus ‘constructed’ in the present can and will be used to world badly, and with a strong sense of entitlement. (Where da fuck does that ‘right’ come from?).

Not just evolution is missing but there is no anthropology at all, suddenly we leap to Lockean homesteading, both the eons of the paleolithic and the diversity of geography are lacking in this escape (von Mises) from the Holy Roman Empire’s eastern marches , and from Third Rome imperialism’s collectivised sequel (Ayn Rand).

Anyone disputing such a right would become caught up in a practical contradiction since arguing so would already imply acceptance of the very norm which he was disputing.

If I do not dispute this and still say you are wrong, what are you going to argue?

Apparently argumentative ethics attempts to corral or frame responses by saying you are arguing with me so I am right.

If I say you are right, but we are still arguing about you claims, what da fuck are we doing?

I’d say worlding the self among others doing the same.

What have you got?

For if no one had the right to control anything at all except his own body, then we would all cease to exist and the problem of justifying norms simply would not exist. Thus, by virtue of the fact of being alive, property rights to other things must be presupposed to be valid. No one who is alive could argue otherwise.

I am sure Max Stirner would turn in his grave at this wheel in the mind.

Rather, property rights must be thought of as originating as a result of specific individuals acting at definite points in time.

The robber-barons’ origin myth.

Ignored when stealing land. We were always here says the Lockean homesteader using slave labour to mix his 'own labour' with the earth. What type of fucked worlding is that kind of selfing dude.

A lack of evolution argument derails argumentative ethics. It’s all about action and performance, but how did we get here dudey-poo, how did we get to this place you describe (except we are not there and it is but a dream).

The whole end of the page shoulds away how it should, a good example of worlding dogmatically.

There is a nod to shoulding but misses the import:

Second, there is the logical gap between “is-” and “ought-statements” which natural rights proponents have failed to bridge successfully 

This bring up the alignment question, where consistency strived-for, or 'valued' (and as such is an excellent example of value as effort to 'order/align/make neat') is an effort of worlding, an act of value judgement that evolution doesn’t care about, it only cares that you should make the attempt, make an effort, an action, for those who do not world thus are then left behind, even if in ‘objective’ terms your efforts are poor.

Dogmatists are always with us, the poor in spirit. They survive, we abide.

Ought-statements cannot be derived from is-statements. They belong to different logical realms.

Evolution doesn’t care about logic, it is, perhaps, like time, be: alogical. We can view this statement as more evidence that something provides the action for these outcomes that ‘belong to different’ Xs.

Logic is an animal hindsight, so to understand any outcomes' success in evolutionary survival, one has to understand what we can of that history, or at least understand the record we have of that big history (taphonomy). Libertarians refuse to do that, and thus fail their own project where it is within a ‘Western tradition of rationalism’.

And not even a hint here of Dawkins ‘extended phenotype’ here in this property malarkey.

Crossposted on substack.com