I don't quite agree with this. A man's pleasure ride in space cost him 25 million US dollars some ten years ago. If you are spending that much money (which is not even enough) to bring to earth 70 Kg of material, then it's prohibively expensive. You'd use more fuel, energy, materials, money, and everything else than to justify the return on investment. — god must be atheist

It's not about return on investment though, is it? This thread is about how humanity can keep growing. The answer to this is obviously space. Of course, doing so is going to require space infrastructure, preferably including some kind of launch system not based on chemical rockets. That is going to be hideously expensive. From a technology perspective though, it can be done with existing, proven technologies.

easier said than done. There are no habitable spaces for humans in our solar system beside Earth. To get to the next solar system, with no guarantee of habitation, would cost you fifty-thousands billion trillion dollars. I ain't kidding. — god must be atheist

We can build habitable spaces. Not easily, obviously, but there are no physical reasons it cannot be done.

It is unrealistic to think that human beings will ever curb their desire to reproduce, regardless of the limited carrying capacity of our environment. Furthermore there are no natural predators to keep our population in check, meaning the only historically significant ways large scale population reductions could occur--and they will occur--are famine, war, and disease.

The idea that a future technology will prevent this kind of reality is ill-founded, though we may through technology extend the limits of what our environment can sustain (e.g. agriculture) we will still have a limited amount of space to exist in and our numbers will continue to increase. Technology cannot solve what is essentially a human problem. — Pathogen

Our space isn't actually all that limited though. The resources of the solar system are already in range with today's technology, it's mostly a question of engineering and will.

Well, if someone creates cold fusion reactors, we've got it made. For another 100,000 years,then the same problems will rear their ugly rears. — god must be atheist

The resources of the cosmos are more or less inexhaustible. All we need to do is get off this rock.

So, we can feed more people and prevent many diseases. The population grows and eventually reaches a number (in the billions) where the supply chain is over-booked, and if anything goes wrong, orderly society starts falling apart. — Bitter Crank

How is this different from all of human history?

There is, of course, a middle ground between "staying in caves" and "massively polluting the world", and that would be "living responsibly". You really think we should be trashing our only home this much? Is that smart? Do you believe the Earth is warming and humans are the primary culprit? You do, right? — RogueAI

Climate change and environmental degradation are serious problems that urgently need to be addressed. An increasing population will not help, but halting population growth wouldn't solve these problems either.

Would you say they could proceed from (or not include) premises that are not moral stances? — Terrapin Station

I am not sure. The question is whether it's possible to avoid an is-ought-fallacy on the one side and an infinite regress of moral stances on the other.

My intuition is that they proceed from a sort of moral axiom, which would be some principle of reciprocity (similar to the golden rule).

It seems like you keep telling me info that's not what it is for "murder is wrong" to be reason-able then.

I'm wanting you to describe how it can be reason-able. — Terrapin Station

I am not certain it's possible to describe how reason works. There are arguments to be made about whether murder should be wrong. Those arguments must be logically valid and proceed from acceptable premises.

Whatever else the people making moral claims intend to convey. At the very least, moral judgements (in contrast to non-moral preferences) signify disapproval/approval for the actions of others. — ChrisH

And what if what people want to convey are certain "truths" about how interactions in a society should function? And moral stances are not just about the behaviour of others, you can evaluate (and change) your own actions based on your moral stance.

My understanding of emotivism (and what I think is the case) is that it is the recognition that personal preferences are necessary components of all sincerely held moral stances. All (sincere) moral judgements are therefore, to some degree or other, expressions of emotional attitudes. — ChrisH

The question that comes to mind here is, if moral stances are expressions of emotional attitudes to some degree then what else are they?

So any phenomena in that part of the brain, and/or any phenomena focused on interpersonal relations is reason-able? (I don't know if it's also reasonable without the hyphen in your view.) — Terrapin Station

No, because that would include emotions and preferences. As for the hyphen, I use it to denote that I am using the two words reason and able literally, as in "accessible to reason".

It doesn’t, not really. — Possibility

In that case, it seems to me unnecessarily confusing to use two different terms with very different connotations for the same thing.

As causality, we’re blind to our capacity to choose different actions when we look back on unbroken causal chains. As ‘free will’, we tend to be blind to how past experiences affect our actions looking forward. The way I see it, it’s only when we look at both concepts together as ‘the will’ that we get a clearer picture in either direction. — Possibility

This sounds a lot like how Kant approaches the antinomy of causality and freedom. But Kants conclusion is that free will and causalty are different sides of the same coin, and equally valid.

So let’s say that the WILL is the faculty by which one determines and initiates an action by structuring the causal conditions that bring it about. This occurs through the awareness, connection and collaboration of all elements involved - in a fifth dimensional relation of experiences hierarchically structured beyond time. Most elements contribute predetermined causal conditions: their past interactions have already determined whether or not they initiate or reject the awareness, connection or collaboration which determines the part they play in an event before any action takes place. A self-conscious and creative human mind, however, can (with conscious attention) develop the capacity to not only become aware of their own awareness, but also to freely initiate OR reject any awareness, connection or collaboration that determines the part they play before any action takes place. — Possibility

This seems like a better formulation. The problem I have with this approach is that it leaves the "developing" part kinda up in the air. I am a compatibilist, so it seems odd to me to juxtapose pre-determined elements with a non-predetermined ability to develop. Because if it's not pre-determined, then what is it? In other word, what determines how the un-determined develops?

If "Murder is wrong" isn't "reason-able" as you put it because of the connection to other subjects (in other words, you explained that that's not actually what you are referring to with the term "reason-able"), then what makes it reason-able? — Terrapin Station

It's reason-able because the statement is processed by a part of the brain that operates on a reason-ruleset, so to speak. A part that we use for things that concern interpersonal relations.

To do that, I need to go back to the definition of ‘will’: the faculty by which one decides on and initiates action - which precedes the act of choosing. Anytime the action in question is decided on (determined) and initiated without bringing awareness, connection and collaboration into a conscious act of choosing, then the will (the faculty by which this action is decided on and initiated) still operates as such, but does NOT do so freely.

In my view, the will - the faculty by which action is determined and initiated - operates at a fundamental level in all interactions of the universe, but operates FREELY only in a self-conscious and creative human mind. One that can interact on a fifth dimensional level. — Possibility

If the will operates in all interactions of the universe, how does it differ from causality? You say that the will "decides", but deciding is a conscious action that actors make. In what sense, then, can that will be said to decide?

I think the reason it is important to question 'free will' is the elimination of retributive justice. Proponents of 'free will' are more likely to see purpose in punishment for the sake of punishment, whereas others find that logic ridiculous. — ZhouBoTong

I would like to point out that there are also arguments against purely rehabilitative justice, both theoretical, drawing a parallel between rehabilitation and re-education, and practical, pointing out that rehabilitative justice lacks the limiting factor of personal guilt.

For me the only problem with 'free will' is the 'free' part. I don't spend much time questioning the existence of will (what purpose would it serve?) — ZhouBoTong

How could an unfree will even exist? That notion seems contradictory to me. Perhaps @Possibility might could also share some thoughts about how it would make sense to call something that's merely part of a causal chain a "will".

Shared in what sense? The show and tell sense? Do you mean literally having the same reason somehow? — Terrapin Station

I mean being able to re-create the relevant brain-states in their own mind with sufficient accuracy.

Truth is a subjective judgment about the relation of a proposition to something else. So "truth" isn't the right word here certainly. — Terrapin Station

That's fair enough. It's perhaps closer to validity. Or we could just call it justification.

Are you defining "reason" as "a connection to other subjects"? — Terrapin Station

No, not exactly. But I think it's a defining characteristic of reason that it is shared among humans. So it being accessible to other people is an aspect.

But whether people believe/accept it or not, foundational moral stances ARE simply ways that they feel. There's no way to justify them on facts, since you can't derive an ought from an is. Again, this is the case whether people believe or act like it is or not. — Terrapin Station

I don't think the "simply" belongs here. Moral stances may originate as feelings. But they have another dimension when other subjects enter the picture, and start to communicate. That's why i think it's accurate to say that there is an interpersonal layer where things like "moral truths" reside. This does not make them facts, or justifiable from facts.

If we're going with the subjective / objective dichotomy, then morals are subjective. There is no way they could be objective, since what object would they refer to? But in the subjective there are different forms of thought. There are things that are not reason-able, like emotions or preferences ("blue is my favorite color"). But there are also things that are reason-able, like "murder is wrong", because these kinds of brain-states, whatever we want to call them, contain in them a connection to other subjects. Not some kind of mystical ether, but just the way we thing these kind of thoughts contains our relation to others.

Ah, okay. And what would you say is an example of this? — Terrapin Station

Let's say your moral stances is "lying is always wrong". Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that this is merely an expression of what you feel.

Now you visit this forum and see a thread about the morality of lying. Being that you feel your moral stance strongly, you want to participate. But you cannot write "that's how I feel" because you know that's not how you justify a position in philosophy. So you have to figure out an argument for your position.

If other people make counterarguments, you will then have to either evaluate your position and address the arguments, or ignore them. If you do the former, your position is now no longer one of emotion, since you're applying reasoning to support it and implicitly accept that reasoning is how you support such positions. If you do the latter you end up with a cognitive dissonance where you at the one hand have claimed that your position is reasonable, but on the other failed to support it. This also means your position is now no longer one of merely emotion.

You could of course refrain from any argument altogether, insisting that you merely have a feeling. That is not, however, how people normally operate with respect to moral stances. If it were, there'd be no need to even have a term for "moral stance".

But I think it would be wrong to dismiss the different role the justification plays for moral stances as opposed to emotions.
— Echarmion

I'm not sure what this is saying. — Terrapin Station

I am saying that your justification for a certain brain-state is a useful distinction for different "classes" of brain-states.

"Simple" emotions are not connected - mentally - to a requirement of a specific kind of justification. Moral stances are. So they can be differentiated from said emotions on that basis. This also means we can evaluate different moral stances, including our own, in a way we cannot do with "simple" emotions. This might not qualify as a truth value to you, but it nevertheless makes the claim that moral stances are just like emotions inaccurate.

If someone doesn't feel that x is morally right/permissible, etc., or that y is morally wrong/impermissible, etc., then I wouldn't say that "x is morally right..."/"y is morally wrong..." is a moral stance that they have. — Terrapin Station

For a given definition of "feel", this may be accurate. It's not like you can somehow decouple your cognition from your feelings. But I think it would be wrong to dismiss the different role the justification plays for moral stances as opposed to emotions.

An interesting parallel might be law. There is a school of thought which supposes that the application of legal rules is mostly governed by intuition, and the actual legal arguments are then formulated to support that intuition. But that doesn't make the legal arguments pointless, because knowing that you will need to support a stance, and what kind of support is considered adequate, will change your intuition.

Supposing that we establish some criterion by which a house is ‘better’ than a loaf of bread, so that trading away the former for the latter is ‘bad’. This is something that anybody may do, poor or rich, desperate or not. Alright, then it is logically conceivable that somebody might enter into a peaceful trade and emerge ‘worse off’, by the criterion we have stipulated. So what? For what would this be an argument? I have used the fact that people typically know what is best for themselves as a pro-liberty argument, as an argument for the non-aggression principle. So the only way in which these unusual counter-instances actually have a bearing on the discussion if you are going to use them as an argument for aggression, i.e. sometimes, people must be forcibly protected from themselves, and coerced into doing the right thing. This is why I raised paternalism. Paternalism is the placing of limitations on someone’s liberty or autonomy for their own good. A paternalistic government does not recognise the right of individuals to engage in self-destructive behaviour, but considers it necessary to coerce them into doing the ‘right thing’. I am not sure if you are endorsing this, but if you are not, then such counter-instances are moot.

Suppose, on the other hand, that we are talking about somebody being in a position where they ‘have to’ trade away their house for a loaf of bread. Again, for what is this an argument, exactly? If you are on the brink of starvation, and the only way to save your life is to make such a trade, then you are better off for having made it, and this is consistent with my thesis. We might bemoan the fact that someone might be in such a desperate situation in the first place, but I don’t see how this has any immediate bearing on our discussion. Unless you are just taking for granted that the only way of alleviating poverty is through the instrumentality of the State (which is false). — Virgo Avalytikh

I feel like we are starting to talk past each other here. My argument in the last post, which to me seems more or less still unadressed, is that in order to support the claim that "market failure is less common and less severe in libertarian systems compared to any other system", you need to establish some measurable criteria for the overall well-being of an economy and show how these criteria are improved. That people are actually "better off", and not just "gaining something they contingently value given their current options".

It seems to me your argument can be briefly summarized as: People are the best judges of what they value the most. When engaging in trade, you will always get something that currently has value to you. Since you always get something you value, and you are the best judge of value (for yourself), you will always be "better off" by trading.

The problem with that argument is that it's always true. That is to say, given this logic, any conceivable outcome is being "better off". If the label "better off" can apply to any possible situation, it's meaningless.

I said that I would happily concede the triviality of the rationality axiom if you concede its truth. I was hoping that you would cooperate with this and concede its truth so that we can move on. Instead, you have simply restated its triviality, which doesn’t advance us at all. As I pointed out, its axiomatic self-evidence is only an objection if the principle is accepted uncontroversially. It is only because it is disputed that it bears restating. — Virgo Avalytikh

Disputed by whom, exactly?

Contrary to your characterisation, the rationality axiom is not simply that ‘humans act in the way humans act’. If it were, I would have formulated it that way. It might be an implication of the axiom, but that is nothing special, since all tautologies are implications of everything (including contradictions). Humans act is such a way that aims at achieving their highest want at a given moment. Is this new information? Is this a valuable insight? That depends on whether you already knew it. If you did, then surely it is trivial. If you didn’t, then you have achieved a new insight. So let us just agree ‘The rationality axiom is true’, and then move on to more interesting insights (of which there are many; see Ludwig von Mises’s magnum opus, ‘Human Action: A Treatise on Economics’). — Virgo Avalytikh

I am not quite sure how one is supposed to "know" that "Humans act is such a way that aims at achieving their highest want at a given moment". The statement is not "information" at all. It tells us nothing about actual human behavior. But sure, it's still true.

Economics is relative in the following sense: an economist is able to tell you (fallibly) that a particular course of action will boost GDP, but they cannot tell you that boosting GDP is objectively a ‘good’ thing. Or, if they can, they can do so only in reference to some higher criterion that has been stipulated. Whether that criterion is objectively ‘good’ is, again, a judgement that lies outwith the purview of the economist qua economist. As any introductory textbook will tell you, economics is a Wertfrei discipline. — Virgo Avalytikh

I agree. I was talking in the context of economic philosophy, but I didn't quite make that clear. The philosophy of economics is not "wertfrei", would you agree? I'd say it's a subset of moral philosophy, since it deals with what economic system we ought to adopt.

This does not imply moral relativism at all, nor have I argued for moral relativism. My focus has been predominantly on rights, which is a different logical sphere. There are many things which I consider to be morally wrong, but not rights-violations (like committing adultery), and even certain things that are clear rights-violations, but are still probably the right thing to do, all things considered (like fraudulently over-charging somebody by a penny if doing so would prevent World War 3). Moral relativism is a red herring here, since I have not argued for it, nor is it an implication of anything I have argued. I am not a relativist in the moral sense, so we can just drop it there. — Virgo Avalytikh

I am aware you have not explicitly argued for moral relativism. My argument was that your argument parallels that of moral relativism, just in the sphere of economic philosophy, and that it would ultimately lead to moral relativism.

Hold on – there is an equivocation here which needs to be ironed out. It is one thing to imagine somebody foolishly trading away a house for a loaf of bread, and then using this as an example of how, sometimes, people enter into voluntary trades from which they emerge ‘worse off’. It is another thing to speak of someone being in a position where they have to give away their house for a loaf of bread, due to the desperation of their situation. They are two completely different points. — Virgo Avalytikh

I am not sure how my example of a starving man that trades his house for a loaf of bread can be seen as anything other than an act of desperation? Obviously if you are starving, you are forced to accept almost any trade in exchange for food. That circumstances can be exploited by people with a better bargaining position to force other people to make bad trades is exactly my point.

Supposing that we establish some criterion by which a house is ‘better’ than a loaf of bread, so that trading away the former for the latter is ‘bad’. This is something that anybody may do, poor or rich, desperate or not. Alright, then it is logically conceivable that somebody might enter into a peaceful trade and emerge ‘worse off’, by the criterion we have stipulated. So what? For what would this be an argument? I have used the fact that people typically know what is best for themselves as a pro-liberty argument, as an argument for the non-aggression principle. So the only way in which these unusual counter-instances actually have a bearing on the discussion if you are going to use them as an argument for aggression, i.e. sometimes, people must be forcibly protected from themselves, and coerced into doing the right thing. This is why I raised paternalism. Paternalism is the placing of limitations on someone’s liberty or autonomy for their own good. A paternalistic government does not recognise the right of individuals to engage in self-destructive behaviour, but considers it necessary to coerce them into doing the ‘right thing’. I am not sure if you are endorsing this, but if you are not, then such counter-instances are moot.

Suppose, on the other hand, that we are talking about somebody being in a position where they ‘have to’ trade away their house for a loaf of bread. Again, for what is this an argument, exactly? If you are on the brink of starvation, and the only way to save your life is to make such a trade, then you are better off for having made it, and this is consistent with my thesis. We might bemoan the fact that someone might be in such a desperate situation in the first place, but I don’t see how this has any immediate bearing on our discussion. Unless you are just taking for granted that the only way of alleviating poverty is through the instrumentality of the State (which is false). — Virgo Avalytikh

I think you analysis here is - literally - one sided. You don't seem to be considering that there is another angle to look at these "bad trades". Not as bad decisions someone happens to make, but as exploitation of the weaker by the stronger. Protecting those in vulvnerable positions from being taken advantage of is not paternalism. And this is relevant to our discussion because this protection is not something that the NAP covers. So while you can say that a state is not required to protect people from desperate situations, something in addition to the NAP is nevertheless necessary.

We can conduct similar thought-experiments about violations of the NAP. For every conceivably possible case in which someone enters into a peaceful trade and emerges ‘worse off’ by whatever criterion you care to stipulate, I can give you one in which an act of aggression make one party ‘worse off’ by that same criterion. We are talking about tendencies. Relatively speaking, mutual benefit is a norm and unilateral loss an exception when it comes to peaceful trade. The reverse is the case when it comes to aggression. — Virgo Avalytikh

Listing examples would be a context of creativity, but not an argument. I am still not sure what standard you apply for "mutual benefit", either. Is "mutual benefit" distinct from "everyone received something they contingently value"?

You were happy to agree that individuals tend to make decisions which are best for themselves, on the grounds that they are better acquainted with their respective situations than anyone else is. All I am doing is deducing the implications of this. — Virgo Avalytikh

I am not seeing the deduction. Could you spell it out for me in more detail?

If we look at the kinds of things which the NAP permits, they tend to work for the benefit of all voluntary participants (e.g. trade, friendships), and if we look at those things which are prohibited by the NAP, they tend to produce a clear loser (e.g. rape, murder, theft). I see this as being very difficult to argue with. — Virgo Avalytikh

It is difficult to argue with, but it's also not the thing we're arguing. I am not saying aggression is better than non-aggression in principle. I am questioning whether just non-aggression is sufficient to actually produce positive outcomes.

I think enotivism is just wrong as a matter of fact. Beyond the question whether a truth value for moral statements can be established, it seems obvious to me that people don't just express an emotion when they make moral statements.

If we look, for example, at deeply religious people, there is a clear distinction between what they personally feel and what they think the will of the divine is.

So according to you one can not care for everyone at the same time because it's too much to handle? — Ines

Not necessarily because it's too much to handle, but because this is how the human mind works. Caring for everyone is distinct from what we call empathy, it is a reflected, reasoned care, where empathy is emotional.

That would support the idea that you automatically care more for some than others, but this doesn't have to be logical or based on how much a person deserves your empathy. Often it's linked to how important a certain person is to you personally or how close you are to this person, which in itself is linked to us caring more about ourselves than others. — Ines

In a sense, yes. But empathy is merely our care for ourselves mirrored onto another person. The area of the brain responsible is referred to as "mirror neurons". So without care for the self, there is no empathy.

The problem with empathy is that it does not multiply. Our sense of empathy can deal with maybe a handful of individuals at once. More than that just get thrown out. Worse, really big catastrophes are so unimaginable in the amount of suffering they produce that empathy simply shuts down.

So empathy is ultimately not a good solution for making the world a better place.

I mean, I never meant it as a platitude; just common sense. You appreciate things that much more which are rare, harder to come by, or transient. — Grre

But death doesn't really make events any rarer, harder to come by, or more transient. It makes life transient, but life isn't an event within life. Christmas has the same rarity and transient quality regardless of whether you live to be 30, 80 or 200. Things get easier if you have more time to do them, but keeping at something for a long time is in itself hard, so I don't see how, say, learning to play the Violin would be "easier" and therefore less appreciated if you do it over a century rather than a decade.

This is also all relative. We enjoy things that are relatively rare, relatively hard etc. It's not an inherent characteristic of "things" that is imparted on them by mortality. It's simply that to appreciate things, you need contrast.

Because life culminates inevitably in death, makes it all the more important to live it, and live it to the fullest of your ability. To live well. To change and make difference for what you can. — Grre

But one can just as well argue the opposite - that all you do is meaningless, because death is the great equaliser. Nothing you do matters once you're dead, and since everyone else also dies, nothing ultimately matters to them, either.

If a life without death is not worthwhile, then a life with death isn't either. The value of life does not lie in some "highscore" that you manage to achieve between birth and death, but in every single experience you make.

People can, and have, used their deaths to help more people ie. more life. — Grre

No, people have used their lives to help people, and some of these people have died in the process. Strictly speaking, their deaths didn't help.

Change. The world will change. I'm talking about accepting the world as it is now; accepting life on its terms. — frank

But life has no "terms". Life just is. Morality is a part of humans, and therefore also a part of life, that which is. To contrast it with some supposed "natural" state of affairs is arbitrary.

Ultimately, morality seeks to change the state of affairs, and therefore rejects part of it. But morality properly deals with human intentions, not outcomes. So it's not imagining a different descriptive reality, but building a normative order on top of it.

Rejecting the world is only a delusion if you think the world cannot be changed.

Since you seem not to see the significance of some of the concepts of which I have made use in this discussion (I don’t mean this in a condescending way, I’m just reading this off what you have said), let me restate the argument in more detail.

I have made the claim that voluntary trade works towards mutual benefit. This is true in at least two (related) senses. One of these senses corresponds to the perspective of entering into the trade in the first place (this is the ex ante perspective), and one of the senses corresponds to the perspective of having made the trade (ex post). — Virgo Avalytikh

I don't think our disagreement is due so much on having different concepts of ex-ante and ex-post, as it is due to the way one establishes mutual benefit, either individually or on the scale of entire societies. I think that in order to make the claim that a certain system is beneficial, you have to present the impact the system has on measurable factors (like, say, GDP) and then make a reasoned value judgement as to why this change in measurable factors i desirable. It is not sufficient, in order to establish mutual benefit, to simply state that people will have made the decision that had the highest subjective, situational value.

This is precisely because the latter is a self-evident "praxeological axiom", as you call it. One cannot discuss self-evident axioms, one can only state them. If that is all you're doing, philosophy is impossible. I will go into more detail when adressing the points you brought up.

At any given moment, conscious agents are engaged in purposeful behaviour. Man acts. Action is motivated by purpose, by a desire or want, which we aim to achieve, even if such a purpose is not always at the forefront of our conscious awareness. Purposeful action may be distinguished from involuntary action, like a muscular spasm. There isn’t much to say about involuntary action, since we cannot (directly) control it, so I will just restrict myself to purposeful action. At any given moment, we have a multitude of wants, and these wants are, in a sense, in conflict with one another. My desire to take a sip from my coffee cup and my desire to type a message are in conflict, in the sense that they are both competing for my time. No doubt there are at least two activities which I could conceivably engage in simultaneously without compromising either, but the important point is that I cannot do everything I want; my wants are insatiable, and resources (time, attention, physical space) are scarce. This is the fundamental economic problem.

So why do I end up doing what I do? Because my wants exist in a hierarchy, and, at a given moment, I will always act in such a way that aims at realising my highest want. This is the doctrine of ‘demonstrated preferences’. And it is self-evident: it is senseless to speak of someone prioritising a ‘lesser’ want over a ‘greater’ want, for, if it is prioritised, it is not really the ‘lesser’ want at all. It stands to reason, then, that in a trade, we each act in such a way that aims to attain something we value more at the expense of something we value less.

This is axiomatically true (which, I assume, is why you have used words like ‘circular’ and ‘trivial’ to describe it). But, to say that something is trivially true implies that it is true. There would be no need to repeat the fact that it is true if no one ever denied it. It is the fact that it is disputed that creates the need to repeat it. If you are happy to concede its truth, then I am happy to concede its triviality, and we can drop the point. But, until then, its axiomatic self-evidence is a point in its favour, not a point against it. — Virgo Avalytikh

What I mean to convey when I call this axiom "trivial" is that it does not get us anywhere. It provides no insight and advances no argument. All deductive logic, no matter how complex, can only rephrase information that was already inherent in the premises. It cannot generate new information. So the difference between a useful logical deduction and a trivial one, or truism, is that one rephrases the information in such a way as to provide some non-obvious insight, while the other merely repeats the same information.

What I see in this praxeological axiom is simply this: Humans act in the way humans act. The highest want is, by definition, simply the thing any given actor ends up doing. You do whatever is your highest want, and whatever you do is your highest want. All we are doing is renaming "the reason for doing X" to "the highest want". But what do we gain from this exercise? Does it provide some novel insight? Does it advance some argument? None that I can see.

‘Value’ is an important concept here too. Value is subjective, as I argued above. To speak of a ‘material worsening’ of someone’s condition presupposes an objective theory of value, which is wrong. If I trade away a house for a loaf of bread, it is because ‘having a loaf of bread’ was higher in my preference hierarchy than ‘having a house’. You might think that I am crazy for making such a trade, but that is beside the point. The question of what I value is demonstrated by my preferences. — Virgo Avalytikh

I do not disagree that value, understood as market value, is purely subjective, that is, a preference. What I do not agree with is that there is nothing beyond this. Goods that are traded have values beyond their market value. They may have instrumental value, they may have value in terms of the labor invested in them. Similarly, we are not limited to viewing a persons situation purely through the lens of their preferences. We can also measure various indicators concenring their material, physical and psychological situation. We can then use these indicators to make reasoned judgements about their situations.

This process, gathering data and then making reasoned value judgements about the data, is at the core of any moral philosophy, and therefore also of economic philosophy, which is ultimately a subset of the former. The results of such a process are not "objective", since they do not refer to objects. Asking for objective standards in this context is really just nonsense. They are judgements which are accessible to human reason, and if they are ultimately reasonable, they are a form of truth distinct from empirical truth.

It is not possible to have any economic philosophy if all you rely on is preference. In that case, your statement that "libertarianism makes people better off" is no different from stating "blue is my favorite color". Neither statement would be accessible to reason.

Having said this, there is still a meaningful sense in which I might be said to make ‘bad’ decisions. But this requires us to shift our perspective from ex ante to ex post. Our preferences may change from moment to moment, and this is especially the case when what was previously my highest want has been satisfied. Having traded away my house, I may immediately regret my decision. I might now have a whole host of new wants which only my old house could satisfy, and which my bread cannot. This does not serve as a counter-instance to what I have just argued about the logic of purposeful action. My claim is that purposeful agents aim at satisfying their highest want at a given moment. This is perfectly compatible with the fact that we might change our preferences, change our minds, regret past decisions, and so on. So we now have the question, ‘How likely is it that people are going to trade and interact with each other in such a way that they will not regret their decision later?’ And this returns us to the question of who knows what is best for me. And the answer is: me. I know what is best for myself better than anybody else does. I believe you were happy to agree to this point earlier. — Virgo Avalytikh

The ex-post view, as you outline it, has the same problem that I outlined concerning subjectivity. You're still only looking at preferences, and the logic of these preferences is not accessible to human reason. If all we are talking about is preferences, it's not just that you know what is "best" for you better than anybody else does. You are actually the only one who knows what i best for you. "Best" in this context only refers to a contingent preference you had in a specific situation.

With this in mind, we can see that there is also an ex post sense in which voluntary trade works towards mutual benefit. If I know what is best for myself, then I know better than anyone else which trades I should enter into. This claim is weaker than the first, for it is a contingent generalisation with possible counter-instances, not a praxiological axiom. But it is true, and on this much we seem to have previously agreed. If, in general, individuals know what is best for themselves, then a fortiori they know what is best for themselves with regard to trade (and other interactions). — Virgo Avalytikh

In addition to what I said before, there is a futher problem here. Even if I know what is best for me, i.e. what my current preferences are, that still doesn't mean I will be able to actually realize these goals. But then of course for every preference I cannot realize, a new preference, contingent on me failing the previous one(s) will pop up, and this will then be what is "best". This is as self evident as it's, again, trivial. The term "best" becomes completely meaningless if it can apply equally well to any conceivable outcome.

So what is to be done about the fact that some people make decisions which are ‘bad’ for themselves? In the first place, we must have some basis upon which to recognise such a thing, and this is not as easy as you seem to think it is. That heroin is addictive and dangerous to your health does not imply that it is always ‘bad’ for someone to consume it. All it implies is that there is a cost to consuming it. But there is a cost to all actions, and often there are benefits too. Someone who desires to take heroin will no doubt make appeal to its recreational use; the pleasure it brings, or whatever reason people take it for (I don’t know). So now it has been complicated by the fact that there are net-considerations of benefit and cost. This is where subjective value is important: you might value the recreational benefits of heroin less than avoiding its costs, but someone else may not.

What you say of heroin is also true of fast food. It’s dangerous and it’s addictive (which is why I avoid it). Not to the same degree, of course, but in a way, this is precisely the point. This is a relative issue, and not an absolute one. And it is impossible to draw a line in a non-arbitrary way. The only natural resting point is simply to allow people to do what they want with their own lives.

What is the alternative? Only paternalism: only the use of ‘benevolent’ aggression, ‘kindly’ initiating force against people for their own good. Remember, I have been invoking the mutually beneficial nature of voluntary trade as an argument for private property and the NAP. If you think that my argument for these principles is undermined by the fact that some people make bad decisions for themselves, this only has any bearing if you are going to propose the 'kindly' use of force. Can I at least nail you down on this? Are you arguing paternalism here? If not, then all of this looks moot. — Virgo Avalytikh

I think it's useful, in this context, to draw a parallel to moral relativism. I think what you are arguing here is a form of complete economic relativism that ultimately boils down to a complete moral relativism. If there is no way to assess "bad economic decisions", this must be equally true for "bad moral decisions" in general. If I cannot argue that taking Heroin is bad for you, I cannot argue that selling Heroin to people is morally bad. If I cannot argue that it's bad economically to have to give away your house essentially for free or starve, I cannot argue that it's morally bad to let people starve. If this is your stance, all of this really is moot, because there is no way to argue with complete relativism.

What I argue is that we can form certain intersubjective truths, by looking at the facts and making reasoned value judgements about these facts. I think this is distinct from paternalism. Paternalism is, to me, a stance that enfeebles others by making them unable to participate in a decision. It's arguing from authority. What I want to do is argue from reason. Reason is not enfeebling but empowering, because it opens up the process to everyone with the ability to understand human reason.

In conclusion, what I argue is not merely that people make bad decisions according to my personal preferences. What I argue is that, even in voluntary trade, people can end up worse off, and that it's possible to establish, with sufficient clarity, what being worse-off means between humans. Your theory seems unable to even recognise negative outcomes, and thus I think it cannot be reasonably argued that it will produce positive outcomes.

I think that for eternal life to be possible you would have to assume that technological progress will continue exponentially. I honestly think that it will sort of plateau in the not so distant future. It'll take a radically different society to continue with technological advancement. — thewonder

I don't see why that would be so, at least for a given definition of "eternal". According to our current understanding of the physical laws, eternal life is impossible due to the heat-death of the universe. What is possible is life without "natural" deaths, that is without old age. Aging is not an inevitble process, there is nothing in the laws of physics that dictates it, and so far as we know it's also not inherent in biological processes. Likely, it is simply that evolution does not especially favor long lifespans, let alone unlimited ones, so they rarely developed. All it takes to change this is understanding how aging works in detail, and thanks to many rich people getting old, research in this area is well funded and well underway.

Being said, I don't think that it is impossible for people to be able to live up to upwards of 200 years in, perhaps, even our lifetime. In so far that this can be done, it should be done. Heidegger was wrong about authenticity. One should not be resolute in the face of death, one should actively flee death for as long as humanly possible. — thewonder

I agree with this sentiment. I find it quite absurd how people say with a straight face that a longer lifespan is really not desirable, that they'd rather die. Just, you know, not right now. Barely anyone who isn't suffering from some very serious illness wants to die right now, but plenty of people figure that after some arbitrary amount of time, they suddenly will.

I agree with your sentiments mostly, but there is one caveat: It is important to realize the specific experience of minorities or the ongoing effects of past injustice.

If we only go by improving general conditions, we'd never build things like ramps for wheelchairs. It takes focus on a specific minorities to deal with these kinds of problems.

Likewise, if you only focus on the current political situation of black people in the US, you miss the long term economic consequences of being first enslaved and then marginalized, like having had way less opportunities to amass wealth.

It takes more than oratory, not to discount the effectiveness of well written speech. In Hitler's case (and numerous others) more was required.

Hitler was backed up by the Sturmabteilung, literally Storm Detachment, which was the Nazi Party's original paramilitary. The Storm Troupers and the Freikorps left over from WWI backed up Hitler's speeches with liberal doses of blunt violence.

The Germans were not disenfranchised. True, the were defeated in WWI, but they weren't occupied. True, the Treaty of Versailles was intended to cripple their future military intentions, but the allies were busy with their own problems and the Germans were initially discrete.

Hitler built upon and enflamed the already well-established German (and European) anti-semitism.

The Nazi military program was effective in bringing Germans relief from high-unemployment (owing to the world-wide depression).

The Nazi Party did not gain power by winning overwhelming majorities in the popular vote. — Bitter Crank

Do you know the story of the german policemen being sent to the east to shoot jewish men, women and children? Not SS men, not even battle hardened soldiers. Ordinary policemen from german cities. They were given the option not to partake, without repercussions. Yet perfectly ordinary people shot jewish children, in the belief that they were "doing their duty". All it took to get these ordinary people to do that was words.

Controlling one's reaction to what other people say is a necessary corollary of free speech. The students at some universities apparently are unable to control their reactions. Students aren't alone in this, of course. People choose to attend Trump rallies and consent to be influenced by his speech. At a different place and time on the political spectrum, many people chose to listen to Roosevelt's Fireside Chats on the radio and were reassured and comforted. Some people chose to listen to Roosevelt and were enraged -- also by consent.

Some people are walking around with "open-ended consent to be influenced by speech". They are primed and ready to react to whatever they hear. It's dangerous for and to an individual to grant such opened-ended consent, because other people will say upsetting words, and these words will result in their flipping out. — Bitter Crank

It seems like you're saying that you have total control over your reaction to speech. That'd be a truely marvelous ability. Ordinary humans have to make do with subconscious reactions to all kinds of things. There is plenty of research on this, too.

It's the same with hate speech. It's better to have the bigots out there in the open where their ideas can be challenged than to have them pretend to not be bigots until they get into a position of power and then, when they do, they can legislate against the rest of us.

If these people want to openly reveal how monstrous they are: let them. Don't let them go into hiding and only reveal themselves after they have power. — luckswallowsall

The thing is that simply challenging ideas doesn't always work. The current Trump presidency is a great example. You can challenge what Trump says all you want, but all he has to do is to constantly repeat it and a significant fraction of the people will believe him.

If you do X, there are potential very serious negative consequences. Because of that, I don't think you should do X. How is that a slippery slope argument? If you go walking during a thunderstorm in a field on high ground carrying a long steel pole, you are likely to get hit by lightening and killed. I recommend you not do it. Although, I guess if you are walking on high ground and it's raining, there may actually be a slippery slope. — T Clark

Further restrictions are not a consequence of previous restriction in the sense that a lighning strike is a consequence of carrying a large pole during a thunderstorm.

So, the point to all this is, Hitler wasn't just about hate. Hate was a tool. His grand design was intended to solve the German natural resource problem--Lebensraum, and more. — Bitter Crank

This is false. Hitler's goal was to destroy the cultural influence of jews on european culture and restore a "natural order" where the germans would, as the worlds most powerful people, come out on top and get what they deserve. Hate of everything jewish was central to Hitlers ideology, it was not about the economy.

I think that death is the opposite of a waste. I think death is what gives life value, otherwise we would be what, just existing forever and ever? — Grre

How does death give life value, exactly? Is this more than a mere platitude?

I want to bring out a simple point about responsibility that I think is often missed: that we are responsible ONLY for what is NOT in our control. This may seem counter-intuitive, but becomes clear, I think, with any cursory investigation into what responsibility entails. The first way to approach the point is contra-positively: were the results of our actions wholly under our control, if we were able to master every last consequence of what we said and did, we would not need to be response-able for them: there would be no response required, no ability to be exercised as a result of what we have done. Responsibility enters precisely at the point at which our actions exceed us. — StreetlightX

I don't see the connection between being responsible and "able to respond". This seems like a misapplication of etymology. Responsibility, the way that the word is generally used, refers to the connection between a person and a state of affairs. Being able to "respond to" that state of affairs isn't part of that connection.

Judith Butler, in her remarks on the concept of responsibility, puts it this way: “I cannot think the question of responsibility alone, in isolation from the other. If I do, I have taken myself out of the mode of address (being addressed as well as addressing the other) in which the problem of responsibility first emerges” (Butler, Giving An Account of Oneself). For as Butler notes, responsibility is ultimately relational: it is only in relation to another that one is responsible, accountable, for what one has said and done. There would be no ‘problem of responsibility’ without the relation to the other. But the other, as other, as an-other agency, is precisely what, or rather who, I am not in control of. It is in the face of the other that I am responsible, and the other is that who exceeds my mastery over things. — StreetlightX

Yes, the problem of responsibility only arises in connection with other subjects, and only because we are not a hive-mind. But it doesn't follow that we are only responsible for what we do not control. Responsibility is the connective tissue between a world governed by cause and effect and minds governed by freedom of will. There is an element of "lack of control" here. If we simply controlled the world regardless of physics, there'd be no need for responsibility. We need it because we cannot simply use control over the outcome as the determining factor.

Who are you to say that they are worse off for making the trade? — Virgo Avalytikh

Those are simply the economic facts. Their wealth decreased, their ability to make future decisions decreased, their comfort decreased etc. Are you claiming there is no such thing as economic facts? That it's all just opions? Because in that case I think any philosophy of economics just implodes.

Why are they doing it, if they do not value the bread more than they value the house? I am not saying it is a prudent decision. I couldn’t imagine doing it. But I couldn’t imagine paying for all sorts of things that other people pay for. If a person trades away their house for a loaf of bread, it is because they value the bread more than the house. This is a self-evident praxeological reality. — Virgo Avalytikh

This is simply a self evident truism. Circular reasoning in it's purest form. It tells us nothing at all.

alue is subjective, not objective. Value does not ‘inhere’ within the material substance of an object, like a physical quality. You cannot deduce the ‘value’ of an object from examining or dissecting it, as you could its mass or its chemical composition. It is a subjective relation, between (valuing) subject and (valued) object. It is a psychic phenomenon. As such, it varies from person to person, and (importantly here) from moment to moment. The only definitive measure of the ‘value’ of something is: how many units of some other resource is a person willing to part with in order to attain it? And this may change. As such, there is no such thing as value simpliciter. There is only value to a particular person at a particular moment. — Virgo Avalytikh

Obviously. But we weren't talking about subjective value. We were talking about how libertarianism supposedly makes everyone "better off". In order for that claim to mean anything, it must refer to some kind of measurable state of affairs.

Since value is a subjective praxeological phenomenon which determines that individuals will pursue this purposeful action rather than that one, the mutual benefit which results from voluntary trade is one that is ex ante, rather than ex post. Now, it is also true that there is a general tendency to ex post benefit, since, as I have argued, individual persons tend to be the best judges of their own affairs, but this is more of a tendency than a praxeological axiom. — Virgo Avalytikh

I still have no idea what you think ex-ante and ex-post have to do with this. This would only be relevant if we were talking about how predictable the outcomes where, but we are not.

This is simply paternalism. Do I think that taking heroin is a poor life decision? I certainly do. I think that paying hundreds of dollars (or equivalent) on vacations abroad is a poor decision. I think that eating at Macdonalds (ever!) is a poor decision. Other people might think that paying for an expensive degree is a poor decision. There might be a ‘right’ answer here, or there might not be. I’m not sure. But I have the humility to recognise that I don’t know what is best for other people. And even if I think that I do, I could very well be wrong. Reasoned humility is the essence of the libertarian position; it is precisely that which makes liberty important. My life is my business, and your life is yours. If someone wants to take heroin, I might make a private judgement about them, but it would be presumptuous for me to prohibit them from doing so. The right to self-determination implies a right to self-destruction. — Virgo Avalytikh

This is not about poor life decisions. It's a scientific fact that Heroin is addictive and highly dangerous. Objectively, if you are taking Heroin, you are killing yourself, regardless of whether or not you think doing so is a good idea. This is not about what should or should not be legal or criminal. This is about whether or not you're "better off" if you take Heroin, and you very obiously are not. The talking point about self-determination is irrelevant.

Suppose that we agree that people sometimes do make decisions which make themselves worse off. What is the Statist solution? Preventing people who are in desperate situations from taking the decisions which they actually choose? — Virgo Avalytikh

No, the statist solution is preventing desperate situations.

I don’t see how this has a bearing on the libertarianism/Statism discussion, for a number of reasons. Libertarianism does have principles to apply; the ones I have mentioned. To be sure, these principles do not yield a specific resolution to the question of precisely where negligible pollution drifts into meaningful damage to property, but neither does any constitution that I know of, nor a general commitment to ‘environmentalism’. Formulating a non-arbitrary resolution to such a dispute is no less difficult for a State’s judicial system. — Virgo Avalytikh

The way judges get to decisions is complex, but a lot of it has to do with the system they envision themselves upholding. Obviously the principles do not yield concrete solutions. But they tell the brains of people how to value things, and that ultimately leads to a decision. Since the LIbertarian principles are all about letting self-interest decide things, they would not provide sufficient ground to make value judgements.

If you take issue with my thesis that voluntary trade works for mutual benefit, then what I would expect you to do is to provide a counter-instance. But the example you have given actually isn’t. If you trade away a house for a loaf of bread, it is because you value the loaf of bread more than you value the house. You are better off for having made the trade rather than not having made it. This is perfectly compatible with what I have argued. — Virgo Avalytikh

This is frankly absurd. You're not "better off" if you sell your house for a loaf of bread. The next day, you will be hungry and homeless. Being "better off" requires your objective material situation to improve. Using it to mean simply "you gain something that you currently value" is a sleight of hand and turns your argument circular again. What you're actually saying is "if you engage in peaceful trade, you will receive whatever you trade for" which is trivially true but also completely meaningless in the context of this topic.

Claiming that situational value is the same as overall well-being is simply false. Your argument rests on overall well-being, not on situational value.

This analysis is true, but makes no claim to comprehensiveness. Being in the position of having to sell one’s house for bread is regrettable, but I would simply say this of it: if you want to help the poor, what you certainly should not do is look at the option that they have actually chosen, and deprive them of that option (advice from which a good many legislators would benefit). — Virgo Avalytikh

You're also not making the poor "better off" by leaving things as they are, so this comment is irrelevant to the topic.

Fraud (and misinformation, if it be relevantly fraudulent) is prohibited under the NAP (it is really just a form of theft). As for addiction and brand loyalty, these are not counter-instances to my thesis, either. The addict who pays for heroin values the heroin more than the money. — Virgo Avalytikh

It is nevertheless blindingly obvious that no-one is "better off" by trading their money for heroin that they intend to consume themselves. In case you are unaware, these kinds of addictions destroy lives and kill people. No-one is better off dead.

Just so with the brand-loyalist, and the particular brand of something (heroin?) to which he is eccentrically attached. Value is a subjective relation; different people value different things differently (trade could not occur except on this basis). You might think that my commercial decisions are poor, but you aren’t the one making them. — Virgo Avalytikh

Value is subjective, being "better-off", i.e. material well-being is not. Your argument requires the latter, not the former.

It is perhaps worth clarifying: when I speak of mutual benefit, I am speaking from an ex ante rather than ex post perspective (this is an important distinction when trying to understand the rationality axiom in Austrian economics). Voluntary trade is mutually beneficial because we both enter into a transaction with the anticipation of personal benefit. It is possible that our preferences may change after the transaction and we regret our decisions. — Virgo Avalytikh

The problem doesn't lie with ex-ante and ex-post. Buying heroin to fuel your addiction is not good for you from an ex-ante position either. If you sell your house for a loaf of bread, it's clear ex-ante that your material wealth will decrease sharply.

Why ‘no ground to stand on’? There would be rights-enforcement and dispute-resolution services in a voluntary society; they would simply be private competing firms rather than an agency of monopolistic coercion. The question ‘Where does negligible pollution end and meaningful damage to property begin?’ is a difficult question, but not for distinctively libertarian reasons. Whatever answer one gives is no more or less arbitrary in a Stateless or Statist society. Practically, it would be determined by whichever arbitrator settles a dispute if it came to it. Any court – Statist or private – must draw the line, and that line will no doubt disappoint some people. So this isn’t a ‘libertarian’ problem.

However, a virtue of the private justice system is that it is polylegal. It may be that A and B take their dispute to one arbitrator, and A and C take their dispute to a different arbitrator. ‘Law’ is simply a function of dispute-resolution administered by the arbitrator. So there is no need for a ‘one size fits all’ solution. Multiple crossing lines of legal rules may apply over a single territory, which is of course far more conducive to the satisfaction of justice-consumers than a single set of legal rules being imposed uniformly over an arbitrary territory. — Virgo Avalytikh

There'd be no ground to stand on because there'd be no principles to apply. You need a starting point, some moral order that provides the axioms of the particular resolution. Usually, these are provided by constitutions or similarly central ideas, like environmentalism. Alternative dispute resolution mostly relies on the actors operating in some specific framework, like a business relationship, which had identifiable goals and overlapping interests. But what is supposed to provide this basis in the pollution example? How do you even start to formulate a rule?

This is true enough. But the observations I made about private property, communal property and the State, and their relative tendencies towards market failures, are true regardless of scale (though, the problems associated with communal property and the State become more and more prevalent as the scale increases). — Virgo Avalytikh

This is simply another claim.

An ‘idea’ does not have agency. If the State is nothing more than an ‘idea’ then it cannot engage in concrete instances of purposeful action. ‘Ideas’ cannot tax, or implement justice, let alone bestow rights. The things we refer to as States are human associations, (the members of) which act in ways that are impermissible for non-States. I still do not see what is supposed to be so special about a State that it has unique right-bestowing capabilities. This has not been made clear at all. — Virgo Avalytikh

There is nothing "unique" about a state. It's just an actually existing human association that serves as the necessary higher order to grant rights and is able to enforce them. You were the one that made this about states, specifically. My argument is that rights need to be granted by some higher order.

I’m sorry, I’m not being difficult. I just really don’t understand what you’re getting at here. — Virgo Avalytikh

The difference between rights and interests,very simply put, is that your interest is what you want, and your right is what you deserve. If you are going to pay someone to enforce, you'd pay them to get what you want, not what you deserve.

For the purposes of my argument, I have defined market failure as a situation wherein each individual acts correctly in his/her own interests, and the net result is to make (almost or absolutely) everybody worse off. One element of my argument is that such a phenomenon is a relative rarity in a system of private property and non-aggression. Both of the conditions are important: the NAP is senseless without a system of property (because, in the absence of ownership rights, ‘aggression’ cannot be recognised definitively as such), and private property is also important for avoiding the problems of market failure which plague a collective system of ownership. I understand ‘right-libertarianism’ to be the conjunction of these two principles (in distinction from, say, ‘left-libertarianism’, which upholds the latter but rejects the former).

If market failure is as I have defined it, then a system will successfully avoid market failure if, generally, individuals acting correctly in their own interests serves to improve their own situations as well as other peoples’, and does not make people substantially worse off than they would have been under some alternative system. I have provided a number of reasons for thinking that right-libertarianism satisfies these criteria.

I have argued that, since individuals tend to be best acquainted with their own situations, it is reasonable to expect people to do what is best for themselves if left to their own devices, rather than being forcibly coerced into living in a particular way, or being co-owned by everybody else. I know what is best for myself better than I do for any other person in this world, and I also know what is best for myself better than anybody else does, whether individually or collectively. I think that this principle is reasonable, and it stands in support of both private property and the NAP: private property, because ownership rights begin with the right to own one’s self, and the NAP, because I am more likely to know what is best for myself than someone who wishes to coerce me into living in a certain way. — Virgo Avalytikh

This is fair enough, and I have no problem accepting, at least in the context of this thread, your argument to this point.

I have also drawn attention to the nature of voluntary trade. Voluntary trade is win-win; the only way in which a trade can occur is if we each value what the other person has more than what we each presently have. Notice that this applies, not only in commercial ‘market-place’ situations, but for non-aggressive interactions in general. If you and I become friends, it is because you and I would each rather be friends than non-friends. This principle can be pushed very far, I think. Again, this serves as a vindication of both of our right-libertarian principles. ‘Trade’ cannot occur in a system of collective ownership, and therefore requires private ownership, and the NAP is that which secures the mutually beneficial result of the interaction (contrast this with an aggressive act, such as theft or murder). — Virgo Avalytikh

I think this is where my main problem lies. You are claiming that, in the grand scheme of things (ignoring fringe cases) any interaction that is not aggression - initiatory use of force, as you put it - is beneficial for everyone involved. The only way I can see this claim working is if you bend aggression to encompass a whole lot more than just the initiatory use of force. Even concerning the main example of trade, things aren't as clear cut as "everyone will only agree to things that are beneficial to them". Sure, if you engage in trade that means you value what is offered, but only insofar as it has value to you in your present circumstances. If your present circumstance are that you are starving, you might sell your house for a loaf of bread. This is an extreme example, but people are definetly in differing bartering positions, and that will how beneficial the trades are. There are also all kinds of other factors from outright fraud to misinformation, from addiction to brand loyalty. There is plenty of room to enrich yourself to the detriment of others without resorting to force.

Then we get into things like labor or housing and the whole "win-win" claim breaks down further. There are lots of examples, both past and present, of people being locked in an exploitative situation without any clear way out. You may not always be able to look for "better conditions" elsewhere if you have mouths to feed, an illness or are simply too poor to move.

And if we want to push the NAP even farther, we get into things like pollution, usage of scarce resources, long-term environmental damages and there is simply no ground to stand on. Who is going to decide, and on what basis, what level of environmental degradation constitutes an "aggression" towards your neighbors, for example?

Third, I drew attention to the way in which private property rights tend to eliminate the market failure problems inherent in a collective system of ownership. Collective ownership tends towards market failure for numerous reasons, but one reason is that no individual is personally responsible for that which is owned. In a system of collective ownership, an individual who puts that which is owned collectively to profitable use may not receive the profits him/herself, instead losing most of it to the central pot. An individual who does not put that which is owned collectively to profitable use is negligibly worse off than he would have been otherwise, and enjoys far more leisure. This becomes more and more the case as the scale of collective ownership increases.

Not so under private ownership. A private owner who puts his property to profitable use receives that profit, and bears the cost (e.g. forgone profit) if he does not. Moreover, unlike collectivist situations, markets have an astonishing capacity to function on a scale that is simply dizzying (I strongly recommend Leonard Read’s short essay, ‘I, Pencil’, which illustrates this point marvellously). Not only is private property important, but of course the NAP is a vital ingredient here, too. That I bear the profits and costs of doing what I want with what I own presupposes that I am not subject to predatory aggression.

Contrast all of this with Friedman’s observation in my opening argument, that virtually everybody in the political realm take decisions whose costs and benefits go to others. The differences are striking and, to me at least, impressive (which is why I am an anarcho-capitalist). — Virgo Avalytikh

But Anarcho-Capitalism and collective ownership are not the sum-total of economic systems. There are plenty of different ideas for free-market socialism, for example, that do non advocate fully collective ownership or a more powerful state than the current one.

If a right is something of ‘higher order’ than individual persons, and if collective entities (like States) are, ontologically speaking, nothing above and beyond the individuals which comprise them, then States are no more capable of creating or bestowing rights than anyone else. — Virgo Avalytikh

Ontologically speaking, a state is nothing other than an idea, something inside someone's head. However, the parliament, the agencies and all their employees are real enough. It used to be that people had a higher authority by divine providence, now the idea is that we hand it to them by voting. The point is that everyone agrees that there is a higher order above the individuals, and that that higher order is actually effective in practice.

I am not sure what this means. I can enforce my own rights (by defending myself against an aggressor), a friend can help me to do so, and a private service-provider can help me do so as well. Why can't I pay someone to enforce my rights, or help me to do so? — Virgo Avalytikh

If you pay someone explicitly to enforce your rights, sure. But who would do that if they could pay someone to enforce their interests instead?

Either we interact in such a way that involves the initiatory use of force, or we interact in such a way that does not involve the initiatory use of force. These possibilities are jointly exhaustive, it seems to me. The distinction is also meaningful, and precisely the one which the NAP seeks to make. To be sure, not all interactions of the latter kind constitute ‘trade’ in the sense we ordinarily use this term, it is just an example of it (though, many social interactions such as friendships or marriages can certainly be analysed economically as kinds of ‘trades’; look at the stable marriage problem for example). — Virgo Avalytikh

Yes, they are jointly exhaustive if formulated that way. But this doesn't tell me how the NAP ensures that burdens and benefits are distributed according to responsibility.

You keep making this charge of circularity, but I still don’t see exactly what it is that is supposed to be circular. ‘Circularity’ is a property of arguments, and it is that property by which the conclusion is assumed as a premise, implicitly or explicitly. What is the conclusion I am taking for granted, and where do I take it for granted? — Virgo Avalytikh

I started this particular line of argument by questioning your assertion that, in the absence of outside coercive forces, burdens and benefits of an act would - generally - fall on the person(s) responsible. You responded by pointing out that the NAP would be violated if burdens and benefits fall apart.

You have positioned the NAP as the principle that ensures, for lack of a better word, fairness. But the NAP, in it's general formulation, is vague and does not reference distribution of burdens and benefits at all. It's details are also debated, and you have offered no definition of your own. From this I conclude that you're taking for granted that the NAP will ensure a "fair" distribution of burdens without actually defining a specific NAP and showing how it works.

Certainly, individuals do not ‘provide’ rights (though they can defend them). Rights are ‘higher order’ in the sense that they are principles, and therefore they are abstractions. You correctly observe that this does not have to be a State, but I would go further: it cannot be a State. There is nothing magical about ‘States’. A State, like any collective entity, is just a construct, composed of individuals like you and me. There is nothing ‘higher order’ about a State beyond the monopolistic status people tend to recognise in it, quite arbitrarily. — Virgo Avalytikh

There is also no difference between a human being and any other configuration of matter beyond the special status people tend to recognise in it. It also doesn't follow that because a state is a construct, it cannot provide rights.

You have also completely skipped my point about self-interested contractors not "enforcing rights".

Yes, you keep saying this, but I can do no more than direct you to my opening argument and subsequent comments. I’m not sure what step of the argument you’re taking issue with, exactly. What is it you object to? — Virgo Avalytikh

I would like you to justify your premises beyond the first one. A libertarian system can suffer from "market failure", but other systems can suffer similar defects - fine. Your next premise was that market failure is less severe in libertarian systems than for other systems, especially any form of statism. Please provide an argument for this premise.

Well slavery was morally right in the past Now its horrible. So Morals be quite Subjective. — Baskol1

Who says slavery was morally right in the past?

Sure, that was the upper range of the numbers that I saw. I saw numbers as low as $10,000. I thought I would be a little less biased by putting up a number in mid-range. You also ignored the fact that most of that money is tied up in commodities and property. So, using your number, people would get around $10,000 cash, and then they would own a fraction of a beach house on the California coast. They would have a place to stay for two weeks out of the year, but then what would they be able to own with just $10,000? — Harry Hindu

Your claim was that, if all assets were divided equally among people, everyone would live in poverty. That is demonstrably false using any one of these numbers. That equally distributing assets is nevertheless impractical to the point of being essentially impossible is obvious. The vast majority of the population today owns way less than 10.000$ in assets. And as to where people live, there is rent.

I could enforce my view by physically defending what I own. Sure, there could be a larger group of people (ie a government, because that is all a government is - a group of people with a social contract and the resources to defend it) that come and take what I own, but then does that make it "right" or "wrong"? Is there such a thing as an objective "right" and "wrong" way to live and be governed? — Harry Hindu

Physically enforcing your assets is problematic, as you yourself are aware. That's why having a system where your assets are protected regardless of your ability to physically defend them is desirable. As to whether there is a "right" system, I do think so. Though it's not "objectively" right since there is no "object" to refer to. There is a system that is right between human subjects, so it's intersubjectively right.

But I never said that this was the definition of the NAP. — Virgo Avalytikh

Obviously, because then the circularity would have been obvious. You didn't offer a specific definition either, and the form of your argument implied such a broad definition.

If I aggress against you, perhaps by killing, assaulting, or stealing from you, I win and you lose. If you and I trade peacefully, we both enter into such arrangements with the expectation of individual benefit. The NAP prohibits aggression, and allows for peaceful trade. So it prohibits the former and permits the latter. There is nothing circular about any of this. The NAP is simply a just and worthy principle. — Virgo Avalytikh

Sure, but then trade and aggression are not the sum total of human interaction. Of course you can go ahead and define trade as "every interaction which allows for mutual benefit" and aggression as everything else, but then again your argument ends up circular.

They provide services, such as rights-enforcement. There might be criminal service-providers too, such as assassins or whatever else. But that doesn’t mean that the market will not or could not provide those services for which the State is usually considered necessary. All I am pointing out is that, just because the State does x, it does not follow that x would not get done in the absence of the State. — Virgo Avalytikh

Sure, individuals could provide similar services to what the state provides, but individuals cannot provide "rights", because a "right" needs a higher order, that is something that supersedes the self-interest of individuals, to exist. That doesn't need to be a modern nation state, but it needs to be something with authority above and beyond that of individuals.

It is then conceivable that individuals could enforce those rights, but they'd need to do this explicitly not as a service to other individuals, or else it wouldn't be enforcement. They'd need to be bound to the right itself, and the authority it derives from, not to the self-interest of whoever hired them.

This is certainly true, but only one part of the argument. The vindication of libertarianism for which I have argued also involves the fact that there is good reason to presume in favour of liberty (in other words, that aggression is something to be resorted to rather than a starting point), and that, while liberty is imperfect, the alternatives are much more imperfect. This is the entire point of the argument I presented initially. — Virgo Avalytikh

The problem is (and I am starting to repeat myself here) that as far as I can see, you haven't provided justification for the other steps in the argument.

I don’t believe that the notion of self-interest plays a particularly important role in the argument I have presented. It seems like a red herring. — Virgo Avalytikh

I use "self-interest" intentionally here, as a replacement for the use (misuse, in my opinion) of the term "market" that is preferred by libertarians. When everything is supposed to be governed by "market forces" or "market systems", what this actually means is that everyone is supposed to act according to their own rational (as in instrumental rationality) self-interest. This is then supposed to produce the "market", and thereby prosperity for all. I find this highly questionable, and that is why I bring it up. Since "market failure" is a significant part of your argument, I think the role of self-interest in libertarian models is very much on topic.

I don’t see what is circular. — Virgo Avalytikh

It's circular because the conclusion that "self-interest combined with non aggression usually leads to a fair (paraphrased) distribution of burdens and profits" is reliant on defining non-aggression as "whatever rules lead to a fair distribution of burdens and profits". The conclusion is inherent in the premise, that is in the way non-aggression is defined.

What I said is true: acts of aggression are predatory, such that one party benefits at another’s expense, and voluntary trade yields mutual benefit. So the fact that the non-aggression principle prohibits the former while permitting the latter goes a long way towards alleviating market failure. — Virgo Avalytikh

And the problem here is that you haven't provided justification for the claim that the non-aggression principle does so, you just use that as a premise. Which leads me to my above criticism.

In the absence of the State, services like rights-enforcement and dispute-resolution would be provided by private firms, competing for consumer patronage. — Virgo Avalytikh

The obvious problem though is that private firms don't enforce rights - they provide a service. It is entirely irrelevant to the service provide whether or not that service happens to coincide with a right. So what you are talking about is not enforcement of "rights" but of "interests". And naturally the interestst of the strongest will end up being enforced most effectively.

The degree to which private property alleviates market failure is a relative one. We must always ask, ‘Compared with what?’ What I have argued and tried to illustrate is that collective or State ownership tend inevitably towards market failure, and a system of private property tends to alleviate these problems. Will it do so perfectly? Of course not, and it is not reasonable to expect it to do so. We are choosing from finitely many imperfect options. That it is conceivable that private property produce market failure problems is not a defeater of it, nor is it a vindication of any alternative in particular. That really was the whole tenor of my argument. — Virgo Avalytikh

Right, but in that case your argument boils down to "no system is perfect, all systems have their problems to deal with". That may be an insightful realization, it just doesn't do anything to argue for any particular system.

If you want to quibble, just Google "how much money would everyone in the world have if it was divided equally".

It's been discussed elsewhere on the internet, so you'll find plenty of links. But you won't find much of a difference in the number I provided. Everyone in the world will still end up in poverty. — Harry Hindu

The number I found was 34.000. Having 34.000 dollars in assets is not "poverty" according to any definition I am aware of. It's also for every single person, not household assets. For the vast majority of the population, that would be significant wealth.

It seems obvious to me that I own what I worked to get, where "worked" doesn't entail stealing from others, or oppressing others, rather it entails providing a service or product to the rest of society that you are part of. — Harry Hindu

Ownership is a social convention though, so you cannot necessarily enforce your own view on what you own.

If we were to redistribute all resources and wealth on the planet every person would end up being in poverty. Google the GDP per capita of the world. It's $17,300, and much off that isnt cash, its locked up commodities and property. — Harry Hindu

This is off-topic, but the GDP is the Gross Domestic Product, not the sum of all resources and "wealth" on the planet.

I am not sure that this really is a libertarian commitment … it depends on what you mean by ‘self-interest’. If you simply mean that we all always act in accordance with our highest want at any given moment, what Ludwig von Mises would call the ‘rationality axiom’, then yes indeed. But this is not a normative judgement. It’s simply a praxeological truth. But if you mean ‘self-interest’ in the sense that we shouldn’t give a care to the sick and suffering, but rather horde what we have for ourselves, then by no means. Nothing in the libertarian position demands such a commitment. Libertarianism doesn’t tell anybody how to live, or what to do with the resources at their disposal, so long as it is non-aggressive. — Virgo Avalytikh

I do mean self interest in the sense of instrumental rationality - doing what seems best to further your own goals. Those goals can be altruistic, of course. The point is that the question that requires an answer is whether relying on self interest in that sense does actually always produce the best result, and how that is supposed to be established.

Both my examples were simplistic (both the collective ownership and private ownership one), because they are illustrative of a principle. The main cases I can think of in which what I do with my private property imposes unreasonable costs on others is when I am acting aggressively, invading the property of others in some way. — Virgo Avalytikh

That seems like circular logic though. If people follow their own interests and respect the principle of non-aggression, they will bear the costs and benefits of their actions. If people do not bear the costs and benefits of their actions then they did not follow the principle of non-aggression. If any detrimental effect an action has on a third party is an "aggression" towards that party, the principle of non-aggression is so general as to be useless.

If I pump out dangerous toxins which affect your health or pollute a river which runs outwith the boundaries of my land, then of course I must give compensation. So the non-aggression principle, if employed, covers many such cases. — Virgo Avalytikh

But who is going to decide when compensation is required and how high it should be? Who is going to enforce the collection of compensation?

As I said, the fact that private-property owners tend to be the immediate bearers of the costs and benefits of what they do (assuming, of course, that they are not criminal aggressors) is true. It is only a tendency, but it really is a tendency. That establishing private property rights is an effective solution to the tragedy of the commons problem is well known. — Virgo Avalytikh

You have said so repeatedly, but so far I don't see any argument for the claim. That private property avoids the tragedy of the commons is not equivalent to your claim.

Well, I think I have laid out some plausible reasons for thinking that market failure is a relative rarity in a system of private property, and is implicit in the entire political process (as well as in any collective decision-making process). The force of this observation can easily be underestimated, but I believe that it constitutes a powerful libertarian defence. — Virgo Avalytikh

If it possible that, being very familiar to the literature on LIbertarianism and obviously at least partially convinced by it, the truth of your claims seems self-evident to you, but not to others?

You note quite rightly that I justify a presumption in favour of liberty only very briefly. The primary reason is that it is not the main subject I wanted to address, the argument being concerned primarily with market failure. Few people, it seems to me, would say openly of themselves that they are ‘anti-liberty’. Maybe I am wrong about this. But I think that there is a widespread intuition that a world in which individuals have a substantial measure of freedom to pursue their own interests and satisfy their wants is preferable to a world in which, say, most people have the trajectory of their lives dictated to them by others. That a world in which most people are free is preferable to one in which most people are enslaved is a proposition that I didn’t feel the need to justify at any length. Maybe a project for another time. Rather, most people are sceptical of libertarianism, not because they are ‘anti-liberty’ as such, but because they believe that a system of peaceful voluntarism faces limitations which only an alternative (such as coercive Statism or collective ownership) can overcome. This is the subject I sought to address. — Virgo Avalytikh

The question is not so much whether one is "anti-liberty" and more what one thinks constitutes liberty. Anarcho-socialists might consider wage labor not much better than slavery. They may be wrong in their analysis, but the core problem remains that "freedom" or "liberty" is a fundamentally contested term. Most people have their intuitions about what liberty means, but few have a systematic approach. I myself find Kant's notion of "liberty as duty", to put it very briefly, quite compelling. This is, presumably, quite a different basis than the one from which classical libertarians argue.

I am most acquainted with my own life, and therefore best situated to make the best decisions for myself. This is only a generalisation, but the generalisation holds. I am a better judge of my own affairs than I am of yours. No one should trust me with running their life for a day. An elegant argument for liberty on the basis of the nature of knowledge may be found in Friedrich Hayek’s essay, ‘The Use of Knowledge in Society’, which everybody in the world should read (twice). — Virgo Avalytikh

This is, however, fundamentally a question of efficiency, not about knowledge. The libertarian approach is not that we should make use of market-based mechanism where those are most efficient, but that an approach based on individual self-interests is the right one - and the only right one - for all circumstances.

Now consider the private-property solution. Everybody, by some system or other (a topic for another day), has a piece of land, and is personally responsible for cultivating it. Someone who works the land to the full and gets the most out of it, (if he is permitted to keep what he produces) will receive the benefit from it, and therefore has a realistic incentive to be productive. — Virgo Avalytikh

But this example is extremely simplistic. We live in a capitalist society with significant division of labor. We are simply not self sustaining farmers, and we very likely don't want to be. And even if that example were at all applicable to a modern society, it leaves out all the complications. What if, in order to improve my yields, I divert a river that happens to flow across my land. Or use pesticides with significant effects on neighbors? There are all sorts of scenarios where burdens and profits fall apart. And I will repeat that if I act solely according to pragmatic self-interest, I will try to make it so that the burdens of my actions fall on others.

As you point out, some people, perhaps many, might take it upon themselves to work for the common good, even at great cost to themselves. To which I would respond that, if such is the case, then there is no reason why this may not happen in a private-property system, too. We must have a fair and consistent standard, in our estimation of human nature. What one finds is that there is an excessive scepticism of human nature when it comes to considering the risks of private ownership, and an excessive optimism when considering the risks of collective ownership. — Virgo Avalytikh

Right, but then I didn't intent to say that such reasons only exists outside of libertarianism, but that they exist at all.

I have argued that there ought to be a presumption in favour of liberty, where liberty is defined in terms of private ownership and the absence of aggression. There are good reasons to think that this general posture is one which makes us better off than the alternatives (namely, being aggressed against by a coercive institution, or being a negligible element in a much larger collective). From here, the argument is that, while peaceful voluntarism does exhibit certain limitations in terms of what it can easily achieve, which I have grouped together under the category of ‘market failure’, the alternatives to peaceful voluntarism are themselves subject to market failure, though with far greater frequency, and with fewer possibilities to overcome it. — Virgo Avalytikh

While the structure of this argument is logically sound, you haven't provided much of any justification for all the premises on the way. The premises you are setting up are the core points of debate where libertarianism is concerned.