ProfessionalTeabagger

Great, but you can't "logically" justify the assault to the person you assault because being assaulted cannot possibly be their goal, right? It will only be consistent with your goals and not with theirs, right?

I don't think that's true and I think you're using a definition of justification that I didn't use. But rather than argue that point I'll just accept that you hold that a goal is a valid justification. So your justification for the assault is "it fulfilled your goal of injuring someone, to scare them", right?. As you say, no one gets special privileges in logic so would you agree that this justification for assault would be valid for everyone? If for example someone assaults you or is about to assault you would you agree that "it fulfills the goal to injure you, to scare you" is a valid justification?

You reek ah!

I think those would be your motivations, not justifications. A motivation is a reason you act. A justification is a defence of your actions. What would be your justification for the assault?

UPB tests moral theories. So what would be your justification for assault (smacking someone in the face)?

I would suggest you avoid to applying UPB to rats. You are unnecessarily setting yourself up for criticism because applying it to rats is really going out on a limb. You're making a bunch of really good points about moral theories but IMHO the rats thing is scuppering them.

"The actual choice is not reality. I could choose to tie my shoe, but then before I manage to, I get struck by lightning. It is action that is reality. All we can observe about actions is the actions themselves. Are these actions consistent with reality? Yes, they all are, as long as they obey laws of gravity, and so forth. " So choices do not exist in reality? Are they supernatural? The choice to tie your shoe or not tie your shoe does not exist in reality? If i have a choice between a logically consistent position or an illogical one that choice does not exist in reality? You are putting forth what you think is the correct position. Does the choice between that position and others not exist anywhere in reality? "First of all, why would they need to be logically consistent?" They need to be logically consistent because if they're not then they're indistinguishable from meaningless babble. They can't be correct. For example I could not come up with any logically consistent justification for murdering you. I could do it. I could perform the action of murdering you but any moral justification I give would be wrong. I'd be implicitly claiming the right not be murdered while denying you that right. I cannot logically sustain any justification for that behavior. The fact that I can still do it is irrelevant. "Secondly, logically consistent with what?" Internally consistent. A logically consistent justification should not be contradictory or arbitrary. It would be wrong. "Thirdly, what justifies them, and why? Why do behaviours need any justification? Justification to whom—and why them?" Who said they NEED any justification? Who said scientific theories NEED justification? Who said language NEEDS to be meaningful? Who said anything NEEDS justification? Nothing NEEDS justification. You can do what the hell you want. That doesn't matter. Something is either right or wrong and you can choose right or wrong. That's it. Any behavior you engage in can be justified rationally or it cannot. Murder, rape, theft and assault cannot be rationally justified. They fall into insurmountable contradiction. If you choose to engage in them you do so in the knowledge that you have no rational moral justification. They are objectively morally wrong. "Drowning puppies and punching people is perfectly logically consistent with my idea that nobody (including myself) has any rights—that using things is just using things, and no entitlement to use those things is implied" A right is just something for which there is no moral prohibition. Your notion of rights is some straw-man idea of metaphysical privilege engraved into the fabric of reality or conferred by a god or tired old nonsense you keep projecting onto us. But in reality you use rights all the time. The very fact that you may claim you can punch a puppy because it does not have any rights would be claiming the right to punch the puppy. Saying that punching people is perfectly logically consistent with your idea that nobody has rights is the same as saying that believing in creationism is perfectly logically consistent with your idea that science is arbitrary. Rights don't exist in reality outside the mind but they are an inescapable part of human interaction. Property rights concern property. You already claim a right over certain property just to continue existing. After that it's a matter of working out which rights if any are valid and which are not.

Human choices are reality and some behaviors have logically consistent justifications underlying them and some do not. Those that do not we call immoral. Objective. Done.

Can I please steal your paintings? According to Noesis there's no valid distinction between my moral justifications for stealing or trading (even though one logically fails and the other doesn't). It's all just made up rules and arbitrary preferences like science and math.

You have refuted our claim the universe cares about who owns what? You are many victory!

I think this is what's called "Going full reductionist".

What's murder and rape? Why are you using those concepts when they have a moral premise? There is no murder and rape with moral nihilism. It's arbitrary preference, molecules in motion.

I would like you to tell me what argument you are addressing. I would like you to clearly state the premises of the argument and the conclusion. Could like you to explain what you mean by "...authority over the painting..."? What do YOU mean by that? Authority over the stretchers and canvas and dried paint? Authority over what? I ask because I believe you do not understand what you are arguing against and are attacking a straw-man. If I'm wrong then you should be able to state the arguments you are responding to. I suspect you will only be able to state the straw-man versions of the arguments. The fact that values are subjective is completely irrelevant to these property rights arguments. Could you please point to the person and place were someone said values are objective or need to be objective? I believe it's just another straw-man. In what world did anyone argue that you could own air and sand that way? WTF are you talking about about?

You'd have to state what YOU mean by property rights? There's property and then there's property rights. Property is descriptive. Your mind and organs and arguments and voluntary actions are yours and not someone else's. They are your property. Rights regarding property only come up when people make implicit or explicit claims over property. In that sense property rights are normative. If I go to take one of your kidneys then I'm making a property claim over that kidney. My actions say I have a right to that kidney. I am making a normative claim whether I make it explicitly or not. If I cannot logically justify that claim then that claim is wrong. I would be stealing the kidney. You're question could be very misleading because an admission that property rights are normative could be taken to mean that they are entirely subjective. But property rights though normative are derived from the descriptive. I'm not sure but "descriptive OR normative" may be a false dichotomy so property rights may also be descriptive. It depends what aspect you're talking about?

You do own it in the same way. Does this somebody else who claims control over the painting also control the fact that YOU painted it? Do they control the authorship? Do they control the process that happened when painting? Do they control the choices that were made on the surface? There are lots of things about it they cannot have exclusive control over so just because somebody else could take the physical painting and claim "exclusive control" does not mean anything. If you think the only way to accurately describe property rights is either in terms of social acceptance or force then I guess you believe that if everyone agrees or you can force them to agree that you own authorship of "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" then you actually own it rather than Picasso? There is NO deriving an ought from an is here. The only people doing that are you and Noesis who re-state the argument as so as it goes straight from a descriptive fact to a prescriptive claim. The prescriptive claims come up when people interact. Noesis leaves out this necessary step in her chain of reasoning. If no one else exists then the prescriptive aspect of ownership does not manifest (except maybe as some thought experiment). There are not two different meanings of "own". "Own" means it's yours and not someone else's. There are various things that may follow from it. There's the descriptive fact and then there's ethics that may follow if someone challenges ownership. Your comment is YOURS, right? You own that comment, right? If I claim ownership of the comment then ethics have come into it. I am making an illegitimate claim. Yes I may have some control over the comment perhaps (in the same way someone may control the physical painting in your example) but I cannot own it. There are two people both claiming ownership and they cannot both be correct.

What was different years ago? If the discussion was not up to your standards and we are the ones discussing things with you then we must not be up to your standards. Why are you spending your time in a university philosophy course? Why would you spend money on that? All the info and insight is free on the internet. If your discussions must meet university standards then I assume that once you've completed your course you will not be able to have satisfying discussions with the ordinary folk. Unless you're planning to become another academic sucking of the tit of the state then what's the point?

You've made hundreds of posts here and this discussion does not seem particularly different from other discussions you've had. Why NOW are we suddenly judged not to be up to your standards? Can you show us any evidence that you have higher philosophical standards? Please link to boards were you've had these philosophical discussions as so as we can learn. Despite this new attitude I'm glad you were here to challenge us because you are a superior debater. I figure that if our arguments can still stand after going up against you then they are pretty strong.

I do not know of any standard of philosophical writing that that UPB quote falls below. That's your opinion, right? Stef said at the start of the book if he tried to make it fit everyone's view of what is accurate or fix any perceived short-coming, the book would never be finished. Maybe the book you are advising others to maybe re-read you should re-read yourself. Although it seems accurate enough for you to break it down into a line of reasoning. I see no different meaning of "own" in 1 or 2. "Having exclusive use over" and "being responsible for" fit within the general concept of "own". You can even find dictionary definitions where "responsible" and "own" are practically the same thing. "Owning" means something is yours and not someone else's. Your mind is yours. Your arguments are yours. Your voluntary actions are yours. The direct effects of your actions are yours. As you are breaking down "Stefan's" reasoning then you should know that 3 is highly questionable. I don't think Stef sees much difference between the internal and external reality and has said so. Where does this external reality start? The Skin? Outside the brain? Outside the conscious neural matrix of the mind? 5 inches away from the body? "External reality" could refer to all of those and you have no problem using it. But "ownership" or "own" having a similar broad use is a problem? Saying you do not have a "moral claim" to use / control a painting you made is just you relinquishing or rejecting a right you may or may not have. Who argued that doing this produces a contradiction? What is the argument here? If the word "own" is a problem then just try to understand without it. You ARE yourself, right? You are in control of your body, right? You feed your organs and feed your mind, etc. So your body is YOURS, right? You use your body and time to create values "external" to your main body, right? So these values exist because you transformed your time, labor, creativity, etc into them. They are parts of your body /self extended into reality. They ARE you and as such they must be YOURS. So just as any moral justification to murder or rape you will logically fail (because the person attempting the murder or rape claims the right not to be murdered or raped, by definition) any moral justification to steal from you will fail because it is also in a sense a violation of your body. If I steal ten thousand bucks from you that took a year's hard work to earn then I have retroactively violated your body and mind just as much as if I had physically assaulted you.

The property is the mind too. You own your mind and your body. Most notions of ownership throughout history have been imposed by thieves who desire to enslave you. That's part of the reason why it's hard to comprehend the idea the the owner and the thing owned can be the same thing (self-ownership). Rulers have always depended on people believing that there can only be an owner and the thing owned because if the people knew they owned themselves then it is revealed that the rule has no foundation for their rule other than force.

If you smashed the window then by definition you claimed ownership of it for the time it took to smash it. You claimed the right to destroy it. It doesn't matter whether you explicitly stated the right because your actions state it. You felt you had the right to destroy the window. If you did not feel you had the right then you did it anyway knowing you did not have or could not justify the right. If you actively reject the validity of property rights and think they don't exist in any form then you STILL claimed the right to destroy the window. You STILL felt it was yours to destroy. If you think the window is no different from an un-owned twig you decide to snap then you are still claiming the right to destroy it. It doesn't matter what scenario you come up with. You are claiming ownership of the window when you break it. Ownership at the very least is a claim of an exclusive right of control over something. You claimed an exclusive right of control over the window in order to destroy it. There's no circular reasoning here. I'm not sure how this is even relevant to the comment you're responding to. The claim of ownership is not just that you “exert energy on an object”. I exert energy on lots of objects. Doesn't mean I own them. So what if there are such tribes? What has that got to do with the comment you're responding to? Some people view a lot of property as communal. Families often do that. So what? I mean, I assume people in those tribes still hold their lungs as private property, right? Maybe it's true that I cannot say "it would be treating them like a slave, so it is bad, so therefore we must adhere to the idea property rights", but I'd like to know where I said that or even implied anything like it. I can only assume that my claim about taking or destroying one's time and labor being the same as retroactively enslaving them got translated in your head to “it would be treating them like a slave, so it is bad, so therefore we must adhere to the idea property rights”. That you say “Smashing something someone created might be mean, and it may cause them harm, but there is no logical reason that doing something mean/harmful to someone is wrong. That is the Is-Ought Problem: you cannot say something is wrong just from observing facts about reality (like the smashed window). “, shows me that this is your main argument and that even after being repeatedly told that we are not claiming any external objective ought you need to push this notion. It's just become shtick. The actual argument is that property is derived from the fact of self-ownership. Property created is an extension of one's self into reality. Therefore violations of property are violations of the person. Such violations are wrong because not logical justification can be given for them. (The evidence is the fact that rape, murder, theft and assault all fail logical consistency and such violations of property lead to massive dysfunction whereas respect for legitimate property leads to prosperity). The argument IS NOT, X is wrong because magic oughtness that floats in the ether says it's wrong. I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I say you don't know what it is you're rejecting. Every single sentence you write above is a gross distortion or outright straw-man of the arguments. I am not going to go through them all telling you what I DIDN'T say. If you think “doing something someone doesn't like proves rights exist” has anything to do with our arguments for property rights then we need to go back to basics and you need to first prove you know what the argument is before you start tearing it to pieces. The window-maker made the window. The window is a product of the window-maker's time/labor, etc. The relationship between the window-maker and the window is different from the relationship of all others who did not make the window. The window is an extension of the window-maker into reality. It represents that time/labor. No one else has this relationship with the window. If someone else deliberately smashes the window they are destroying the created value of the window, therefore they are a taking that time and labor, etc against the window-makers preference and/or will. A useful example may be a book. Person A writes a book. They are the author of that book. You can say that just because they are the book-maker (like the window-maker) that does not mean that the book is theirs to begin with. But it does not matter if someone else claims authorship of the book or steals all copies or whatever. The authorship of the book will always be theirs. They will always have ownership of it. It can never, NOT be. When it comes to the window, the window-maker is IS the maker of the window. It is an extension of HIM (just as the book is an extension of person A). The window IS his. It can't, NOT be his. Just as the author can sell/destroy the book the window maker can sell/destroy the window, even though neither can sell “authorship” of their products. If those unambiguous facts are not evidence enough then what would be? You can replace “relinquishing” with “rejecting”; whether it be the rejecting of property rights at the time or the rejection of them as having ever been something that existed or was valid. The window-smasher can consciously do this if they like. Even if it was true that an object can NOT be owned by anyone the window-smasher is still claiming rights over the window. They would just be in a state of contradiction. Even the denial of property is itself a claim of property rights. You have to have “self-ownership” just to make the claim. You have to have ownership over your body at the time and deny others ownership of it. Your words, concepts and their effects extend into reality so you own their effects. I'm not sure if you are ignoring my argument or not understanding it or are unaware that I made one. I said “The thief takes from another against their will but the thief CANNOT voluntarily allow others to steal from her because then it would not be theft. No one can voluntarily be raped, murdered, robbed or assaulted. Therefore no one can assert that others may rape, murder, rob or assault them. BY DEFINITION these things must be unwanted.”. Theft is an objectively demonstrable thing before one even gets to the morality. It's the same with rape, murder and assault. They are all objectively distinct from other behaviors. There are all kinds of love-making and then there's rape; DIFFERENT. Even if morality does not exist it is still different. There are all kinds of voluntary trade and then there's theft: DIFFERENT. These distinctions exist objectively. You do not say “It can't be rape because no one owns their body in the first place” or “It can't be murder because no one owns their mind and body in the first place”. If I forcibly remove your kidney is that not theft of your kidney? So what's the difference between that and the window? It's all in some sense part of the person. Fine. In some regards they ARE the same thing. You are responsible for your stern comment because you choose to make it and are responsible for and have control over its effects. You also own your comment as you choose to make it and are responsible for and have control over its effects. It's like “body” and “mind”. They are distinct but sometimes they overlap to the degree that they are virtually the same thing. I only hedge with the word “virtually” to stave of any future “So you're saying they're EXACTLY the same???” pedantry.

1) Yes, the time and labour went into the window. If I smash the window then I've destroyed the value that was created. I have taken that time and labor. I claimed the right of ownership over the window and smashed it. The window represented that time/labor and I took that time/labor and destroyed it by destroying the product. Let's say I stole the window (to sell or use in my own house). The person has used their time/labor to create the value of the window. The window is a product of that time/labor. When I take the window I take the value but I did not create the value. I essentially have retroactively enslaved the window maker. I have taken their time and labor. It's the same as if I made them work for me against their will. If I destroy the window then it's the same thing. What I do with or to the window is not the point. You can't OWN the window just by expending time and labor smashing it because that time and labor did not create the window, only the smashed window. If you chose to smash it then axiomatically you must have claimed the right to smash it. You now own the effect of having smashed the window. 2) There's no circular reasoning. I said "As the breaking of the window was an effect of my voluntary actions and the window's existence is an effect of their time/ labor I have taken their time/labor". What part of that is untrue or unproven? The window IS an effect of their time and labor, right? If you smash the window then you're taking something from the window maker, right? 3) The window-smasher (assuming they're not insane) does not think anyone is free to smash anything they have put their time into. That would require a total relinquishing of all property rights. But they axiomatically claim property rights over the window in order to smash it. It is logically impossible to claim property rights while rejecting property rights. 4) I did demonstrate it to be true by pointing out that the window smasher would be taking someone's time and labor while asserting (implicitly or explicitly through behavior or statements, etc) their time and labor cannot be taken that way. The breaking of the window is a form of theft (vandalism). The thief takes from another against their will but the thief CANNOT voluntarily allow others to steal from her because then it would not be theft. No one can voluntarily be raped, murdered, robbed or assaulted. Therefore no one can assert that others may rape, murder, rob or assault them. BY DEFINITION these things must be unwanted. That's why your objection 3) above is especially preposterous. 5) I'm not sure I understand this objection. How can all rights be being denied if the window-smasher is not being denied the right to smash the window? The window-smasher smashed the window. Obviously they are claiming the right to smash the window. Even if they are a dumb thug who hasn't ever thought about ethics they are still claiming the right through their actions. There are some distinctions between ownership and responsibility but in some regards they are virtually the same thing. Phrases like "Own your own shit" and "take responsibility for yourself" are basically the same thing, right? The fact that ownership and responsibility can overlap to the point of being indistinguishable is further evidence for the legitimacy of the link between self-ownership and property rights.

It's brainwashing. We're all victims of it to a certain degree. Our childhood and cultural experience of ethics is that of externally imposed commandments. It's hard to unlearn it and the supposed is/ought problem helps make it harder.

It doesn't matter if the is/ought problem is surmountable because the arguments for property rights you're addressing are not attempting to surmount it. What you're doing is creating an is/ought violation in your presentation of the arguments and then saying "see, this argument for property rights violates the is/ought dichotomy". At no point has anyone argued that there's a magical external ought. YOU are injecting that into the argument and I described how you're doing it; by presenting the logic of the argument as some descriptive premises followed directly by a fallacious jump to a prescriptive conclusion. Look at all your premises and your conclusion. They all start with "I". No one else exists in the chain of logic but it's necessary for other people to exist/interact in order for the ethics to manifest. That's the biggest problem with Hume's is/ought" nonsense. It's Hume sitting in a chair on his own wondering how, without god, what fact compels him to scratch his nose any more than destroy the world. Other people don't even seem to come into it. It's this kind of thinking that's constantly short-circuiting you. P4 would not just be "humans are interacting with each other" because that doesn't tell you if they're interacting in some relevant way. It's a bit too broad. The further premises could go as follows. P4: Someone else wants restitution for the effects of my actions (the person who's window I shot). P5: As the breaking of the window was an effect of my voluntary actions and the window's existence is an effect of their time/ labor I have taken their time/labor P6: Any justification for that action (breaking the window) will face insurmountable logical contradiction as I am arbitrarily claiming a right I deny another (taking their time/labor against their will while asserting my time/labor cannot be taken in such a way). P7: Thus I am claiming the right (behavior for which there's no moral prohibition) to the other person's time/labor and as such ownership over the effects of my actions (Breaking the others window is an effect of my actions and I have a right to break the other persons window) Getting from the facts of self-ownership to property rights is not that hard if you stop looking for those rights in the external world but rather look for them in the logic of human interaction (and I'm not just referring to praxeolgoy). You should probably tell me what specific definition of "own" you're using and how I'm misusing it. Other than the fact that "own" is not commonly used to refer to things like ownership of wrong doing, etc I see no misuse. The only illogical leap is the one you are creating by constantly framing how we get from self-ownership to property rights as a fact/value violation. It's not necessarily the ACTION of murdering that I would claim ownership over. Actions are just movements in space and time. It's the murder. The moral violation. I would have chosen the wrong-doing and have ownership of it whether I like it or not. One could also say that I have responsibility for the murder and in certain contexts they may mean the same thing. But these words are often used as synonyms for each other for a reason. It's because self-ownership is directly related to property and often there is no clear distinction.

I find this to be the most frustrating part of demonstrating things like property rights. People have a tendency to miss the fact that property rights only become an issue when people interact. They tend to immediately start looking for external oughts because historically all our oughts have be inflicted from external sources. In your chain of logic you put forward three descriptive premises and then a conclusion that does not follow. Fair enough. Essentially the disconnect you're pointing out is an "is/ought" or fact/value" violation. But the disconnect is one you are creating yourself by leaving out a necessary step in the logic. That is that rights activate when humans interact. They do not and cannot exist independently as some external "ought". If you go from "here's some descriptive premises" to "here's a prescriptive conclusion" then of course there's going to be a disconnect. That's because you left out the premise were humans interact. If you argue property rights are not valid only using premises were no one interacts then you're setting up a straw-man (even though you don't mean to). "Responsibility for" and "ownership of" are not entirely distinct things. If I murder someone I am responsible for the murder. I own that murder. That murder is my property. A murder has a distinct moral property from accidental killing. The murderer has more than just a causal responsibility, they have a moral responsibility. They chose to kill the person without a valid moral justification. Therefore the action was immoral. The accidental killer only has a causal responsibility. The murderer owns the murder. The accidental killer cannot own the accidental death. These distinctions exist objectively even though there is no external "ought" or "ought not" that exists. That "is/ought" thing is something you have to get away from if you want to grok property rights.

Why don't you mind your own fuckin business? That's not the main argument for property.