B-64

@dsayers The different personalities are not the clue of my argument. The assumption is that I have a relationship/interaction with myself or that I argue with myself. I extend Hoppe's argumentation ethics to relations with oneself (psychology). That is the clue. If I argue with myself I have a preference over my previous thought or action. So, there are preferable self-behaviours. And they are universal because we are the same biological beings. Whether we call them self-ethics, or whatever, they are Universally Prefereable Behaviours. Yes, ethics requires choice and people. It does not matter how many individuals are involved. One is enough.

I've just watched ‘An Introduction to Libertarian Ethics' on YT. Stefan argued that ethics applied only to interpersonal relations. He included the Robinson Crusoe's dealings in the realm of “practicality” and not ethics. I'd like to offer a different answer, that there is the theory of preferable behaviours toward oneself, which I would call Self-Ethics. A human being is not a singularity in terms of consciousness. We have different egos or personalities, we argue with our Selves, we disagree with our Selves, we change our mind several times per minute and we judge our Selves. I think Stefan implicitly makes this assumption accepting the notion of internal family systems or me-cosystem. If we accept this assumption then it is simple to see that there is no philosophical difference between inter- and intra-personal relations and that the non-aggression principle applies also to relations with oneself. Going back to Robinson Crusoe. He himself will bear the consequences of his own actions, treatment of himself, and he will be a sole judge of himself. More on this here: http://dabrowski.eu/Blog/Praxeological-Psychology

Would love to come for the meetup.

I am sorry. I asked the question before I listened to your video. After listening I understant what your point is and I am on your side. Ignore my question.

Do you agree that by the very fact of enquiring you assume there is a benchmark/standard your question refers to and by the very fact of enquiring the standard has to be objective and universal?

Yes, even in diabetes. And I understand that it's not in the interest of mainstream scientists. Their goal is not to find the truth. Their goal is to research.

This is how it applies. Let's take natural phenomena which have a potential to be disastrous: earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, viruses etc. Imagine mainstream economists, sociologists, lawyers, physicians who try to find a way to make the phenomena less disastrous or eliminate effects of them. They will lounch massive research programs and come up with the whole spectrum of solutions in all sorts of settings and situations: dams, embankments, high building regulations, deep basement regulations, vaccinations, isolation wards, special relief agencies, price controls, prohibitions, special law enforcement, federal funding etc. An apriorist will tell that all these solutions are misguided (yes, unscientific) because of one fundamental reason: one huge factor is not taken into mainstream equations which is state intervention/aggression. We can only know how much disastrous natural phenomena are if we know how much disaster is caused by state intervention/aggression. Let's take Katrina. How much damage was caused by the hurricane and how much by state intervention/aggression such as taxes, subsidies, inflation, tarrifs, regulations, price control, prohibitions, welfare, law enforcement, state education? How many building were built there by cheap credit; how many people lived there supported by welfare, how many miles of subsidized roads were build there, why state education did not teach people not to live in floodplains, why the price mechanism of heavily regulated insurance companies was blocked so it would be too expensive to live there? You can only know if you eliminate state intervention/aggression. You can't eliminate hurricanes. Let's take Spanish flu. Was it a virus or massive troop movements after the war which killed 20-50 million people? You can only know if you eliminate masive troop movements. You cant eliminate a virus. And now let's take bad genes. How do you know how much damage in human life is caused by a natural phenomenon, a gene, and how much by human aggression?. You can only know if you eliminate aggression. You cant eliminate a gene.

I speak for myself and for that part of this community that consider themelves Misesian or Hoppean in terms of epistemology. I cant speak for Stefan but his philosophical approach is basically the same as that of Mises and especially Hoppe: "reasoning from first principles", "self-detonating statements", UPB. They all take from Aristotle, Aquinas and Kant. So, there is a fundamental difference to how-we-know-things between your positivist approach and the approach of non-mainstream thinkers who assert things can be known a priori, by deduction from simple facts of human nature like an axiom of human action. The topic is very important. Please, read three chapters of Mises' Human Action (free pdf: http://mises.org/Books/humanaction.pdf) and listen to some videos by Hans Hoppe. I can't explain it better than them.

This question does not fascinate me. Because it is a priori obvious that you can find the answer only after eliminating aggression and establishing long lasting peaceful relationsips in society. So, first things first. I would not spend a dime on that research. To Eric: be proud, be absolutely proud of your choice.