Kevin Beal

Mises didn't define economics as the study of human action. The study of human action from an a priori standpoint is called Praxeology. He defined economics the same as most people do, if I remember rightly; that being the social science which studies the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. Mises figured that a theory of ethics could be figured out using praxeology, but that it wasn't itself ethics. Hans Hermann Hoppe came up with Argumentation Ethics, based on Mises' work. Ethics is a term that actually means a few different things depending on the context, which distinguishes it from morality. If you mean ethics as morality specifically and we take a UPB approach, then that is the study of how we determine objectively what a person ought do on principle, and not simply to achieve some end. That is it's epistemic concern, and the things themselves are conscious volitional human behaviors (incl. intention). Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, etc. are all studies on human action. Human action is a vast domain ripe for the development of many general theories and sciences.

Do I understand you correctly that you mean to imply that because transexuality is considered pathological, even by transexuals today, and because this attitude also described homosexuals in the recent past, that is cause to doubt that transexuality is indeed pathological? If so, there is a pretty big flaw in that argument. Responding with "this used to describe homosexuals" could be applied to brain tumors, psychopathy, dissociative personality disorder, etc. They are all considered to be pathological and needing treatment (if possible). This argument takes the same form as the subjectivists who say that science is bunk because new scientific theories and models regularly replace old and outdated ones. Basically, Einsteinian physics is wrong because it replaced Newtonian physics and something will, no doubt, replace Einsteinian physics – is the argument. Transexuality is now considered pathological by the people who suffer it. In fact, they are the ones who are the ones pushing for more dramatic treatment in most cases. They see young boys who feel more comfortable doing girl typical things and then get them on drugs, permanently altering the physiology through hormone treatments. (Trans = treatment / change / this body & presentation is wrong). If this is not justified by a legitimate medical condition or disorder, then this is horribly unjust for the child. It would be worse than genital mutilation in that respect. So, we must accept that it is a medical condition needing very long, expensive, treatment if we take the "transexuals are not deluded" proposition. This is the exact opposite way homosexuality has been treated in history. The "homosexuals are not deluded" camp had the attitude of just leave people alone and associate freely. They didn't not want to get gay kids on drugs; that was the "homosexuals are deluded" camp. It may be a limitation of my own imagination, but I cannot conceive of an interpretation of transexuality which does not imply that it is pathological in some respect, even if the word "pathological" is distasteful. We can call it whatever you like, but the meaning will be the same. Personally, I'm surprised that the gay community is not outraged that people are exploiting their struggle to justify transexuality. If I were gay, I would be demanding much more evidence and research be done into transexuality that wasn't just activism research and could look at it as a medical condition without worrying about losing funding. ---------- And also, if gays and lesbians didn't want to have their sexual orientations anymore, I don't think they ought to be shamed for trying to change it, like they have internalized homophobia. There are a lot of costs to being a homosexual which aren't all the fault of bigotry. From the research I've seen and anecdotal evidence (my sister), lesbians tend to be the most miserable, and female sexuality, the most malleable (if you take Kinsey seriously) – so, maybe that is something worth considering for some people. I personally don't give a shit who consenting adults want to have sex with. Who they have babies with? Yea, that's a different story (first cousins, violent people, borderline personalities, etc).

The word "solved" here serves to muddy things up. Obviously, it implies it's a bad thing. You don't "solve" heterosexuality or other things deemed healthy or normal. Gay people do not tend to consider their sexual orientation a cause of suffering, something to be cured. Although, there are some strong evidence to suggest that it could be prevented or reversed. Steven Pinker says that his research shows that genes account for 40% max of the variance in sexuality. Gay men and straight men pick up scents slightly differently and men with more older brothers are more likely to be gay. On the other hand, there's no way to get around the fact that gender dysphoria is considered by the people who suffer it to be something which is suffered and must be treated. The debate is mostly around how it's treated, not that it should be treated. Some people think it requires a change in sex presentation, surgery, hormones, etc, and the other camp tend to think the treatment is psychological. Although I'm not finding hard research on it, you'd get the impression by googling that transgenderism may be a symptom of a borderline personality. And there is some limited research which shows a positive correlation between transexuals and the size of a particular brain region. As far as I can tell, there is evidence for both sides, just as there is evidence for homosexuality being both genetic and environmental. Many transexuals report feeling so intensely agonized that they are tempted to cut off their own genitals.

I don't think that effort is the issue, so much as diet. A buddy of mine has a tendency to neglect feeding himself since he is in his own head too much, and as a result he is very skinny. It takes no effort for him to be skinny. In fact, he has the opposite problem, if anything. It might take effort to not eat when your body is telling you that's what it wants, but clearly the effort you put into resisting is not primarily what makes you fat or skinny, except insofar as it translates into a change in diet. Surely some people have to try harder than others, but I have vices that I have to try hard to resist indulging in. My body tells me it wants drugs and alcohol (from my past). I don't come up with the equivalent of "fat acceptance" or take responsibility away from myself. I have to try harder than other people, but I don't do that stuff because I don't think it would help me to mentally downgrade my level of responsibility to some other category. Similarly, I don't think it helps fat people to reduce their level of responsibility either (except in the very rare and strange exceptions like the one you pointed out in your second post).

What do you think about it, CaliGirl?

I'm no expert, but I believe that genes predict where fat will sit on the body (butt, tummy, thighs, etc), but not that a person will become obese. Twin studies seem to contradict the hypothesis of a "fat gene". Correct me if you have evidence to the contrary. But even if we accept a fat gene, I think it's fair to analogize it to the kinds of genes which make a person more or less prone to becoming an alcoholic. Becoming an alcoholic isn't genetic destiny for these people, it just makes it easier to slip into. Obese people may gain fat easier, but like the alcoholic prone person, they just need to be more cautious. And it's pretty easy to tell when you gain weight or are becoming addicted to alcohol, especially if it runs in the family and the parents have their kids best interests in mind. People don't just slip into obesity, is basically what I'm saying. Even if it's more slippery for some, neglect is still a key factor.

I mean specifically if you have shame and anxiety around not being a person who is genuinely worthy of being taken seriously. And if you direct the conversation in the direction of making yourself appear better than you actually perceive that you are as a way to manage that shame and anxiety. If you feel anxiety about what other people might say or do in response to what you're saying, then that's not really the same thing. This sounds like projection to me, on their part. You are the sacrificial lamb they put their sins into. Their own insecurity is triggered and they manage that by projecting onto you, since they wrongly perceive you as the cause of their discomfort. You must be punished for being "foolish" or "superior", because they are too immature to consider that they might be foolish and vain. At least, that's what it sounds like, based on the limited information here.

Primary Motivation is Mastery Are you genuinely excited about growing? Does having self knowledge look to you in your head like you are having deeper, more meaningful relationships with yourself and other good people? If so, I'm inclined to think that your primary motivation is not actually to perceive yourself as superior. People who want to feel superior are motivated, in the moment, by an urge to relieve themselves of their self loathing by trying to inspire admiration in their audience. It's not a long term goal, and it usually fails. There's nothing wrong with wanting to achieve more than other people and live a happier, more fulfilled life. You should want that. The problem is artificial superiority. Somebody who actually is happier, more fulfilled, etc. is not going to shove it in people's faces, and it's something that people enjoy seeing, for the most part. Is the Vanity Yours or Theirs? Feeling superior could be a secondary goal of yours in the moment, if you listen to other people talk about about things they are excited about and then one-up them with things that you hope someday will be true about your life, or with exaggerations about things you've done. If you reflect back on these moments and check to see if you felt any shame or anxiety, then that's a good indication that you are being vain, grandiose, have an inflated self worth. It could also be that feeling superiority is not a motivation at all, and you have internalized the malicious projections of other people – people who, themselves, are vain douches and douchettes. You share your enthusiasm about the life you are living or want to work on living, and they feel ashamed about all the pretentious non-living they are doing. They are vain because they reject a part of themselves which they perceive as unworthy or respect. When that repression fails, they must rely on projection, and so in order to spare themselves the realization that they are living a pretense at a good life, they put that sin on you and cast you out into the desert like a bronze age goat. They signal in whatever subtle way, with rolled eyes, scoffs, immature slights at your expense, that your idea of a good life is pretentious, false, not going to offer you real happiness, etc. You can know if they are projecting when they do exactly what they suggest about your character in the moment they suggest it. So, if they were to roll their eyes and make you out to be falsely superior, then they are being falsely superior, are hypocrites, are engaged in a very primitive distortion of reality to spare themselves more of their own shame. Low Self Esteem Families I grew up in a low rent family full of low self esteem people. All my friends' families were on welfare. When someone talked about getting a job and off of welfare, they'd talk contemptuously about them when they weren't around. They'd talk about them like they were a sell out, a fool. I used to pretend to be less happy than I actually was when I was around any family members who were having a rough time (as a result of their own bad decisions). I knew that if I said, "yea, I'm doing really well, actually. I just got a raise at work and I met this really cool woman," etc., then they'd pretend to be happy for me, but secretly be bitter about it. It would come out in some way later, like "Kevin is doing so amazingly, why don't we have him buy everyone's dinner tonight!?" They'd refer to me as "lucky" rather than hard working. I wasn't allowed to be genuinely better than other people, except in trivial things like geography trivia. If I was superior in terms of accomplishment and virtue and it wasn't just luck, but my actual hard work, then I was supposed to feel guilty. I was trained to do that and it would come out in all kinds of subtle ways, like not even allowing myself to share my genuine enthusiasm, self congratulating or offering advice about how to live a better life. If you are concerned with this question of acting superior in the first place, I'm inclined to think it's not your problem, personally.

I don't "live as an atheist". It never comes up except in rare discussions like this. I often forget that there are people who believe in gods and ghosts and all the rest of it. I'm motivated to work on improving the quality of my life because I, and the people I care about, will benefit from that work later on. If I become increasingly fit for living and accomplishing things, then there are more and more opportunities for me to experience intense joy and share in that experience with those close to me. I can feel more deeply. I can experience deeper connection, fulfillment and love. I have plenty enough incentive to live a good life without the existence of a sky daddy who will reward me for my devotion to him. In fact, the idea repulses me intensely.

Oh whoops. I seem to have not read that the driver was drunk. My mistake!

Because stealing is not an accident, but running into the baby – presumably – is an accident. If it's accidental, it's not immoral. Immoral acts are acts of intent. The person stealing his blood would be the initiator of force in this case. Criminally, this may be seen as part of just punishment. Manslaughter can be accidental killing, and it is still criminally prosecuted. I think any sane justice system would punish the guy somehow; I just don't think it is technically immoral in the strict sense of the word, because of the lack of intent involved. It doesn't necessarily absolve him of responsibility, though. In a free society, people would be agreeing to contracts where some ruling body would be taking the guy's blood, or whatever made the most sense. He agrees to submitting by such decisions as part of that contract. That way, it's not immoral to punish the guy when he hasn't willfully initiated violence – by stealing from him. That's how it would make most sense to me, anyway. Not every dispute can be solved with an observation of what is immoral, strictly speaking.

Forcing the guy to give his blood would be immoral, yes. These kinds of flagpole moral questions are more productively evaluated using the YAD principle. If you don't help the baby, then You're A Dick. It need not be any more complicated than that. You can be a dick, but not technically acting immorally. The difference being that immoral actions are ones that justify the use of force in order to prevent or remedy (e.x. shooting an assailant, or taking back stolen items). The reason you want to separate these things is because of what is justified by victims of immoral or dickish behavior. Treating dickish behavior as if it were immoral behavior means acting immorally, because you are the one who's actually initiating force, not the dick. This all assumes we're actually talking about his refusal to give his blood as the act we're evaluating. How is this analogous to abortion?

Hi diceguy! How'd you come across the show? Was it the recent election coverage?

DRO's may very well be scarier than the state. How scared someone is of something doesn't make it immoral or worse than a state. That's a specious non-argument. They may even use force, if people's contracts allow for it. Why not? The point is that there is competition and it is a far more preventative, insurance-type model – not that it is nicer. If nice is what people want, then that's the DRO people will pick. The point is the customer decides what is of most utility to them and the enforcement of their contracts. He's just using words: "fascistic", "paranoid", "forceful", etc. He's not proving anything. The future will most likely include a wide variety of conflict resolution approaches including DRO's, home owner associations, business associations, educational associations, personal reputation apps etc. It may even be that DRO's are reserved for very serious contracts and would be seen as overkill for most types of disputes. My thinking is that they should be scary. I don't accept the premise that scary is bad.

I just wanted to mention that I fully accept this argument. People should be the ones to choose whether or not to have their genitals altered / mutilated. That's why I liked the discussion of circumcision in the article, because this argument was brought up. Ultimately, I concluded the same thing that you did, because I said the difference was a moral one. It's just that if we were to ignore the principled argument, the argument from effect may actually be a valid one (I don't know for sure). If I were a consequentialist, then I may have to take the pro-mutilation side seriously. That's interesting to me because people who consider prostitution to be immoral, but accept it anyway for safety reasons (e.x. christian libertarians), then those same kinds of people would logically be compelled to consider the arguments in the article, for the same reason. People who think that prostitution is immoral or otherwise a bad thing should be susceptible to such an argument, in order to stay logically consistent. Personally, I would trust my gut over a seemingly compelling argument in favor of the mutilation of children. I just think it's interesting is all. Their arguments sound to me like bullshit cultural relativism. It's the debate tactic that interests me.

Maybe a Reason Magazine event? I haven't heard of one either outside of FDR. But I guess that also depends on just how high of an IQ we're talking. There's an active IQ thread on the boards and you'd get the impression that most people on the boards have IQs well above average. There's an interesting podcast on a listener's experience of Mensa and how statist those groups can be. FDR2073 Mensa Statists and the Aneurysm of Truth! http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_2073_mensa_statists_aneurysm_truth.mp3

Well, by definition, that would be the case. If it's been obfuscated, then that is to imply illogic. It's redundant and effectively tautological. It is a meaningless thing to say. It's like saying that irrationality is irrational. Also, this is nitpicking on my part, but an argument isn't "accurate". Accuracy describes elements of arguments like analogies, descriptions, etc. Arguments are valid or invalid. The fact that healthy people can die and get hit by buses, and that health is a continuum is perfectly consistent with the guy's argument. The fact that it is consistent is what he means when he says that you don't seem to understand. Your responses come across as lazy, not well thought out. It makes me wonder why you participated in the thread at all. Are you overweight? Do you know overweight children? Are you unhealthy? Let's bring this back to the actual topic

Is this principle specific to nutrition or the truth in general? If it's the truth in general, then that includes this statement, and thus it is practically self defeating. It doesn't explain anything to say that the truth is subject to change until it is not. Also, while nutrition as a science contradicts itself as bad as a politician, there are clear universals. People who show signs of nutrient deficiencies are less healthy in that respect than those who show neither signs of deficiency or overdose. Generally speaking, it is better to get omega 3 oils, vitamin D, vitamin C, protein, foods that reduce inflammation, fruits and vegetables, a diverse diet, than not. Generally speaking, it's best to stay away from lactose (as an adult), gluten (50% of white population), high fructose corn syrup, moldy foods, brown rice, etc.

I really appreciated how it serves to bring male genital mutilation (MGM) to light. That part of the debate was encouraging. It is an interesting argument to say that FGM (female GM) would be safer if it were legal. It's the same kind of argument with prostitution. I accept it when it comes to prostitution, but I can't bring myself to support the legalization of mutilating children. I wonder if that's inconsistent on my part... Am I wrong about legalizing prostitution? Am I wrong about keeping FGM illegal? Or is it really different – and if so, how? If it's the fact that it's something which is immoral, when prostitution isn't immoral, then that is to say that there ought to be laws prohibiting immoral acts. But, I guess if there is no competition in dispute resolution allowed where it directly competes with government, then I guess that's the only choice I have – being that there is a government. These kinds of evil practices have to be combated somehow, and if DRO's aren't around, then I guess the government will have to do it. That just feels icky, as an anarchist. Ugh...

Good question. I don't know the answer to that, or how to determine that off the top of my head. Maybe it is justified... I know that I would feel tempted to punch a parent in the face who encouraged their child to become obese.

You think that they are going to suffer a worse fate than mass genocide by poison suffocation? That seems infinitely less likely than than them getting up and moving, to me, but maybe you know something I don't. All the coverage I've seen has shown over and over again that the Germans mostly welcome their own annihilation.

I'm not sure what will happen, but I wonder about that. There is so much freakin' resistance to anything considered xenophobic, to the point that leftist groups are actually threatening violence against any groups that would demonstrate against immigration. There are a hell of a lot of women who not only don't want protection from the native men, but actively resist it. I'd be surprised if the people in Germany didn't just emigrate. There will be a point where it's too late to do anything, and it doesn't seem to be that far off. Just imagine the germans trying to export the migrants. Scary! It could be too late for Germany and Sweden. People just aren't mad enough.

As far as the titular question is concerned, philosophy is the all-discipline. Any domain you look at, where you define your terms and/or establish how to come to make valid truth claims is philosophy. As far as UPB is concerned, only the things in which violence is justified in order to prevent classify as immoral. Neglecting a healthy diet is not an act that violence is justified in order to prevent. That's not to say that it's neutral or good, just not immoral, specifically. (AFAIK). In having a child, and where knowledge is present or readily available, consistent neglect is a violation of an implicit contract. For example: Nobody sues a cigarette company when they get lung cancer, because it's readily available knowledge that it causes lung cancer, and you implicitly agree to their "terms & conditions" when you purchase. When you sit down at a table in a restaurant, you are obligated to pay after you eat, even though it's not stated up front. When you get a dog, you are on the hook for feeding it. If you starve it out of neglect, you are criminally liable. To the degree that it's common knowledge (or the knowledge is readily available) is the degree to which "I didn't know nutrition was important" is an invalid excuse. Nutrition is extremely important for a ton of reasons, not least of which is brain function. Just speaking personally, I feel contempt for parents who encourage their children's unhealthy eating habits. Seeing obese children fills me with rage. And it is an act of sublimated rage on the part of the parent too, I'm sure – to watch a child become obese. You cannot love someone and watch them do that without stopping it. It's equivalent to watching someone choke to death on the floor and stepping over their body while continuing to eat your cereal. One of my favorite FDR podcasts is relevant here: FDR728 Death by Neglect http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_728_Death_By_Neglect.mp3

Hi J215! Is that your real name? That's fantastic to hear about your commitment to integrity and peaceful parenting! Your story sounds a bit like mine. The pathological altruism sounds very familiar. I think, in my own parents' case, they were managing their own anxiety and then coming up with an altruistic rationalization after the fact – and maybe a bit of humble bragging. That stuff drives me a little crazy. I'm curious about your transition into understanding arguments, if you felt like sharing. I know that for me it was pretty exciting. I got bullied at home and in school as a kid, so the prospect of being able to wield arguments like swords and shields really appealed to me. I know that it helped me be more sure of myself and my thinking. Is that similar to your experience?

Welcome Albin!