 In a world of Democrats there will be time for them to make profits now is not that time and Republicans have abandoned free market principles to save the free market system. You need a voice of Liberty Look no further. You found it. Tom Woods Beware citizen you are now departing from the world of unlawable opinion the Tom Woods show Welcome to the Tom Woods show episode 370 hold on to your hats for this episode my friends what I love about doing this show is that here we are at episode 370 and we're still covering brand new topics and This topic is gonna blow your mind I would be willing to bet that maybe even 90% of my listeners are Unfamiliar with what we're gonna cover today and those of you who are familiar with it I bet could stand to have a refresher. So it's really the ideal topic I myself could stand to have a refresher on this topic. What is the topic? The topic is something called argumentation ethics advanced by Hans-Hermann Hoppe as a defense of libertarianism and it is a bold defense You'll notice that the title of this episode is equally bold saying that it is impossible To argue against libertarian principles without engaging in a contradiction Very very bold that claim and we're going to try to defend it with Stefan Kinsella Who is a great theorist on this subject in his own right again a great explicator of Hans's views Stefan has many credentials. I'll just note that he is the founding and executive editor of Libertarian papers you should check that out. We'll link to it at tomwoods.com slash 370 a series of scholarly papers in the libertarian tradition He's the director of the Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom and the author among other books of Against intellectual property It's 2015 as I record this April 9th I'm going to be at American University and April 11th at the University of Cincinnati I hope to see some of you guys at those events get the details on those at tomwoods.com Slash events and now my conversation with Stefan Kinsella get ready everybody Stefan welcome back Hey, Tom glad to be back Other than Hans Hoppe himself who generally does not do audio interviews So for everybody saying why don't you get Hans on the show? Let me take care of that one right now I have asked him to back when I was hosting the Peter Schiff show from time to time I asked him to be a guest and he politely declined not because we're not friends or anything, but he just doesn't Want to do audio interviews anymore And he says plus, you know, sometimes I say things and I get into trouble and I'd rather just write out my answers So that's another matter But there's really nobody else I'd like to talk to on this more than you as and you've you've written an awful lot About the subject that we're talking about today, which is argumentation ethics now It is highly fashionable in libertarian circles Well, let's say it's fashionable in fashionable libertarian circles to discount this all together and to make fun of Hans and to make fun Of people who believe in it, but the arguments for it If I may say so are actually very intriguing and to my mind quite strong What the claim that Hans is making is an incredibly bold one I mean it took Murray Rothbard's breath away. It was so bold in effect He's saying that it is impossible to argue against the basic libertarian principles the first user Principle homesteading principle private property. It's basically impossible to argue against these things without engaging in a Contradiction without contradicting yourself because there are principles that are pre-argumentation that are taken for granted that are presupposed by the very fact of arguing a very fact of engaging in argumentation the very action of doing that that Can't be denied without engaging in in contradiction. It's it's a it's a strong claim and yet to my mind It really works. So is that have I correctly described Hans's aim? I Think you have and yeah, I think you could you could I would proudly call myself of Hoppe's libertarian consigliere if you want like the libertarian Lawyer advocate for a lot of Hoppe's views because I've learned and you've learned a lot from Hans I view Hans Hoppe is the greatest living libertarian theorist and Austrian economist in the world so there's a lot to learn from him and one of the first things that he burst onto the scene with in If I have the timeline, right, I think he came to the u.s. Around nineteen 86 80 80 yeah 85 86 and he was with Rockford for about a decade until Rockford died and Around 86 87 he started promoting this argumentation ethics idea, which is just one of his many breakthroughs in Austrian and libertarian thought and It was very Provocative and controversial when it came onto the scene and around I think the first time it was really noticed by a lot of people Was in this Liberty magazine symposium in 1988 And he introduced his argumentation ethics, which was a kind of a new defense of libertarian rights Which Rothbard loved and went crazy about So yeah, that's how it came about and that with the origin of it You are a libertarian legal theorist in your own right. So why don't you just explain very simply? What are these libertarian principles that we're eventually going to arrive at just so that we can see the goal that this is all taking us toward? Well, and and actually this argument helps us to see what the libertarian principles should be and that's a dispute in itself Or right a debatable topic, but libertarian principles, you know, you could call it Voluntaryism you could call it peace. You call it prosperity I think if you distill it down to its core what libertarian principles are is that We're trying to come up with a set of rules that people can live together among each other Right in a world of scarcity and where there's a possibility of conflict and these rules are what are called property rights And the property rights are usually assigned or delegated in a certain traditional way You know the first person who gets a thing gets to own it if you Sell it to someone by contract then they're the new owner These basically simple rules are the core of the Western legal tradition and of all human society The project for libertarians is to be more consistent about it and to enumerate like what the justification Could be and up up until I'd say hopeless time There have been two or three main ways of trying to justify the legal system that we see and These have been what the typical Means that we're familiar with I mean for example, then you're talking about the natural rights tradition Yeah, I'd say so the two main ways would be the natural rights or what some people call the ontological or principled approach And there's many there's many variations of that and then the sort of consequentialist or utilitarian approach You could say there are others like Intuitionist religionist And there's a there's a libertarian anarchist named Jan Lester JC Lester Who thinks there's a third version which he calls this kind of Karl Popper verse based critical rationalism which is that you just you you come up with conjectures and You just try to deep to rebut them What you know like Rothbard is mostly in the natural law natural rights tradition What Hoppe argued was that there are problems with the two main approaches to justifying norms or rules or ethics or laws or rights and that is that the one approach utilitarianism of course is Completely incompatible with what we understand about economics given Mises's understanding of The fact that values are subjective and values can't be quantified. We can't compare values. So we could never come up with a rule that That would allow us to maximize some kind of value parameter in society so this kind of strict utilitarian idea is is Economically unworkable and it's also unethical because even if you could take money from let's say Bill Gates and give it to some poor person and make them better off that doesn't Automatically show that the theft is justified. So utilitarianism is is is is criticized And natural law theory natural rights theory is heavily bound up with the Catholic Church and with the religious views and There are two principle Criticisms that are that are that are set forth against the natural rights view Number one It's the humane idea that you can't derive an ought from an is that is you can't make a factual statement and Then derive from that what should be the case or what laws should be the case You can't just say here's what human nature is and therefore This is what the rule should be because you have to introduce a normative statement And you have to have some kind of independent justification for that normative statement So that's one problem the other problem that people like Hans and others have identified with the natural law Argument is that human nature is a very vague and diffuse and very general So even if you agree that human nature gives rise to a set of prescriptions and laws They would be very general and vague. They wouldn't be specific at all So what Hoppe did was Hans was a leftist Initially a German leftist and he studied under one of the most brilliant Philosophers of the modern time in Europe Jurgen Habermas Who's a leftist but he Habermas and his his his colleague Carl Otto appell And these two German philosophers had come up with this thing called Discourse ethics and the idea is that if you want to try to find out what ethics What normative rules and society could be justified you have to look back to the source of any kind of method of Proving these things in the first place, which is always a discussion between two intelligent beings like you and I're having right now Okay, that's good and I'm gonna ask you why is argumentation central to the whole thing This is why Yeah, and so what Hans says and this is a hard to recognize until you think about it But what he says is that human action itself is not the source of these things but human communication is and the reason is that when you have humans come together in a community in the society and They have an interaction like a discourse the discourse Has certain Presuppositions what he calls them moral or normative presuppositions in other words you could not have a discourse about What rules are good or bad? Unless everyone agreed to put their their swords down in the first place and sit down together and treat each other with Respect and dignity and treat each other like each one is is is the owner of themselves Otherwise you couldn't have a communication with someone So what he points out and what Habermas and what Appel pointed out is that? there are normative presuppositions of argumentation and The fact that the only way you could ever come to a decision about what rules are good or bad is through argumentation Means that whatever these normative presuppositions of argument are They matter they just matter to what you could argue for in the argument itself So as a simple example you could never say Hey, Tom lets you and I get together and let's let's debate whether we should ever have human society Let's debate whether we should ever be able to talk to each other By by having a conversation We're sort of both agreeing that having a conversation is a good thing having interaction or social intercourse is a good thing So there are certain things you could argue you could say that would be incompatible With the presuppositions of the very endeavor that has to be there to justify any norm ever at all So that's sort of the general background framework And then there are other Feature I mean now now we should unpack what other presuppositions exist in in this whole package of argumentation and of course that in Effect when you're engaged in rational argument you are if you know if I may give the punchline away a bit You are being a libertarian what whether you realize it or not when you engage in argument What are you doing? you are inviting someone to consider your arguments on the basis of a standard that is common to you both namely reason and if you if you engage in argument and you're you're You're advancing your claims you are implicitly saying that you prefer I mean you've got potentially a dispute with another person as you try to justify your position But you prefer a peaceful resolution. That's why you're engaging in argument So are the very fact of of embarking upon argumentation already presupposes a preference for Nonviolent resolutions of conflict so that that's also very important and then also since arguments are not just floating in the air But they're made by human beings There are also Presuppositions that come out of that the fact that I have to stand somewhere to make the argument and so on and on so spin these out for us if you would right, so yeah, so So what Hoppe is pointing out is and actually Hans Hans characterizes his argument as sort of a hybrid between a consequentialist and a Sort of natural law view it's natural in that it relies upon human nature The nature of humans as being a communicative language bearing being that has that we have to communicate with each other And we have to discourse with each other to establish Truth, okay, so it's natural in that sense, but it's more much more narrow than the traditional natural law approach So so the particulars of this argument is that Hans argues and I agree with this and he basically abstracted away all the social democratic gloss that Habermas and Appel put on to their version of it because they have this bizarre philosophy where there's world one and world two World three and to get truth. You have to have social democracy and then there's welfare rights introduced. I Think Hans's view is that basically Habermas and probably Appel Had a crucial insight Okay, but they they perverted it towards their their socialist European ends, okay He took the crucial insight stripped them away of all the clutter and combined it with what Mises saw right? Which is the idea that we have we have to live in a world of scarce means we live we live among each other Rationality means something right so basically what he said is when you have a discussion about what norms could be justified I mean, look, this is the basic bottom line of the argumentation ethics approach The bottom line is that it's like a filter. It's like any ethic that you could ever propose would have to be Discussable and arguable in discourse among humans And if it contradicts the presupply the normative presuppositions of the debate that everyone has It has to be rejected. So libertarianism emerges because of a filtering mechanism. That is every Unlibertarian ethic is rejected and every libertarian ethic can survive the filter So it's it's not like a positive argument It's an argument by a filtering mechanism and the argument is twofold It's that as you said when two or more people are engaged in a discourse They're engaged in cooperation and a peaceful activity Okay, but the second recognition which he did get from from Habermas Is that argumentation is also a practical activity? This is an activity engaged engaged in by living human beings with physical bodies in the physical world of physical scarcity and they had to get there somehow They had to survive somehow to be able to argue. They have to survive during the argument Which means there's a recognition of the significance of the ability to control and use scarce resources in the world You have to use water food Land resources you had to get there somehow Which means no one in in a real argumentation could deny the value of The ability of someone to pluck an unowned resource out of the wilderness and start using it Otherwise the human race never would have survived and we never could have this conversation in the first place So when you combine all these things together What you get is sort of a Transcendental some people some people call it a transcendental approach To what is really common sense right the common sense approach to libertarianism is sort of the Mises Consequentialist approach, which is that if you value life if you value human society if you value your neighbors and yourself and if you have a degree of modesty and honesty and Economic literacy Then you would have to support a free market system because you know, that's what's going to get you what everyone really wants Right the consequentialist case for libertarianism according to Mises I think is perfectly sensible, but it depends upon this hypothetical if if if thing if you value life But the fact is that most people do and everyone does pretty much and the people that don't we have to Regard them as enemies and dangers and just regard them as part of the external world So what hoppa is trying to do is to show that not only is this approach Practical not only is it reasonable and intuitive But that there is no way to argue against it What he's trying to show is that if you argue for any kind of crime or Socialism you could never sustain that argument in a real way because you would have to do it in a setting In which you're respecting other people's rights in what you're being a libertarian as you say All right, I want to go through a couple of Principles that the filter either weeds out or causes us to realize we need In any ethic that is going to pass muster So the first one would have to be It has to be if we come up with some norm for establishing property rights for example It has to be one that's conflict avoiding because we've already indicated our preference for for conflict avoidance in the very act of argumentation so when we look at different possible Systems, let's suppose we had a system where verbal declaration was sufficient to claim ownership of property That's obviously not conflict avoiding because I could shout that I have ownership of something and you could shout that you Have ownership of it and then we would we would fight over it So that would that couldn't possibly work So eventually you get to the idea the idea of the modified idea of lock Modified by Hans that the only possible system would be the first user type of system the first person who uses a previously unowned good is the owner of that good if we if we had a system where the 12th the user Were the owner of the good then what would the first 11 users do stand around and starve to death because only the owner is Allowed to exercise control over the thing. So that's that's that's something conflict avoiding But also the one I want you to talk about is Universalizability that any norm that we might propose has to be Universalizable what does universalizable mean and why does argumentation require that these norms be universalizable? Right. Yeah, and these these are I mean look to be honest everyone knows me as Mr IP and to be you and you and I both know this is not my favorite topic in the world. It's just one narrow topic that's Got an interest, but I love this kind of stuff. This lit my brain on fire in 1988 or whatever in law school. I Just and I still think this this whole approach to rights is electrifying and and is amazing Look, it's not about It's so so the let's take universalizability, okay The idea is that when you give a reason You're giving a reason in other words. We really have a distinction between Violent conflict and people trying to solve problems together when you try to solve a problem And you try to have a discussion with people. Let's work out a solution to the problem Okay, and there's already a problem Because we wouldn't be having a discussion otherwise and the nature of the problem Usually helps to define the scope of the property rights at issue. In other words, what people disagree about? Defines the boundaries of the property right itself Okay universalizability is the idea the Kantian idea, which is why a lot of the randian types I think reject this idea and I don't know if we have time to get to this but we could talk about why Papa's idea Which is still around and still popular, but it was rejected by a lot of the prominent libertarians at the time Yeah, I wouldn't I think that's an interest. Yeah, but yeah, let's do this. Yeah. Yeah, so the universalizability thing to my mind universalizability Let me let me just kind of define it without being too philosophical if the idea that if you Propose a rule or a norm in a conversation that should be the rule governing in a given context That that rule could be universalized that it could be applied to everyone And so it's it's like another filter test if you propose a rule that could not be universalized like here's my rule All redheads should be killed Well, that rule is actually universalizable, but it's arbitrary So you have different filters to reject these rules, right? I Think the ultimate reason for the universalizability rule, which is that if you propose a norm You need to give a rule that is grounded in the nature of things Instead of being a mere arbitrary or verbal decree as you mentioned earlier Because otherwise it could not serve the purpose That is that it's destined for which is to solve conflicts If you have a conflict That means there are at least two people that both seek to use a given scarce means in human action Okay, and unless they want to physically fight with each other then they would prefer to have a system Which allocates an owner of that resource and then we need to determine well Then what's the rule that determines who the owner is? right, so if we had a rule like Whoever says loudest I can own this resource that would not solve to reduce Conflict because anyone could say I own the entire continent of the US. I planted a flag on this state and whatever So the traditional rule the Lockean rule was always you have to physically transform The resource now. I think there are some problems with Locke's original approach He he's too religious and he also Mixes in this labor idea too much which led to intellectual property by the way But he was responding to Filmer and he was trying to come up with a way to justify a natural system. I Think a more sophisticated modern version of the Lockean approach the the Hans Hoppian neo Lockean approach Would be recognizing that the the importance is on Inbordering Hans called this in bordering that is setting up a system of borders or public Boundaries that people can recognize In a sense, I think the term private property is is is a little bit perverse because Property is really public in the sense that the purpose of property rights is to set up a border That other people can observe so they can know this person has a claim to that resource I can respect their property by avoiding the invasion of that boundary So property has to be public, but for this to work These links there has to be a visible publicly accessible connection between a person and a resource Okay, and that cannot be a verbal claim because anyone could make the verbal claim and then you could have another Million people claiming to own this resource. That's why it can't be a mere verbal decree That's why Hoppe emphasizes the importance and so does Locke and intuitively right of having a physical connection to a thing a historical connection. You're the first person he used it and In a sense, this has gotten Less appreciation than I think it should have but I think one of Hoppe's greatest insights was the Extreme importance of what he calls the prior later distinction, which is that someone who comes first has By default a better connection a better claim to the resource than someone who comes later If you didn't have that assumption You would not have property rights and you wouldn't have the ability to homestead property in the first place No one could ever do anything with anything If you see an unowned resource in the wilderness if you don't have the right to go use it Right. No one could ever the human race could not have prospered and survived So there has to be a right to be the first person to take the thing and Then if you don't have the right to keep it that means there's no property rights So this all feeds together and it implies that anyone engaging in any civilized societal activity Any discussion with each other? We all recognize the importance of the prior later distinction The importance of being the first one to use a thing the importance of being a contractual owner of a thing after someone else gave it to you and All these things if you combine them together Result in the libertarian Vision which we have which is that we should have a voluntary society where people basically live in that live Co-operate and respect each other's things Let me say one word about universalizability, and then I want to raise a couple of common objections I think another way universalizability Plays a role in argumentation ethics is that every proposition that I advance in argument has to be at least conceivably acceptable To the people I'm talking to or otherwise it would defeat the whole purpose of an argument It has to be at least the plausible chance that what I'm saying could then be accepted by my listeners and if I say For example, I can hit you, but you can't hit me. There is no conceivable way This norm would ever be accepted in argument now. It's it's that's not to say by the way that I couldn't have a rule Authorized personnel only in in this room that that seems like it's not universalizable But it is I mean if you happen to be authorized personnel, you can go in there, but this is for your safety We don't want you to get blown up by the the equipment that's back there But there at least there there's we can see what the reason is for the restriction But if I simply say as a socialist would I can hit you but you can't hit me There is just there's no chance that that could ever be universally accepted in the court in in discourse And so therefore it's ruled out. I mean am I also on the right track there? I think a hundred percent. You're on the right track I think that The entire point and I got off track earlier on the universalizability The entire point is that you have to give a reason and the reason you have to give a reason It's because we are talking together and we're trying to persuade each other as Hoppe calls on the force of reason alone instead of like saying I want you to agree with me that Star Wars is the best movie ever and if you don't I'm gonna shoot you right then. That's not a real Discourse or argument in a real discourse where we're trying to find the true Nature of things we're trying to find a legitimate rule that we should all agree to That we have to appeal to things that are objective and this is the you know This is the really think that's why he says you have to be grounded in the nature of things So if you can point to a reason to distinguish you can I mean look ultimate logic of libertarianism and of human freedom and of Hoppe's argumentation ethics is that you and I are talking to each other and We know we're similar in most respects and I'm claiming rights to my own body and my life because I don't want you to kill me and There's just no rational reason to say that you don't have the same rights because for whatever reason I have these rights Whether it's religious whether it's intuitive whether it's consequentialist whatever whatever reasons I have the rights to my life I cannot deny that you don't have similar rights to your life because you're similarly situated to me Now if I can show that you just shot my wife or you shot my My dad or you just did something horrible to me Now I have a reason I can point to to treat you differently than the normal case But in the normal case They're just no good reason to treat people differently and when people claim rights for themselves They have to admit that other people who are similarly situated have different rights This is why the Greeks and why the early Americans maybe Made the made racialist arguments, right? Like you know Certain people are barbarians. They're not the same so they were trying to appeal to a natural reason to say Some people don't have full rights. They're not like Greeks or white people or whatever Right the argument is wrong. We know that now But you understand they were at least trying to find a distinction to justify treating people differently All right, I want to shift gears and ask you a couple of raise a couple of objections that I have seen raised Here we are talking about argumentation as a filter we're talking about Principles that are presupposed in argumentation. So we've talked about conflict avoidance universalizability There's also respect as we've said for the other person's bodily integrity because if you don't have that respect You're not engaging in argument. We're not even doing what what you're supposed to be doing in argument So we have respect for bodily integrity. I to have a body at all. I need to nourish myself I need standing room. So there are a whole bunch of things that are presupposed here But it's been said two things. Let me see if you can answer these two things first Couldn't it be the case that you would need this? respect for your bodily integrity only during the process of argumentation, but once the argument is over then I can Tax you at the level of a social democracy and do whatever I want But well while you're arguing I have to stand there and treat you nicely and then secondly You could say as you have that we need food and nourishment to keep us going for any argument to be possible Okay, but couldn't you have just enough to argue and then I could take some of it and give it to the poor? So how would you answer those? Yeah, so Actually, I think those are actually the two strongest kind of arguments against it But the strange thing is especially in the first case they're made by libertarians usually so let's think about this here we have Libertarians and the the bases of libertarian thinking is varied Some of them have really no argument for libertarianism. They just are libertarians for some reason they just prefer The Liberty values that underpin our view some say they're consequentialist or utilitarian some think they're natural all types But the point is Among our fellow libertarians they agree with us they agree They agree that there's a good reason not to have a rule Well, there's they agree. There's a good reason to have a rule that prohibits aggression. Let's say Now whatever their reason is they think that an argument that Permits socialism basically which is the invasion of other people's property borders. They think that's bad and The people that oppose the argumentation ethics approach. So they're saying that the argumentation ethics approach is wrong When it says that we you can't have an Argument for socialism even though they agree with it themselves. So I'm always be fuddled I'm I'm not it's be fuddled by socialists and outsiders, but my fellow libertarians that oppose the argumentation ethics approach I'm never quite clear what their objection is. Do they really think that it's possible to make a consistent argument in favor of socialism? I don't think so So if they don't think it's possible to make a consistent argument of socialism They're leaning in the direction of the argumentation ethics approach You know in the first place Alright, so how about the couldn't we give you just enough food to be able to argue and then after you've done that Then we can tax you all we want Right so the way I think about it is this You have to have a context of how we're having this argument in the first place What what is it a dispute about and and as I said to you earlier? Most people that disagree with this are libertarians and they actually don't believe that the food should be taken away from you They don't believe in your subsistence subsistence rights or whatever. So their objection is odd I think it's probably a combination of They don't like holes being poked into their natural law theories or their utilitarianism By a newcomer like hoppa. It's not a newcomer anymore, but whatever As for the subsistence idea about the food Once you so hoppa starts with this he says that let's talk about the human body We all have a bot. We are identified as individual people with a body You know, he's not taking a religious stance about whether you As CS Lewis said whether you're a soul that has a body or whether you're a body that has a soul or rights It doesn't really matter for libertarian theory that there is a definite identity between an individual and their body Okay, and there's a definite direct control between a person and his body And that is the fundamental reason hoppa argues and one of his one of his articles one of the arguments that People have the the primary right to control their bodies because they have the direct link to their bodies They have the best control the best demonstration of the link to their bodies Okay, and then he argues by analogy that let's take the human body as a prototype As a prototypical example of a scarce resource Whatever rules we agree upon for the human body Naturally, we would assume they would apply to other types of things that are similar which are other scarce resources in the world So the argument hoppa would advance in which I agree with is that the same reason that you have the right to control your body extends to scarce resources in the world and So you couldn't just artificially limit the argument and say it only applies to the narrow set of conditions needed To sustain the argument. That's just an example of exactly what people have to agree to for those cases However Any dispute in human nature over any resource? Let's say let's take let's take a resource It's not necessary for survival and for the argument to happen some kind of a some resource out there Still that resource could be the subject of dispute and the only time we could ever Determine who's going to have the rightful control of the resource would be when we engage in visit an actual argumentation so in other words even the dispute over these Luxury resources you might call them What has to occur during argumentation and during the argumentation the people have to advance Universalizable reason they have to give a reason they're trying to say I should have the right to control this thing instead of you They're not just hitting each other over the head with bats. They're not being cavemen They actually have entered into the realm of discourse to find a reasonable solution to this problem And when you do that you say we all agree we would be better off if we agree to a rule That assigns an owner to any disputable resource even the luxury resources Okay, and when you agree to that then you have to agree that we have to advance reasons for these rules Which is why universalizability enters into the picture Okay, and that reason has to be analogous to the original prototypical examples, which is the body and the resources needed for basic survival There's no reason to treat them differently There's no reason that you say if there's a dispute over a diamond Which is just a luxury object That someone should get it because of verbal decree Instead of the person who actually mined it out of the ground and or contractually purchased it from someone else There is just no argument that you can come up with That would give it to someone else that would support a socialist connotation of the world order That could survive scrutiny under a reasonable dialogical process Let me read a short passage from an article I will link to on the show notes page We're gonna link to a lot of stuff on this Tom Woods comm slash 370 370 we're gonna link to a lot of stuff on this material because it's great interesting very important This is an article that you published over at libertarian papers by Frank Van Dunne And he's referring to an argument by David Friedman who's been on this show a couple of times He says that David Friedman argued in this famous symposium in Liberty magazine that you referred to about Hapa's Argument about argumentation ethics David Friedman argued that Hapa must be wrong when he claims that self-ownership is a prerequisite to debate Because countless slaves have engaged in successful argumentation However, Hapa did not make the empirical and absurd claim that a person is incapable of arguing merely because the powers that be Legally classify him as a slave or that being the legally recognized Quote-unquote owner of one's body is a necessary condition for being capable of engaging in argumentation His argument was that such legal Classifications and the actions they sanction or legitimize Cannot be justified in an argumentation with the slaves or indeed in any Argumentation that takes the presuppositions of argumentation seriously, and of course, there's no argument being made here that argumentation is An amulet or it's some species of magic. It's not well This can't be this person argued and he's still, you know enslaved or whatever it the point is that you can't Make the types of arguments that are ruled out by argumentation ethics without engaging in Self-contradiction and presumably people want to avoid engaging in self-contradiction if they have respect for reason He notes in a footnote by the way To this point that David Friedman tried to make that that countless slaves have engaged in successful argumentation He says note the ambiguity of the word successful here. How many slaves have successfully argued their way to freedom? You know, well, okay, so here's here's Here's my thought on that first of all. I really admire Friedman. I've learned a lot from David Friedman Me too, but he isn't he is an inheritor of his father's positivism and his monism and Look hoppa in my view is a pioneer and I do believe in my I wrote an article in a law review in 1994 About hoppa's book and I I mentioned that he was a little bit unclear conflating Positive power with rights and But I want to just make clear for everybody the book is the theory of socialism and capitalism No, it was a second book. Oh the economics ethics of private property Yeah, so that's what I reviewed. Okay. Yeah, and so I mean I thought it was an amazing book I think it's an amazing book. I think yeah Hans is a pioneer in this area He was basically reaching new territory and I think he he could have clarified his terminology in a couple of areas But where his critics seized upon him and said this means his whole thing can be rejected I think I think you could easily correct it and clarify. It's not a big not not really a big problem The slave example for example Um, first of all here, we have David Friedman who's an anarchist who presumably Opposes slavery just like I and you and Hans and every good person does I don't know what so what's the disagreement really is Hans Hans's argument if you formulate it as I try to do in my many attempts to explicate it and defend it It's rooted in this universalizability principle, which is that you cannot treat someone differently without a good reason Okay, but what that means is that two people trying to get together to solve a problem or a community trying to solve a problem We all presume that we're in similar that we are similarly situated. We all have rationality. We are humans We all are dealing with the world's scarce resources. We all want to live together in society Then we have to formulate rules that take this into account This does not mean that you can't take into account the fact that sometimes things are different So for example if I wanted to enslave you I Couldn't have a good reason for that because I am claiming freedom for myself But I'm saying that you don't deserve freedom even though we're similarly situated Okay, the only difference would be what the opposite of universalizability is called particularizability Like everyone says it's just me like I can hit you but you can't hit me and everyone knows that would never be an argument They could work that could help or achieve any kind of Consensus that could help us all live together Okay, however, if you have a reason to treat someone differently that's grounded in the nature of things Then you could appeal to that. That's objective. That's what the Confian's called intersubjectively You know ascertainable the ascertainable right, okay, so If someone has actually committed an act of aggression against me You know, let's say some guy attacks your farm and he's going on a rampage shooting your animals shooting your people You might imprison the guy for a little while to just keep him under control So he might be in a jail cell in your house Until you call the local Legal system, I don't know and you might have a conversation with the guy and He might say how can you justify keeping me imprisoned when you're free and The answer would be because you just attacked my family. In other words, there's a reason and So the point is that the fact that slaves can factually argue with people And even sometimes in a just situation doesn't imply That Hoppe is wrong. He might have overstated when he said that you can't argue unless you're free It's possible for a slave owner a master to own a slave and to have an argument with him It is true. It is true, but he could not justify the enslavement of the slave unless he had a good reason If they're equally situated he could not come up with a reason that he's just a piece. He's keeping the guy enslaved You know, that's the main argument Well, and then he goes on to say van done consider on the one hand a master who enjoys debating the justifiability of slavery with His slaves after dinner and then sends them back to their cage no matter what the outcome of the discussion may be Consider on the other hand a master who frees his slaves after being exposed to the argument that slavery is not justifiable Which of the two takes argumentation? Seriously, which of the two acts as a rational being you know, so that So anyway, he's got this is a this paper really needs to be read to He he says no one should take this type of argumentation seriously because it's not a genuine argumentation But anyway, we've gone on quite some time and I want to let people digest some of this And I want anybody who is intrigued by this who thinks okay. I think there's something here There's a core of something here that I want to know more about I want to refer them to Tom woods comm slash 370 because there you'll see quite a number of links to what Stefan has done on this subject We'll also take you to the original writings by Hans himself and some other material So this will be your one-stop shop for learning more about this subject If you do you have any parting words for a Stefan as people go out and venture to learn more about this No, the only parting word I would say is that the the essence of libertarianism is to be Honest to be for liberty to be to be in favor of your fellow man's well-being To be consistent to have a little bit of economic literacy and all those things are the Really the basis of any consistent libertarian persons view of the world and that's completely compatible with and complimentary to Hoplitz approach to argumentation ethics. So I would suggest people just consider a little bit philosophical approach to undergirding their basic intuitions about liberty Well, Stefan, I appreciate your time helping us to understand this When I first read Hans on this as a I don't know a college student I confess I didn't understand it at all and then I read your explanations of it Such that when I went to go give a talk on this in Philadelphia. I gave a talk on rights various rights theories Ten minutes before I went on stage. I was on my cell phone Desperately calling you saying all right wait wait. Have I got it now? Really got it. You were the member. I remember. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. That was about I remember. Thank you That was about I think that was 2009 you can dig that up I think it's a series of videos on where do rights come from and then I talk about argumentation ethics in one of the lessons over at Ron Paul homeschool.com in my course on Government so I have you to thank for helping me to understand this and for spending time with us today. Thanks again Thank you. All right, everybody on the show notes page Tom Woods comm slash 370 Not only will you find many resources related to the subject we covered today, but I'm also linking to the free ebook I keep telling you guys about called 14 hard questions for libertarians answered It's a good meaty ebook It'll give you a lot of good arguments to help you in debates and you can get it for free in a Kindle Edition in EPUB and as a PDF whatever you prefer So please check that out on the show notes page Tom Woods comm slash 370. Thanks for listening everybody We'll see you tomorrow The Tom Woods show You