 Welcome everyone to the 2019 Mises University lecture that is devoted to Hans-Hem and Hoppe's argumentation theory of ethics. Before starting in earnest, let me maybe introduce a problem that I faced while I was preparing this lecture for you. I assume that we all know the gist of Hoppe's argument that people cannot argue against self-ownership rights and property rights without running thereby into performative contradiction. But in philosophy there is very famous question that is known as the omnipotence paradox. So the question is whether God can create a stone so heavy that he cannot himself lift it. And now whatever we answer we see that there is a problem with the concept of omnipotence. So if we answer that God could not create such a stone, obviously he would not be an omnipotent being. If he on the other hand could create such a stone, he wouldn't be omnipotent being either because then he would create something he wouldn't be able to lift. And I was actually realizing that very similar problem can be formulated about argumentation ethics. That although we know that people cannot argue against self-ownership rights, I was wondering whether God could argue against self-ownership rights without running thereby into performative contradiction. And when I was thinking about this problem, I quickly realized what is the answer to this question. And the answer is basically that if he tried, he would be the God that failed. Thank you. So that's the first success today. Well, in Poland we don't have really this sort of custom of selling jokes during lectures. So I really did my best to come up with a new joke. So I appreciate your laughter. That encourages me a lot. So maybe let me start with introducing the structure of my lecture. So first of all, I will try to set a stage for the argument. And by doing it, you will, I guess, realize I'll be following in some respects two thinkers that formulated the problem in a similar way that is Robert Nozick on the one hand in a more libertarian friendly way and in a more critical way that was Gerald Cohen. And then I will present Hopper's argument as I see that in my interpretation of this argument as a sort of solution to this challenge that I set at the beginning of my presentation. And then I will move from my view on my reading of Hopper's argument into how it was presented recently by the author himself. And I think the fact that I will first introduce my reading of this argument will make his presentation of the argument, which is definitely more nuanced and profound philosophically than my own reading, maybe more accessible. And at the end, if we have enough time, I will move to some of the main criticisms of argumentation ethics that have been presented in the literature. Yeah, so without any further due, let me start my lecture. When Hopper was presenting his argumentation ethics in 2016 lecture given during the conference for property and freedom society, he said at the beginning of the lecture that his audience should now expect something that, unfortunately, on Saturday nights would be called deep thoughts. So my goal in this lecture is to render these deep thoughts as accessible and perlucid as possible without at the same time losing too much of the depth of Hopper's theory. And I guess also, which is sort of inevitable, to filter his theory through my interpretation thereof. And I believe that the first step to understand Hopper's argument, to understand argumentation ethics, is to realize very simple fact that argumentation ethics is a solution to a very specific problem. And therefore, to understand, to comprehend Hopper's argument, we should first realize and understand what is the problem that this argument is a solution to. And that would be preferable, in my opinion, to understand this problem in a slightly broader context than maybe the argument itself would suggest that is appropriate. So what is this problem? Well, suppose that we live in a purely free market society. Imagine further that there is a critic, let's say a socialist, who complains about vast inequalities in resource distribution that, in his opinion, exist in our society. He thinks that the fact that capitalist and entrepreneur hold vast resources, whereas manual workers and other professions have much less, is the reason to believe that our society is deeply unjust and unfair. So he wants to know what is the justification for such distribution of resources? What is the justification for such as he believes discrepancies in the distribution of wealth existing in our society? He wants to know what gives the title, what gives these capitalist and entrepreneurs the title to hold these resources that they actually hold on the free market? What gives them the right to have such vast assets? Well, at least at first glance, this question does not seem to be particularly difficult to answer. We could basically say that what gives these capitalist and entrepreneurs titles, the resources that they actually hold on the free market, is basically the fact that they received these titles from previous owners, who voluntarily and freely exchanged them for the superior services and goods offered to them by these capitalist and entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, a moment of reflection suffices to realize that our imaginary socialist would not be satisfied with this sort of answer. If he is only slightly deeper thinker than we thought he was at the beginning, he will ask a further question. He will want to know what gave these previous owners the title to hold the resources that they held and then exchanged with these capitalist and entrepreneurs. Of course, we could basically sort of repeat our original answer by saying that these previous owners also received the titles from still previous owners in exchange for some services and some goods that they were willing to offer to these still previous owners. But it will become clear at that stage, both for our socialist opponent and for ourselves, that this sort of justification of the free market distribution of resources cannot go like that at infinity. That it must stop somewhere and that it must stop with the original holders of resources, who themselves didn't receive these resources from previous owners, but who basically took them from nature. Our socialist opponent, who at that stage occurred to be much deeper thinker than we probably thought at the very beginning, will proceed with his investigations and he would like to know what gave a right, what gave these original holders of raw materials a right to basically take these materials from nature and at the same time, which is, I guess, crucial, to exclude all other people from enjoying these resources, from using them or taking them. So he would like to know what is the justification for something that we would call original acquisition of raw materials. Well, at that stage, as you know, we would have a few answers available to us. But I suspect that whatever the answer we would like to choose, this answer will ultimately refer to the claim that these original holders of raw materials were self-owners, that they had self-ownership rights, that they had rights, property rights to their own bodies. And therefore, by taking these natural resources from the state of nature, they created something that Hoppe calls an objective link between something that they already owned, that is, between their bodies and their persons, and these natural resources on the other hand, and thereby created a title to these resources. Well, at that stage, of course, it will become obvious and clear that the entire justification of the free market distribution of resources ultimately depends on the truth of the claim that original holders of raw materials are or were self-owners. And although the claim might seem and might be commonsensical and might be intuitive, we might be even willing to say that the claim itself is obvious. What is more, our socialist opponent could at least at first sort of take on the problem also share this opinion with us. He will realize one further fact that because this is the claim that justifies the entire distribution of resources in the free market, the distribution that he thinks is deeply unjust and unequal, he will then think that there must be something problematic about this first principle of libertarian justice that is principle of self-ownership, and he would like to know what is the justification for this principle, or at least he will think, and I think he might be justified in this thinking, that the question about the justification of this principle is due. And this is exactly at that stage that argumentation ethics makes its original contribution, contribution as I understand it. So what is this contribution made by argumentation ethics? In a nutshell, contribution is to show that this first principle of libertarian justice that is principle of self-ownership does not require any further justification or any further proof in a sense of being derived from some previous premises or from some previous theories about, let's say, human nature, as Rothbard would like to have it, or from some claims about the nature of the world or about God, I mentioned at the beginning, or any other metaphysical anthropological claims, because any denial, any attempt at debunking this claim, the debunking this first principle of libertarian justice, would run into sort of contradiction, and therefore could not possibly be true, because nothing that is contradictory could possibly be true. So we can say that the contribution, that the relevance of argumentation ethics is absolutely profound, because it tries to provide ultimate, apodictic, a priori justification of the first principle of libertarian justice, the principle from which we can derive all further claims about just property titles to the resources that in the process of the development of the society we hold, or we might hold. So now the question would be basically how this argument, how this argumentation, ethics argument works, how this demonstration that any possible denial of the first principle of libertarian justice would inevitably run into contradiction would look like. And to see that, to see how this demonstration operates, I would suppose further that this original holder of raw materials with whom our socialist, our imaginary socialist, is arguing about the justification of the first principle of libertarian justice, that is the principle of self-ownership, is hopper. So what would hopper's response to our socialist challenge look like? And please let's assume that he would show mercy to our socialist opponent, and not call the physical removal service. So what would his response look like? Well, I suppose, and I believe that hopper would first of all point out that by taking an action of presenting a claim that the proposition that hopper is a self-owner is false, our socialist opponent would thereby demonstrate that his goal is to solve the disagreement about the truth value of this initial proposition that hopper is a self-owner in the cause of argumentation. And that would be the first step in argumentation ethics argument as I see it. The first step, the socialist goal is to solve the initial disagreement about the truth value of the proposition that hopper has self-ownership rights in the cause of argumentation. I think what's important to realize at that stage is that this step is, well, at least as I see that, uncontroversial and unproblematic. It is obvious that the socialist is taking an action. It is obviously that thereby he has to have a purpose and that the characterization of this action strongly suggests that this goal is to solve the initial disagreement in the cause of argumentation. Well, he's already providing arguments. He's already providing reasons. He's already asking questions. He's already suggesting that there is something wrong with this initial statement. So the first step does not seem to me to be controversial at all. Second of all, I believe that hopper would point out that argumentation is the opposite of physical force. That is, it is a peaceful as opposite to violent form of solving initial disagreements about the truth value of a given proposition. In this case, the proposition that hopper is a self-owner by providing reasons and giving evidence. So the second step in the argument, as I see it, is the following. Argumentation is the opposite of violence. Now, again, this step does not seem to be controversial at all. And for two reasons. First of all, if you think about any proposition, any disagreement, excuse me, any disagreement about the truth value of a given proposition. Let's take any silly or trivial proposition like the proposition that the earth is round. If there is any controversy about this proposition, we immediately know that it is possible to solve this disagreement, that is disagreement whether it is the case as this proposition says, whether the proposition is true, only by providing reasons, giving evidence, developing arguments. And it is just unthinkable or impossible to solve this disagreement by hitting our opponent, by threatening him, by bribing him, etc., etc. So basically argumentation is the only way in which we can solve this type of disagreement. And second of all, I think that is also an important point. If you take any independent source, let's use this phrase. So if you take any book on rhetoric or argumentation theory or communication, an important book on these subjects, these books that don't have nothing to do with Hoppe's argument, you'll see that in these books argumentation is exactly defined as the opposite of physical force, as the opposite of violence. So I also consider this step absolutely unproblematic in his argument. Then from these two steps, in a pretty straightforward and obviously valid inference and reasoning, Hoppe would derive, as I understand it, the third step of his argument. The third step would be basically combining these two steps and pointing out that by taking an action of presenting a claim that the proposition that Hoppe is a self-owner is false, our socialist opponent would thereby demonstrate that his goal is to solve the initial disagreement without resorting to violence against Hoppe. This basically seems to me to follow from these two steps. So the third step that can be also called an intermediate conclusion is therefore in order to achieve his goal, the socialist also, sorry, excuse me, in order to achieve his goal of solving the initial disagreement, excuse me of course, therefore socialist goal is to solve the initial disagreement without resorting to violence against Hoppe. Now at this stage we can of course ask a question which would be very straightforward question. So what should socialists do in order to achieve his goal? And it will become clear to us the answer to this question will be that the socialist should not resort to violence, or in other words that the socialist should abstain from using violence against Hoppe in order to achieve his goal, the goal being of solving the initial disagreement in the course of argumentation that is without resorting without resorting to violence. This step is actually even weird to make this step because it seems so trivial. It looks like a bit even tautological. So we would say that the step number four will be therefore in order to achieve his goal, socialist ought to abstain from resorting to violence against Hoppe. But now to say that the socialist ought not to use violence against Hoppe in order to achieve his goal is basically to say that there is some sort of norm that forbids the socialist from using violence against Hoppe. And the socialist of course demonstrated that this is his goal. But what is the most important part of this realization I think is that as we already saw it in previous steps because any truth claim about any truth value about the truth value of any proposition can be presented only in the course of argumentation. So this would be the socialist goal anytime he would like to deny the truth of the proposition that Hoppe is a self-owner. So this is unavoidable or inevitable for the socialist to be the case that in order to solve the disagreement in the course of argumentation he ought to abstain from using violence against Hoppe. Well but to say, and I think this is the crucial point now, but to say that there is a norm that forbids the socialist from the use of violence against Hoppe, to say that he ought to abstain from the use of violence against Hoppe is basically to say that Hoppe has a right or has a moral claim, this is exactly what we understand the word right as a moral claim, that violence is not used against him. So we can formulate the step number five. However, to say that the socialist ought not use violence against Hoppe or to say that there is a norm that forbids socialists from using violence against Hoppe in order to achieve his goal is to say that Hoppe has a right that the socialist does not use violence against him. Now of course our rights that other people don't use violence against us are properly called what self-ownership rights. So having made these steps we can arrive at our conclusion in the argumentation ethics argument. So the conclusion would be that therefore in order to achieve his goal by solving the initial disagreement in the course of argumentation as our socialist imaginary socialist opponent demonstrated that it is his goal he ought to abstain from using violence which basically means that he has to recognize Hoppe's self-ownership rights. So the conclusion therefore in order to present a claim that Hoppe does not have self-ownership rights in the course of argumentation, which is the only way to do it, our socialist opponent has to recognize Hoppe's self-ownership rights. That is his right that the violence is not used against him. And we can already see that it means that our socialist opponent is entangled in a sort of contradiction, a contradiction that we normally call a performative contradiction. That is contradiction that happens between the content of the claim and the act of making this claim or the necessary presuppositions of the act of making this claim or what Hoppe likes to call in his mother tongue Bedingu the Mergleschkeite, conditions of possibility of making of an act of making this claim. And this is exactly what happens in this case because we see that the content of the claim is that Hoppe does not have self-ownership rights whereas necessary presuppositions of the act of making this claim is recognition of Hoppe's self-ownership rights. So therefore it seems to be the case that argumentation ethics provides an ultimate justification for the first principle of libertarian justice that is for the principle of self-ownership. That is it shows that this principle does not have to be derived from any previous premises or any previous theories because any attempt to deny this principle will run into performative contradiction and therefore could not possibly be true. So yeah in a nutshell this is how I see argumentation ethics argument working. Maybe already at this stage some of you who are familiar with the argument and who are familiar with the debate over the argument can realize that the way I presented the argument is very different from many criticisms that were presented in the literature against this argument and I will refer to that later on during my lecture but I would like to point out at this stage that these criticisms very often are misconceived of this argument presented by Hoppe. They hinge on the idea that what is crucial in this argument is the claim that in order for me in order to argue I have to have some control over my body to make an argument. That might be true but this does not seem to me to be really the main point that Hoppe is making in his argumentation ethics argument. His main point is that there is sort of intention in the fact of taking an action of a specific sort on the part of our imaginary socialist and that it renders him submitted to a norm that violence against his interlocutor ought not to be used and that this fact actually makes us to conclude that our interlocutor has self-honority rights, that his rights, that violence is not used against him and these rights do not necessarily have anything to do with the claim whether our interlocutor has full or partial control over his body. He might have had that but at the moment of argumentation it does not seem to me to be a necessary condition. Okay so this is the way I see argumentation ethics and now I think that would be in order to see how Hoppe himself presents his argument. As I said I think his presentation is much more nuanced and profound. It might also be more open for alternative interpretations than the one I have just presented but I believe that because we sort of went through my way of understanding the argument and steps that I presented it might be now easier to appreciate the depth of Hoppe's original argument. So let me now present the argument as it has been presented in the last lecture 2016 given exclusively about this topic that is argumentation ethics by Hoppe himself. So Hoppe's formulation of the argument and I will comment on these steps in the meantime. So the first step is basically that all claims that a given proposition on argument is true, false, indeterminate, incomplete, etc are raised and justified and decided in the course of argumentation. And we already can see that this point is involved in my first step when I pointed out that the socialist is taking a specific action and that the specific action of solving the initial disagreement in the course of argumentation is unavoidable for him as far as the justification of his position is concerned. Then Hoppe would say that the truth of the proposition number one, the above proposition, cannot be disputed in the course of argumentation because such a critique itself would have to come in the form of argumentation. This point, this is called a priori of argumentation and you can already see that this point is much stronger than what I did in my presentation. So Hoppe says that the first proposition cannot be denied pains of falling into performative contradiction, whereas I said that this claim seems to me to be absolutely uncontroversial and unproblematic. So I made a slightly different point in my presentation than Hoppe but I don't really think that much hinges upon this difference. Then Hoppe would say that would be the third step in his argumentation, ethics argument that argumentation is not free floating sounds but a human action employing physical means in order to reach a specific goal, the attainment of agreement concerning the truth value of a specific propositional argument. And again you can see that this claim was already involved in my first step. So my first step is sort of combining two premises, Hoppe's first step and Hoppe's second step. From these steps Hoppe would move to step number four that every argumentation is a conflict free mutually agreed upon and peaceful form of interaction aimed at resolving the initial disagreement about the true value of a given proposition. And this is obvious this is our step number two when we said that argumentation is the opposite of physical force or the argumentation is the opposite of violence. In the step number five Hoppe says that the validity of norms that make the argumentation between a proponent and an opponent possible in which he calls praxeological presuppositions cannot be argumentatively disputed without falling into performative contradiction. This might be called an a priori of normative presuppositions of argumentation. I didn't make this step because I combined it with next step in which Hoppe identifies. And this is actually the point which shows what's the difference between Hoppe and his predecessors like Jürgen Habermas or Carlotta Appel. A philosophy of these philosophers is actually inspiration for Hoppe's argument when he identifies what sorts of norms actually are praxeological presuppositions of any active argumentation because these are basically libertarian norms. So he says that these norms that is praxeological presuppositions of argumentation that make argumentation possible each person is entitled to exclusive control of his own physical body so as to be able to act independently etc etc and the second that each person is entitled to the respective prior possessions of external resources. And another difference is already visible. I was talking only about the first norm. I was talking only about the self-ownership principle whereas Hoppe is trying to justify by his argument both self-ownership rights and property to external resources. Well in my personal opinion that would be enough to justify only self-ownership principle and then because then we can basically derive property rights to external resources from this principle. So that's why I basically decided not to make my argument in such a strong way as Hoppe made it but in a slightly weaker version when I focus only on self-ownership rights. Yeah and the final step in Hoppe's argument is that any argument to the contrary against these norms these libertarian norms etc etc will run into a performative contradiction and this is what Hoppe calls a priori of property rights or a priori of libertarian property rights. What we mean by that is of course a priori of self-ownership and property rights to external resources. So this is original formulation of Hoppe's argument and I think the last move that I would like to make in my lecture is to focus now on some of the main criticisms that have been presented in the literature against argumentation ethics. So one of the main arguments that was presented says Hoppe did not prove that it would be contradictory to argue that our interlocutor does not own his body at most he proved that it would be contradictory to argue that our interlocutor does not own these body parts that are essential for engaging in argumentation for example mouth brain maybe also some other body parts etc but since for example legs or arms are not are not essential for arguing although as you can see in my case they are essential so because they are not essential for arguing there would be no contradiction in saying that our interlocutor's legs are not his property. Well as far as I'm concerned I would be inclined to say that this criticism misfires and we can see why if we come back to the way the argument was presented I don't really think that Hoppe is making any such points about essential parts of body that are engaged in the argumentation note that Hoppe's argument does not say anything about body parts essential or inessential for argumentation right we've just seen the Hoppe's point his argument only says that one ought to abstain from using violence in order to argue or in order to solve the initial the initial disagreement in the course of argumentation and obviously injuring some injuring someone's legs or someone's arms would undeniably constitute a violent action and so would put an end to an argumentative and peaceful ways of solving disagreements and conflicts so in order to argue one ought to abstain from using violence against all body parts essential and inessential right and this is this this is this point that I was hint hinting at during my presentation of Hoppe's argument that sometimes he is charged with this charge that he does not distinguish clearly between what is a right of property from what is basically a fact of controlling some resource well the truth is that his formulation of argumentation ethics was basically changing over the years so if we if we take his first writings it would be formulated slightly differently than it was formulated in 2016 but I think that charitable interpretation of what he was what he was saying would basically require that we interpret his argumentation as his argument as an argument about property rights and property rights I would say have to be understood in terms of our normative protection against other people using physical force against us right or what we call interference with our enjoyment of of particular particular resources so this is very different argument and it seems to me not to be really susceptible to this sort of this sort of criticism well the second sort of critique that has been presented in the literature against argumentation ethics says that the first sentence is actually a quotation one is not necessarily the rightful owner of a piece of property even if control of it is necessary in a debate over its ownership as I understand as I understand this argument it says that from the fact that Peter's control of a given resource in this case Peter's body is necessary for Peter in order to engage in argumentation it does not follow that Peter has ownership rights to Peter's body well this is true as far as it goes this also might be a good argument for some other reasons that we basically are not really able to present any argument or any argumentation if we don't have a at least partial control of our body but again this counter argument seems to me to misfire against the proper formulation of Hobbes argumentation ethics argument because again Hobbit does not rely on any any such claims Hobbit does not say in my opinion that because use or control over Peter's body is necessary for Peter to argue therefore Peter owns his body this is not the argument as I understand it the argument seems to me to be that because Peter ought to abstain from using violence against Paul in order to solve the initial disagreement in the course of argumentation therefore Paul not Peter but therefore Paul has rights against violence being used against him rights that we are properly called self-ownership rights and these rights are to Paul's body not to Peter body and but because argumentation is an exchange then the same argument would operate on the part of Paul let's say in favor of Peter but but the argument would be made in a very different way so the reasoning would be because let's say that that I am now arguing with you because I want to solve our initial disagreement about whether argumentation ethics is a sound philosophy or not in the course of argumentation therefore I ought to abstain from using violence against you that would result in the conclusion that you have rights that violence is not used against you that is you have rights that we are properly called self-ownership rights so far I would not say anything about my rights and only because you would be engaging in the argumentation with me then that would constitute sort of or would grant the recognition of rights on my part whereas this criticism seems to me to be to be suggesting that the argument operates in a way in the following way that because for me to make an argument I have to have a control or use of my body otherwise that would be impossible therefore I have property rights to my body I would I would suggest that this is not the way that is the the the way I hope this argument works in my opinion is or at least a charitable interpretation of this argument would be would be different would be I guess this one I suggested in my reading of this argument well another criticism is that the Hopper's argument is refuted by experience since many slaves argued with each other and with the masters and obviously slaves don't have property rights to the bodies well I think again that this criticism does not really reach its goal its target because Hopper's argument as as we could could see is about justifying or justification of specific norms so he that's the argument that we would be willing to call an argument about moral rights or natural rights if you will whereas this criticism in the form as it is presented seems to me to be talking about legal rights or what we would call positive rights obviously that it's not really difficult to imagine that the question about moral rights that is rights that that are justified rationally or that are justified by reason might be very different from rights that are backed up with sanction and specifically with the state sanction they they don't have to overlap and very often they don't overlap I would say in majority of cases they don't they don't overlap right so this argument as it is presented does not seem to me to be reaching the target which is basically a Hopper's Hopper's point okay so we have four minutes left I can have some further criticisms but maybe I will stop here to take questions except more consequential right so if we can't derive physical property rights from self ownership a priori then it seems like if we accept your arguments in your presentation you're saying that like actual like physical initiations of violence are precluded but we can't preclude a priori things like fraud right or even just things like breaking into somebody's house and stealing from them so those property rights if they can't be shown a priori then it seems like that's that's almost even if it doesn't disprove this argument it seems that it relegates the significance of it to a much lower level what do you think yeah that's that's a very good question or maybe I should have said a very good set of questions so yeah and thank you for that I would I would I think I would agree with some points that probably well there might be the case and some philosophers would argue that it is the case that derivation of property rights to external resources from the otherwise obvious or self-evident or whatever self-ownership principle might be susceptible to different sorts of criticisms and that the reasoning in the lock-in tradition is not necessarily a you know purely logical derivation so for instance such an argument is made by a healer's healer steiner in his nesting rights and also other other philosophers but I would disagree with this part when you suggested that this derivation would be consequentialist I think as I understand lock-in position and maybe one more remark I don't really think that we are we can be sure that Hoppe would subscribe the lock-in a labour theory of original appropriation sometimes he suggests specifically in earlier writings that he's sort of a friend of a labour theory of first acquisition whereas in later writings like in this lecture 2016 he explicitly talks about the principle of first possessions and then these are two different theories of first acquisition right so one is lock-in another is I think is a roman so romans believed that we acquire originally property rights to external resources by taking first possession of these resources but setting this controversy aside and coming back to my main point I would say that it does not lock-in tradition now it does not seem to me to be consequential a consequentialist as I understand this this argument it looks like that we own our bodies which if Hoppe's right has been proved apodictically and a priori and by mixing our labour with external resources what we are doing we are basically attaching parts of our body to the resource because labour is nothing else than a matter of our body transformed into energy so my personal belief is there's nothing problematic about the idea of owning one's labour although I know some scholars think that this idea should be jettisoned because I think that labour is nothing else there's nothing else than our the matter of our body transformed into energy and attached to something and now if someone comes and takes this resource from us he will inevitably take with it something take with it something that undeniably and by definition was our property so he will take this part of our body that was attached or to these resources or with which these resources were infused so he will commit a theft so it seems to me to be the ontological reasoning rather than stemming sort of derivation so the material deduction from the principle of ownership then consequentialist argument although consequential argument independently can be of course made for the same purpose if this discussion took place in a hypothetical future pre-society where most likely most property rights wouldn't have been very originary due to like all the misallocation of resources that had occurred during the course of time you know yes so well you know I guess that's that's that's a very profound question and difficult to answer frankly I don't know whether I can answer it I will just point out that in countries like Poland for instance that were coming through a transformation from communism to so-called partly at least free society we all face these problems right so because everything was so intertwined and difficult really to put our fingers on you know who should own what then how to really deal with this transformation uh that's a very tough question although I think this question is categorically different than purely philosophical questions because we know what are true principles we know how to derive other principles from them or other theorems from them now only the question is how to learn uh in a empirical situation a specific case how these principles apply to a specific case this seems to me not to be a philosophical question uh it looks like cybernetics maybe more and uh for for judges uh on the free market judges would have to decide such might be yeah I don't know whether we have time for any other questions rather not so uh after the lecture I'm available to you uh thank you very much