Editor’s Note: Not all libertarians agree with argumentation ethics, and it does not represent the viewpoint of the staff as a whole, however, we are pleased to present an array of libertarian viewpoints on our site.
Introduction
The world is plagued with conflict and instability. People are constantly looking for solutions to the problem of social conflict, but obviously whatever the solution is to solving much of the conflict it has yet to be implemented. Fortunately, it can already be known what the solution to social conflict is: Respecting private property rights.
Libertarianism offers the solution to physical conflict through the private property ethic. While there are many theories as to how to justify the private property ethic, e.g., utilitarianism and natural law, there is one that provides an argument that cannot be consistently denied. This ethics is called Argumentation Ethics. In this article I will concisely explain how the ethics can only be denied with performative contradiction.
Truth
First, let’s examine the very basis of all intellectual activity: finding truth. The only way to find truth is to exchange propositions with another person for the purpose of finding truth. The reason why is because the idea of validity, especially of norms, only arises when the above occurs. Realize that one cannot consistently deny the previous statements. If they do, then they would be engaging in an exchange of propositions for the purpose of finding truth, i.e., they would be engaging in a performative contradiction. It might also be objected that monologues could be used to find truth, but a monologue must use propositions, i.e, argumentative means. A person in a monologue cannot raise and defend truth-claims.
The speakers must have the intent of finding truth when exchanging truth-claims, otherwise the venture would not be a truth-finding venture. Thus it follows that there must be certain rules that have to be followed to find truth. We can call this venture argumentation or discourse.
Argumentation is nothing more than an exchange of truth claims and questions between at least two reason-using beings, i.e. speakers, who must follow certain norms, i.e., rules concerning human interaction, in which they raise, defend, and try to prove as valid or invalid truth claims for the purpose of seeking truth.
There are 2 more facts that must be pointed out.
1) Argumentation “is by its nature an activity aimed at finding truth” (to deny it would be stating a truth claim and contradicting one’s claim)1, thus if one wants to justify a truth claim then the truth claim must be raised and decided in argumentation (one cannot argue that one cannot argue).
2) “[I]t must be assumed that everyone knows what it means to claim something to be true…” (cannot be said otherwise without contradiction.)2
The result of this is what is called the “a priori of argumentation,” and it states that one cannot argue that one cannot argue.
The Norms of Argumentation
We can now find the norms that are implied in argumentation that must be presupposed as justified to find truth. The first norm that will be addressed it the universability principle, i.e., “ a proposition claims universal acceptability.” As Hoppe further points out, “Indeed, as argumentation implies that everyone who can understand an argument must in principle be able to be convinced of it simply because of its argumentative force…”3
This simply means that a suggested norm saying “not you, but I,” a norm that uses different norms for different people without using objective reasons, is not justifiable. For example, a norm claiming that it would be justifiable to arrest soccer fans who drink alcohol but not football fans who drink alcohol is immediately shown as unjustifiable since it does not abide by the universalizability principle.
The next norm that can be discussed is the principle of body ownership, often called self-ownership.4 In a land of milk and honey where there is an abundance of everything people need there will still be scarcity, i.e., there can be physical conflicts over the resources, of bodies and standing space.
When two people engage in argumentation they must respect the other’s exclusive use of their body. If they don’t then the activity they are engaged in is no longer about finding truth. At least one person’s intent is something else if this norm is not followed and not presupposed as justified. At the very least, they must be able to, in principle, agree to disagree on everything else. Hence, the prima facie right to the exclusive use of one’s body must be accepted as justified if anybody is to engage in argumentation.
The often talked about non-aggression principle can now be seen as a derivative of the principle of body ownership. The non-aggression principle is “it is not justifiable to violate anybody’s (property) rights (intentionally or negligently).”5
Additionally, the function of property rights in bodies is physical conflict avoidance about bodies. Property rights in bodies allows people to have justifiable exclusive control over their body, thus avoiding physical conflict. This solves the social problem of conflict over bodies.
Any further norms must be compatible with the principle of body ownership and the nonaggression principle. With that in mind we should now envision a world of scarcity in external resources, like the world we live in.
Any resources that a person can have property rights in must be scarce, e.g., a body. The reason for this is clear in three ways.
1) Any norms concerning external resources must be compatible with property rights in bodies, as previously mentioned. A body is a scarce, contestable resource, and any external resource that can have justifiable property rights in it must also be scarce.
2) Property rights in non-scarce resources are simply property rights in scarce resources. For example, if somebody claimed property rights in a song, then they would also claim to have the right to stop another person from singing that song. However, what they truly would be saying is that they have property rights in the other person’s body, not property rights in the song, which is just a pattern of information.
3) The purpose of property rights is (physical) conflict avoidance. Since there can be no physical conflict over non-scarce resources, there is no purpose for having property rights in them.
The validity of property rights in external scarce resources must be presupposed in argumentation because if the speaker didn’t presuppose those norms concerning external scarce resources, e.g., food and water, then they would not have survived to argue.
An argument against property rights in external scarce resources is both self-defeating and selfrefuting. It is self-defeating in that if the speaker didn’t eat, drink, etc. then they wouldn’t be able to argue the claim. It is self-refuting in two ways. The first is that the speaker must presuppose in argumentation property rights in external scarce resources. They can try to deny this, but by virtue of having exclusively used external scarce resources to get to argumentation they must have supposed property rights in those scarce resources. The second way is that in argumentation each speaker must presuppose that it is justifiable to live. If they didn’t accept the validity of this norm then they would kill their self; however, even if they did kill their self that wouldn’t equal (argumentatively) justifying the norm of killing one’s self. Thus, since one must presuppose the norm as valid they must presuppose property rights in external scarce resources since not accepting this norm as valid would amount to death.6
Now comes into question how do we gain those property rights in external scarce resources?
There are three ways to gain property rights in external scarce resources, but we will only concern ourselves with two.7 The first method is homesteading.
Homesteading is “the transformation or embordering of a previously unowned resource, Lockean homesteading, the first use or possession of the thing,” i.e., first-use-first-own.8 The homesteader creates an objective link with a specific scarce resource that he or she can point to at a specific time and place for the purpose of showing ownership of the scarce resource. This is different from the objective link one has to their body, which is direct use. A body is always owned, but external scarce resources can be unowned.
There are two alternative ways of acquiring initial ownership of rights to homesteading, but both are not justifiable. They are the norm of arbitrarily claiming ownership of scarce resources, e.g. decreeing the moon is mine while I nor any of my resources have interacted with it, and the norm of the late comer. Luckily, it doesn’t take much to understand why both norms are deeply flawed.
The norm of arbitrarily claiming ownership of scarce resources is not compatible with the principle of body ownership and is at odds with the purpose of property rights. This norm would lead us to the conclusion that one can simply decree ownership of another person’s body without any objective link and then be the justifiable owner, and is in direct opposition to the prima facie right of body ownership. Furthermore, it would not resolve any conflicting claims of ownership. Any two people can claim ownership by decree of some piece of land, but since neither has an objective link to the land the conflict cannot be resolved. This property right norm fails to solve the problem of social conflict.
The norm that a late comer has a claim that is just as good or better than the first comer’s claim is at odds with norms that must be presupposed in argumentation as well. If a late comer had a claim that was as good as or better than a first comer’s claim then nobody could do anything with external scarce resources until a late comer came; however, the late comer and the first comer would then have to wait to use the external scarce resource since there might be another late comer. This would lead us all to stand around and do nothing. Ultimately, it would lead to death and prevent argumentation from occurring. As such, this norm of the late comer cannot be argumentatively justified.
The second norm of acquiring ownership of a external scarce resource is contractual exchange. A person can abandon ownership of an external scarce resource as they can alienate it. Following this, two people can abandon ownership of external scarce resources and exchange them. This exchange gives each an objective link to the scarce resources they received.
Conclusion
This assignment of property rights, the private property ethic, gives us a way to resolve and prevent physical conflict in the real world. Any ethics other than the libertarian ethic are not justifiable and would create conflict. Sadly, while billions of people abide by the private property ethic every day, nearly all still support ideologies that breed conflict and war.
Author’s Note: If you are interested in learning more about libertarian ethics that use the a priori of argumentation, you should read A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, all of the works I cited that are written by Stephan Kinsella, and papers written by Frank van Dun on Argumentation Ethics and Dialogue Ethics.
Kinsella, Stephan. “Punishment and Proportionality: The Estoppel Approach.” p. 55 https://mises.org/library/punishment-andproportionality-estoppel-approach-0. See also http://www.anarcho-libertarian.com/index.php/2016/06/26/argumentation-and-validity ↩
Hoppe, Hans-Hermann. “A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism.” p.154 ↩
Ibid, p. 157. ↩
I write body ownership instead of self-ownership because the “self” is vague and unclear but a body is concrete. We must be clear in our writing. If we aren’t it might lead to confusions and incorrect conclusions later. ↩
For more on negligence see “The Libertarian Approach to Negligence, Tort, and Strict Liability: Wergeld and Partial Wergeld” and “Causation and Aggression” by Stephan Kinsella. ↩
Jude Chua Soo Meng. “Hopp(e)ing Onto New Ground: A Rothbardian Proposal for Thomistic Natural Law as the Basis for Hans Hermann Hoppe’s Praxeological Defense of Private Property.” https://www.researchgate.net/publication/ 266453759_Hoppeing_Onto_New_Ground_A_Rothbardian_Proposal_for_Thomistic_Natural_Law_as_the_Basis_for_Hans_-Hermann_Hoppe’s_Praxeological_Defense_of_Private_Property. ↩
If you want to understand the third method of gaining property rights in external scarce resources then read “Punishment and Proportionality: the Estoppel Approach” and “A Libertarian Theory of Punishment and Rights” by Stephan Kinsella. ↩
Kinsella, Stephan. “What Libertarianism Is.” https://mises.org/library/what-libertarianism. ↩