Thread by @Fitnessopher

I was thusly asked to defend the proposition that property rights are objectively derived:

Colleague: "Even the basics of property rights are not some immutable set of objective facts about the universe."

My response:

It's an immutable neurological fact that humans have a hard-wired "moral/ethical structure of mind", similar to our "logical structure of mind" that cannot comprehend contradictions.

Babies, for example, demonstrate ethical behavior, but lack an ego that chooses, so the behavior is clearly instinctual (and obviously we see such things among animals, as well). This is supported by the current understandings of neurology, as well.

So while you can argue as to what form ethics take (eliminating any formulations that demonstrate inconsistency or falsifiability, of course), it can't be feasibly denied that they are rooted in instinct, the existence of which is an objective fact about our reality.

We then note that ethics itself lacks any meaning outside of free-willed human egos. Rocks and lions cannot commit criminal aggression, after all. So whatever form the objective ethic must take (and that we seek to discover), it presupposes the existence of an ego.

Egos, however, are integrated into bodies. Bodies require resources for sustenance.

So have determined that ethics objectively exist, and require egos, which require bodies, which require consumption of resources.

For this to be possible, some ego must be acknowledged as the final/ultimate controller of some resource. In this case, the resource we are considering is the body itself (that is, in this formulation, rights accrue to egos; bodies are considered a tool utilized by the ego).

There are only 4 possible formulations as to who has this ultimate control over the body into which a specific ego is integrated (to which we shall randomly assign the word "ownership"):

1. No one (nihilism); 2. the integrated ego (self-ownership); 3. some other ego and not the integrated ego (slavery); and 4. multiple (possibly all) egos in common.

1 is falsified by the existence of an objective neurological hard-wiring which gives rise to ethics and morality. 3 is falsified by inconsistency, i.e. an inability to be generalized accross the set of all egos (because masters have rights that slaves do not);

4 is falsified by the impossibility of multiple egos having ultimate control (for they might disagree, then whoever prevails is the actual "owner").

So we see by this analysis that the only non-falsifiable position is 2, self-ownership.

So in fact the Self Ownership Principle (in caps because it has a formal stature in my system of philosophy, The Heroic Ethic) is a properly derived logical conclusion based on objective premises.

Note: regarding the is/ought dichotomy, I must point out that nowhere above do I prescribe any "oughts". I merely say that is IS murder to kill someone unprovoked, and that it IS rape to force sexual congress upon someone.

Whether you OUGHT to do these things is up to you (though I can make a formal argument as to why not doing them results in greater individual & social utility).

This analysis can be extended further to infer property rights outside the body, but the thread is long enough, no? 🙂

Relevant excerpt from his response:

"Alex Rosenberg makes the claim that group selection through game-theoretic conditions select for pro-social behavior as, what Rosenberg calls, "core morality," which is universally shared by all cultures *to some degree.*

However, 1. This core morality is contingent on selection pressures, and there is no fundamental reason these pressures should be the same across all worlds.

2. The same selection mechanism instills a core moral ethic that includes values, which can become anti-social and outlive their adaptive value, e.g., irrational love, uncontrollable jealousy, pointless vengefulness, "male-patriarchy," & tribalism/racism/identity politics.

As such, this morality is not based on objective facts. Again, this morality is part of the fabric of being a human being within a particular world with contingent selection pressures."

My response:

I don't deny that there are some social selection pressures (e.g. marriage). But I'm arguing that there's a moral structure of mind. To point out that there are other pressures or even instincts as well is entirely irrelevant to, & does not invalidate, my argument.

In this regard, I feel like my point is made by the fact that babies and animals demonstrate specific ethical behaviors, e.g. reciprocity (fairness) being a trait hard-wired into humans that chimpanzees lack (see attached video, only about 90 seconds):