DRAFT: RULES OF ETHICAL ARGUMENT 1) The set of positive or negative statements a

DRAFT: RULES OF ETHICAL ARGUMENT

1) The set of positive or negative statements alone is not a sufficient description of any moral rule.

If you cannot state both the positive and negative assertions you do not yet understand that which you claim.

Examples:

The right of association (positive) and the right of exclusion (negative).

The right to property (positive), the prohibition on free riding(negative).

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you (positive), do not unto others that you do not want done to you (negative).

2) If you cannot state your argument in operational language then you do not understand it sufficiently to make a truth claim.

Nothing “is”. The verb to-be is used to obscure one’s causal ignorance – man acts. Nothing “is” independent of action describing its conception.

3) Cooperation vs Free Riding.

(Undone:)

4) Morals: Moral rules prohibit free riding. Rules enumerating criminal, ethical, moral, conspiratorial and conquest prohibitions constitute the sets of prohibitions on free riding from the most individual and direct to the most collective and indirect.

5) Fully informed voluntary consent to transfer, is the only test of moral action. Any action causing transfer (imposing cost) without fully informed voluntary consent is immoral – a violation of the prohibition on free riding that is the necessary precondition for rational mutually beneficial cooperation.

6) Exchanges (production): fully informed, mutually productive, warrantied, voluntary exchange exclusive of negative externality is the only test of moral exchange.

These are six of the laws of ethical argument.

(Undone: add property / commons )