Hans-Hermann Hoppe - Argumentation Ethics

Argumentation Ethics

In what some have described as Hoppe's most important contribution, argumentation ethics is an apriori, value-neutral justification for libertarian ethics (1988). Argumentation ethics builds on the concept of Discourse ethics developed by Jürgen Habermas (Hoppe's PhD advisor) and Karl-Otto Apel, further on Misesian praxeology and the deontological ethics of economist Murray Rothbard. Argumentation ethics argues the non-aggression principle is a presupposition of argumentation and so cannot be rationally denied in discourse. Many modern libertarian scholars have accepted Hoppe's argument, among them Murray Rothbard, Walter Block, and Stephan Kinsella. Rothbard had written:

In a dazzling breakthrough for political philosophy in general and for libertarianism in particular, he has managed to transcend the famous is/ought, fact/value dichotomy that has plagued philosophy since the days of the scholastics, and that had brought modern libertarianism into a tiresome deadlock. Not only that: Hans Hoppe has managed to establish the case for anarcho-capitalist-Lockean rights in an unprecedentedly hard-core manner, one that makes my own natural law/natural rights position seem almost wimpy in comparison.