This is part 2 in my series answering Bob Murphy's tough questions for libertarians. I describe this project in an earlier post. All of the questions can be found there and the first entry in the series is linked here.

Question

Does Hoppe's Argumentation Ethics framework imply that animals have self-ownership?

Context

Here's the clip of Bob laying out the question.
Hans Herman Hoppe is a libertarian philosopher who trained under Jurgen Habermas, the famous German philosopher who developed "Discourse Ethics". Hoppe sought to correct some logical errors in his mentors work and discovered that a more rigorous approach yielded a defense of libertarianism, rather than democratic socialism (as Habermas concluded). One interesting note about this is that Hoppe was not already a libertarian when he reached these conclusions, so we can be confident that it was not just an exercise in rationalization.
In the podcast, Bob specifically requested that we not review exactly what argumentation ethics is, so this is somewhat off the cuff. For those who do want to learn what it is in detail, Hoppe lays it out in the beginning of his great book A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism.
Argumentation Ethics is an alternative grounding for libertarianism, in addition to the more common utilitarianism and natural rights approaches. It proceeds from thinking about a dispute between two parties. Hoppe points out that there are certain preconditions for people to be settling a dispute through argumentation, rather than just clubbing each other over the head. One of those preconditions is that neither party is coercing the other (if they were, why have an argument?). This is how Hoppe arrives at a justification for self-ownership.
Following on from there, Hoppe derives several other principles that more or less make up standard libertarian positions. Notice that this is a consequentialist philosophy. The point is to derive a consistent set of norms for people who value peaceful dispute resolution.

Answer

I don't take Argumentation Ethics as establishing self ownership, so much as saying we should recognize self ownership if we value peaceful dispute resolution. That nit-pick with Bob aside, I do think Argumentation Ethics implies that we should treat other beings as self-owners, as long as they appear to be economic actors.
The thought experiment I use is landing on an alien world where there are all kinds of bizarre creatures doing all sorts of strange stuff that makes no sense to us. Is it ok to proceed to just harvest them for their body parts? In alien invasion science fiction, we usually portray aliens attempting to abduct people or harvest the Earth's resources as the bad guys. Where does that standard come from?
That standard comes from the burden of proof being on the potential aggressors to be sure they aren't harming a sentient being. It is not up to victims to know how to communicate with their aggressors.
As Bob points out, there's nothing in Argumentation Ethics that allows a conclusion that it only applies to human beings. It applies to any being capable of resolving a dispute over scarce resources peacefully. There are certainly plenty of animals that this doesn't apply to, like clams or worms, but other animals, like dogs or primates, clearly have a sense of ownership and are able to respect it. The question is where the line is.
One note to slightly preempt comments about why this doesn't apply to animals: make sure that either your argument can't be used by ethno-supremacists to justify their racial violence or that you're comfortable with your argument being used in that way.
I anticipate this will elicit some spicy responses. The comments I've gotten on the two previous posts have been awesome and my first post inspired this great post from @Voldemort.
this territory is moderated
85 sats \ 4 replies \ @quark 13 Mar
The worms don't want to die either. Poor worms. I see my hens eating worms and I cannot help it but feel bad for them.
If intelligent aliens come here, I think they would not kill us. They don't need our primitive resources as they can create matter and energy as needed. They would be curious to study us, not kill us. Or maybe they would just ignore us as we ignore a worm and go for the next planet to find something more intelligent and worth to study.
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Agree. I find it hard to believe if other intelligent life forms were advanced enough to traverse the universe and overcome our known laws of physics they probably don't gain anything from attacking us.
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Unless we're tasty.
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Personally, I'm not convinced worms want anything, but I'm not going to get on your case if you think argumentation ethics applies all the way to the simplest animals.
I used to think of myself as libertarian and vegan, but the argumentation ethics approach melded the two nicely. Now, I can just think of myself as someone who values peace.
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25 sats \ 0 replies \ @quark 13 Mar
Sure. I think the word "want" is the problem here. We don't know how they want something. But we can see how they react when threatened. And some worms have great survival tactics when attacked. Even detach some parts and escape with the rest of the body, or secrete defensive substances. They have survival instinct. I don't know how they really want it but they try to live as long as they can. My hens don't think too much about it. They must be just delicious. But I see how they from time to time leave some worms alone and eat others that are similar. I don't know why. Maybe hens know more than I think.
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I own my dog in the eyes of the state and the law. If my dog bites someone, I am liable.
In my eyes, I don't own my dog, she is a family member I have chosen to take responsibility for which means I need to take care of her and in exchange she must follow the house rules (which she doesn't anyways). Like a little kid.
I am not sure how my dog perceives it. Maybe as a willing capture.
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I'm sure she feels like part of the family too.
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Thanks for making me feel better about being an animal captor.
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You're just a loving dog papa
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Most home insurance companies have a list of dogs they deem dangerous which usually means no coverage
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I don't have an opinion one way or another as I am not very familiar with argumentation ethics, but what defines an economic actor?
Personally, I would base on it whether a being is self-aware, or maybe whether a being is capable of self-awareness. Maybe economic actor covers this.
I am also undecided on whether I view babies or people in comas has having self-ownership. At some point there has to be a transfer of power or the entire structure of society turns into an ad hoc legal system.
In your thought experiment about aliens, you pose it in terms of a negative. That is, what criteria need to be met to justify killing another being/species.
What about the alternative? Suppose an alien race is to us as we are to worms. What criteria need to be met for them to do something to us that will benefit all of humanity? Are there any? Suppose their intellect is so much higher than ours we cannot comprehend their form of communication.
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I'm using "economic actor" to mean an intentional user of scarce means to achieve desired ends. It seems to me that only economic actors could have a dispute.
Babies and young children are a really tricky case for most philosophical systems. Are they full persons, parental property, something else? I'll leave them for another discussion.
People in comas are still treated as property owners. The point isn't that they are incapable of arguing, but rather that we can reason about property titles and whether the person in the coma has the better claim to disputed property. If they have no one to argue on their behalf, then there's essentially no dispute: there would just be someone else using their stuff uncontested. Upon waking from the coma, the person could reassert their property claims.
What criteria need to be met for them to do something to us that will benefit all of humanity?
Am I understanding correctly that the super advanced aliens want to help us? Maybe mass medication or something like that? I guess I'd want to know if they have a better philosophical basis for doing so than our Argumentation Ethics. Presumably, they do have more advanced philosophy, so maybe I'd be convinced by whatever their reasons are. Since I'm not privy to that hypothetical philosophy, I would say they need to limit their interventions to people who opt in.
I'll add that not only can we not understand their communication, they may not understand ours. This would be very similar to our situation with the animals of our planet.
That standard comes from the burden of proof being on the potential aggressors to be sure they aren't harming a sentient being. It is not up to victims to know how to communicate with their aggressors.
Agree with this, reminds me of how angels in the Bible usually drop the "be not afraid" whenever they show up.
The recent Adam Sandler movie "Spaceman" had an interesting alien. A giant sentient telepathic spider finds its way onto Sandler's spaceship and when they first meet, his first words are something like "Do not be afraid, skinny human."
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