Retaliatory Law Back to Home Details Yoggism Guide Philosophy Menu More Retaliatory Law [Full Text] —The Anti-Abuse Principle's Immediate Implications— The Anti-Abuse Principle implies actions that are inherently frustrating to others' interests, and enforce interest subordination, are illegitimate. This does not provide clearance to inherently frustrate someone else's interests, using them and their interests as a means to some greater good outcome. The Anti-Abuse Principle also states that actions constituting proportional defense against inherently frustrating (abusive) actions, are legitimate. —Grounding Self-Defense via Estoppel— To ground the proportionate defense part of the Anti-Abuse Principle, the basis of all hypothetical enforcement of Yoggist principles, we can apply the estoppel argument. The estoppel argument is a philosophical tool that works as follows. Imagine Bob attacks Alice. Alice defends herself from Bob through similar, proportionate means. Under Yoggism, Bob then claims Alice's action is illegitimate as it is inherently frustrating against Bob. The problem is, Bob's claim is self-contradictory with the very position that led to his situation in the first place. For Bob to claim Alice's action is illegitimate, is a self-contradiction as his own action earlier was illegitimate by his own logic. —Grounding Self-Defense via the Action Spectrum— For Bob to claim Alice's action is illegitimate, is also directly impossible because of Justification Ethics' implied action spectrum. In-order to define a particular action as inherently frustrating and uniquely unjustified against another action, requires a recognition of the distinction between inaction and action in a given situation, or more specifically recognize the non-actor and the true actor. To solve a conflict, one must imply the action spectrum; the idea that different actions have differing justificatory burden relative to how much interference they give. Now imagine someone going out of their way to starve themselves. Is this inaction? True inaction may not even exist, as explained in Inherent Interest Theory, as purposefully doing nothing is to starve oneself to death, which is ultimately an action requiring you to resist your own body. As such, an action of murder is definitely an action, while an action of self-defense actually has less of a justificatory burden in this sense because someone refusing to defend themselves is not inaction but an unnatural and highly invasive action upon and against oneself, requiring the intense resistance against one's own body telling them to fight. In the situation where Bob is attacking Alice, Alice's interest in self-defense is less inherently frustrating than Bob's interest in murder, while Bob's interest and action is definitively unjustifiable, while also Alice acting on self-defense is less of an inherent frustration and less interferring than Bob's actions. Thus, Alice is the one in the right. —Lethal Retaliation— If someone breaks into your house and tries to destroy all of your stuff and then tries to burn down your house, is lethal force justified to defend what is yours? The answer is proportionate force is justifiable. If lethal force becomes proportionate, then it is justifiable. It can be argued that the transgressor could tell you explicitly, "You can leave, I won't stop you. If you try to stop me from burning down your house though, I will kill you." If they say this, assuming you know they are being truthful, you now know that any resistance will be met with lethal force by them. Since force against them to some degree is already justifiable defense of your interests, if they turn to lethal force in retaliation, then since that lethal force is unjustifiable this situation becomes the same as one where they used lethal force from the beginning. For this reason, since them using lethal force is foreseeable anyway, it is thus justifiable for you to engage in lethal force before they do. If you have reasonable foresight that they will use lethal force if threatened in any way, then you have a right to cut to the chase, since your interference with them is already justifiable. This logic is also consistent with the estoppel and action spectrum arguments. A right to the use of defensive lethal force, when proportionate, is guaranteed. —Proportionate Defense is based on Necessity— Someone may argue it is disproportionate to enforce action against inherent frustration that does not violate bodily autonomy, for example. Imagine someone is underpaying workers or discriminating in hiring and service unjustifiably, enforcing regulations and civil rights statutes to stop them is disproportionate force because you are using force against someone who isn't, that is a fundamental difference between categories of harm and is thus disproportionate. This standard of proportionality is the idea that force is only proportional if the force is at the same level, same category of harm, of what injustice is being thwarted. This standard immediately breaks, because if there is a disabled person stuck in a wheelchair and all they have is a gun, they may be unable to defend themselves or their property without going from yelling to full on lethal force. By the category of harm logic, they may as well not own their property since jumping to lethal force is "disproportionate". Justification Ethics solves this problem. Since all harm becomes subcategories of inherent interest frustration, there is no "category claim" that can be made because these categories simply don't exist in the way they've been explained. Imagine being slapped in the face vs. being fired from your job for no reason. Both are unjustifiable given Justification Ethics and an appeal to the value of interests, yet being fired from your job may be much worse than simply being slapped in the face. Yet, in terms of harm categories, being slapped in the face is a direct violation of bodily autonomy, while being fired is not. This grants a form of proportionality based in the necessity of the use of force, and here even Libertarians will agree. The disabled person owns their property, and all that is necessary to enforce what is right is permitted. Thus, enforcement of regulations against unfair treatment, discrimination, and other non-violent yet anti-interest abusive activity is actually justifiable under Justification Ethics. Following this reasoning we can craft the following definitions and the defense side of the Anti-Abuse Principle. —Definitions— Interest - What a sentient being's behavior tends towards; sentient preferences. Interest Fulfillment - A being's interest being fulfilled or their preferences respected. Interest Frustration - The violation or contradiction of a being's interest. Good - An action that is interest fulfilling and is not inherently frustrating to any interests. Right - An action that is interest fulfilling, and not inherently frustrating with the exception of if it constitutes defense against abuse (unjustified action). Judgeable - An action that results in the minimally inconsistent outcome relative to Interests as a value, measured by whether the action is 'right' interest-wise, or if the action is rationally integral to the structures that preserve interest fulfillment fundamentally. Bad - An action that is frustrating to interests while any fulfillment is limited to inherently frustrating interests. Evil - An action that is inherently frustrating to interests and is frustrating to the very structures that preserve interest fulfillment. Moral - An action that is overall respectful towards others' interests. Immoral - An action that is overall disrespectful towards others' interests. Ethical - An action consistent with the Anti-Abuse Principle. Unethical - An action inconsistent with the AAP. Judgeable - An action consistent with the Anti-Abuse Principle or existentially protective in the sense of protecting the structure of interests themselves. Entirely Unjustifiable - An action inconsistent with the AAP while being immoral, and not being existentially protective, or being diminishing to the structure of interests. —The Anti-Abuse Principle (AAP)— Actions that are intrinsically frustrating to another's non-abusive fulfillment of interests, or inherently subordinate another's interests, constitute abuse, and are thus illegitimate. Actions that proportionately defend against abuse, or inhibit conduct that is inherently frustrating of interests, are legitimate insofar as they constitute self-defense.

Premise by Premise Defense Back to Home Details Yoggism Guide Philosophy Menu More Premise by Premise Defense of Deductions [Full Text] –Premise by Premise Defense of Deductions– Major parts of Yoggism, including Justification Ethics, include a deduction that neatly derives the conclusion of the text through logical deduction through a set of premises, such that if the premises are true then the conclusion is true. This section is dedicated to a defense of each premise of these deductions. –Justification Ethics– (P1): Normative Justifications that derive normative claims in the form “you ought to accept X”, must include at least one normative premise. --This is justified by the general version of the is/ought gap, which is simply the claim that purely descriptive statements cannot directly logically derive normative statements. "Suffering exists" and "Murder causes suffering" do not on their own logically imply "You ought not murder" because that requires the extra premise "You ought not cause suffering" for the conclusion to follow. --A normative justification by the definition used in the text, is a deduction that proves specific kind of normative claim, thus the gap applies. --To suggest this premise is wrong would be to claim that some purely descriptive statements can derive normative statements, which is a logical category error. (P2): Purely descriptive facts and logical truths alone cannot derive normative claims. --This is the general version of the is/ought gap, that purely descriptive statements cannot directly derive normative statements. To reject it is a category error. (P3): Normative axioms and assumptions cannot constitute an ultimate justification, because the axioms themselves are left unjustified and can be used to support contradicting claims. --If a claim relies on an assumption that only you accept, and that others reject, and you cannot derive that assumption from some greater premise where it itself you can prove, then you haven't actually defended your claim. I can claim "you ought not murder" based on the principle that "murder is wrong" or "human dignity" but that doesn't actually prove the claim at hand. --If you can prove an assumption true then it isn't really an 'axiom' in the way relevant to Justification Ethics, and instead the justification of that assumption itself collapses back into one of the categories outlined in Justification Ethics. --The idea that axioms should be justified is itself presupposed by debate, as debate includes the right of interlocutors to ask "why?" to an arbitrary position. (P4): Normative Justifications can derive normative claims by appealing to someone's interests, I.E. “you ought to buy a washing machine” from an interest in clean clothes. --Oughts from Logic demonstrates from basic rational instrumentality that it is rational to fulfill your interests in the best way possible with respect to other rational standards pertaining to you. Imagine a stick of dynamite, we can say that rationally, a lit stick of dynamite ought to explode, relative to its own tendency to follow the laws of physics. --Relative to your tendency to act according to your interests, where "interest" is simply that which your behavior tends towards, and relative to the idea that rationally, if you are already acting in accordance with some goal, you ought choose any of the most rational actions you can to best achieve the goal, we can derive that you ought rationally to best fulfill your interests in this sense. --Rationally speaking, it is irrational to try to get ice cream from an ice cream truck by jumping into a sinkhole randomly. If you accept this, that same rationality is what is applied to the premise, allowing you to prove "you ought to buy a washing machine", through an appeal to your interests and rational ways to fulfill them. (P5): Normative justifications must derive their normativity from premises their target is rationally required to accept, as otherwise their target is not rationally required to accept the claim, leaving it unjustified. --A Normative Justification, as used in Justification Ethics, is some proof that a specific normative ethical claim is a claim you rationally ought to accept. Such a rational ought must be derived from premises that similarly a target rationally ought to accept, because if the premises need not be accepted, the conclusion need not be either. --Deduction works as premises that imply conclusions, if it is not true that the premises are that which someone rationally ought to accept, then the conclusion has not been proven to be that which someone rationally ought to accept. It still might be, but that has not been shown. --Thus, the conclusion being a claim that someone rationally ought to accept, has not been justified. (P6): In deduction, claims are derived from premises; such premises are either descriptive facts, logical truths, interests, axioms, or presuppositions; or reducible thereto. --No other category exists. Tautologies are logical truths, moral claims are just axioms/assumptions, agency is a presupposition argument, definitions aren't really premises at all but rather tell you what terms or objects a premise states one of these categories apply to. --Other categories are reducible, imagine a probabilistic claim like "there is a 90% chance this machine will break down". This is a descriptive statement, not a normative one. If it is based on something specific like Bayesian reasoning, then it is a logical truth relative to that discipline, and the discipline itself is an axiom. --To reject this premise, you must provide a premise that definitively does not fit in any of these categories, while also being able to prove conclusions one rationally ought to accept. (P7): Presuppositions arising from norms of some external process, cannot consistently ground normative ethical claims, as such process can be evaded and its norms need not apply outside the process. --This premise is not guaranteed to be true, but a counterexample is yet to be exposed with the exception of basic rationality. Any presupposition of a norm of some activity jumping to anything greater is heavily suspect. --Kant's transcendental arguments based on agency have hidden normative assumptions within them. --Hoppe's Argumentation Ethics fails to actually prove false any arguments given in argumentation, and also does not prove norms accepted as part of argumentation are necessarily relevant outside of argumentation. --It should also be noted that this premise does not contradict Justification Ethics itself because Justification Ethics uses the "action justificatory burden" presupposed by the idea that beliefs and claims should be justified, an idea presupposed by debate. The reason why is that these are not simply norms of some external activity, but rather necessary to engage in the framework of justifying claims itself. See "Rebuttals to Objections" for more detail on this. (P8): If a norm is merely presupposed by participation in an inevitable or universal process, that fact alone cannot justify a normative ethical claim as such presuppositions reduce to mere descriptive facts. --An objection to this premise is that presuppositions such as "you should act to protect yourself" are universal for humans because humans have a self-preservation instinct. The problem is, such a normative claim doesn't actually follow, because the actual "presupposition" is merely the fact that being alive as a human almost always entails self-preservation as something you are acting according to. You acting according to that instinct is a descriptive fact and nothing else. --Descriptive facts indeed cannot directly derive normative ethical claims, which is all the premise actually says. It is true such descriptive statements can inform rationale, like how acting according to X principle means you should act most rationally in regards to the principle, but that doesn't imply you should act according to the principle in the first place. --Therefore, the literal meaning of the premise is still correct, which is all the proof needs to follow. –Oughts from Logic– (P1): All people have interests. --Interests are defined simply as that which a sentient being's behavior tends towards, as desires and goals, ends a being is acting towards. For people who are awake and currently sentient, this premise is true by definition. (P2): All people act in accordance with the interests they have, and prioritize interests they hold with Intrinsic Value. --For a person or other being to act in accordance with an interest, is for their behavior to tend towards the interest. For interests the being currently has, this is again true by definition. --The prioritization of interests they hold with intrinsic value is irrelevant to this proof, but it is also definitionally true, as Yoggism defines an intrinsic interest as an interest that one acts towards regardless of external factors to some extent. This is a prioritization. (P3): Some actions are better than others at fulfilling interests. --This is a descriptive fact. If you accept that someone running to an ice cream truck to get ice cream is being dumb by jumping into a sinkhole randomly, then you accept some actions are better than others at accomplishing some goal. --You are analyzing these defenses in favor of some goal, and you probably already recognize by reading this that actually reading this is more in favor of that goal than eating the device you are using to read this. (P4): Rationally, if you light a stick of dynamite, relative to the laws of physics, and an object’s tendency to follow the laws of physics, it ought to explode. --This is one of the more interesting premises. It is definitionally true again, but the ought here is an implicative ought, the idea is similar to saying that 1+1 ought to equal 2 relative to how arithmetic works. That ought is a rational ought, rationally you should do this or that, in the sense that if you don't, you are irrational. Rationality is a standard that implies certain things, that is all. --To deny this premise is to deny the logic of implication itself, which would nullify your own objection. (P5 from P4): Rationally, if you are acting in accordance with an interest, you ought to choose any of the most rational actions you can, to best fulfill the interest. --This is logically equivalent to Premise 4 as long as it is also accepted that "most rational actions" also requires acting with coherence to other rational standards that may weigh over your interests. --Such standards are very hard to prove, but Justification Ethics itself is an example of it. If you accept that actions should be justified, and you accept Justification Ethics, then acting in a way that cannot be justified relative to interests, is irrational, even if that action is consistent with your own interests. --You only rationally ought to fulfill an interest if you are currently acting in accordance with it already, and some interests are overall irrational to act according to in the first place. You have the ability to change what interests you are acting in accordance with, and sometimes you should. --As long as that caveat is accepted, this premise follows. –Inherent Interest Theory– (P1): Justification Ethics requires normative ethical conclusions to derive their normative force through an appeal to the interests of those involved, such that differences in how those interests are affected constitute differences in the normative force of the conclusions. --Inherent Interest Theory is an addition upon Justification Ethics. This premise is definitionally correct, Justification Ethics claims that normative ethical claims can only be derived through an appeal to interests. --For such ethic to be accepted while it derives contradictory conclusions is for the ethic to contradict itself, which causes the standard of Normative Justification to break down. --A Normative Justification is a deduction that proves a claim in the form "you rationally ought to accept X". Such a deduction is meaningless if it contradicts itself. (P2): Different claims can have different epistemic costs, such that the epistemic cost and corresponding justificatory burden of a claim varies according to differences in how the interests through which its normative force is derived are affected. --Statements in general can require different assumptions to be correct. Whether these assumptions are themselves true is its own question, which is where the epistemic cost comes from. --For normative ethical claims, as their justification must ultimately rest on interests according to Justification Ethics, this then implies the justificatory burden of the claim rests on the assumptions required for the claim to be true. These assumptions are themselves claims upon interests, thus their justification rests on these interests. (P3): The justification of an intentional action toward another person makes a normative claim concerning the interests affected by that action. --This is only false if an action is somehow entirely neutral to the interests of the person affected by it, implying they weren't affected by it at all. If this is the case, that person's interests do not grant it extra justificatory burden under Inherent Interest Theory, so the action can't really be said to be "toward another person" or toward said person it is hypothetically neutral to. (P4): A strict distinction between action and inaction cannot determine differing justificatory burdens, because behavior that appears to be inaction can consist of continued or alternative action. --Appealing to absolute inaction renders the distinction meaningless because absolute inaction doesn't really exist, if simply walking on the sidewalk not doing much of anything constitutes an action, and the distinction between action and inaction is binary, then all actions are of the same justificatory burden and suddenly all actions are unjustifiable because all actions frustrate some arbitrary interest. --This causes justification to collapse which contradicts the assumption that some actions are justified, which is necessary for the question of justification to make sense at all. (P5): If differences in epistemic cost are denied, there is no basis for distinguishing stronger from weaker justificatory burdens, causing normative justification itself to collapse. --This premise is specifically talking about differences in the epistemic cost of claims required to justify intentional actions. --To deny differences in this cost is to deny the justificatory burden differences between actions, which is a rejection of the action spectrum and just like in P4, causes justification to collapse. (P6): The degree to which an action interferes with the fulfillment of interests determines how those interests are affected by the action. --What it means for an action to interfere with the fulfillment of interests is for it to frustrate or fulfill interests. The degree of interference then determines the specifics of how interests are frustrated and in what circumstances. (P7): Interests can be more or less affected by an action, and an action can inherently frustrate an interest rather than merely be neutral toward it; when an interest is entangled with the fulfillment of other interests, frustrating it also interferes with the fulfillment of those interests. --This is based on the definition of interest entanglement and of inherent frustration. --Some actions, such as punching someone, are more inherently frustrating to the someone's interests than simply walking down the street wearing a blue shirt. --This distinction is that the action of punching someone is frustrating in a way intrinsic to the content of the action itself, rather than to external conditions. More explicitly, this frustration is intrinsic to the content of the action, relative to the act of simply wearing a blue shirt. --Relative to that, it is much more intrinsic to the content of the action. This then makes it more inherently frustrating.

Abortion Ethics Back to Home Details Yoggism Guide Philosophy Menu More Ethics of Fetal Rights and Abortion [Full Text] —The Ethics of Abortion— Abortion is the termination of pregnancy, the killing and removal of reproductive tissue, i.e. a developing fetus or embryo within a uterus, to end a pregnancy. Abortion can be performed in different ways and at different stages in a pregnancy. During the first few stages of pregnancy, most commonly the pills mifepristone, misoprostol are used to induce a miscarriage and medical abortion, by causing the fetus or embryo to detach from the uterus. During middle and later stages of pregnancy, the dilation and evacuation methods are often used, the fetus is removed via suction and other specialized instruments, sometimes special forceps are used to remove the fetus in multiple pieces rather than all at once, along with the placenta and other tissue. Sometimes instead, medications can be given to cause the uterus to contract and expel the pregnancy, somewhat like inducing labor. Abortions in a well-regulated medical setting are usually very safe for the mother, almost all abortions are done during much earlier stages of pregnancy, later-term abortions are often done to protect the life of the mother or as the result of serious and fatal birth defects. —Pro-Life Arguments based on Semantics— Some condemn these various practices as murder, there are various arguments in favor of this position. The first one is that a fetus or developing embryo is 'human' because it will develop into a human baby, not an elephant or pig or anything else. Therefore, abortion is the killing of human life, which is definitionally murder. Another argument is that humans have human rights, thus the fetus as being human, must inherit the same rights. Another is that after the moment an egg is fertilized in the womb, it gains unique DNA which makes it a unique human individual, thus inheriting certain rights. The problem with these arguments against abortion is they use the word "human" incorrectly. A pile of skin cells is human, a cancerous tumor is human and has unique DNA to an extent, conjoined twins have the same DNA but are different people. Being human and being "a human" are two different things. When someone says something is "a human", linguistically this implicitly refers to a person, which is why saying "all humans have human rights" is intuitively true. As such, to say something being human makes it a human is begging the question, you are assuming the fetus has personhood or qualifies as a human being with rights, before you even start talking. "Human being" is another flawed term, used most of the time NOT to mean "any human organism that is alive" but rather a person that is human, or a living, sentient organism that belongs to the human species. If someone already does not accept that any organism with human DNA is automatically a person deserving of rights, these arguments will not suffice. —The Pro-Life Argument of Potential— Besides relying on semantics to give an intuitive point, some pro-life arguments focus on the potential of the fetus to becoming a person in the future. The argument is roughly, imagine you're baking a cake. You get all the ingredients together, mix it, and put it in the oven. Someone comes by, opens the oven, and smashes the dough with their boot. You say, "You destroyed my cake!". They respond, "It wasn't a cake yet!". You then respond "Maybe, but it was gonna be!". The point is clear. The cake-in-progress, if left alone in the oven, would become an actual fully-fledged cake, to destroy it prevents that cake from actualizing. To kill a fetus then is to prevent that future person from ever coming to be. What if someone went back in time and gave your mother an abortion? Would that not be your demise? To kill someone at all, is bad because it deprives them of their future experiences. To kill a fetus deprives a future person of their experiences. If the fetus isn't sentient yet, the future person is deprived of ALL of their experiences, this could imply that it is grossly worse than killing an already sentient fetus, or even a newborn baby, at least by this logic. This reasoning would imply abortion is horrendously bad. —Sentience and The Coma Patient— One of the key arguments in favor of the position that abortion is ethically permissible, is that if the fetus is not sentient yet then there is no personhood because there is no preference at all, so nobody is actually being harmed or can be said to be losing out as a result of the abortion. This would imply abortion before the fetus is sentient is, in an ideal case, ethically equivalent to choosing not to conceive in the first place. The pro-life argument against this position is the coma patient example. Imagine a person stuck in a coma, not sentient, they are instead stuck in a dreamless sleep. They have a chance of waking up in a month. Is it ethically permissible to kill them before they wake up? The intuitive answer is no, and indeed they were referred to as a person at the outset, but if they are not sentient right now then there is no preference, nobody is being harmed. Therefore the pro-life person argues that the pro-choice position is wrong, because it denies coma patients a right to life and justifies murder of people in a dreamless sleep. —The Rock Machine Dilemma - Why Potential leads to Absurdity— There is a massive problem with this argument against the pro-choice position, however. Imagine a machine that can turn rocks into people and people into rocks. When a person becomes a rock they enter a dreamless sleep, not conscious at all. If the rock gets turned back into a person, they are the same person they were before. Clearly, if someone is turned into a rock and the rock then broken into bits, that is murder. The person has lost consciousness and can no longer be revived. If a rock is turned into a person and then back into a rock again, and then broken to bits, this is again murder because they were a person and then lost consciousness only to never come back. The question is this, what if a rock that has never been a person is broken into bits? Does the mere existence and usability of this machine somehow imply ordinary rocks have moral value? Does it imply it is unethical or murderous to destroy a rock that has never had sentience before? The pro-life position of potentiality implies the answer is yes, as the rock has the potential to become a person and by destroying it that person never comes to be and "is deprived of their future experiences". The obvious problem with this is that it is absurd, how can someone who never existed in any way be deprived of anything? Well, how can they? Not only does this dilemma break the potentiality argument, it also solves the coma patient argument. A coma patient being killed before they can wake up is analogous to a rock that used to be a person being destroyed, it is murder because you are preventing that person from ever coming back into existence as a conscious, sentient person. —The Asymmetry of Creating vs. Depriving— Before the 20th week of pregnancy, at least before the 18th week, modern science as of the year 2026 (12,026 Holocene Calendar), suggests that such fetuses are not sentient. The above examples and intuition that it is not wrong to not conceive, show an asymmetry between creating and not creating new beings, and depriving existing beings of experiences. To create new beings is fine, to not create new beings is neutral and not a deprivation. To deprive existing beings of things is bad. To take a being and make it not a being anymore, and then make it so its being-hood (or personhood) can never be brought back, is bad. Thus similar to the rock example, to kill a non-sentient fetus is not murder because the potential of it to become a future person, doesn't actually matter for the same reason the rocks that were never persons, don't suddenly gain value just because it became possible to turn them into people. This can be true while it is also true that it is wrong to kill a coma patient even if they are not currently sentient, because doing so prevents that person from ever being brought back. —Gradual Rock Machine— One objection to the rock machine dilemma is to say that it is not analogous to pregnancy, because the machine acts on a binary. The rock goes from not sentient at all, to an entirely sentient person. This is a fair criticism, the real point of the dilemma is to show that potential alone does not suffice for an ethical claim against someone. Let us imagine instead, a machine that you can load a rock in, and have it slowly be transformed into a person over the course of 9 months. Let's also assume that in the first 3 months at least, the rock stays non-sentient. In this scenario, there is no actual reason to say that potential comes into play. To destroy a rock in the first 3 months still does nothing to anyone, and it isn't meaningfully different from just breaking a rock next to a river that hasn't started the transformation at all. What about destroying a rock one day into the transformation? What about one hour? There is no measure whatsoever of the difference. What if the rock in the original problem is sitting on a conveyor belt slowly moving to the machine that will turn it into a person? Does this suddenly make that specific rock but no other, unethical to break or even remove from the belt? It also leads to another absurd conclusion. Imagine for the sake of argument that we figure out how to engineer a sentient robot, a robot that when the appropriate parts are manufactured and added to its body it gains consciousness. You have the blueprint to this machine, you begin building it. You're a few days away from adding the necessary parts to give it consciousness when you change your mind and decide to stop building it. Is that murder? Is this unethical to stop half way through, even if the robot never gained consciousness? This would seem to imply a regular toaster could be unethical to break because it "could be made sentient with a few extra parts". This is nonsense. —"Every Sperm is Sacred"— One possible argument against a lot of this is that fetal sentience is a gradual process, that consciousness is on a spectrum and a fetus before even 18 weeks may still have some very low form of subjective experience. The problem with this insistence is that any subjective experience would toil in compare to the extremely complex consciousness, emotion, thoughts and feelings, and preferences, of a pig, goat, sheep, camel, alligator, or any other developed animal. As explained already, potential alone need not suffice for an argument here. To say a fetus is valuable because it has potential AND it is already to some extent sentient, thus it is being deprived of future experiences, runs into yet another even worse problem. Why must conception be the start of this experience? Egg and sperm cells are both already alive, and a sperm cell on route to an already alive egg cell moving into position is a scenario where both egg and sperm are both alive and have the potential to develop into a person. Just as an already developing fetus in the womb may not be sentient but still alive and perhaps have some low level of experience, though unproven, has potential. Therefore the logical implication is the "every sperm is sacred" absurdity, and as an easy strongman of this argument, if a sperm cell is on route to an egg cell and an implanted IUD, a birth control device, blocks it, that is then murder. If a blastocyst is prevented from implanting into the uterine wall that is also murder. To use a condom during intercourse is also murder for similar reasons. Not all sperm have the potential, only a small few can succeed, but if those few have a definite potential and are stopped, that is thus murder. This is clearly another absurdity, and it implies that a machine that can turn plants into people makes all plants everywhere suddenly have rights. This is again nonsense. —The Yoggist's Solution— Under Yoggism, interests can only be frustrated if they exist or have existed, or are guaranteed to exist. For someone to poison their fetus with the intention of eventually giving birth to a child with a defect, the act of poisoning the fetus does indeed frustrate the interests of the future child. This is true even though the fetus itself may not have value nor interests. To kill a non-sentient fetus though, may be ethically neutral, as there are no interests present or future being frustrated, as the future child never comes to be in the first place. Similarly with the rock examples, the same logic works well. A rock does not have interests and thus has no value intrinsic to it, but if a rock used to be a person then destroying the rock frustrates the interests of that person because it prevents them from ever being revived. If a rock has the potential to become a person in the future though, it frustrates no actual interests to destroy the rock. To instead slightly damage the rock, and then turn it into a person though, would be to frustrate the interests of the resulting person if the person suffers as a result of the damage to the rock. As such, our asymmetry from earlier stands strong under Yoggism, to create new beings is fine but not an obligation, to deprive existing beings is a frustration of their interests. To start building a robot with the potential to gain consciousness once a few extra parts are added, and then change your mind, is also not murder for the same reasons. As such, we conclude from all sides including Yoggism, that abortion before the 20th week, and certainly before the 18th week, should be ethically permissible. —Bodily Autonomy— Under Yoggism, Justification Ethics dictates actions that effect interests have a justificatory burden. To resolve a given conflict, you identify the actor and non-actor or active party and passive party. This distinction of action and inaction then allows you to apply the justificatory standard to the actor, to check if it violates the Anti-Abuse Principle, that being whether the actions are intrinsically frustrating to the other party's interests. The question is, what happens if abortion is performed against a fetus that is already sentient? This is more clearly the killing of a human being, of a person, but it is also a bodily autonomy problem because forcefully restricting such abortion prevents someone from acting on their own body and from stopping oneself from giving their nutrients to someone else without their consent. The question here is who began the conflict? Because whoever did not begin the conflict has the right to defend themselves from it. The clear answer here is that a non-sentient fetus could not have began a conflict, could not have acted against a mother because it is not a moral agent, normative claims cannot be prescribed relative to it at all. But, an already sentient fetus is initiating conflict against the mother, by taking and using her nutrients without consent in the even where the mother wants the abortion. In the event where the mother does not want the abortion and someone forces it on her, that would just be murderous. For the mother to instead have an abortion in a later term, on her own accord, is for her to refuse to give nutrients to another being. The fetus intrinsically frustrated her interests by taking nutrients, the mother is merely stopping that. —A Conclusion of Evictionism— Two questions remain. One, how can the mother have a right over her nutrients if the sentient fetus or baby is not her body? Two, what counts as proportionate defense? The answer to the first question is simple. The fetus is not her body but is taking nutrients from her body without her consent. The fetus not knowing what it is doing does not matter for any self-defense claim because bodily autonomy under Yoggism simply has nothing to do with intention and everything to do with what is necessary to prevent frustration of inherent interests over your own body. The mother thus should have the right to, at any time, revoke permission and capacity to take her nutrients, by whatever means is necessary to protect that right. The answer to the second question is where the problem starts. If the fetus is the initiator of the conflict, the one who begins acting, taking nutrients, and the mother is merely defending her right over those nutrients, the question is what counts as proportionate defense. The real answer is essentially, philosophical evictionism, the idea that abortion may be permissible in later stages but only if necessary to remove it; in later stages at least, the fetus ought be removed in the least-lethal way possible. —The Conclusion on Abortion— Therefore, abortion is ethically permissible before the 20th week or at least the 18th week, for any reason by any means necessary to remove the fetus, and if the fetus truly is not sentient then the manner of removal is ethically irrelevant as long as the person getting the abortion consents to it. Later-term abortions are only ethical if they are performed in a manner necessary to safely remove the fetus, in the least-lethal way possible assuming the fetus is sentient, and if the person getting the abortion does not consent to the operation then it is murderous and unethical.

Welcome to TC Blox Studios, we make games, music, videos, and host information on game development and open source software. Welcome to TC Blox Studios Hi! I'm TonyTCB , aka jimmybob , and I'm a game developer and the Bob of All Trades . I'm making a game called Bob Simulator , as well as much, much more ! (see public demo) Games , Projects , 3D Models , Music , Videos , and information for use in projects of all kinds. I am also the creator of a philosophical framework and ethical theory called Yoggism . Check out my Content for Minecraft : downloadable Worlds , Skins , Mods , and more ! Join the TC Blox Studios Discord Server: https://discord.gg/GQCH4Hnf99 Help promote Bob Simulator and my other projects: tc-blox.net/bobmob Only on TC-BLOX.NET: Portfolio About Assets Games Demo Projects Bob Simulator The Movy Chronicles Content for Minecraft Admin Abuse Resistance Yoggism Videos Music Contributors Development Activity Help Center and Support FAQ Licenses and Usage: Fair-Use 2024 License Open-Source 2024 License Content License Bob Simulator License Extra: Bobbelfont License Attributing Guidelines Site Version: v4.6.4 Play Video Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tumblr Copy Link Link Copied Minecraft is owned by Mojang Studios. We are not affiliated with Mojang Studios or Microsoft Corporation. Gallery I host VR Talk Shows in Stella, the VR Rec Room Revival Game! I also hosted talk shows and other rooms in the original Rec Room since 2023 :D

Yogg Virtue Theory Back to Home Details Yoggism Guide Philosophy Menu More Yogg Virtue Theory [Full Text] —Consent from Justification Ethics— Consent is a continuous, preferably enthusiastic, explicit, and relevantly-informed, acceptance of an agreement, contract, or activity. The value of Consent can be obtained through simple Justification Ethics. Agreements sustained via an alignment of interests will ensure people's interests are respected; for if agreements are handled with everyone involved only looking out for their own interests, and not actually in agreement, this will end up with gross interest misalignment and thus the interaction will dissolve into an anti-interest catastrophy in violation of the AIP and AAP. —Passive vs. Active Interactions— Justification Ethics lays out the following concept: Interactions rationally ought to appeal to the normative value of the relevant interests of all involved, due to the premises of the persuasive argumentation necessary to rationally justify the interaction. Thus, interactions must be rationally justifiable relative to Interests. The question here is what kind of interaction? If someone is in danger in front of me, do I have a duty to act and help them? To what end, to what limits? —Justification Ethics and a Right to a Private Sanctuary— Justification Ethics is contingent on the normative obligation to rationally justify methods of interaction. This normative obligation comes from Normative Rationalism. Does this normative obligation apply to inaction as well as action? It could be argued in theory that for someone in danger in front of you, you are not interacting with that person, and thus no rational justification for anything is necessary until you interact with them. This view implies interests only become relevant once you enter into an interaction with someone else who has Normative Will, who has interests. Thus, inaction is never unjustifiable unless somehow inaction is contradictory with the existence of interests themselves, such as if "Interest Structures" or the "Pillars holding up Interests" are themselves under threat, similar to theories of Threshold Deontology. There is a problem with this analysis though, couldn't it be said that inaction is yet another form of behavior, and as a behavior it is the fulfillment of an interest, an interest to not act? Must this interest be rationally justifiable? If so, justifiable to whom? How can it be narrowed down who is involved in a behavior that by definition is directly affecting no-one? —Praxeological Asymmetry— One place to turn to is the idea of a Praxeological Asymmetry. Praxeology is the theory of beings that engage in purposeful behavior. Praxeological Asymmetry is the idea that inaction or withholding from action does not require justification in the same way as active interaction, and this is founded on Epistemological Asymmetry grounds. Epistemology is the theory of how beliefs should be shaped, and this idea holds within it an arguable asymmetry. If you have a claim like "there is a teapot between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn", the lack of evidence for such a claim means that you, empirically, ought to disbelieve in the existence of the teapot. So a lack of evidence leads to disbelief rather than just neutrality? This implies an asymmetry. Applying similar logic, or applying this epistomological thinking to rational justification, leads to a Justification Ethics conclusion that interests are relevant to only involved people in an interaction. If your actions don't directly affect anyone, you aren't interacting with anyone in an active way, then justification relative to interests need not be present due to the asymmetry. —Epistemological Asymmetry is Invalid?— There is unfortunately a problem here too. Belief in such a mystical teapot is irrational, but so is neutrality towards the hypothesis, due to there being an overwhelming amount of evidence that space is mostly empty, so the area between Jupiter and Saturn should be devoid of random teapots, as well as how Earthly objects should be nowhere near planetary orbits, except under very specific circumstances of which none should exist for a random teapot. Thus disbelief is the rational conclusion, not due solely because of a lack of evidence but also because of evidence to the contrary. This presents a problem because other claims where there is limited or no evidence going for or against the claim, may not have a "default state" to point to for deciding whether belief or disbelief is rational, leading to neutrality being the rational conclusion. This breaks the asymmetry which goes against the logic of "non-interaction" leading to non-justification, leading to inaction not being in violation of interests. —Abuse Constructs a Right to a Private Sanctuary?— Perhaps due to neutrality being correct in a true both-sides lack of evidence, no evidence for or against a particular claim, this can grant a "default state" that can bind Justification Ethics to ongoing interactions, the same way non-existent future interests are fundamentally different from Justification Ethics and the Absolute Interest Principle, as the ought to rationally fulfill interests only derives existant interests. You cannot ought that which you cannot. It may also make sense to acknowledge that the Anti-Abuse Principle as formulated grants a protection from Inherently-Frustrating Interests, classifying them as illegitimate based on the logical implications of Interests being treated as the fundamental normative value. A protection from such inherently-frustrating interests may include a protection from harmful obligations, which further demonstrates this "Right to Private Sanctuary". —Yogg Virtue Ethics— Even if it may be hard to justify any form of duty or obligation towards those you aren't actually interacting with, using Justification Ethics, there is still a basis for defining good character and morally positive conduct, and this is Virtue Ethics. Virtue Ethics is a philosophical approach that emphasizes the character and virtues of a person, what guides their behavior, rather than focusing on adherence to a principle or goal. Positive traits, aka Virtues, are the attributes that help curate morally or ethically positive behavior, and reflect an outlook on others or an outlook on existence that is in some sense morally positive. Negative traits, aka Vices, are the attributes that contradict this goal. Positive character, and the recognition of rational and irrational character traits, relative to Interests, is the way to address this problem. Virtue can thus be thought of as a Respect of Interests, of both others and your own, and the adherence to that responsibility. This is similar to Immanuel Kant's "Treat People as an End, never as a Mere Means" philosophy, which is also related to the given Yoggist definition of Abuse, that behaviors functioning off of misaligned interests, may result in frustration for one side of a deal, which can be dangerous to the meaning of interests themselves, and is thus illegitimate. —Plagiarism and Wheaton's Law— Wheaton's Law is a guiding principle that states simply, "Don't be a dick". This guiding principle maps almost perfectly onto the Anti-Abuse Principle, as to be a 'jerk' is pretty neatly spelled out as to engage in behavor that is inherently interest-frustrating, and unjustifiable to others in some way. Taking up the Anti-Abuse Principle with this idea of "Respect of Interests" as a form of Virtue, then maps perfectly the guiding principle of Wheaton's Law. This grants a valuable insight, the ability to both ethically and character-wise decry practices such as Plagiarism in the name of Interests. Plagiarism, and equivalently non-attribution and stealing credit, as well as very specific and limited forms of Intellectual Property, are thus justifiably anti-virtue as they correspond to a disrespect towards other's interests, and in many cases are unethical as they may correspond to inherently-frustrating interests as the product of both vices and interest misalignment. Some things that are illegal under absolutist Intellectual Property Rights, but are not inherently-frustrating, would include archiving, and derivative works. These actions don't harm anyone inherently, and simply represent creative expression. The ethical violation in plagiarism lies in false representation, not in duplication; so archiving doesn't count as an ethical infringement. Plagiarism frustrates interests by: 1. Stealing reputational capital (career prospects, social standing, trust). 2. Undermining trust and attribution (people rely on attribution to evaluate credibility). 3. Creating asymmetric advantage through deception (falsely-attributed exchange). 4. Discouraging creation by breaking the link between effort and recognition. This makes plagiarism inherently frustrating, regardless of any monetary exchange. Archiving does not inherently frustrate interests because: 1. It preserves access without deceptive or abusive practices. 2. It does not claim authorship of anything and ought to include proper attribution. 3. It often aligns interests (creator interest in preservation + public interest in access). Any harm is contingent, not inherent (e.g. bandwidth costs, disputes in hosting). —Forming a Principle— Therefore, based on all this reasoning, we can define Virtue and Vice as the following: Virtue: Traits that curate a respect towards Interests as having value. Vice: Traits that curate a disrespect towards Interests as having value. Some virtues consistent with this view would include: Generosity, Altruism, Self-Reliance, Solidarity, Trustworthyness, Justice, Fairness, Mutualism Some vices consistent with the view would include: Unfairness, Irrationality, Rage, Disrespect, Hatefulness, Exploitativeness, Callousness, Cowardice Using this reasoning we can then define the following principle, describing Just Duty, and Fair Behavior. —Yogg Virtue Principle— You ought to act in a way consistent with the virtues that curate respect for interests, including Mutual Respect, Justice, Truth, and Recognition of others as Self-Sovereign. You ought to not act against Consent, or enforce Interest Misalignment for your own gain through Unfairness, Irrationality, Explotativeness, or Abuse. You ought to form a character that adheres to the responsibility of upholding these character traits, against Negligence towards others, and Abuse of others. Common virtues such as Justice, Self-Sovereignty, and Generosity, are simply emergent properties of the Respect for Interests.

Interest Property Theory Back to Home Details Yoggism Guide Philosophy Menu More Interest Property Theory [Full Text] —Basic Property through Interests— Imagine you find a stick on the ground. You pick it up and play with it, but unknown to you, the stick is actually an incredibly rare kind of wood, that is extremely fragile, and then it breaks. A collector walks up to you and is furious because that was their stick, and it was worth a lot of money. Now imagine you find a stick on the ground, the stick does not belong to anyone, you pick it up and play with it, and it breaks. You walk away, and that's it. In the second circumstance, messing with the stick affected nobody else. More than that, if someone walked up to you and tried to take the stick from you, they would be frustrating against your interests. In the first circumstance, if the collector tried to take the stick from you, it would have been justified as your interest in playing with their stick would be an inherently frustrating interest, and thus interest transgression against them. In the second circumstance, you can do what you like with the stick as long as it affects nobody else, and nobody else can take the stick from you because that inherently frustrates against you. In this sense, your preferences are wrapped up in the stick, the stick has become a conduit of your interests themselves; the fulfillment of specific interests of yours are dependent on the state of the stick. Thus, relative to Interests as a value, while messing with the stick until it is abandoned, you have ownership over the stick. —Interest Property— The Lockean theory of property, asserts that individuals gain ownership of resources by mixing their labor with them. This matches up with Interests. If you build a birdhouse, from unowned wood, your preferences become wrapped up in, and dependant on, the birdhouse. If the birdhouse is destroyed, a whole set of rational interests you have in relation to the birdhouse, are all inherently frustrated. From this grants a basic right to Personal Property. This grants a justification for the idea that you own what you make, and are ethically justified in defending your own property, as you are simply defending the conduit of your rational interests. —Self-Ownership— Your Body and Mind are both also conduits of your rational interests. Your mind is the conduit of all of your preferences, of all kinds. In the sense described previously, your rational interests, and irrational interests, all preferences you have, are wrapped up in your mind, dependant on it. Your ability to fulfill most interests are wrapped up in your body. Thus, any attack on your body or mind, any frustrating against your interests relevant to your body or mind, any violation of your bodily autonomy, is an inherent frustration against your interests to an even greater extent than a violation against your personal property. This grants a basic sense of "Self-Ownership". Except, what does ownership mean exactly? —What Constitutes "Ownership"?— What does ownership mean exactly? People may own their bodies, their minds, and personal goods that are relevant inherently only to themselves; but in what way? What does it mean to 'own' something? --Absolutist View of Ownership-- Is ownership of some entity, the same thing as saying you can do whatever you want with that entity, so long as it does not violate other people's ownership rights? --Anti-Abuse Principle contradicts this Absolutism-- According to the Anti-Abuse Principle, inherent frustration against others interests, and enforcement of misaligned interests causing frustration, "Abuse", is illegitimate, based on the normative value of interests themselves. This contradicts the Absolutist View of Ownership, because if the basis of ownership is building a thing and using it, it is still possible to abuse your control over that thing, in a way that contradicts others interests, including their rational inherent interests. --Unsafe Food Example-- Imagine a simple example: A business that has a monopoly on food production. This business then decides to start using cancerous chemicals in the food, and rolls back their safety standards, for profits. The business does list their additional ingredients on the food, so customers can read the ingredients. Yet, even though the customers are able to be informed, even if they are, the business will likely recieve sales anyway, and consumers who want and buy the products, will do so even if they themselves would rather the business not use cancerous chemicals in the food. This is the free market at work, and nobody's property rights are being violated here. Yet, it is an inherent frustration against the consumer, done by the business. The business is in the wrong, since the fact that the consumers bought the product, doesn't mean they actually have an interest in cancerous food. It is that interest that is in-fact, being actively violated. How exactly a monopoly of this sort comes to be, is irrelevant to the fact that the business' decision to add cancerous ingredients to their food, against their customer's wishes, was still inherently frustrating against their customer's interests. —Abuse Violates Consent— This idea can be taken farther, obliterating the Absolutist View of Ownership. If someone goes to the store and buys apples, and the apples are contaminated, and the person gets sick and dies due to a lapse in safety protocol by the food producer, that is inherently frustrating against them, even if they were informed previously of the food producer's safety protocols. The reason for this, is that it violates Consent, and thus violates Interests. --Consent-- Consent is a continuous, preferably enthusiastic, explicit, and relevantly-informed, acceptance of an agreement, contract, or activity. --Getting sick from Contaminated Food is a violation of Consent-- Someone getting sick from apples and dying, still had their consent violated to some extent, because they did not consent to die, nor get sick, and they did not have a reasonable expectation that it would happen in the first place. Even if they were technically informed, in the real world people informed or no will buy sometimes risky products if no better options are available. Reluctantly buying a product due to a lack of options, is not consent. The person who got sick and died from contamination, did not consent to eating contaminated food. They did not explicitly agree, they did not give enthusiastic consent, they did not accept "you might die" as a term. None of that is what they "signed up for". --Abuse violates Consent as it is Anti-Interest-- The problem with Abuse, of the enforcement of misaligned interests, either through poor safety protocols being pushed on the public against their interests, or through lay-offs of workers for profit-driven reasons when alternatives to lay-offs are available, or through changes in contracts and ongoing agreements; is that it is contrary to the interests of those involved, as a side-effect of the misalignment of interests, and contrary to what the people involved actually signed up for. Thus, abuse as defined and agreements made through interest misalignment, violates Consent. —Ownership is Consent— If abuse, agreements made through interest misalignment, and inherent frustration, violate the consent of those affected, this also comes into conflict with the point of Ownership. If you own yourself, and a store sells food that went through poor safety protocols, and thus violates your consent, then suddenly that is in violation of your ownership of yourself. This follows, because ownership of yourself means some protection over the conduit of interests that is your Body and Mind; and that protection requires consent. --Loosely Voluntary is not the same as Consent-- The Absolutist View of Ownership thus creates a problem, what counts as a violation of another's ownership rights? It depends on how you define it in the first place. Absolutist Property Rights are usually argued for on behalf of the idea that any agreement made voluntarily is valid, where "voluntary" simply means "the person trying to get you to do something isn't threatening you with violence as an aggressor to make you do it". This is not the same as Consent. What that description of voluntary is really describing, is a 'loosely voluntary' exchange that can include anything from being coerced into doing someone by the threat of eviction, or loss of some deal, misalignment of interests, inherent frustration, etc. --Ownership is Consent Based-- That is not the same as an enthusiastic, mutual agreement, enthusiastic meaning all sides of a deal agree with most terms of the contract, and that the process of deciding the terms is fair. This has Interest Alignment written all over it, so Absolutist Property Rights in the sense of 'loosely voluntary' transaction, is fundamentally Anti-Consent and Anti-Interests. Therefore, if people really own their own bodies and minds, they should own them with respect to the ownership of their own interests and preferences, in a way enforced by rule of Consent. —Conclusion— If Ownership, relative to Interests, should be based on Consent, then what determines Property Ownership? An answer can be arrived at in a way consistent with what has been said, through Justification Ethics. Justification Ethics, the assertion that actions should be rationally justifiable based on the relevant interests of those involved in an ongoing interaction, paraphrased here, allows the pinpointing of the circumstance where the rational justification of exclusive property is valid, and where it is not. The Anti-Abuse Principle states that interference with non-abusive fulfillment of interests is illegitimate. This can be used to craft the following theory: —Interest Property Theory— Definition of Ownership: A right to exclusive, non-abusive control over a particular object or entity, due to the right over interests the entity acts as a conduit of. You own your Interests, and Preferences, through the normative value of Interests. You thus also own your Body and Mind, as they are the primary conduit of your interests. If you build, craft, or otherwise create something, or possess and use something, your interests get wrapped up in your new property, and a set of your interests become dependant on your property. Your property is a conduit to your interests, granting you the right to use your property as you wish, as long as your use is non-abusive and does not inherently frustrate against the interests of others. Interference in the non-abusive use of your property, thus constitutes inherent frustration or abuse against you and your interests. Abuse Violates Consent

Omnilibertarian Rule Theory Back to Home Details Yoggism Guide Philosophy Menu More Omnilibertarian Rule Theory [Full Text] —Omnilibertarian Rule Theory— Institutions capable of systematically frustrating the inherent interests of those subject to them, are held to the same justificatory standards regardless of whether they are public or private. Imagine the State forcibly prevented you from criticizing them. What if instead of actually hurting you for criticizing them, they exile you from your country. Does that make it better? The answer is a clean no. Now the fundamental question is, why limit this to the State? Any institution can act similarly to a State, or a government more generally, with or without the use of direct force. Relative to Yoggism, relative to whether actions can be justified relative to others interests, and relative to the Anti-Abuse Principle, that actions inherently frustrating against inherent interests, we can explain the intuitions behind the idea that censorship, discrimination, and unfair treatment more broadly is bad, beyond just enforcement by government. —What does it mean to be Free?— What does it mean to be free? This is usually demonstrated by asking, is a person starving in a desert free? They are merely free to wander and die. What if a person is born into a large company town owned by a crazy landlord who forces you to follow arbitrary rules for his own benefit, and if you break the rules you lose your home and are exiled? This is a clear example of a non-State entity acting as a local government over a group of people, and as such this institution has the ability to threaten their freedom. Under Yoggism, this distinction between the State acting upon you, and private entities doing so, may as well not exist. Actions that frustrate against interests, enforcing interest misalignment, is illegitimate and cannot be justified by any measure. This is true regardless of who is doing it. Ethical evaluation is actor-neutral in this sense. —The Basic Idea— True individual freedom can only be gained if people have proportionate control over how they are treated by institutions that have the capacity to threaten their own interests. Enforcement of interest misalignment, where people who's interests are not aligned with yours enforce their interests at the expense and disrespect of yours, are illegitimate. Thus, certain things like freedom from being censored for criticism, are to some extent rendered universal across domains and institutions, private or otherwise. To be banned from a social media platform for criticizing that platform, or criticizing the government, may be entirely illegitimate. To be singled out and treated unfairly, is illegitimate. Discrimination in public spaces, like restaurants or stores, is illegitimate and unjustifiable. Being arbitrarily prevented from self-expression, where your actions aren't inherently frustrating against anyone, may also be illegitimate, regardless of if such abuse is done under the guise of employment, tenant-ship, government, paid service, or other such management. —Why the NAP need not apply— Here the right-libertarian Rothbardist sites the Non-Aggression Principle as the way to distinguish between coercive institutions, I.E. the State, and voluntary institutions, I.E. private companies. The right-libertarian's claim is that the leader and owner of a company town has the right to all property in the town, and you being born there does not change that. He has no right to hurt you or enslave you, but he does have the right to kick you out at his own discretion. There are two big problems with this. The first problem is that actions taken against people living in an abusive company town cannot actually be justified, not relative to interests, and not relative to anything else. They are enforcement of interest misalignment and represent in a Stirnerian sense, spooks against their own self-interest. As explained in Justification Ethics, such abuse and inherent frustration against their interests are illegitimate. The only argument here is an attempt to somehow prove the town owner has an exclusive right over the town, in an absolute sense. This cannot be shown in a way anyone else is rationally required to accept. The second problem is that this position is fundamentally anti-freedom, and this can be proven if we assume the meaning of freedom has anything to do with a subject's set of possible actions whatsoever. —Self-Sovereign Prescription of Agency— Imagine you are in a cage, there are armed guards that will shoot you if you try to escape. Everyone would agree here that you are not free, even though you technically have the freedom to attempt an escape, but since the consequence of such an action will result in death, it's not a real choice. Now imagine all else is equal, but the guards are actually non-sentient robots, their creator long dead. If you try to escape, you still die. Are you free? Again the answer is a clear no. Yet the libertarian is forced to concede that you are actually fully free, because no person is aggressing against you. You are not being coerced into doing anything according to them. This makes sense to them, as they view freedom in a way that is anti-individualist, in the sense that it has nothing to do with the actual individual's ability to fulfill their own self-interest. Instead, to them, freedom is based on what everyone else is doing. Not what you can do. —Yoggism's Implications— Justification Ethics as previously mentioned, shows some actions cannot be justified relative to interests, because some actions are inherently interest frustrating. This implies the Anti-Abuse Principle, which as previously mentioned is the idea that actions inherently frustrating to inherent interests, are illegitimate, and that enforcement of interest misalignment is the root of illegitimacy. Inherent interests as used here and elsewhere refer to interests that act as a conduit for other interests, where an interest's frustration causes frustration of other interests as an interdependence. This is the concept of interest entanglement. Interest misalignment is the most relevant term here, and it can be demonstrated in the example of the landlord owner of a company town. His interests and your interests are entirely misaligned, and he is enforcing his interests upon you, in the sense that your interests are actively frustrated for the benefit of his. This enforcement of misaligned interests against your own, in a Stirnerian sense, represents a spook against your own self-interest and autonomy. —Conclusion of Omniliberty— The conclusion here is simple. That which is bad, is bad regardless of the entity executing it. Censorship, unfair treatment, discrimination, and similar abuse, as well as things like murder and stealing, are illegitimate whether done by a State or a private entity. Large tech companies trying to shut people down, or enforcing their own rules unfairly, is abuse. A libertarian could claim that abuse of authority and banning people from platforms who didn't violate rules, is actually a contract violation, but merely adding exceptions and extra rules stating they "have final discretion and can act against you for any reason" doesn't make it not abuse. This is what the "omni" in omnilibertarianism means, liberty in all domains. Fairness in all rules. —Rothbardianism is Collectivism— Murray Rothbard is the founder and leading theoretician of anarcho-capitalism and right-libertarianism. Rothbardian libertarians claim to be individualist, but this is a farcity. To be held under interest misalignment as described, to be 'functionally enslaved' to the Lord of a company town, is to be controlled by a larger entity, to be treated as nothing more than a pawn in a larger system beyond your own control. This is the same environment of the feared authoritarian state of affairs libertarians rightly fear. To reject this by arguing the town may be owned by a single individual, so it isn't a collective, is to concede that real world authoritarian countries are not "collectivist" in this sense, because they are dictatorships and not actually ran by the people. —True Individualism— The point is not necessarily whose interests are being enforced over yours, it is whether you are treated as merely a member of a collective, or an individual. Collectives more broadly represent simply groups of people controlled by the people in the group, this is not a bad thing in and of itself. Indeed in the real world, if people in the group control the group, there is no enforcement of interest misalignment because there is no misalignment to begin with. Worker-owned cooperatives, credit unions, housing cooperatives, are all collectivist in this weaker sense, while still representing their own separate groups, and indeed the members of these 'collectives' are treated as individuals with power, as they gain the ability to grant themselves such. In a more abusive power structure, this is not the case, and that is what makes it "collectivist" in the authoritarian sense. True individualism is the rejection of this kind of spook against your own interests, the denial that such hierarchy is valid, and the empowerment of individuals to have control of their own lives; all through freedom from enforcement of interest misalignment.

Deduction of Interests Back to Home Details Yoggism Guide Philosophy Menu More Deduction of Interests as a Value [Logical Deduction] –The value of Interests, derived from the existence of Normative Force itself– --Basic Clarifications-- A. Interests are not presuppositions onto themselves. This argument is based on the concept of examining that which can be justified relative to someone who already rationally values their own interests. The normative value of interests is agent-relative, someone who values nothing at all simply forfeits all normative force and cannot justify their actions or claims. B. In this context we can assume normative claims deduced from premises, must require at least one normative premise; this is justified by the is/ought gap. C. Interests are defined as any preferences, wants, desires, goals, that which a being's behavior tends towards; they are inherently and definitionally action-guiding. --The Argument Step-By-Step-- 0. Acceptance of any deductive argument, presupposes reason and deduction according to logic. 1. Normative Justifications prove a conclusion of "therefore, you ought to believe X" by definition. 2. Proving a conclusion in any deductive argument, requires premises. (basic deduction) 3. If normative justifications prove normative claims to some opponent, based on premises, those premises must apply to the opponent as otherwise the conclusion would not follow. 4. Normative conclusions must derive their normativity from normative premises. (is-ought gap) 5. For a normative premise to apply to some opponent, it must derive its normative force from claims already valid for the opponent; facts, logic, or values they hold as having force. 6. An opponent's wants, desires, beliefs, preferences; definition-wise these are their interests, and they are values the opponent holds with normative force relative to themselves. 7. A normative justification cannot be grounded on axioms or assumptions, as the axioms themselves are left unjustified and can be used to support contradicting claims. 8. Thus, for a normative premise to apply to some opponent, it must derive normative force from an appeal to truth, reason, presupposed norms, or the opponent's value of their own interests. 9. It is impossible to derive normative claims in the form "you ought not murder" from true facts alone. This is the is-ought fallacy. Thus epistemic truths and reason, fail to derive normative force. 10. Presuppositions arising from norms of a specific process cannot derive ethical force, as such process can be evaded and its norms need not apply outside the process. 11. Any argument that hinges on or argues for normative ethical force, thus must ultimately derive that normative force from an appeal to interests, as otherwise the conclusion need not apply. 12. Acceptance of the validity of normative ethical force thus presupposes that normative force can be justified, therefore appealing to the value of interests. –Acceptance of Normative Force presupposes a value of Interests– Therefore, to assume the existence of normative force rationally requires the presupposition of the normative value of Interests, as otherwise such normative force would be impossible to justify. To reject the normative value of Interests as they apply to all beings, is to make all arguments for normative force of any kind unjustifiable. To reject Interests as the source of normative value is thus to forfeit all normative force. --The Argument as a Deduction-- –Definitions: (Normative Justification): A deductive argument that derives a normative claim in the form “you ought to accept X” or “you ought not act against or inconsistent with X”. (Ultimate Justification): A normative justification of a claim that does not ultimately depend on unjustified normative premises, except for the rules of logic themselves. (Descriptive Facts): Is-statements, claims that are not normative but explain facts about the world, I.E. “the sky is blue”. (Interests): That which the behavior of a sentient being tends towards. (Interests as a value): The appeal to interests as the source of normativity that derives a normative claim. –Premises: (P1): Normative Justifications that derive normative claims in the form “you ought to accept X”, must include at least one normative premise. (P2): Purely descriptive facts and logical truths alone cannot derive normative claims. (The is-ought gap) (P3): Normative axioms and assumptions cannot constitute an ultimate justification, because the axioms themselves are left unjustified and can be used to support contradicting claims. (P4): Normative Justifications can derive normative claims by appealing to someone's interests, I.E. “you ought to buy a washing machine” from an interest in clean clothes. (P5): Normative justifications must derive their normativity from premises their target is rationally required to accept, as otherwise their target is not rationally required to accept the claim, leaving it unjustified. (P6): In deduction, claims are derived from premises; such premises are either descriptive facts, logical truths, interests, axioms, or presuppositions; or reducible thereto. (P7): Presuppositions arising from norms of some external process, cannot consistently ground normative ethical claims, as such process can be evaded and its norms need not apply outside the process. (P8): If a norm is merely presupposed by participation in an inevitable or universal process, that fact alone cannot justify a normative ethical claim as such presuppositions reduce to mere descriptive facts. –Logic: (L1): From (P2 + P3), neither descriptive facts, purely logical truths, nor axioms or assumptions can ultimately ground justification of normative claims. (L2): From (P1 + L1), normative justifications cannot derive conclusions solely from descriptive facts, purely logical truths, axioms, or assumptions. (L3): From (P4 + P5), normative justifications can derive normative claims by deriving the normativity from an appeal to interests. (L4): From (L2 + L3), interests have the capacity to ground normative justification, whereas descriptive facts, pure logic, and axioms cannot ultimately ground normative justification. (L5): From (L4 + P6), interests and presuppositions are the only available types of premises for the normative grounding of normative claims. (L6): From (P7 + P8), presuppositions cannot consistently justifiably ground normative claims. –Conclusion: From (L5 + L6): Therefore, normative ethical justifications that consistently derive claims in the form “you ought to accept X”, must ultimately appeal to interests as a value, as otherwise they are rendered unjustifiable.

Interest Praxeology Back to Home Details Yoggism Guide Philosophy Menu More Interest Praxeology (Yogg-Economics) [Full Text] —Interest Praxeology— Praxeology is, traditionally, the theory of human action, of why humans take certain actions in certain circumstances through purposeful behavior. In Yoggist terms this would translate to how followed beliefs, or action-guiding beliefs, cause one to act to achieve some end; aka to fulfill some interest. Interest here is defined as merely that which a sentient being's behavior tends towards. The end a being is attempting to achieve by engaging in a purposeful action, is the interest. —Behavior and Wants are Separate— Here we can define a "want" or an intrinsic interest: That which a being's behavior tends towards, regardless of external factors. Regardless of external factors here is a distinguisher between interests that are merely due to some current limiting factor, and interests more inherent to the being possessing them. Imagine a person stuck in a cage, with a guard stationed outside ready to shoot them if they attempt to leave. In such a situation, the person does not have an interest in leaving the cage, in the sense that their behavior will not tend toward that end, because doing so will result in bodily harm. With this being said, they do have an intrinsic interest in leaving the cage, they 'want' to leave the cage, which is what is normally meant by someone saying they have an interest in leaving the cage. It isn't that they will try to leave the cage right now, instead right now they would rather stay in the cage, not because of their own preferences, but rather due to an external factor beyond their control that artificially limits the fulfillment of their interests. This immediately demonstrates a critical difference between a being having a mere interest in something in some sense, and them actually wanting something, having an intrinsic interest in some end. In this case we can say they may have an interest in leaving the cage, because absent the external factors "spooking" them into staying in the cage, they would leave it immediately. We can then say them not leaving the cage is merely them placing a separate interest above their own freedom of movement, their interest in not dying. Such an interest acts as a conduit for many other interests, as dying prevents fulfillment of most other interests that are relative to a being's actions in the world. Such an interest that acts as a conduit for other interests can be described as being entangled with many other interests, such an interest is an "Inherent Interest" and is the interest appealed to when acting against an Intrinsic Interest. —The Problem of Market Demand— The problem with the Austrian conception of "free markets", markets that are mostly or entirely unregulated, or Pure Markets as they will be referred to as here as to not confuse moral language with legal detail, is that the logic in favor of them confuses market demand with people's wants. The traditional praxeological argument in favor of Pure Markets is the idea that people's wants generate economic demand, and in an unregulated marketplace sellers will prop up to take advantage of the demand. The demand creates an incentive to give a fairly priced supply, specifically the pricing necessary to make a profit. With competition, overpricing when possible becomes rarer because it becomes less possible, as people can simply go to another seller. Depending on the good being sold, they can also simply stop buying the good. This is the basis of most economics, supply and demand. The more people willing to buy, the more people are incentivized to sell. This demand is not the same thing as actual wants though, as this only measures non-intrinsic interests, or Relative Interests, interests that are relative to the present conditions, taking in all 'spooking' external factors influencing how someone acts according to their interests. This includes economic externalities, coercion, irrational judgement, cultural spooks, lack of information, among many other things. Because of this, a Pure Market only works well if there is fair and plentiful competition. Some industries are harder to enter than others, which creates a loophole wherein if an industry is hard to enter but easy to stay afloat, competition will be low and incentive to act against people's actual wants will be high. —Where Austrian Economics Loses its Grip— Especially for libertarians wanting deregulation, they run into a problem where they make a sharp distinction between someone being coerced by force into acting against their actual wants, and someone being coerced by their own conditions, manipulations, and other "spooking" external factors into acting against their actual wants, or into allowing their wants to be frustrated. The libertarian argument is that the latter isn't coercion at all, and that any circumstance where they make a voluntary exchange isn't inconsistent with their interests or anything else because such an exchange is always mutually beneficial. They then say this is true because any exchange that isn't mutually beneficial is an exchange a rational human would not partake in. The problem here is that, relative to interests, the distinction between what they consider coercion and not, is arbitrary; and the exact same logic can be used against involuntary exchange as well. For someone to stay in a cage because the alternative is death, is them engaging in a mutually beneficial exchange. The guard doesn't want them to leave the cage, and probably doesn't want them dead, just imprisoned. The prisoner doesn't want to die, and views their interest in not dying above their interest in freedom of movement. Yet the libertarians argue allowing criminals to hold people at gunpoint and use that to their advantage in the market, would not protect anyone or ensure adequate supply of goods relative to people's actual wants. This is a contradiction. —Economic Information is Concealed by Absolute Property— Libertarians talk of economic information, a possible argument in their favor is that use of force conceals information in the economy. If Bob is offered a purchase of their land for $100,000, this brings the information of whether they value their land more or less than $100,000 into the market, allowing supply and demand for such land to adjust accordingly. If Bob is instead threatened with force to lose their land, well.. information is still revealed, they value their land less than their own life. The argument from libertarians is such information is less meaningful, less relevant to the economy, that such information doesn't change supply and demand for such land because any seller can assume most people value their own life over their land, or other property for that manner. As such, markets that don't allow such force conceal less information which in turn leads to the market being more efficient, and allowing supply and demand function better. The problem with this idea is that it may be true in a simplistic example such as this, but information is still concealed when people's interests are not given bargaining power; and interests are still frustrated without the use of force. As explained before, the coercive nature of force expands to other domains, and results in very similar results. Imagine a situation where a gay man lives in a town that hates gay people. The threat of him being ostracized acts as a "spook" against his interests, leading to the information of him being gay, being concealed from the market. Similarly, a situation where someone is forced to pay extra for rent from a landlord or work in a very dangerous job simply because they are impoverished and have nowhere else to go, is a situation where their preferences are being hidden from the market. Any case of this will create inefficiency, and this can be logically proven. Inefficiency in a market is measurable by whether there exists an allocation of resources that could make someone better off without making anyone else worse off than they were before. The more such allocations exist, the more inefficient. It can also be measured as whether decentralized actors are unable to coordinate production between each-other using relevant knowledge. If a market contains external factors that distort the expression of intrinsic interests, market demand cannot be assumed to accurately represent those interests, which results in an inefficiency in both market coordination and supply and demand. This can be shown regardless of which measure of inefficiency you choose. —A Proof that Austrian Economics results in Inefficiency— –Premises: (P1): Market demand reflects the behavior of people under their existing conditions, and therefore reflects their relative interests, rather than necessarily their intrinsic interests or wants independent of external constraints. (P2): An interest that is fulfilled or pursued only because of the present conditions affecting an agent's behavior, is a relative interest rather than an intrinsic interest. (Definition) (P3): External factors can alter the conditions under which a person acts according to their interests, causing them to pursue relative interests that differ from their intrinsic interests. (P4): When a person's relative interests differ from their intrinsic interests due to external factors, their behavior does not fully reveal to the market the intrinsic interests that would otherwise guide their actions. (P5): A market allocation is inefficient when there exists an alternate allocation that can better fulfill the interests of at least one person without reducing the fulfillment of the interests of others, or when relevant information necessary for decentralized coordination is concealed. –Logic: (L1): From (P2), interests that are relative to the existing conditions of an agent are distinguishable from intrinsic interests that would remain present regardless of those conditions. (L2): From (P3), external factors can cause a person's behavior to be directed towards a relative interest rather than the intrinsic interest that would otherwise guide their behavior. (L3): From (L1 + L2), when external factors cause a person's behavior to be directed towards a relative interest that differs from their intrinsic interest, the behavior of the person is not necessarily representative of their intrinsic interest. (L4): From (P4), when a person's behavior is directed towards a relative interest that differs from their intrinsic interest, their behavior does not fully reveal the intrinsic interest that would otherwise guide their actions. (L5): From (L3 + L4), when external factors cause a person's behavior to be directed towards a relative interest that differs from their intrinsic interest, the intrinsic interest that would otherwise guide their behavior can be concealed from the market. (L6): From (P1 + L5), market demand can therefore reflect behavior directed towards relative interests while failing to reveal the intrinsic interests of the people generating that demand. (L7): From (P5), when relevant information necessary for decentralized coordination is concealed, the resulting market allocation is inefficient. (L8): From (L6 + L7), whenever market demand fails to reveal intrinsic interests that are relevant to the allocation of resources, the resulting market allocation can be inefficient. –Conclusion: From (L8): Therefore, Pure Markets do not necessarily produce efficient allocations, because market demand can reflect relative interests created by external conditions rather than the intrinsic interests of the people involved, allowing relevant information about interests to be concealed from the market. —Libertarian Slavery and Wage Labor— Some might think that market efficiency and ethics are separate, based on the idea that slave labor for example can be used to enhance market efficiency, making production of goods cheaper. Libertarians who follow Austrian Economics would instead argue such slavery conceals important information from the market such as which people are best at which labor, since the labor is supplied involuntarily giving an incentive to hide your skills from your slave owner. Information is also hidden involving how much of specific products to make, whereas extra production can be done in areas that might not make much sense, simply because production in certain industries may have a disproportionate advantage given by slave labor. In the same way though, abusive wage labor also conceals information even when force is not used. In an unregulated market, people who seek employment simply because of their external conditions and not as an intrinsic interest, conceal from the market information about what jobs they actually want, what jobs are actually needed, and how much their own labor is worth. —Worker-Ownership, Interest Alignment, and Information— The hidden information and thus inefficiency is a side-effect of Interest Misalignment, where the interests of employee and employer, worker and owner, are misaligned to the detriment of the market. Interest Alignment on the other-hand, implies an ability to ensure proper coordination relative to the interests of the parties involved, and thus knowledge of how they manage scarce resources. An enterprise that is entirely worker-owned, has all the knowledge of the interests of all parties involved internally, as such no information is lost in internal organization. Consumer bargaining power has a similar effect, the NAP though can disincentivize these types of arrangements, because in an absence of appropriate regulation those looking to hold on to "dictatorial" power over enterprise and the overall economy will use every means to do so, and this is true historically. The more interests are not being subordinated, the more information is revealed to the market and the better the outcomes.

Solving the Non-Identity Problem Back to Home Details Yoggism Guide Philosophy Menu More Solving the Non-Identity Problem [Full Text] —Solving the Non-Identity Problem— The Non-Identity Problem is a philosophical problem posited by the philosopher Derek Parfit. A version of this argument goes as follows: Imagine a mother poisons her child, causing the child to live with a disability. This is clearly bad, harm has been caused to the child. Now imagine instead, a mother poisons herself, and then decides to conceive a child. The child ends up living with a disability. This is what the mother intended. This also is intuitively, clearly bad. The question is, in the second example, was the child really wronged? —The Problem— Imagine a mother who has a strange condition where if she has a child the child will end up with a disability, having to spend their life in a wheelchair. Now say the condition is temporary, and if the mother waits a month, the condition will go away and she can safely conceive a child. Imagine the mother is selfish and wants attention, and as such she wants a disabled child. She decides to go out of her way to conceive a child early, to guarantee disability. Here, the child's life is still worth living, but they would never go back in time to stop their mother because that would make them never have existed. If the mother waited a month before conceiving, the child wouldn't end up without a disability, they simply would never have existed. Thus, if the child hadn't been poisoned, the child would never have existed. Assuming the child's life after being born is worth living, the child would never wish this alternative upon them. —What it Implies— Therefore, how can we condemn the mother's actions against the child, if those actions are actually the thing that allowed the child themself to exist? In a way, the child involved is better off than if the decision that caused them a disability was not made, because if that decision was not made, if the mother had not poisoned herself, the child wouldn't have ever existed. So, how can we conclude the child was wronged? 1. If something is bad, it must be bad for someone. 2. Something cannot be bad for someone without making them worse off. 3. Cases like the mother's choice are bad. These three statements cannot all be true at the same time, even though they all appear true. —Ways of Looking at the Problem— One can accept #1 as false, by arguing that people should choose the outcome of the highest overall quality of life. Thus, the mother's choice is bad, because it causes a worse outcome overall relative to quality of life. Derek Parfit makes a claim using this called The Same Number Quality Claim: "If in either of two possible outcomes the same number of people would ever live, it would be worse if those who live are worse off, or have a lower quality of life, than those who would have lived." There is a big problem with this though, it only really works in relation to creating new people if both outcomes create the same number of people. For example imagine you plan to have children. You only have so many resources at your disposal, so if you have one or two children, they will have a very high quality of life on average. If you instead choose to have six children, they won't have as high a quality of life. If we simply take an aggregate of "life quality" however that is measured though, it's reasonable that the six children overall represent more "life quality", or utility, than the two. Thus.. you are obligated to have as many children as possible? This doesn't seem right. Should we maximize quality of life for individuals, or overall? If the latter, how does having kids not become an obligation onto itself? —The Repugnant Conclusion— This kind of thinking leads to another problem. Imagine two populations. Society A, with 1 billion happy people. Now imagine Society B has 9 billion people who's lives are actually pretty terrible, the people are not happy much at all, only barely worth living. The conclusion is that Society B is better than Society A because it has so many more people. If we reject this by arguing average well-being is what matters, then you're instead arguing that it is wrong to bring into being happy people, even when doing so hurts no-one, if you bring them into being in a society that's a bit happier than them. That doesn't sound good either. —The Yoggist Solution— If we apply Justification Ethics here, it solves the problem. Let's look once more at these three statements: 1. If something is bad, it must be bad for someone. 2. Something cannot be bad for someone without making them worse off. 3. Cases like the mother's choice are bad. As previously mentioned, one of these statements should be false. Yoggism implies Statement 2 is wrong. This is for a simple reason, the mother giving birth to a child is an action, and if the mother poisons herself or chooses to conceive before some condition subsides, this action indisputably frustrates the child's inherent interests. Harm does not require making someone comparatively worse off than some alternative possible life, harm consists in unjustifiably frustrating the interests of a person. The child being disabled is a frustration against their interests, and the mother choosing to conceive early is an inherent frustration against these interests. No discussion of whether that frustration is necessary for the specific child to exist, is necessary here. Justification Ethics is clear, the action cannot be justified. The Repugnant Conclusion can be explained in a similar way. There is no absolute obligation to create new interests, Justification Ethics only implies an obligation to not frustrate interests. Taking an irrespective view of time, future interests only matter if they actually end up existing. If the mother chose to wait a month before conceiving, it cannot be said that she frustrated the child's interests by not giving birth to them, because said interests would simply never exist. If instead she decides to conceive early, she is retroactively frustrating interests that will exist in the future. Beings that never exist, cannot be harmed. —Yoggism and the Repugnant Conclusion— Yoggism distinguishes between creating interests and frustrating interests. Failing to create a person does not frustrate anyone's interests, because no subject of those interests exists or will exist by definition. Creating a person creates interests that subsequently deserve consideration. Frustrating those interests requires justification. This asymmetry prevents the Repugnant Conclusion, as there is no standing obligation to maximize the number of technically worthwhile lives, as interests that never exist possess no normative force. —The Repugnant Omnipotent— Imagine again two worlds, one with 1 billion people in prosperity, who love their lives, and another with 9 billion people in extreme poverty, but their lives still have some value to them. Now imagine you are forced to simply delete one of the worlds. Which one do you choose? The obvious choice is to delete the world with the fewest people. Justification Ethics implies this because destroying the second world is even more unjustifiable, as more individuals are having their inherent interests frustrated. When looking at the Repugnant Conclusion, and the two worlds / societies, the question of which society is better, is ill-defined. As an individual, you want Society A. When it comes to which is worse to destroy, the answer is Society B. The Repugnant Conclusion is more about the difference between existent interests vs. non-existent interests, than measurements of Utility. There is a difference between choosing to save one of two sets, one of which giving greater Utility, and choosing what to bring into existence. —Depletion as Policy— These examples show that Yoggism can also solve why it is wrong to enact policies involving rapid depletion of resources that eventually harm future people. The non-identity problem style argument is this: Imagine a society with billions of people. They rely on some key resource, say oil, to survive and thrive and to keep their economy growing. There are two policies we can enact. The first policy very carefully budgets the use of this scarce resource, ensuring slow but stable growth. The second policy causes immense and quick depletion of the scarce resource, causing very fast growth before slowing down later after a century. The second policy is such that the current generation of people will benefit the most in contrast to the first policy, though later generations beyond their lifetimes will suffer. Since we are making a policy choice right now though, depending on our choice, that choice is bound to have a snowball effect resulting in the later generations being completely separate sets of people, different people will end up being born in the future in either scenario. Thus, if we choose the second policy and quickly deplete our resources, we help our own generation, and can we really say we harm the future generation if otherwise they simply wouldn't exist and a different set of people would take their place? Again Yoggism comes in to explain. It doesn't matter if the harm done to them is responsible for them existing, their interests are still being frustrated and that is bad. It is not a frustration of their interests to choose the first policy however, even if that results in them never having existed. This is because if they never exist then their interests don't exist either, no normative claims can be binding on parties that do not and never will exist. As such, the first policy harms no-one and instead fulfills interests of future generations that end up existing, while the second policy causes frustration of the interests of future generations.

Deliberation Ethics Back to Home Details Yoggism Guide Philosophy Menu More Deliberation Ethics (DE) [Full Text] —Yoggist Ethics from Deliberation (DE)— During deliberation, interlocutors evaluate arguments according to shared standards of reasoning. Arguments presented need not be fully derived but rather by nature of deliberation, rely on shared reasons others consider. This consideration of others reasons is justified by deliberation giving all members input and assuming their reasons and ideas have value. These norms are presupposed as valid within the context of deliberation. Not only are these norms valid within the context of deliberation, but if you give arguments not fully derived from first principles but rather justified by the nature of deliberation, these arguments are as a premise, justified by your interlocutor's acceptance of your reasons, and your acceptance of theirs. If your interlocutor gives you such an argument, then that argument again as a premise is only justified because you value their reasons. To later try and devalue the reasons of your interlocutor arbitrarily, is to forfeit this premise, invalidating the justification of the arguments you gave them and they gave you. To argue with a landlord who then decides to evict you because you argued against him too well, is for him to abandon deliberation and reject the norms that justify the consideration of his reasons in the first place. Imagine either arguing it's moral to give money to the poor based on “human dignity”, or accepting such a persuasion. To later reject the norm of human dignity or that others reasons have value to you, is to reject the very shared reasons that justified the argument. —Fairness as a Premise of the Arguments— To be clear, the arguer involved with deliberation isn't presupposing the norms of fairness, of others' reasons having value, not in any universal way. Instead, such norms are presupposed as a premise of the arguments given by the arguer, and arguments recieved and accepted by them. To reject the norms is to forfeit argumentative force in the context of cooperative deliberation, and to forfeit the justification of arguments granted from said deliberation. Therefore, acceptance of arguments through cooperative deliberation, where arguments given and recieved are not fully derived from first principles but rather justified through the acceptance of shared reasons, presupposes such a fairness principle universally. To reject the principle that others' reasons have value, is to forfeit argumentative force and the justification of any arguments you have made, and those you have accepted; a self-contradiction. —Fairness implies Anti-Abuse— The fairness implied by accepting others' reasons as valuable, is to accept others' reasons and thus their interests as having normative force over arguments that can apply to you. The reason for this is that by accepting others' reasons as valid as a premise of your own normative arguments, is to accept their reasons as normative in regards to your argument, or the basis of the normativity in your own normative arguments or similar that you yourself accept. This is the presupposition of the normative force of interests. Actions that inherently subordinate others' interests are inconsistent with this standard, as they invalidate the reasons given by others. This is because to present a standard entirely inconsistent with the value of your interlocutors' interests, is to prevent deliberation entirely. Attempting to instead fully derive the standard from first principles, falls into the trap of Justification Ethics. So any normative argument brought about not by full derivation but instead through mutual cooperative deliberation, must accept the normative value of both parties' interests, as a premise of any arguments given during deliberation. To later reject this value is to forfeit argumentative force and reject the very arguments you already accepted during deliberation, a contradiction. This then implies the Anti-Abuse Principle: —The Anti-Abuse Principle (AAP)— Actions that are intrinsically frustrating to another's non-abusive fulfillment of interests, or inherently subordinate another's interests, constitute abuse, and are thus illegitimate. Actions that proportionately defend against abuse, or inhibit conduct that is inherently frustrating of interests, are legitimate insofar as they constitute self-defense. —Argumentation Ethics— Argumentation Ethics is an argument by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. This argument is the idea that the Non-Aggression Principle is presupposed by the norms of argumentation, and thus it is impossible to argue against the NAP or argue for norms inconsistent with the NAP during argumentation, without a performative contradiction. The problem most commonly pointed out is that appealing to a specific rule within a specific context or activity, does not imply that rule as a universal law outside the context. For example, playing chess presupposes that if the King is one move away from defeat, the game is over. To reject this is to not play chess, but playing chess doesn't imply the King being one move away from defeat somehow applies outside of the game of chess. Another problem of Argumentation Ethics is that it cannot on its own invalidate arguments against the NAP; it only attempts to conclude the arguer of the arguments is performatively contradicting themself. If someone derives something inconsistent with the NAP, via a deductive argument, that deduction may follow from its premises and the truth value of the premises has nothing to do with whether the arguer is contradicting the norms of argumentation. —Deliberation Ethics is better than Argumentation Ethics— Argumentation Ethics tries to say the arguer presupposes the NAP themselves, which falls into the trap of trying to universalize the norms of a particular activity. Yoggist Deliberation Ethics instead does not make claims against the arguer, but rather against their own arguments, and the arguments they accept as part of cooperative deliberation. As such, it is immune to the universalization problem, as your interlocutor's reasons must be valuable for the arguments they give you and you accept, to be valid. Thus, if you ever accept arguments that have not been fully derived from first principles but rather as part of the norms of cooperative deliberation, to then arbitrarily discredit the reasons of others is to contradict premises you yourself accept, thus it is to contradict oneself. —Deduction of Anti-Subordination through Deliberation— –Premises: (P1): Arguments justified through cooperative deliberation rather than full derivation from first principles, are justified based on acceptance of your interlocutor's reasons as meaningful. (P2): For another's reasons to be meaningful in the context of deliberation is for them to be accepted as applicable for proving normative claims. (P3): Acceptance of arguments that are themselves only justified by a specific basis, requires acceptance of that basis as a standard. (P4): If an argument is accepted on the basis of another's reasons, to reject those reasons solely because they belong to the interlocutor while retaining the argument justified by them is to contradict the acceptance of that argument. (P5): To accept a reason as applicable for proving a normative claim is to accept the normative force of that reason over actions to which the normative claim applies. (P6): To prevent an interlocutor from having their reasons considered as applicable to actions to which those reasons provide normative force, is to prevent those reasons from functioning as normative reasons in the deliberation. –Logic: (L1): From (P1 + P2), arguments justified through deliberation are justified based on acceptance of your interlocutor's reasons as meaningfully applicable for proving normative claims. (L2): From (L1 + P3), acceptance of arguments justified through deliberation presupposes acceptance of your interlocutor's reasons as being applicable for proving normative claims. (L3): From (L2 + P4), to reject your interlocutor's reasons solely because they belong to your interlocutor, while retaining an argument accepted on the basis of those reasons, is contradictory. (L4): From (L3), an interlocutor cannot consistently accept the normative force of another's reasons as a basis for an argument and then arbitrarily reject the normative force of those reasons. (L5): From (L4 + P5), an interlocutor who accepts another's reasons as applicable for proving normative claims must accept the normative force of those reasons over the actions to which those claims apply. (L6): From (L5 + P6), preventing an interlocutor from having their reasons considered as applicable to actions to which those reasons provide normative force, contradicts the normativity accepted through cooperative deliberation. (L7): From (L6), acting in a manner that prevents an interlocutor from having their reasons considered as applicable to actions to which those reasons provide normative force, invalidates the normative value of those reasons within the relationship. –Conclusion: From (L6): Actions that prevent another's reasons from having normative force over actions to which those reasons apply are inconsistent with the presuppositions of cooperative deliberation. Therefore, actions that inherently subordinate another's reasons by acting inconsistently with the idea that their reasons are applicable to justifying normative force, is inconsistent with the presuppositions of cooperative deliberation.

Justification Ethics Back to Home Details Yoggism Guide Philosophy Menu More Justification Ethics [Full Text] See the deductive arguments only, here: [Deduction of Interests as a Value] Why Interests are an appropriate candidate for normative ground at all: [Oughts from Logic] –Justification Arguments presuppose the Normative Value of Interests– A Normative Justification as used here, means a deductive argument deriving a conclusion in the form "you ought to accept/believe X". Such an argument must derive its conclusion from premises. Since the conclusion is a normative one, it contains "You ought", that normative conclusion must be derived from normative premises. Here, the different types of premises that can be used to derive claims can be identified. These are: 1. Truth Claims (true facts about the world, is-statements) 2. Reason (logical truths, A=A, if A implies B and A is true then B is true, I think therefore I am) 3. Interests (wants, desires, preferences, goals; of some sentient being) 4. Axioms (assumptions, statements assumed to be true without justification) 5. Presuppositions (norms presupposed by things actors are already doing) Any argument entailing normative force must rationally justify that normative force via one or more of these types of premises. Immediately the problem is that due to what is called the is/ought gap, truth and reason cannot justify normative (ethical) force, the type of normativity that governs apparently logically neutral behaviors like "you ought not murder". Is-statements, and logical tautologies, cannot directly derive normativity of this sort. Axioms also cannot fully derive ethical normativity, not in a way that is guaranteed to apply to the recipient, because the axioms themselves definitionally cannot be justified. Normative claims that are supposed to apply to specific people, derived from axioms like "Murder is wrong", are thus impossible to rationally justify. –Presuppositions and Non-Ethical Normatives– The one type of normativity that can be derived is normative rationalism, the idea that rationality and reason have action-guiding value. This can be derived through presuppositions, as engaging in argumentation or accepting deductive arguments based on their logical weight presupposes that rationality can have this action-guiding value. This rationality though cannot derive normative ethical claims on its own, and every attempt to do so from Kantianism, Argumentation Ethics, Contractualism, have had to assume extra normative claims that cannot be justified in and of themselves. –Interests CAN Justify Normative Claims– Interests however, and the value of them, are the one type of premise that when appealed to actually can derive normative claims. Imagine a deductive argument that sets out to prove "You ought to buy my washing machine". This is a normative claim, so you can't derive the ought from pure logic. You also cannot derive the ought from truth claims, and appealing to "Washing machines are good" as an axiom isn't helpful. Yet if you appeal to "You want clean clothes" then suddenly it is possible to derive "You ought to buy my washing machine". Of course for the conclusion to be normative, that premise must also be normative, therefore "You ought to achieve your end of getting clean clothes" must be true at least relative to the person the conclusion is meant to apply to. –Interests from Normative Force Conclusion– Thus, only interests can service as the ultimate justification for normative ethical force, in a way where you can prove others ought to accept your claim. Therefore, any presupposition of the existence of ethical normative force, implicitly justifies the value of Interests in-order to rationally ground that normative force via justification. All arguments that function as a Normative Justification that tries to prove you ought to accept its conclusion, thus must presuppose the Fulfillment of Interests as a value as it pertains to the relevant interests of the person the argument's conclusion is meant to apply to. The only exception being arguments that prove normative claims based around pure truth, like "You ought to accept A = A". –Action-Guiding Claims should be Justified– To engage in argumentation, to engage in ethical debate at all, one presupposes that propositions regarding actions can be evaluated an d the premises they are derived from can be rightfully challenged. Argumentation functions off of interlocutors serving arguments and counterarguments to each-other, and when that argumentation focuses on defending actions, such propositions, such ethical claims, must be able to be judged on their epistemic truth or arbitrarity. To reject this is to either defend a proposition with a statement you do not justify, or to devolve to might makes right, which is not a valid ethic and contradicts the idea that such propositions should be evaluated and challenged at all, forfeiting argumentative force. Therefore, engagement in debate and argumentation presupposes one should be able to defend any proposition that is action-guiding, in a way where other people rationally ought to accept it, as otherwise the premises it is derived from can be rejected. –Normative Justifications are the appropriate standard of Ethics– Argumentation not only presupposes that action-guiding propositions may be evaluated and rightfully challenged, it also presupposes that claims requiring less assumptions and claims that pass a stronger burden of proof are decidedly stronger than claims that do not. Imagine two theories, Theory A and Theory B. Theory A passes a very high burden of proof, where under some very strong empirical standard T, you can show you ought accept A. Theory B however passes a weaker empirical standard P, and only under P can you show you ought accept B. To argue in favor of B over A, if all else is equal, is irrational, as even if both theories ultimately rely on unprovable axioms that act as foundations of their framework, one set of axioms creates a theory that passes a higher burden of proof. To reject this is to imply nonsense like the idea that "1+1=2" and "1+1=3" are equally true, because all propositions are rendered equivalent in strength, implying all claims of any framework are subjective. This forfeits the meaningfulness of argument itself. Normative Justification as used here is the standard by which you can prove some ethical claim, more specifically an action-guiding proposition, is something someone else affected by the action "rationally ought to accept". Such a standard is the strongest in it's category of what it is trying to prove. A similar standard that adds extra assumptions, like "an action is one you rationally ought to accept is legitimate, if it follows utilitarianism" immediately makes you ask what grounds utilitarianism as your standard. Such a standard is subjective, and not reflective of what "ethics means", in contrast to how the core axioms of mathematics are reflective of counting itself. As such, assuming actions should be evaluated and should ultimately be provable rationally, is a much less demanding assumption to ground a standard than to simply assert a new and arbitrary standard for how to evaluate actions. Therefore, action-guiding claims should be evaluated and challenged, and any ethic that captures the function and meaning of ethics while relying solely on such claims being only evaluated relative to "what one rationally ought to accept" without the inclusion of any arbitrary standard, is an ethic that is decidedly less arbitrary than any other ethic that relies on such arbitrarity. –The Action Spectrum– Imagine Bob has an interest in wearing a red shirt. Alice has an interest in killing anyone who wears a red shirt. If we reject the notion that different actions have different justificatory burden, such that all actions and all interests are created equal, we run into an issue. Different beliefs can be action guiding and are the cause of actions, thus certain actions can imply certain beliefs and mental states that are action-guiding. If all normative claims implied by such beliefs are granted equal weight, equal 'epistemic cost', we run into this problem: Both Bob's interest in wearing a red shirt and the actions he takes as a result, as well as Alice's interest in killing anyone who wears a red shirt and the actions she takes, cannot be justified. This results in the derivation of contradictory ethical or justificatory claims. We find justification unable to resolve conflicts of any kind if both actors in a given conflict can be said to be "acting" rather than one actor being passive and the other being active. Thus to avoid this contradiction we are forced to conclude that there is a spectrum between inaction and action, that different normative claims have differing epistemic weight, that actions and the epistemic weight of the beliefs that imply them have differing justificatory burden. This is not an added assumption, rather it is a recognition that must be true for the justification of action-guiding claims to be meaningful at all. Justification Ethics establishes such justificatory burden of normative ethical claims must ultimately derive from interests, this then implies the central idea of Inherent Interest Theory. Actions that are intrinsically frustrating, or inherently subordinating to other interests, causing frustration in a way intrinsic to the content of the action itself, are illegitimate upon actions that constitute less of such justificatory burden. From here, we have everything we need to derive the Anti-Abuse Principle. –Layered Justification– Imagine someone fulfilling their interests while not interacting with anyone else in a way that interferes with their interest fulfillment. This is someone acting in a way that does not frustrate against anyone else's inherent interests, where 'inherent interest' means an interest that acts as a conduit of other interests, like basic autonomy. Such fulfillment is neutral under Justification Ethics. No deduction can be made for or against the action. Yet, acts against the neutral action are explicitly unjustifiable, as they represent inherent frustration. It should also be noted that Justification Ethics cannot on its own derive a claim of positive obligation, aka an obligation to act. It only deals with the justifiability of actual actions, not inaction. This is because "interactions ought be justifiable" is presupposed by the recognition of normative value, and presupposed by argumentation. Yet, "inaction ought be justifiable" is not presupposed by either. This allows the separation of Justification Ethics into three layers. 1. Actions that are inherently frustrating or abusive under the Anti-Abuse Principle, cannot justify normative force. Actions that promote fulfillment of interests can justify normative protection. Actions that constitute fulfillment of interests while not interacting with anyone else, are neutral. To act against such behavior is still unjustifiable. 2. Inherent Interest Theory as derived, states that some actions constitute inherent frustration, and actions that are intrinsically frustrating cannot be justified against actions that are less so. 3. The concept of Retaliatory Law justifies frustration in one extra case, if it constitutes defense against inherent frustration. This is justified as proportional defense is frustration of interests in defense of interests more inherent. These then explicitly solve conflicts between interests, generating the AAP. Self-defense as a whole can be derived from the Estoppel Argument, where if one person is acting in a way that cannot be justified, they cannot consistently object to you doing something of similar weight without them justifying their original action, a contradiction. –Justifying the Anti-Abuse Principle– These building blocks then justify the Anti-Abuse Principle as a consequence. Actions that inherently frustrate against other's interests are unjustifiable, unless they constitute defense against inherent frustration. Actions that constitute fulfillment of other's interests justify normative protection. Actions that only fulfill interests of an individual, while not interacting with anyone else, are neutral, and unjustifiable to act against. Conflict between interests is measured via Inherent Interest Theory, where some actions are farther from pure inaction and represent a more intrinsic interference with others' interests, thus giving them more of a normative justificatory burden. This all then derives the Anti-Abuse Principle as the least-arbitrary ethic. —The Anti-Abuse Principle (AAP)— Actions that are intrinsically frustrating to another's non-abusive fulfillment of interests, or inherently subordinate another's interests, constitute abuse, and are thus illegitimate. Actions that proportionately defend against abuse, or inhibit conduct that is inherently frustrating of interests, are legitimate insofar as they constitute self-defense. –Max Stirner's Egoism– This then sows the seeds for a sort of Universal Egoism, the idea that my ends matter, and yours, and everyone's. This sets up Yoggism to be the most consistent framework for ensuring the protection of the individual's self-interest, within an organized group or apart from one. This idea is a "spook to end all spooks". In Max Stirner's Egoism, a 'spook' is referred to as some action or concept meant to push you away from your own self-interest. To define a rule against creating spooks upon others, is the kind of rule a "Union of Egoists", the hypothetical social organizing envisioned by Max Stirner, advocates for. This rule is essentially exactly what the Anti-Abuse Principle is. This makes Yoggism particularly justifiable by Egoist standards, compared with other normative frameworks. Yoggism itself is a spook technically, but it is also the anti-spook. It should also be said that the only thing 'spooky' about Yoggism is its recognition of a minimal spook, the idea that actions require justification in any way. This minimal spook is then presupposed by all ethical debate. From this follows the Anti-Spook Doctrine: —The Abuse of the Spook (Anti-Spook Doctrine)— Part of the philosophy of Max Stirner was that arbitrary principles such as religious and moral principles, as well as reason itself, could become spooks against ones self-interest. If we are to derive a framework that is universal though, we can think of some actions as spooks and some as not, we can think of actions as spooks based on if they are only justifiable by a spook. Hence, some actions including abuse of authority, discrimination, or acts of violence, are spooks. In this view, Yoggism becomes the anti-spook, the spook against spooks as justifier; with Yoggism itself as the only justified spook through reason itself, a "spook to end all spooks". Some actions function as a 'spook' against the fulfillment of interests, such actions can be defined as intrinsically frustrating actions that inherently subordinate another's interests. These actions constitute abuse, norms based on such actions represent spooks of the mind against interests, and are thus the true enemy of both individual freedom and rational ethics. Therefore, actions that constitute inherent frustration through coercive frustration or subordination of another's interests, cannot be justified by any metric and are thus illegitimate. –Actions should carry Justificatory Burden– If you accept that beliefs, that is propositions, should be justified, as such is presupposed by engaging in argumentation, making it contradictory to argue that propositions don't need to be justified, then you should accept that normative claims involving actions, as propositions, have a justificatory burden. To perform intentional actions impossible to propositionally justify, meaning you cannot form a proposition that justifies the action where that proposition itself is justified, is then to imply acceptance of propositions that cannot be justified. To instead insist that your action does not reflect any proposition, any claim or belief, is to forfeit argumentative force involving your own action, as it is to render it impossible to coherently justify your actions. To reject this entirely and argue beliefs do not need justification, is to reject all deductive arguments meant to prove a claim is rational to believe. You must also reject conclusions themselves as requiring justification as conclusions guide actions, acceptance of a conclusion is merely a form of belief. This then requires forfeiting the argumentative, logical, and normative force of the objection itself, a self-contradiction. Not merely a performative, but logical contradiction. This is the problem with Egoism, with actions that cannot be justified in general, and with any ethic that rejects such justificatory standards, they cannot be proven and are merely subjective. –The Igism Dilemma– For an Egoist to take up this position is to fall for the Igism dilemma. Imagine the ideology of Igism, that one should say 'Ig' once a day, and encourage others to do the same, while attempting to form a coercive government that indoctrinates others into Igism. For an Egoist to reject debate is for them to grant Igism equal weight to their own framework. An objection to the claim that beliefs should face justification is also to object to the very argumentative force of the objection itself, since a belief in the objection or acceptance of it's conclusion itself counts as a belief and suddenly cannot be justified in a way binding to any agent. –Rejection of Normative Force results in Unjustifiable Nihilism– If someone says "normative ethical force cannot be justified", they are presupposing that actions and that which is action-guiding, normativity, ought to be justified in the first place. This claim is also presupposed by argumentation and the acceptance of deductive proofs. The idea that deductive justification of actions is valuable itself, forces confrontation with the Fulfillment of Interests because interests are the only way to ground claims of justification for actions such as acts of gift-giving, eating food, violence, murder, theft, etc. To reject normative ethical force is also to reject any normative force pertaining to logically neutral actions, which is simply to embrace nihilism. –Interest-Frustration cannot be justified by Nihilistic Egoism– True Egoism requires the conclusion that it is irrational to say a strong person should not murder a disadvantaged person. Either that, or it must contradict itself. It is impossible to argue such a conclusion to someone if they are the disadvantaged, because making such an argument requires appealing to their preferences and such a conclusion contradicts them; their interest in not being attacked is clearly relevant to any argument against it, yet the argument against it can only function by granting their interests no weight. This is a blatant contradiction in the nature of justification itself. You cannot rationally justify an assertion that you can punch someone in the face for your own enjoyment, because any argument that could prove a normative claim applies to them, must appeal to some preferences they have, yet the assertion itself is contradictory to their preferences and grants their interests no weight. It also cannot be claimed that to have a preference beyond Egoism is irrational, as Egoism itself dictates that all self-interest is valid. It is only Preference as Normative Force itself, that allows for the distinction between rational and irrational interests, and it is this which allows for proper rational justification. Therefore, it is impossible to justify Egoism, it is impossible to justify behavior through Egoism, it is impossible to normatively argue for Egoism in a way that applies to anyone with an interest against it, and it is also self-contradictory to accept an argument for Egoism as it always contradicts your own rationally-justifiable preferences. Under Egoism, it is also impossible to successfully argue against actions consistent with Yoggism. Under any system it is theoretically impossible to argue against actions consistent with Yoggism, as doing so requires extra assumptions that need not apply. –Interests as Normative Value, Deductively Proven– We can now demonstrate this proof step-by-step: --Basic Clarifications-- A. Interests are not presuppositions onto themselves. This argument is based on the concept of examining that which can be justified relative to someone who already rationally values their own interests. The normative value of interests is agent-relative, someone who values nothing at all simply forfeits all normative force and cannot justify their actions or claims. B. In this context we can assume normative claims deduced from premises, must require at least one normative premise; this is justified by the is/ought gap. C. Interests are defined as any preferences, wants, desires, goals, that which a being's behavior tends towards; they are inherently and definitionally action-guiding. --The Argument-- –Definitions: (Normative Justification): A deductive argument that derives a normative claim in the form “you ought to accept X” or “you ought not act against or inconsistent with X”. (Ultimate Justification): A normative justification of a claim that does not ultimately depend on unjustified normative premises, except for the rules of logic themselves. (Descriptive Facts): Is-statements, claims that are not normative but explain facts about the world, I.E. “the sky is blue”. (Interests): That which the behavior of a sentient being tends towards. (Interests as a value): The appeal to interests as the source of normativity that derives a normative claim. –Premises: (P1): Normative Justifications that derive normative claims in the form “you ought to accept X”, must include at least one normative premise. (P2): Purely descriptive facts and logical truths alone cannot derive normative claims. (The is-ought gap) (P3): Normative axioms and assumptions cannot constitute an ultimate justification, because the axioms themselves are left unjustified and can be used to support contradicting claims. (P4): Normative Justifications can derive normative claims by appealing to someone's interests, I.E. “you ought to buy a washing machine” from an interest in clean clothes. (P5): Normative justifications must derive their normativity from premises their target is rationally required to accept, as otherwise their target is not rationally required to accept the claim, leaving it unjustified. (P6): In deduction, claims are derived from premises; such premises are either descriptive facts, logical truths, interests, axioms, or presuppositions; or reducible thereto. (P7): Presuppositions arising from norms of some external process, cannot consistently ground normative ethical claims, as such process can be evaded and its norms need not apply outside the process. (P8): If a norm is merely presupposed by participation in an inevitable or universal process, that fact alone cannot justify a normative ethical claim as such presuppositions reduce to mere descriptive facts. –Logic: (L1): From (P2 + P3), neither descriptive facts, purely logical truths, nor axioms or assumptions can ultimately ground justification of normative claims. (L2): From (P1 + L1), normative justifications cannot derive conclusions solely from descriptive facts, purely logical truths, axioms, or assumptions. (L3): From (P4 + P5), normative justifications can derive normative claims by deriving the normativity from an appeal to interests. (L4): From (L2 + L3), interests have the capacity to ground normative justification, whereas descriptive facts, pure logic, and axioms cannot ultimately ground normative justification. (L5): From (L4 + P6), interests and presuppositions are the only available types of premises for the normative grounding of normative claims. (L6): From (P7 + P8), presuppositions cannot consistently justifiably ground normative claims. –Conclusion: From (L5 + L6): Therefore, normative ethical justifications that consistently derive claims in the form “you ought to accept X”, must ultimately appeal to interests as a value, as otherwise they are rendered unjustifiable.