The Ethics of Action

The tradition of natural rights philosophy represents one of humanity's most profound moral insights: that individuals possess inherent rights independent of state authority or social convention. Yet despite its intuitive appeal and historical influence, natural rights theory has long grappled with fundamental philosophical problems that have persisted from its earliest formulations to contemporary debates.

The Promise and the Problem with Natural Rights

Natural rights theory rests on the premise that rights derive from human nature itself. This elegant foundation has inspired revolutionaries and reformers for centuries, from the Levellers to the American Founders. The intuition that rights precede government rather than flow from it strikes many as self-evidently correct—a moral truth accessible to reason.

However, defining the human nature from which these rights supposedly spring has proven remarkably elusive. Classical natural law theorists like Thomas Aquinas grounded rights in a teleological conception of human nature oriented toward divine ends. Hugo Grotius attempted to secularize this framework by deriving natural law from human sociability and reason. John Locke appealed to self-ownership and the mixing of labor with nature. Thomas Hobbes, though reaching authoritarian conclusions, based his natural right on the fundamental drive for self-preservation. Samuel von Pufendorf emphasized human dignity and moral agency. The Scottish Enlightenment thinkers like Francis Hutcheson and Adam Smith invoked moral sentiments and sympathy. More recent theorists like Robert Nozick appealed to Kantian respect for persons, while Ayn Rand grounded rights in the requirements of human survival and flourishing.

Each thinker offered a different account of what human nature fundamentally is, and therefore what rights it entails. This diversity reveals a deeper problem: human nature appears sufficiently complex and multifaceted that it can support multiple, sometimes conflicting, interpretations.

The Is-Ought Abyss

Even if we could settle on a definitive account of human nature, natural rights theory faces David Hume's devastating challenge: how do we derive an "ought" from an "is"? Observing facts about human nature—that humans reason, feel pain, form societies, or pursue goals—does not logically entail any moral conclusions about what we ought to do or what rights we possess. The leap from descriptive anthropology to normative ethics requires an additional premise that natural rights theory has struggled to justify.

Traditional natural rights theory thus took on a deontological character, yet without a convincing derivation from actual human nature, these assertions appeared increasingly as mere stipulations—expressions of moral preference rather than demonstrated truths. The theory demanded respect for certain inviolable rules of interaction but could not adequately ground why these particular rules, rather than others, were binding.

Hoppe's Argumentation Ethics: A Praxeological Foundation

Hans-Hermann Hoppe's argumentation ethics offers a novel solution to these longstanding problems by grounding rights not in contested claims about human nature, but in the inescapable presuppositions of argumentation itself. This approach, building on Karl-Otto Apel's discourse ethics and Ludwig von Mises's praxeology, derives ethical norms from the very structure of purposeful action and reasoned discourse.

The argument proceeds as follows: Anyone engaging in argumentation—seeking to justify claims through reasoned exchange—necessarily presupposes certain norms. To argue is to recognize the other party's exclusive control over their own body (otherwise, physical force rather than persuasion would be employed). It is to presuppose that conflicts should be resolved through reason rather than violence. It is to acknowledge that truth claims can only be evaluated through discussion, which requires that participants have autonomy over their physical persons and the means to sustain themselves during discourse.

Crucially, these norms cannot be consistently denied, for any attempt to deny them through argument performatively affirms them. To argue that one does not have self-ownership is to exercise self-ownership in making the argument. To claim through reasoned discourse that might makes right is to contradict one's own practice of appealing to reason rather than force. This yields what Hoppe calls an a priori-of-argumentation: ethical norms that anyone engaged in argumentation must presuppose as valid.

As Hoppe explains, "In asserting any proposition... one must assume that it can be validated by propositional or argumentative means" and "argumentation presupposes... one's recognition of another's exclusive control over his own body."

From this foundation, Hoppe derives the principle of self-ownership and, through extension, rights in external property. Since arguing about what is just or unjust presupposes each person's exclusive control over their own body, and since survival and argumentation require the use of scarce external resources, property rights in such resources become necessary corollaries of the argumentative situation itself.

This approach elegantly sidesteps both the problem of defining human nature and the is-ought gap. It does not claim that rights flow from some essence of humanity that must first be identified and agreed upon. Instead, it shows that anyone engaging in practical reason—in purposeful action aimed at justifying norms—has already implicitly accepted certain ethical principles. The foundation is praxeological rather than metaphysical: it rests on what we cannot help but presuppose when we act and argue, not on disputable claims about human nature. 

We belong to a species able to make arguments and argue for our rights (and yes, we may have a tutelar role over other living beings, but what puts us in that position exactly? Yes, that we can argue and somehow reason jointly about these things).

Completing the Framework: The Lockean Rules

Yet Hoppe's argumentation ethics, while sufficient to establish the principle of property rights, remains incomplete in specifying how property in external resources is legitimately acquired. It demonstrates that exclusive control over scarce resources must be possible and that such control cannot arise from mere declaration or force. But it does not fully articulate the positive principles by which unowned resources become property.

The three Lockean Rules of property provide the necessary completion: homesteading (original appropriation through use), production (transformation of already-owned resources), and voluntary transfer (exchange, gift, or inheritance). These principles share a common foundation: property arises from action.

Homesteading establishes property in previously unowned resources through first use (occupancy). When someone applies their labor to transform a portion of nature—fencing land, cultivating crops, mining ore—they establish an objective link between themselves and that resource that cannot be matched by those who arrive later. This principle respects the prior-later distinction in time: the first user has done something that creates a unique relationship, while subsequent claimants have not.

Locke articulated this principle this way: "Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property."

Production extends property through the transformation of already-owned inputs. When I combine my labor with resources I own to create something new, the product embodies my action and remains mine. This follows necessarily from the principle of self-ownership: if I own my body and its labor, and I own the materials I work upon, then I must own what results from their combination.

Voluntary transfer allows property to pass between persons through mutual consent—whether by exchange, gift, or inheritance. This preserves the action-based foundation of property: both parties exercise their agency to alter the ownership structure through their voluntary choices. No one's property rights are violated; rather, owners themselves choose to relinquish or transfer their rights.

But in my view S. Kinsella introduces more rigor when he clarifies homesteading or originary appropriation --the act that originates property-- about the first occupant/better claim/first colonizer of a resource and not "owning labor" which is both imprecise and has been intellectual disastrous as a metaphor o description.

As Kinsella explains, "The first possessor has better title in the property than any possible challenger, who is always a latecomer."

The crucial unifying principle is that absent a prior owner, action generates property. This completes Hoppe's framework by answering the question his argumentation ethics leaves open: how do scarce resources that must be subject to exclusive control actually become property? The answer: through purposeful action that establishes an objective, verifiable link between person and resource.

This  matches the economic vs. political means distinction made by Franz Oppenheimer, with the Lockean Rules being the ethical or economic means of acquiring income and thus, property.

Oppenheimer distinguished between "the economic means" of wealth acquisition through "one's own labor and the equivalent exchange of one's own labor for the labor of others" and "the political means" involving "the unrequited appropriation of the labor of others."

A Fully Rounded Ethics of Action

Together, Hoppe's argumentation ethics and the (three) Lockean Rules constitute a complete ethics of action. From the praxeological foundation—what we cannot help but presuppose in acting and arguing—we derive both the necessity of property rights and the principles by which they are legitimately established. This framework avoids the pitfalls that have plagued natural rights theory:

It does not depend on a controversial account of human nature that invites endless disputation. It does not attempt to derive ought from is, but rather demonstrates what any actor or arguer has already presupposed. It is not merely deontological assertion, but a demonstration grounded in the inescapable structure of purposeful action. And it provides concrete, objective principles for determining legitimate property titles.

The ethics of action thus stands as vindication of the natural rights intuition, but on firmer philosophical ground. Rights are not mysterious emanations from an elusive human essence, but practical necessities implicit in the very possibility of reasoned discourse and purposeful living. They are, in the deepest sense, what action itself requires.

Bibliography:

Hoppe, Hans-Hermann. A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989.

Hoppe, Hans-Hermann. "The Ultimate Justification of the Private Property Ethic." Liberty 2, no. 1 (1988): 20-22.

Hoppe, Hans-Hermann. The Economics and Ethics of Private Property. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1993.

Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. 1739-1740. Book III, Part I, Section I.

Kinsella, Stephan. "A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability." Journal of Libertarian Studies 17, no. 2 (Spring 2003): 11-37.

Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government. 1689. Second Treatise, Chapter V, "Of Property."

Mises, Ludwig von. Human Action: A Treatise on Economics. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949.

Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books, 1974.

Oppenheimer, Franz. The State. Translated by John M. Gitterman. New York: Vanguard Press, 1926.

Rand, Ayn. "Man's Rights." In The Virtue of Selfishness. New York: Signet, 1964.

Rothbard, Murray N. The Ethics of Liberty. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1982.