Hans-hermann Hoppe’s Argumentation Ethic: a Critique

ONE OF THE MOST prominent theorists of anarcho-capitalism is HansHermann Hoppe. In what is perhaps his most famous result, the argumentation ethic for libertarianism, he purports to establish an a priori defense of the justice of a social order based exclusively on private property. Hoppe claims that all participants in a debate must presuppose the libertarian principle that every person owns himself, since the principle underlies the very concept of argumentation. Some libertarians (e.g., Rothbard 1988) have celebrated Hoppe’s argument as the final nail in the coffin for collectivism of any type; following Hoppe, they believe that to deny the libertarian ethic is not only wrong, but also internally contradictory. On the other hand, a number of other prominent libertarians characterized Hoppe’s initial statement of his case as “one muddle after another” (Steele 1988, p. 47) or “a tissue of bald assertions” (Yeager 1988, p. 45). At the end of the symposium (in Liberty) that included both of the above-mentioned comments, Hoppe responded to his critics, contending that they had misunderstood his argument and misidentified what he took it to demonstrate. Hoppe’s original paper is still cited, by some libertarians, as having established an irrefutable case for libertarian rights; for example, Kinsella says: “Thus [per Hoppe’s argument], opponents of liberty undercut their own position as soon as they begin to state it” (Kinsella 1996, p. 323; Meng 2002). Therefore, we believe that the question of whether Hoppe was able to answer his critics adequately is worth examining. We contend that Hoppe was not, and that his project is fatally flawed, despite the fact that we are largely sympathetic to the conclusions to which it carries him. We intend to demonstrate that even