Dissecting Hoppe’s Argumentation Ethics

Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s argumentation ethics claims to establish libertarian property rights as true a priori via a transcendental argument. Unlike the dominant strand of criticism since Murphy and Callahan (2006), which tends to grant Hoppe’s transcendental approach and focus on other gaps in his system, we argue directly against the possibility of his approach. We also critique the claim that argumentation has inherent purposes, which is central to Hoppe’s most recent formulation of argumentation ethics, but which is largely unexamined in the critical literature. Accounting for both the correspondence and consensus theories of truth, we argue that no transcendental argument can establish that a norm exists in mind-independent reality, that no particular ends can be constitutively necessary for argumentation, and that communicated argumentation presupposes the existence of noncommunicated propositional judgment, such that communicative transcendentalism fails by Hoppe’s own standards.