Murray N. Rothbard vs. the Philosophers - Ludwig von Mises Institute

MURRAY N. ROTHBARD VS. THE PHILOSPHERS: UNPUBLISHED WRITINGS
116 ON HAYEK, MISES, STRAUSS, AND POLYANI
morals, and entertaining bits of humor that highlight Vivas’s
points. And yet the logic is keen and clear, and we have such
expositions as the paradoxes of relativism, and many other
subtle arguments. And there is a refutation of the common
idea that “relative” means “according to certain specific
methods,” which really serves as a refutation of Casserley’s
confusion of relativism with existing in actual space and
time. 67
The chief defect of Vivas’s paper, which does not, however,
offset the many merits of the piece, is Vivas’s agnosticism
about what ethics we really do know. He upholds the
possibility of an objective, rationally arrivable ethics, but
when it comes to specific content, he virtually denies that
such ethics have been found yet (aside from a very few generalities
such as: civilization is better than savagery, and Ilse
Koch was bad). His belief that almost all objective knowledge
lies ahead of us weakens his ultimate position against
the relativists; it is surely an entirely unnecessary view. Several
thousand years of life among men, and of perfection
upon it, have built up a pretty rigorous, and extensive body
of objective knowledge of the nature of man, and what is
best for him. Of course, it can and should be added to, and
the more specific sciences such as economics or biology or
psychology are developed, the more it is added to, but the
basic structure and contents remain, and these contents are
very broad.
In the whole, however, Vivas’s paper is very worthwhile,
and a fine contribution to the symposium.
67 Julian Victor Langmead Casserley (1909–1978), was professor
of theological philosophy, author of Morals and Man in the Social
Sciences (London, New York: Longmans, Green, 1951), The Christian
in Philosophy (New York: Scribner, 1951), Graceful Reason:
The Contribution of Reason to Theology (Greenwich, Conn.:
Seabury Press, 1954), Retreat from Christianity in the Modern
World (London: Longmans, Green, 1952), and Toward a Theology
of History (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965). Casserley
was one of the participants of this symposium.