Perhaps we shall point him to XOminverse review and the discussions we have had on this board about the book.
Help him out a little.

Oooooh, a real philosopher!

JK, but it is really cool to read his analysis. Things I'd had dimly spinning in the back of my head but discarded as picayune have come up for him, like the need to derive logic from reality....or not!

I thought, Zebra Foal, that he was hesitant to criticize things in direct comms with Stef until he'd actually finished this book. I think he sees that the book is a work in progress and that his critique may help in future revisions. But moreso wants to finish reading before collating his notes into an argument: You never know whether critique (valid or not) will be relevant until the end.

I found it rather shocking that Danny dismissed the idea that 'murder is wrong' --> 'murder is wrong' so early on. Having not read the book I guess that Stef didn't outline his requirements for a theory to be a moral theory (universal, etc..).

A good read so far and looking forward to more. Thanks for the link.

All I can add is Donny has balls. I admire him taking it on and sticking with the debate. He appears very objective and is not getting emotional. Quite a feat as we all know.


"donnyA" "But hopefully you can see why I'm so focused on disproving Stefan's argument; if he's right, then it's very possible that my views are unsustainable, since they almost certainly contradict his. I just have to hope that I succeed, and not just because of the $50! "

I wonder how long this guest in Stef's house will be allowed to enjoy dinner if he continues to criticise the cook.

I just posted on his blog some references to UPB stuff on LM, and Roderick Long's comments on Hoppe's Argumentation Ethics.

Hi everyone! Thank you, Koen (Conrad, I presume?) for turning me on to your forum; I'm sure you all will be a great help in my attempt to understand and critique Stefan's book. I'll probably respond best to comments posted directly to my blog, but I'll do my best to keep up with the discussion here as well. Thanks again!

Hi, Danny. It was a good idea to start a separate blog analyzing the UPB book. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on other topics when you have time (after you finish with UPB, I guess ).

I started a wiki about UPB which may help in the analysis of it. i only put three basic counterarguments in it yet(which imho already suffices) but there's more, so by all means go ahead and add, change, respond, criticise, etc.

Cool Conrad. I'd like to play devil's advocate sometime with these counterarguments and see where we go. Could be a skype chat. I need debate practice!

The method that Holy Moly uses to prove that murder is morally wrong, would also prove that almost every positive action, except breathing and pumping blood, are morally wrong, since these are the only positive actions that can be performed by all at all times. This leads to the absurd conclusion that we are obligated to breathe, and pump blood, but forbidden to eat, even though we must eat in order to continue breathing.