Argumentation Ethics, Self-Ownership, and Hohfeldian Analysis of Rights

Abstract

This paper applies a Hohfeldian analysis of rights to Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s argumentation ethics, particularly to its crucial premise that it is impossible to deny argumentatively one’s opponent’s self-ownership right without falling thereby into a performative contra- diction; for one’s act of denying it presupposes this very right as its own condition of possibility. This paper argues that a properly construed Hohfeldian analysis supports the above claim.