--- John Medaille <[log in to unmask]> wrote:  
  
> The problem is, however, that the   
> "universal" for humans is only reached through   
> the cultural expressions of it;  
  
Why not via reasoning?  
(As proposed by John Locke.)  
(Among economists who analyzed ethics using reason are  
Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Henry George, JB Clark  
as you point out, and Murray Rothbard).  
(In my recollection, neither Mises nor Hayek worked  
out a full theory of morality.)  
  
> Ethical claims can never, and likely shouldn't,   
> escape a certain amount of cultural   
> particularity.  
  
Why shouldn't they?  
  
> No ethical system can   
> be logically validated because ethics do not   
> belong to the realm of speculative reason, but to   
> the practical reason.  
  
But reason is based on logic and evidence, so why  
would it not be able to be logically validated?  
  
> Thus Locke's system (like   
> Aristotle's, Aquinas's, Mandeville's, Clark's or   
> Mises's) is merely a rival claimaint to   
> universality.  
  
Yes, the are manuy claimants, but we can analyze their  
premises and logic to weed out those which are  
deficient.  
  
> And there is an inherent problem   
> with a universality that has so many rival   
> versions.  
  
No, rather there is a problem with ethical  
philosophers who have not sorted this out.  
  
> The question then is how you compare   
> these rival claims to arrive at a reasonable   
> judgement.  
  
Apply reason to their arguments.  
  
> Ethical propositions can never be   
> demonstrated in the same way that mathematical   
> ones are but are compared through an entirely   
> different methodology.   
  
Why is an axiomatic deductive approach invalid?  
  
Fred Foldvary