| Ludwig von Mises developed the monetary regression theorem, solving a circular value-of-money question: Money is valuable to us because we can buy things with it; we can buy things with it because it is valuable to us; whence came its value, then? Mises solved this by deducing that people gradually attributed value to money commodities over time; eventually, regressing far enough back in history, all commodities we now consider “money” were not monetary commodities, but examples of any commodity. | ルートヴィヒ・フォン・ミーゼスが金銭的回帰理論と発した。その理論が循環的な金銭価値問題を解いた。金でものを買えるから金には価値がある、そして金には価値があるから物を買える。ならば、金の価値がどこでどうやって由来している？人が弥久にかけて徐々に金商品に価値を与えた、歴史に遠く回帰すれば今では「金」と思われる商品が全て普通の商品でした、とミーゼスは論理した。 |
| I recently contemplated such a regression for establishing a basis for ethics. I have stated before that one can argue for absolute individualism, or one can argue for absolute socialism, but any and all compromise positions are completely arbitrary, and should be rejected out of hand for being so. | 最近、そう回帰すれば倫理の根拠を見つけるかも、と拙者が熟考した。前には完全的な個人主義に理論ができる、そして完全的な社会主義に理論が出来る、と主張した。また、その二つのあらゆる妥協が恣意的であって論理的に否定するべき理論でござる、と主張した。 |
| What if the starting point for ethics should be treated in a manner similar to money? The present value of money is neither zero nor infinity, which would be analogous to the ethical absolutes of individualism and socialism. It is, at any given time, at a “compromise position.” | だが、倫理の原点が金みたいに回帰するものだったらどうなる？倫理の絶対極地である個人主義と社会主義には類似する零と無限大が金の価値ではない。いつも「妥協点」でいられる。 |
| What if the current state of ethics, too, is the result of countless iterations of a process, and so its location at a given point at a given time is not only not arbitrary, but justified? We could regress back to the original state of ethics, and justify all the steps that led us to the given point and given time. | 類似的に、倫理の現在状態もある過程の無数の反復の結果であれ、任意時の現在点は恣意的でなく、正当であるのでは？倫理の発端まで回帰でき、その任意時の現在点まで手順を正当化できる。 |
| If this theorem were valid, then a state of ethics which is a compromise between individualism and socialism can be justified. | この理論が妥当ならば、個人主義と社会主義の妥協の倫理的状態が正当化できる。 |
| Ultimately, this theorem is impossible. The historical ebb and flow of the conflict between individualism and socialism is not analogous to the drift of the value of money between zero and infinity. First, money started at zero (that is, zero value as a medium of exchange; as a commodity itself, it still had use-value). If analogous, that means that ethics must have started at pure individualism (because men possess individual wills, minds, and souls). But the continuity of the value of money resets every generation; a newborn child values gold (or whatever money commodity) at zero until he comes to recognize, accept, and adopt the prevailing value of money. | 結論的にこの理論が不可能でござる。歴史上の個人主義と社会主義の干満が金の零と無限大の間で変動と類似しない。まずは、金が零から始まった。（交代媒体として零価値で、商品として使用価値があったけど。）類似だったら、人には個人的な意思、心、魂があるから倫理も完全個人主義から始まったはずでござる。だが、代々に金の価値が零に戻るんだ。赤ちゃんが金銭商品を零に価値する、行き渡る金の価値が分かって認めて取り入れるまで。 |
| This means that if the analogy holds, then every child is born with the rights attendant to pure individualism — among which is the right to reject socialism outright. To justify any socialism, every child, in every generation, would have to freely waive his rights to the social power. He could not be unconditionally deprived of them at birth, or in infancy, or as a child, or during adolescence, any more than he could be made to value money at a certain minimum value for the rest of his life. | 類似するならば、各々の子供が純粋個人主義の権利で生まれる。その権利が社会主義を拒絶する権利をも含む。社会主義を正当化するには代々に各々の子供が自由に個人権利を社会に譲ることが必要でござる。出生にも幼少期にも思春期にも無条件で権利を剥ぐのは不正でござる。人生の残りまで金の最小限価値を教化すると同じく不可能なことでござる。 |
| The proposal might arise that children learn a pledge or oath of allegience in some areas of the world, and recite it; and having pledged or sworn allegience, it is binding for life. This is wholly invalid on individualist grounds. Individualist ethics operates on contracts, not on pledges or oaths. If this were any form of contract, then both parties have contractual obligations. No pledge I know of gives these obligations — with regard to either party — with any degree of specificity. Considering the gravity of the rights supposedly waived and the impositions supposedly justified thereby, its vagueness renders it impossible to enforce; neither party could rightly assert what the pledge bound the two parties to do. | 幾つかの地方には子供が忠誠の誓約を唱えることがあって、そう誓って人生の最果てまでしばられる、との提案が来るだろう。個人主義では全く不妥当な提案でござる。個人主義が誓約でなく契約で作動する。契約であれば、両方には責務がある。拙者の知っている制約が全てその責務（両方にも）を具体的に記述しない。仮定で譲れる権利と仮定で正当化した押し付けの重要性を考慮すれば、有耶無耶で適用できない。両方も誓約の縛りを正しく主張できない。 |
| (This may very well be purposeful; those who design such pledges may not want to lock their favored party in to obligations on their part, nor to limit the obligations of the counterparty.) | （故意にそうなったかも。そんな誓約を設計したものの贔屓の一方に責務を押し付けたくなくて、他方に責務を限りたくなくてそうなるだろう。） |
| Due to this (among other justifications), pledges and oaths recited by children do not move the ethical state of things one iota. | これと多々にある正当化の元で、子供の誓約が倫理の状態を一分一厘も動かさない。 |
| Having found that even if we assumed the individualism/socialism compromise were operating on principles analogous to the regression theorem of the value of money, it would only justify any socialism where pure individualism does so (that is, only with unanimous consent), we conclude that this analogous regression theorem of ethics is entirely nugatory. | 個人主義と社会主義の妥協が金銭的回帰理論と類似する原理で作用しても、完全個人主義と同じく全会一致でしか社会主義を正当化する。そう見つけた故、この倫理回帰理論が完全に無効だと結論する。 |
On the Impossibility of an Ethical Regression Theorem
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