The non-aggression principle is a justified ethical position

Defense of foundationalism This debate has taken a rather interesting turn. I admit I was a bit taken back upon reading my opponent's response initially. On the justification of foundationalism, the argument runs simply for the most part. The first point or premise is that one is justified in holding at least some beliefs to be true, that justified true beliefs exist. From this we must ask ourselves how we know these things to be true. What justifies that belief and what justifies the belief in that belief and so on ad infinitum. This is called the regress problem in epistemology and foundationalism's method of solving the problem is to ground ultimate justification back to a finite proposition or number of propositions which do not need grounding in other propositions or beliefs. Below I will defend each premise on which foundationalism is founded on individually for the sake of clarity,Premise 1: Some propositions can be known as with epistemic certaintyThis is the main point where my opponent and I disagree. The whole of foundationalism rests on whether any knowledge can be truly justified. Take the famous words of Descartes, "I think, therefore I am." Can it even be denied that one does not exist? Not without intellectual error. The pre-requisite of even making a statement is existence or being. To deny this is to implicitly affirm it. So at the very least we can know with foundational certainty that our own minds exist. However, my opponent seems to also call into question the law of non-contradiction as well. Sub-1: The law of non-contradictionMy opponent uses his denial of the law of non-contradiction in order to try to refute my points. So even if I can show that the denial of foundationalism or the non-aggression principle is contradictory, that doesn't mean anything. However, by even engaging in communicative argumentation, my opponent has presumed the laws of logic. It would be impossible to argue in any meaningful sense if one did not already presume certain methods of inference. At the base of the norms necessarily presupposed in arguing are the three classic rules of logic i.e. the law of identity, the excluded middle, and non-contradiction. Argumentation would be utterly impossible without a criterion of logic. That isn't to say that this criterion of logic are mere customs agreed upon by people or that they are subjective in any sense. This can be shown from the fact that coming to agreement on the customs of logic would be impossible without already presupposing them in the first place as they are a presupposition necessary for communicative argumentation. Whether my opponent accepts the law of non-contradiction or not, that doesn't detract from it's validity.Premise 2: The justification of propositions must end at some pointIt may be taken as a given that the justification of propositions may not go on ad infinitum. To do so, any initial proposition would never truly be justified as the source would never be able to be drawn on. True justification is not possible without firm and finite grounding. If you say you know how the universe will end, I can ask how you know this. If you say because some reason X I either can or cannot question the further justification. If I cannot question it than we have arrived at the ultimate grounding (foundationalism), however if I can still question the justification than it obviously means that the initial statement about the ending of the universe is not grounded and thus not justified.Conclusion: Foundationalism is a justified epistemologyIf the premises of the argument hold, than the conclusion is necessitated. As I have shown, some true belief does hold and this belief must be ultimately grounded somewhere. An infinite chain of justification would prove insufficient in justifying anything.Refutation of Premise 1 as incompatible with foundationalismMy opponent here tries to argue that foundationalism (the grounding of knowledge to ultimate principles which cannot be denied) is incompatible with the a priori of argumentation (any proposition must be justified over the course of argumentation). On the face these premises might seem contradictory, however, I fail to see wherein the contradiction lies. The APA argues that in order to justify a proposition one must prove it using argumentative discourse. That does not mean that a proposition is not in itself justified though (see analytic propositions wherein the justification is contained within the statement itself i.e. that all bachelors are unmarried). Just because one has not proven through argumentation that an apple is sitting on my table does not mean that one isn't. All it means is that one is not yet justified in believing so. My opponent here is confusing epistemology (how we know if a proposition is justified) and ontology (whether a proposition actually possesses the characteristic of justification). For instance, the statement 2 2=4 is inherently justified. That does not mean that everyone accepts it as true though. In order to justify that proposition in any epistemic sense, one must resort to argumentation and that is what the a priori of argumentation means.On whether the NAP is an ethical positionI admit I'm a bit confused by my opponent's point here. He argues that I am not justified in arguing that the NAP is an ethical position. However, in the preliminary round I defined an ethical position as one "governing right or wrong methods of interpersonal actions". The NAP clearly does this. Under the NAP, aggression is defined as wrong action (unjustified and therefore unjust) whereas abstaining from aggression is defined as right action (justified and therefore just). I admit that the argumentation which I base the NAP does not rely on value judgement and is therefore value-neutral but owing to the nature of P1, it need not do so to ground actions as inherently justified or unjustified.