Austrians reject the idea of interpersonal comparisons of utility on the grounds that utility is ordinal rather than cardinal; interpersonal comparisons are impossible because there is no common unit with which to compare (the "util" notwithstanding).
Austrians take this impossibility of interpersonal utility comparisons to rule out one popular argument for compulsory income redistribution: the marginal utility of a thousand dollars is greater to a starving beggar than to a billionaire, hence utility is maximized by taking from the billionaire and giving to the beggar.
I've never been impressed by appealing to the impossibility of ICU's as an argument against redistribution. We intuitively know that in most cases redistribution benefits the beggar more than it hurts the billionaire, and claiming otherwise is ridiculous. Arguing from the impossibility of ICU's is like winning a court case on a technicality. However, our intuitions just can't get around the obstacle of ICU's.
Now I think I've found a solution. In his "Review of Hilary Putnam’s The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays," Roderick Long briefly introduces the concept of interpersonal eudaimonic comparisons. These are "based on an objective theory of human flourishing" and are not economic comparisons because they involve "preference-transcending values." (p.131)
Hence in the beggar and billionaire case, our intuition wasn't making an interpersonal utility comparison; rather, we were making an interpersonal eudaimonic comparison. This doesn't violate marginalism because we're not comparing utility. And as Long writes, "once we invoke preference-transcending values, issues of rights and liberty come into play—and the case for compulsory redistribution is arguably blocked once again." (p.131)
Thus, if an objective theory of human flourishing is in fact true, we can explain our intuitions while reaffirming the impossibility of ICU's, and provide a sounder argument against compulsory redistribution.
AnalyticalAnarchism.net - The Positive Political Economy of Anarchism
Sage:Austrians take this impossibility of interpersonal utility comparisons to rule out one popular argument for compulsory income redistribution: the marginal utility of a thousand dollars is greater to a starving beggar than to a billionaire, hence utility is maximized by taking from the billionaire and giving to the beggar.
There was never a need to claim the absurdity that the billionaire benefits just as much from the $1,000 as the beggar does. Certainly a singular act of taking from a billionaire and giving to a beggar could make the beggar much better off without any significant ill effect from the billionaire's perspective.
But that is not all that is at issue in that scenario. The question is who is doing the taking. Is this in the Statist context or in anarchy? That makes all the difference.
Statist context: A law is legislated to forcibly redistribute wealth. This makes everyone poorer on average, so is bad even by a "greatest happiness" utilitarian calculus, let alone by a Misesian one (for everyone but certain beggars and politicians).
Non-statist context: Laws allowing this will probably not arise for those same reasons. Ethics don't enter into it.
Objective ethical notions can be useful as a rhetorical appeal to politicians and voters ("We hold these truths to be self-evident...inalienable rights..."). If we are trying to work within the Statist context then that is fine. But in anarchy these ideas - fundamentally tied to Statism as they are - become irrelevant if not incoherent.
Why anarchy fails
We intuitively know suspect(have prejudices) that in most cases redistribution benefits the beggar 'more' than it hurts the billionaire, and claiming otherwise is ridiculous.
the belief that a beggar would benefit more from a dollar than a billionaire is no more scientific, or 'sure' than the belief that a man who spends $2 on an apple is being 'ripped off' by the seller.
p.s the strike-through tag seems to be broken, meaning i can't strike out 'know' in the first sentance
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
AJ:Certainly a singular act of taking from a billionaire and giving to a beggar could make the beggar much better off without any significant ill effect from the billionaire's perspective.
No. On the Austrian subjectivist theory, any comparison of interpersonal utility is nonsensical, because there's no common unit with which to do any comparing. Hence you simply cannot say that utility is maximized by redistributing from the billionaire to the beggar.
My point is that this clashes with our intuitions: we do know that redistribution usually benefits the beggar more than it hurts the billionaire. So how do we resolve this tension?
My suggested answer is that our intuition is actually making an interpersonal eudaimonic comparison. It's on the basis of an objective standard of human flourishing, and not utility, that we know that the beggar benefits more than the billionaire loses. Hence there is no conflict between our intuitions and subjectivist economics.
And I think this is a good answer, because it confirms our intuitions and the impossibility of ICU's, and allows us to reject compulsory redistribution.
nirgrahamUK:the belief that a beggar would benefit more from a dollar than a billionaire is no more scientific, or 'sure' than the belief that a man who spends $2 on an apple is being 'ripped off' by the seller.
Well, I guess all I can say is that you are ridiculous.
But seriously, what do you think of Long's discussion of intuitions and reflective equilibration?
I haven't read the article...i understand how reflective equilibriation can help one sort through ones intuitions, find intuitions that are in conflict and perhaps by appealing to a heirarchy of intuitions, allow one to prune 'consistency breaking less important intuitions' off from the tree of intuitions. (Is this close to what we are talking about?) if so...where do intuitions about inter-personal utility judgements fall? i would think they would be good canditates for pruning if they were up against more 'fundamental' intuitions.whats your perspective?
Sage: My point is that this clashes with our intuitions: we do know that redistribution usually benefits the beggar more than it hurts the billionaire. So how do we resolve this tension? My suggested answer is that [our intuition](subjective) is actually making an [interpersonal eudaimonic comparison](objective). It's on the basis of an objective standard of human flourishing, and not utility, that we know that the beggar benefits more than the billionaire loses. Hence there is no conflict between our intuitions and subjectivist economics.
My suggested answer is that [our intuition](subjective) is actually making an [interpersonal eudaimonic comparison](objective). It's on the basis of an objective standard of human flourishing, and not utility, that we know that the beggar benefits more than the billionaire loses. Hence there is no conflict between our intuitions and subjectivist economics.
Sage:
I'm not sure, but I believe you may be trying to solve a problem inherent in Long's objective ethics that is related to his concept of constitutive means, by which he intends to construct an objective ethical system that overcomes the challenge posed by Austrian subjectivist theory.
Long will consider something like a blueberry to be a constitutive means of a blueberry muffin. The idea is that one cannot have a blueberry muffin without blueberries, and thus blueberries are constitutive of blueberry muffins, and thus blueberries are constitutive and not instrumental means to a blueberry muffin.
But in the instances in which Long describes this concept----which is a large part of the basis for his objective ethics----he doesn't explain why the very same blueberries can't also be instrumental means to the blueberry muffin. Why can't a person first mix the batter, then add the blueberries, and thus have the same blueberries serve as instrumental means to the blueberry muffin?
In Long's approach, he seems to say that the blueberries "just are" constitutive means in an objective sense, independent of how any individual considers the blueberries. What he means to say, I believe, is that some things are, objectively, constitutive means, and other things are, objectively, instrumental means.
But then how do we explain that blueberries may be both instrumental and constitutive means to a blueberry muffin?
*****
Perhaps attempting a solution to this dilemma, you seem to be suggesting that the object which is: [the beggar benefits more than the billionaire loses] is both your subjective intuition and an objective fact.
I don't believe you mean to say that every intuition of a subject A establishes an objective fact.
Thus, a critic will be looking for a nonsubjective method of distinguishing between intuitions of A that establish an objective fact, versus intuitions of A that do not establish an object fact. In other words, a method of distinguishing that doesn't reduce to the mental state of a particular individual (subject).
But this brings us back to the problem of objective ethics. Problems of this general nature are the kind objective ethics hasn't been able to solve.
Objective ethics theory has not been able to establish such a nonsubjective standard or method for distinguishing the objective validity or objective truth of things (the beggar benefits more than the billionare loses). Assuming that this is an objective fact that is also an intuition of A, then how do we know when an intuition of A is not objective? Objective ethics theory has not provided a coherent or consistent explanation. That such a coherent and consistent explanation is possible is the contention of objective ethicists, a contention that seems eternally to remain unfulfilled.
The reason there is no conflict between our intuitions and the theory of subjectivist economics is because subjectivist economics begins and ends with these very same intuitions, and does not seek to objectify them. Subjectivist economics provides a logical scheme that begins and ends with the individual actor's judgment of value (his intuition), and thus there is, as you write, no conflict between our intuitions and subjectivist economics.
"Action is the search for improvement of conditions from the point of view of the personal value judgments of the individual concerned. This does not mean improvement from a metaphysical view, nor from God's point of view."
(Mises, The Free Market and its Enemies, p.14)
"We originally want or desire an object not because it is agreeable or good, but we call it agreeable or good because we want or desire it; and we do this because our sensuous or supersensuous nature so requires. There is, thus, no basis for recognizing what is good and worth wishing for outside the faculty of desiring----i.e., the original desire and wish themselves."
(Epistemological Problems of Economics, p. 151)
Austrian economics as it was conceived by Mises, and by Hayek at the time he wrote "The Facts of the Social Sciences," is a logical scheme that takes individual judgments of value (intuitions) as given data. It is precisely because it does not seek to objectify those value judgments that subjectivist economics is subjectivist economics:
"It is in this formalism that the progress of the modern meaning of Eudaemonism, Hedonism, an Utilitarianism consists as opposed to the older material meaning and the progress of the modern subjectivistic theory of value as opposed to the objectivistic theory of value as expounded by classical political economy. At the same time, it is in this subjectivism that the objectivity of our science lies. Because it is subjectivistic and takes the value judgments of acting man as ultimate data not open to any further critical examinations, it is itself above all strife of parties and factions, it is indifferent to the conflicts of all schools of dogmatism and ethical doctrines, it is free from valuations and preconceived ideas and judgments, it is universally valid and absolutely and plainly human."
(HA, 3rd rev. p.21-22)
"It would be preposterous to assert apodictically that science will never succeed in developing a praxeological aprioristic doctrine of political organization..." (Mises, UF, p.98)
Adam Knott:But then how do we explain that blueberries may be both instrumental and constitutive means to a blueberry muffin?
Mises: The mountain-climber does not want simply to reach the peak, he wants to reach it by climbing. He disdains the rack railway which would bring him to the summit more quickly and without trouble even though the fare is cheaper than the costs incurred by climbing (e.g., the guide's fee). The toil of climbing does not gratify him immediately; it involves disutility of labor. But it is precisely overcoming the disutility of labor that satisfies him. A less exerting ascent would please him not better, but less.
Sage:These are "based on an objective theory of human flourishing" and are not economic comparisons because they involve "preference-transcending values." (p.131)
What exactly is a "preference-transcending value"? Is value not simply another word for preference?
nirgrahamUK: Adam Knott:But then how do we explain that blueberries may be both instrumental and constitutive means to a blueberry muffin? all means are instrumental, a subset of these are not just instrumental but constitutive also. I'm confident this is the Misesian understanding Mises: The mountain-climber does not want simply to reach the peak, he wants to reach it by climbing. He disdains the rack railway which would bring him to the summit more quickly and without trouble even though the fare is cheaper than the costs incurred by climbing (e.g., the guide's fee). The toil of climbing does not gratify him immediately; it involves disutility of labor. But it is precisely overcoming the disutility of labor that satisfies him. A less exerting ascent would please him not better, but less.
Nir:
I think I'm in agreement with you, though perhaps each thinker will express the same ideas differently.
An actor can aim for A in order to bring about B, B being temporally removed from A.
But an actor can also aim for A in the case when both A and B are co-present with no temporal separation between them----when A and B come together as part of the same thing. Thus, to repeat an example, an actor may aim to reach a location. What comes with that is leaving a location. Arriving at a location (A) is "constitutive" of leaving a location (B).
So I agree that in this sense, we can say that all means are instrumental, and that constitutive means, of the above kind, are a subset of instrumental means.
(incidentally, the idea of thinking in terms of both succession and co-presence is central in Menger's theoretical vision. Book 1, Chapters 1 through 5, Investigation Into the Method of the Social Sciences.)
I believe though, that the above conception of constitutive means is not the one Long has in mind. The one I'm referring to is formal, and of the form:
For each supposed change X, it will be possible to formulate such a change in terms of an opposite change Y.
I.e, something analogous to the idea that for each action there is an equal and opposite re-action, but conceived formally, without respect to content. Mises also explicitly recognizes something to this effect: "Every judgment of value allows of a formulation in which the more highly valued thing or state is logically expressed in both a positive and a negative way, although sometimes language may not have developed the appropriate term." (Theory and History, p.24)
When we remove the content, and conceive things in formal terms, there is an important sense in which we are no longer in the domain of objective ethics.
******
Regarding the passage from Mises:
"The toil of climbing does not gratify him immediately; it involves disutility of labor. But it is precisely overcoming the disutility of labor that satisfies him. A less exerting ascent would please him not better, but less."
Here, there is no reference to the end of reaching the peak of the mountain. The goal here is to overcome the disutility of labor in order to....attain satisfaction. What is being discussed in this passage is a person who attains satisfaction through exertion. Satisfaction is the end, exertion the means. (in this passage) The end of reaching the peak is not part of the action under discussion.
Passage #2: "Strictly speaking, only the increase in satisfaction (decrease of uneasiness) should be called end, and accordingly all states which bring about such an increase means. In daily speech people use a loose terminology. They call ends things which should rather be called means. They say: This man knows only one end, namely, to accumulate more wealth, instead of saying: He considers the accumulation of more wealth as the only means to get more satisfaction. If they were to apply this more adequate mode of expression, they would avoid some current mistakes."
(Money, Method, and the Market Process, p.22)
If we apply passage #2 to the passage about overcoming the disutility of labor and about exertion, we can see that this passage refers to a state (exertion) the actor is using as means to attain satisfaction.
I'm not trying to contradict what you wrote, my point is that in the passage you provided, Mises refers to two distinct actions:
1. Reaching the summit of the mountain (end) by means of climbing.
2. Attaining satisfaction (end) by means of exertion.
Sage: AJ:Certainly a singular act of taking from a billionaire and giving to a beggar could make the beggar much better off without any significant ill effect from the billionaire's perspective. No. On the Austrian subjectivist theory, any comparison of interpersonal utility is nonsensical, because there's no common unit with which to do any comparing. Hence you simply cannot say that utility is maximized by redistributing from the billionaire to the beggar. My point is that this clashes with our intuitions: we do know that redistribution usually benefits the beggar more than it hurts the billionaire. So how do we resolve this tension? My suggested answer is that our intuition is actually making an interpersonal eudaimonic comparison. It's on the basis of an objective standard of human flourishing, and not utility, that we know that the beggar benefits more than the billionaire loses. Hence there is no conflict between our intuitions and subjectivist economics. And I think this is a good answer, because it confirms our intuitions and the impossibility of ICU's, and allows us to reject compulsory redistribution.
Then I have somewhat misread you.
However, I think our intuition - at least mine - is more like, "I think I'd be happier to get $1,000 if I were a beggar than if I were a billionaire." This doesn't really seem any different from the Austrian conception of subjective value: the person doing the subjective valuing in this case is me.