Political Theory

Re: The Utilitarian Case for Libertarian Rights

I. Ryan — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 22:34:30 GMT

I wonder why Juan, although he continues to launch irresponsible attacks against Mises and his followers, avoided the following post:

I. Ryan:

Juan:

I don't think the analogy utilitarianism-scientific method is valid. In the case of Mises he's bent on ridiculing natural rights and then, despite his libertarian sympathies, he adopts a wholly pro-slavery position such as conscription. You might want to see that as an intellectual mistake but to me it's a logical consequence of his 'pro greater good' philosophy.

1. It is completely analogous. In many instances throughout this thread, you attempted, via the exemplification of some objectionable conclusions which Mises expressed, to disprove or atleast doubt that "utilitarianism" is the or a correct method.

If you desire to show that his method, via no erroneous usage of that method, led to those objectionable conclusions, that would, if you were to succeed, be a devastating attack. But you did not even attempt to do that.

2. I do not believe that you understand what Mises meant when he used the term "utilitarianism". It does not represent a doctrine even remotely close to either a "pro greater good philosophy" or to what I wrote here:

I. Ryan:

1. If "utilitarianism" means a doctrine which advocates that we decide ad-hoc what action to do as a function of which action, if performed, would provide the most happiness to the most people, I say, yes, it is "bankrupt".

Juan:

That's roughly what I'm referring to.

In his system, the doctrine "utilitarianism" merely states that (a) the existence of the division of labor along with any further intensification of the division of labor benefits each individual involved and (b) that, therefore, it is a means, not an ends, and (c) that, therefore, the self-interest of an individual translates to the social-interest of the individual. In other words, one should desire to strengthen society because one desires to strengthen oneself.

Ludwig von Mises; Theory and History, pp. 54-60, added boldfaced print:

The essential teachings of utilitarian philosophy as applied to the problems of society can be restated as follows:

Human effort exerted under the principle of the division of labor in social cooperation achieves, other things remaining equal, a greater output per unit of input than the isolated efforts of solitary individuals. Man's reason is capable of recognizing this fact and of adapting his conduct accordingly. Thus social cooperation becomes for almost every man the great means for the attainment of all ends. An eminently human common interest, the preservation and intensification of social bonds, is substituted for pitiless biological competition, the significant mark of animal and plant life. Man becomes a social being. He is no longer forced by the inevitable laws of nature to look upon all other specimens of his animal species as deadly foes. Other people become his fellows. For animals the generation of every new member of the species means the appearance of a new rival in the struggle for life. For man, until the optimum size of population is reached, it means rather an improvement than a deterioration in his quest for material well-being.

Notwithstanding all his social achievements man remains in biological structure a mammal. His most urgent needs are nourishment, warmth, and shelter. Only when these wants are satisfied can he concern himself with other needs, peculiar to the human species and therefore called specifically human or higher needs. Also the satisfaction of these depends as a rule, at least to some extent, on the availability of various material tangible things.

As social cooperation is for acting man a means and not an end, no unanimity with regard to value judgments is required to make it work. It is a fact that almost all men agree in aiming at certain ends, at those pleasures which ivory-tower moralists disdain as base and shabby. But it is no less a fact that even the most sublime ends cannot be sought by people who have not first satisfied the wants of their animal body. The loftiest exploits of philosophy, art, and literature would never have been performed by men living outside of society.

Moralists praise the nobility of people who seek a thing for its own sake. "Deutsch sein heisst eine Sache um ihrer selbst willen tun," declared Richard Wagner,[1] and the Nazis, of all people, adopted the dictum as a fundamental principle of their creed. Now what is sought as an ultimate end is valued according to the immediate satisfaction to be derived from its attainment. There is no harm in declaring elliptically that it is sought for its own sake. Then Wagner's phrase is reduced to the truism: Ultimate ends are ends and not means for the attainment of other ends.

Moralists furthermore level against utilitarianism the charge of (ethical) materialism. Here too they misconstrue the utilitarian doctrine. Its gist is the cognition that action pursues definite chosen ends and that consequently there can be no other standard for appraising conduct but the desirability or undesirability of its effects. The precepts of ethics are designed to preserve, not to destroy, the "world." They may call upon people to put up with undesirable short-run effects in order to avoid producing still more undesirable long-run effects. But they must never recommend actions whose effects they themselves deem undesirable for the sole purpose of not defying an arbitrary rule derived from intuition. The formula fiat justitia, pereat mundus is exploded as sheer nonsense. An ethical doctrine that does not take into full account the effects of action is mere fancy.

Utilitarianism does not teach that people should strive only after sensuous pleasure (though it recognizes that most or at least many people behave in this way). Neither does it indulge in judgments of value. By its recognition that social cooperation is for the immense majority a means for attaining all their ends, it dispels the notion that society, the state, the nation, or any other social entity is an ultimate end and that individual men are the slaves of that entity. It rejects the philosophies of universalism, collectivism, and totalitarianism. In this sense it is meaningful to call utilitarianism a philosophy of individualism.

The collectivist doctrine fails to recognize that social cooperation is for man a means for the attainment of all his ends. It assumes that irreconcilable conflict prevails between the interests of the collective and those of individuals, and in this conflict it sides unconditionally with the collective entity. The collective alone has real existence; the individuals' existence is conditioned by that of the collective. The collective is perfect and can do no wrong. Individuals are wretched and refractory; their obstinacy must be curbed by the authority to which God or nature has entrusted the conduct of society's affairs. The powers that be, says the Apostle Paul, are ordained of God.[2] They are ordained by nature or by the superhuman factor that directs the course of all cosmic events, says the atheist collectivist.

Two questions immediately arise. First: If it were true that the interests of the collective and those of individuals are implacably opposed to one another, how could society function? One may assume that the individuals would be prevented by force of arms from resorting to open rebellion. But it cannot be assumed that their active cooperation could be secured by mere compulsion. A system of production in which the only incentive to work is the fear of punishment cannot last. It was this fact that made slavery disappear as a system of managing production.

Second: If the collective is not a means by which individuals may achieve their ends, if the collective's flowering requires sacrifices by the individuals which are not outweighed by advantages derived from social cooperation, what prompts the advocate of collectivism to assign to the concerns of the collective precedence over the personal wishes of the individuals? Can any argument be advanced for such exaltation of the collective but personal judgments of value?

Of course, everybody's judgments of value are personal. If a man assigns a higher value to the concerns of a collective than to his other concerns, and acts accordingly, that is his affair. So long as the collectivist philosophers proceed in this way, no objection can be raised. But they argue differently. They elevate their personal judgments of value to the dignity of an absolute standard of value. They urge other people to stop valuing according to their own will and to adopt unconditionally the precepts to which collectivism has assigned absolute eternal validity.

The futility and arbitrariness of the collectivist point of view become still more evident when one recalls that various collectivist parties compete for the exclusive allegiance of the individuals. Even if they employ the same word for their collectivist ideal, various writers and leaders disagree on the essential features of the thing they have in mind. The state which Ferdinand Lassalle called god and to which he assigned paramountcy was not precisely the collectivist idol of Hegel and Stahl, the state of the Hohenzollern. Is mankind as a whole the sole legitimate collective or is each of the various nations? Is the collective to which the German-speaking Swiss owe exclusive allegiance the Swiss Confederacy or the Volksgemeinschaft comprising all German-speaking men? All major social entities such as nations, linguistic groups, religious communities, party organizations have been elevated to the dignity of the supreme collective that overshadows all other collectives and claims the submission of the whole personality of all right-thinking men. But an individual can renounce autonomous action and unconditionally surrender his self only in favor of one collective. Which collective this ought to be can be determined Only by a quite arbitrary decision. The collective creed is by necessity exclusive and totalitarian. It craves the whole man and does not want to share him with any other collective. It seeks to establish the exclusive supreme validity of only one system of values.

There is, of course, but one way to make one's own judgments of value supreme. One must beat into submission all those dissenting. This is what all representatives of the various collectivist doctrines are striving for. They ultimately recommend the use of violence and pitiless annihilation of all those whom they condemn as heretics. Collectivism is a doctrine of war, intolerance, and persecution. If any of the collectivist creeds should succeed in its endeavors, all people but the great dictator would be deprived of their essential human quality. They would become mere soulless pawns in the hands of a monster.

The characteristic feature of a free society is that it can function in spite of the fact that its members disagree in many judgments of value. In the market economy business serves not only the majority but also various minorities, provided they are not too small in respect of the economic goods which satisfying their special wishes would require. Philosophical treatises are published-though few people read them, and the masses prefer other books or non-if enough readers are foreseen to recover the costs.

Ludwig von Mises; Theory and History, p. 61:

In ethics a common ground for the choice of rules of conduct is given so far as people agree in considering the preservation of social cooperation the foremost means for attaining all their ends. Thus virtually any controversy concerning the rules of conduct refers to means and not to ends. It is consequently possible to appraise these rules from the point of view of their adequacy for the peaceful functioning of society. Even rigid supporters of an intuitionist ethics could not help eventually resorting to an appraisal of conduct from the point of view of its effects upon human happiness.

Ludwig von Mises; Human Action, pp. 143-144, added boldfaced print:

Within the frame of social cooperation there can emerge between members of society feelings of sympathy and friendship and a sense of belonging together. These feelings are the source of man's most delightful and most sublime experiences. They are the most precious adornment of life; they lift the animal species man to the heights of a really human existence. However, they are not, as some have asserted, the agents that have brought about social relationships. They are fruits of social cooperation, they thrive only within its frame; they did not precede the establishment of social relations and are not the seed from which they spring.

The fundamental facts that brought about cooperation, society, and civilization and transformed the animal man into a human being are the facts that work performed under the division of labor is more productive than isolated work and that man's reason is capable of recognizing this truth. But for these facts men would have forever remained deadly foes of one another, irreconcilable rivals in their endeavors to secure a portion of the scarce supply of means of sustenance provided by nature. Each man would have been forced to view all other men as his enemies; his craving for the satisfaction of his own appetites would have brought him into an implacable conflict with all his neighbors. No sympathy could possibly develop under such a state of affairs.

Juan:

I'm not sure what you are getting at. If "we" don't want business cycles, "we" should not create money and 'credit' out of thin air - agreed. But that's not a moral "should" but a means/ends "should".

In the system which Mises enacted, the "means/ends "should"" is the only "should" which exists.

Ludwig von Mises; Theory and History, p. 48:

Utilitarianism, on the other hand, does not deal at all with ultimate ends and judgments of value. It invariably refers only to means.

Juan:

And who is "we" anyway ?

It is just an example.

Re: The Utilitarian Case for Libertarian Rights

z1235 — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:55:09 GMT

Juan:
Isn't anything non-utilitarian useless, by definition? What's the use of something that is of no use to anyone? Isn't utility the fundamental ingredient of any concept, axiom, law, idea, or principle (NAP and individualism included)? If those were of no use (utility) why even bother proposing or discussing them? Beauty? Just because?
That should win you the pointless-remark-of-the-century award ?

Teaching by example, aren't we? Is my remark's perceived lack of utility that's making it pointless, perhaps? And the century is still young, so I wouldn't be betting on winners just yet.

Re: The Utilitarian Case for Libertarian Rights

Juan — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:18:39 GMT

Isn't anything non-utilitarian useless, by definition? What's the use of something that is of no use to anyone? Isn't utility the fundamental ingredient of any concept, axiom, law, idea, or principle (NAP and individualism included)? If those were of no use (utility) why even bother proposing or discussing them? Beauty? Just because?

That should win you the pointless-remark-of-the-century award ?

Re: The Utilitarian Case for Libertarian Rights

AJ — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:02:11 GMT

Adam Knott:

The law of gravity, once conceived, does not mean that therefore, everyone must place their objects at the center of the earth. The law of gravity means that if you want to move your object away from the center of the earth, then there is a price to pay (the exertion necessary to affect this change, etc.)

Likewise, moral or ethical laws of human conduct do not tell a person what he "should do." They do not tell him what conduct he must conform to, adhere to, or obey. (this is something other people can tell him or suggest to him) Rather, they tell him how the conduct he is considering impacts his own happiness and unhappiness. Moral or ethical "laws" of human conduct instruct on how specific modes of individual conduct impact individual happiness. The individual decides whether what is to be gained by any particular act is worth the price to be paid.

I think this is what some psychologists attempt to do. For example, in the 1980s Brian Tracy (amateur psychologist and achievement coach) formulated several "mental laws" in his old Psychology of Achievement tape series and Maximum Achievement book, some of which do in fact "instruct on how specific modes of individual conduct impact individual happiness."

Since his purpose was achievement coaching, he didn't rigorously derive anything, but he did formulate his findings in a fairly cogent and sometimes quasi-scientific manner. Suffice it to say that if I wanted to develop "a science that would be able to establish what impact various moral or ethical actions have on the happiness of the individual actor," I would start with the resources mentioned above and see which ideas could be formulated more precisely, with Mises-level praxeological rigor.

Re: The Utilitarian Case for Libertarian Rights

z1235 — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 05:55:58 GMT

Isn't anything non-utilitarian useless, by definition? What's the use of something that is of no use to anyone? Isn't utility the fundamental ingredient of any concept, axiom, law, idea, or principle (NAP and individualism included)? If those were of no use (utility) why even bother proposing or discussing them? Beauty? Just because?

Re: The Utilitarian Case for Libertarian Rights

Solid_Choke — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:25:56 GMT

Juan:
Well, I read Social Statics and parts of Principles of Ethics. I would need to take a look at it again before further commenting, but from memory I wouldn't say that Spencer's position in PoE is 'utilitarian'. It is less radical, more conservative, more positivistic and more pessimistic maybe, but not 'utilitarian', IMO.

As to authors changing their minds, it doesn't prove much, really. Are you saying that the position that really matters is the one that an author holds at the end of his life ?

No.

Solid_Choke:

I do not hold to the view that because a thinker moves from one position to another position that the later position is superior to the former.

I am only saying that it isn't wrong to refer to a theory as THE theory of X (where X is some thinker) if X is known primarily for that theory and spend a large portion of their intellectual career defending it.

Anyway, resume your regularly scheduled discussion of utilitarianism and rights (or lack-there-of).

Re: The Utilitarian Case for Libertarian Rights

Juan — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:43:51 GMT

Well, I read Social Statics and parts of Principles of Ethics. I would need to take a look at it again before further commenting, but from memory I wouldn't say that Spencer's position in PoE is 'utilitarian'. It is less radical, more conservative, more positivistic and more pessimistic maybe, but not 'utilitarian', IMO.

As to authors changing their minds, it doesn't prove much, really. Are you saying that the position that really matters is the one that an author holds at the end of his life ?

Re: The Utilitarian Case for Libertarian Rights

Solid_Choke — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:19:56 GMT

Juan:
I refer to Rational Utilitarianism as THE ethical theory of Herbert Spencer, because it was the most developed and the one he spent the greatest amount of effort defending.
Even assuming that he spent more time defending his later views (and I don't know if that's true), SO. WHAT.

Gustave de Molinari was an anarchist in 1850 and then changed his mind. Maybe that 'proves' that a 'minimal' tyranny is superior to freedom ? Does that mean that THE political theory of Molinari was not anarchism because at some point he stopped being an anarchist ?

I still think you are being a little difficult. Would you not say that the entitlement theory was THE justice theory of Robert Nozick? Yes, he showed signs of doubt later on, but it is no abuse of language to call it the justice theory of Nozick (since it was his most developed theory on the subject and the one that he is best known for).

I do not hold to the view that because a thinker moves from one position to another position that the later position is superior to the former.

I'm not a utilitarian, I just find it interesting to study the attempts to construct a libertarian utilitarianism (like Spencer or Friedman). The arguments that have the most persuasive power with the kinds of people I argue with are utilitarian and epistemological in nature. Natural Rights arguments usually only work for people who are already liberals.

I admit I have read Principles of Ethics, but not Social Statics. I will add it to my list for 2010.

Re: The Utilitarian Case for Libertarian Rights

Juan — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:58:58 GMT

I refer to Rational Utilitarianism as THE ethical theory of Herbert Spencer, because it was the most developed and the one he spent the greatest amount of effort defending.

Even assuming that he spent more time defending his later views (and I don't know if that's true), SO. WHAT.

Gustave de Molinari was an anarchist in 1850 and then changed his mind. Maybe that 'proves' that a 'minimal' tyranny is superior to freedom ? Does that mean that THE political theory of Molinari was not anarchism because at some point he stopped being an anarchist ?

Re: The Utilitarian Case for Libertarian Rights

Solid_Choke — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:53:36 GMT

Juan:
Some of you may be interested in Rational Utilitarianism (the ethical theory of Herbert Spencer).
In 1850 (Social Statics) Spencer was (close to) a deist and was an advocate of natural rights. He later became agnostic, and leaned towards positivism. The point is, 'rational utilitarianism' is not 'the' theory of Spencer since he had more than one theory. Also, he always was an evolutionist - Social Statics assumes that evolution is a creation of 'god' (a god that wants human happiness).

Maybe it would be a good idea to read Spencer first-hand before commenting on his philosophy...

What does any of that have to do with anything? Yes, I still refer to Platonic political theory even though later on Plato claimed that it was all a metaphor for the well ordered individual. Also, the late Marx claimed not to be a system builder, but I still refer to Marxism (even though his thought didn't remain the same throughout his lifetime). I refer to Rational Utilitarianism as THE ethical theory of Herbert Spencer, because it was the most developed and the one he spent the greatest amount of effort defending. Also, I am well aware that he is an evolutionist (although a Lamrackian and not a Darwinist), what does that have to do with whether or not people should read up on an ethical theory that attempts to make utilitarianism safe for liberals?

Re: The Utilitarian Case for Libertarian Rights

Juan — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:02:34 GMT

As Mises stressed over and over, only economics has been elaborated as a strict science of human conduct. Human moral and ethical conduct has not yet been elaborated as an exact science (praxeology).

And only clueless positivists would try to do such a thing. It's funny how your examples of 'exact laws' are borrowed from physics or geometry. "One can't move to the East without also moving away from the West" - great, but that's geometry and it has nothing to do with human action.

Re: The Utilitarian Case for Libertarian Rights

Juan — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:56:42 GMT

Some of you may be interested in Rational Utilitarianism (the ethical theory of Herbert Spencer).

In 1850 (Social Statics) Spencer was (close to) a deist and was an advocate of natural rights. He later became agnostic, and leaned towards positivism. The point is, 'rational utilitarianism' is not 'the' theory of Spencer since he had more than one theory. Also, he always was an evolutionist - Social Statics assumes that evolution is a creation of 'god' (a god that wants human happiness).

Maybe it would be a good idea to read Spencer first-hand before commenting on his philosophy...

Re: The Utilitarian Case for Libertarian Rights

Wade — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:31:17 GMT

Adam Knott:

This is a misconception of the nature of regular laws. The laws of conduct are laws that cannot be contravened, because the consequence is the necessary result or necessary accompaniment to the specific conduct. Regular or strict laws, in the scientific sense, are discovered. But the idea that one has a choice whether or not to "obey" them is nonsensical. The law cannot be escaped, otherwise it is not a law.

Good catch Adam. When I first read the excerpt I didn't recognize what he was saying in the last 2 sentences. This excerpt really strikes at the core problem within the ethical sciences.

"...what kinds of action necessarily tend to produce happiness, and what kinds to produce unhappiness..."

"...laws of conduct...to be conformed to..."

"necessarily...produce" and "tend to produce"

There is definitely some fuzzy wording here. In Praxeology, if an action is "completed", or the desire of that action "achieved", then this would represent happiness. Whether or not Spencer realizes it or not, there is very likely a contradiction in meaning here. There are either modes or means of action that necessarily produce happiness, or there are modes or means of action that necessarily fail to produce happiness. This is the essence of an action. Each action is a separate phenomenon, so to say that there are modes or means that "tend to produce happiness" implies that he is addressing a string of actions whereby a means produces happiness in once case but not the others. If we proceed along according to the Praxeological Method, then it becomes absurd to consider that one can "conform to...laws of conduct" which produce unhappiness. If one is conforming to a means that will not produce happiness, then he or she will not actually be achieving anything and will be "conforming" all day. Conforming would be the equivalent of being unhappy in this context. This is the power of the Praxeological method: that there are modes of conduct which necessarily fail to produce happiness, or fail to achieve ends, because those kinds of actions are not possible within the realm of human action.

Re: The Utilitarian Case for Libertarian Rights

wilderness — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:19:46 GMT

Snowflake:

wilderness:
How is that known with certainity? If it is known with certainity, then we are back to the pull of a trigger.
You never know anything empirical for certain.

yes but I was talking a prior. i was trying to base the discussion off of the axiom: liberty. Whereas the utilitarian way reaches into empirical interpretations it would seem. Hypothetics between people, not premised "of" an individual(s).

Snowflake:

wilderness:
Now if the utility person wants to intervene on what is contingent and not absolute there's the slippery slope.
Yes. The point is, there are some cases where the utility person has to intervene and violate someone else's libertarian rights. The whole point of this post was to really investigate whether or not libertarian rights were 100% compatible with utility/consequentialism. Maybe it sounds like kind of a dumb topic but as far as I can see, they intersect 99% of the time and I wanted to know if I was wrong about the other 1%.

Snowflake:

wilderness:
You said it was a absurd reduction, but all simple statements without options are absurd reductions for humans since humans are deliberate and partake in events with choice. The utilitarian isn't recognizing the choice: A or B. The utilitarian is only recognizing B.
Too true.

I hope I helped. My purpose of discussing this was to see where it would go. It was an excellent intellectual exercise.

Re: The Utilitarian Case for Libertarian Rights

Sieben — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:10:51 GMT

wilderness:
How is that known with certainity? If it is known with certainity, then we are back to the pull of a trigger.

You never know anything empirical for certain.

wilderness:
Now if the utility person wants to intervene on what is contingent and not absolute there's the slippery slope.

Yes. The point is, there are some cases where the utility person has to intervene and violate someone else's libertarian rights. The whole point of this post was to really investigate whether or not libertarian rights were 100% compatible with utility/consequentialism. Maybe it sounds like kind of a dumb topic but as far as I can see, they intersect 99% of the time and I wanted to know if I was wrong about the other 1%.

wilderness:
You said it was a absurd reduction, but all simple statements without options are absurd reductions for humans since humans are deliberate and partake in events with choice. The utilitarian isn't recognizing the choice: A or B. The utilitarian is only recognizing B.

Too true.