Consequentialism, utilitarianism and Ludwig von Mises

Economics Political Theory
1

I have a philosophical question here. I know that Mises was a consequentialist, he even described himself as an utilitarian. But he didn’t hold the idea that subjective preferences could be compared between different individuals, so I don’t get why he was an utilitarian (I would classify him as a consequentialist, though). Then, I noticed that there is a branch of utilitarianism called “preference utilitarianism”. From Wikipedia:

“Preference utilitarianism is one of the most popular forms of utilitarianism in contemporary philosophy. In the same way as other utilitarian theorists, preference utilitarians define a morally right action as that which produces the most favorable consequences for the people involved. However, preference utilitarians interpret the best consequences in terms of ‘preference satisfaction’. This means that ‘good’ is described as the satisfaction of each person’s individual preferences or desires, and a right action is that which leads to this satisfaction. Since what is good depends solely on individual preferences, there can be nothing that is in itself good or bad except for the resulting state of mind. Preference utilitarianism therefore can be distinguished by its acknowledgment that every person’s experience of satisfaction will be unique.”

Isn’t it what Mises thought about utilitarianism? Has anyone read something about preference utilitarianism and make a comparison with Mises thought?

How is arguing with somebody supposed to prove private property rights???
Subjective prices: bad argument?
2

Stringham criticizes Mises for not being subjectivist enough in this paper.

3

I think that conception equates utilitarianism with rightness, whereas, Mises thought of the very notion of rightness as a mere convention invented for the sake of utilitarian concerns. And so Mises’ utilitarianism isn’t so much an ethic, as it is an understanding of how ethics comes to be.

Hopefully the following quotes will illuminate his position somewhat.

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

“The notion of right and wrong is a human device, a utilitarian precept to make social cooperation under the division of labor possible”

“In this sense we speak of the subjectivism of the general science of human action. It takes the ultimate ends chosen by acting man as data, it is entirely neutral with regard to them, and it refrains from passing any value judgments. The only standard which it applies is whether or not the means chosen are fit for the attainment of the ends aimed at. If Eudaemonism says happiness, if Utilitarianism and economics say utility, we must interpret these terms in a subjectivistic way as that which acting man aims at because it is desirable in his eyes. It is in this formalism that the progress of the modern meaning of Eudaemonism, Hedonism, and Utilitarianism”

Mises doesn’t say "don’t intervene in the market economy, because to do so conflicts with the end of “satisfying the preferences of everyone involved”. That would be him establishing an end as a third party (even if it alludes to the ends of others), but he takes ends as given. He simply says that, given the ends all political parties profess to have (see quote below), intervening in the market economy will not serve those ends.

“However, if we pass in review the programs of all parties–both the cleverly elaborated and publicized programs and those to which the parties really cling when in power–we can easily discover the fallacy of this interpretation. All present-day political parties strive after the earthly well-being and prosperity of their supporters. They promise that they will render economic conditions more satisfactory to their followers. With regard to this issue there is no difference [p. 181] between the Roman Catholic Church and the various Protestant denominations as far as they intervene in political and social questions, between Christianity and the non-Christian religions, between the advocates of economic freedom and the various brands of Marxian materialism, between nationalists and internationalists, between racists and the friends of interracial peace. It is true that many of these parties believe that their own group cannot prosper except at the expense of other groups, and even go so far as to consider the complete annihilation of other groups or their enslavement as the necessary condition of their own group’s prosperity. Yet, extermination or enslavement of others is for them not an ultimate end, but a means for the attainment of what they aim at as an ultimate end: their own group’s flowering. If they were to learn that their own designs are guided by spurious theories and would not bring about the beneficial results expected, they would change their programs.”

4

I should say that this is an explanation of, not a complete endorsement of, Mises’ position. Myself, I believe morality is a matter of our inherent psychology, and is not mere artifice.

5

No, but I’ve read about all the failures of utilitarianism and the predicament Mises found himself in.

Praxeology, Value Judgments, and Public Policy By Murray N. Rothbard

Utilitarian Free-market Economics By Murray N. Rothbard

6

Did Mises err? Was he a utilitarian? Reply to Block

J. Patrick Gunning answers with a thorough “No.” (at least as regards to utilitarianism as it is generally conceived.)

“To the contrary, I have argued that Rothbard failed in that paper to comprehend the true basis of Mises’s defense of laissez faire and that he attributed ideas to Mises, including the unanimity principle and utilitarianism, that he did not hold (Gunning 2005). (…) First, Rothbard failed to identify Mises’s principal argument for laissez faire. Mises’s argument was based on a comparison, using value-free economic reasoning, of arguments for market intervention according to criteria that Mises claimed were either explicitly or implicitly espoused by those who promoted the intervention. Second, Rothbard misinterpreted Mises’s analyses of the arguments against the particular interventionist policies that he cited in Mises’s work.”

(…)

Block responded by writing that Mises’s utilitarianism is “well established” and that Mises never denied his alleged utilitarianism (Block 2005: 929). He does not tell us why he believes this is well established or why, in order to satisfy his posthumous interpreters, Mises would have to deny a position that he never claimed to hold. In any case, the rationale that both Rothbard and Block use to deduce Mises’s utilitarianism is that Mises used the criterion of material wealth and earthly ends to support laissez faire. Block did not appreciate my argument that Mises used the criteria of material wealth and earthly ends (i.e., progress) to evaluate laissez faire, socialism, and interventionism because these were the criteria that the ideological advocates of these systems had employed.

(…)

“Mises asserted that the old liberals advocated laissez faire on the basis of utilitarian principles. Their utilitarianism also provided the first steps in the direction of a scientific economics and helped to lead Mises himself to the insight that economics is a branch of praxeology. In conjunction with his formally working out the methods of praxeology and economics, Mises became convinced that a modified presentation of economic reasoning, first introduced by the old liberal utilitarians, was value free. He went on to employ this value-free reasoning to evaluate the ideologies of socialism and interventionism and a number of specific policy arguments. He saw such evaluations as the primary goal of economics. He evaluated the ideologies by focusing on a particular goal that he asserted was explicitly or implicitly claimed in the ideologies, namely, the production of material wealth, achievement of earthly ends, progress, and so on. These goals were similar if not identical to those of the utilitarians. He went on to employ value-free economic reasoning to support his argument that the systems of socialism and interventionism would not be capable of achieving these goals. Using the same reasoning, he deduced that these goals could be achieved by laissez faire, which is the system advocated by the old liberals and utilitarians. In addition, Mises evaluated specific interventionist policies on the basis of whether they would achieve goals that he assumed the advocates of the policies had.”

7

I think Lilburne’s comment here is accurate:

“I think that conception equates utilitarianism with rightness, whereas, Mises thought of the very notion of rightness as a mere convention invented for the sake of utilitarian concerns. And so Mises’ utilitarianism isn’t so much an ethic, as it is an understanding of how ethics comes to be.”

This is well said, and I think it does capture Mises’s position.

Here is a very important quote Mises provides in Epistemological Problems of Economics that expresses the same idea:

“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 of the faculty of desiring–i.e., the original desire and wish themselves.” (dictum of Jacobi)

Mises’s utilitarianism is a “means/ends” utilitarianism. The focus is on whether, by logic, the means chosen can attain the ends sought. The focus is the means/ends relationship.

We could possibly think of this as utilitarian in the following sense:

“What “utility” does means X have, to bring about end Y?”

This is the sense in which Mises is a utilitarian.

In Mises’s utilitarian approach, the individual attains happiness in attaining his ends. Terms such as “good” and “right” refer to means one considers suitable to bring about the ends sought after, thus resulting in an individual’s happiness.

8

If I ignore the negative connotation of the word “artifice”, I still disagree with the passage above. For the question of whether those conventions, “the notions of right and wrong” and what they refer to, emerged via genetic evolution, via cultural evolution, or via some combination of both genetic and cultural evolution concerns psychology, not praxeology.