OK so let me get something straight: Austrians describe human action and the workings of the free market perfectly. Austrians are perfectly right in preferring liberty. But: Austrians don’t know why people don’t want liberty these days.
To put it simple, the answer to this question is outside the scope of Praxelogy, because we have to investigate the preferences themselves and the cultures they create. Don’t get me wrong, I’m immensely grateful for Praxeology. It’s in the three most important things I discovered in my life (Buddhism and Voegelin’s writings are the other two.) It’s just simply not enough, and it’s not even a fault that it’s not enough: every discipline has it’s clearly defined limits and these questions are outside the limits of Praxeology. Like, chemistry can’t answer questions that genetics must answer. So basically the same way as chemistry cannot tell in itself why does a wolf wear a fur, but it does not mean chemistry is wrong, it simply means you gotta learn something else too to be able to tell it.
Similarly, Praxeology is perfect within the limits it sets for itself but you gotta understand some other stuff if you want to figure out how liberty can come about and why didn’t it come about yet.
I recommnd reading Eric Voegelin’s A New Theory of Political Science - he was a student of LvM and had a long dialogue with Hayek, agreeing in almost everything but looking at the causes of the trend towards collectivism. The important point is what he wrote to Hayek:
“I think that I can agree with you on almost everything you have said. […] There is however one point where I should suggest a certain qualification of your argument. I do not believe that the problem is one of the economic system and state intervention exclusively, but I am afraid that the evolution of the religious state of mind towards collectivism – not as an effect but as a cause of economic evolution – plays important role in the structure of modern civilization.”
Suggested reading
Again, it’s not a criticism of Praxeology but a suggestion to integrate Praxeology and Voegelin into some sort of a unified theory of human development.
“What separates Voegelin’s theoretical speculation from that of Hayek’s is the theme of transcendence. For both Hayek and Voegelin scientism is an intellectual movement that expresses the absolutism of science and it realizes it through the mathematization of every aspect of human life, adopting the method of natural science as valid for analyzing reality and establishing that science advances along a line of continuous progress. However, Voegelin takes his criticism to scientism further. In fact, for him, scientism above all denies «the concern for the experiences of the spirit». [12] This scientistic perversion replaces the divine-spiritual dimension with the worldly-material one, transforming this last into a sort of divinity. Hence, Voegelin and Hayek agree in condemning the delirious plans of scientific and political rationalism. Both state the failure of erecting the best political regime on the basis of historical progress, scientific rationalism, violence and power. Both are interested in studying the consequences of the application of scientism to politics. Both are concerned about the intellectual genesis of totalitarianism; but their investigation of this event differs significantly. The Austrian economist does not take into consideration the spiritual dimension of human life which is, for Voegelin, fundamental for human nature, human existence and for the social order.”
My understanding is that nobody’s really taken the time to apply praxelogical principles outside of economics.
The very premise that humans act to better their lot in life is a fundamental inherent quality of humans. It can be universally applied to all human action from religion (wanting to better one’s lot in the next life) to politics (the perceived betterment of one’s life).
Bureaucrats also want to better their lot in life and for them this means bigger government…
I’ve read some of Voegelin’s work, including The New Science of Politics. I had to. The Eric Voegelin Institute is in my department (political science) at Louisiana State University. Ellis Sandoz, the president of the Institute, is on my dissertation committee. I don’t like that Voegelin is against philosophical systems as such, which I think leads him to be a kind of status quo religious conservative. His theological bent is another thing that puts me off. He has a tendency to Christianize Plato and Platonize Aristotle. I think he would have considered libertarianism to be a Gnostic political movement. Ellis Sandoz himself once wrote on one of my grad seminar reaction papers “Your doctrinaire libertarianism will never fly in Peoria” in response to my argument that salvation in Christianity requires free choice so if we want people to be saved we have to respect their rights, including the right to be wrong. And he recently gave a speech at an annual Philadelphia Society meeting that ended with “Bush is the wind behind our sails.” But he did tell me after my M.A. thesis defense that I’m educable! (High praise coming from him, perhaps, although I’m sure I won’t count as educated until I give up my libertarianism and atheism.)
I’m not comfortable with the notion that there are spiritual requirements for the attainment of liberty, as if some kind of religious belief or lifestyle is a prerequisite for a free society. I don’t see how this necessarily has anything to do with libertarianism per se.
Because reason can’t bootstrap itself into morality. If the present material world is all there is, then why worry about things like property rights and voluntary exchange? Just use whatever means are at your disposal to satisfy your desires.
I don’t follow. Why does reason and morality have to conflict? One would think they are intertwined. One would think that any sensible morality is derived from reason, otherwise one can only appeal to some kind of emotionalism or an appeal to authority. And why does a lack of a belief in an afterlife inherently equate to hedonism? Since when is religiousity a prerequisite for morality? Frankly, I think that’s outright nonsense. I find the notion that morality and order ceases to exist in the absence of a diety or in the absence of faith to be just as absurd and comparable to the notion that morality and order ceases to exist in the absence of the state and legislative law. Both notions rely on the defering to some higher external authority for there to be order. Property rights and voluntary exchange apply to the present material world. I think that such things would matter even more in light of how short life is. Some theoretical afterlife really has nothing to do with it at all. On the contrary, it would seem to logically follow that if there is an eternal afterlife, this material life doesn’t matter too much as it’s only a transitional stage.
If mysticism, irrationalism and social conservatism is a prerequisite for libertarianism, count me out of this contaminated movement.
I’m not saying they conflict. I’m saying that if your sole yardstick is reason, then reason still can’t tell you why you should be reasonable. And rationally, why shouldn’t you use every means at your disposal to satisfy your urges if this life is all there is?
Because it’s not rational to be a hedonist. It is not in one’s rational self-interest to live in such a way, particularly long-term, as it comes back to haunt you. Unobstructed action to appease one’s urges is not rational, and no “spiritality” is necessary to figure that out. I don’t see how hedonism logically follows from the premise that reason should be one’s guide.
What if you don’t care about your long-term interest? And since, long-term, you’re going to be decrepit and eventually dead, why should you care? So most people don’t and happily become net tax consumers for the present term, comfortable in the knowledge that the bill won’t come due until after they are dead.
Such people wouldn’t be living according to reason. You seem to have a rather Hobbesian view of rationality, as only instrumental and calculative. This is a perverse modern reduction. Rationality is substantive as well, capable of calculating not only means to accomplish ends but also of discovering the proper ends to pursue. See Aristotle on this. And if you want a Christian, see Aquinas and the Spanish Scholastics.
Again, where does rationality come into this? I don’t see how this is a condemnation of reason at all. I don’t follow the logic of “since I’ll be dead one day, I should be a hedonist now”. On the contrary, I find the christian notion of forgiveness for one’s sins to be a potential excuse for hedonism, since one can “sin” all they want and then be forgiven so long as they believe and pay their religious dues.
The premise that belief in an afterlife is an incentive to be moral and that morality ceases to exist in its absence of utter irrational nonsense.
Says you. And again, in the absence of morality, whether you live for the long term or the short term is simply a subjective value judgment. If you choose to offload as much of your costs on others as you can get away with, that’s your preference.
You’re addressing the point you wish was made, not the point that was actually made.
If the present, material world is all there is, then a person who chooses to live for the moment is just as rational as the person who lives mindful of succeeding generations. In the absence of morality, reason cannot tell you why one choice is objectively better than the other. You are simply opposing different subjective views of what is in a person’s rational interest.
I don’t believe I ever spoke of an absence of morality. You keep making your argument based on the premise that morality is absent from reason. I don’t accept your premises. You seem to assume that we are working with a vacuum. I don’t believe we’re using the word rational to mean the same thing either.
Wether the present material world is all there is or not is entirely irrelevant to the question at hand. And your argument hinges on the assumption that in the absence of an afterlife there is no objective criteria for what is rational in the present material world, as if some kind of religious authority or diety or afterlife is a requirement for such a criteria to exist.
My response underscores that two separate chains of internally logical reasoning arrive at different conclusions, both of which are valid for either the hedonist or the ascetic. That’s all reason will get you. It will not get you to morality.
You’re straining at gnats. My point is simpler than that: reason cannot lift itself up by its own bootstraps into morality. You can demonstrate, with elegant and bullet-proof reasoning, why the murderer shouldn’t murder. You can even demonstrate why it’s a violation of an inalienable right, but your reason won’t tell him why he shouldn’t violate an inalienable right in a world of, ultimately, the same consequences for all.
I mean, seriously, these bald and unsupported assetions are meaningless. You’ve got no real argument. And if reason can’t get you to morality, I don’t see how blind faith can either. I really do think you have some kind of Hobbesian conception of reason. And are operating against a strong tradition in Christianity that is heavily influenced by Aristotle, which holds that reason is capable of grasping right and wrong by itself.