Responding in reverse:
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Agreed.
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Protection of natural rights must be the goal of a societal arrangement. The maximization of utility may suffer as a result, which is a necessary sacrifice.
To be clear, what I am saying is not that consequences do not matter - they do. But that is only the half of it. What I am saying, instead, is that a) it is not tautologically valid to say that what is “best” for society (i.e. utility maximization on this view) is the same as the morally good (it must be noncircularly proven first), and once this conflation is rejected, any accusations of fetishism, sadism &c. fall apart and b) that something, such as the rights of individuals, might instead be the good. To sum it up briefly, Miksirhc is begging the question against NR. My other peripheral points concerned the fact that utilitarianism, whilst claiming for itself scientific precision in fact lacks the means to perform the very calculations it needs to claim for itself any sort of superiority over other ethical theories (and again this would only work after it were proven that utility maximization is the good.)
Freewheeler, what I was driving at was that something such as liberty may matter more than utility maximization.
Why? And for the people in the aggregate, or for each and every individual? What is utility? And how do you measure it? Who determines what counts as utility maximization and how best to achieve it?
A few points:
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Not all theories of natural rights are deontological, much less purely deontological. There are virtue-ethical theories of natural rights. And these are distinct from consequentialist theories like utilitarianism.
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The non-aggression principle is not an axiom.
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Are you an act-utilitarian or a rule-utilitarian? Judging by your criticism of strict enforcement of the non-aggression principle, it seems to me you are an act-utilitarian, because rule-utilitarian libertarians won’t have much problem with strictly enforcing the NAP because they can see this as tending to result in utility maximization. Rule-utilitarians recognize that making exceptions for particular cases has no theoretical justification, undermines support for the rule that tends to lead to utility maximization, and therefore threatens the goal of utility maximization. Act-utilitarianism, by the way, is commonly regarded in philosophical circles as an untenable position. And Roderick Long has shown that rule-utilitarianism (or, more broadly, rule-consequentialism) is praxeologically unstable.
Rule utilitarianism shifts the problem from telling what act is good to telling what rule is good. It still is a form of circular reasoning, in my opinion.
And maybe I am foolish for this, but I see maximum utility as maximum liberty, not a result of it. No increase in utility can result from a decrease in liberty, which miksirhc seems to agree with. But miksirch appears to believe it is just a coincidence it worked out this way. He believes in liberty because it maximizes utility. He suggests if another system maximized utility he would favor that system. I think this is my problem with utilitarianism. It is the same thing macro-economists do: they acknowledge the flaws of their theory, but then base decisions off its conclusions anyway. It is nice this reasoning has led miksirhc to libertarianism. But it is flawed reasoning in my mind, and the same reasoning can take another person down a very different path.
Maybe I’m just talking in circles. But I cannot grasp the concept that a lessoning of liberty could ever increase utility, even in theory. This is an inherent contradiction. Which is why I believe in NR.
The fact that
- You would support mass slavery if you felt it worked, and
- You feel someone is negatively effected if he reads a book about medidation and makes the choice to work less
…leads me to believe that we don’t really have enough in common to continue a discussion. In any event, I’m glad you generally support libertarianism rather than statism!
That comment shows a fundamental misunderstanding. If someone deems himself better off because he sits in a hut meditating, his utility is decreased if you chain him to a wheel and make him work. If everyone voluntarily chooses to relinquish all wants and be satisfied with exactly what he has, then utility is by definition maximized, because forcing anyone to do something else makes him worse off.
What you’re basically doing, consciously or not, is substituting GDP for utility. It’s easy to demonstrate that that’s a bad definition: regardless of the current GDP, it can be increased by creating robot overlords that force us to work harder. In that case GDP is increased, but EVERYONE is made worse off, because EVERYONE is enslaved. The overlords, being robots, are not made better off, so we have the exact opposite of a pareto improvement: everyone is made worse off and nobody is made better off.
–Len.
Len, using your definitions, forcing anyone to do anything minimizes their utility. How is that consistent with the OP’s view?
It’s bad for people because it violates their natural rights. If, as you claim, to maximize utility the NAA must be ignored, then the persuit of maximum utility is bad for the people, as well.
I must missing something here. Protection of natural rights is good for the people. Every single violation of those rights benefits some people at the expense of those whose rights were violated, meaning it harms people.
So we have a simple choice:
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Protect natural rights, which will never harm anyone.
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Ignore natural rights, in favor of the good of “society”, in which case, some people will be harmed.
Obviously, then, upholding natural rights is always what’s best for the people, and violating them is always bad for the people. So either utilty maximization is only achieved by protecting natural rights, or it is not what’s best for the people.
We might be talking at cross-purposes here. I think if people want to meditate and practice contentment, that’s a perfectly fine thing. The bit of your comment that’s incorrect is that this would fail to maximize utility.
The original post posits, “The end, ultimately, must be prosperity for the people,” and that, “Any other end is sadistic.” That view is incoherent, because “prosperity for the people” is impossible to achieve in general: the goal contradicts the basic fact that we live in a world of scarcity. It’s on par with “turning humans into saints” or “extinguishing sin from the universe” or “bringing all humanity to enlightenment and nirvana.” The goal is contradictory, ill-defined but most of all, impossible.
Your meditation example speaks to that perfectly. If everyone becomes a buddhist, lives in a hut meditating, and lives on whatever fruit he can gather, this clearly is the opposite of whatever the OP thinks “prosperity” is. But if you forced everyone to move to New York, get a day job, and eat TV dinners, they wouldn’t thank you. You’d be forcing on them a “prosperity” that they didn’t even desire.
The same example can be viewed as proving that “prosperity for the people” is an inherently contradictory goal. Everyone defines prosperity differently. The OP is probably thinking about food, shelter, medicine and a minivan for everyone. A buddhist might want only a hut where there are plenty of mango trees. A religious nut would include “basic decency” in his definition, and a sociopath would include lots of unarmed women and dark alleys in which to rape them. Their definitions of “prosperity” might seem absurd or disgusting to us, but they’re equally uninterested in our definition of “prosperity.”
–Len.
Who holds that everyone’s aim (presumably one’s sole or overriding aim in life?) is or ought to be the fulfillment of natural rights? Perhaps you could give some examples?
Why? People who believe in and defend natural rights believe that they are best for the people because they will be free from the threat or use of initiatory physical force.
How we define utility or the maximization of utility is actually very important. You seem to think that utility is the same particular thing for everyone. Why is that? You really need to defend this position.
Can one flourish without being moral? I don’t think so. So why do you assert that morality and “what is best” are in conflict?
What? I don’t get this question. Respecting natural rights is best not only for prosperity but the whole range of human flourishing.
Natural rights have no place in a utilitarian theory. They cease to be rights when you don’t respect them absolutely.
Well, I do support natural rights because only respect for natural rights makes the best for each and every person possible.
What do you mean by ‘end in itself’? I think respecting rights is an end in itself but also and more imporantly it is an constitutive part/means of human flourishing. It is demanded by the requirements of my own flourishing, in particular by the virtue of justice.
Why just prosperity? Do you mean merely economic prosperity? If so, why just this?
That’s a rather bold and unsupported assertion.
I’m afraid that leaves you with either statism or some more decentralized rampant criminality. If it is all right to violate natural rights on occassion, then you aren’t really a supporter of natural rights. Rights are absolute, otherwise they are just privileges that can be revoked.
Len,
That is more or less what I was trying to get at. Although you did a much better job. Even if there was some value in being able to define and quantify “utility” and “prosperity”, they vary on the individual level. It seems to me contradictory to suggest, even if just in theory, that a system may be utility maximizing, and not liberty maximizing. Any other system must involve some people being forced to do things they otherwise would not do, which would be a decrease in utility.
It’s interesting that utilitarianism, in its historical development, is one of those typically modern ethical theories that is more concerned with societal order than with individual self-perfection. Hence, the focus in such theories on duties toward others and the perceived conflict between morality and self-interest/prudence. Such theories are tailor-made for those tempted toward social engineering.
BTW this is why I argued in another topic that I don’t think Classical Liberals were the ancestors of Libertarians: no offense or ad hominem, I hope none is taken, but I think miksirhc’s views are the typical examples of those of Classical Liberals: the utilitarian approach and utilitarianism, IMHO, is a dead end.
You’re forgetting the classical liberals who adhered to natural law and natural rights.
A good deal of classical liberals were not utilitarians.
Hm, it indeed is a justification for statism or better for the right of a group to use coercive power against those that do not agree with the group on what is best for the people.
The fallacy is that there is something like a group other than as an abstract term. Every group consists out of individuals. A group can not act. Individuals do.
Natural rights are trying to state (mind the try) laws that are selfevident. Like in physics you can not deny that the apple falls down to the ground … and thanks to Newton we know now that the reason for this is gravitation, there are, so the natural right claims, some inherent attributes to human beings.
On being the fact that no external entity, that is something external to a single human being, can force it to act in a certain way. In short, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink”
You can do something to an individual, like hit it, move it from A to B, or even kill it. But you can never make it act. Whatever an individual does is by its own choice. There might be more or less options to act but the choice taken is always decided by the individual.
How does an individual make choices? By picking the best available option it has at that specific time to get to the most satisfying state possible. Like if you put a gun on my head telling me you kill me if i do not give you all my money, I will decide what to do - not you- to reach the most satisfying solution I can think of. I might give you the money, because I belive that is the best way to survive or I might kick you in the balls, or anything in between.
Fact of the matter is, the individual decides about what action to take to get into the state it wants to be in and what means it employs to get there.
If you decline that fact, than no discussion about that is possible. Like. if you said I do not believe that apples fall down instead of up.
The ultimate goal is never the goal of a group. Groups have no goals, the individuals forming a group might have all the same goal, but that is something totally different. It follows, that the ultimate goal is not the prosperity of the people(an abstract group), but the goal that every individual has as a goal in that very moment.
If the non-aggression axiom - that says that the initiation of aggression is never just - can be invalidated by a group goal, called “the best for the people” than it follows that the individual has no rights out of itself but only by grant of the group. Which we call collectivism.
Personally, I am a NR libertarian. I agree with Inquisitor that the original poster is leaving too much unargued for.
I personally believe that NR and the NAP, when brought to their logical conclusions concerning politics, do in fact optimize society’s members to their full potential and prosperity.
So, with this being said, if what I said is inherently true, what would be wrong with NR?
Welcome to hedonism. [8-)]
It leaves me following truth and the law of God over the hedonism of man. I am sorry you and I - and the rest of humanity - do not understand the entire qualification of why moral law is important for people to follow - even if it means sacrificing what is best for X group of people. We can only understand the partial explanations of natural law and why the decrees of God are important and logical. The LORD does present it in poetry, however, for men to follow on that in faith.
Proverbs 2 details some of this.