The Utilitarian Case for Libertarian Rights

Economics Political Theory
1

The founders of the mises-libertarianism movement have a lot of good consequentialist arguments against central planning and the like. Privatize everything etc etc because the government will be inefficient and destroy wealth.

But what about issues that don’t have an obvious free market advantage? People who say that video game violence should be censored or children should be forced to learn about drugs and STDs do little or no obvious economic harms. So how do we counter these arguments?

Of course, these moralistic arguments are in violation of the NAP. But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to know if there is a good utilitarian case for having the freedom to be stupid/uneducated/etc.

Cus what if someone raised their kids to be racist. That would be bad, so we should force everyone’s kids to learn about racial equality in school. Barf.

I have a few ideas, but would like everyone’s own opinions too.

I was listening to Tom Dilorenzo talk about how sometimes mergers between companies failed, and that the anti-trust people were trying to use this as an argument for why there should be more stringent anti-trust laws. Dilorenzo countered saying that only the market could demonstrate what sorts of mergers were good or bad. I.e. freedom is a discovery process that teaches us about how markets work.

It seems that this position is not quite enough to defeat the statists though, because if 100% of mergers between industry X and industry Y fail over a period of time, the statists can come in and say “well we’ve given the market long enough to figure it out, so now we’ll prohibit industries X and Y from merging”

Dilorenzo made the claim that when mergers go through, people are putting their money and careers on the line, which is supposed to act as a check. I kind of doubt statists will buy this. For some reason they trust politicians more than people playing with their own money, but what do I know.

Anyway, applying this logic to violent videogaming, it seems that we might not want experimentation since teenagers might go around killing people, and nothing good can come of violent videogames anyway so why not just do away with them? We already know meth is bad so why make it illegal too?

I’m well aware of all the individualist/NAP arguments here. What I want are utilitarian/consequentialist arguments. Why? Because I don’t think that liberty flies with most people. They already know what the right answer is: that X is bad for society. The only way you can tell them they’re wrong is by making the utilitarian case right back at them.

Note: Assuming I were in an argument with a statist and forced to admit that violence was necessary to prevent people from playing bad videogames, I would never give up the ground that a state is necessary to do so. So I’d like the arguments here to focus on why there should be a prohibition of all aggression rather than just state aggression.

Take for instance the situation in which you have traveled back in time to the prehistoric ages. You can bring about the industrial revolution with all your science knowledge, but no one listens to you because they think you’re crazy. If you could force them to obey you with violence, you could help them out of their poverty. Is there any way we can argue against this without the NAP?

Thanks!

2

And hopefully you will realize that utilitarianism is bankrupt, both intellectually and morally.

…Or else you’ll become a good socialist claiming that the ‘good’ is whatever is ‘good’ for society.

“barf”.

3

Explanation/link? I’ve only heard R Long talk about how its praxeologically unstable.

So what were mises and friends doing when they made arguments against the efficiency of the state if not being utilitarian?

4

  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”. But I do not think that that definition is the definition which the original poster meant to use.

  2. Do you believe that consequentialism is “intellectually […] bankrupt”? Do you believe that the claim “we should not expand the supply of credit because such action would cause economic recessions and depressions” is “intellectually” bankrupt?

5

It would at least be a happier world if more people were utilitarians. I am not one of them but I think that the implicit value in political debate is how to serve the masses the best.

This is right. Because even if utility weren’t the supreme value, you still have to allow for consequentalist considerations.

6

Well, utilitarianism says nothing definitive about individual rights. Only that such rights may be legitimate IF they help promote ‘social cooperation’ - which of course makes one wonder what is social cooperation, why is social cooperation ‘good’, and who is going to create the framework that promotes it.

Yes, Mises was a utilitarian. That doesn’t mean utilitarianism is an unconditionally good thing. Yes, libertarians can make utilitarian arguments against government and other people can make utilitarian arguments for government…

As a matter of fact, Mises himself advocated, for instance, conscription…

7

That’s roughly what I’m referring to.

No, that’s an observation on how some economic mechanisms work. But the thing is, the people who benefit from credit expansion might argue that it’s ‘good’ for ‘society’…And proving that there’s a direct link between credit expansion and the business cycle is, for some reason, not that easy (just witness the current economic debates, even in this forum).

8

Well this is sort of hitting on the point of the OP. If utility/consequentialism don’t value individual rights for their own sake, is it still possible to make the case for the libertarian set of individual rights?

Well more generally the greatest good for the greatest number. Obviously this runs into problems of comparison of interpersonal utility, but just because there is grey area doesn’t mean you discard the concept. So giving a chocolate bar to A vs B is unclear, but giving a choco bar to A vs killing B has an obvious utilitarian solution 99% of the time.

9

Comparing interpersonal utility is a pretty big problem. Also, an action may make me happy in the short term, yet it will negatively effect my happiness in the long term. So now you need some arbitrary stopping point where we stop measuring utility. Or do we take into account the happiness of every person effected by an action for the duration of his or her life? Not to mention that one could possibly justify atrocities such as slavery with utilitarian arguments. You can resort to rule utilitarianism, but that doesn’t cut it either in my opinion.

10

What movement? The only movement I see has basically been completely founded on the argument from morality and natural rights etc, following Rothbard’s caucus’ 10 points.

Why Be Libertarian? - Rothbard

No. You just need to make it more clear that they have the gun in the room, and it’s aimed at your skull.

Make it more personal. Ask them if they would hire a gang to stop that person from doing what they are doing “smoking, playing video games”…

If they say yes / no, then ask would they do it themselves? Then if yes, ask if they would pull the trigger?

If they say yes, then there is no rational argument that is going to sway a person like that. Don’t debate with them. If there are others listening, that person is going to think they “won”, but it’ll be clear to everyone else they lost.

11

The calculation argument is made on utilitarian, not individual rights grounds.

I’m well aware of this strategy. I don’t like it. I feel that even if dumb statists can’t counter it that smarter ones can at least spin it to make them look good, that what if someone were teaching their children to be racist, it would be okay to force them to stop using a gun if you have to.

12

I dont usually like to bump threads, but this one is important to me…

13

Snowflake:

The answer is to be found here:

“Universalistic utilitarianism’s ethical criterion is the welfare of society as a whole; egoistic utilitarianism’s ethical criterion is the individual agent’s own welfare.”

(Quote is from R.Long in his critique of Yeager’s book)(my bold and italics)

Thus, before entering into a discussion about utilitarianism, there is the issue of which definition of utilitarianism one is discussing. Mises was a utilitarian in the latter sense, which flows naturally from the methodological individualism at the base of Austrian economics and the law of marginal utility.

A utilitarian argument in favor of libertarianism from this point of view, would seek to show or demonstrate how a nonlibertarian society is detrimental to the interests of the one seeking or proposing it.

In economics, one says to the nonlibertarian: If you increase the legal minimum wage significantly, there will be significant unemployment.

Thus, the nonlibertarian (the democrat or socialist for example) who doesn’t want significant unemployment, abstains from advocating a minimum wage of $17 per hour (for example).

He abstains, because he is convinced that doing so (increasing the minimum wage to $17 per hour), harms his own interests. (i.e., harms things or people he himself cares about)

And thus, libertarian social science (in this case economics), affects nonlibertarian ethical practices or actions, by showing how acts the nonlibertarian planned to take harm his own interests.

This is an example of the egoistic utilitarianism practiced by Mises, and which Long is referring to.

The problem for libertarians is, this kind of utilitarian science only exists in the economic realm of human action, and not in the ethical realm of human action.

As Mises often wrote, economics is the best elaborated branch of praxeology. There are other potential branches of praxeology which remain un-elaborated. Human ethical acts are acts; the kind of acts praxeology studies. But there is no generally acknowledged science of human ethical acts as there is one for economic acts (the science of economics, or catallactics).

There is no utilitarian science of ethics (praxeology), and thus, one cannot demonstrate to the nonlibertarian how ethical acts he plans to take (as opposed to economic acts) harm his own interests.

Thus, libertarians propose various forms of objective ethics instead: the value objectivism of Rand and Rothbard, eudaimonia or flourishing or virtue ethics, argumentation ethics, theistic ethics, etc.

In utilitarian ethics of the kind Mises practices, the goal is to show or demonstrate how various actions the individual planned to initiate are harmful to his own interests. If this can be successfully accomplished, a nonlibertarian abstains from various acts, not because we tell him to, and not because we threaten him with punishment, but because he believes the act he intended would actually harm his own interests (as the minimum wage example).

To construct the type of social theory Mises does, the idea of exact laws, or apodictically certain knowledge is key.

Obviously, it makes a huge difference if we say to someone:

If you do X, Y might happen.

or:

If you do X, Y will certainly happen.

That is the significance of Mengerian exact science and Misesian praxeology. Both visions aim to arrive at such exact or necessary knowledge. And thus Austrian social science in the Mengerian/Misesian conception is able to say to the nonlibertarian: If you do X, Y will certainly happen.

This is the utilitarian/consequentialist argument you are referring to. In Austrian social science, utilitarianism is egoistic utilitarianism. It is based on methodological individualism and the subjective value of things to each individual actor.

14

The universal utilitarian position: greatest good for the greatest number.

And yet practically all of the arguments against central planning seem to have implications for univ utilitarianism. Actually, I think that egotistic utilitarianism is more capricious because it is debatable that society gains from slavery, but a single individual could obviously benefit. Well, whatever. Maybe I’m misunderstanding. I wanted to talk about univ utilitarianism b/c that’s the given value everyone considers in political debates.

Right so the issue I want to investigate is whether the libertarian can always make this claim; that individual liberty can always serve the liberal’s interest in the greater good. I posited the example of banning of violent videogames in order to reduce social violence as a point of consideration.

Could I have links to everything after eudaimonia if you don’t mind? Particularly AE.

Could you elaborate? It seems to me that a 50% chance of an atomic detonation should be avoided with almost every bit as much effort as 100% chance…

So in summary, I recognize that the liberals claim to want to maximize universal utility only out of egoistic utility. Free-market scholars can make the claim in many cases that freedom causes a much greater good than the state. Is it possible to make this case against all forms of state action? Or all acts of coercion?

15

Mises is just the typical bankrupt utilitarian (and pro conscription too!)

Natural rights are nonsense but enlightened social planners like Mises and his national-defense state are OK…

16

I’d still invite him to dinner and attend all his lectures [:P]

17

And yet no one has really sold me that utility is really evil. I mean I’m a non-cognitivist (or close to it) so none of this has any personal meaning to me.

I just don’t understand how libertarians can have so many consequentialist arguments about the greater good and somehow not cross over into evil “bankrupt” utilitarianism. Is it that the markets are “useful” enough? They are more useful than the state so utilitarians ought to be appeased by libertarianism?

18

If a physicist uses the standard scientific method and develops an incorrect theory, does that convey to us that we should discard the standard scientific method? If I use my legs to run but I am a terrible runner, does that mean that you should instead use your hands to run?

19

No; it is not just “an observation on how some economic mechanisms work”. In it, I used the word “should”. In all cases, a speaker who says the word “should” assumes that the subject of the sentence which contains the word “should” possesses some sort of desire. In the example which I provided, I assumed that the subject, “we”, desires not to experience an economic recession or depression. If, contrariwise, you were to somehow enjoy to experience economic recessions and depression, you would have been able to legitimately respond to my assertion via a sentence similar to “but I desire to experience an economic recession or depression!”. In the entirety of the system which Mises enacted, such reasoning is the only reasoning which he intended to lead to any implications about policy.

If I use the techniques of infinitesimal calculus but I, because I misused those techniques, derive an incorrect answer, does that invalidate the expediency of those techniques?

I consider that to be the main reason why many radically anti-government, pro-market advocates uphold some sort of overarching moral principle, such as the non-aggression principle et cetera. For, in order to justify such a radical position via a consequentialist method, one would have to enact an expansive, detailed system. But, in order to justify such a radical position via a intuitivist method, one would merely have to, as an example, feel that aggression is “wrong” and apply such a principle consistently.

20

People justify Libertarianism using utilitarian arguments all the time. But still, both act and rule utilitarianism are flawed doctrines. If your goal is to develop a coherent and acceptable morality, utilitarianism won’t cut it.