The Utilitarian Case for Libertarian Rights

Economics Political Theory
41

So if the drug doesn’t make them kill people, in other words as you say, maybe “everyone chooses to do it after taking the drug” - does matter. Now it’s about people choosing to kill. It’s therefore not the drug.

Hypothetically people are born and some go out and start killing people so to make these killings happen less often for the greater good then massive amounts of cullings should happen to prevent such large scale killings anymore? No. It’s not very (negative) liberty oriented of them I would say.

Strictly speaking. Thus to rid the context, the example of somehow being able to scientifically know if it was the drug or will power, let’s move past all that. I would say why would people, who are liberty oriented, take a drug that makes/coerces them to kill other people? Voluntary murderers?

good discussion.[:)]

42

Right, but the point is you could reduce murders in society by banning the drug.

I’m going for reduction to the absurd here.

I didn’t say they were liberty oriented. Maybe they want to kill a bunch of people. But the act of taking the drug is not aggression, so we can’t prevent them from doing that. We can only intervene after the fact.

43

But then it’s dog chasing it’s tail. If people are choosing to murder, and as you stated it’s not necessarily the drug doing it, then anything could be banned by the drawing of a card from a hat. If you are still saying they are choosing, then isn’t the choice happening no matter what the people associate as a trigger for their choice?

You say 100% of the time people that taking the drug kills innocents. Let’s stick with that aspect, if we may, for a more precise discussion. In other words let’s not give the people a choice in how they react, hypothetically speaking. Let’s say no matter what this drug makes them kill. And as you point out below, these people are not liberty oriented. Then I would say this drug isn’t even a weapon. A weapon can be held and the choice of pulling the trigger is still present. This drug taken would be pulling the trigger. It is not for instance possession of a gun. It is the pulling of the trigger with the barrel of the gun pointed and killing innocents. It is pure murder. It is the trigger being pulled. It is way past the point of choice and possession. It is immoral and mechanical, instant murder. So banning this drug ingestion would be the same as banning murder. If any point after the banning of the drug could be shown that it does NOT kill, then the drug isn’t murder. But so far as to what you seem to be saying is the drug is murder. This particular drug=murder. So being the same as murder it is immoral and I can somebody proclaiming self-defense and stopping them the same as somebody about to initiate aggression and pull the trigger on a gun.

It is a threat. It is the same as somebody picking up a gun off the table to shoot an innocent. In self-defense, I can shoot them before they shoot me. why not?

44

Good analysis. Particularly the spinning chamber analogy. I was thinking of something similar.

So now that we have established that things other than literally “pulling the trigger” still count as de facto pulling the trigger. Isn’t this a slippery slope? Isn’t there always a chance that something I do will hurt someone? Doesn’t this mean aggression is always justified?

If not, how big does the chance have to be before I can intervene? If you’re spinning a chamber of 1/6 bullets is it okay? 1/600? 1/6x10^20?

It seems that simply the existence of other people precipitates the chance of them aggressing against me…

To anticipate some responses, libertarians generally come up with some ad hoc proportionality adjustments to self defense, so that you can’t go and murder someone just becausse they exist, but you can confiscate someone’s weapon if there’s a good chance it will be used aggressively…

45

No. Cause the way you narrowed the topic of review provided this end-point: the drug is a trigger pulled. You pointed out that it wasn’t a choice. You pointed out it 100% of the time kills. The slippery slope is if we could make all actions mechanical and devoid actions of a human from being able to choose and always killing.

This is an effort to define “threat”. For instance, somebody might shoot somebody down and point out to other people that the person now dead was going for his gun. Yet maybe he was swatting a fly and his gun happened to be in the vicinity. If I hear this story, then I may watch how I swat flies around people. I would tend to want to get to know people that I hang out around. I may walk around with a group of people more often to feel secure so nobody thinks I’m going for my gun when I try to swat flies. The group of friends will back me up and point out I was only swatting a fly and then they may try to kill the person that initated the gunfight. Both sides may declare they are on the side of right and self-defense. I honestly hope I don’t live around such scared, tense people, and I also hope that I can find friends that can tell the difference between me going for my gun and swatting a fly. Friends tend to not only understand and notice expectations in behavior but friends also don’t shoot each other. I’m not talking about a turn-coat or spy.

46

What if it killed 99% of the time? Wouldn’t the same logic still apply?

What?

This dodges the issue. I’m asking if you are within your libertarian rights to go around neutralizing any threats to your wellbeing.

47

Some of you may be interested in Rational Utilitarianism (the ethical theory of Herbert Spencer). It is a flavor of utilitarianism that has a special place for liberty.

48

I don’t think we could attribute the drug as the cause of the effect (murder) in this case. Why 1% didn’t go and kill?

I stayed in the context of your evolving scenario. You stated it was 100% of a killer and the person had no choice. Your above questioning I requoted in this post changes the event. You’ve brought up something new now.

It doesn’t dodge the issue. I had asked what is “threat”. Obviously as I went on in answering this, a threat is cultivated in a relationship between two or more people. One or more people become aware of a threat. One person says it was a fly swatting and another says the movement of the hand was towards a gun. I asked who’s right? When it comes to a threat exploited to denounce dialogue conflict is usually the outcome. What do you incline towards? dialogue or conflict. Since liberty oriented people have also been excluded from the discussion I can only share my answer of dialogue, but this senario is turning more and more into a statement instead of a situation of possiblities. It is becoming more about mechanical actions instead of an allowance for choice.

49

Thank you for this link Solid Choke.

Here is a passage from that article:

“But the view for which I contend is, that Morality properly so-called – the science of right conduct – has for its object to determine how and why certain modes of conduct are detrimental, and certain other modes beneficial. These good and bad results cannot be accidental, but must be necessary consequences of the constitution of things; and I conceive it to be the business of moral science to deduce, from the laws of life and the conditions of existence, what kinds of action necessarily tend to produce happiness, and what kinds to produce unhappiness. Having done this, its deductions are to be recognized as laws of conduct; and are to be conformed to irrespective of a direct estimation of happiness or misery (Spencer, vol. II, 1904: 88-9).[3]”

This is a vision of a science of morality or ethics that seeks to ascertain the regular laws of moral or ethical conduct. Which modes of conduct result in happiness, which modes of conduct result in unhappiness, etc…

In this sense, Spencer is conceiving a science of morals or ethics along the same lines as Menger and Mises are doing with regard to economics (catallactics).

This is the utilitarian science of the necessary consequences of various forms of action (increasing the legal minimum wage, erecting tariffs, printing more money, etc…) Here, Spencer is conceiving of a similar science with respect to human morals or ethics as opposed to economic exchanges (exchanges conceivable in terms of money).

But one problem with this conception, a problem that seems to have been common to the 19th century conception of moral or ethical laws of human conduct. You can see it here:

“Having done this, its deductions are to be recognized as laws of conduct; and are to be conformed to irrespective of a direct estimation of happiness or misery.”

Here, Spencer is saying that once moral or ethical laws of human conduct are ascertained, then they must be “conformed to,” by which I interpret him as meaning that such laws must be “adhered” to. I.e., we must “obey” the laws of human conduct once we ascertain what these laws are.

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.

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.

Nonutilitarians are concerned that this does not provide enough deterrent to immoral or unethical conduct. But they generally misunderstand utilitarianism.

Utilitarianism is not an argument against threatening those who are planning harmful acts with retaliation. Scientific utilitarianism, as the quest for moral or ethical laws, does not develop a theory of retaliation or punishment for actions of A considered harmful by B. Utilitarianism is neutral with respect to various legal theories of punishment. But utilitarianism will claim that any threatened punishment by B is not a necessary consequence of the specific conduct of A. Punishment or retaliation by B is a contingent and possible consequence of A’s conduct, but not a strictly necessary consequence. And to the extent utilitarianism is concerned with strict or exact laws of conduct, then utilitarianism is not concerned with contingent consequences of A’s conduct such as B’s threatened retaliation.

Also, as there are no generally recognized laws of moral or ethical conduct, a criticism of utilitarian moral or ethical science stating that those laws will not have a meaningful or significant effect on moral/ethical conduct, is based on no knowledge of the content of the moral or ethical laws utilitarian moral science is seeking. That is, as there are no acknowledged or accepted moral laws (in the strict sense), then no one knows whether, when such laws are conceived or uncovered, they will or will not have a significant effect on human moral/ethical conduct.

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). So we do not know what effect such a science will have on human conduct; a science that would be able to establish what impact various moral or ethical actions have on the happiness of the individual actor.

50

Cus they got a bad hit or something… The point is they are correlated and a utilitarian can justify intervention.

It evolves because you don’t seem to understand what I’m getting at.

Right. If i talk about threats it is in a probabilistic manner. I’m not considering what people are actually trying to do. Swatting a fly with a gun counts as a “threat” since there is a probability the gun will go off and kill someone unintentionally. Like I said, libertarianism seems to require that I leave this fly-swatting man alone. Utility and/or consequentialism says I should go and stop him somehow before he shoots someone.

51

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

A utilitarian can justify anything with consent (consent of numbers is what “greatest” is in the phrase the greatest good…)

Well, if you are making a simply statement about something it’s not really for me to understand in total unless you come out and state it. If it is a discussion about a hypothetical that involves numerous possibilites then we are providing various angles of what could be. Since you state it’s more about what you understand - thus - you have something specific in mind that you are asserting, then you’re merely telling me something.

I pointed out that threat involves interpretation and differing interpretations are probable. If we leave the event contingent (A) a person is swatting a fly (B) he is reaching for his gun, then we haven’t stated anything with certainity. We are talking about a contingent event. Now if the utility person wants to intervene on what is contingent and not absolute there’s the slippery slope. And it only goes back to killing most people to stop the world from having too many potential criminals according to a utilitarian. They would only be doing what will be the benefit of the soon to be greater good - those that live and now are the most people living on this earth. Those people live because they have interpretated that they themselves are the greater good. 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.

52

You never know anything empirical for certain.

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%.

Too true.

53

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).

ok

[:)]

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

54

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.

55

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…

56

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.

57

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?

58

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 ?

59

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.

60

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 ?