Why are there so few Misesians?

[Amanojack]

An immensely eye-opening post got lost in the shuffle in another thread, in the midst of a bunch of other ongoing arguments.

The question of why there are so few direct followers of Mises even at the LvMI had always been somewhat puzzling to me, especially after I started reading Human Action and realized how brilliant and unrelentingly rigorous Mises was. Adam Knott speaks here of a debate over methodology within the Austrian school, which in any case goes a long way toward explaining its current, somewhat splintered state.

@Adam Knott

@J. Grayson Lilburne

@liberty student

still not being explored outside the Rothbardian paradigm, and the few who do seem to pursue this (GMU crowd?)

Right, and the GMU non-Rothbardians tend to be more Hayekian than Misesian. As revered as Mises is, there seems to actually be very few Misesians, in the sense of Mises being their chief influence.

Great post, LS.

In relation to this, I found it interesting that in Horowitz’s Rothbard piece the other day (answered by Block), Horowitz implies that as opposed to a Rothbardian connection to Mises, one might choose a Kirznerian connection to Mises.

What seems to come out of Horowitz’s piece—and this is reinforced by Block’s reply—is the idea of choosing between students of Mises, with no explicit reason given why one couldn’t simply consider oneself a direct student of Mises. LvMi advocates being Rothbardian, while GMU apparently advocates being Hayekian or Kirznerian, both sides with Mises as common denominator. Why the interposition of an “intermediary” scholar between themselves and Mises?

My answer: because the scientific method Mises represents is theoretically restrictive. To subscribe explicitly to the paradigm Mises advances is to accept that one can be scientific but value-free on the one hand, or, express one’s values but with no scientific basis on the other hand. This explains why libertarian scholars want to maintain an intellectual distance between themselves and Mises. They do this by interposing another scholar between themselves and Mises–a scholar who does not subscribe to as clear a distinction between value-free science and value advocacy as does Mises.

Mises writes in Socialism: “It must be emphasized again: there is no such thing as a scientific ought.”

After a lifetime of study under Mises, Rothbard, chafing under the constraints of Wertfreiheit, complains in The Ethics of Liberty that Mises is an “opponent of any sort of objective ethics.”

People want to express their concrete desires in scientific form. They don’t want to explicitly say “my desire for concrete thing X has no scientific basis.”

They don’t want to explicitly confine themselves within a scientific paradigm which includes as one of its fundamental insights, as AJ has referred to:

“We orginally 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 supesensuous nature so requires. There is, thus, no basis for recognizing what is good and worth wishing for outside the faculty of desiring–i.e., the original desire and wish themselves.” (Epistemological Problems, p.151)

Mises’s system is inconveniently inhospitable to one who would attempt to express one’s personal desires as scientifically “justified.” And thus the need for an intellectual buffer between the scholar attempting to scientifically ground his/her concrete values, and Mises who argues that one’s concrete values can have no scientific grounding.

From an arm’s length distance, we gain the credibility of Mises’s scientific conclusions regarding inescapable market processes. By staying at arm’s length distance, we may ignore the methodological grounding by which Mises reaches his scientific conclusions, and substitute our own methodology more suitable for reaching the moral and ethical conclusions we want to reach.

In Mises’s system, desire is “formalized” in the scientific conceptual framework. Desire is stripped of content and considered in its purely formal nature…desire “as such.”

Concrete desires then are the accidental, environmental, particular, individual, etc… They have no scientific basis. They are the particular or concrete desires or values that people happen to have, but which they do not necessarily have to have.

This binary system of thought is theoretically confining. It is self-disciplining. Scholars who want to provide a scientific basis for their preferences know intuitively if not consciously that they have no friend in Mises or Hume (e.g., the fact-value or is-ought gap). And thus, as I have argued (and I suppose it is no secret), libertarian normative ethics begins with a critique of utilitarianism (in its egoistic, formalistic, “if-then” sense), and this means a critique of Mises and Hume.

This will also mean a critique of Misesian praxeology (as the search for exact laws of human action)—though not necessarily a critique of the Rothbardian conception of praxeology (conceived merely as a form of supposition/counter-supposition reasoninig).

As Lilburne’s original post implies, the divide in libertarian ethics theory seems to be between those who consider Hume and Mises as foundational thinkers whose systems of thought can be built upon, and those who consider Hume and Mises as adversarial obstacles whose propositions must be overcome and proven wrong for the discipline of libertarian ethics to succeed.

And thus, there is a Methodenstreit occurring in libertarian ethics theory:

http://mises.org/journals/scholar/knott.pdf

I believe it is important to add that this debate is not, as many probably believe, between those who believe that there is a rational basis for ethics, and those who deny that any rational basis for ethics exists. The debate in my opinion will inevitably reduce to the question of whether a rational framework or theory of ethical phenomena (ethical actions) can be constructed on the basis of an objectively conceived reality, independent of the subjective desires (desires of the subject) of individual actors, or, whether a science of ethical actions must be constructed, as Mises asserts, based on the formal conception of human action as striving for ends.

The debate is not about the assertion of ethics versus the denial of ethics. The debate is about the objective versus the subjective conceptual foundations of a theory of human ethical actions.

I would like to add one last insight in closing.

In the debate over objective ethics versus value-free science, certain patterns repeat. One of them is the tendency among some to quickly resort to terms of opprobrium when their views are challenged. I think I can shed some light on this so that there is a better understanding of why this pattern repeats.

In his 2003/2004 article which appeared in “The Free Radical,” and was entitled “Reconciling Austrian and Objectivist Value Theories,” Dr. Edward Younkins provides the following insights into Ayn Rand’s objective ethics theory:

“For Rand, all human values are moral values that are essential to the ethical standard of human nature in general and the particular human life of who the agent is.”

and:

“From Ayn Rand’s perspective, every human value is a moral value (including economic value) that is important to the ethical standard of man’s life qua man. Rand viewed every human choice as a moral choice involving moral values.”

I don’t think we all realize how profound this aspect of objective ethics theory is. In moral theorizing, the two primary categories are good and evil (moral/immoral, etc…). In Randian ethics, as a comprehensive theory of human action and human behavior, all values are moral values. And this means that every object of human action, every object of discussion and analysis, every object of debate, including all participants in the debate, must eventually be categorized as either good or evil or some sub-class belonging to one of these primary moral classes. E.g., honest/dishonest, etc…

Some of us may be arguing or debating under an implicit belief that in a debate over objective ethics, some of the “values” of discussion (some parts of the discussion) are in some sense “neutral,” carrying no particular moral connotation or aspect.

But I believe it is important to realize that in the Randian system, all values are ultimately moral values. And this means that in the Randian system, and in systems of the same general character, the moral theorizer ultimately makes a moral judgment about every value—every object of action.

If this is the case, if every object of action is ultimately moral or immoral, honest or dishonest, good or evil, then what moral judgment must be applied to any theory or any theorist who contradicts the objective ethics theory or any of its primary assertions?

I trust that we are all intelligent enough to grasp the full implications of this situation. If this kind of objective ethics theoretical system is a type of closed system of concepts that characterizes all values as moral values—each value (object) under consideration is either moral or immoral, good or evil—then what moral category do we expect this theoretical system to assign to any object, value, person, or action that contradicts that system?

I believe this explains the constant and repetitive use of opprobrious terms and constant and repetitive resort to character assault, mainly by individuals on the objective ethics side of the debate.

To some extent, this is the unavoidable consequence of adopting a theory of human action wherein the two fundamental categories of action are those of good and evil.

Whereas in Misesian praxeology, actors are conceived as each striving after their ends with more or less appropriate means, in Randian and related moral theories, actors are conceived each as either good or evil, pursuing good or evil ends, with good or evil means.

Under these theoretical conditions, it is at least understandable, if not praiseworthy, that those discussants and any of their notions that contradict objective ethics tend to be characterized by an adjective chosen from the less flattering category of the objective ethics theoretical construct.

It may even be the case that this is considered virtuous by the moral ethicist concerned !

A wonderful passage by Mises helps illuminate the current situation:

“The discovery of the inescapable interdependence of market phenomena overthrew this opinion. Bewildered, people had to face a new view of society. They learned with stupefaction that there is another aspect from which human action might be viewed than that of good and bad, of fair and unfair, of just and unjust. In the course of social events there prevails a regularity of phenomena to which man must adjust his actions if he wished to succeed. It is futile to approach social facts with the attitude of a censor who approves or disapproves from the point of view of quite arbitrary standards and judgments of value. One must study the laws of human action and social cooperation as the physicist studies the laws of nature. Human action and social cooperation seen as the object of a science of given relations, no longer a normative discipline of things that ought to be—this was a revolution of tremendous consequences for knowledge and philosophy as well as for social action.” (Human Action, 3rd. rev. p.2)

Indeed ! The revolution continues…

[Lilburne]

Here’s Liberty Student’s post that I quoted (which is also eye-opening) in full:

@liberty student

@J. Grayson Lilburne

so should have Hume and Mises preempted the conceptual realism implicit in the Rothbardian insistence that justice has any kind of existence outside of the mind of the individual.

I think this is a consequence of many of the libertarian philosophers having a personal experience with Rothbard that they did not have with Mises, and Mises’ ideas, outside of their renaissance by Rothbard with MES, still not being explored outside the Rothbardian paradigm, and the few who do seem to pursue this (GMU crowd?) aren’t radical libertarians. I suspect the next generation may be more likely to challenge Rothbard, just as it is only the last generation who were finally comfortable challenging Rand and Reagan.

What is very interesting is how with technology, information is advancing faster than our own biases can adjust, even confirmation biases. I’ve accepted that what I know today could all be obsolete in a decade or two. The only way to avoid that is to unplug and become a hermit. It actually sounds tempting.

[Marko]

Because he wasn’t all that.

[The_Late_Andrew_Ryan]

@Marko

Because he wasn’t all that.

Blasphemy!

A very intriguing post. I agree with alot of what is said in this post, people want to believe in objective ethics, this is why natural rights is so popular. In my opinion the marginal utility of value and 5 minutes of thinking should instantly rule out any kind of objective ethics.

[abskebabs]

I think I share some of the reservations Adam Knott has with the Rothbardian portrayal of praxeology, as well as the notion of the “action axiom”, though I’m not sure it would be fair to say there are not some who arguably would consider Mises their primary influence. I would say Hulsmann may well be someone you could classify in this category, though no doubts he is a “Rothbardian” too, and also outside of the Mises Institute, Thorstein Polleit.

I also think there may well be far more scholars we do not know of thanks to mises.org, who are now becoming very directly influenced by Mises! I can’t say my own work in AE is very vast yet, but I think it is punctuated by the influence of the fact I decided to read Human Action before Man, Economy and State. Indeed, has anybody ever read an “Austrian” paper where the author expressly identified himself and followed the “method of imaginary constructions” as a means of exposition?

[Jon_Irenicus]

Because he wasn’t all that.

But he was. Try again.

[Marko]

@Jon Irenicus

Because he wasn’t all that.

But he was. Try again.

I could try again, but you told me the answer now. The game is ruined.

[DD5]

@The Late Andrew Ryan

I agree with alot of what is said in this post, people want to believe in objective ethics, this is why natural rights is so popular. In my opinion the marginal utility of value and 5 minutes of thinking should instantly rule out any kind of objective ethics.

5 minutes of thinking can reveal the exact opposite. Such as:

1. That marginal utility does in no way prove what you claim it does

2. The fact that humans have always to some extent engaged in voluntary cooperation is because they realized due to superior cognitive instincts what no other living being has realized and is capable of realizing; that voluntary exchange is a non-zero sum game and that without property rights there can be no meaningful system of such cooperation. The mere fact that humans have always engaged in such cooperations proves the above assertion. It matters not that they could never infer from these instincts a correct social theory of social cooperation. What is this cognitive ability if not part of an objective reality of human nature? Yes, and I do mean that the motive behind trade is in someway a result of the human wiring of the brain. This doesn’t mean that objective theory of ethics is trivial, but it means that you cannot just reject it.

[Amanojack]

I don’t think anyone’s rejecting that humans have a hardwired propensity toward cooperation to at least some extent, because that isn’t what is meant by objective ethics. For a more complete overview of the issue, check out O’Neil’s essay.

[Lilburne]

@DD5

@The Late Andrew Ryan

I agree with alot of what is said in this post, people want to believe in objective ethics, this is why natural rights is so popular. In my opinion the marginal utility of value and 5 minutes of thinking should instantly rule out any kind of objective ethics.

5 minutes of thinking can reveal the exact opposite. Such as:

1. That marginal utility does in no way prove what you claim it does

Perhaps Ryan means Menger’s subjective theory of value (which also happens to be marginal)?

[The_Late_Andrew_Ryan]

@J. Grayson Lilburne

@DD5

@The Late Andrew Ryan

I agree with alot of what is said in this post, people want to believe in objective ethics, this is why natural rights is so popular. In my opinion the marginal utility of value and 5 minutes of thinking should instantly rule out any kind of objective ethics.

5 minutes of thinking can reveal the exact opposite. Such as:

1. That marginal utility does in no way prove what you claim it does

Perhaps Ryan means Menger’s subjective theory of value (which also happens to be marginal)?

Yes, I do I always want to make the word utility in the subjectivist marignal theory of value. DD5, if you wish to have a large discussion of this please pm me, I don’t want to waste epic amounts of thread space with somthing which is somewhat besides the point.

[ThreeTrees]

On the topic of “hardwired”, I seem to remember a passage from Dawkins’ God Delusion where he seeks to refute the theist assertion that without god morality and ethics would not exist by demonstrating that in various experiments people, regardless of socio-cultural background, tend to arrive at the same conclusions with respect to certain ethical dilemmas dealing with the value of human life. I can’t remember the specifics (I really must figure out to which one of my friends I lent that book) but the thought experiments revolve around dilemmas such as sacrificing one life to save many.

So then my question is this: Is it a waste of time to try and deduct a set of objective ethics from “man in the state of nature” when we’ve been endowed with a universal (or nearly universal) consensus as to the value of human life based entirely on our own, entirely subjective, cognitive discourse?

[Lilburne]

Professor Salerno wrote a paper called Mises and Hayek Dehomogenized. I would love to see a “Mises and Rothbard Dehomogenized”, particularly if it were written by Mr. Knott.

[Esuric]

Rothbard was a philosopher as much as he was an economist. Mises ventured into philosophy as well, but he is known for his business cycle, interest, and monetary theories. This probably explains why most conversations on this website deal with ethics and epistemology as opposed to actual economics. The most serious attacks against the monetary equilibrium tradition, which Mises was apart of, are not economic in nature. Rothbard, Mises, Hayek, Wicksell, Kirzner, and Bohm-Bawerk are all different, but the economic framework they employed is fundamentally identical (methodological individualism, abstraction, deductive method). Their philosophical views, however, are quite different (people tend to find this stuff more interesting).

The Anglo classicists looked at social classes and distribution, the Walrasians focus on cardinal utility and a mathematical approach, while the monetarists and various branches of Keynesians focus on aggregates and borrow from other schools of thought.

[adam_knott]

@DD5

1. That marginal utility does in no way prove what you claim it does

2. The fact that humans have always to some extent engaged in voluntary cooperation is because they realized due to superior cognitive instincts what no other living being has realized and is capable of realizing; that voluntary exchange is a non-zero sum game and that without property rights there can be no meaningful system of such cooperation. The mere fact that humans have always engaged in such cooperations proves the above assertion. It matters not that they could never infer from these instincts a correct social theory of social cooperation. What is this cognitive ability if not part of an objective reality of human nature? Yes, and I do mean that the motive behind trade is in someway a result of the human wiring of the brain. This doesn’t mean that objective theory of ethics is trivial, but it means that you cannot just reject it.

DD5:

I think an important question is whether there are such things as, or whether we can conceive there are such things as, “ethical actions.” (actions of an ethical nature)

Are things such as lying to someone, coercing someone, assisting someone, obstructing someone, etc.., things we may refer to as “ethical acts”?

Are these things human purposive activities that aim at ends and utilize means?

If so, then they fall within the purview of Misesian praxeology, which includes the Austrian School formal system; methodological individualism, subjective value, means/ends, marginal utility, etc…

If so, this means that the objective ethics approach is not the only approach that can be taken with regard to the subject realm of ethics.

Even if someone holds fast to standard objective ethics theory, the situation is significantly changed if/once we realize that the ethical acts of individuals are acts, and thus can be comprehended by Austrian School social science, perhaps diminishing the need for an alternative approach.

[Esuric]

@Adam Knott

DD5:

I think an important question is whether there are such things as, or whether we can conceive there are such things as, “ethical actions.” (actions of an ethical nature)

Are things such as lying to someone, coercing someone, assisting someone, obstructing someone, etc.., things we may refer to as “ethical acts”?

Are these things human purposive activities that aim at ends and utilize means?

If so, then they fall within the purview of Misesian praxeology, which includes the Austrian School formal system; methodological individualism, subjective value, means/ends, marginal utility, etc…

If so, this means that the objective ethics approach is not the only approach that can be taken with regard to the subject realm of ethics.

Even if someone holds fast to standard objective ethics theory, the situation is significantly changed if/once we realize that the ethical acts of individuals are acts, and thus can be comprehended by Austrian School social science, perhaps diminishing the need for an alternative approach.

This is a very interesting quote: “It would be preposterous to assert apodictically that science will never succeed in developing a praxeological aprioristic doctrine of political organization…” (Mises, UF, p.98)"

[Marko]

It should be fairly clear to anyone why there are more Rothbardians than Misesians. It is no big mystery. Rothbard was a system builder, economics was just one of his fields. Mises on the other hand was first and foremost an economist. “Rothbardianism” simply means a lot more than “Misesianism” means. In fact pretty much all of Misesianism is already subsumed under Rothbardianism since Rothbard was a Misesian economist.

Most anybody who would call himself a “Rothbardian” would mean a lot more than just Rothbard’s views on economy. I imagine for many it is a sort of synonym of ancap. So it is simply a lot more useful designation. It says more about the person using it.

Now why there are more Hayekians than Misesians should be clear too. It is obviously the consequence of most Misesians calling themselves Rothbardians.

Also Hayekianism is popular because it is a cop out. Hayek was clearly merely an economist, and not the most principled one at that. So it is a perfect designation for anyone who doesn’t want his designation to oblige him to much of anything. Much harder to pull that off with Mises - because Mises had principles.

[I_Ryan]

@Marko

It should be fairly clear to anyone why there are more Rothbardians than Misesians. It is no big mystery. Rothbard was a system builder, economics was just one of his fields. Mises on the other hand was first and foremost an economist. “Rothbardianism” simply means a lot more than “Misesianism” means. In fact pretty much all of Misesianism is already subsumed under Rothbardianism since Rothbard was a Misesian economist.

Most anybody who would call himself a “Rothbardian” would mean a lot more than just Rothbard’s views on economy. I imagine for many it is a sort of a synonym of ancap. So it is simply a lot more useful designation. It says more about the person using it.

Now why there are more Hayekians than Misesians should be clear too. It is obviously the consequence of most Misesians calling themselves Rothbardians.

Also Hayekianism is popular because it is a cop out. Hayek was clearly merely an economist, and not the most principled one at that. So it is a perfect designation for anyone who doesn’t want his designation to oblige him to much of anything. Much harder to pull that off with Mises - because Mises was so principled.

If you are being serious, what a ridiculous mass of complete non-sense your post is!

[DD5]

@Marko

Also Hayekianism is popular because it is a cop out. Hayek was clearly merely an economist, and not the most principled one at that. So it is a perfect designation for anyone who doesn’t want his designation to oblige him to much of anything. Much harder to pull that off with Mises - because Mises had principles.

It is also easier to take Hayek out of context in my opinion, and his views have been more open to different interpretations due to his particular style of writing.

[Marko]

@I. Ryan

If you are being serious, what a ridiculous mass of complete non-sense your post is!

No, I’m actually joking. [8-)]

What, did I hurt your feelings, precious?