Philosophy Seminar:
Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics
Roderick T. Long
Praxeology.net
Mises Institute, 26-30 June 2006
I. From Praxeology to Ethics
Monday, 26 June
Morning session: 10:00-11:30
1. Objective and Subjective Value
Praxeology: conceptual truths about the nature of action
praxeology.net/praxeo.htm
Two ways of grounding libertarianism in praxeology
One via economics (Mises, Human Action; Rothbard, MES): assume certain
widely shared values (peace, prosperity, cooperation) and show promoted by
libertarian social order, frustrated by statist intervention
Another via ethics: less fully worked out
classical eudaimonists (Ancient Greeks/Romans, medieval Scholastics
eudaimonia)
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, begins: “Every art and every inquiry, and likewise every action and decision,
seems to aim at some good.”
Mises, Human Action, begins: “Human action is purposeful behavior.”
(historical connection b/w ethical and economic ways: Austrian economics
grows out of Continental subjectivist tradition that grows out of Scholasticism)
- classical eudaimonists: attempts to base natural law ethics on praxeology –
but often with un-libertarian results
- modern libertarians: attempts to base libertarian ethics on natural law ethics –
but often abandoning ancient foundation
Notable exceptions: Rand (V of S), Rothbard (E of L) – 2 of main influences
- dissatisfaction with Rand: in nonfiction (as opposed to novels) seems too
consequentialist
Problem for consequentialism (all actions are, or should be, instrumental
means):
Praxeology (Mises) shows (and Rand agrees) ends often require
commitment to principles
But once genuinely committed, no longer consequentialist – kick ladder
away
From within non-conseq. perspective, conseq. justification no longer
acceptable
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 1
- dissatisfaction with Rothbard: seems to think content of justice/rights can
be determined indep. of rest of morality
Unity of virtue
Ends must fit together (I’ll argue) into harmonious system – reciprocal
determination between justice and other virtues
These lectures: not offering definitive, fully worked out system – contributing
to project
Warning – my approach to praxeology (and philosophy generally): not so much
linear deduction from axioms (though that’s certainly sometimes appropriate)
as tracing network of relations and mutual determinations among concepts:
more like a spiderweb than a skyscraper
Praxeology: value subjective
so how can it ground ethics?
Explanatory vs. normative value-subjectivism
praxeology requires only explanatory value-subjectivism
Why Mises thought explanatory entails normative: internalism
praxeology entails internalism: ought implies can
internalism seems to imply normative subj. – but doesn’t
Mises (implicitly): obligations must be consistent with agent’s existing
preferences/commitments, but since those could be anything, therefore subj.
Classical eudaimonists: conceptual constraints on
preferences/commitments
Mises: praxeology only advises on means, not ends
Classical eudaimonists: instrumental vs. constitutive means
can be wrong not just about strategies for achieving end but about nature of
end
deliberation about constitutive means: conceptual analysis rather than cause
and effect
The unitary should
moral should? prudential should?
Sense in which deciding what I should do = deciding what to do
Evaluative terms involve endorsement: in calling X “good” we endorse X
(immoralist counterexample? change in meaning
& even immoralists: Satan “evil be thou my good,” Mr. Burns “excellent”)
Some conclude evaluative terms merely express endorsement, not true or false:
“X is good” = “hurray for X!”
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 2
“X is bad” = “X, yuck!”
but evaluative terms can enter into logical implications, merely expressive terms
can’t:
VALID:
1. Taking property without consent is wrong
2. Taxation is taking property without consent
3. Taxation is wrong
INVALID:
1. Taking property without consent, yuck!
2. Taxation is taking property without consent
3. Taxation, yuck!
So using normative terms commits us to referring to goodness, wrongness, etc.
as genuine properties
Are these properties “objective”?
different meanings
Rand on intrinsic, subjective, objective
Intrinsic value: depends solely on object apart from valuer
Subjective value: depends solely on valuer apart from object
Objective value: depends on relation between object and valuer
(by contrast most philosophers by “intrinsic value” mean valuable as an end
not a just a means)
Wittgenstein on pain: can be wrong about another’s pain, not one’s own
Intrinsicist explanation: basic fact about pain
W.’s objection: part of meaning of “pain,” not empirical discovery – nothing
we can be wrong about counts as our own pain
Subjectivist explanation: artifact of linguistic conventions
W.’s objection: we could change what word means but so long as it means
what it does we can’t make access to our own pain fallible
Rather than saying objective in Rand’s sense (grounded in relation) he’d say it’s
not grounded in anything – logical fact
good similar
Agent-relative or agent-neutral?
more tomorrow afternoon – but briefly:
praxeology seems to imply agent-relative
actual use of normative terms seems to imply agent-neutral
For classical eudaimonists eudaimonia seems agent-relative (each has own)
but your eudaimonia and mine necessarily harmonise: agent-neutral?
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 3
Monday, 26 June
Afternoon session: 2:00-3:30
2. The Praxeological Case for an Ultimate End
Greeks: for an ultimate end (eudaimonia – happiness, flourishing)
Hobbes’ argument against an ultimate end
achieving ultimate end would leave no desires unsatsified
but all action is motivated by dissatisfaction
therefore ultimate end would be cessation of all activity
Aristotle: eudaimonia “all by itself makes life choiceworthy and lacking in
nothing” – but also defines it as a life of virtuous rational activity
Hobbes’ 2 mistakes from Greek perspective:
1. action expresses dissatisfaction with way things would be if not act – not
necessarily with way things are (act to change vs. act to maintain)
Orpheus strumming on lyre – keep activity going
2. instrumental vs. constitutive means
Orpheus notes not strategies for bringing about separate end, one note not
means to next
So ultimate end not praxeologically impossible
Now show praxeologically required
Means get value from ends – which, if they too are means, in turn get value
from ends
So there must be some final ends
But do these combine into a unified and overarching end?
Trade-offs: want both A and B, can’t have both – deliberate
Deliberation is an action & must have an end
Not A (because delib. might favour B)
Not B (because delib. might favour A)
Not A-and-B (because that’s assumed impossible)
Not A-or-B (one could choose randomly, no need for delib.)
End is something like: maximizing preference-satisfaction: MaxPref
(this description will need revising but OK for now)
Deliberation essential feature of the lives of rational agents
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 4
If you have a more minimalist conception of rationality, OK, then this
applies only to the deliberative subset of rational agents – but I’m going to use
the more robust notion
So MaxPref is an end of all rational agents
Moreover:
Choosing A expresses a preference for A over any rival option, so
Choosing A expresses a judgment that A advances one’s MaxPref, so
Whatever one chooses is chosen inter alia as a means to one’s MaxPref
So MaxPref = eudaimonia
Or does it?
Weaker form of Hobbesian objection survives:
eudaimonia “all by itself makes life choiceworthy and lacking in nothing”
but pursuit of MaxPref involves trade-offs: A & B, we can’t have both
Possible answer:
includes not everything worth wishing for but everything worth choosing
But if something is currently unattainable, does it thereby become no longer
worth choosing?
If yes (accommodationism), eudaimonia is too easy: if I’m trapped at bottom of
well I’m happy
Socrates & Stoics thought that way but not Ari & Theo
anyway we often aim at what we know to be presently unattainable
If no (utopianism), if it includes whatever is in principle attainable, eudaimonia
becomes unattainable in practice – and so cannot be the ultimate aim of action
since we cannot aim at what we know is impossible (or even overwhelmingly
improbable)
Possible answer:
direct vs. indirect objects of choice: I can choose to be in Paris by choosing to
do what I believe will have a good chance of getting me to Paris
Eudaimonia = neither everything worth wishing for nor everything directly
choiceworthy but everything worth striving for
Still have problem of well: if nothing I do can make my getting out likely, have
I then achieved my MaxPref?
Treat on-alert tension/readiness as form of striving
This avoids accommodationism – but does it support utopianism? Tense
readiness about everything?
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 5
The fact that something desirable is in principle possible is a prima facie reason
to strive for it: this gives some support for utopianism
The fact that something is not immediately attainable is a prima facie reason not
to strive for it: this gives some support for accommodations
No good reason to give all weight to one vector and none to the other
Construct compromise between resignation and all-pervasive longing
Content of ultimate end not fixed – we construct it through practical reasoning
If some desirable end I’m not striving for suddenly becomes attainable, content
of MaxPref expands
No need to be frustrated if I can’t live to be 1000 but if it became norm
Is Hobbesian objection now completely dead?
No – eudaimonia may still seem impossible since no life can realistically achieve
all objects of striving
but accommodationist vector gives us reason not to conceive/construct
eudaimonia as something unattainable, while utopian vector gives us reason not
to renounce all striving
gives us reason to interpret MaxPref as something both containing everything
worth striving for and consistent with ongoing striving
content of striving itself comes under construction
one’s life can be good even if much that one spends it striving for is never
achieved (comfort for anarchists)
Stoics think we should aim at trying to achieve X without aiming at achieving X
I claim that’s praxeologically impossible – but they’re on to something
Stoics right that value of striving is not reducible to value of end
It’s not striving unless it aims at end beyond itself – but it might be valuable for
own sake too
Adam Smith contra Hume on super-accurate pocket watch
My solution: degrees of eudaimonia – not just closer to / farther from eudaimonia
(orange is redder than green) but genuinely having it in varying degrees (one
shade of red is redder than another)
Redefine MaxPref (as promised):
minimum threshold (partly context-relative) of things worth striving for
below that, one fails to achieve MaxPref at all
above that, various levels
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 6
if you’re at a lower level striving for a higher level, you’re striving for more of a
good you already have, not something outside it
the striving itself may be part of the content of the lower level
achieving it may be at the higher level
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 7
Tuesday, 27 June
Morning session: 10:00-11:30
3. Free Will: Two Paradoxes of Choice
1st paradox:
Newcomb’s problem
Transparent box contains $1000
Opaque box contains either $1 million or nothing
Choice: take opaque box only, or both boxes
Predictor has placed $1 million in opaque box IF AND ONLY IF she has
predicted that you will take only the opaque box
Two-Box Argument: it’s already there or not
One-Box Argument: if you’re so smart why aren’t you rich?
My claim: genuine antinomy, both arguments decisive
Reject common assumption: that the choice situation is possible
Two-Box argument shows that we cannot coherently aim to bring about
something we think is already past and settled – no backward aiming
One-Box argument shows that if we can aim at A, and B necessarily covaries
with A, then we can aim at B
Moral: we cannot coherently aim at A if we think A covaries necessarily with
something already past and settled (even if we don’t know which way it’s
settled)
1st upshot: objection to any view that identifies MaxPref exclusively with
pleasure or subjective state/feeling (relief of felt dissatisfaction)
buying life insurance / writing a will NOW is a means to
our loved ones doing well LATER (after we’re dead)
which cannot be a means to our feeling satisfaction NOW (on pain of
backward causation)
(could buying be a means to pleasure NOW?
If so, we’d have to prefer magic pill for $50 to policy for $100
but we don’t have to)
2nd upshot: no causal determinism
if determinism were true, then my actions would necessarily covary with past
causal states of universe
I could form preferences about these past states and so by One-Box
argument could aim at them – which per Two-Box argument is impossible
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 8
So can’t consistently regard self as determined
2nd paradox: Socratic Paradox
choosing X expresses preference for X
preference for X expresses judgment that it’s worth choosing
so we can’t choose something we think is not worth choosing
so nobody can knowingly/voluntarily do wrong
problems:
- clashes with obvious facts of wrongdoing
- clashes with free will established by Newcomb’s problem
Solution to 1st: Aristotle’s distinction between possessing and exercising a
judgment
we can have conflicting judgments of what’s choiceworthy – any action
embodies a judgment – but other judgments may be possessed & not exercised
Solution to 2nd: desires that motivate action are internal, not prior, to action
(prior motives necessary but not sufficient)
Further upshot: no innate preference patterns
preferences in praxeological sense embodied in action
thus if actions are free so are preferences in that sense
What about preferences in the sense of tendencies/impulses?
they can exist without specific actions but not without overall patterns of
action; so we have control over these too
moral 1: degrees of time-preference, risk-aversion, etc. cannot be innate
moral 2: since by changing actions we can change tendencies/impulses,
habituation is a priori
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 9
Tuesday, 27 June
Afternoon session: 2:00-3:30
4. The Moral Standpoint
Other-concern: why should I care about anyone’s eudaimonia but my own?
Agent-relative vs. agent-neutral value; praxeology seems to favour agentrelative
Why not endorse “master” values for oneself (and one’s friends if any), and
“servile” values for everyone else?
Existing evaluative terms seem agent-neutral: they express both our desires for
ourselves and our recommendation to others (and contra Nietzsche, this is
true, I claim, even in cultures with official double standards b/w
insiders/outsiders)
But couldn’t we revise them?
We could use moral terms differently, but then they would be different terms
(different meanings)
But could we abandon our terms/concepts in order to avoid their normative
commitments (as we do with racial epithets)?
Some favour consistency argument: if I regard my pursuit of my MaxPref as
legitimate for me I must regard your pursuit of your MaxPref as legitimate for
you
Problem: weak vs. strong universalizability
Weak universalizability: I regard you as one sports team regards another – your
aims are OK but not binding on me
With sports there’s a background of shared norms that licenses this, but
need it be so? how get from weak to strong universalizability, from agentrelative to agent-neutral norms?
(Rothbard, Hoppe presuppose strong universalizability rather than establishing
it)
Socrates, Aristotle, Hume, Smith all stress need to admire oneself – which
means to value same traits in oneself as one values in others
Hume and Smith: base strong universalizability on natural sympathy: innate
tendency to see ourselves from another’s standpoint
Objection: too psychologistic; like basing economics on empirical evidence
We have lots of natural tendencies: why follow that one?
Need conceptual argument
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 10
Why strong universalizability is not dispensable:
Rational agency requires language: not just means of communication but
vehicle of thought
but communicative dimension essential: speaking language involves
acquiescing in essentially sharable norms (Elvish, Klingon not private
languages)
Some thinkers (Habermas, Hoppe) try to construct the content of
moral/political norms directly out of norms governing language
This approach neither promising (language norms too permissive) nor
necessary
What’s crucial is not content of linguistic norms but their agent-neutral character
Once agent-neutral value is on the table the evaluation of options from an
agent-neutral standpoint is always available
Recognizing a category of value commits us to integrating it with our other
values: what cannot be agent-neutrally endorsed cannot be part of MaxPref
We must construct eudaimonia so that no fundamental conflicts between two
persons’ flourishing (i.e. no conflicts not in turn licensed by agent-neutral
considerations) are possible
If self-value determined other value: master morality, crude “egoism”
If other-value determined self-value: slave morality, crude “altruism”
Reciprocal determination: civilised morality
Does conceptual defense mean natural sympathies irrevelant?
No: might mean only beings with natural sympathies capable of rationality
Generate utilitarianism? No – already seen problem for conseq.
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 11
Wednesday, 28 June
Morning session: 10:00-11:30
5. An Aristotelean Ethics of Virtue
Conceptually, being an agent is a way of being a living organism
It’s part of the concept of a living organism that it has needs/interests
Since each of us is identical with a living organism we must regards its
needs/interests as our own
Some thinkers (Spencer, Rand) try to construct the content of eudaimonia out of
biological needs/interests alone
This approach neither promising (risk life?) nor necessary
Biological needs/interests play a role in determining other values but
determination is reciprocal: Aristotle, Seneca
Our goal is not just life but life as kind of being we are (human)
If our goal is to live a human life, and life X is more human than life Y, then
life X is more our goal than life Y
Better a shorter more human life than a longer less human one
How can there be degrees of humanity? Isn’t a life human or not?
analogy with size: having it is all-or-nothing but it then comes in degrees
Rationality takes precedence over other aspects
Hierarchy of biological needs/interests determined by what is most
fundamental/explanatory
Hence need to see justifies using ears/nose to carry glasses, contrary to their
natural function: the function of the whole takes precedence over subsidiary
functions (similar story explains why neither “libertine” giving in to every
sexual impulse nor “conservative” disdaining nonreproductive sex is
mandatory)
Why for humans that’s rationality etc. rather than “selfish gene” reproduction:
examples: Peacekeeper missile, Frankenstein monster
But other goals are included
Cicero: hierarchy of four roles: human nature, individual nature, social role,
chosen; each can trump next
Aristotle: intellectual vs. emotional rationality
The Aristotelean Mean determined by human-ness
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 12
Two ways of going wrong: overstressing (the subhuman way) or
understressing (the superhuman way) our animal nature & vulnerable
embodiedness
cowardice, rashness, bravery
stinginess, prodigality, generosity
intemperance, insensibility, temperance
etc. (justice next session)
Prima facie content of prudence determined by biological needs, but standing in
reciprocal determination with other virtues
Moral in passing: if Aristotelean Mean rules out both too much & too little, no
“supererogation” or actions “beyond call of duty”
“too much to ask” presupposes morality/prudence clash
Unity of virtue: can’t have one virtue (fully) without having all others because
what one virtues requires isn’t settled apart from others
Example: bravery and justice – mutual determination
Clash of virtues would violate “ought implies can”
If we integrate prudence and benevolence, self-concern and other-concern are
integrated w/ total value system and thus with each other
Just as between two persons, so within one person: not “no value conflicts”
but “no value conflicts not in turn endorsable by a higher value”
Aristotle bravery/fear example, Karen Stohr bad news example
Determining virtuous action like any other skill (driving, writing): there may be
some precisely statable rules but they don’t exhaust content of virtue
principles of action always involve tacit element
(Hayek: because no system can be complex enough to represent all the
principles it follows.
Wittgenstein: because any statable rule apart from application
underdetermines its application.)
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 13
II. From Ethics to Liberty
Wednesday, 28 June
Afternoon session: 2:00-3:30
6. Justice, Rights, and Consequences
Justice: virtue concerned with rights (legitimately enforceable claims)
Justice/rights can’t depend wholly on utility:
If they did, justice would be solely a producer’s good
Praxeology shows: benefits of justice depend on treating it as consumer’s
good
Justice/rights can’t be completely independent of utility:
Unity of virtue
Must be in reciprocal determination with prudence and benevolence
So self-interest and others’ interests enter into specification of justice
But also vice versa
Virtue ethicists sometimes write as though the content of justice is entirely
determined by whatever is needed to promote a society of virtuous persons
(Den Uyl: “demand-side” ethics)
They forget that virtues also constrain what can be done in promoting virtue
(Den Uyl: “supply-side” ethics)
Person P1 has a right to be treated in manner M by person P2 =
1. P2 has an obligation to treat P1 in manner M
2. It is permissible for P1 (or P1’s agent) to force P2 to treat P1 in manner
M
So the existence of rights depends both on what’s permissible for people qua
rights-holders and on what’s obligatory for people qua rights-respecters
Constraints on possible content of justice:
a) strong universalizability creates presumption of equality which forcibly
subordinating others to one’s will seems to violate
b) dealing with others through reason/persuasion rather than compulsion
where possible embodies rationality not just in means but in end and so is more
human
These support obligation 1.
What supports obligation 2?
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 14
Aristotelean mean: willingness to initiate force is subhuman deviation,
unwillingness to defend oneself is superhuman deviation
Further consideration: no virtue completely expressible in statable rules; yet
Aristotle, Hume, Smith all note justice more rules-y than other virtues (Smith:
grammar/style). Why?
Obvious consequentialist reason: wise judges, predictability
But can we find non-consequentialist reason?
Self-directed activity is central to agency and functioning: dependence on
decisions of potential interveners affront to dignity
Rights of rationally impaired/incapacitated (young children, comatose, insane,
dead)? Agent: what rights-holder would consent to (as best as can be
determined) if rational faculty not impaired/incapacitated
(Moral in passing: no animal rights because no rational faculty to impair)
Why not paternalism: any less than fully rational choice counts as impairment?
Because this denies free will
While justice is non-consequentialist it is in reciprocal determination with
consequentialist aspects of virtues like prudence and benevolence; so
considerations of utility can play legitimate role in specifying content of justice
(e.g. when unclear in which direction to develop libertarian principles, appeal to
utility appropriate)
But utility can’t trump everything because determination runs both ways:
Content of virtues determined by people’s interests, but content of people’s
interests also determined by virtues
Content of justice also specified by custom: driving on right vs. left
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 15
Thursday, 29 June
Morning session: 10:00-11:30
7. Property, Land, and Contract
If people have a right not to have force initiated against them, there cannot be
any other rights: because if there were, since rights are enforceable claims, the
enforcement of those rights would be legitimate initiatory force
So property rights, if any, can be justified only as expressions of, not additions
to, the one right against aggression
but how can your grabbing some external object count as force against me?
1. if not, a world where anyone could grab all your food whenever your back
was turned would count as non-aggressive, straining the concept
2. if needed, consequentialist considerations can specify that concept of
aggression should be constructed to include theft
How can I be so related to some external object that your appropriating it
counts as appropriating me?
How am I related to matter I’m made of? I own it, since others can’t
appropriate it without appropriating me
But I wasn’t born with all this matter: I incorporated it, made it a tool of my
ongoing projects
External objects similar: clothes/fur, house/shell, etc. (body = project also)
– homesteading creates quasi-extension of body: relation to external objects
analogous to or extension of relation to own matter
Projects can survive death: rights of bequest
Lockean proviso: enough and as good?
Locke’s argument: world initially common resource – residual common
right (reply: humanity hasn’t homesteaded world)
Schmidtz’s argument: homesteading alters others’ rights: needs justification
(reply: every time I inhale)
Possible unity-of-virtue defense of Schmidtz’s argument: interpreting
homesteading as needing justification has better consequences (reply: Schmidtz
himself shows no significant difference between proviso and no-proviso except
in emergencies)
Consequentialist considerations: the poor
3 means (start own business, work for another, seek charity)
why all 3 work better under libertarian property regime
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 16
So what about emergencies?
Consequentialist considerations favour making exceptions in emergencies
refusal to kill an innocent person to save life seems appropriate
but refusal to steal food to save life seems a disproportionate sacrifice
but then restitution is owed (more about restitution this afternoon)
What about non-transforming use?
doesn’t become extension of me
you can’t interfere with my ongoing use but you can use in other ways
What about surrounding you with my property?
easement
What about creating a nature preserve?
taking (non-coercive) steps to prevent development counts as homesteading
Degrees of trespass (D. Friedman on flashlights and air molecules)
1. ordinary background conditions
2. fact that fuzzy boundaries of rights get specified by consequentialsm or
convention doesn’t mean rights themselves are
Is land special?
1. Land is uniquely scarce (Carson)
reply: in long run it’s not scarce (galaxies full); in short run it’s scarce but so
is everything else
2. If land is private then all land could be owned and landless enslaved
(Spencer)
reply: easement
3. We can own improvements in land but can’t own land because we don’t
create it (Paine)
reply: we don’t create the matter that anything is made of including our own
bodies; you can create a thing without creating every part of it
also Marcus on means of action
4. We can’t own land because its economic value largely created by community
(Kropotkin, some Georgists)
reply: my own economic value largely created by community too
Public property (unorganized public: Rose, Schmidtz): can acquire by
homesteading or gift
Indian land rights:
transforming use: property of tribe
non-transforming use (hunting ground): easement (use need not be literally
continuous)
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 17
restitution? more this afternoon but short answer: over time the claim shifts
from restoration to compensation
Abandonment: when ceases to be part of ongoing project
innocent squatters: limit to what one can do to enforce rights (swallowing ;
also see next session) – with time goes from immediate eviction to gradual
eviction to compensation
Carson on absentee landownership: rental counts as abandonment
reply: why isn’t renting a project?
Carson’s counter-replies: residual common right (reply: see above), land
specially scarce (reply: see above), better on consequentialist grounds (reply:
Carson himself shows without govt. aggression, land no serious prob.; also
many would choose on consequentialist grounds to rent even if homesteadable
land were available)
Intellectual property?
If I create idea, I own that idea in my brain; but if you make a copy of it in
your brain or in your external property I have no claim on those
Conseqentialist objections? a) go both ways, b) historically exaggerated, c)
substitutes available – contractual or merely suasive
Spencer’s bed: non sequitur
Contracts: Because no rights besides right against aggression, contractual rights
must be interpreted consistently with that
Conditional transfer of title; reverts to owner if condition not met
objection (Kinsella): why think conditional transfer is possible? (reply:
consequentialist consideration – same reason as for thinking unconditional
transfer, as opposed to abandonment, possible)
objection (Kinsella): shouldn’t it have definite owner at all times? (reply: no
problem so long as who can do what when is specified)
Problem for interest on unsecured loans?
Distinguish legitimacy from enforceability
Fractional-reserve banking (Rothbardians): two titles to same item, contrast
with bailment?
reply: “two titles” ambiguous, contrast with bailment illusory: risky
warehouse case
Rothbardians’ counter-reply: list as asset or not? (reply: risky warehouse
again)
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 18
Slavery contracts?
1. can’t abandon oneself
2. can’t surrender one’s own obligation of self-defense
3. can’t surrender one’s own duty to make decisions
4. can’t relieve others of their duty not to aggress
Service contracts? specific performance vs. money damages
Immoral (but not unjust) contracts?
Goods vs. services
Duty not to fulfill contract (but then damages)
Duty to interpret as fulfillable where possible
Spooner on law (killing Scots, just compensation): apply to contracts
also Cornell example
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 19
Thursday, 29 June
Afternoon session: 2:00-3:30
8. Punishment and War
When is retaliatiory violence permissible?
libertarian options: a) never, b) defense/restraint only, c) defense/restraint
plus restitution, d) defense/restraint plus restitution plus punishment
Already seen problem with option (a)
Also, absolute pacifism = no rights (no enforceable claims)
Shylock’s Principle vs. Portia’s Principle,
Principle of Proportionality: I (or my agent) can invade your boundary only so
long as doing so is a) necessary to repel you from my boundary, and b) not
morally disproportionate to the seriousness of your boundary-invasion
This licenses at least (b)
If you don’t give my property back (or its nearest equivalent) you’re still in my
boundary (umbrella case): this licenses (c)
But can’t justify (d): imprisonment (or even, in very unusual cases, execution)
OK as defense/restraint but not as punishment
Objection (Kinsella): one who has used force has shown he thinks force is OK
and so can’t consistently object to being punished
reply 1: one who peacefully says he is in favour of force has also shown he
thinks force is OK
reply 2: wrongness of my punishing you depends on facts about your
nature and mine, not just what you could consistently assert
Objection: some crimes cannot be fully compensated for (reply: how does
punishment help? Indiana Jones)
Objection: rich will commit crimes freely (reply: Barnett on returning the
check, Sade on king’s pardon, Icelandic case of selling claim to compensation)
Objection: free to kill those without heirs (reply: homestead rights to
compensation)
Property restitution: over time the claim shifts from restoration to
compensation (Cicero vs. Annas) – why?
New holders innocent and of long standing, their claim increases; heirs of
former holders never had it, their claim weakens; proportionality kicks in
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 20
Innocent threats: intention irrelevant except as affects proportionality
What about abortion?
Is a fetus a rights-holder?
Does a fetus have an (impaired) rational capacity? ambiguity/levels of
capacity: language-speaker, unfertilized/fertilized
Suppose late fetus is a rights-holder: innocent threat, Principle of
Proportionality
Innocent shields/collateral damage:
baby strapped to sniper’s chest: OK but depends on:
1. small extent of collateral damage (just one baby)
2. high probability that shooting sniper will stop him
3. great extent of contribution stopping sniper makes to ending threat
4. absence of less dangerous alternative strategy for stopping sniper
Real-life wartime cases of c.d. very diff.
Do these restrictions make war more difficult to justify than consequentialist
considerations would warrant?
Threat from regimes, not people: assassination and covert ops a better
response (not endorsing Codevilla here)
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 21
Friday, 30 June
Morning session: 10:00-11:30
9. Culture and Liberty
Does libertarianism require widespread acceptance of certain cultural values?
- one extreme: yes, very specific set (e.g. Rand)
- another extreme: no, equally consistent w/ any (e.g. Block)
Me: generic universalism, specific pluralism
Charles Johnson on forms of thickness:
charleswjohnson.name/remarks/2005/12/28/narveson
Entailment thickness: lib. directly entails value X
Application thickness: value X is necessary to see how to apply lib.
Instrumental thickness: value X is causal precondition for implementing lib.
Grounds thickness: value X is entailed by best reasons for lib.
Conjunction thickness: value X is good and so is lib
some plausible candidates: rationality, toleration
Sciabarra: “radical” & “dialectical” libertarian tradition:
political/economic/psychological/cultural
19th-century libertarians: state oppression part of interlocking system with
nonstate forms of oppression (racial, sexual, managerial)
General aversion to dependence/conformity, and to some people having
dominant say over others’ lives, not entailed by libertarianism but affiliated with
it via application/instrumental/grounds thickness
Re grounds thickness:
Sometimes said libertarianism includes only non-aggression and its entailments,
not any of the reasons (economic, ethical) offered for accepting non-aggression
But that would thin out libertarian literature pretty quickly
Two mistakes re nonstate, non-initiatory-force forms of oppression:
ERROR THAT TEMPTS STATISTS:
1. All forms of oppression are rights-violations.
2. There are non-initiatory-force forms of oppression.
3.
Therefore there are non-initiatory-force
rights-violations.
ERROR THAT TEMPTS LIBERTARIANS:
1. All forms of oppression are rights-violations.
2. There are no non-initiatory-force rightsviolations.
3. Therefore there are no non-initiatory-force
forms of oppression.
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 22
In both cases, challenge premise (1).
Implications e.g. for workplace
Justice, negative beneficence, positive beneficence (Spencer)
mistake to think the difference is one of seriousness
some non-rights-violating acts (systematically undermining confidence) may
be worse than some rights-violating acts (stealing a grape)
different response lies not in greater seriousness but meeting force evils w/
force & non-force evils w/ other methods
Statists think this is indifference because they have great faith in force methods
and little faith in non-force methods
Can be room for “political” action outside of state & force
“market will take care of it” – but we are the market: activist
entrepreneurship
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 23
Friday, 30 June
Afternoon session: 2:00-3:30
10. An Anarchist Legal Order
Legal system = institution or set of institutions providing dispute resolution in
systematic orderly way
3 functions: judicial (adjudicating disputes: core of legal system), legislative
(determining rules of adjudication), executive (securing compliance w/ result of
adjudication)
State = organisation claiming, and in large part achieving, forcibly maintained
monopoly, within given territory, of these legal functions, and particularly use
of force in executive function
Forcible monopoly clashes w/ equality in authority, prohibition on
subordinating others
Locke: legislative, judicial, and executive defects of anarchy
Why these all apply to states but not to anarchy
- legislative: both states and anarchies have competing conceptions of justice –
both must resolve via checks/balances
markets: more uniformity (Law Merchant)
states: incentive to overproduce laws equivalent to absence of known law
- judicial: good case for third-party arbiter but inference to state commits
fallacy of composition
In fact only anarchy avoids judge in own case
- executive: Locke confuses organization w/ monopoly
state actually harder to defend against
Objection to anarchy: use of force needs constitutional restraint
Reply: sure, but what kind? Not paper restraint but checks/balances
Constitutional restraints don’t exist indep. of what they constrain
Objection: functioning market presupposes functioning legal order
Reply: and vice versa – they arise together
Objection: no final arbiter
Reply: Platonic vs. realistic finality
anarchy lacks Platonic, but so does state
state has realistic, but so can anarchy
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 24
Demand for guarantee involves magical picture of the State – incantation
Strategies for getting there: taking over the state (whether by election or by
revolution) vs. bypassing the state (educating, building alternative institutions,
encouraging withdrawal of support, mass civil disobedience)
Voluntaryists (Watner, McElroy, G. Smith) and Agorists (Konkin) often
suggest that takeover is inherently illegitimate:
Moral arguments – voting & holding office involves exercising and/or
sanctioning unjust power
reply: infiltrating Death Star
Pragmatic arguments – a) power corrupts, b) we should be trying to shake
people loose from the statist paradigm, c) bottom-up strategies generally more
effective than top-down, d) specifically: if majority are libertarian don’t need to
impose liberty from above, if majority aren’t libertarian imposing liberty from
above won’t work
reply: these arguments are better, and largely right
anarchist political program is only one that doesn’t require seizing reins of
power: La Boétie
but during final decline of state, advisable to have some people on the inside
in case statists lash out harmfully in desperate – and as final decline approaches
it will be easier to get our people in
And in the meantime voting can avert some harms
Economic argument against voting?
Equally good argument against writing a libertarian book, article, or blog post
Contributing to public causes neither irrational nor a perfect duty, but an
imperfect duty
Long – Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics – p. 25