Hazlitt on Justice

"...we recognize that Justice is not the ultimate ethical end, existing purely for its own sake, but is primarily a means, and even a means to a means. Justice and Freedom are the great means to the promotion of Social Cooperation, which in turn is the great means to the realization of each individual's ends and therefore to the realization of the ends of "society.""

"The subordination of Justice to a "mere" means, however important that means is regarded to be, may come as a shock to many moral philosophers, who have been accustomed to regard it as the supreme ethical end, at least in the social field. The extreme form of this view is epitomized in the famous phrase: fiat justitia, ruat caelum, or even fiat justitia, pereat mundus. Let justice be done though the heavens fall, let justice be done even if it destroys the world. Common sense draws back from any such frightful conclusion. But the answer to such slogans is not that we should be satisfied with a little less than Absolute Justice, in order to hold things together; the answer is that there is something wrong in the conception of justice embodied in such slogans. Justice was made for man, not man for justice."

Henry Hazlitt, The Foundations of Morality

Wertfreiheit

Cross-posted at Hume and Action.

One of the topics that will  be covered in this blog is wertfreiheit.  This is German for "value freedom".  Ludwig von Mises, following Max Weber, subscribed to the notion that science must be value-free to truly be a science, and not merely an expression of one's own desires.  Liberals in the tradition of Murray Rothbard generally agree with Mises that economics is a value-free science.  But Mises regarded all science, and not just economics, as necessarily wertfrei.  This was rejected by Rothbard, who believed in a "value laden" science of ethics.

Rothbard believed there is an objective ethic, discoverable by man's reason. He believed there is a natural law which provides an absolute standard of right and wrong. One can infer from the nature of man that the homesteading-and-exchange-based propertarian ethic is the only correct ethic for man.
Furthermore, he thought economic science, by itself, is not enough to make a case for liberalism (or its fullest extention, anarchocapitalism). Economics, as a value-free science, can teach what social arrangement is an appropriate means for certain social ends. But the science of objective natural law ethics is necessary to determine what ends men should have.

In The Ethics of Liberty, Rothbard wrote:

"In order to advocate public policy, therefore, a system of social or political ethics must be constructed. In former centuries this was the crucial task of political philosophy. But in the contemporary world, political theory, in the name of a spurious “science,” has cast out ethical philosophy, and has itself become barren as a guide to the inquiring citizen. The same course has been taken in each of the disciplines of the social sciences and of philosophy by abandoning the procedures of natural law. Let us then cast out the hobgoblins of Wertfreiheit...¹"

Why did Mises subscribe to thoroughgoing wertfreiheit?   He believed that science only has to do with "existential propositions": with the "is".  It is only with regard to existential propositions that there can be any question of truth vs. falsity.  Value judgments are not existential propositions, and thus are not subject to proof or disproof.  Value judgments, moral or otherwise, cannot be judged as right or wrong without imposing one's own personal values upon them as the standard by which they are judged.

In Theory and History, Mises wrote:

Propositions asserting existence (affirmative existential propositions) or nonexistence (negative existential propositions) are descriptive. They assert something about the state of the whole universe or of parts of the universe. With regard to them questions of truth and falsity are significant. They must not be confounded with judgments of value.
Judgments of value are voluntaristic. They express feelings, tastes, or preferences of the individual who utters them. With regard to them there cannot be any question of truth and falsity. They are ultimate and not subject to any proof or evidence.²

This fact/value dichotomy, or "is/ought" divide, was greatly advanced by David Hume. In A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume wrote:

In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark'd, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surpriz'd to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it shou'd be observ'd and explain'd; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.³

Mises believed the "is/ought" divide posed no problem for liberalism. This is because he believed that there is a "harmony of interests". The overriding concern of humanity is secular well-being: greater abundance, health, security etc. Now, regardless of whether one only is concerned for the secular well-being of himself, for his immediate family, for his community, for his country, or for the world as a whole, economic science shows that the secular well-being of whichever portion of humanity is concerned with would be better promoted by a liberal social order than by any other order. This is Mises' conception of value-free, individualist utilitarianism.

Mises also believed that social orders are utilitarian devices that ultimately are always determined by the beliefs of the preponderance of society with regard to the relative efficacy of various social orders. So the only way that liberalism can be effected is if enough people either (a) understand sound economics well enough to realize the efficacy of liberalism, or (b) trust thought-leaders who understand economics to that extent.

However, Rothbard's position won the day among Misesians, to the point that today, thoroughgoing wertfreiheit has nearly died out in the Austrian tradition.  Perhaps the only major Misesian proponent of it is the nonagenarian scholar Leland Yeager.

But, many of the young intellectuals who have just recently been introduced to Austro-libertarianism are unsatisfied with the arguments provided by Rothbardians against thoroughgoing value-freedom in science. Misesian/Humean wertfreiheit may yet have its day in the Austrian tradition once again.

¹Murray N. Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty, Chapter 5
²Ludwig von Mises, Theory and History, Chapter 1, Section 1
³David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book III, Part I, Section I

Simon Rippon on Sam Harris and the Naturalistic Fallacy

 Sam Harris, the Naturalistic Fallacy, and the Slipperiness of "Well-Being"

by Simon Rippon

Crisp Argument For Libertarianism

Libertarianism is the only morally justifiable political philosophy for anyone with a conscience normal enough to feel that murder, theft, and enslavement are wrong, and a mind consistent enough to apply that maxim to every man equally.

Character as Inverse Time Preference

It is useful to divide "virtuous behavior" into two categories: 1) actions which are motivated by conscience and 2) actions considered virtuous, but which are not motivated by conscience.  The first category concerns man's morality.  The second concerns man's character.  While moral behavior is impelled by urges which are, in a sense, selfless, "acts of character" are impelled urges that are selfish, only the "self" concerned is a "more future" self.  In other words, character is a matter of time preference.  Everyone has time preference; everyone places a premium on gratification sooner rather than later.  But the level of that "premium on promptitude" varies.  The lower that premium (in other words, the less "now-oriented" the person is), in general, the higher the "character" of the person is usually deemed.

To illustrate this, let's consider the "13 virtues" of Benjamin Franklin.

1. TEMPERANCE.

Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

Let's say a man is at a work party.  He's had three drinks.  He knows a fourth drink will make him drunk.  He knows if he becomes drunk he will say and do things he will regret later.  He weighs two urges in his psyche: 1) an urge to feel the pleasure of being drunk in the near future and 2) the urge to avoid embarrassment in the distant future.  If his premium on promptitude is high enough, he will down the fourth glass.  If it's low enough, the thought of future embarrassment will steer him toward the ginger ale.

2. SILENCE.

Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.

Let's say two professional colleagues are having lunch together.  One has a juicy bit of idle gossip on the tip of her tongue.  She weighs the urge to unload her tale with the urge to be more productive with her time with her colleague; she could instead talk about the project they are working on.  The former action would be more pleasant in the short term.  But making headway on their project would advance her career, thereby paving the way for a great deal of pleasure in the long term.  If her premium on promptitude is high enough she will choose to indulge in the gossip.  If it's low enough, she will instead start discussing the project.

3. ORDER.

Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

Let's say a man comes home after a long day at work.  He picks up his mail in the lobby of his apartment building, and then walks into his apartment.  He really wants to just crash on the couch and turn on the TV forthwith.  So he has the urge to just drop his mail on his big pile of unopened mail as he's been doing lately.  He knows by doing this every day, he's creating quite a chore for himself in the future when he will have to sort through the big pile.  If he just took a minute to sort through the mail in his hand now, he wouldn't be contributing to the huge chore he'll have to do later.  If his premium on promptitude is high enough, he'll just toss the mail and crash.  If it's low enough, he'll do the tiny chore now to avoid contributing toward having to do a giant chore later.

4. RESOLUTION.

Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

Let's say a woman makes a New Year's Resolution to spend 15 minutes on her treadmill every morning.  Her alarm wakes her one morning.  Only if she gets out bed right then, will she have enough time to do her morning exercise.  But she's still groggy and would love a few more winks.  She weighs in her psyche the urge to sleep more now against the urge to contribute toward her long-term health.  If her premium on promptitude is high enough, she'll hit snooze.  If it's low enough, she'll drag herself out of bed.

5. FRUGALITY.

Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.

Let's say a woman shopping in a department store sees a really cute, but ridiculously expensive pair of shows.  Buying them will set her back a whole month in her longer-term goal of buying a new car.  If her premium on promptitude is high enough, she'll swipe her credit card and run home to try them on.  If it's low enough, she'll walk off in her New Balance sneakers eagerly awaiting the day she can drive of the lot in her new car, and pleased by the knowledge that that day will arrive a month sooner than if she had bought the shoes.

6. INDUSTRY.

Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.

Let's say a man at work needs to finish his TPS report.  But the task bores him, so he'd rather idle away the hours mindlessly clicking around on the web.  Diving into the TPS report will be burdensome in the short term, but will advance his career in the long term.  If his premium on promptitude is high enough, he'll commence surfing.  If it's low enough, he'll close Firefox, and fire up that awful database software.

7. SINCERITY.

Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

Let's say a politician is considering embarking on a smear campaign, based on mischaracterization, against his opponent.  Part of the decision process involves time-indifferent moral considerations.  But another part weighs the short-term goal of winning the election against the longer-term goal of maintaining a reputation of decency.

8. JUSTICE.

Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

Incidents of justice qua justice are time-indifferent, and as such are matters of morality and not character.  Let's say an adolescent is contemplating stealing candy from his baby nephew, and that there is no chance of him getting caught.  There is no long-term downside of stealing the candy aside from the pangs of guilt he might feel.

9. MODERATION.

Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

Let's say a shopkeeper is tempted to shoot a shoplifter in the back for lifting a candy bar from his shelves.  In this case, there is a chance of him facing retribution for what others will consider a gross over-retaliation.  Insofar as that is the case, it is a matter character (inverse time preference).  It might feel good to shoot the punk in the short-term.  He weighs the urge against the long-term fear of rotting away in a prison cell.  Of course there a moral considerations as well.  His urge to shoot is also mitigated by his conscience screaming at him not to commit such a monstrous act.

10. CLEANLINESS.

Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.

Let's say a man is tired of thoroughly cleaning the carpet every time his dog pees on it.  He weighs the "sooner" urge to not have to deal with the mess now against the "later" urge of not having his pad smelling like an outhouse when he has guests over.

11.TRANQUILLITY.

Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

A man gets cut off in his lane on the freeway.  He wants to lean on the horn, and speed past the offending motorist with a middle finger thrust out his window.  This would satisfy him in the short-term.  But if he instead counted to ten and let it slide, it might contribute to a better mood in the long-term.

12. CHASTITY.

Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.

A married man is tempted to sleep with his co-worker.  Again time-indifferent morality plays a role ("it's just wrong"; "my wife doesn't deserve to be cheated on, etc."), but so does the conflict between "sex sooner" and "non-ruined marriage later".

13. HUMILITY.

Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

A woman is tempted to give vent to her pride by bragging about her luxurious vacation.  She weighs that short-term temptation against the long-term aversion against contributing toward a reputation as a boastful bore.

Character, it would seem, may be considered simply to be inverse time preference.

A Mini-Manifesto of Liberty

In the following I outline, as succinctly as possible, my principles of libertarianism.

1. Natural Morality

I feel assault, plunder, and enslavement are wrong.  Implicit in this feeling is a belief in property rights.  I don't derive this feeling from some philosophical doctrine.  It's just part of me.  It arises from my heart, not my reason.  I believe most of humanity feels the way I do.  I believe most of humanity, in spite of widespread evidence to the contrary in today's society (which I will deal with below), deep down has an intrinsic respect for property rights.  Academics often talk about the importance of the tradition of property as a factor in "how the West got rich".  But I believe property is more than just a tradition; it's an instinct.

There is a burgeoning school of thought in evolutionary biology and the cognitive sciences (led by Marc Hauser and Steven Pinker) which contends that morality is not just cultural artifice, but that it is an intrinsic feature of the human mind which evolved over the countless millennia of humans living together.  There are some needs which are common to all man.  There is an overwhelming general need in the human species for self-restraint and fellow-feeling if it is to flourish.  It only makes sense that this overwhelming general need would mean that familial groups who tend to have certain highly-functional moral feelings would end up prospering and propagating their genes, while familial groups made up of individuals who were constantly killing and plundering each other would have died out.

Economic science teaches us that the most highly-functional moral feelings are those concerning ownership (both of one's bodily self and of external objects).  I believe it is no coincidence that we find in experience and in history that these same moral feelings concerning property are, of all moral feelings, the most timeless and universal.

I believe that this is why when we take up some unused thing and begin to use it, we automatically think of it as our "ours". We take reflexive affront when our person or our property is aggressed against by others. We feel involuntary outrage when we see the person or property of others aggressed against. And we spontaneously feel guilt when, or at least after, we aggress against the person or property of others.  Of course there are exceptions (as with those suffering from neurological disorders), but these facts are true for the overwhelming preponderance of humanity.

We don't need to be taught to feel revulsion toward murder, plunder, and enslavement; it has been stamped on our hearts by nature.  And implicit in our natural revulsion toward murder, plunder, and enslavement are property rights: imperatives from one's own conscience that says, "this is mine, that is thine".  I would go so far as to say that anyone who says they don't feel such proddings of the conscience are either impaired or lying.  And the fact that a great many people every day override that revulsion and go ahead and murder, plunder, and enslave anyway is owing to two causes.  First of all, frailty is just as much a part of human nature as morality is.  Moral urges are one kind of urge among many, and sometimes they lose the tug of war over human action.  The second cause is that institution that fosters and feeds upon human frailty: the state.

2. The Lifeboat Lie

As I said, I feel assault, plunder, and enslavement are wrong; I regard them as crimes.  I don't see any reason why an act that I would consider a crime if committed by any other man should not be considered a crime simply because it is committed by a man wearing a badge, dressed in fatigues, or bearing a license.  In other words, I make no exceptions for the state.

If morality is natural, then why do others make this exception?

As I've contended thus far, there is a moral code written in our hearts.  This inherent moral code is only shoved aside when we enter conditions of extremity (known as "lifeboat situations"), in which circumstances have forced the human community to devolve into a war of all against all. In those cases, the involuntary urge for survival overwhelms the involuntary urge for moral behavior, and we therefore cast aside our communal moral feelings for the sake of extreme short-term selfishness. In other words, we allow ourselves “necessary evils”.

The state has deceived the bulk of humanity into believing that society is inherently in constant extremity: a perpetual "lifeboat situation" in which a great many "necessary evils" must be committed by the state, else the "lifeboat" of society will keel over and everybody will drown. This is a lie. Society does not require for its survival, or even for its flowering, that certain men be above natural morality. The acts of murder, plunder, and enslavement committed by the state are not necessary evils.  They're just plain evils; just as much as if you or I committed them as private individuals.

3. The Sword and The Lie

To understand how the "Lifeboat Lie" can have become so widely accepted in spite of our natural morality, one must understand the nature of the state, and nobody understood the nature of the state more than Murray N. Rothbard.  In The Ethics of Liberty Rothbard wrote:

Ideology has always been vital to the continued existence of the State, as attested by the systematic use of ideology since the ancient Oriental empires. The specific content of the ideology has, of course, changed over time, in accordance with changing conditions and cultures. In the Oriental despotisms, the Emperor was often held by the Church to be himself divine; in our more secular age, the argument runs more to “the public good” and the “general welfare.” But the purpose is always the same: to convince the public that what the State does is not, as one might think, crime on a gigantic scale, but something necessary and vital that must be supported and obeyed. The reason that ideology is so vital to the State is that it always rests, in essence, on the support of the majority of the public. This support obtains whether the State is a “democracy,” a dictatorship, or an absolute monarchy. For the support rests in the willingness of the majority (not, to repeat, of every individual) to go along with the system: to pay the taxes, to go without much complaint to fight the State’s wars, to obey the State’s rules and decrees. This support need not be active enthusiasm to be effective; it can just as well be passive resignation. But support there must be. For if the bulk of the public were really convinced of the illegitimacy of the State, if it were convinced that the State is nothing more nor less than a bandit gang writ large, then the State would soon collapse to take on no more status or breadth of existence than another Mafia gang. Hence the necessity of the State’s employment of ideologists; and hence the necessity of the State’s age-old alliance with the Court Intellectuals who weave the apologia for State rule. [...]

Particularly important in the modern world—now that an Established Church is often no longer feasible—is for the State to assume control over education, and thereby to mould the minds of its subjects. In addition to influencing the universities through all manner of financial subventions, and through state-owned universities directly, the State controls education on the lower levels through the universal institutions of the public school, through certification requirements for private schools, and through compulsory attendance laws. Add to this a virtually total control over radio and television—either through outright State ownership, as in most countries—or, as in the United States, by the nationalization of the airwaves, and by the power of a federal commission to license the right of stations to use those frequencies and channels.

Thus, the State, by its very nature, must violate the generally accepted moral laws to which most people adhere. Most people are agreed on the injustice and criminality of murder and theft. The customs, rules, and laws of all societies condemn these actions. The State, then, is always in a vulnerable position, despite its seeming age-old might. What particularly needs to be done is to enlighten the public on the State’s true nature, so that they can see that the State habitually violates the generally accepted injunctions against robbery and murder, that the State is the necessary violator of the commonly accepted moral and criminal law.

We have seen clearly why the State needs the intellectuals; but why do the intellectuals need the State? Put simply, it is because intellectuals, whose services are often not very intensively desired by the mass of consumers, can find a more secure “market” for their abilities in the arms of the State. The State can provide them with a power, status, and wealth which they often cannot obtain in voluntary exchange. For centuries, many (though, of course, not all) intellectuals have sought the goal of Power, the realization of the Platonic ideal of the “philosopher-king.” Consider, for example, the cry from the heart by the distinguished Marxist scholar, Professor Needham, in protest against the acidulous critique by Karl Wittfogel of the alliance of State-and-intellectuals in Oriental despotisms: “The civilization which Professor Wittfogel is so bitterly attacking was one which could make poets and scholars into officials.” Needham adds that “the successive [Chinese] emperors were served in all ages by a great company of profoundly humane and disinterested scholars.” Presumably, for Professor Needham, this is enough to justify the grinding despotisms of the ancient Orient.

There will always be thuggery: assault, plunder, and enslavement.  But mankind has natural safeguards to defend against thuggery: including the ability to recognize justice, and the ability to join together with other decent people to implement justice.

There will always be deceit: slander, fraud, and indoctrination.  But mankind has natural safeguards to defend against deceit as well: reason, skepticism, and the senses.

However, our defenses have been overwhelmed by a devastatingly effective partnership between thuggery and deceit.  As Rothbard explained, the state is a maleficent symbiosis of violent criminals and propagandizing intellectuals.  I call these partners in crime the Sword and the Lie. The Lie fosters the Sword through twisted sophistries which establish a false legitimacy and engineered consent to disarm our natural safeguards against thuggery. The Sword fosters the Lie through compulsory indoctrination (state religions and public schools) and through using its ill-gotten gains to corrupt the persuasive classes (state-beholden media and academia), all of which disarms our natural safeguards against deceit.

The Sword needs the Lie.  The ruled always outnumber the rulers, so a reign predicated on bald criminality (like a protection racket) would quickly be overthrown. To maintain its power, a regime must transmute murder into justice, tribute into taxation, and slavery into citizenship in the minds of its subjects. To do that, it needs intellectuals.

The Lie needs the Sword. Elaborate scams based on lies and manipulations (like cults) are difficult to maintain. Eventually some people begin to see through the lies and speak out. To keep its hold on its flock, an elite must be able to silence or coerce dissenters. To do that, it needs thugs.

The state has us in bonds, but also under a spell. The former could not hold us without the latter. In order to break our bonds, we must first break the spell.

How do we break the spell?  Libertarian intellectualism.

4. The Role of the Libertarian Intellectual

Now, if it weren’t for state propaganda, there would be no need for libertarian intellectualism, because again, morals relating to property are written on our hearts.  A man doesn’t need to understand the politics of war to know that murder is wrong; neither need he understand how markets work to know that stealing is wrong.  Again, the problem is that the state, through its false economics and false political philosophy, has convinced mankind that the world is in a constant state of extremity, such that, without some men being given the power to murder, steal, and enslave with impunity, civilization will descend into chaos. False theory can only be fought effectively with true theory. The role of a libertarian intellectual therefore is not to weave intricate theories to justify justice itself (there is no need for that); rather it is to unweave the tangled fabric of state lies. That is why we need economics and political philosophy: to show exactly how the state’s purported necessary evils aren't actually necessary, and thereby reveal to people their inner libertarian.  Were the "Lifeboat Lie" to be exposed, I strongly believe the inherent decency of man would then kick in (just as did with me once Austrian economics taught me about the natural workings of a free society).  Good men would no longer tolerate (or indulge in) "necessary evils", and evil men would have nowhere to run.

Mini-Manifestos

Murray Rothbard wrote the greatest libertarian manifesto ever: For a New Liberty.  Ron Paul wrote what might be the second greatest: Revolution: A Manifesto.  Not everyone has what it takes to write a great book like these two giants did.  But I think every libertarian could benefit from writing his or her own Mini-Manifesto of Liberty.  Doing so can not only inspire others, but can provide focus and clarity in helping the writer to understand what he or she is striving for and why.  I invite anyone reading this to write your own "Mini-Manifesto of Liberty" in a text file and post it here.

Aristotelean Eudaimonia and Value Theory

In the following, I shall discuss the principles of Aristotle's ethical and political theory, paying close attention to what Aristotle meant by eudaimonia, and what he didn't.

Most of the following quotes are from the beginning of Book 1 of the Nicomachean Ethics (as published on the web by MIT).

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good;

By saying, "is thought", Aristotle seems to be expressing a commonplace notion.  As is consistent with his general method, he is preparing to derive non-commonplace implications from commonplace notions.  The "some good" here is not eudaimonia, otherwise he would be making an unbacked philosophical assertion and declaring it as an axiom, which is not his style.  Rather the "some good" is simply referring to individual agathos ("good", as in a useful thing) that individual arts and inquiries aim at.

and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.

The good...at which all things aim" is tempting to be characterized as eudaimonia.  But again, he uses the word agathos (useful thing), which he just finished speaking of regarding arts and inquiries.  He certainly didn't present an argument for eudaimonia theory being an implication of the commonplace notion earlier in the sentence, and it is certainly not self-evident how that would be; so this also must be interpreted as speaking of a commonplace notion of particular human ends.

But a certain difference is found among ends; some are activities, others are products apart from the activities that produce them.

Here he is setting up a simple means (activities) / ends (products, as well as activities not intended to produce anything) dichotomy.  He shifts from speaking of agathos (useful things, or human ends) to telos (ends).  It seems obvious to me that he thinks of agathos as a sub-set of telos; good-aimed-at/useful things/human-ends as a sub-set of ends in general.
Where there are ends apart from the actions, it is the nature of the products to be better than the activities.

In this I see a faint shadowing forth of Austrian subjective utility theory.  "Ends are naturally better than their means," is but a short distance from, "Ends impute value to their means."

Now, as there are many actions, arts, and sciences, their ends also are many; the end of the medical art is health, that of shipbuilding a vessel, that of strategy victory, that of economics wealth.

Here we have concrete examples of the generalities he was speaking of earlier.  The end (telos) of the art (tekhne) of shipbuilding is a vessel.  The vessel, as a human telos, is also an agathos. We can see here the commonplace level he is still speaking in regards to "the good": eudaimonia is nowhere yet to be seen.

But where such arts fall under a single capacity- as bridle-making and the other arts concerned with the equipment of horses fall under the art of riding, and this and every military action under strategy, in the same way other arts fall under yet others- in all of these the ends of the master arts are to be preferred to all the subordinate ends; for it is for the sake of the former that the latter are pursued. It makes no difference whether the activities themselves are the ends of the actions, or something else apart from the activities, as in the case of the sciences just mentioned.

More pre-Austrian foreshadowing here.  Bridle-making derives its value from it usefulness for furthering the art of riding, so the latter is "preferred"; the art of riding derives some of its value from its usefulness for furthering the art of war, so the latter is "preferred".  Value is imputed backward through the production process.  Aristotle is explicit regarding such a value theory in the following passage.

The cause of this is that existence is to all men a thing to be chosen and loved, and that we exist by virtue of activity (i.e., by living and acting), and that the handiwork is in a sense, the producer of activity; he loves his handiwork, therefore, because he loves existence. And this is rooted in the nature of things; for what he is in potentiality, his handiwork manifests in activity.

Now, back to the beginning of the Ethics...

If, then, there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this), and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else (for at that rate the process would go on to infinity, so that our desire would be empty and vain), clearly this must be the good and the chief good.

The "chief good" we "choose everything for the sake of" might be interpreted as eudaimonia. But again, I think Aristotle is saying something more down-to-earth here.  I don't think he means there is;one ultimate telos for all the individual things we do. For as he said earlier, "as there are many actions...their ends also are many." The idea he is introducing here is not that the philosopher should seek for the "one end to bind them"; rather, he is making the point that the philosopher, when considering the ends of actions, should seek out ultimate ends (which may still vary from action to action), and not be content with discovering subordinate ends.  Again this is a very pre-Austrian insight.

Will not the knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what is right?

Aristotle may here be saying that, for example, if the bridle-maker knows that a less-subordinate end of his bridle is for the art of war, this awareness might inform his art more completely than only knowing of the more-subordinate end of simple riding.

If so, we must try, in outline at least, to determine what it is, and of which of the sciences or capacities it is the object. It would seem to belong to the most authoritative art and that which is most  truly the master art. And politics appears to be of this nature; for it is this that ordains which of the sciences should be studied in a state, and which each class of citizens should learn and up to what point they should learn them; and we see even the most highly esteemed of capacities to fall under this, e.g. strategy, economics, rhetoric; now, since politics uses the rest of the sciences, and since, again, it legislates as to what we are to do and what we are to abstain from, the end of this science must include those of the others, so that this end must be the good for man.

The expression, "the good for man" seems to scream "eudaimonia". It should be noted that this Greek word has still not occurred in the text. "The good for man" here is translated from "tanthrôpinon agathon". We can recognize the second word as a form of agathos(good, useful thing). The first word is related to our "anthropo-" prefix. Here Aristotle is asking what science is most appropriate for studying human ends. From the following passage...

Further, the state is by nature clearly prior to the family and to the individual, since the whole is of necessity prior to the part; for example, if the whole body be destroyed, there will be no foot or hand, except in an equivocal sense, as we might speak of a stone hand; for when destroyed the hand will be no better than that.

...it is evident that Aristotle has an organic view of the state, with individuals as organs.  Just as the telos of the liver is the telos of the man, the telos of the man is the telos of the state.  That is why he thinks the science of the state (politics) is the science of man's ultimate telos: the ultimate "good for man". Evidently, for Aristotle, this is "one end to bind them", but it is more like "raison d'état" than eudaimonia. Such an interpretation is resoundingly supported by the next passage.

For even if the end is the same for a single man and for a state, that of the state seems at all events something greater and more complete whether to attain or to preserve; though it is worth while to attain the end merely for one man, it is finer and more godlike to attain it for a nation or for city-states. These, then, are the ends at which our inquiry aims, since it is political science, in one sense of that term.

The bridle-maker makes the bridle for riding, which is for the sake of war, which is for the sake of the state. The farmer raises grain for the sake of feeding himself. But, since he is an organ of the state, even this is ultimately a matter of politics.

Let us resume our inquiry and state, in view of the fact that all knowledge and every pursuit aims at some good, what it is that we say political science aims at and what is the highest of all goods achievable by action. Verbally there is very general agreement; for both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness, and identify living well and doing well with being happy; but with regard to what happiness is they differ...

In the above passage is where we finally meet the word "eudaimonia". It is translated here as "happiness". But the footnote at the Perseus translation is enlightening: "This translation of eudaimonia can hardly be avoided, but it would perhaps be more accurately rendered by ‘Well-being’ or ‘Prosperity’; and it will be found that the writer does not interpret it as a state of feeling but as a kind of activity."
So here, he is saying that the ultimate telos of the polis is eudaimonia for the people, although he has not settled what eudaimonia really is. Later he defines eudaimonia as "an activity or actions of the soul implying a rational principle."

Thus, to Aristotle, human actions are for the sake of the state, which is itself for the sake of further particular human actions which implies a rational principle. The exercise of reason, it seems, is the "one end to bind them": a rather convenient conclusion for a philosopher, I should say.

For a New Libertarian Ethics

In order to present the theory of ethics which underlies my libertarian political philosophy, I am going to first carefully discuss the theory of ethics currently dominant among other Austro-libertarians: that of Murray N. Rothbard.

Note: In what follows, I'm going to come down pretty hard on Rothbard's formulation, and agree very strongly with that of David Hume.  So let me just say at the outset that, in my estimation, Murray Rothbard may very well have been the greatest man this past century has been graced with, and certainly a far better man than Hume was.  I differ with him here out of the spirit of free inquiry and love of truth that he himself championed so brilliantly.

All of the Rothbard quotes in this essay are drawn from the first chapter of The Ethics of Liberty.  (My thanks to "hashem" on the Mises Forums for collecting and organizing them.)

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The Rothbardian System

Let us begin with Rothbard's discussion of the existence of human nature.

"If apples and stones and roses each have their specific natures, is man the only entity, the only being, that cannot have one? And if man does have a nature, why cannot it too be open to rational observation and reflection? If all things have natures, then surely man's nature is open to inspection."

What does Rothbard mean here by "nature"?  Rothbard is something of an Aristotelean (or at least a Thomist, which is much the same thing) so let's consider Aristotle's conception of nature.  A likely definition of Aristotelean nature you'd hear from an Aristotle expert would be an "inner principle of change or rest."  Myself, I think a more precise definition would be an "endogenous tendency of change or rest" (thus Rothbard's repeated reference to "tendency" later on in the following quotations).  To Aristotle, stones had an endogenous tendency to move toward the center of the world, stars had an endogenous tendency to move around the center of the world, seeds had an endogenous tendency to grow into plants, and man had an endogenous tendency to pursue ends.

Ends can also be apprehended by reason as either objectively good or bad for man" "[T]here is therefore room for the concept of right reason, reason directing man's acts to the attainment of the objective good for man." Moral conduct is therefore conduct in accord with right reason: "If it is said that moral conduct is rational conduct, what is meant is that it is conduct in accordance with right reason, reason apprehending the objective good for man and dictating the means to its attainment." "For the ends themselves are selected by the use of reason; and right reason dictates to man his proper ends as well as the means for their attainment."

Here is one of my most fundamental disagreements with Rothbard.  I believe that Hume was right when he insisted that ends (ultimate ends) are determined by our passions, not our reason.  The function of our reason is to choose means, and only means.  This is necessarily true, because to determine by reason whether something is "objectively good or bad" is to judge it according to whether it fulfills a certain requirement.  In that case the "something" is, by definition, not an end.  It is a means to the end of fulfilling whatever the "certain requirement" is.  Therefore ends cannot be creatures of our reason.  They must emerge involuntarily from our psyche.  Hume calls the part of our psyche they emerge from "the passions"; this is NOT to say that all men are basically wild beasts.  The "passions" that produce ends include, for example, the involuntary urge of curiosity that impels a philosopher, scientist, or mathematician to seek out truth.

Another problem is that here Rothbard eschews the methodological individualism he promotes in his economic works (especially Man, Economy, and State).  This might be fine, if he did so consistently, or at least justified his inconsistent application; but he doesn't.  When he brings up "moral conduct", he can only be talking about individual moral conduct, because as he correctly states in Man, Economy, and State, only individuals act.  But he says that moral conduct depends on recognizing the "the objective good for man": not for the individual acting man in question, but man as a class.  Needless to say, the objective good for man as a class will not always be the same as the objective good for the acting man in question.  Why ought (since "moral conduct" implies "ought") a man choose the objective good for man as a class over the objective good for himself?

"The natural law ethic decrees that for all living things, "goodness" is the fulfillment of what is best for that type of creature; "goodness" is therefore relative to the nature of the creature concerned...In the case of man, the natural-law ethic states that goodness or badness can be determined by what fulfills or thwarts what is best for man's nature" "The natural law, then, elucidates what is best for man -- what ends man should pursue that are most harmonious with, and best tend to fulfill, his nature...

Rothbard defines "goodness" for any given thing as the fulfillment of the nature of that thing.  Again nature is an endogenous tendency of change or rest.  So "fulfillment" occurs when that tendency is allowed to actualize, or "play out".  This descriptive analysis is sound, but in the following Rothbard moves from descriptive to prescriptive.

For in natural-law ethics, ends are demonstrated to be good or bad for man in varying degrees; value here is objective -- determined by the natural law of man's being." "This is the foundation of what we call ethics, or natural law...demonstrating that this or that action tends to man's real happiness, and therefore very justly concluding that the performance of it is a part of the law of nature; or, on the other hand, that this or that action is destruction of man's real happiness, and therefore that the law of nature forbids it."

Here Rothbard slips into the "ought" realm when he brings in the term "natural-law ethics."  Implicit here is that the individual man ought to act in a manner which promotes the fulfillment of the nature of man, in other words, the actualization of the endogenous tendencies of man as a class.  Again WHY a man ought to do so if that manner happens to not promote his own individual ends is not stated.  Moreover, an individual is a member of a great number of classes.  Why should his selfless allegiance be to any one in particular?  If his membership in a class imposes some magical "ought" upon him, why wouldn't he be just as much bound to act in a manner which promotes the fulfillment of the nature of a broader class like "primate", or a narrower class, like "welfare recipient"?

"One common philosophic objection to natural law ethics is that it confuses, or identifies, the realism of fact and value. In answer we may point out that [natural law] identifies value not with existence but rather with the fulfillment of tendencies determined by the structure of the existent entity. Furthermore, it identifies evil not with non-existence but rather with a mode of existence in which natural tendencies are thwarted and deprived of realization."

"Existence is. . . not a property but a structuralized activity. Such activities are a kind of fact. They can be observed and described by judgments that are true or false: human life needs material artifacts; technological endeavors need rational guidance; the child has cognitive faculties that need education. Value statements are founded on the directly verifiable fact of tendency or need. The value or realization is required not merely by us but by the existent tendency for its completion. From a sound description and analysis of the given tendency we can infer the value founded upon it. This is why we do not say that moral principles are mere statements of fact, but rather that they are "founded" on facts."

"Ethics, for man as for any other entity, are determined by investigating verifiable existing tendencies of that entity, [but] why are such principles felt to be binding on me? How do such universal tendencies of human nature become incorporated into a person's subjective value scale? (1) Because 'the factual needs which underlie the whole procedure are common to man. The values founded on them are universal. Hence, if I made no mistake in my tendential analysis of human nature, and if I understand myself, I must exemplify the tendency and must feel it subjectively as an imperative urge to action.' The ethics of natural law...recognizes prescriptive moral laws but asserts that these are founded on tendential facts which may be described.... Goodness...must...be conceived dynamically as an existential mode, the realization of natural tendency. In this view, the world is not made up of determinate structures alone, but of determinate structures in an act of existing which they determine toward further appropriate acts of existing.... No determinate structure can be given existence without determining active tendencies. When such a tendency is fulfilled in accordance with natural law, the entity is said to be in a stable, healthy, or sound condition-adjectives of value. When it is obstructed or distorted, the entity is said to be in an unstable, diseased or unsound condition-adjectives of disvalue. Goodness and badness in their ontological sense are not phases of abstract structure, but rather modes of existence, ways in which the existential tendencies determined by such structures are either fulfilled or barely sustained in a deprived, distorted state."

Here, Rothbard attempts to justify his deriving "ought" from "is": value from fact.  The problem with his justification is that, while the "factual needs" for fulfillment are, loosely speaking, common to all man, they are not so STRICTLY speaking.  Let's say a man needs to rob someone to pay off the mafia, who will otherwise kill him, and that in the course of doing so, the man would likely end up killing his victim.  In that case the factual needs for the fulfillment of the robber/murderer's nature as an individual man (to survive and flourish) directly conflicts with the factual needs of the victim for the fulfillment of his nature (also to survive and flourish), as well as conflicting with the factual needs of the rest of society to flourish, since the crime might engender further crime, through its example, or through back-and-forth retaliations.  But the robber is not himself "the rest of society", so since strictly speaking, the factual needs for natural fulfillment are NOT common, why do some factual needs trump others?

"Professor Hesselberg has shown, however, that Hume, in the course of his own discussions, was compelled to reintroduce a natural law conception into his social philosophy and particularly into his theory of justice, thus illustrating the gibe of Etienne Gilson: 'The natural law always buries its undertakers.' For Hume, in Hesselberg's words, 'recognized and accepted that the social...order is an indispensable prerequisite to man's well-being and happiness: and that this is a statement of fact.' The social order, therefore, must be maintained by man. Hesselberg continues:

But a social order is not possible unless man is able to conceive what it is, and what its advantages are, and also conceive those norms of conduct which are necessary to its establishment and preservation, namely, respect for another's person and for his rightful possessions, which is the substance of justice....But justice is the product of reason, not the passions. And justice is the necessary support of the social order; and the social order is necessary to man's well-being and happiness. If this is so, the norms of justice must control and regulate the passions, and not vice versa.

Hesselberg concludes that 'thus Hume's original 'primacy of the passions' thesis is seen to be utterly untenable for his social and political theory, and . . . he is compelled to reintroduce reason as a cognitive-normative factor in human social relations.' Indeed, in discussing justice and the importance of the rights of private property, Hume was compelled to write that reason can establish such a social ethic: 'nature provides a remedy in the judgment and understanding for what is irregular and uncommodious in the affections' -- in short, reason can be superior to the passions."

I argued against Rothbard's and Hesselberg's critique of Hume's natural law position in my post Morality, Reason, and Passion, in which I wrote:

As discussed and concurred with by Rothbard, A. Kenneth Hesselberg countered that Hume, in his own writings, inconsistently resorts to normative natural law. Hume states that man’s happiness depends on a social order. Hesselberg notes that the way a social order can be attained and preserved can only be found through contemplation of natural law. Therefore, according to Hume’s own theory, concludes Hesselberg and Rothbard, reasoning from natural law is needed for choosing ends. 

While Rothbard is an intellectual hero of mine, I must here differ with him. In Hume’s construction, the social order is a MEANS to the end of human happiness. And, as Rothbard himself states, Hume recognizes the value of natural law in choosing means. And, nowhere in his construction, does Hume ever promote the use of natural law to choose the end of human happiness; it is only promoted for choosing the means of social order. 

The Mises Forum user "hashem" wrote in response to this: "Maybe Rothbard did not "refute" Hume, but he showed that Hume required Natural Law for social order, and social order for man's happiness."

But again, "ought" concerns the individual man.  If the individual man would be himself happier if he actively contributed to social disorder in his own small way, nothing in what Rothbard wrote indicates why he is bound not to do so.

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The Humean-Libertarian Synthesis

So, ultimately I don't think Rothbard's formulation of natural rights ethics stands.  My understanding of human morality is much closer to that of Hume's.  True human morality consists of moral urges.  Moral urges are human ends, and like all human ends they are a product of the passions.  Hume made the case for this position in his Treatise of Human Nature:

Take any action allow’d to be vicious: Wilful murder, for instance. Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existence, which you call vice. In which-ever way you take it, you find only certain passions, motives, volitions and thoughts. There is no other matter of fact in the case. The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object. You never can find it, till you turn your reflexion into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation, which arises in you, towards this action. Here is a matter of fact; but ’tis the object of feeling, not of reason. It lies in yourself, not in the object. So that when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it.

When we assign names to things it is from seeing them as distinct.  So what makes morals distinct from other feelings and other human ends?  What most distinguishes morals is that they are urges which are hardwired into us for the sake of the material well-being of other individuals, even to the detriment of the material well-being of the moral person in question.

If, as Hume and I contend, morality is subjective and arises from the passions, should morality be ignored for being chaotic and irrational?  Should we all be amoral egoists?  Did Hume destroy natural law, and thereby reveal the feet of clay upon which libertarianism stands?  No.  Far from destroying natural law, Hume's conception of morality, correctly understood and carefully improved, puts libertarianism upon a different natural rights conception which provides a much firmer footing than what might be called "extreme moral rationalism" (basing morals on reason alone).

Morality may not be the product of the top-down order present in human reason.  But it is not chaotic.  I believe it is the product of the emergent order present in natural selection.  There is a burgeoning school of thought in evolutionary biology and the cognitive sciences (led by Marc Hauser and Steven Pinker) which contends that morality is not just cultural artifice, but that it is an intrinsic feature of the human mind which evolved over the countless millennia of humans living together.   As I concurred with Rothbard, loosely speaking there ARE factual needs for flourishing which are common to man.  There is an overwhelming general need in the human species for self-restraint and fellow-feeling if it is to flourish.  It only makes sense that this overwhelming general need would mean that familial groups who tend to have certain highly-functional moral feelings would end up prospering and propagating their genes, while familial groups made up of individuals who were constantly killing and plundering each other would have died out.

Economic science teaches us that the MOST highly-functional moral feelings are those concerning ownership (both of one's bodily self and of external objects).  I believe it is no coincidence that we find in experience and in history that these same moral feelings concerning property are, of all moral feelings, the most timeless and universal.  When we take up some unused thing and begin to use it, we automatically think of it as our "ours". We take reflexive affront when our person or our property is aggressed against by others. We feel involuntary outrage when we see the person or property of others aggressed against. And we spontaneously feel guilt when, or at least after, we aggress against the person or property of others.  Of course there are exceptions (as with those suffering from Aspberger's), but these facts are true for the overwhelming preponderance of humanity.  We don't need to be taught to feel revulsion toward murder, plunder, and enslavement; it has been stamped on our hearts by nature.  THAT is what I mean by "natural law": not moral precepts which can be deduced from an understanding of nature, but moral precepts which have arisen out of nature.  And chief among these precepts are the property rights implicit in our natural revulsion toward murder, plunder, and enslavement.  I would go so far as to say that anyone who says they don't feel such revulsion are either impaired or lying.  And the fact that a great many people every day override that revulsion and go ahead and murder, plunder, and enslave anyway is owing to two causes.  First of all, frailty is just as much a part of human nature as morality is.  Moral urges are one kind of urge among many, and sometimes they lose the tug of war over human action.  The second cause is that institution that fosters and feeds upon human frailty: the state.

As I've argued, there is a moral code written in our hearts.  This inherent moral code is only shoved aside when we enter conditions of extremity (known as "lifeboat situations"), in which circumstances have forced the human community to devolve into a war of all against all. In those cases, the involuntary urge for survival overwhelms the involuntary urge for moral behavior, and we therefore cast aside our communal moral feelings for the sake of extreme short-term selfishness. In other words, we allow ourselves “necessary evils”.

The state has deceived the bulk of humanity into believing that society is inherently in constant extremity: a perpetual "lifeboat situation" in which a great many "necessary evils" must be committed by the state, else the "lifeboat" of society will keel over and everybody will drown. This is a lie. Society does not require for its survival, or even for its flowering, that certain men be above natural morality. The acts of murder, plunder, and enslavement committed by the state are not necessary evils.  They're just plain evils; just as much as if you or I committed them as private individuals.  Were this "lifeboat lie" to be exposed, I strongly believe the inherent decency of man would then kick in.  Good men would no longer tolerate (or indulge in) "necessary evils", and evil men would have nowhere to run.

It is the Humean man I see in myself and in others, tinted by the light of Darwin and Mises.  But contra Hume's mild Toryism, it is the Rothbardian society that I think him capable of.

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Related Posts

Natural Morality

Natural Morality: Objections Considered

The Role of the Libertarian Intellectual

Morality, Reason, and Passion

The Sword and the Lie

Natural Morality: Objections Considered

Isn't utilitarian consequentialism, the greatest happiness for the greatest number, more rational than deontological natural ethics?

Why should the outcome of "the greatest happiness for the greatest number", out of infinite others, be the preferred one to any given individual?  A great many people are in situations in which optimal societal utility would mean a sub-optimal personal utility.  Why shouldn't they just continue to lobby for their government subsidies, or continue their reigns in impunity as rapacious Big Men in African "republics"?  Why should THEY follow YOUR ideal?

If social optimization is your end, be aware that your political framework is just as much the product of overcooked philosophizing as any other.  There was a time when that utilitarian-consequentialist worldview, which you may think is just the "natural way of thinking of things", was nothing more than a glimmer in the eye of Jeremy Bentham.  Via John Stuart Mill it subsequently captured the fancy of western academia, from there it permeated the ranks of opinion-molding hacks (journalists and public school teachers), and then became the received wisdom of mainstream thought.  Such is the way a great many unmoored doctrines evolve into "just plain common sense."

Who decides it's wrongful?  Isn't that just a matter of opinion?

Morality is indeed a matter of subjectivity, but not of whim.  Anyone who witnesses a killing over, for example, professional jealousy who doesn't reflexively deem that act as wrong is either rationalizing or has a clinical condition.  Anyone who witnesses a man killing another in retaliation for the rape and killing of his daughter will similarly reflexively deem that act as right.  That gut instinct is ingrained in our psyche.  Since lies within us, it is subjective.  But since it is involuntary and intrinsic, it is also natural and more "true" than any other rationalized system of right and wrong one's reason might come up with.

I just know that for morality to matter, there would need to be a God to enforce it. 

No, for morality to matter, there need only be one's own natural and involuntary sense of right and wrong, and the inner strength to follow it.  Morality wasn't invented by organized religion.  Many precepts of religion are mere reflections of a powerful sense of right and wrong that was written in our hearts long before the idea of a god was stamped in our brains.

I don't rely on my emotions to make all my decisions for me.

Yes you do.  You use your reason to decide the means; but your emotions decide the ultimate ends of all your decisions for you.  How else could it be?  You use your reason to discern "I want A because it will get me B" and "I want B because it will get me C".  But when this process comes down to your ultimate goals, of what use is your reason?  Is your reason going to help you decide, "I want this ultimate goal, because it will get me this other thing"?  Then it's not an ultimate goal.  Like David Hume said, reason is the slave of the passions.  Some passions are less hot than others; but they are passions nonetheless.  I'll take your word for it that you are as conscience-free as you profess (I don't know, maybe you have Aspberger's, like the other moral nihilist I debated here).  But most people do have consciences.  The moral choices those people make are indeed ultimately motivated by a passion.  However, your own striving for "effectiveness" is just as much ultimately motivated by a passion as its ultimate end: a primal urge for self-preservation and self-promotion.

This proves nothing but that people have a psychological tendency to moralize

That these moral urges are the results of an inherent tendency is what makes them natural in the Aristotelean sense.  Therefore, the rights conferred in response to these urges in the minds of the people who feel these urges are natural rights.

These "rights" aren't objectively 'true' or 'binding'.

It is "binding" to those who heed the natural moral urges.  It is not effectively binding to those who do not.  When A says B ought not to brutalize C, of course it's a subjective statement.  Morality, like all values, arises subjectively, but can be objectively observed.  The statement, "B is evil" of course is not true on a universal materialist level.  He is not "evil" to a banana slug or to a lump of coal or to you.  Natural rights are indeed subjective; that does not make them unnatural, non-rights, or unreal.

So this is basically an appeal to emotions .

I am completely aware and completely comfortable with my grounding morality in the emotions.  David Hume, to my mind, proved that morality can only have its ultimate source in primary passions, and not in reason...

“This is the second part of our argument; and if it can be made evident, we may conclude, that morality is not an object of reason. But can there be any difficulty in proving, that vice and virtue are not matters of fact, whose existence we can infer by reason? Take any action allow’d to be vicious: Wilful murder, for instance. Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existence, which you call vice. In which-ever way you take it, you find only certain passions, motives, volitions and thoughts. There is no other matter of fact in the case. The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object. You never can find it, till you turn your reflection into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation, which arises in you, towards this action. Here is a matter of fact; but `tis the object of feeling, not of reason. It lies in yourself, not in the object. So that when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it.”

That morality is grounded in emotion does not make it any less important, real, or natural.  That is because we humans have an inborn tendency toward certain common moral urges.  So I with my natural moral urges can talk meaningfully to another human who, by virtue of being human (and not having Aspberger's), has similar urges.  That is what people without neurological disorders do when they talk to each other about natural rights.

Having a 'moral' sense - a sense that certain things are socially/interpersonally acceptable - is not 'irrational'.  It seems to be a fact of biology.  But the sorts of statements these feelings motivate people to make - saying, for example, "You should not do that" are literally false.  And you can not find coherent fault with someone for rejecting the values which underly the judgement.  Morality literally has no claim on anyone who disagrees with you - and since categorical imperatives are fundamentally impossible, all morality (libertarian or otherwise) at best amounts to fiction or propaganda.

That such statements are subjective does not make them false: in fact it is not even appropriate to ask whether they are true or false, anymore than asking if, "that puppy is cuter than the other one" is objectively true or false.  When most people say, "you should not do that", they basically mean, "I feel that what you're doing is wrong," not "that action is objectively, and somehow cosmically, wrong".  Yes, a good number of libertarians try to make out natural rights to be Kantian categorical imperatives; and I agree with you that they are incorrect in that.  But to dismiss all moral judgments as based on Kantian nonsense is ridiculous.

even though moral feelings are real, they are intrinsically personal feelings among specific people.  And it is simply not plausible to state that all people having a moral feeling must share the same basic principles or conclusions.  Not on sheer logic, and certainly not empirically.  Which means that whatever is wrong with communists consequentially, their moral theory is not any more or less 'true' than the libertarian one.

Almost everybody feels that murder, rape, plunder, and enslavement are wrong: that much is empirically clear.  And each one of those mental concepts entails a sense of property rights.  Those who participate in or support murder, rape, plunder, and enslavement either are abnormal or bury those feelings for the sake of their own aggrandizement.  Communists fit the latter category.

Values entailing some sense of liberty, property, equality, fairness are basically normal among human beings, but their proportions and entailments vary greatly.  And you can not rationally call this 'wrong' - a freakish idolatry of property or equality is not implied by having an intrinsic sense that these values are valuable.

Yes, I can, because "wrong" is subjective.  I am sincerely and spontaneously outraged when I think about seizures of property.  Therefore, I say that it is wrong.  A communist may say the same about me holding private property.  But I strongly suspect he would be posturing when doing so.  Revulsion toward plunder is natural and near-universal.  Revulsion toward private property is neither, and is generally only to  be found among the theory class who would personally benefit from their theories taking hold.

Also, notice that almost everybody feels that murder in the name of 'your country' is thoroughly legitimate...so maybe it is ?

Humans shove aside their moral code when in situations of extremity ("lifeboat situations"): this is not proof that the moral code does not exist, only that people will act immorally (commit "necessary evils") in conditions of extremity.

And almost everybody feels killing innocents in war is a necessary evil.  This is one of the innumerable examples of the state having convinced most of humanity (through public school and mainstream media indoctrination) that society is in a perpetual "lifeboat situation" in which a great many "necessary evils" must be committed by the state, else the "lifeboat" of society will keel over and everybody will drown.  This is a lie.  More consistent adherence to morality would emerge should this lie be exposed.

 

Effectiveness is not a question of passions.  It is a question of "what is ultimately going to happen here and is this in my interest?" 

How do you ultimately arrive at what is in your interest?  What decides the end, the progress toward which is your very metric of effectiveness?  Is it reason?  Again, reason can have nothing to say about ultimate ends.  If your ultimate interest, the progress toward which you use as your metric of effectiveness, is self-preservation, then it is your passions that dictated that.  You're psyche didn't conclude with reasoning, "My ultimate interest is self-preservation, BECAUSE of X."  That would be a contradiction, since the "because of X" implies that "X" is your ultimate interest.  You still seem to think that only hot passions qualify as passions.  Passions are the unreasoned ultimate ends which, of logical necessity, MUST be the motivation of every reasoning act we do.

You say in another post that you would strangle another man if you reasoned that was necessary for your interest.  And I'm sure you would do so with calm deliberation.  But let's follow the causal path of your motivation:  you kill A, because if you don't he might kill you.  That part uses reason.  It is imperative that you not let him kill you, because that would mean your death.  That part uses reason.  You don't want to die, because that would mean oblivion.  That part uses reason.  You don't want oblivion because...  because why?  No "because".  You just DON'T.  That part of you that determines "avoidance of oblivion" as your ultimate end is not reason, since there's no "because" or "therefore" involved.  That part is a passion: an unrationalized primal urge.

 

 

But why make a primal urge like morals and emotions the foundation of your personal philosophy?  Why not make it the higher level of dispassionate reasoning only humans are capable of.

I'm interested in what's true about human nature, not inventing personal philosophies that please me.

 

Just because my reasoning at some level is based on an instinct does not mean I'm better off not reasoning at all.

I'm not advocating rampant impulsiveness.  Your confusing the distinction between passion and reason with the distinction between low time preference and high time preference (which you'll learn about in your forthcoming AE studies).  The cool-headed long-term investor is no less ultimately impelled by his passions than the spendthrift hedonist.  The difference is that the former is impelled more strongly by urges to provide for the future: but it is still an urge that impels him.  Longer-term investment generally necessitates longer chains of reasoning.  But that does NOT mean he reasons for the sake of reasoning.  His reasoning is still motivated entirely by his passions: those passions just have longer-term objects.

 

It's only because I try to reason things out that I'm able to control myself.

What might keep you from stealing candy from a baby?  "Reasoning things out"?  How does that come about?  You feel an urge to snatch the candy.  But then you reason, "If I do so, I (a) might be struck by the mother's purse, (b) be seen by my colleagues who will then ostracize me, or (c) be pestered by one of those pesty irrational feelings of guilt that I haven't quite purged yet."  Those are statements of fact which your reasoning power is able to glean.  But ultimately why do you refrain from candy-theft in response to them?  If (a) does the trick, ultimately that stems from an unreasoned urge for self-preservation.  If (b), ultimately that stems from an unreasoned urge for self-promotion.  If (c), ultimately that stems from an unreasoned urge for doing right by others.

Self-restraint, like all acts (whether of commission or omission), may utilize reason, but they are ultimately impelled by the passions.

 

 

 

Natural Morality

 

Let us say you witness a little girl being brutalized in a dark alley.  Something within you would cry out that that is wrong.  You wouldn't deduce from premises that  it is wrong.  You would just feel it.  An urge would well up inside you to do something about it, even if such action would considerably risk your life and limb.  For example, you might feel a powerful urge to call for help, even though this might raise a small chance that the brutalizer would hear you and try to violently silence you.  That urge is not rationally egoistic.  Helping the little girl would not "serve you"; it would endanger you.  Yet the urge to do so would be there, nonetheless.  That is morality.  What aspect of the brutalizer's assault would engender such a potentially self-sacrificing urge?  It is not that in a society in which such violence is done with impunity, you yourself or someone who benefits you might end up being harmed.  It is a primary urge that cries out, without any argumentative grounding, "it is wrong for him to do that to her body."  That natural, internal moral imperative is what I call a property right: the inherent "ought" that lies with all of us regarding what, for example, a little girl can do with her body, and what other people can't.

Of course, property rights don't exist as ghostly connections between a human and an object.  They are not "natural" in the sense that they are a material body or force.  They are natural in that they are not artificial or customary.  The same basic principle goes for property outside of one's body.

Were you to watch a sculptor, who saved up and bought his own materials, painstaking make a beautiful bust of an Olympian god over the course of several days, and then see another man come up, shove the sculptor aside, and run off with the bust, something inside you would say, "that was FUCKED up."  You would feel a strong desire to see the bust returned to the sculptor.  In that urge is implied the notion that the sculptor was the bust's rightful owner.  Again, the property right resides within your psyche, as it would within most anyone who witnessed such an act.

SIDE NOTE: Now obviously these moral urges would not be as strong, if existent at all, within the brutalizer and the thief.  They either ignore or sufficiently quiet those moral urges (in which case they are immoral, compared to the general tendency of mankind), are overwhelmed by countervailing passions (in which case they are disturbed, compared to the general tendency of mankind), or are pathologically devoid of empathy (in which case they are amoral and psychotic, compared to the general tendency of mankind).

All such instances (and any honest reflection on what one's own feelings would be in such situations) offer a surfeit of evidence of a moral code, written in our nature.

Natural Morality: Objections Considered

The Watchmen: Moral Philosophy Face-Off

Stories featuring super-heroes, like the ancient myths featuring gods, can be an excellent medium for exploring broad issues through allegory. The super-human characters can personify competing ideologies and forces. The movie Watchmen, as well as the comic book by Alan Moore which it was based on, is a superb example of this. I will explore some of the competing ideologies portrayed in the film as a conflict between the characters who are the chief representatives of those ideologies.

Comedian vs. Nite Owl: Nihilism vs. Belief in Good

Nite Owl wants to be a hero’s hero. He believes in the American dream: doing good in the world, and establishing peace through justice. When he sees his attempt to quell a riot descend into a savage beating of the rioters by the Comedian, he wonders aloud what happened to the American dream. The Comedian responds that, what happened was that it came true, and that he’s looking at it. The Comedian derives his name from his “realization” that the story of humanity was one long joke. When Ozymandias professes his ambition to save the world, the Comedian scoffs. He proclaims that humans have been trying to kill each other off from the beginning, and that now that they had nuclear weapons, they had the means to “finish the job.” For the Comedian, the inevitable nuclear armageddon was going to be the punchline of the joke that is humanity. The “humor” which pervades the joke is that, for all their moral pretenses, in the Comedian’s mind, humans are thus basically savages. He seems to use this “insight” as justification for his own misdeeds: murder, attempted rape, etc.

To my mind, Nite Owl is right to be concerned with justice; but he is wrong to put his faith in the American way, or the “way” of any;state, which, by its nature is antithetical to justice. As for the Comedian’s philosophy, while it is true that many humans throughout history have been murderous, that by no means defines us. We can rise above our self-destructive tendencies. We might not. We may destroy ourselves in the end. But it would be irrational and pointless to assume that we will and resign ourselves to our fate. And it makes to sense to use lapses in morality as evidence for the non-existence of the very morality it is a lapse of.

Silk Spectre vs. Dr. Manhattan: Anthrocentrism vs. “Scientific” Humility

When the Silk Spectre tries to convince Dr. Manhattan to save the world from nuclear annihilation, he responds that he feels no need for that. He uses the example of Mars (on which the conversation takes place) to argue that humanity bears no special importance. He notes that Mars does perfectly well without life. Why should not the Earth? Dr. Manhattan finds the subtleties he can see in the fabric of the universe far more interesting than the petty squabbles of humans. When confronted with the possibility that he may have led to the death of one of his former friends, he notes with “scientific” detachment that a dead body has exactly as many atoms as a living one.

We can see this “scientific” detachment in many people today. It is a banal habit of scientists and science enthusiasts to muse on how brief and boring is human history when compared to the history of the earth and the universe entire; and how tiny and “meaningless” our little lives on our little orb is when compared to the vastness of the cosmos. Such self-indulgent idleness even gets book length treatment, as in Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us, in which the author speculates about how the earth would quickly “recover” from humanity like a bad flu, should we go extinct. This kind of self-conscious anti-anthrocentrism is a key undercurrent for the environmental movement, which in its most benign public faces only seeks to preserve nature for the sake of preserving a home for humankind, but which, under the surface contains a virulently anti-human Gaiaism which goes so far as to think of humanity as a disease afflicting the earth.

All this is pure nonsense. Humans who eschew anthrocentrism are only (A.) putting on airs to gain kudos as novel and interestingly iconoclastic thinkers (B.) furthering their own careers by fostering a false morality which will promote their own organizations and professions or (C.) both. We as humans have no inherent tendency to espouse non-sentient nature for its own sake. Any such useless moral code would have long ago been cast aside by Darwinian forces. It makes no sense to attach greater “meaning” to things like stars and galaxies, simply due to their greater size, age, or complexity in comparison to us mortals. “Meaning” itself is a purely subjective and rational concept; and as such, it can only be honestly given to the subjective concerns of rational beings. It makes no sense to say that a universe or a planet without rational beings has “meaning”. Meaning to whom? To what?

Rorschach vs. Ozymandias: Deontology vs. Utilitarianism

Ozymandias, at the end of Watchmen, kills millions to “save billions”. This is an excellently illustrative case of utilitarian ethics. Outright mass murder can be justified, if the “utility balance” is greater than it would have been otherwise. In the movie, Ozymandias’ plan seems to work, and global peace does seem to be in the offing. But of course this is a work of fiction. Unfortunately killing millions to purportedly save billions is a very real world concern in that America has been doing this for a whole century. Utilitarian ethics has always been a chief justification for war. The problem is that our political leaders are not perfect geniuses like the fictional Ozymandias. Indeed no man is. So, even if you accept utilitarian ethics, we have no way of knowing if our military ventures are actually resulting in greater utility than would have a peaceful foreign policy. Rorschach embodies the very opposite of utilitarianism. For Rorschach, morality is act-based, not consequence-based. If he kills a man, it is not to work toward maximizing global utility, it is to enact justice. To Rorschach, Ozymandias’ mass murder is not a necessary evil; it is simply evil.

Utilitarianism is bankrupt; it is nothing more than a toy model for moral philosophers, and a powerful tool for the elite. Who is to say “maximal utility” is the “best” goal, and why? What justification is there for it? As I argue elsewhere, David Hume was right in pointing out that it makes no sense to “reason” a morality into existence. Moral principles are either in us emotionally or are not. “Maximal utility”, needles to say, is not a natural moral end to be found in the human psyche. The moral precepts of “don’t murder,” and “it is justified to kill those who murder innocents” are to be found naturally residing within us, however. According to Wikipedia, Jackie Earle Haley, the actor portraying Rorschach in the movie, “‘almost went nuts’” trying to reconcile his understanding of complex human behavior with Rorschach’s moral absolutism, stating the character made him wonder if people generally just make excuses for their bad actions.” People in government and in the voting booth who use utilitarianism to justify murder, theft, and enslavement are doing just that.

Morality, Reason, and Passion

Edwin Patterson, as quoted by Murray Rothbard, defines natural law as:

“Principles of human conduct that are discoverable by “reason” from the basic inclinations of human nature, and that are absolute, immutable and of universal validity for all times and places. This is the basic conception of scholastic natural law . . . and most natural law philosophers.”¹

The word “principles” here might mean descriptive truths: for example that, “if you financially support your son into adulthood, then he will likely become lazy”; or that, “the best way to feed the world is through free markets.” This may be termed “positive natural law.” “Principles” could also mean moral principles:, whether it is simply wrong to let your son become lazy or to let people go hungry. Call this “normative natural law”. 

Individuals, then, would use positive natural law to rationally choose the best means to an end. Normative natural law would be used to rationally choose the ends themselves. 

Does normative natural law exist? 
Few doubt the truth of there being such a thing as positive natural law. Skepticism of normative natural law, however, goes back to the cultural relativism of the Ancient Greek sophists. The skeptic who is supposed to have buried normative natural law is that king of skeptics, David Hume. According to Hume, reasoning from natural law can only be used to choose practical means, and that moral ends are only chosen via emotions. 

“This is the second part of our argument; and if it can be made evident, we may conclude, that morality is not an object of reason. But can there be any difficulty in proving, that vice and virtue are not matters of fact, whose existence we can infer by reason? Take any action allow’d to be vicious: Wilful murder, for instance. Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existence, which you call vice. In which-ever way you take it, you find only certain passions, motives, volitions and thoughts. There is no other matter of fact in the case. The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object. You never can find it, till you turn your reflection into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation, which arises in you, towards this action. Here is a matter of fact; but `tis the object of feeling, not of reason. It lies in yourself, not in the object. So that when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it.”²

As discussed and concurred with by Rothbard, A. Kenneth Hesselberg countered that Hume, in his own writings, inconsistently resorts to normative natural law. Hume states that man’s happiness depends on a social order. Hesselberg notes that the way a social order can be attained and preserved can only be found through contemplation of natural law. Therefore, according to Hume’s own theory, concludes Hesselberg and Rothbard, reasoning from natural law is needed for choosing ends. 

While Rothbard is my intellectual hero, I must here differ with him. In Hume’s construction, the social order is a means to the end of human happiness. And, as Rothbard himself states, Hume recognizes the value of natural law in choosing means. And, nowhere in his construction, does Hume ever promote the use of natural law to choose the end of human happiness; it is only promoted for choosing the means of social order. 

The establishment of moral axioms through reason alone also suffers from the problem of “progress ad infinitum“. A moral stance can be justified by another moral stance, which in turn is justified by yet another, and so on. Eventually there must be a principle of “unjustified justice” –a moral equivalent of Agrippa the Skeptic’s “unreasoned reason” and Aristotle’s “unmoved mover”–, and that can only be established by our emotions. 

So I don’t subscribe to Rothbard’s “reason-only” conception of normative natural law. We can’t be said to rationally choose our moral ends. But neither am I convinced by Hume that there is no such thing as natural morality. I believe there are certain emotionally-based moral feelings which all men have in common, and which are hard-wired in our nature. These include, among others, promotion of our genetic posterity, individual self-interest, respect for property, and fellow feeling. Such natural morality can be termed “law” by virtue of their being universal and constant, if not for being discoverable by reason. 

¹Murray N. Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty, Chapter 2: Natural Law as “Science”
²David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, Book 3: Of Morals