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Wednesday, March 09, 2005
The Calculus Of Freedom
Your Curmudgeon received quite a lot of E-mail after posting this tirade. Most of it was moderately to strongly in agreement, but a couple of letters were dismissive or condemnatory. Their unifying theme was: Things are working okay now, so by what right or standard should we concede any respect to the libertarian thesis that lots of things are out of kilter and require the swiftest possible correction?
There was one writer who took your Curmudgeon to task for his reliance on rights, which, according to this gentleman, don't actually exist:
You harp on "rights" as if you actually know what you're talking about, but I defy you to point to one and drag it out in front of God and everybody. Anyone can claim that this or that thing they want is a "right." Isn't that exactly the counter you're always flinging at socialists and special interests?
Let it never be said that your Curmudgeon doesn't take a challenge like that seriously. Indeed, it's the only kind of challenge that has any real bearing on any of the fundamental questions of governance.
1. Objectives And Constraints.
Government is often viewed as entirely a practical affair, but whether or not government -- the organized, legitimized use of coercive force by an institution chartered for that purpose -- must live under constraints of any kind is an entirely theoretical one. The key to the entire subject is a four-letter word: work.
Every human activity of any kind exists within an envelope composed of two different things:
- Objectives,
- Constraints.
One's objectives are the things he wishes to achieve, acquire, or prevent. One's constraints are the things he may not or must not do along the way, for whatever reasons. Certain constraints -- the laws of the physical universe -- apply to all men at all times. Others are contextual, or identity-related; for example, in a regime that recognizes property rights, Smith would be constrained from pursuing any of his objectives by making free with Jones's property.
2. Theoretical Bases For Government.
A government, being a human institution, must rest upon one of only three kinds of basis for its existence and its operation:
- Hobbesian absolutism ("Princes are gods") denies that the State, however organized, need suffer any constraint whatsoever.
- Benthamite utilitarianism argues that constraints on the State are temporal and topical, and may be set aside without qualm when they impede "the greatest good for the greatest number."
- Lockean natural-rights theory holds that the State must remain within those constraints arising from rights that individual men possess by nature -- that when it violates those constraints, then, regardless of its intentions or effects, the State has become criminal and must suffer to be judged.
Gentle Reader, you could struggle and strain for the rest of your life without elucidating a theory of legitimate government that differs in substance from all three of the above. There simply aren't any.
3. Attitudes Toward Rights.
Now, in practice, the State, which invariably possesses the preponderance of coercive force in a society, can do whatever it can get away with -- the very basis for most arguments to the effect that rights don't really exist. But the consequences of unbridled State action are historically well documented, and very negative. If we go by the Robert Pirsig approach to the existence of abstractions -- that an entirely abstract entity, which cannot be pointed to or fondled by any man, may nevertheless be said to exist if its removal from the world would cause perceptible changes -- then there is no question that rights exist. Quoth Louis Thiers:
Either rights exist, or they do not exist. If they exist, they involve absolute consequences...Furthermore, if a right exists, it exists at every moment. It is absolute today, yesterday, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, in summer as in winter, not when it pleases you to declare it in force.
Indeed, the concept of rights underpins every other concept in political thought, including the proposals and arguments of absolutists and utilitarians.
When we speak of rights in practical terms, we must concede that an individual's rights can be, and often are, violated by one or another organ of the State, and that there's frequently little the violated party can do about it. As Kevin Baker and others have said quite plainly, whatever our rights are in theory, in practice they're limited to what we can assert and defend by force -- a space which is bounded by what State actions our society will countenance, or at least passively tolerate.
Still, that doesn't change the fundamental questions. Do societies that recognize rights as a category of constraints on State action function differently from those that don't? What are the differences? If we judge entirely on the consequences, which sort of society would we prefer?
4. The Dismissal Of Absolutism.
Hobbesian absolutism took as its premise that in the absence of a State, men would be engaged in "a war of each against all." He proceeded from there to propose that if the State were capable of suppressing that war, then it must perforce be so powerful that no other entity would be able to limit it. So as a "practical" matter, the State must be beyond constraint by lesser entities.
Mankind has known many such States. Some still exist today. They run roughshod over their subjects, who have no rights at all that they can defend by word or deed. Their sole concern is over the possibility that other States will bring them down through war or subterfuge.
Most men are minded to reject absolutism both from a rights perspective and from a consequences perspective. The individual rebels automatically against the assertion that his life belongs to anyone but himself. Our inborn model for interactions between men, and between men and governments, holds that the rights of an innocent man to his life are absolute and inalienable. That premise, all by itself, destroys governmental absolutism as a defensible basis for the State. That's not to say that it's no longer asserted by some, only that it cannot be defended theoretically without rejecting any and all rights to life.
5. The Refutation Of Utilitarianism.
Utilitarianism attempts to supplant the concept of rights, which Bentham and his followers deemed too abstract, with the concept of collective utility: "the greatest good for the greatest number." In this formulation, the actions of the State could and should be justified entirely on the basis of the results they achieve, or, alternately, how well they "work." Utilitarianism was prominent in the thinking of early American socialists such as Edward Bellamy, Herbert Croly, and Charles Sanders Peirce.
But collective utility presupposes many things:
- Defensible concepts of "good" and "better" that can be applied to collectives;
- Accuracy in the formulation of policy to achieve what's deemed as "good" or "better,"
- Continuity of policy, once formulated, until the sought for "good" or "better" has been achieved,
- The moral defensibility of policies formulated "in good faith" even after they've failed.
All four of these suppositions are provably unsound, usually by their own internal logic.
If "good" and "better" are applicable to a collective, then by implication individual choice by any member of the collective must be irrelevant, perhaps even invalid. Yet decisions about "good" and "better" must be made somehow, whether by majority vote or by some designated planner or planners. In the first case, collective utility comes up hard against the ephemeral nature of the collective: it has no enduring identity. Its component individuals will change over time, by death, procreation, association or disassociation, which can easily lead to changes in the majority's verdicts about "good" and "better." But if the collective's decisions can change in such a fashion, with no "upper limit" on how fast they can change, under what circumstances, or in response to what developments, then how seriously can we take the concept of collective "good"?
In the second case, where designated planners decide on "good" and "better" for the collective, the utilitarians have reintroduced individual choice. The sole difference here is that some individuals are deciding on "good" and "better" for many others, rather than each man deciding for himself.
It is obvious that many a State policy formulated to bring about some well-conceived end has failed to do so. Sometimes the failure was inherent in the policy conception; sometimes it was the result of discontinuity in administration or application. What matters is that the result upon which the policy was founded was not achieved. How, then, shall we defend, morally or practically, the imposition of collective decision-making that overrode individuals' claims to rightful autonomy, when the very good they were promised in exchange for their rights has failed to materialize? Shall we make restitution to those who were deprived of their lives, liberties, or properties in service to the unachieved goal? If so, what becomes of collective utility's conceptual superiority to individual rights? If not, why should individuals agree to submit to the usurpation of their rights, however conceived, in the first place?
It becomes clear from such simple analyses that utilitarianism in theory reduces to absolutism in practice.
6. Determining Rights And Securing Them.
Among the conceptual bases for a political order, natural-rights libertarianism is the "last man standing." If it is wrong, then all theory has failed, and there can be nothing but rule by the strongest until he fades and is pulled down by another. But is it wrong?
Proponents of natural individual rights have overextended their claims in many cases. Individual rights cannot cope with those situations in which we must act, or interact, as collectives; war and foreign policy are the most obvious examples. Nor can individual rights cope with clashing, seemingly valid assertions of rights, as arise in the perennially difficult case of abortion. Finally for our purposes here, individual rights are insufficient for the analysis of those cases where the individual is incapable of wielding them on his own: children, the mentally unsound, and those under some constraint that thwarts rational decision-making, such as coercion by a kidnapper. However, in those situations where men can and do deal with one another as individuals, individual rights and their scrupulous observance are a sound guide to right action. "We" might not always "get what we want" by respecting them, but we may be sure that we have observed the first principle of both medicine and politics: First, do no harm.
It is inevitable that the exact scope of individuals' rights will be argued over for many years, possibly down the whole history of Man. Theorists can only do so much. But the failure of all other approaches to governance leaves us with no alternative but to have the argument and take the underlying concept seriously.
In yesterday's disassembly of Robert Locke's column, your Curmudgeon noted that the following statement revealed Locke's incomprehension of his subject matter:
There is no need to embrace outright libertarianism just because we want a healthy portion of freedom, and the alternative to libertarianism is not the USSR, it is America’s traditional liberties.
What are those "liberties," and on what basis are they recognized?
- It cannot be from an absolutist standpoint, because an absolutist is required by his premises to reject all claims by anyone that his actions ought to be guaranteed against State interference.
- It cannot be from a utilitarian standpoint, because an inviolable liberty -- really just another word for a right -- might thwart some sincerely conceived policy toward the "greatest good for the greatest number."
- If it's from a natural-rights standpoint, then we must presuppose the existence of the category of claims called rights, and further ask: What claims qualify for inclusion in this category, and why?
...and the Robert Lockes of the world, infinitely dismissive of this broad, compelling calculus of freedom, are thereby forced from the table by their own hands. For them, only certain rights are admissible. Others whose exercise or consequences displease them must be excluded, even though, once rights are studied as a category, it becomes clear that those displeasing others have just as valid a claim.
And among those of us willing to concede our fallibility and talk seriously about Mankind's most serious subject, the discussion will continue.
Comments
Excellent post, mr. Porretto. A good read makes my tea taste better in the morning. I expecially enjoyed your analysis of utilitarian government philosophy. This should come in handy when dealing with the west-coast college set.
Posted by on 03/09/2005 at 12:18 PMCan a natural rights argument survive without being built on a religious superstructure (and in particular Christian)? I don’t believe that it can but I’m certainly ready to see arguments to the contrary.
Posted by Dave Schuler on 03/09/2005 at 01:02 PMMr. Schuler,
I believe that such an argument can be made. But it will be in some sense less solid than the religious version, simply because at the end of the day you can’t stop and say “it’s just the right thing to do.” You have to choose a good of overriding importance, and then show that the adoption of a natural rights framework would maximize it. My favorite such good is the survival of the society in a competitive world.
The reason why this works is because we know both empirically and theoretically why a regime bound by natural rights doctrine creates a society with a maximally efficient (and thus over time larger and more dynamic) economy. We also know that the technical skill of a society is proportionate to the size of the economy. We know this because an efficient economy grows much faster than the population of that economy, and from economics only increases in technology can yield this result over the long run. Finally, we know that the military power of a society is proportionate to the technical skill of that society. A glance through any history book should be sufficient to prove this proposition.
After all of that, we have shown (albeit in a cursory fashion) that a society whose government respects the natural rights argument will have a larger economy and a stronger military than one which does not. So, allowing a certain amount of time to pursue these enlightened policies, the society will be physically powerful enough to ensure that the cost of invading and overthrowing it will be as high as possible; giving it the best chance of survival in the Hobbesian world of international politics.
To the extent that you believe the above argument, it’s a case of doing well by doing good. But it only works if you accept that a society ought to be maximizing its chances for survival, just like the traditional argument only works if you grant a God that gives rights to individuals.
Posted by on 03/09/2005 at 01:44 PMYou have to choose a good of overriding importance, and then show that the adoption of a natural rights framework would maximize it.
That’s building a natural rights case on top of a utilititarian base. That leaves you with both the weaknesses of utilitarianism that Our Curmudgeon has already pointed and the weaknesses of the natural rights position (mostly epistemiological). Utilitarianism has a similar problem: a potential weakness of “the greatest good for the greatest good” formulations is how do you know? At any rate such a position is certainly not very robust. How many generations could such a house of cards endure?
Posted by Dave Schuler on 03/09/2005 at 04:03 PMMr. Schuler,
It’s utilitarian, after a fashion, but it doesn’t suffer from the weaknesses of the general form of utilitarianism our Curmudgeon laid out above. See, the beauty of survival as a value is that it can be measured objectively. Anyone can look at the government and determine whether or not it is still standing, for instance. This blunts the charge that some individuals are charged with determining the good to be sought in a utilitarian fashion, because the one good that is to be sought is drilled into the social contract at the axiomatic level. Once the system has bootstrapped itself into operation (we have granted the premise that a natural rights order is the best guarantor of societal survival), then you don’t have the other weaknesses of utilitarianism because it is functionally a natural rights system.
The danger, of course, is that an underlying utilitarian justification for absolute rights makes each such right vulnerable to attack on utilitarian grounds. But as far as I can tell, the same is true if the underlying structure is the Founders’ God. Such attacks can only be repulsed by a certain faith in the underlying efficacy of the structure.
You ask, not without reason, how many generations such a formulation could last. I admit to not knowing. But what I do know is that the straight natural rights system lasted about six, and I reckon that its prospects for recovery are quite slim. It collapsed most completely when the prop of orthodox religious faith was kicked out from under it. It has been replaced with a functionally utilitarian system that is more compatible with our secular age. The advantage of a utilitarian-based justification for natural rights is that in this atmosphere or religious skepticism it is *more* robust than the straight supernatural one, because it can persist now that the old faith has died.
Posted by on 03/09/2005 at 04:40 PM
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