Utilitarianism

[gusl]

All prescriptive science must be utilitarian. When one says that a particular political system is good, it must mean "good for one or more individuals". Utilitarianism doesn't have to be the democratic kind: a perfectly selfish individual can be utilitarian: it just means that he lives by "cost vs benefits", as opposed to some higher principles. (any philosopher readers, please review this post.)

Since it rejects all would-be "higher" principles, I suppose it is a bit un-idealistic to be utilitarian, but it is, in my opinion, a necessary step of reasonableness.

Alright, now that I'm a utilitarian, let me ask two questions:

What is the status of non-utilitarian arguments for or against a particular system, such as natural law arguments for libertarianism?

I've always been fond of the natural rights derivation of libertarianism, so when I find myself using utilitarian arguments, I think an explanation is called for. But there really is no puzzle: the principles of life, liberty and property are like axioms in a formal system (high-utility principles); the philosophy of libertarianism that follows is the consequence (a high-utility philosophy). The rights-theory leads to the axiomatic approach, while a recognition of the imperfection of axioms (as in science) leads to the utilitarian approach.

So I am fundamentally a utilitarian, while appreciating the value of the rights-theory approach, just like scientists appreciate mathematics. I think that makes me a sort of compatibilist on this issue (I always try to convince people that they really agree with each other, despite apparent disagreements).
Liberalism: Rights-Theory vs Utilitarianism.

There is a problem, though: the utility of the principles of liberalism depends on the definition of utility, i.e. whose utility? (which leads to the next question).

( I was inspired by Joel's thread )



Is there a good non-social-Darwinist (i.e. "in a free market, people who are poor deserve to be poor") reply to criticisms of libertarianism for being bad for the poor (as opposed to a mildly socialistic society)? I don't mean the average poor person: suppose I'm talking about the bottom 10% of America.

but this I can't answer.

Comments

[candid.livejournal.com]

Many of my views on this were shaped by The Machinery of Freedom, which you've probably read, and which you should if you haven't.

Is there a good non-social-Darwinist (i.e. "in a free market, people who are poor deserve to be poor") reply to criticisms of libertarianism for being bad for the poor (as opposed to a mildly socialistic society)?

Once you go whole-hog "utilitarian," most libertarian ideas are justified by "government program X causes more problems than it solves." It's easy (if perhaps a bit callous) to use this reasoning on social welfare programs.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the book recommendation.

But depending on the utility function (i.e. for whom, cui bono), perhaps libertartarianism isn't optimal.

If we democratically take into account most individuals of a society, then I tend to agree that welfare programs (in their current form) cause more problems than they solve.
But if your metric for a society is how the poorest people live (which many consider to be a reasonable measure (notably Dostoyevsky)), I tend to believe that libertarianism is not nearly optimal.

Perhaps we should find the lowest percentage p for which we can say: for the bottom p of society, this system is close to optimal.

[candid.livejournal.com]

I agree that libertarian is probably suboptimal under a "minimax" criterion like "make the worst-off person as well-off as possible."

And, in fact, probably under any formulation of utilitarianism, some libertarian prescriptions will turn out to be sub-optimal. I don't think this is really a problem unless you treat libertarianism as dogma, which I don't.

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I guess my view boils down to the following:

* it's simply not possible (for both philosophical and practical reasons) to figure out whether any given activity is "efficient", so
* you need some sort of overarching philosophy about how society should work, and
* libertarianism is the philosophy which is most consonant with my economic views.

That doesn't mean I blindly support every tenet of libertarianism; it means that I consider them sensible defaults.

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Go here and read Chapters 41, 42, and 43.