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.

--

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.

--

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

[pbrane.livejournal.com]

So, I've always wondered where the hell the basis for "property" comes in as a basic tenet, from "natural law" or wherever - that axiom doesn't seem so self-apparent as "life" and "liberty". Both the concepts of money and property are fully societally defined constructs, and there has been variation across culture as to what they mean, and even whether they are valid concepts at all. I'll buy (no pun intended) that it can serve a useful purpose, but whether it should be enshrined as a Fundamental Axiom of a political system is pretty much up for debate in my book.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

It could be said that Life, Liberty and Private Property (better known as just "Property") derive from the principle of non-aggression. I will agree that property is the shakier of the three.

This issue can be explored by asking yourself:

* in what cases, do you feel it's non-agressive to use something? When is it possible to infringe on somebody else's property (by any definition), yet you believe that the infringement is a non-aggressive act?
I, for example, would include intellectual property, and some kinds of land property here. I wouldn't believe it an aggressive act to trespass on somebody's land if they weren't using it, especially if this was a beach or a similar kind of thing. But I don't really have clear criteria.

The fact that the notion of property varies across cultures does indeed suggest that maybe there is no "right" definition of property.

But here are some reasons to have property (they apply to different kinds of property):

Property:
* is the fruit of your work, and you are entitled to own what you produced. Human nature is such that humans claim to own what they make.
* is economically justified by tragedies of the commons.

Many left-anarchists and other critics of property believe that property leads to exploitation through control of the scarce good. Yet, goods are really only scarce in a very few cases. (see Julian Simon)

My conclusion is that libertarianism doesn't have a clear-cut concept of property. Yet, including this fuzzy concept as one of the core principles guarantees that the philosophy won't be misinterpreted as some kind of "left-anarchy", which is, I believe, inconsistent with human nature. As a wise man once said, "to understand why a philosopher says something, you need to know who he is arguing against."

P.S.: I am totally talking out of my ass.

P.P.S.: I'm kinda all over the place, so please let me know if I addressed your point.