>Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 09:28:27 -0600 (CST) >From: Tibor R Machan On One Case for the Polity of Liberty: A Summary Tibor R. Machan There has been a dispute in some circles concerned with the libertarian approach to politics about whether the right to (negative) liberty is an intrinsically or an instrumentally good thing (principle, policy guideline or basic law to be implemented within a human community). Put another way, the issue may be whether those interested in this topic ought to seek the answer by way of empirical research on the consequences that would follow from the full protection of that right or are there perhaps some others concerns besides consequences that ought to be considered in reaching an answer. What follows are some summary reflections on this issue. I wish to propose that autonomy or the possibility for choice or initiated conduct is not so much an intrinsic value but a precondition to the achievement of values and such an achievement is what constitutes personal, moral worth. That people - who have the capacity to choose to do so - refrain from interfering with the life, conduct and belongings of one another is, in other words, a prerequisite for everyone's making the choice, taking or not taking the initiative, to achieve their suitable goals, moral and other objectives, the success or failure of which endeavor will matter to them greatly as human beings who are uiquely moral agents. Now, clearly even if such sovereignty is secure, there is still going to be no assurance that the choice or initiated conduct will achieve the right values - many folks miss the chance for that by chosing bad things, destroying instead of creating; but the preconditions are needed in a social framework so as to be able to distinguish between one person's versus another person's achievement versus failure. If a community is to be hospitable to beings, creatures, that have the capacity and ought to (but could also fail to) achieve what is of value to them, those conditions that make for this hospitability would be political but not ethical values for people. These, however, might not be justified entirely by reference to the good things that their establishment or maintenance will lead to (consequences) because if those who live within such a system fail to achieve good things on their own initiative, the only good consequence of these conditions is the opportunity for people to achieve good ends, not necessarily the actual achievements of those ends. Indeed, at any particular moment or span of time it is even possible that a system of principles that isn't hospitable to people making their own, autonomous choices (which does not mean: choices made all alone, atomistically) to achieve or fail to achieve good results can produce better results than what free individuals would achieve, if these free individuals choose, on their own not to achieve values, to act self-destructively, etc. Sometimes coercive actions will drive folks to reach valuable results - the autobahn was built that way, TVA, etc. No one can deny that sometimes coercion leads to values that might not have been chosen to be achieved by free citizens and nothing better might be produced without the coercion. But is it not quite arguable, as I have tried to argue, that the "price" of robbing folks of this choice - which in turn means eliminating the possibility of their achieving values on their own initiative and creating self-worth - is very high, indeed, intolerably high (except perhaps in very extraordinary circumstances, such as in a state of siege or the kind J. S. Mill used to make the point, namely when one coerces someone so as to save his life from imminent destruction)? It is for these reasons - which I think are arguable even if not fully worked out in every instance of mentioning them - that the strictly consequentialist, result-oriented (e.g., the production of goods and services that are in fact valued by or even valuable to people), understanding of justice is going to be incomplete. It is true, as I and others have argued also, that if repeatedly, generally, the system hospitable to autonomous choice, with its clear risk of some people failing to do the best with their free choices, fails to produce the needed level of goods and services (including psychological, spiritual, or whatever real values serve human life) that systems inhospitable to such autonomous choice repeatedly, generally do in fact produce in decisively greater degree or abundance, the free system would have to be rejected. But various empirical studies will never manage to establish clearly that it is impossible for such inhospitable systems to do better at this or that productive task, only that over the long haul they are more conducive to productivity. In the context of political disputations about whether, e.g., the FAA helps safety or the FDA saves lives, it will very possibly be demonstrable that these coercive agencies do, now and then. But the interesting moral-political issue is whether that serves to demonstrate their political propriety, whether such coercive institutions are just and that is not shown by sporadic benefits incurred from them. Clearly, however, if human life were at greater threat in a polity of liberty than in others, the former would have to be discarded. That this idea seems preposterous to many need not be a function of some kind of blind, prapagandistic commitment to liberty but to the ordinary and technical awareness many who concern themselves with this topic have of the relationship between liberty and prosperity. It is, furthermore, supplemented by certain nearly definitionally true beliefs, such as that even to converse about these matters, so as to seek understanding, seems to be endangered by the rejection of the right to individual liberty (the Roger Pilon/Hans Hoppe/Frank Dunn/Stephen Kinsella/et al. line of defense of liberty that consequentialist scoff at so much). That these beliefs are not a priori true is for some very difficult to stomach, since the very meaning of words appears to produce the relevant results of the analysis. But if one realizes that the meaning of terms is not established a prior but via a lengthy historical development and clarification of ideas, concepts, then what appears to be a priori will come off more as the result of the differentiation and integration of factual evidence. Anyway, it seems that the deontological v. consequentialist, analytic v. empirical debate should be concluded with the realization that while there are aspects of reasoning in ethics and other studies well captured by those labels, in fact no inquire is exclusively one or the other kind. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tibor R. Machan (1107 Eagle Circle) Home Phone (334) 826-1511 Dept. of Philosophy (Auburn, AL 36830) Office Phon(334) 844-3784 Auburn University, AL 36849-5210 Office Fax (334) 844-3715 USA E-Mail Address: Machatr@mail.auburn.edu Website: ftp://lumina.ucsd.edu/pub/.../libuniv_dir/Machan_dir/Machan.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------