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Path: utzoo!laura
From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: libertarianism VS economic reality
Message-ID: <4677@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-Nov-84 03:52:31 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.4677
Posted: Mon Nov 26 03:52:31 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 26-Nov-84 03:52:31 EST
References: <495@wucs.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 63

Paul, we've had it. We've already determined that I value freedom more
than you do. Therefore there will be no way in which we can agree on
what is optimal in any issue which involves freedom (which from my
point of view is pretty well all of them).

Sooner or later we will get to the point where we both agree that
action X is a good thing to have done, but I will maintain that it is
not a proper function of government to provide action X. You will
claim that action X is most efficiently done by government. I will
claim that you are ignoring the loss of freedom involved in giving the
government the power to do X, or even that it was the voluntariness of
X that was a large part of its value.

At this point we are at a deadlock until one of us renounces our valuation
of freedom, simply because we can never reach any sort of consensus. At
this point it would be unfair of me to say that you are irrational,
though it would be fair to say that if you claimed to share my standard
of value and maintainted your position that you were irrational or mistaken.

(I may have other reasons for calling you irrational -- indeed, I may
find that your preferred standard of value is irrational -- but within
the context of your atandard of values you can still be behaving
rationally.)


This is what I meant by saying that your worries were the worries of a
consequentialist. It is not fair to call me irrational -- I never claimed
to be a consequentialist. From my point of view it is not sufficient to
merely work out a teleological theory of ethics -- a deontic principle is
also necessary. Certain things are *wrong* -- not in that they produce a
result that I do not (or should not) desire [though they may do that] but
because other people have a moral claim on me to *not do* such actions.

There is a great difference for me between things which I am morally
permitted to do but *ought* not to do (such as overeating) and things
which I am morally not permitted to do and *should* not do (such as
stealing from you). Neither of these actions are in my interest -- and
you would be quite correct in saying that I *ought* to not do them, but
if you protest that I should not rob you
you are actually saying more than this -- you are saying that there is
something wrong in the action of robbing itself. From my perspective
(as an ethical egoist) your claim is that just as I should not act in a
manner contrary to my own interest, neither should I act in a way which
implicitly assumes that you should not act in your own interest.
{aren't triple negatives wonderful...}
In robbing you I am asking you to act, not in your interest, but in *mine*,
where your interest and mine are in conflict. (On another level, it is
not actually in my interest to rob you at all. In addition to the other
ethical consequences of this action, it is a mistake on my part to think
that it is in my interest to rob you. This is not the basis of your
claim against me, however.)

Therefore, given that you want to achieve your objective, my understanding
of whether the attainment was or will be moral will depend on 2 things. First of
all, the objective must be worthwhile, and secondly the means which you
use to reach your objective must not be immoral (ie they must not
involve you thinking htat other people should act, not in their own
interest but in your interest). This is why coercion is out: the ends
will never justify the means. To put it another way -- any actions which
are a result of coercion can never be pareto-optimal.

Laura Creighton
utzoo!laura