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From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Re: Pollution: no libertarian soluti
Message-ID: <28200403@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Dec-85 00:07:00 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.28200403
Posted: Tue Dec 17 00:07:00 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Dec-85 19:17:56 EST
References: <365@umich.UUCP>
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Nf-From: inmet!nrh    Dec 17 00:07:00 1985


>/* Written  4:13 pm  Dec 14, 1985 by torek@umich in inmet:net.politics.t */
>/* ---------- "Re: Pollution: no libertarian solut" ---------- */
>In article <618@calgary.UUCP> radford@calgary.UUCP (Radford Neal) writes:
>>This isn't particularly surprising. All political philosophies have
>>similar "weak points", arising because they are social approximations
>>to more base moral principles. I don't think it is a valid argument against
>>libertarianism to point this out.
>
>It depends.  If you regard your libertarianism as logically derived from
>certain moral "axioms" (whether or not you regard the "axioms" as provable),
>then it IS a valid argument.  If you fudge your logical derivation at any
>point in such a system, you ruin the whole system.
>
>If you regard your libertarianism as merely an attempt to systematize some 
>conflicting intuitions, then you shouldn't be worried by the pollution
>argument.  However, first, I wonder how anyone could admit that this is the
>only foundation of his ethical views, and still be a libertarian -- after
>all, libertarians seem to be pretty dogmatic about exceptionless rules.

Perhaps some libertarians are.  In our discussion regarding suicide, though,
I pointed out a case where a principled libertarian would violate another
person's property rights, (he's willing to pay the reasonable penalty
for assault rather than let his (temporarily insane) friend kill himself),
so you've at least some experience of non-dogmatic exception-prone
libertarianism.

Also, to be able to derive the answers to every single social problem,
particularly one as thorny as pollution, would render libertarianism
utopian -- a fate it does not deserve.

I offer one hopefully interesting observation about questions such
as pollution and prisoner's dilemma problems.  Both of these can,
in fact, be solved in principle (pollution by a nightmarishly complete
enumeration and enforcement of property rights by impartial judges,
and prisoners dilemma by stepping outside the "one-transaction-only"
scenario and allowing repeated and enforceable contractual relationships).

That these things are soluble in principle doesn't mean that they can
be solved in practice, but that no practical solutions are known doesn't
imply that none will be found.   Thus one can be a democrat and
agree that people will vote wrongly now and then, a socialist and agree
that the government will badly misallocate funds due to the calculation
problem, and a libertarian and agree that the ecosphere may be 
somewhat abused.  Any one of these positions is reasonable so long
as solutions remain possible,  the problems not fatal, and the
alternatives no better.

In short, one can be a principled libertarian without knowing just
exactly how much use constitutes enough when claiming land, or just
how little constitutes giving it up.  (Just as one can be for 
the income tax without being able to quote the IRS manuals at length).

I believe that there's lots of middle ground between the idea of
libertarianism as a sort of social geometry -- invalid if any grey
areas or conflicts can be shown to exist, and libertarianism as a sort
of vague response to intuition.  One can be reasonable while admitting
one doesn't know everything, and one can advocate a course without
knowing just exactly how many steps one must take to complete it.

>Second, I tend to agree with Stubblefield that one's ethical views should
>have a better foundation (note that this assumes they CAN have a better
>foundation!).

Paul -- if you've posted (as planned) the reasoned basis for your own
value-weightings, I've missed the posting.

By the way, I should make it clear that I'm speaking for myself, but
believe that (some) other libertarians would agree with me.