Natural Law and Government Health Insurance
1. Bureaucrats in the federal government aren't going to take as good care of your health as you and your personal doctor, unmolested by federal interference, would do. The government will waste much more of the wealth inserted into this system than the private sector would. It's wrong to overlook these things and to nationalize the health care system. They are so as a matter of natural law.
2. Outside of contracts, there is only one positive right: the right of the innocent in dire straits in your local community or vicinity to be given simple assistance. Other innocents in dire straits in more geographically and socially distant locations have much less claim to your assistance, but they have some. It diminishes as we move outward until the duty is gone at some distance.
This point of view is treated with contempt by libertarians who think that even your good neighbor who, through no fault of his own, lies badly injured before you has no right to your administering first aid, calling an ambulance, or any other action. The libertarian will agree that you would be rightly branded as callous, mean and wicked; but he balks when it comes to the question, "Did your neighbor have a right to your help?" But the fact is that you would have done wrong by your neighbor and he would have had a right to simple assistance. The censure may be appropriate punishment, but it is punishment for wrongdoing and all wrongdoing violates another's rights.
This position also angers leftists, who believe that you ought to have your wealth redistributed to the destitute, no matter what their social and geographical distance to you. At least libertarians are respectable. Leftists, on the other hand, are rich and give little to the poor, even while maintaining that it is a strict duty to redistribute the wealth. They oughtn't to be taken seriously, especially since there is not a single good argument for their strange position.
But I digress. The point is that #2 is correct and it reflects natural law. The alternatives do not and are not correct.
3. When forced to pay a fixed fee for unrestricted access to a good by a large national government, people will be unrestrained in their use of the good and the system will go bankrupt unless the fee is raised very high or the access severely restricted. The fee will be lower and the access less restricted if the good is provided by the free market at prices set by market forces. It is wrong to overlook this and cause our society to switch from private to public provision of goods. This is so as a matter of natural law.
Morality has contours impressed upon it by its conformation to human nature. There may be other moralities on other planets for other species of people with other natures. Not everything goes, as the meanings of "right" and "wrong" are not utterly ambiguous. But there is some flexibility to these terms across species and, within species, across societies. Yet within any given species, constraints of its nature obtain, rendering certain moral stances untenable. Foolishly running against human nature usually results in calamity. Nor is it that the fool's morality - his communism or what have you - better while we are by nature unable to attain to it. It is not better. It is wrong. It may be right for a species of people with utterly different motivations but it is not right for us.
Yet the lust for power renders one able to fool the foolish and hoodwink the ignorant. Human nature gives us constraints on what is morally suitable for us but it unfortunately does not usually give us the wisdom to be able to maintain our values within those constraints unmolested by the power-hungry and their useful idiots. I can't prove that 1, 2, and 3 reflect natural law here. The proof is in the collective historical wisdom of a society, conserved against the odds and grasped only partially by any of its members, some more fully understanding it than others. If you are unaware of any reason to think that the big-government welfare state isn't made more likely to be disastrous and the free market more likely to produce flourishing by natural law, then you are an example of the imperfection of human nature when it comes to practical wisdom. As a result of this ignorance, innocents will die from having health care withheld from them by the government. And vast sums of wealth will be taken from those who rightfully own it against their will and put into the black hole of government.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
National Food and Shelter Plan: A Proposal
Health care is a right. Every American has a right to health care. This is because health care is a basic need without which one cannot function. Yet, food and shelter are much more basic needs than health care. It is possible to live without health care if you are lucky. But you can't live without the food and shelter.
Health care is a right because it's a basic need. Food and shelter and much more basic needs. Therefore, every American has a right to food and shelter. In addition, food and shelter cost about as much as health care insurance, maybe more.
The analogy is tight. Americans have a right to food and shelter. It's time for a national food and shelter plan. Food and shelter should be provided for a monthly premium, which should be waived for those who can't afford it.
Having paid your monthly premium or had it paid for you by more fortunate Americans, you would simply show up at any grocery store and take your food. The government would pay the grocer to provide you the food.
Now, what the government would pay the grocer would be competitive. Some say that many grocers would fold because their income would drop. But I don't believe that. Others say that there may come a time that rationing of food might have to occur because being able to take whatever food we want simply wouldn't do. This is true, but it's acceptable. We can't all have filet mignon or name-brand cereals. The government will have to dole these out rationally.
This is the kind of vision that really gets to the heart of what it means to be an American: to grow the government very, very big so that it can take care of everything instead of greedy businessmen raping us six ways to Sunday. All men are endowed with unalienable rights to food, shelter, health care and to not having to worry about all those things or about greedy businessmen making a profit off of them. That way, Americans can be free to do what they like, like video games and picnics and hobbies. That's the core vision of American values. That's the American way.
Watch out for reactionaries who don't want government to interfere with and strong-arm business. Those people are fascists.
Health care is a right. Every American has a right to health care. This is because health care is a basic need without which one cannot function. Yet, food and shelter are much more basic needs than health care. It is possible to live without health care if you are lucky. But you can't live without the food and shelter.
Health care is a right because it's a basic need. Food and shelter and much more basic needs. Therefore, every American has a right to food and shelter. In addition, food and shelter cost about as much as health care insurance, maybe more.
The analogy is tight. Americans have a right to food and shelter. It's time for a national food and shelter plan. Food and shelter should be provided for a monthly premium, which should be waived for those who can't afford it.
Having paid your monthly premium or had it paid for you by more fortunate Americans, you would simply show up at any grocery store and take your food. The government would pay the grocer to provide you the food.
Now, what the government would pay the grocer would be competitive. Some say that many grocers would fold because their income would drop. But I don't believe that. Others say that there may come a time that rationing of food might have to occur because being able to take whatever food we want simply wouldn't do. This is true, but it's acceptable. We can't all have filet mignon or name-brand cereals. The government will have to dole these out rationally.
This is the kind of vision that really gets to the heart of what it means to be an American: to grow the government very, very big so that it can take care of everything instead of greedy businessmen raping us six ways to Sunday. All men are endowed with unalienable rights to food, shelter, health care and to not having to worry about all those things or about greedy businessmen making a profit off of them. That way, Americans can be free to do what they like, like video games and picnics and hobbies. That's the core vision of American values. That's the American way.
Watch out for reactionaries who don't want government to interfere with and strong-arm business. Those people are fascists.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Natural Law, Secular and Indeterminate
But to get back, let me give you a small taste of what I mean. It's pretty clear once you think about it. Though perhaps we are accustomed to natural law being fully determinate of all issues of right and wrong and also dependent upon the existence of God, neither is the case.
The natural law we're considering here is of course moral law. But take an analogy from biology where we may also speak of natural law. There are certain environmental conditions to which human beings are suited to thrive and others which cause them to do poorly. Just run through a variety of conditions and you'll see this. 4000 degrees Farenheit is inconvenient, as is zero degrees. Oxygen in the air is nice. When there's too little of it, well.... Also, there is a kind of diet which enables us to thrive. You can see that. Rocks and twigs are not so good. An all-meat diet isn't good, either. Etc.
Indeterminacy remains, though how much of it is an open question. How much greens to eat? Equatorial climate, or one more like that of France or Pennsylvania? The question closes up when you press the considerations further and look at anthropological and biological evidence for the suitability of certain environment and diet and the unsuitability of others. An array of different and approximately equally suitable environments and a similar array of diets remain. Yet the complete malleability of human nature as a theory drops out.
Now, is it preposterous to think that social arrangements, ethics, and character virtues are also tethered to human nature? Of course not. On the contrary, it is preposterous to think that human nature is suited to only certain diets and environments but is not a constraint on our choice of ethics and character virtues. This constraint, this tether, is natural law. It has some slack in it. There is more than one decent and admirable set of moral values which fits with natural law. Again, it is an open question how wide the options are. But the more you examine the question, the more it closes.
Let me throw out a value or two:
1. Each person ought to be allowed to act as he prefers and not be forced by others to act in accordance to their preference.
2. Violation of #1 is a forfeiture of one's own protections under #1. In other words, if you force others to act in accordance with your will, you may rightly be stopped.
3. Self-reliance and industry are good, and sloth is bad.
4. One ought to help members of one's community who do not violate principle #1 but who fall into dire straights through no fault of their own.
5. Failure to distinguish between dire straights fallen into through no fault of one's own and dire straights created by sloth and foolishness is bad. One ought not to help the foolish and slothful.
Etc., etc.
There are caveats to all of these principles, of course. There are no moral rules, but only summary rules of thumb. But you get the gist.
How about your values? Are they likely to suit human nature? Or do you suspect they likely violate natural law, while you look away? Do you feel lucky where others have failed repeatedly?
But there is more than human nature working in natural law. There is an analytical core to it. Wanton cruelty is immoral. Small kindnesses done for innocent people are good. These are so by definition. The terms "right", "wrong", "moral" and so forth have meanings which are not utterly inelastic. For example, a bowling ball can't be "what is right." Nor can it be immoral. The point is that there is an analytical definition of "rightness" which constrains morality as well as human nature does. Natural law, then, is the fact that the meanings of moral terms and the kind of creatures we are constrain how it is good for us to live.
In any event, these facts about natural law are so even if God does not exist. Imagine a world in which He does not exist. In that world, these facts are so. Imagine another world in which these facts are so and there is a God who holds human nature constant while attempting to make it the case that these facts about natural law no longer obtain. He fails. Q.E.D. Even God can't make cruelty good and liberty worthless. He didn't make them, respectively, bad and valuable in the first place.
The upshot is that the dismissal of natural law as hopelessly absolutist (i.e., committed to absolute determinacy in all areas of morality) or hopelessly committed to divine command theory is a non-starter.
By the way, progressivism is wedded to that non-starter, just as a matter of fact. If you're a lefty, you need to reform your position to say that socialism and statism are consistent with natural law and even more adherent to it than the alternatives. Good luck with that. Principle #1 is a tough customer. And when you look at the prosperity that has issued from this liberty, you really have problems. Why don't you consider abandoning your desire to be a puppet master, a designer of society? You're in violation of natural law. You might want to reflect on what motivates you. It isn't the plight of poor people. After all, you don't give all your wealth above the poverty line to charity, now, do you? You don't volunteer at the soup kitchen 15 hours a week, now do you? What, then, would drive you to embrace values that fly in the face of natural law?
But to get back, let me give you a small taste of what I mean. It's pretty clear once you think about it. Though perhaps we are accustomed to natural law being fully determinate of all issues of right and wrong and also dependent upon the existence of God, neither is the case.
The natural law we're considering here is of course moral law. But take an analogy from biology where we may also speak of natural law. There are certain environmental conditions to which human beings are suited to thrive and others which cause them to do poorly. Just run through a variety of conditions and you'll see this. 4000 degrees Farenheit is inconvenient, as is zero degrees. Oxygen in the air is nice. When there's too little of it, well.... Also, there is a kind of diet which enables us to thrive. You can see that. Rocks and twigs are not so good. An all-meat diet isn't good, either. Etc.
Indeterminacy remains, though how much of it is an open question. How much greens to eat? Equatorial climate, or one more like that of France or Pennsylvania? The question closes up when you press the considerations further and look at anthropological and biological evidence for the suitability of certain environment and diet and the unsuitability of others. An array of different and approximately equally suitable environments and a similar array of diets remain. Yet the complete malleability of human nature as a theory drops out.
Now, is it preposterous to think that social arrangements, ethics, and character virtues are also tethered to human nature? Of course not. On the contrary, it is preposterous to think that human nature is suited to only certain diets and environments but is not a constraint on our choice of ethics and character virtues. This constraint, this tether, is natural law. It has some slack in it. There is more than one decent and admirable set of moral values which fits with natural law. Again, it is an open question how wide the options are. But the more you examine the question, the more it closes.
Let me throw out a value or two:
1. Each person ought to be allowed to act as he prefers and not be forced by others to act in accordance to their preference.
2. Violation of #1 is a forfeiture of one's own protections under #1. In other words, if you force others to act in accordance with your will, you may rightly be stopped.
3. Self-reliance and industry are good, and sloth is bad.
4. One ought to help members of one's community who do not violate principle #1 but who fall into dire straights through no fault of their own.
5. Failure to distinguish between dire straights fallen into through no fault of one's own and dire straights created by sloth and foolishness is bad. One ought not to help the foolish and slothful.
Etc., etc.
There are caveats to all of these principles, of course. There are no moral rules, but only summary rules of thumb. But you get the gist.
How about your values? Are they likely to suit human nature? Or do you suspect they likely violate natural law, while you look away? Do you feel lucky where others have failed repeatedly?
But there is more than human nature working in natural law. There is an analytical core to it. Wanton cruelty is immoral. Small kindnesses done for innocent people are good. These are so by definition. The terms "right", "wrong", "moral" and so forth have meanings which are not utterly inelastic. For example, a bowling ball can't be "what is right." Nor can it be immoral. The point is that there is an analytical definition of "rightness" which constrains morality as well as human nature does. Natural law, then, is the fact that the meanings of moral terms and the kind of creatures we are constrain how it is good for us to live.
In any event, these facts about natural law are so even if God does not exist. Imagine a world in which He does not exist. In that world, these facts are so. Imagine another world in which these facts are so and there is a God who holds human nature constant while attempting to make it the case that these facts about natural law no longer obtain. He fails. Q.E.D. Even God can't make cruelty good and liberty worthless. He didn't make them, respectively, bad and valuable in the first place.
The upshot is that the dismissal of natural law as hopelessly absolutist (i.e., committed to absolute determinacy in all areas of morality) or hopelessly committed to divine command theory is a non-starter.
By the way, progressivism is wedded to that non-starter, just as a matter of fact. If you're a lefty, you need to reform your position to say that socialism and statism are consistent with natural law and even more adherent to it than the alternatives. Good luck with that. Principle #1 is a tough customer. And when you look at the prosperity that has issued from this liberty, you really have problems. Why don't you consider abandoning your desire to be a puppet master, a designer of society? You're in violation of natural law. You might want to reflect on what motivates you. It isn't the plight of poor people. After all, you don't give all your wealth above the poverty line to charity, now, do you? You don't volunteer at the soup kitchen 15 hours a week, now do you? What, then, would drive you to embrace values that fly in the face of natural law?
Friday, July 17, 2009
The Federal Government's Authority Over Your Healthcare
The federal government has the right to prevent you from contracting with any agency for health insurance. In other words, you do not have the right to form contracts with another party for the purpose of health insurance coverage unless the federal government gives you that right.
You do not have a right to refrain from purchasing health insurance. If you fail to purchase it, you may be held to be in violation of the law if the federal government so desires. The federal government will then have a right to punish you and force you to purchase health insurance.
American insurance companies may rightfully be prevented from offering health insurance coverage by the federal government. They have no right to offer it if the federal government does not give them such a right.
If the federal government chooses to do so, it may rightfully put private insurance companies out of business by undercutting their premiums by selling federal government insurance policies at a loss. That's legal. The federal government may use such tactics to create a monopoly. It has such a right.
When there is only one insurance company left, the federal government, it will have a right to deny its customers medical treatment. As in Canada and England, the American federal government has a right to withhold medical treatment from its customers.
The federal government can afford to create another federal health insurance program at this time.
In short, rights come from somewhere: the federal government. And money comes from nowhere.
The federal government has the right to prevent you from contracting with any agency for health insurance. In other words, you do not have the right to form contracts with another party for the purpose of health insurance coverage unless the federal government gives you that right.
You do not have a right to refrain from purchasing health insurance. If you fail to purchase it, you may be held to be in violation of the law if the federal government so desires. The federal government will then have a right to punish you and force you to purchase health insurance.
American insurance companies may rightfully be prevented from offering health insurance coverage by the federal government. They have no right to offer it if the federal government does not give them such a right.
If the federal government chooses to do so, it may rightfully put private insurance companies out of business by undercutting their premiums by selling federal government insurance policies at a loss. That's legal. The federal government may use such tactics to create a monopoly. It has such a right.
When there is only one insurance company left, the federal government, it will have a right to deny its customers medical treatment. As in Canada and England, the American federal government has a right to withhold medical treatment from its customers.
The federal government can afford to create another federal health insurance program at this time.
In short, rights come from somewhere: the federal government. And money comes from nowhere.
Natural Law and Indeterminacy
The modern American liberal feels a sensation of resentment well up in his esophagus whenever he is told that there are natural laws of morality which are written in human nature and cannot be successfully overridden by conventional morality. He consigns any such notion to antiquated religious zealotry, theocracy, and so forth, waving away any mention of the fact that this country was founded on "the laws of nature" and "inalienable rights." He sees admirable thinkers such as Clarence Thomas as religious zealots and theocrats. He changes the subject when the Founding Fathers are brought up in this connection.
Yet, of course there are natural laws. The Founding Fathers had thrice your intellect and learning. Think twice before you blithely contradict them. Just think for a moment about the real thrust of the leftist's distaste for natural law. Reflect for a moment what might be in your breast with regard to these matters.
You are deeply dissatisfied with traditional American values and ways of life and want the government to create a new social structure in which freedom is vastly curtailed in favor of wealth redistribution. You want rich, white, conservative Christians to have less wealth and power, and you want their wealth and power to be handed over to poor, non-whites who are not conservative Christians. Everyone who subscribes to the existence of natural laws says this is a very bad idea. So, you hate natural law and those who espouse it. This is the attitude which cost 100 million lives for your cause in the 20th Century and ruined the black American family. It's an attitude which kills by having the government of England and Canada deny health care to people who have earned enough money to pay for it and then gotten sick. But you persist. Your moral aspirations are based upon resentment. Think for a moment about what it is that you resent. It's not pretty that you resent it. I won't mention what it is. You know. It's a very dark place to be. Yet, there you are.
There is a way out of your detestable little conundrum. Think a minute. Take a breath.
Natural law does not entail the existence of God or the authority of religion. There is no divine command theory in natural law, which is a good thing, because divine command theory was refuted by Socrates in the Euthyphro 2500 years ago. So, relax. You can continue to hate mainstream American Christianity while accepting natural law.
Also, natural law is not fully deterministic of right and wrong. It sets up a large array of fundamental values which are inalienable from human nature. These have to do with the nature of justice, fair play, family ties, liberty, charity, and so forth. They allow for a considerable degree of flexibility and may be adhered to with equal fidelity by societies of vary different conventional moralities. There is a game with certain rules and structures and avenues of success, but there are many ways to play the games, many styles which take the game in differing directions with acceptable results. This means that a society can decide how it would like to live. In other words, it may maintain loyalty to its cherished values without violating natural law while other societies with different values maintain their values without violating natural law. All this is so, provided that the two societies in question are lucky enough and wise enough to have values consistent with natural law, of course.
So, relax, you can have your atheistic relativism, provided of course you see that the relativism is constrained in scope by natural law. You'll have to scrap the leftism, though.
The modern American liberal feels a sensation of resentment well up in his esophagus whenever he is told that there are natural laws of morality which are written in human nature and cannot be successfully overridden by conventional morality. He consigns any such notion to antiquated religious zealotry, theocracy, and so forth, waving away any mention of the fact that this country was founded on "the laws of nature" and "inalienable rights." He sees admirable thinkers such as Clarence Thomas as religious zealots and theocrats. He changes the subject when the Founding Fathers are brought up in this connection.
Yet, of course there are natural laws. The Founding Fathers had thrice your intellect and learning. Think twice before you blithely contradict them. Just think for a moment about the real thrust of the leftist's distaste for natural law. Reflect for a moment what might be in your breast with regard to these matters.
You are deeply dissatisfied with traditional American values and ways of life and want the government to create a new social structure in which freedom is vastly curtailed in favor of wealth redistribution. You want rich, white, conservative Christians to have less wealth and power, and you want their wealth and power to be handed over to poor, non-whites who are not conservative Christians. Everyone who subscribes to the existence of natural laws says this is a very bad idea. So, you hate natural law and those who espouse it. This is the attitude which cost 100 million lives for your cause in the 20th Century and ruined the black American family. It's an attitude which kills by having the government of England and Canada deny health care to people who have earned enough money to pay for it and then gotten sick. But you persist. Your moral aspirations are based upon resentment. Think for a moment about what it is that you resent. It's not pretty that you resent it. I won't mention what it is. You know. It's a very dark place to be. Yet, there you are.
There is a way out of your detestable little conundrum. Think a minute. Take a breath.
Natural law does not entail the existence of God or the authority of religion. There is no divine command theory in natural law, which is a good thing, because divine command theory was refuted by Socrates in the Euthyphro 2500 years ago. So, relax. You can continue to hate mainstream American Christianity while accepting natural law.
Also, natural law is not fully deterministic of right and wrong. It sets up a large array of fundamental values which are inalienable from human nature. These have to do with the nature of justice, fair play, family ties, liberty, charity, and so forth. They allow for a considerable degree of flexibility and may be adhered to with equal fidelity by societies of vary different conventional moralities. There is a game with certain rules and structures and avenues of success, but there are many ways to play the games, many styles which take the game in differing directions with acceptable results. This means that a society can decide how it would like to live. In other words, it may maintain loyalty to its cherished values without violating natural law while other societies with different values maintain their values without violating natural law. All this is so, provided that the two societies in question are lucky enough and wise enough to have values consistent with natural law, of course.
So, relax, you can have your atheistic relativism, provided of course you see that the relativism is constrained in scope by natural law. You'll have to scrap the leftism, though.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Founding Fathers Quotes
Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness. -George Washington, Circular to the States, May 9, 1753
A people... who are possessed of the spirit of commerce, who see and who will pursue their advantages may achieve almost anything. -George Washington, letter to Benjamin Harrison, October 10, 1784
Can you consent to wade through the vile mire of dependency, and owe the miserable remnant of that life to charity, which has hitherto been spent in honor? If you can — GO — ...Go, starve, and be forgotten! -George Washington, letter to the Officers of the Army, March 12, 1783
But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever. -John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, July 17, 1775
Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.... -John Adams, Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law, 1765
Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters. -Benjamin Franklin, April 17, 1787
But of all the views of this law none is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people the safe, as they are the ultimate, guardians of their own liberty. For this purpose the reading in the first stage, where they will receive their whole education, is proposed, as has been said, to be chiefly historical. History by apprising them of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views. -Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 14, 1781
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the, designs of ambition. -Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 19, 1787
Liberty is the very idol of my soul, the parent of virtue, the nurse of heroes, the dispenser of general happiness...." -Arthur Lee, The Farmer's and Monitor's Letters to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies 1769
Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness. -George Washington, Circular to the States, May 9, 1753
A people... who are possessed of the spirit of commerce, who see and who will pursue their advantages may achieve almost anything. -George Washington, letter to Benjamin Harrison, October 10, 1784
Can you consent to wade through the vile mire of dependency, and owe the miserable remnant of that life to charity, which has hitherto been spent in honor? If you can — GO — ...Go, starve, and be forgotten! -George Washington, letter to the Officers of the Army, March 12, 1783
But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever. -John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, July 17, 1775
Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.... -John Adams, Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law, 1765
Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters. -Benjamin Franklin, April 17, 1787
But of all the views of this law none is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people the safe, as they are the ultimate, guardians of their own liberty. For this purpose the reading in the first stage, where they will receive their whole education, is proposed, as has been said, to be chiefly historical. History by apprising them of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views. -Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 14, 1781
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the, designs of ambition. -Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 19, 1787
Liberty is the very idol of my soul, the parent of virtue, the nurse of heroes, the dispenser of general happiness...." -Arthur Lee, The Farmer's and Monitor's Letters to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies 1769
Friday, July 10, 2009
With Apologies to Montesquieu
As virtue is necessary in a republic, and in a monarchy honor, so fear is necessary in a despotic government.... -Montesquieu
But if you want to have a big-government society, then you need to cultivate sloth, ignorance, guilt, envy, and a distaste for self-reliance. You need a people who are spoiled, lazy and dull. For then, not only will they not resist your government, but they will demand it. The alternative of a small, liberty-based government will be incomprehensible and scary to them.
As virtue is necessary in a republic, and in a monarchy honor, so fear is necessary in a despotic government.... -Montesquieu
But if you want to have a big-government society, then you need to cultivate sloth, ignorance, guilt, envy, and a distaste for self-reliance. You need a people who are spoiled, lazy and dull. For then, not only will they not resist your government, but they will demand it. The alternative of a small, liberty-based government will be incomprehensible and scary to them.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Positive Liberty a Vacuous Concept At Best
...leftist legerdemain at worst. Here's the gist of it.
2 follows from 1.
3 does not follow. Now that you have changed the concept of liberty to include power and wealth, things which held true of liberty when the concept was narrowly defined as negative liberty no longer necessarily hold true. It holds true of negative liberty that a deficit of someone's negative liberty is a violation of his right. But it doesn't necessarily hold true of positive liberty. If you define "liberty" as fried chicken, don't expect every use of the word to hold true that held true before. In fact, since we are speaking of power and wealth, and we know that there are no positive rights to power and wealth, we know that in some cases an unequal distribution of liberty (as power and wealth) is not a violation of rights. For an unequal distribution of power and wealth in some cases is not a violation of rights. Cases of theft or tyranny are cases in which it would be a violation of rights. How ironic that leftism advocates theft and tyranny in response to distributions of power and wealth which are not in fact unjust. Legerdemain is needed in order to accomplish such a sophistical feat.
4 follows from 3.
In sum, 1 is idle stipulation and 3 is an invalid inference. Positive liberty has very little substance, though it may be used sophistically to marshal us along to the leftist drumbeat.
A coda: Some may wish to preserve positive liberty as self-direction, strength of will, self-control. One is constrained by weakness of will, by vice. However, even this won't work. We can speak of vices as hamstringing us, coercing or constraining our actions only figuratively. For they are not entities distinct from the agent. They are structures and dispositions of the agent. You can be free of your vices only in the figurative way that you can be free of a hamstring injury. A man with a hamstring injury is as free as he would be without it. It's just that there is something wrong with him. And a lack of liberty cannot literally be something wrong with you. Keep your concepts clear. Speak figuratively if you like, but don't use figurative speech as a foundation for a moral or political philosophy.
...leftist legerdemain at worst. Here's the gist of it.
- First, we expand the concept of liberty to include power and wealth.
- Next, we show that since power and wealth are unequally distributed, liberty is unequally distributed.
- We then infer that those with more power and wealth are violating the right to liberty of those with less.
- Finally, we conclude that those with more power and wealth are obliged to give some of theirs to those with less.
2 follows from 1.
3 does not follow. Now that you have changed the concept of liberty to include power and wealth, things which held true of liberty when the concept was narrowly defined as negative liberty no longer necessarily hold true. It holds true of negative liberty that a deficit of someone's negative liberty is a violation of his right. But it doesn't necessarily hold true of positive liberty. If you define "liberty" as fried chicken, don't expect every use of the word to hold true that held true before. In fact, since we are speaking of power and wealth, and we know that there are no positive rights to power and wealth, we know that in some cases an unequal distribution of liberty (as power and wealth) is not a violation of rights. For an unequal distribution of power and wealth in some cases is not a violation of rights. Cases of theft or tyranny are cases in which it would be a violation of rights. How ironic that leftism advocates theft and tyranny in response to distributions of power and wealth which are not in fact unjust. Legerdemain is needed in order to accomplish such a sophistical feat.
4 follows from 3.
In sum, 1 is idle stipulation and 3 is an invalid inference. Positive liberty has very little substance, though it may be used sophistically to marshal us along to the leftist drumbeat.
A coda: Some may wish to preserve positive liberty as self-direction, strength of will, self-control. One is constrained by weakness of will, by vice. However, even this won't work. We can speak of vices as hamstringing us, coercing or constraining our actions only figuratively. For they are not entities distinct from the agent. They are structures and dispositions of the agent. You can be free of your vices only in the figurative way that you can be free of a hamstring injury. A man with a hamstring injury is as free as he would be without it. It's just that there is something wrong with him. And a lack of liberty cannot literally be something wrong with you. Keep your concepts clear. Speak figuratively if you like, but don't use figurative speech as a foundation for a moral or political philosophy.
Monday, May 25, 2009
The Trouble with Mill, On Liberty
I hold this truth to be self-evident: that all men have rights to liberty. These are basic rights, not in need of proof or any justification other than the fact that they are obviously true and axiomatic. There being nothing that would count as evidence that a system of morals could be acceptable in which men did not have rights to liberty, we could not coherently interpret any such system as a system of morals. I think this verificationist argument shows that the proposition that all men have rights to liberty is a logical truth.
Keep in mind that these basic rights are defeasible; basicity does not entail absolute rules. I hesitate to call the rights to liberty "inalienable" for that reason. However, they could be interpreted as inalienable in the sense that even while one may forfeit one's right to liberty, it still remains the case that were the circumstances causing that forfeiture removed one would have that right to liberty.
In any event, Mill's book suffers for committing itself to rule-based moral theory and assuming that the right to liberty needs to be delimited by a rule and proven. It needs to be neither. This is the big problem with the book.
Of course, Mill will think the right to liberty needs proof if he thinks he needs to reduce it to a rule and prove that rule. The extent of the right to liberty is indefinite and not to be delimited by any rule. The variety of moral claims - duties and rights - is not subsumable under a system of rules. There is no finite decision procedure of moral deliberation that has any plausibility.
That Mill is a rule-based theorist commits him to progressivism. Any rule will be progressive, as it will be markedly different from ordinarily-held moral values. For those values are not subsumable under any system of rules. Thus does Mill become incompetent with respect to the need to preserve tradition. He praises not it but progress away from it. He realizes he should say more than this, and he says, "Nobody denies that people should be so taught and trained in youth as to know and benefit by the ascertained results of human experience." But he isn't able to develop this point. (Hayek was able to explain it. Although a utilitarian, he wasn't ensconced in rule-based moral theory as Mill was.)
The result is that Mill's liberty teeters unstably, with its progressivism and dubious basis in utilitarianism. The book has many an eloquent passage defending liberty of speech, thought, and way of life on the basis that these promote utility. Of course this is a reasonable argument to make. But that it is the foundation of the right to liberty is a mistake. We have that right even without those benefits.
I hold this truth to be self-evident: that all men have rights to liberty. These are basic rights, not in need of proof or any justification other than the fact that they are obviously true and axiomatic. There being nothing that would count as evidence that a system of morals could be acceptable in which men did not have rights to liberty, we could not coherently interpret any such system as a system of morals. I think this verificationist argument shows that the proposition that all men have rights to liberty is a logical truth.
Keep in mind that these basic rights are defeasible; basicity does not entail absolute rules. I hesitate to call the rights to liberty "inalienable" for that reason. However, they could be interpreted as inalienable in the sense that even while one may forfeit one's right to liberty, it still remains the case that were the circumstances causing that forfeiture removed one would have that right to liberty.
In any event, Mill's book suffers for committing itself to rule-based moral theory and assuming that the right to liberty needs to be delimited by a rule and proven. It needs to be neither. This is the big problem with the book.
Of course, Mill will think the right to liberty needs proof if he thinks he needs to reduce it to a rule and prove that rule. The extent of the right to liberty is indefinite and not to be delimited by any rule. The variety of moral claims - duties and rights - is not subsumable under a system of rules. There is no finite decision procedure of moral deliberation that has any plausibility.
That Mill is a rule-based theorist commits him to progressivism. Any rule will be progressive, as it will be markedly different from ordinarily-held moral values. For those values are not subsumable under any system of rules. Thus does Mill become incompetent with respect to the need to preserve tradition. He praises not it but progress away from it. He realizes he should say more than this, and he says, "Nobody denies that people should be so taught and trained in youth as to know and benefit by the ascertained results of human experience." But he isn't able to develop this point. (Hayek was able to explain it. Although a utilitarian, he wasn't ensconced in rule-based moral theory as Mill was.)
The result is that Mill's liberty teeters unstably, with its progressivism and dubious basis in utilitarianism. The book has many an eloquent passage defending liberty of speech, thought, and way of life on the basis that these promote utility. Of course this is a reasonable argument to make. But that it is the foundation of the right to liberty is a mistake. We have that right even without those benefits.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Charles Taylor on Positive Liberty III
The basic flaw in Taylor's article is his premise that the defenders of negative freedom and opponents of positive freedom
shar[e]...with the rest of us in a post-Romantic civilisation which puts great value on self-realization, and values freedom largely because of this.
Thus does Taylor think that such people are committed, whether they like it or not, to accepting that self-fulfillment is a species of freedom.
This makes no sense. The fact that freedom is a necessary condition of self-fulfillment doesn't show that self-fulfillment is a species of freedom; it proves precisely that it is not. The "necessary condition" here is of the practical-causal kind, not of the logical genus-species kind. Of course, if you need to have an animal in hand order to have a bird in hand, this proves a bird is a kind of animal. But that is a logical genus-special condition. When we say a man needs freedom in order to fulfill himself, we mean that he needs it as a matter of practical necessity. But if you need a wife in order to be happy, this doesn't prove that happiness is a species of wife. In fact, it proves that it is not. Because that is the practical-causal kind of condition.
Your weakness of will and your failure to understand which endeavors it would be good and fulfilling for you to undertake are therefore not species of unfreedom. They are vices of akrasia and ignorance. You need freedom in order to overcome these vices. When you overcome them, you may speak metaphorically of becoming free. But this is only freedom from your own vices. To speak of one's vices as forces that get in one's way is figurative. As Jeff Goldstein and Friedrich Hayek have advised, we must take great pains to avoid verbal traps.
The basic flaw in Taylor's article is his premise that the defenders of negative freedom and opponents of positive freedom
shar[e]...with the rest of us in a post-Romantic civilisation which puts great value on self-realization, and values freedom largely because of this.
Thus does Taylor think that such people are committed, whether they like it or not, to accepting that self-fulfillment is a species of freedom.
This makes no sense. The fact that freedom is a necessary condition of self-fulfillment doesn't show that self-fulfillment is a species of freedom; it proves precisely that it is not. The "necessary condition" here is of the practical-causal kind, not of the logical genus-species kind. Of course, if you need to have an animal in hand order to have a bird in hand, this proves a bird is a kind of animal. But that is a logical genus-special condition. When we say a man needs freedom in order to fulfill himself, we mean that he needs it as a matter of practical necessity. But if you need a wife in order to be happy, this doesn't prove that happiness is a species of wife. In fact, it proves that it is not. Because that is the practical-causal kind of condition.
Your weakness of will and your failure to understand which endeavors it would be good and fulfilling for you to undertake are therefore not species of unfreedom. They are vices of akrasia and ignorance. You need freedom in order to overcome these vices. When you overcome them, you may speak metaphorically of becoming free. But this is only freedom from your own vices. To speak of one's vices as forces that get in one's way is figurative. As Jeff Goldstein and Friedrich Hayek have advised, we must take great pains to avoid verbal traps.
Unjustly High Taxation is not Slavery
As Hayek points out in Constitution of Liberty, power is not a species of liberty, nor is wealth. To call power or wealth by the name "liberty" is a verbal trap which will cause one to think that because people have rights to liberty, wealth should be redistributed from the rich to the poor. This is to misconstrue the right to liberty as a right to others' property. It is to mistake property for liberty and to assume that since I have a right to liberty, I have a right to be given the property I need to do what I want to do.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander, however. Libertarians are fond of arguing that unjustly high taxation is slavery. It is not. It is theft. When a man steals my property, even if it is the fruit of my labor he has not enslaved me or deprived me of liberty. Did the guy who made off with your TV set, enslave you for a day and a half? Of course not. Slaves must work, as they are coerced by their masters. Thieves coerce no one to work.
As Isaiah Berlin said, echoing the Bishop Butler, "Everything is what it is: liberty is liberty, not equality or fairness or justice...." Unjustly high taxation is unfairness, injustice, and theft. It is not a violation of liberty rights. The price for ignoring this fact is that we let the verbal trap stand and you lose the basis for dismissing out of hand the leftist's argument for redistribution of wealth. There is plenty of reason to indict unjustly high taxation. There is no need to resort to verbal trickery. Leave the verbal trickery to the leftist, isolate it, and expose it.
As Hayek points out in Constitution of Liberty, power is not a species of liberty, nor is wealth. To call power or wealth by the name "liberty" is a verbal trap which will cause one to think that because people have rights to liberty, wealth should be redistributed from the rich to the poor. This is to misconstrue the right to liberty as a right to others' property. It is to mistake property for liberty and to assume that since I have a right to liberty, I have a right to be given the property I need to do what I want to do.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander, however. Libertarians are fond of arguing that unjustly high taxation is slavery. It is not. It is theft. When a man steals my property, even if it is the fruit of my labor he has not enslaved me or deprived me of liberty. Did the guy who made off with your TV set, enslave you for a day and a half? Of course not. Slaves must work, as they are coerced by their masters. Thieves coerce no one to work.
As Isaiah Berlin said, echoing the Bishop Butler, "Everything is what it is: liberty is liberty, not equality or fairness or justice...." Unjustly high taxation is unfairness, injustice, and theft. It is not a violation of liberty rights. The price for ignoring this fact is that we let the verbal trap stand and you lose the basis for dismissing out of hand the leftist's argument for redistribution of wealth. There is plenty of reason to indict unjustly high taxation. There is no need to resort to verbal trickery. Leave the verbal trickery to the leftist, isolate it, and expose it.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Frankfurt on Freedom of the Will V
Let's make a final pass over this issue of reasons for action. Frankfurt thinks that the concept of a person is of beings "capable of wanting to be different, in their preferences and purposes, from what they are." But it is impossible to make sense of what would count as reasons for wanting to be different in that way. One might wish that some of one's desires, a small subset radically inconsistent with the vast majority of ones desires, would simply go away in order to liberate one from the irrationality of an inconsistent set of desires. Such is the wish of the unwilling drug addict, for example. But this wish is a desire generated by the set of first-order desires. In fact, it supervenes on them. It even supervenes logically, given a the simple recipe for prudential rationality I've proposed in the earlier posts. In other words, there is nothing to this wish other than the first-order desires themselves.
The picture Frankfurt offers, then, commits itself to externalism about reasons for action: that they are independent of one's first-order desires. This he does in order to rescue free will from obscurity. However, externalism is an inscrutable notion. No one has any idea of a reason to desire that is independent of one's antecedently held desires. Reason is, as Hume said, the slave of desire. Furthermore, as we've seen, the commitment to externalism is not necessary in order to explain free will.
Let's make a final pass over this issue of reasons for action. Frankfurt thinks that the concept of a person is of beings "capable of wanting to be different, in their preferences and purposes, from what they are." But it is impossible to make sense of what would count as reasons for wanting to be different in that way. One might wish that some of one's desires, a small subset radically inconsistent with the vast majority of ones desires, would simply go away in order to liberate one from the irrationality of an inconsistent set of desires. Such is the wish of the unwilling drug addict, for example. But this wish is a desire generated by the set of first-order desires. In fact, it supervenes on them. It even supervenes logically, given a the simple recipe for prudential rationality I've proposed in the earlier posts. In other words, there is nothing to this wish other than the first-order desires themselves.
The picture Frankfurt offers, then, commits itself to externalism about reasons for action: that they are independent of one's first-order desires. This he does in order to rescue free will from obscurity. However, externalism is an inscrutable notion. No one has any idea of a reason to desire that is independent of one's antecedently held desires. Reason is, as Hume said, the slave of desire. Furthermore, as we've seen, the commitment to externalism is not necessary in order to explain free will.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Frankfurt on Freedom of the Will IV
You may well ask how my alternative to Frankfurt's position of second-order desires does not itself posit second-order desires in order to explain free will. After all, haven't I said that one's will is dependent on one's wanting to maximize the net long-term fulfillment of one's first-order desires? That wanting would seem to be a second-order desire.
Not so. A bonafide second-order desire is a normative standard to the the set of first-order desires. It sits in judgment of them. It chooses amongst them based upon criteria other than their relative strength. In contrast, the desire to maximize the fulfillment of the set of first-order desires which I have posited is a servant to those desires themselves. It is like a political mechanism by which they maximize their fulfillment through compromise. Its particular determinations are derived from that set, rather than being independent norms by which the contents of that set are judged. It is a norm to each on of them but only because it is the resultant vector of all of them. Prudence is the servant of desires.
This theory of will avoids Frankfurt's problem with moral and prudential reasons. On my theory, one's reason for acting is always a given first-order desire. On Frankfurt's theory, one's reason for acting, if one has free will, is one's desire to fulfill a given first-order desire. Frankfurt separates the agent from what ought to be his reasons because he thinks we must be rendered wantons if he does not take this drastic step. But on the contrary, such a step isn't necessary in order to distinguish ourselves from wantons, and it makes it impossible to make sense of our reasons for action.
You may well ask how my alternative to Frankfurt's position of second-order desires does not itself posit second-order desires in order to explain free will. After all, haven't I said that one's will is dependent on one's wanting to maximize the net long-term fulfillment of one's first-order desires? That wanting would seem to be a second-order desire.
Not so. A bonafide second-order desire is a normative standard to the the set of first-order desires. It sits in judgment of them. It chooses amongst them based upon criteria other than their relative strength. In contrast, the desire to maximize the fulfillment of the set of first-order desires which I have posited is a servant to those desires themselves. It is like a political mechanism by which they maximize their fulfillment through compromise. Its particular determinations are derived from that set, rather than being independent norms by which the contents of that set are judged. It is a norm to each on of them but only because it is the resultant vector of all of them. Prudence is the servant of desires.
This theory of will avoids Frankfurt's problem with moral and prudential reasons. On my theory, one's reason for acting is always a given first-order desire. On Frankfurt's theory, one's reason for acting, if one has free will, is one's desire to fulfill a given first-order desire. Frankfurt separates the agent from what ought to be his reasons because he thinks we must be rendered wantons if he does not take this drastic step. But on the contrary, such a step isn't necessary in order to distinguish ourselves from wantons, and it makes it impossible to make sense of our reasons for action.
Frankfurt on Freedom of the Will III
There is a class of people who are my superiors and whom I would therefore be reluctant to think of as lacking freedom of the will. By upbringing they do not flee in battle, do not abandon their children when childrearing is unpleasant, and do not indulge in resentment, self-defilement, or envy. It never occurs to them to do these things, in spite of any momentarily strongly-felt desires to do so which may flare up within them sometimes. They have no need for second-order desires. Yet they are free.
Even Frankfurt sees that such spontaneously prudent beings (SPBs I'll call them) are free. He must because they obviously are. His picture of free will as conformity of action to second-order desires cannot easily account for this, however. He could propose that the second order desires of SPBs are subconsciously held, but that would be idle speculation. He could bring up his wanton again, the fellow who doesn't care how his first-order desires cause him to act or doesn't care on which of them he acts. Unless we accept his theory of free will, we will have to accept that the wanton is free, Frankfurt might say.
So, let's propose another psychology in order to settle these quandaries. If the wanton cared about which of his desires he followed in that he wanted his actions to maximize the net long-term satisfaction of the largest set of them - in other words if the wanton wanted to be prudentially rational - then he would have the potential to be free. If he successfully endeavored to act in such a prudent manner, he would be free in the sense that momentarily strong desires would be unable to sway him from his choice to maximize his larger set of desires. If this became effortless and unreflective for him, he would become an SPB.
The psychology we need, then, is not Frankfurt's top-heavy structure of orders of desires but only the rather more cognitive than connative capacity to reflect on the set of desires in order to determine which cause of action most satisfies it. Freedom of the will, then, is a mechanism for remembering which course of action is most desirable in the sense of maximizing the fulfillment of one's set of first-order desires. Employing this mechanism in order to repel temptation to do otherwise is enough to constitute freedom of the will. No desirability in the sense of second-order desires to follow first-order desires is needed.
There is a class of people who are my superiors and whom I would therefore be reluctant to think of as lacking freedom of the will. By upbringing they do not flee in battle, do not abandon their children when childrearing is unpleasant, and do not indulge in resentment, self-defilement, or envy. It never occurs to them to do these things, in spite of any momentarily strongly-felt desires to do so which may flare up within them sometimes. They have no need for second-order desires. Yet they are free.
Even Frankfurt sees that such spontaneously prudent beings (SPBs I'll call them) are free. He must because they obviously are. His picture of free will as conformity of action to second-order desires cannot easily account for this, however. He could propose that the second order desires of SPBs are subconsciously held, but that would be idle speculation. He could bring up his wanton again, the fellow who doesn't care how his first-order desires cause him to act or doesn't care on which of them he acts. Unless we accept his theory of free will, we will have to accept that the wanton is free, Frankfurt might say.
So, let's propose another psychology in order to settle these quandaries. If the wanton cared about which of his desires he followed in that he wanted his actions to maximize the net long-term satisfaction of the largest set of them - in other words if the wanton wanted to be prudentially rational - then he would have the potential to be free. If he successfully endeavored to act in such a prudent manner, he would be free in the sense that momentarily strong desires would be unable to sway him from his choice to maximize his larger set of desires. If this became effortless and unreflective for him, he would become an SPB.
The psychology we need, then, is not Frankfurt's top-heavy structure of orders of desires but only the rather more cognitive than connative capacity to reflect on the set of desires in order to determine which cause of action most satisfies it. Freedom of the will, then, is a mechanism for remembering which course of action is most desirable in the sense of maximizing the fulfillment of one's set of first-order desires. Employing this mechanism in order to repel temptation to do otherwise is enough to constitute freedom of the will. No desirability in the sense of second-order desires to follow first-order desires is needed.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Frankfurt on Freedom of the Will II
Frankfurt proposes an ordering of desires as a structure which explains free will. Free will, he says, is the success an agent has in choosing to act on those of his desires which he desires to be the ones he acts on. In other words, to have free will is to desire certain of your desires to determine your actions and to succeed in acting on those and not on the others. The desires for certain desires to be effective are second-order desires. Their objects are first-order desires.
Something is wrong with this picture. I touched upon the problem in the previous post. But let's look at it from a different angle: reasons. (By "reasons" I mean internal reason, or motives, rather than facts external to desires which may be cited as grounds for having those motives.) Your reason for action should be your first order desires, should it not? For instance, if you play tennis or defend justice, it would be fitting if your reasons for doing so were that you most desired to do those things. But we wouldn't want to say that it would be fitting for your reason to be that you desired to desire to do those things, would we? Well, I wouldn't. For instance, I wouldn't like to tell my son that I desired to raise him but my reason for doing so was because I desired that that desire be the one I acted on. It would be better if my reason for raising him were that my desire to raise him was the strongest amongst the competing desires. I call this competitive strength "preference." I assume that reasons for action and will are pretty close to one and the same. So, we shouldn't appeal to second-order desires to explain free will. Preference is what one most desires. It is the resultant vector of all the component vectors which are the set of one's desires. Free will is acting on that resultant vector because one knows it is the resultant vector. Unfree will fails to do so but moves one to do something else.
Frankfurt has will and preference down to second-order desires, rather than the resultant vector of first-order desires. This is too ornate. It may be that sometimes we have to reflect on competing first-order desires and choose which we desire to win the tug of war amongst them, for the most part this does not seem to the best picture of what's most commonly going on in the head. As we noted in the first post, Frankfurt portrays the person most at ease in freedom as not at all undergoing this sort of reflection. This shows that even he can tell that second-order desires are not part of the best picture of things.
More in the next post.
Frankfurt proposes an ordering of desires as a structure which explains free will. Free will, he says, is the success an agent has in choosing to act on those of his desires which he desires to be the ones he acts on. In other words, to have free will is to desire certain of your desires to determine your actions and to succeed in acting on those and not on the others. The desires for certain desires to be effective are second-order desires. Their objects are first-order desires.
Something is wrong with this picture. I touched upon the problem in the previous post. But let's look at it from a different angle: reasons. (By "reasons" I mean internal reason, or motives, rather than facts external to desires which may be cited as grounds for having those motives.) Your reason for action should be your first order desires, should it not? For instance, if you play tennis or defend justice, it would be fitting if your reasons for doing so were that you most desired to do those things. But we wouldn't want to say that it would be fitting for your reason to be that you desired to desire to do those things, would we? Well, I wouldn't. For instance, I wouldn't like to tell my son that I desired to raise him but my reason for doing so was because I desired that that desire be the one I acted on. It would be better if my reason for raising him were that my desire to raise him was the strongest amongst the competing desires. I call this competitive strength "preference." I assume that reasons for action and will are pretty close to one and the same. So, we shouldn't appeal to second-order desires to explain free will. Preference is what one most desires. It is the resultant vector of all the component vectors which are the set of one's desires. Free will is acting on that resultant vector because one knows it is the resultant vector. Unfree will fails to do so but moves one to do something else.
Frankfurt has will and preference down to second-order desires, rather than the resultant vector of first-order desires. This is too ornate. It may be that sometimes we have to reflect on competing first-order desires and choose which we desire to win the tug of war amongst them, for the most part this does not seem to the best picture of what's most commonly going on in the head. As we noted in the first post, Frankfurt portrays the person most at ease in freedom as not at all undergoing this sort of reflection. This shows that even he can tell that second-order desires are not part of the best picture of things.
More in the next post.
Frankfurt on Freedom of the Will I
The essay, "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person" is chapter 2 of The Importance of What We Care About.
Let's broach the issue by simply laying out two points in the essay which seem to me to be mutually inconsistent:
The essay, "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person" is chapter 2 of The Importance of What We Care About.
Let's broach the issue by simply laying out two points in the essay which seem to me to be mutually inconsistent:
- "[I]t never occurs to him to consider whether he wants the relations among his desires to result in his having the will he has."
- [T]he conformity of a person's will to his higher order volitions may be far more thoughtless and spontaneous than this." [Where "this" refers to "formed deliberately and...[with] struggles to ensure that they are satisfied."]
Monday, May 11, 2009
Right/Left
Oh, so I'm on the right and you're on the left? You're more towards the Bolsheviks, and I'm more towards the National Socialists, then? But you are not all the way over there with Lenin and Stalin, because you side with Hitler on some points. You're more moderate than Stalin because you tend toward the fascist on some issues, I guess. Right? We all lie somewhere on a spectrum that runs from Stalin to Hitler, in your view. Bolshevism and National Socialism together are the entirety of political philosophy, in your view.
Is that what you mean? Such is the depth of your political wisdom. Maybe it's not what you mean. But if you are on the left, either this is what you mean or you are so confused that you mean nothing at all when you speak of these things but only intend to give voice to your resentment. Which is it in your case?
I don't share any of the values of the National Socialists, not even moderate versions of them. What are your political values? Individualism and freedom from government control didn't exactly leap to mind, did they? In fact those concepts are slightly suspect in your view. You resent them for reasons you can't put your finger on. Someone has made you resent them. Why would someone do such a thing?
But while I share nothing with the National Socialists, you share many of Stalin's values, perhaps in moderated form. Don't you? For example, you are in favor of enormous government power over the American economy and severe limitation of private property rights. You also want capitalism to end. You don't want it to end but just to be under complete government control? Then you tend toward the fascist on that issue.
Have you ever given much thought to self-reliance, private property rights, limited government, gratitude, innovation and hard work? No, you prefer to dream of the American government controlling half of the economy and also controlling private enterprise, as well as eliminating the American health insurance industry and replacing it with more government. The prospect of government spending at 50% of GDP carries on importance or significance for you.
In fact, then, you tend towards both Stalin and Hitler. You see, they were on the same page. "Right" is a word leftists use to mean "enemy of my favored kind of totalitarianism." That's how you use it, just as the Bolsheviks wanted you to do. It is a leftist brickbat; it has no philosophical content. You've been hoodwinked by your "education" into believing that Stalin and Hitler, left and right, were polar opposites. You probably think that Hitler was conservative, don't you? Such is the profundity of your confusion and ignorance, flaws which you should take steps to correct but will not. Stalin and Hitler were both totalitarians who believed in government control of property and business and the elimination of individual liberty. Perhaps you are more moderate in your views than they, but your views are of the same kind. Do you eschew violence as a means, though they do not? Perhaps not. You will, after all, support the police as they arrest people unwilling to participate in your new government-controlled system. What if great numbers of these people really get in the way of the implementation of your totalitarian vision? Perhaps they should be eliminated. 100 million of them were eliminated in favor of totalitarianism in the last century. What's a few more if it will get you where you, in your ignorance, think justice (it's really revenge and the gratification of resentment and guilt, but you wouldn't know the difference) may be found? Never mind the economic impossibility of it all. That never stopped Stalin, Mao, or Hitler, your less moderate intellectual forebears.
You have filled a hole in your mind with twaddle festooned with pompous language intended to create a semblance of political philosophy. You are cheering as the American experiment in liberty, self-reliance and prosperity, which created more prosperity and freedom than any other force in history, is taken out back and shot. But never mind, your hatred of the rich is as far in political philosophy as your ken will take you. You even think that conservatives were in bed with big business but that the fascist government you currently applaud is not. You have no idea what ramifications the federal debt has or what the significance of permanent yearly deficits of $1T is, and you don't know anything about economics. But you support the spending that will cause these deficits. You somehow vaguely think that this must be done because of what conservatives did to your country, even though you don't know what conservatism is or how much damage the enormous size of your government has done to your country in the last 75 years.
You probably resent this post but have very little grasp of it. Resentment is your modus operandi in the political forum.
Oh, so I'm on the right and you're on the left? You're more towards the Bolsheviks, and I'm more towards the National Socialists, then? But you are not all the way over there with Lenin and Stalin, because you side with Hitler on some points. You're more moderate than Stalin because you tend toward the fascist on some issues, I guess. Right? We all lie somewhere on a spectrum that runs from Stalin to Hitler, in your view. Bolshevism and National Socialism together are the entirety of political philosophy, in your view.
Is that what you mean? Such is the depth of your political wisdom. Maybe it's not what you mean. But if you are on the left, either this is what you mean or you are so confused that you mean nothing at all when you speak of these things but only intend to give voice to your resentment. Which is it in your case?
I don't share any of the values of the National Socialists, not even moderate versions of them. What are your political values? Individualism and freedom from government control didn't exactly leap to mind, did they? In fact those concepts are slightly suspect in your view. You resent them for reasons you can't put your finger on. Someone has made you resent them. Why would someone do such a thing?
But while I share nothing with the National Socialists, you share many of Stalin's values, perhaps in moderated form. Don't you? For example, you are in favor of enormous government power over the American economy and severe limitation of private property rights. You also want capitalism to end. You don't want it to end but just to be under complete government control? Then you tend toward the fascist on that issue.
Have you ever given much thought to self-reliance, private property rights, limited government, gratitude, innovation and hard work? No, you prefer to dream of the American government controlling half of the economy and also controlling private enterprise, as well as eliminating the American health insurance industry and replacing it with more government. The prospect of government spending at 50% of GDP carries on importance or significance for you.
In fact, then, you tend towards both Stalin and Hitler. You see, they were on the same page. "Right" is a word leftists use to mean "enemy of my favored kind of totalitarianism." That's how you use it, just as the Bolsheviks wanted you to do. It is a leftist brickbat; it has no philosophical content. You've been hoodwinked by your "education" into believing that Stalin and Hitler, left and right, were polar opposites. You probably think that Hitler was conservative, don't you? Such is the profundity of your confusion and ignorance, flaws which you should take steps to correct but will not. Stalin and Hitler were both totalitarians who believed in government control of property and business and the elimination of individual liberty. Perhaps you are more moderate in your views than they, but your views are of the same kind. Do you eschew violence as a means, though they do not? Perhaps not. You will, after all, support the police as they arrest people unwilling to participate in your new government-controlled system. What if great numbers of these people really get in the way of the implementation of your totalitarian vision? Perhaps they should be eliminated. 100 million of them were eliminated in favor of totalitarianism in the last century. What's a few more if it will get you where you, in your ignorance, think justice (it's really revenge and the gratification of resentment and guilt, but you wouldn't know the difference) may be found? Never mind the economic impossibility of it all. That never stopped Stalin, Mao, or Hitler, your less moderate intellectual forebears.
You have filled a hole in your mind with twaddle festooned with pompous language intended to create a semblance of political philosophy. You are cheering as the American experiment in liberty, self-reliance and prosperity, which created more prosperity and freedom than any other force in history, is taken out back and shot. But never mind, your hatred of the rich is as far in political philosophy as your ken will take you. You even think that conservatives were in bed with big business but that the fascist government you currently applaud is not. You have no idea what ramifications the federal debt has or what the significance of permanent yearly deficits of $1T is, and you don't know anything about economics. But you support the spending that will cause these deficits. You somehow vaguely think that this must be done because of what conservatives did to your country, even though you don't know what conservatism is or how much damage the enormous size of your government has done to your country in the last 75 years.
You probably resent this post but have very little grasp of it. Resentment is your modus operandi in the political forum.
True Love
Of course, I'm talking about romantic love, not one's love for one's children or friends or non-spouse family members. True love exists, though I'd guess it's uncommon. It's not necessary for a good marriage or a happy life. There can be good marriages in which the spouses love one another but one (or both) doesn't "truly love" the other. There are lives which lack true love but are much better than some lives that have it. It can cause trouble in a life, too. So, it's not a cardinal purpose of life. But I digress. The point is to define it.
Here is an analytical definition of true love:
"S truly loves R" =df "S admires many of R's characteristics in the categories of the psychological and moral (character traits, talents, dispositions) and the physical (appearance and behaviors), and including the large and important characteristics and also the small and unimportant ones. Also, S deeply admires some traits of R from each category. Finally, S also has romantic feelings for R (desires to show R affection physically, desires to couple with R, desires R sexually, and so forth.)
To refute an analytical definition, think of a counterexample. I don't know what would count as a case of true love in which S wasn't described by the definiens I've given. Nor can I imagine evidence that would suggest that although S could be described by the definiens, S did not truly love R. That is the argument for this definition. But it could collapse under the weight of a good counterexample.
Of course, I'm talking about romantic love, not one's love for one's children or friends or non-spouse family members. True love exists, though I'd guess it's uncommon. It's not necessary for a good marriage or a happy life. There can be good marriages in which the spouses love one another but one (or both) doesn't "truly love" the other. There are lives which lack true love but are much better than some lives that have it. It can cause trouble in a life, too. So, it's not a cardinal purpose of life. But I digress. The point is to define it.
Here is an analytical definition of true love:
"S truly loves R" =df "S admires many of R's characteristics in the categories of the psychological and moral (character traits, talents, dispositions) and the physical (appearance and behaviors), and including the large and important characteristics and also the small and unimportant ones. Also, S deeply admires some traits of R from each category. Finally, S also has romantic feelings for R (desires to show R affection physically, desires to couple with R, desires R sexually, and so forth.)
To refute an analytical definition, think of a counterexample. I don't know what would count as a case of true love in which S wasn't described by the definiens I've given. Nor can I imagine evidence that would suggest that although S could be described by the definiens, S did not truly love R. That is the argument for this definition. But it could collapse under the weight of a good counterexample.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Sacrifice
Let's rehearse this business about Edith Wharton, Age of Innocence, again. Here is the passage which I mentioned a couple of years ago. It begins with Ellen Olenska:
Think of other cases. For example, a woman who realizes in her late 20's that her husband and mother are poor family members, too absorbed by their mild narcissistic and rage disorders to know what love is. Also, the woman has few other really good and intelligent people with whom to make friendships. Nevertheless, this woman resolves to stay with this family because there are children involved who need their mother and father to stay with them. She thus gives up more than a decade of time to living a life which is in large part not good for her and also lonely. She achieves the insight into happiness which Olenska does, and she does what she ought just as well as she. But, no perfect Olenska, she also has days from time to time on which she is Archer.
Gratitude and virtue are a sort of spinal cord of character. Failing the former, the latter is difficult. If you have both of them in spades, you come to a fulfillment of character which is the stuff of self-love, as Olenska discovers but Archer never does.
Let's rehearse this business about Edith Wharton, Age of Innocence, again. Here is the passage which I mentioned a couple of years ago. It begins with Ellen Olenska:
Isn't it you who made me give up divorcing - give it up because you showed me how selfish and wicked it was, how one must sacrifice one's self to preserve the dignity of marriage ....And because my family was going to be your family - for May's sake and for yours - I did what you told me, what you proved to me that I ought to do. Ah," she broke out with a sudden laugh, "I've made no secret of having done it for you!"At this point, Archer suggests Olenska go out with her friends: "Since you tell me that you’re lonely...."
...
The silence that followed lay on them with the weight of things final and irrevocable. It seemed to Archer to be crushing him down like his own grave-stone; in all the wide future he saw nothing that would ever lift that load from his heart....
"At least I loved you-" he brought out.
On the other side of the hearth, from the sofa-corner where he supposed that she still crouched, he heard a faint stifled crying like a child's.
...
[Olenska:]"I felt there was no one as kind as you; no one who gave me reasons that I understood for doing what at first seemed so hard and - unnecessary. The very good people didn't convince me; I felt they'd never been tempted. But you knew; you understood; you had felt the world outside tugging at one with all its golden hands--and yet you hated the things it asks of one; you hated happiness bought by disloyalty and cruelty and indifference. That was what I'd never known before - and it's better than anything I've known."
She smiled a little under her wet lashes. "I shan't be lonely now. I WAS lonely; I WAS afraid. But the emptiness and the darkness are gone; when I turn back into myself now I'm like a child going at night into a room where there's always a light."This rare opportunity to achieve and manifest character virtues presents itself to Newland Archer and Ellen Olenska. Olenska takes full advantage of this opportunity, while Archer has only middling success. Only Olenska grasps the opportunity to retain one's happiness in spite of the painful sacrifice required for these virtues. Archer hasn't the foggiest idea of this happiness.
Think of other cases. For example, a woman who realizes in her late 20's that her husband and mother are poor family members, too absorbed by their mild narcissistic and rage disorders to know what love is. Also, the woman has few other really good and intelligent people with whom to make friendships. Nevertheless, this woman resolves to stay with this family because there are children involved who need their mother and father to stay with them. She thus gives up more than a decade of time to living a life which is in large part not good for her and also lonely. She achieves the insight into happiness which Olenska does, and she does what she ought just as well as she. But, no perfect Olenska, she also has days from time to time on which she is Archer.
Gratitude and virtue are a sort of spinal cord of character. Failing the former, the latter is difficult. If you have both of them in spades, you come to a fulfillment of character which is the stuff of self-love, as Olenska discovers but Archer never does.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)