Contractualism

Kevin Vallier has a good post over at Bleeding Heart Libertarianism on contractualism.  I highly recommend it.  One point I would like to highlight. He does a good job of illustrating what I think most people are confused about in assessing contemporary contractualism: it's not about agreement or consent, but justification.

II. Justification, Not Consent

Most readers will think that contractualism rests on the idea of a contract (true) that in turn depends on a conception of consent (false). The traditional social contract views (Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau) did rely on consent and agreement. But the contractualist tradition in political theory has evolved away from an ideal of actual agreement and hypothetical agreement. That is, the social contract does not consist in rules we have actually agreed to (which everyone and their mom has pointed out for three hundred years) or rules we would only hypothetically agree to (which everyone and their mom has pointed out can’t really generate obligations). Sam Freeman puts it this way: the “role of unanimous collective agreement” is in showing “what we have reasons to do in our social and political relations.” Agreement itself is not the binding act. Instead, agreement is reason-revealing.

Thus, the core normative idea of social contract theory (contractualism) is not consent or agreement but justification. As Rawls said of his original position, its aim is to settle “the question of justification … by working out a problem of deliberation.” (TJ, 16) Or as Gaus has put it, “Contractualism is … best understood as a method for publicly justifying the public moral code of a society. Seen in this light, the idea of ‘consent’ – or indeed ‘agreement’ – is only heuristic.” (Value and Justification, 328)

The social contract in contemporary political philosophy is the attempt to solve a justificatory problem by converting it into a deliberative problem. Justifying social arrangements requires showing that all citizens have sufficient reason to accept the arrangement.

The morality of human extinction

Suppose that a social practice emerged that led people to disvalue parenting and thus to forebear from having children.  Also, this social practice enabled all individuals to lead peaceful, prosperous, and valuable lives.  Suppose also that at some point all of humanity comes to engage in this practice, thus leading all of humanity to disvalue parenting and cease having children.  As a result, this practice leads to a point where humanity eventually dies out: the human species goes extinct, but in the process all individuals lead valuable lives, maximizing goal and desire satisfaction.

The question is this: if a social practice were to lead to all people living valuable lives but also to the extinction of humanity, what is the moral status of such a practice?  Is extinction a moral bad?  Why (or why not)?  Particularly on a contractarian account of social morality, why should I care about human extinction?  What does/doesn't this say about the normative significance of evolutionary stories (such as found in chapter 3 of Gaus, The Order of Public Reason)?

Rationality, Criminals, and the "Score of a Lifetime"

We often see movies in which criminals enter into a conspiracy the outcome of which is the "score of a lifetime."  Think Ocean's Eleven.  At the same time, however, we often see movies where some member of the group double-crosses the rest, usually killing the crew, in order to take home the entire pot of gold rather than his individual share.  Think The Italian Job.  So my question is this:

is it ever rational for criminals to enter into a criminal conspiracy the goal of which is the "score of a lifetime"?

The target -- the score of a lifetime -- seems to suggest a one-off cooperative scheme.  So how can one rationally enter into such an arrangement?  Think prisoners' dilemma situations.

Nothingness and fear of death

This is an interesting column: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-peron/atheism-death_b_957049.html

This captures much of some of my currently-held beliefs regarding what is most likely:

"How did 1950 feel to you?" she asked him. Tony was confused. That was long before he was born. Stella knew this. Why ask such a question? But before he could respond, Stella answered the question herself.

"You didn't exist in 1950 and at some point in the future you will once again cease to exist. That's really it, you know. One day you came into being, and you sucked at life itself, grabbing everything you could. You learned, you lived, if lucky, you loved. And one day it simply ceases to be. What is there to fear? Did the time before your birth traumatize you or cause you pain? No. You weren't there to be traumatized or to feel pain. And someday you, and I as well, will simply stop being. It will be as it was for that eternity before our births. The world, for us, came into existence the day we were born and it will cease the day we die. There is an eternity after our death, and an eternity before our birth. Our life is like a slim, but wonderful book sitting between two vast bookends of nothingness. Why worry about the nothingness when we have such a wonderful volume in our hands right now?"

As I mentioned above, this captures much of my currently held beliefs about what is likely to come.  I differ, however, in the author’s outlook.  The idea of nothingness is extremely depressing, almost crushingly so, to me anyway.

Rationality and individual belief

Lately I’ve been thinking about rationality and individual belief.  Here is my question: how does one rationally choose what to believe in fields that require technical expertise when (1) the individual does not possess such expertise, (2) there is disagreement among experts, and (3) the disagreement is deep and fundamental, usually the result of different comprehensive worldviews?  I have in mind important questions regarding economics, science, social theory, etc.  Most of us do not possess advanced degrees and lack the formal training required to make a truly informed decision on many important matters.  Yet most of us nevertheless believe some theory rather than another, and believe strongly in it, often evincing frustration (and even anger) towards those with opposite beliefs.  So how is it that we come to have these beliefs?  Can these beliefs be the result of a rational process?  How is that process rational?  We usually do not take it to be rational to believe something simply because a majority believes it (leaving aside the Condorcet Jury Theorom), so counting heads seems to be out.  What should we do?

Quote of the Day

Although experience teaches us that men live in violence and are prone to fight one another before the advent of external compulsive legislation, it is not experience that makes public lawful coercion necessary. The necessity of public lawful coercion does not rest on a fact, but on an a priori Idea of reason, for, even if men were to be ever so good natured and righteous before a public lawful state of society is established, individual men, nations and states can never be certain they are secure against violence from one another because each will have the right to do what seems just and good to him, entirely independently of the opinion of others.  -Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals: The Doctrine of Recht, §44.

Quote of the Day

"I migrated from the bed to the sofa this morning. For some reason, Herman Cain was there, putting up an electric fence." -Some guy on Twitter (HT Bryan Caplan).

Some thoughts on voter irrationality and the authority of 'experts'

Here are some arm-chair thoughts regarding the rationality of certain beliefs.  Many economists, political scientists, and moral/political philosophers criticize democratic decision-making based on the claim that voters are ignorant, irrational (see Caplan (2007)), and prone to mob-mentality.  A premise utilized in the criticism of democratic decision-making is common-sense claim that just because a majority of voters believe X is the case doesn’t make it so (whether X stands for some economic policy or moral proposition).

In The Myth of the Rational Voter (2007), Bryan Caplan argues that voters are not just ignorant, they are irrational and systematically biased in judging economic policies.  In furtherance of this claim, Caplan compares certain beliefs held by a large portion of the voting public to the prevailing views of the economics profession.  He notes that voters systematically choose bad policies as judged by economic experts.  As a result, democracies choose bad policies.  Using this evidence, Caplan suggests that it is plausible for economic experts to have political authority: individuals should obey the economic policy decisions of economists because they should recognize that their beliefs diverge significantly from what the experts in the field believe, and this divergence is likely the result of cognitive biases.  In a follow up paper, Caplan writes:

Once we set aside autonomy concerns, though, Estlund’s expert/boss “fallacy” makes sense.  Given the claim that “The experts are more likely to be right about X than us,” it is hard to deny that “We should do what the experts think about X.”  If economists are better able to weigh the merits of free trade and protection, there has to be a presumption that we should adopt the trade policy that economists think best.  Of course, you could deny that economists know better; but once you grant that premise, it is hard to see why you shouldn’t heed their judgment.

So suppose we grant that we should heed experts’ judgments.  This admission quickly raises the next question: What should experts do if someone violates the moral imperative to heed their advice?   In a democratic context, this question becomes: Would it be justifiable for experts to overrule the majority for its own good – i.e., for experts to act as “bosses”?  Once we set aside arguments from autonomy, as Estlund seems to do, it is hard to see any principled objection to this expert/boss inference (not “fallacy”).  Think about it this way: By assumption, an expert knows more than you do, and you won’t listen.  Without challenging these premises, how could you block the expert/boss inference other than by saying “I have a right to make the wrong decision”?

To be clear, Caplan is not suggesting that experts should always have political authority, for he leaves aside arguments based on rights, autonomy, and pragmatic concerns (e.g., who is to police the experts?).  Rather, he is making a claim that it is at least pre facie reasonable to expect individuals to heed the proscriptions of economists.

Now, here are my concerns about this.  If we recognize that majority voting qua decision procedure possesses no epistemic authority (i.e., just because a majority believes that X is the case does not show that X is actually the case), how should the economically-ignorant laymen (i.e., those without a PhD in economics) choose which expert-backed opinion to believe?  The data set Caplan utilizes in support of his claim that voters differ from experts are surveys of economists.  The problem is that there is never unanimity in beliefs; rather, we often see some percentage split among these experts.  Sometimes the split is 75-25, 65-35, 80-20, etc.  But if majority voting is not a proper tool for making decisions among the population writ large, why is it so among economic experts?  How is it rational to place faith in this decision-procedure in light of the fact that experts disagree?  How are we to judge the competing claims of experts?

One may argue that an economist is not an “expert” if they do not share the prevailing views of the profession.  But this seems to beg the question, for the important problem precisely is why should we grant “expert” status (and thus obey) to the views of “the majority” of the profession.

Perhaps Caplan discusses this issue in his book or in follow-up work.  Perhaps the answer is based on some kind of Condorcet Jury Theorem application (claiming that economists are more than 50% likely to get the answer right, that there is no evidence of systematic bias among economists, etc.).  I’m skeptical, but I have to go back and read his book (which I haven’t read in 4 years or so).  Anyway, these are some things I have been pondering.

Central issues in political philosophy, Part 1:

I thought it would be helpful to keep a running list of the major issues in political philosophy, as set forth by the philosophers I am reading.  Here is the first installment.

"The main current of contemporary liberal political theory seeks to develop a post-Enlightenment account of politics.  The question driving contemporary liberalism ... is whether ordered political life based on mutual respect, with a politics that aims at justice, is possible in the modern world of deep disagreement about values, justice and what is reasonable." - Gerald F. Gaus, Contemporary Theories of Liberalism x (2003).

Quote of the Day

John Stuart Mill, in discussing the (democratic) need for a system of proportional representation:

“In a really equal democracy, every or any section would be represented, not disproportionately, but proportionately. A majority of the electors would always have a majority of the representatives; but a minority of the electors would always have a minority of the representatives. Man for man they would be as fully represented as the majority. Unless they are, there is not equal government, but a government of inequality and privilege: one part of the people rule over the rest …” -John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government 146 (1861).

Quote of the Day

Another gem from Lomasky:

“Rights without foundations are treacherous entities. … Rights are so easy to claim, but so terribly difficult to justify. Naked appeals to intuition or moral insight too often supplant analysis, and, not surprisingly, one person’s right is another’s fantasy. The result can be pleasing only to the moral skeptic.” - Loren Lomasky, Persons, Rights, and the Moral Community vii (1987).

Quote of the Day

“Bentham had as vivid an appreciation as Karl Marx … of the ways in which mysteries and illusions, often profitable to interested parties, have clustered round social institutions, concealing the fact that they with their defects are human artefacts, and encouraging the belief that the injustices and exploitation which they permit must be ascribed to nature and are beyond the power of men to change.  ‘Law’ says Bentham ‘shows itself in a mask’, and much that he wrote was designed to remove it.”  -H.L.A. Hart, Essays on Bentham 2 (1982).

Quote of the Day

"[R]egard for someone as a rights holder is grounded in the recognizability of that being as a distinct individual.  It is not personhood which calls for respect but rather distinct persons.  Between these two conceptions there is a sharp divide, one separating an ethic in which individualism is valued from an ethic subscribing entirely to an impersonal standard of value."  -Loren Lomasky, Persons, Rights, and the Moral Community 167 (1987).

Re: Re: Property Requirements for Voting and Other Misguided Ideas

Here is a response by a different commentator to my reply over at that dogmatic libertarian blog.  It is nice to see a somewhat more reasoned response and at least some willingness to engage in philosophical debate.

Too many floating abstractions in what you have provided. Start by considering what property is, what an owner of property is, the relationship between the two and why it is up to the owner to determine what the use of HIS property is to be.

Quoting, “If I choose to play Russian roulette with your head and the chamber that comes up happens to be empty, would I have “interfered” with your liberty?”

In this instance you are choosing to threaten the well-being, indeed the very life, of another person with an extreme violence and very destructive behaviour. Whatever happens they will never be the same after your offensive action. What gives you the right to dispose of their life, or threaten to, in some game of chance you operate? Turn the scenario around and consider whether I have a right to put a gun to your head. Do I own your life? Is it mine to dispose of in a game of chance, according some arbitrary whim I wish to play through? Are you my property to injure, make suffer, torture, bully, threaten, scare, emotionally scar etc? Whose property is your body and your life? Can any other person have the right to own it?

You need to carefully consider what property is and what that means. I recommend you read some of Prof Hans-Herman Hoppe’s work on ths subject. That would be a strong running start.

You write, “Does driving 65 mph rise to this level of risk/threats? Does 75? How about 95mph? Most importantly, who decides?”

The owner of the property decides. Ask for the name of the owner of the road. After all, it is the owner of the property who decides what the rules of said property are going to be. He sets the rules and you follow them if you wish to use his property, in this case a road. Hence, if you decide that a road where the owner has set no speed limit is too dangerous for you, then you don’t go there. He owns his property, just as you own yours (you own yourself). Now if the road owner set a limit of 5mph and required the presence of a man with a red flag, then you’d need to obey that (assuming you want to drive on his road). If not, then do not go there. It’s his property and so he decides what the requirements for you to use his property are. Simple enough really.

Quoting, “I will demand a say in the process.”

You can demand all you like but you have no control over the disposition, employment and/or disposal of that which is not your property. It aint yours, so as a non-owner you have no say in the process the owner employs to decide what to do with his property. Sure, you might like to try and persuade him to choose a particular option from a set of alternatives, but he is ultimately the one who decides. It has nothing to do with you. You have no say in his business. That is, HIS property.

Quoting, “Driving a car that releases substances that are causally contributory to cancer and other diseases is an interference.”

You would need to prove that the use of the car was causal. That is, you need to prove that specific substances caused your cancer and that they were sourced from a car. If you can show that then you have a case which requires redress. If not, then there is nothing to consider. All you would have accomplised then is the generation of an arbitrary claim (an equivalent of saying there are fairies in my garden).

None of this requires a democratic process, a say, voting, a decision making procedure or any of that. What it does require is the thorough understanding of what property is.

Here is my response:

Thank you for the response. Here are my disagreements.

First, the two examples were meant to indicate that risky behavior and/or threatening behavior are additional burdens for a libertarian theory of basic rights that cannot be determined by resort to simple noninterference/nonaggression without an additional theory of impermissible noninterference. Here is a slight alteration of the Russian roulette example. Suppose that I perform this twisted game while you are sleeping at my house (you needed a place to crash after watching the Giants beat the Falcons). I pull the trigger but alas the chamber is empty. You are never the wiser to this occurrence. I believe that this Russian roulette is morally impermissible and exemplifies the fact that risky behavior, in addition to physical force, violates basic rights. But once we recognize this moral fact, many additional issues arise: what other behavior is impermissibly risky? For example, should we allow a train to pass by my property despite the fact that it may produce sparks and light my house on fire? What gives them the right to risk my property and my life? You can cite to Hoppe all you want, but reasonable people, including reasonable libertarian philosophers, disagree on these issues. Who decides?

This brings me to my second point. I am familiar with Hoppe, I have read Rothbard numerous times, and I am very familiar as to what “property” is and requires. (In actuality, it is not “property” that is important but the concept of “rights.” Property in and of itself has no moral value. Only the addition of “rights” gives the concept of property any moral standing.) That being said, it is the case that reasonable libertarian philosophers disagree over the nature and extent of property rights. Indeed, Roderick Long, a card-carrying member of the LvMI community, argued for the importance of recognizing public rights in property, thus re-opening all the questions of risky behavior as exemplified by the speeding example. Whether you agree with him or not, whether he is correct or not, is beside the point. What is important is that his view is reasonable. Unless you profess to transcend the realities of the human condition and our limited cognitive capacities and knowledge, you will recognize the potential fallibility of your own position. This does not mean you should give up in setting forth a conception of justice and property rights; rather, it means you ought to recognize that reasonable people can and do disagree, even within the libertarian framework.

Third, you note that “You can demand all you like but you have no control over the disposition, employment and/or disposal of that which is not your property. It aint yours…” The problem here is that the issue precisely is which property is rightfully whose and the requirements of justice. To the extent that I disagree with Owner X’s claim to justice and a certain conception of property rights, I will thereafter claim a right to reparation for harm. In pursuance thereof, I will “get my boys” and make damn well sure that I have “control over the disposition, employment and/or disposal” of what I believe is my property. You can pound the table all you like with Hoppe and Rothbard, but I will pound the table in return with Lomansky, Gaus, Nozick, and Locke. To make things really interesting, I could introduce David Friedman and other utilitarian anarchist-capitalists and/or libertarians (such as Richard Epstein) in order to really illustrate the disagreements possible in a libertarian political unit. Again, who decides?

The libertarian theories of property rights, contract rights, torts, etc. do not provide for an all-encompassing, self-contained, neatly packaged institutional system with no room for reasonable disagreement. So there will always be disagreement, even among libertarians, as to issues such as criminal punishment, adverse possession, intellectual property (cite all you want to Kinsella, libertarians disagree), easements, “offer and acceptance,” drunk driving (if public property is recognized), negligence, etc. You may have your own theory (or Hoppe’s) hoping to provide an answer to these problems, but so will others with incompatible and mutually exclusive solutions. The issue thus falls back once again to who decides. Who has the authority to settle these disputes? Who has authority to enforce settlement?

Because decisions must be made on these issues and because of the realities of the human condition–cognitive biases, moral fallibility, limited knowledge–individuals will reasonably reject the claim of philosopher kings to posses moral and political authority. Their claim “to know” better than everyone else (i.e., a claim to theoretical authority) will be looked at with reasonable suspicion, especially if they are unwilling to listen to and take note of voices of disagreement in a deliberative and inclusive process. Their claim to the obligatoriness of their conception of morality, justice, and property rights (i.e., a claim to practical authority) will thus be reasonably rejected, for they have not been able (or willing) to justify to their fellow libertarian citizens their imposition of a political system. They will thereby lack the moral legitimacy to enforce their regime.

Re: Property Requirements for Voting and Other Misguided Ideas

Here is a sadly amusing reply to my comment over at that dogmatic libertarian blog:

"Sounds like Marxist claptrap to me. I even note you included a proletariat backstory to lend authenticity to your views. Also, why is justice in quotes?

Anyone disagree?”

This is the type of silliness, dogmatism, and ignorance within certain Austro-libertarian circles that saddens me.  As you all may know, this characterization of my views is pretty comical.  It’s unfortunate that diversity of views and informed discussion and debate is shunned by these factions within the “libertarian tent.”  Here is my response:

Wow, I can honestly say that I have never been called a "Marxist" before.  Although certainly not on my bucket list, I guess I owe you thanks for helping me check that one off.

First, the back story is not to lend authenticity to my views.  I could have picked any two different individuals from vastly different communities with vastly different backstories to make the same point.

Second, I put *justice* in quotation marks not intending to use scare quotes, but to emphasize that justice is an interpretive concept susceptible to differing conceptions and in need of moral argumentation in support of the conception put forth.  Perhaps I should have used italics instead.  My apologies.

Third, in order to assuage your concerns vis-a-vis a Marxist conspiracy, I will simply note that the problems associated with the human condition (moral fallibility, cognitive biases, limited information) is front and center in the political theory of John Locke.  Cognitive biases is what Locke is after in discussing the problems associated with persons "being a judge in their own case."  Fast forward a few centuries to the point I was making above in response to the claim that only property owners should be afforded the franchise: if I know that persons' conceptions of justice are skewed by their cognitive biases, thereby downplaying my interests in favor of their own (even if granting them good faith), it is unjustifiable to enforce those laws against me in which I had no say in their process of promulgation, i.e., those laws in which I was denied participation.  This is because these laws are necessarily skewed in favor of those who took part in the law-making process. 

Moreover, although this problem is acute in a pluralistic political unit in which people fundamentally disagree over the principles of justice and the good life, it is also a problem in more homogenous societies.  So even if we assume a libertarian political community in which all the citizens agree on the fundamental principles of justice (liberty as noninterference, Lockean homesteading, vast contractual rights, etc.), people would *still* disagree over the contours of these rights and their application.  For example, what is the status of risky or threatening behavior?  If I choose to play Russian roulette with your head and the chamber that comes up happens to be empty, would I have "interfered" with your liberty?  And if so, what of other risky or threatening behavior?  Does driving 65 mph rise to this level of risk/threats?  Does 75?  How about 95mph?  Most importantly, who decides?  In light of cognitive biases, moral fallibility, and limited information, I will not simply trust you and a small group to make the proper decisions.  I will demand a say in the process. 

Another example in case you are unconvinced.  As noted by David Friedman and Loren Lomasky, the rather miniscule 'interferences' in property and causal determinants of 'interference' raise questions of what is an *impermissible* interference.  Driving a car that releases substances that are causally contributory to cancer and other diseases is an interference.  So is shining a flashlight onto someone's property.  Are these *interferences* to be proscribed in the libertarian society?  The answers are not obvious and reasonable libertarian philosophers and citizens alike disagree.  The basic point is that these determinations do not read off of "the libertarian ideal" in a straightforward deductive way.  Nevertheless, a decision *must* be made: are we to forbid these actions or allow them?  Because a decision must be taken, a decision procedure is required.  This is where the democratic ideal comes into play: in light of the human condition (cognitive biases, moral fallibility, limited information) individual citizens are entitled to a say in the process of decision-making if they are to be obliged to abide by the system of laws and property rights in existence in the libertarian political society.