Do Ends Justify Means?
Intervention mocks human dignity.
I — and most other people, I assume — grew up being taught that the end doesn’t justify the means. Basically, this is an injunction not to rationalize one’s behavior while using other people as mere means to one’s ends.
Most people apply that principle day to day. If you want at an item on a supermarket shelf and someone is standing in the way, few of us would think it right to shove that person aside. Why not? It won’t do to say that the person might fight back. Would things change if an elderly, frail person were there? It also won’t do to say that other people might observe your conduct, perhaps leading to a fight, or an arrest, or at least a loss of reputation. Nor will it do to say that in normal circumstances waiting for the person to move would cost little in time and convenience. How much time and inconvenience would be required to make shoving an attractive option? The question answers itself.
A utilitarian (or any other sort of consequentialist) might say that greater good, happiness, or utility would be achieved by waiting than by shoving. That is, the harm to the other person would exceed the benefits to you. But since interpersonal comparisons of subjective utility are impossible – not only is there no unit of measurement, in principle there’s nothing to measure – that claim has no content. As J. J. C. Smart, a utilitarian, put it, “[T]he utilitarian is reduced to an intuitive weighing of various consequences with their probabilities. It is impossible to justify such intuitions rationally, and we have here a serious weakness in utilitarianism.” A. J. Ayer had a similar insight, “Bentham’s process of ‘sober calculation’ turns out to be a myth.” Jeremy Bentham himself was aware of this problem. (The quotes are in Germain Grisez, “Against Consequentialism” [pdf], American Journal of Jurisprudence, 1978. Hat tip: Gary Chartier for bringing this article to my attention.)
The “Greater Good”
If “goods” are incommensurable, then one of them cannot be said to be “greater” than others. Thus acting for the “greater good” is without meaning. “[T]his lack of commensurability eliminates all possibility of reference for the expression ‘greater good’ as the consequentialist uses this expression,” natural-law philosopher Germain Grisez writes.
So why wouldn’t we shove the elderly, frail person aside even if we were certain to be unobserved? We abstain from that “efficient” means to an unobjectionable and perhaps worthy end because we have a sense that it would be an injustice and that injustice is to be avoided. We don’t calculate that committing the injustice would in this case be contrary to our own self-interest (what would you think of someone who actually did that?), nor do we even determine that shoving the person aside would ill-serve that person’s interests. Rather, we know that the act would be wrong because it is wrong to use another person as a mere means to our ends. (In a sense we’re all the children of Athens.)
So why is the principle that the end doesn’t justify the means absent from most discussion of government policy? Why are political measures routinely defended on the sole basis that they will bring about some good consequence that supposedly outweighs the costs (from the perspective of those who propose them)? This happens all the time. A tariff is justified by the help it is thought to give to a struggling domestic industry. A price control is justified as a way to keep the price of some product affordable. A mandate that employers or insurance companies (nominally) pay for women’s contraception is justified in terms of women’s health or of reducing the number of abortions. Torture is justified as a source of useful information. Obliteration bombing is justified as a way to shorten a war.
In all these cases and more, those who proffer the government policy seem to think that all they need do is identify a consequence as the “greater good” and the discussion is over. The end justifies the means. That may indicate one of two things. The proponent of the measure may think that the objective of the policy is more important than whatever those who are forced to pay for it must forgo as a result. Or the proponent may be oblivious of the costs entirely, as though there were none.
Costs and Victims
But, first of all, there are always costs to — and therefore victims of — any government action. Government is force, and “[c]oercive intervention . . . signifies per se that the individual or individuals coerced would not have done what they are now doing were it not for the intervention” (Murray Rothbard, Power and Market). A tariff forces consumers to pay more for products, leaving them less money to spend on other people’s products. That’s two sets of victims. A price control will drive marginal producers out of business, creating shortages. A contraception mandate will cost someone money, no matter how often the products and services are called “free.” Etc.
All those who are forced to bear the costs are treated by the government and the special-interest groups it empowers as mere means to other people’s ends; that is, they are treated as less than human.
The proponents of such measures never tell us why the benefits they aim for are more important than the benefits other people will have to do without. But of course they couldn’t tell us: The benefits are incommensurable.
Lost Freedom
Furthermore, apart from the material loss, the victims’ progressive loss of freedom is real both in the immediate instance as well as with respect to the precedent set for future government action (the slippery slope). Intervention begets intervention as policymakers try to clean up the mess their previous actions created.
As Grisez puts it,
The economic advantages and disadvantages of a proposed public project can be quantified. But people also want freedom of speech and of religion, equal protection of the laws, privacy, and other goods which block certain choices, yet which cannot be costed out. Cost-benefit analysis can tell one the most effective way of attaining certain objectives, assuming one accepts the objectives and has no concerns about the means and the side effects of the means required to attain them. But such analysis cannot tell one whether the objectives one seeks are objectives one ought to seek, or whether nonquantifiable factors should be ignored. [Emphasis added.]
Means and ends of course are intimately related. The end determines the array of relevant means. But that is not the end of the story. In selecting from that array, considerations apart from the end are highly relevant — such as the injunction never to use another person as a mere means. To ignore those considerations is to mock human dignity and countenance the slave principle.
That’s basic to how we ordinarily think about morality. But politicians and those who leech off their power flout this insight as a matter of course.
Related articles
“Free Markets and Highest Valued Use” by Roy Cordato
“Is the Marketplace Efficient?” by Sheldon Richman
Comment by Christine Smith on 24 February 2012:
Sheldon,
I enjoyed reading your piece this morning, as I feel this one point is critical to anyone even beginning to question government actions. It is the central point and principle which leads one to question oneself as well as government.
I also wrote a piece on this topic back in 2008 which I share with you and your readers and invite you to read entitled, “The End Does Not Justify the means,”:
http://christinesmith.us/wordpress/2008/08/22/the-end-does-not-justify-the-means/
From which I quote, “The truth is no evil action is justified by having a good end in mind. This is true for a nation, as it is for you as an individual. Intention does not detract from the gravity of committing a wrongful action. To accept commission of evil against other human beings for a supposed favorable end for other human beings is to defy ethics and morality completely.” My piece examines this from a historical/national viewpoint as well as the personal.
Most people, from my observation, do not have a problem with letting others (as in the government) do the dirty work for them, so to speak, if it means getting something they want. They may give lip service to this principle of ‘the end does not justify the means,’ but in actuality it is not in their heart or mind.
Treating others “less than human” as you refer to is something many will do if they think it gives them an advantage.
But for those who do value ethics and morality, I think it is this point of your (and my piece) which can help them realize the inconsistency in their support of government actions.
Comment by Sheldon Richman on 24 February 2012:
Thanks, Christine!
Comment by Daniel Koehler on 24 February 2012:
Dear Sheldon,
Terrific article, as usual. I read it with great interest re: the notion of incommensurate goods, especially:
<>
I believe the “means-justifies-ends” idea implied in “Common Good” thesis is one of the major canards in the history of philosophy beginning with Plato. IMO, collectivizing the Good hardly makes it superior; indeed, it vitiates it. You can’t compare a superlative, anyway, and that’s what the Common Good thesis tries to do. Any way you slice it, the notion of the Good is a subjective concept best pursued individually. This is the recurring theme of Von Mises Human Action, and why “the means justifying the ends” argument is a logical fallacy.
Best regards, Dan
PS. Do you hear much from Hall McAdams over at the FFF?
PPS. I can’t stand what the GOP establishment is doing to Ron Paul. I almost hope he goes rogue/3rd Party to bitch slap those fascist bastards!
Comment by Daniel Koehler on 24 February 2012:
THe quote of your I cited was omitted from my post in the “” field. Here’s what I quoted:
“All those who are forced to bear the costs are treated by the government and the special-interest groups it empowers as mere means to other people’s ends; that is, they are treated as less than human.”
Dan K
Comment by Sheldon Richman on 24 February 2012:
Thanks, Dan. I haven’t heard from Hall in a long while.
Comment by norman on 24 February 2012:
You say: “I — and most other people, I assume — grew up being taught that the end doesn’t justify the means.”
That is a cliche if I’ve ever heard one. If the means don’t justify the ends then it’s not an economical way to accomplich your ends.
You say: “So why is the principle that the end doesn’t justify the means absent from most discussion of government policy?” That is a real assumption on your part. To the electors government means are the best to accomplish their ends. Since nobody is omniscent sometimes the means chosen are not best suited to accomplish the ends desired. Since many people lack even a rudimentary understanding of economics or logic, that’s why they voted for Obama.
Comment by Sheldon Richman on 24 February 2012:
“To the electors government means are the best to accomplish their ends.”
You missed my point. They have traded other people’s ends in the process, something they cannot morally do. So this is just a rationalization.
On your first point, that a means has a good chance of achieving an end is of course a necessary condition for its being a proper means. But it is not a sufficient condition. It also has to not entail an injustice, that is, using others as mere means, that is, initiating physical force.
Comment by D. Saul Weiner on 24 February 2012:
I think that most citizens in a democracy tend to conflate the ethics of pursuing desirable (to them) ends in the marketplace with pursuing desirable (to them) ends through the political process. They are blind to the fact that the latter process is, by its very nature, exploitative and destructive, that they are trampling on innocent bystanders, so to speak.
Comment by Brian Peterson on 24 February 2012:
I really enjoyed this article, because I had not conceptually bridged the gap between ethics and politics in this particular respect, in terms of means and ends.
However, my understanding of the “Ends don’t justify means” proposition has always been that it was not true, or not reflective enough on the ideas at work.
It seems to me that good ends can well justify good means. Indeed, I can’t imagine anything else that could possibly justify your means, i.e. your specific actions taken, but the goal you are working towards. That is to say, you act because you have a goal, this is necessarily so. (I’m very much in the tradition of Mises.)
The question of bad means used to achieve good ends is… well, I like to think that this is a bad theory, that it doesn’t work that way in practice. I guess the gist of this article is that since the good ends of individuals together are incommensurable, the concept of a collectively good end breaks down beyond the pareto efficiency, so to speak–or in other words, when someone starts getting hurt in exchange for more benefit to others. And this makes a lot of sense…
But there’s always the trolley argument or something like that to make you question whether or not collective goods beyond pareto efficiency do exist. Choose between half the earth’s population dying and one person dying, or something absurd like that. Conscious life must have some kind of rough-around-the-edges value that you can assign to it, perhaps.
I guess I just wanted to say that when everything is good, when you’re using good means, and no one is being harmed by your actions, then good ends are the proper recipient of your striving.
Comment by Chris Sullivan on 24 February 2012:
I think the biggest problem is that many – maybe even most – people think that government is not bound by the moral law. If you bomb your neighbor’s house or steal his property it’s wrong, but if the government does it, it’s OK.
If you lie it’s wrong, but it isn’t wrong for the government to lie. There is the corollary to this that the government can make something wrong that is not so intrinsically, such as violating building codes or speeding or carrying a concealed weapon without government approval.
Under this set of principles, all things are permitted to the government. There is no malum in se that applies to it.
Comment by Pedro on 24 February 2012:
I agree on the main point that most arguments in favor of intervention consist mostly of rationalizations that enable their defenders to find excuses to act in ways that would be considered immoral by most people. Benthamism doesn’t work.
However, this kind of utilitarianism is not the only one. I’m just going to leave you this quote from Henry Hazlitt from an article in The Freeman:
“I have suggested in my book, The Foundations of Morality (1964, 1972), not only that the utilitarianism of Bentham, and even of Mill and Sidgwick, has been in important respects superseded, but that it would increase clarity of thought to abandon the old term entirely. I have recommended substituting the term “rule-utilitism” because it comes much closer to describing a satisfactory moral system.
We should not take or judge an action in accordance with what we think would be its consequences considered as an isolated act. Not only can we never be certain what such consequences would be, but with such a moral code (or lack of code) we would never be able to depend on each other’s conduct, and we would fall far short of that social cooperation by which we most fully promote our own and each other’s ends. Moral action, for the most part, is action in accordance with accepted principles or rules. It is only when each of us can be depended upon to act consistently in accordance with such principles or rules that we can depend on each other. It is only when we can rely on each other to keep our promises, to tell the truth, to refrain from theft, fraud and violence, and to help each other in emergencies, that we can best promote that social cooperation so essential to attaining our individual ends.
These moral rules evolved during the centuries, long before they were explicitly formulated or codified, and certainly long before any moral philosopher explicitly formulated any single rationale or test by which good rules could be distinguished from bad ones or the best from the second best. But the doctrine of utility, first put forward by David Hume and later elaborated by Bentham, Mill, Sidgwick, and others, was the first test that unified and clarified the whole area of morals.”
The article can be found here:
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/the-case-for-the-minimal-state/
That is, I think, a version of utilitarianism that is quite invulnerable to your criticism. Natural rights thinkers tend to justify their rights by invoking consequences. Rothbard does just that in “The Ethics of Liberty”. Some arguments are of the form “that rule we cannot adopt because mankind would perish”.
“The Foundations of Morality” is great reading, by the way.
Pingback by Thoughts on I-502 « Oak Bay Starfish on 24 February 2012:
[...] were never meant to agree on matters of a personal nature. This is why we have so many different churches [...]
Comment by Ken on 24 February 2012:
A few questions. First, am I correct in interpreting this to leave no room for government whatsoever? Second, if a world with punishment, be it public or private, has no way of comparing “goods” it presumably has no way of comparing “wrongs”, correct? If that’s the case, how can punishment function at all? Is our government-less world also to be without punishment?
Comment by Sheldon Richman on 25 February 2012:
Pedro, as Roderick Long shows, Hazlitt’s rule-utilitarianism is “praxeologically incoherent” and therefore not a viable alternative moral theory. If we are to follow a rule regardless of whether in any particular case it actually creates the greatest good (or whatever), then we are no longer utilitarians. We are deontologists. On the other hand, if we don’t stick to the rule, we are back to act-utilitarianism, with all its problems. But more:
Comment by Sheldon Richman on 25 February 2012:
Brian, I answered your point in my comment above about necessary and sufficient conditions. Shoving the person aside might be the most efficient means for getting to the supermarket shelf. But the end would not justify that means. You seems to acknowledge this when you say that “good ends can well justify good means.” For a means to be good it has to be more than efficacious.
Nothing I’ve said is meant to imply that there aren’t tough choices to make, though thank goodness day-to-day life is not as tough as the philosophers’ hypotheticals.
Comment by Sheldon Richman on 25 February 2012:
My article only addresses utilitarian arguments for government action.
Comment by Darren on 25 February 2012:
Sheldon,
Great article.
I hope you don’t mind that I’m using your article as the basis for a discussion on the LinkedIn Ethics – Ethical Professionals discussion group. They tend to be utilitarians:
http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=1776046&type=member&item=97328973
Comment by Ken on 25 February 2012:
Well, the arguments you’ve given against the consequentialist justifications are (1) that consequentialism requires making calculations that are difficult/impossible to make and (2) particularly consequentialists fail to account for the injunction of never using a person as a mere means.
If (2) is right and there really is such an injunction, then the use of force or fraud against someone is never justified and we’re left with voluntary organization, which I suppose you could call “government” but it really isn’t distinguishable from anarchy.
As for the old lady at the supermarket, in an ideal world she would file a tort action and recover some amount of money that she thought the violation of her freedom was worth. Making the agressor liable financially for the battery makes him internalize the costs of his action, making him the best one to decide whether to shove, and in all likelihood he wouldn’t. If he continued to initiate these involuntary transactions against the old lady and she doesn’t like it then she can raise the value in future actions. Money isn’t an ideal way to measure the value or a right to someone, but it’s a far cry from incommensurability.
The fact that government has the monopoly on force allows it to take action against another without having to internalize any costs. This is wrong indeed. The incommensurability of rights is less of a problem then you make it to be. When I contract to work a job, I agree not to exercise several natural rights for a time being in exchange for money. When I buy a used car without airbags because it’s cheaper, it’s because I know the chances of getting into an accident and needing the airbags to save my life are outweighed by the extra cost.
You’re right that comparing subjective utility is a fruitless effort, but that’s why we aim for a system where we all agree that there is a most efficient placement of rights to begin with and he who chooses to act against another involuntarily will bear costs that he cannot accurately measure from the outside. Any world with punishment, especially financial punishment, is designed to do just this.
Comment by Roderick T. Long on 25 February 2012:
But why should we assume goods are incommensurable? Is it because they don’t have cardinal units? Even if so, can’t they be ranked ordinally? If someone said they had no idea how to choose between eating their hundredth pretzel of the day and saving their best friend’s life, would we take that seriously?
Comment by Sheldon Richman on 25 February 2012:
Roderick, isn’t that intrapersonal?
Comment by Sheldon Richman on 25 February 2012:
Ken, how would we morally judge a person who decides whether to shove the old person out of the way according to the likely outcome of the subsequent tort action?
I’d say that in an ideal world, no one would shove the person out of the way.
At any rate, the civil law solve the incommensurability problem. All it shows is that the shover can decide how to rank 1) the convenience of getting to the shelf sooner and 2) whatever he could have spent the money damages on. That’s intrapersonal. He is not comparing the convenience to himself versus the harm to the person he shoves.
Comment by Ken on 25 February 2012:
I suppose we’ve reached the real tension between the two theories. What if the old lady has unknowingly wandered into the path of oncoming traffic, should I shove her out of the way or not? Can I apply common sense and deduce that she values her life more than she values not being shoved? But if so, why should I shove anyways? I have an injunction against interfering with another and consequentialism is a farce, so even if I know she values her life more than not being shoved, that is irrelevant to my decision making. How would we judge the person who stands by and watches the old lady get hit by the bus?
We can change the circumstances another way too. How do we judge all the people in the Kitty Genovese story as it is now commonly told? Few would judge a person who witnesses a rape and decides to nothing positively, but on what grounds? Is it “he who witnesses a violation of sovereignty has a moral obligation to stop it”? So now we have one ethical maxim that says its never okay to interfere with others, but another that says we’re ethically bound, through no fault of our own, to take the time to help other people? Open that door and it seems we get real quick into the area of comparing subjective factors. The witness is supposed to compare the value of taking the time to call the police against the value of not being raped.
We might not compel people through law to help others, but we certainly judge them we think they should have done more. Whether or not they should do more almost always comes down to a value calculation. If the only way to stop a petty theft is to sacrifice your life, we think maybe its okay you didn’t. If you can stop a rape by making a free call to 911 or yelling “stop!” then we judge for not doing so. What accounts for these differences if in neither case the witness is in a place to make the calculations necessary?
Collectivist moral judgement isn’t consistent at all. We judge the guy who pushes accounting for the tort action negatively, but when I drive (as safely as I can) through a school zone (thus increasing the danger to children) to save 20 minutes on my trip home no one thinks I’m doing anything immoral. If I did the tort action calculation we would? It’s not enough just to say that here it’s a mere *chance* of danger unlike the shover, because if I speed 90 mph through the school zone we think that’s clearly wrong.
We have to make these calculations, it’s impossible to go through life without making them. You might still reply that the injunction against interfering with another’s sovereignty is absolute, but that conflicts with the moral intuition that sometimes our sovereignty to keep walking past the rapist or to speed through a school zone at 90mph isn’t worth the cost. It might remain that while sovereignty is not itself of incommensurable value, that we nonetheless enjoin against interference with someone’s sovereignty. This is consistent with the face that we don’t legally compel people to help others, but inconsistent with other situations. If I witness someone witnessing a rape and I can only stop it by acquiring this witnesses cell phone, isn’t it clear I should take it against his will if necessary? He’s interfering with no one’s sovereignty, perhaps he’s entirely innocent but doesn’t know how to use and is very protective of his cell phone.
Sorry for more philosopher’s hypotheticals, but I can’t help but think they reveal that our moral intuitions don’t at all comport with a blanket injunction against interference with the sovereignty of others.
Comment by Bobby on 25 February 2012:
The presence of both good and evil in the world is an established fact which outlines the parameters for all decision making processes. The consequence of decisions taken on the basis of a relative “good” over the alternatives — frequently said to be the lessor evils — constitute the fruitage from the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”. Such knowledge was a central component of Satan’s false promise to Eve, with the unavoidable implication that mankind was left to find his own way in the world, alienated from his Creator.
The problem is that one man’s “good” is another’s “evil”. In that sense it is all relative. It is a very rare thing that someone sets out to do evil, although that often is the result. In their own eyes, it’s either good or the lessor evil.
The choices between good and evil are false choices. Seek the truth! It’s the only alternative.
http://www.congregator.net/documents/good-evil.htm
Comment by Mike in MI on 25 February 2012:
Great thinking and well said, Sheldon! Libertarianism beats Marxism.
This touches on Reciprocal Rights…that I can best preserve my rights by defending yours…someday I may be the old man pushed aside.
Comment by Mike in MI on 25 February 2012:
to Ken’s comment, above mine:
Comment by Ken on 25 February 2012:
“I suppose we’ve reached the real tension between the two theories. What if the old lady has unknowingly wandered into the path of oncoming traffic, should I shove her out of the way or not? Can I apply common sense and deduce that she values her life more than she values not being shoved?”
Ah…Ken, first, since I value the old lady’s life, I would push her out of the way…but I use this scenario another way – today there are lots of people who are not equipped to know they are standing in the way of a Marxist ideology that will destroy them, the equivalent of a bus, or train, or tsunami. I consider it my moral duty to warn them, since I recognize the danger.
Comment by Ken on 25 February 2012:
Mike: Good point that you (and I) value the old lady’s life, but this is precisely the problem, under Richman’s methodology you’re not equipped to compare your valuation of her life to her valuation of not being shoved. I agree that this is probably the actual motivation for such things, but it doesn’t comport with a maxim of non-interference with the lives of others without their consent.
Your point about moral duties is well taken, but now we’ve touched upon at least one area where the consequentialist has the upper hand. At least the consequentialist can say the goal of all human activity should be to maximize value (and derive from that the fact that the assignment of great liberty to the individual is the most efficient starting point). Sounds like nonsense to some degree, I admit, but it’s much simpler than saying we have a set of duties and a set of prohibitions that (1) despite what Ayn Rand says aren’t empirically verifiable and (2) will inevitably conflict with each other and that we’ll have to weigh against each other, but that we WON’T compare them because they’re incommensurable.
In the end my argument isn’t so much FOR consequentialism, though I confess to being a fan of value maximization through the free market, but AGAINST the idea that moral intuitionism is proof against consequentialism anymore than it is proof against all other moral theories. Moral intuitions are inconsistent, any ad-hoc rights/duty theory that captures even just commonly accepted intuitions will be internally inconsistent. The rights and duties inevitably have to be weighed, but once you start that the difference between consequentialism and non-consequentialism for all intents and purposes disappears. You’re left with two systems of identical rules, one that says “these are the maxims, these are the weights” and the other that says “these are the maxims, these are the weights, they will maximize [selected consequence]“.
Comment by Sheldon Richman on 25 February 2012:
Ken, I hope you don’t think I was defending moral intuitionism. I wasn’t. Intuitions may be the starting point, but that is not the end of the process.
As for the differences between consequentialism and nonconsequentialism disappearing, tell what happens when following a rule that tends to have good consequences won’t do so in a particular case. Do we stick with the rule or not?
Comment by Alex on 25 February 2012:
Not be as learned as most on this page, my sincere question is, does this lead to a sort of stasis?
Comment by Alex on 25 February 2012:
Not being as learned, I meant…
Comment by Sheldon Richman on 25 February 2012:
Does what lead?
Comment by Alex on 25 February 2012:
It seems that whatever action one takes it violates someone…
Comment by Michael form WA on 26 February 2012:
Good article – bold concepts clearly stated. A question, though: Are we safe to assume government (as composed of lawmakers) are capable of acting ethically and morally? Speaking as a person who does feel as if used as a “mere means” by government, I am left feeling like I’m “pushed aside”, even at the local level of government. At what point did I lose representation?
Pingback by Heiligt der Zweck die Mittel? | on 26 February 2012:
[...] Richman stellt in seiner Kolummne “Do Ends Justify Means?” im Magazin The Freeman fest, dass kaum jemand als Individuum glaubt, dass das Ziel des [...]
Comment by Rod on 26 February 2012:
RE: “The ends justify the means”. I think people miss the point when they argue this one way or the other. Some take it as “if the ends are good then the means are allowed”. Or if the ends are desirable and the means are efficient to realize the ends then the means are allowed”. I think the meaning of the phrase is more like “if the ends are good this makes the means JUST, i.e. right or reasonable”. But an action (means) has to be justified on its own merits, not on what outcome it can produce. A good outcome, no matter how good or how many it benefits can make any prior action “just”. An unjust action is an unjust action and does not later become just if the outcome benefits someone.
Comment by Roderick T. Long on 26 February 2012:
Sheldon,
I’m not sure I understood your response. Isn’t what interpersonal? My example? No, it was about a person weighing two of her own values. (Though I don’t think there’s anything wrong with interpersonal value comparisons. Interpersonal comparisons of subjective utility don’t make sense, of course, but there’s more to value than subjective utility.) (I should perhaps add that by interpersonal value comparisons I don’t mean trading one person’s interests off against another — that doesn’t make sense, since there’s no aggregate to maximise — but simply noting that some people are objectively better off than others.)
Comment by Sheldon Richman on 26 February 2012:
Roderick, I was pointing out that your example was intra- not inter-personal.
Comment by Alex (the real one!) on 26 February 2012:
Alas, it seems like we have an Alex impersonator here. The one who posted those three posts on Feb. 25th is not I. There can be no substitute for Alex! Away, doppelgänger!
Comment by Sheldon Richman on 26 February 2012:
Rod writes, “An unjust action is an unjust action and does not later become just if the outcome benefits someone.”
I agree.
Comment by raphael a on 26 February 2012:
#1. Why do those who value liberty always give examples of government mandates as examples of taking it away as opposed to deregulation or lack of enforcement?
I am a victim of “alternative” medical fraud. Why? Because Orrin Hatch, Dan Burton and others who put people away for selling marijuana allow for herbs and supplements to go untested, and un-inspected ( ironically for synthetic drugs added to many of them.) Are there winners here? Yes. Multimillionaires are made via the sale of herbs and supplements that when tested, show few proven results. Are there losers? Yes. The sick who are preyed upon who get sicker.
The same is true for those who drive un-inspected rental cars, visit a hospital ER or like to eat cantaloupe. They can burn to death or die a protracted, horrible death due to an infectious disease, if government agents do not maintain and enforce minimal safety standards.
Does mandating that poor students attend their neighborhood public school kill? You betcha. But so does granting favored industries the ability to self-police until the sh** inevitably hits the fan. Why do libertarians always top load their arguments with the former over the latter?
#2. What is wrong with a Sowellian/Socratic/Bastiatian/Talmudic etc., approach? Before a policy is enacted, a ” consequences tree” is drawn up and debated. Then a transparent decision is made. We can still make an educated guess as to how many innocents are likely to get sick or die if a natural foods company is allowed to forgo double blind testing before making a claim about its product. We can base this guess on previous deaths and hospital records. It may cost an extra million to save a thousand people from either getting sick or having their cancer progress due to bogus claims.
To argue “why bothuh?” due to a lack of a 100% measurable cost/benefit analysis is a perfect example of letting the perfect become the enemy of the good.
Comment by Beth on 26 February 2012:
Good article Sheldon.
I have used some of the very basics of what you wrote in ethics class.
Many students do not even know what the concept of ends and means entails.
Comment by Sheldon Richman on 27 February 2012:
Thank you, Beth. Students need a course in praxeology.
Comment by causalrealist on 29 February 2012:
Sounds like someone needs to start their own independent herb and supplement certification business.
Comment by raphael a on 1 March 2012:
Cute remark, but herb and supplement companies don’t need certification. And that is the point. Government officials can force poor people to attend unsafe public schools or deny them the ability to operate or ride shared taxis as opposed to buses or Amtrak. But they can go also grant favors via exempting private industries from regulation, as Clinton did with Tyson’s Chicken. The greater good is obvious,- getting re-elected. And Ayn Rand strongly objected to crony capitalism.
Religion, however poorly executed by ordained leaders, comes with a set of commandments that are meant transcend an individual’s cost/benefit analysis. And it is also supposed to instigate heated debate. Adam Smith was a deeply religious man.
Perhaps we should elect Rand Paul whose libertarianism overrides his Christianity. That way we can withdraw our troops from South Korea, and save ourselves some big bucks.
The South Koreans won’t have to worry about people pushing them out of the way in supermarkets anymore. They’ll have bigger issues to deal with.
Comment by Ken on 8 March 2012:
“As for the differences between consequentialism and nonconsequentialism disappearing, tell what happens when following a rule that tends to have good consequences won’t do so in a particular case. Do we stick with the rule or not?”
I’m not sure if this is meant to be a normative or a descriptive question. Perhaps an interesting problem with consequentialism (and I would LOVE to see some examples pulled out of Kantian reasoning for this) would be self-defeatist rules. I admit to be torn on one area of consequentialism, namely how far down the temporal road we’re supposed to look. An action that brings great happiness now might shut off some road that brought even greater happiness a million years from now. I would welcome that criticism because I think it opens the door to some really interesting discussion.
Anyways, if the application of a rule to a particular circumstance does not apply, then the normative answer is we should not apply the rule. Here’s an example. A really good rule for consequentialists is the non-aggression principle. If someone wasn’t being careful, however, and was about to drink anti-freeze or wander in front of a car, aggression against them would be proper. I assume you would disagree?
As a descriptive matter, or taking ethics as a practical venture, I will in the face of uncertainty apply the rule, I suppose that’s what makes it a rule, it’s a practical guide.
Comment by Sheldon Richman on 11 March 2012:
Ken, calling those examples of aggression may be begging the question if we have reason to believe the person doesn’t want to drink antifreeze or wander in front of a car.
The dilemma I discussed is normative not just descriptive. Rule consequentialism (either of the utilitarian or egoist variety) is unstable because, as I said, if in a particular case the rule won’t serve the desired result, the only choice is either to abandon or stick with the rule. Whichever is chosen, rule consequentialism is out the window.