The United States Declaration of Independence states:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. (The
accompanying painting by John Trumbull depicts the Declaration of Independence
being presented to Congress.)
It is strange that at a time when nearly everyone pays lip service to human rights, few intellectuals still recognize that, properly understood, such rights are self-evident and natural. Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl note that it is not even common now for classical liberals and libertarians to appeal to the natural rights of individuals. They explain:
“a large part of the reluctance to appeal to natural rights in explaining and justifying liberty has to do with the idea that speaking of the nature of things is not needed and is not defensible, and indeed that metaphysical realism is either false or senseless” (p 340).
Metaphysical realism is the belief that “there are beings
that exist and are what they are apart from our cognition of them and that we
can know both the existence and nature of these beings” (p 8). That may be
self-evident to you. If so, you have managed to avoid being unduly influenced
by philosophers who follow Immanuel Kant in maintaining that the nature of what
is known in human cognition is the result of a priori structures of the human
mind, rather than the nature of things that exist.
Much of the book is devoted to defending metaphysical
realism from its critics. Those critics have a range of differing views, but
many claim that the mode of our cognition must enter the content of what is
known. It is possible to give a brief sketch of the nature of the responses
provided by Rasmussen and Den Uyl, by reference to the way a human can be
defined in terms of distinguishing characteristics. The relationship between
our conceptual knowledge of the nature of humans and the real nature of humans
is analogous to the relationship between a map and the territory it depicts. We
begin with an imperfect conceptual map and proceed to improve it step by step
to distinguish the characteristics of humans from other kinds of things. Our
knowledge of reality is partial and incomplete, but capable of being revised. To
cut a long story short, as we condense a vast amount of knowledge, we can come
to the view that rationality is a fundamental operating feature of human nature
(pp 292-296).
Chapter 3, entitled “On Principle” was of particular
interest to me because it involves consideration of similar issues to those
discussed by Friedrich Hayek in a chapter of Law, Legislation and Liberty discussing
principles and expediency. Rasmussen and Den Uyl end
up in much the same place as Hayek. For example, this paragraph seems to me to
have a Hayekian flavour about it:
“We do not stick to principle because experience and
practice are in need of being ordered, but rather because principles reflect an
underlying order that will again come to reassert itself if only those
principles are followed. In the economic environment in which we now live, for
example, the Aristotelian might advise a steadfast adherence to the principles
of a market order rather than piecemeal attempts to patch up the economy and
stave off unpleasant consequences, precisely because of an understanding that
market principles are the way to bring health back to the economy, even if that
means a rough road along the way” (p 117).
That paragraph still makes sense to me if I substitute ‘Hayekian’
for ‘Aristotelian’. Hayek expressed similar sentiments in arguing against “a
spurious ‘realism’ which deceives itself in believing that it can dispense with
any guiding conception of the nature of the overall order” (LLL, V1, p 64).
However, when I think about the paragraph further I see a
problem in accepting that Aristotle’s views – including his just price concept
and opposition to lending money at interest - were consistent with “steadfast adherence
to the principles of a market order”. Perhaps it is necessary to distinguish
what a modern Aristotelian might advise – having had the benefit of having read
the works of Adam Smith etc. – from what Aristotle advised.
Rasmussen and Den Uyl define the Aristotelian
view of principle thus:
“Here principles are generalized expressions of the nature
of things. Like the empiricist, the Aristotelian holds that principles do depend
upon experience; unlike the empiricist, the Aristotelian holds that principles
are not distortions of reality but expressions of its nature” (p 117).
I see no problem in accepting that the spontaneous order of
a free market is an expression of “the nature of things”.
It would be unfortunate to allow the most important point
that Rasmussen and Den Uyl make about principles to be lost in a discussion of
labeling issues. They argue that “there is in the end no antipathy between
principles rightly understood and consequences fully considered”:
“The following of principles is itself an exercise of securing
good consequences; and good consequences are to be conceptualized in terms of
principles” (p 103-4).
When people discuss natural rights a question that often
arises is where they come from. To believe in natural rights do we have to
believe in a Creator who endows them? Rasmussen and Den
Uyl do not appear to address that question explicitly, but they make a strong
case that it is possible to reason our way from an understanding of human
nature to recognition of such rights as being necessary to prevent various
forms of human flourishing from being in structural conflict; and to protect
people from having their lives, possessions and conduct used or directed by
others for purposes to which they have not consented. The authors contend that a
cultural change that enables the natural order to be seen as the basis for
individual rights will be required to bring about an understanding of a proper
defense of liberty (p 343). As discussed previously,
I think a consideration of the nature of human evolution can also help us
understand why we (as individuals) tend to have intuitions that other humans
have natural rights that should be respected.
Of course, as Rasmussen and Den Uyl acknowledge, there are
some people who choose not to recognize or follow ethical principles requiring
the rights of others to be respected. As I see it, even in the liberal
democracies large numbers of people believe that it is in the nature of things
that the political/legal order must involve a struggle by different groups to
have their flourishing advantaged at the expense of others. However, the
authors have reinforced me in the belief that even when it appears impossible
to implement a political/legal order that would sufficiently recognize and
protect liberty, it is still worth considering ideal moral frameworks because such
visions provide us with reason and motivation to care about practical problems of
implementation.
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