Can Empirical Natural Rights be viewed as metanormative principles?

 

Prior to attempting to answer the question posed above I briefly outline the concept of individual rights as metanormative principles - as discussed by Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl - and consider the alternative approach that John Hasnas has adopted in his discussion of empirical natural rights.

Rights as metanormative principles

In their book, Norms of Liberty (published in 2005) Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl note that a rule qualifies as metanormative if it “seeks not to guide individual conduct in moral activity, but rather to regulate conduct so that conditions might be obtained where moral action can take place”. (p. 34) They argue that, as metanormative principles, individual rights solve a problem that is uniquely social, political, and legal. They describe the problem as follows:

“How do we allow for the possibility that individuals might flourish in different ways (in different communities and cultures) without creating inherent moral conflict in the overall structure of the social/political context—that is the structure that is provided by the political/legal order? How do we find a political/legal order that will in principle not require that the human flourishing of any person or group be given structural preference over others? How do we protect the possibility that each may flourish while at the same time provide principles that regulate the conduct of all?” (p. 78)

Recognition of individual rights solves the problem because it protects individual self-direction and enables individuals to flourish in different ways, provided they do not interfere with the rights of others.

The “instrumental moral value” of empirical natural rights

I was prompted to ask myself the question posed above as I was re-reading part of John Hasnas’s book, Common Law Liberalism (2024).

As I noted in an earlier essay published here, Hasnas offers an alternative conception of natural rights – empirical natural rights (ENR) – that evolve in the state of nature. He then proceeds to argue that ENR form a good approximation to individual rights as propounded John Locke.

Hasnas claims that he “can offer no argument that empirical natural rights have any intrinsic moral value.” He then goes on to argue that ENR have “instrumental moral value regardless of the moral theory and general approach to ethics one adopts”:

“This is because empirical natural rights facilitate peaceful human interaction and peace is an important, if not pre-eminent moral value in virtually all moral theories.” (p. 150)

Hasnas then proceeds to discuss why peaceful human interaction is necessary for the realization of deontological, consequentialist, and Aristotelian moral theories.

I think I can understand why Hasnas has adopted that approach. If you want moral theorists from a variety of different traditions to see merit in a new concept that you espouse, it is helpful to be able to argue that the concept is in harmony with their traditions.

However, it would be preferable, it seems to me, to be able to argue that recognition of ENR provides the metanormative conditions that enable moral conduct to take place, and that individual rights over-ride other moral claims.

Would Hasnas have grounds for concern that Kantians and Utilitarians might reject ENR as a metanormative concept?

My first thought was that their reactions might depend on how the metanormative principle was stated. Kantians and Utilitarians would have no obvious grounds to object to ENR being recognized as metanormative principles on the grounds that they protect individual self-direction and enable individuals to “to use their knowledge for their purposes”, provided they do not interfere with the rights of others.

The quoted words are from the Friedrich Hayek quote in the epigraph. (Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. 1, p. 55.) It seems to me that use of one’s knowledge for one’s purposes comes close to the idea that human flourishing is best understood as “the exercise of one’s own practical wisdom.” As far as I can see, ENR are identical to the “rules of just conduct” referred to by Hayek.

Nevertheless, I think it is preferable to acknowledge the activity of flourishing explicitly because that is the best way to describe the human telos.

Would Kantians and Utilitarians object to a metanormative principle which recognizes that people seek to flourish in different ways?

I asked Chat GPT whether a person who subscribes to Kantian deontology would have grounds to object to my observation that they use their own practical wisdom to flourish. Here is part of her reply:

“They could argue that flourishing may occur as a byproduct of acting morally, but it is not the guiding principle. True moral worth arises when actions are performed out of respect for the moral law, not for the sake of achieving personal flourishing.”

When I think about it, I don’t think many Neo-Aristotelians would claim personal flourishing as their motive for acting with integrity toward others, even though they would view such behaviour as integral to their flourishing. People pursue the goods of a flourishing human because they perceive them to be good. The activity of flourishing is not about doing things that might raise one’s score in an imaginary index of individual flourishing.

From my reading, I don’t think many Utilitarians would raise strong objections to being told that they are seeking to flourish. At one point in On Liberty, J. S. Mill refers to “the judicious utilitarianism of Aristotle”, so it seems unlikely that he would have raised objections. Referring specifically to arguments for individual rights to be given an Aristotelian grounding, Leland Yeager suggests: “Such ‘Aristotelian’ arguments diverge from utilitarianism less in substance than in rhetoric.” (Leland B Yeager, Ethics as Social Science (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2001) p. 222.

Conclusion

In discussing the normative significance of his concept of empirical natural rights (ENR) John Hasnas suggests that because they facilitate “peaceful human interaction” they have “instrumental moral value regardless of the moral theory and general approach to ethics one adopts.” I suggest that it would be preferable to be able to argue that recognition of ENR provides the metanormative conditions that enable moral conduct to take place, and that individual rights override other moral claims.

In exploring whether Kantians and Utilitarians might object to an argument for ENR to be viewed as metanormative principles I first suggested that they could have no objection to them being justified in Hayekian terms - recognizing that ENR protect individual self-direction and enable individuals to “to use their knowledge for their purposes”, provided they do not interfere with the rights of others.

It is possible that some Kantians and Utilitarians might object to a metanormative justification of ENR being framed in terms of allowing for “the possibility that individuals might flourish in different ways” on the grounds that they don’t recognize flourishing as a prime motivation for moral conduct. However, Neo-Aristotelians also pursue the goods of a flourishing human because they perceive them to be good rather than to raise their score in some imaginary index of personal flourishing.

 It seems to me that it would be very difficult for anyone who supports individual rights to object to them being viewed as metanormative principles. It would be almost as difficult to object to them being justified on the grounds that, among other things, they enable individuals to flourish in different ways.

Addendum

I have been thinking further about the question of whether there are reasons for anyone to object to a metanormative principle which recognizes that humans seek to flourish. It seems to me that to do that one would need to reject a description of human life that recognizes that it has inherent potentiality. For example:

“Humans, like all living things are teleological beings and have an inherent potentiality for their mature state – which is to say, they have what could be broadly called natural inclinations or desires to engage in activities that constitute their completion or fulfillment. They have a natural desire for their good.” (Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen, The Perfectionist Turn, p 237)

That observation owes a lot to Aristotle but is it not still consistent with what we know about humans from the findings of biology, neurology, and psychology?

Second Addendum

This is what ended up in the first draft of the article I am writing:

The idea that it is natural for humans to seek to flourish should not be controversial.[1] It follows from a description of human life that recognizes that “like all living things … [humans] have what could be broadly called natural inclinations or desires to engage in activities that constitute their completion or fulfillment.”[2] Nevertheless, it may be worth adding that recognition of individual rights as a metanormative principle also protects the choices of those who wish to follow the directions of religious leaders rather than to be self-directed, and even of those who are motivated to behave in ways that might detract from their individual flourishing - provided they do not interfere with the rights of others.

---

[1] I raise the issue because Hasnas seems to imply that Kantians and Utilitarians might have reason to object to the concept of flourishing because it is associated with Aristotelian moral theory. He argues that peace is consistent with deontological moral standards and makes the realization of the ends of consequentialist moral theory more likely, as well as well as being necessary for human flourishing. See: Common Law Liberalism, p. 150.

[2] Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen, The Perfectionist Turn (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016), p. 237. The authors note that knowing that a particular activity is good for you will not necessarily provide you with a reason or motivation to engage in it.

Should Libertarians be Attempting to Influence Culture: A Discussion with Winton Bates and Chris Matthew Sciabarra (III)

 

In this third instalment of our collaboration, we move on to consider more specifically how libertarians should respond to some illiberal tendencies in the cultures of the liberal democracies. The discussion focuses particularly on university culture.   

Before moving into that discussion, however, it is appropriate to outline some points from earlier editions of our collaboration to help readers to see where we are coming from.

First instalment

In raising the question of whether libertarians should be attempting to influence culture, Winton mentioned that he is reconsidering his objections to J. S. Mill’s view that the sanctions imposed by “prevailing opinion and feeling” were akin to tyranny. He suggested that the only reason he could think of why libertarians should not be attempting to influence culture was the difficulty they would have in agreeing on the kinds of cultural change they would like to promote.

In his response, Chris discussed the changes in the libertarian movement that had occurred since he first encountered it in the late 1970s. He noted that “thin libertarians”, who argued that freedom does not require anything more than robust defence of the nonaggression principle, had ended up endorsing paleoconservative values opposed to a cosmopolitan social framework. He suggested that although that approach is fundamentally opposed to liberal values, it is an acknowledgement that some kind of cultural matrix is necessary to nourish the freedom project.

Chris summed up his response to the question by suggesting that libertarians should be focused on exploring the role of culture in shaping political and social outcomes.

One of the points raised in comments on our first instalment is that there is a difference between saying libertarianism qua political philosophy should attempt to change culture and saying that a libertarian concerned in advancing libertarianism should attempt to change culture. One commentator suggested that libertarians should “work as individuals, and in concert with others, to build a freedom-friendly culture of moral and virtuous people who strive to create a good life, to flourish, and to be happy.”

Second instalment

Winton opened the discussion by raising the question of whether Enlightenment humanist values are still broadly supported by public opinion. He observed that support for reason and reality seemed to have diminished with increasing disrespect for truth in narratives of conservative populists as well as radical progressives who are seeking political power. He noted his support for attempts to understand power relations in society.

Chris explained his Tri-level Model of Power Relations, which was first derived from his reconstruction of Ayn Rand’s analyses of social problems in Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical. The Tri-level Model illustrates the importance of paying attention to interactions between personal, cultural, and structural factors (political and economic structures, institutions and processes). An exclusive focus on any one of these levels of analysis overlooks the importance of factors associated with other levels in determining the ability of individuals to flourish. Individual flourishing is affected by cultural and structural factors as well as by the individual’s values and habits.

Chris’s contribution highlighted the potential for personal ethical and psycho-epistemological practices to affect the dominant cultural institutions. It also highlighted the potential for cultural practices to undermine (or reinforce) the humanism and cosmopolitanism that supports personal flourishing and liberty.

Winton Bates’s views on university culture

The sources of illiberal tendencies in universities differ from those that concerned J. S. Mill when he wrote the sentence quoted in the epigraph at the beginning of this article. Mill suggested that “dogmatic religion, dogmatic morality, and dogmatic philosophy” needed to “be rooted out” of the universities. Mill’s main target seems to have been the Church of England.

A modern libertarian who is concerned about illiberal tendencies in universities is likely to have in mind different sources of dogmatism – for example, action by students and staff to silence voices that are opposed to prevailing campus orthodoxies. The common element is interference with the free exchange of ideas that is indispensable to the search for truth.  

The context in which Mill was writing about universities is relevant to the broader question of what attitude libertarians should adopt toward illiberal tendencies in culture. Mill was concerned that growth in the power of public opinion would cause “the individual” to become lost in the crowd. He hoped that the universities would be able to foster “great minds” who would have a positive impact on public opinion.

There is arguably more reason for libertarians to be concerned about illiberal tendencies in educational organisations than in social media and other economic and social activities that influence public opinion. When a social media firm interferes with freedom of expression, self-correcting forces are likely to be activated eventually as people perceive themselves to be adversely affected and shift their support to competing social media firms. Similarly, self-correcting forces are likely to be activated if a community group subjects a media firm to a boycott, if members of other community groups consider such action to be unfair.

Self-correcting mechanisms seem to be more muted in educational organisations. When their actions prevent invited speakers from being heard, students rarely face consequences that might deter such behaviour in the future. Students who have been seeking to silence opposing voices on campuses in recent months are following in the footsteps of students who adopted similar tactics with equal passion a few decades ago. Whether or not they intend it, their dogmatism in insisting that opposing voices should not be heard is placing at risk the culture of free exchange of ideas that should characterize university education.

Libertarians are not alone in having reasons to support the free exchange of ideas in universities. Anyone who has an interest in the search for truth has reason to support free exchange of ideas.

However, there are at least three good reasons why libertarians should be taking a leading role in seeking to restore the culture of universities as bastions for the free exchange of ideas.

First, the personal values held by many libertarians emphasize the importance of behaving with integrity towards other people. That entails recognizing links between individual flourishing and freedom of expression. Individuals are more likely to flourish academically if the free exchange of ideas and search for truth is emphasized in the prevailing cultures of universities.

Second, it is doubtful whether the legal order can continue to protect free speech if freedom of expression is severely restricted within universities, whether by government or by the activities of university authorities, staff, and students. A legal order protecting free speech depends ultimately on public opinion that values free speech, which, in turn, requires intellectual support.

Third, if staff and students do not take action to restore the culture of universities, it is likely that governments will intervene. Some libertarians might consider government intervention to be appropriate in that context, but it could provide a precept for government intervention that limits the autonomy of universities and poses a threat to freedom of speech.

Chris Matthew Sciabarra comments:

In asking “Should Libertarians be Attempting to Influence Culture?”, this dialogue has focused important attention on the role of culture in affecting social change.

In our last instalment detailing my Tri-Level Model of Power Relations, I highlighted Level 2, which brings to the foreground of our analysis the role of cultural traditions, institutions, and practices in helping to sustain the existing social system. I wrote:

How does culture perpetuate existing social conditions? This is achieved through linguistic, educational, and ideological means, among others. Distortions in language—through the use of anti-concepts, for example—will tend to undermine rational discourse, while serving the needs of the powerful. Certain educational institutions and pedagogical practices will tend to undermine autonomy, perpetuate conformity, inculcate obedience to authority, and subvert the development of critical thinking. Stultifying, rigid, intolerant, racist, sexist, or tribalist ideologies or belief systems (including dogmatic religious beliefs) will tend to foster exclusionary “thinking within a square.” Such cultural practices can undermine those humanist, cosmopolitan characteristics consistent with the development of human freedom and personal flourishing.

On Level 2, then, the role of educational institutions and pedagogical practices is of paramount importance. It must be remembered that this is a dialectical framework of analysis—one that preserves the larger context within which such institutions and practices are situated. Hence, it is important to consider not only how political and economic structures tend to perpetuate a certain constellation of such institutions and practices—but also its reciprocal implication: how a certain constellation of educational institutions and pedagogical practices tends to perpetuate the political and economic order.

It is beyond the scope of this brief exchange to examine the nature of these interactions. Suffice it to say, as Winton points out, there are illiberal tendencies in university life that have quelled the free spirit of discussion, silencing voices of dissent and shoring up campus orthodoxies. But this attack on dissent also has the effect of bolstering larger social, political, and economic orthodoxies.

There are virtually no educational institutions that are free of political strictures, guidelines, or subsidies of one sort or another. This isn’t an issue of “public” versus “private” universities. The line between the ‘public’ and the ‘private’ has all but disappeared and the power of the purse has had an unmistakable impact on the ways in which universities function. In these instances, the “self-correcting forces” that Winton ascribes to social media often give way to imposed “corrections” from the top-down. The culture war between left-wing “woke warriors” and right-wing “anti-woke crusaders” has resulted in an explosive political battlefield in which state actors attempt to impose changes to educational practices, whether through restrictions on the curriculum or the hiring and firing of university personnel. As Winton points out, this is precisely the kind of government intervention that must ultimately undermine free expression.

Sadly, even with its self-correcting forces, not even social media is immune to this kind of political gamesmanship, given evidence of government interference in the dissemination of information and the use of certain platforms for the promotion of ideas that are antithetical to liberal, cosmopolitan values. While libertarians should indeed be taking a leading role in nourishing the free exchange of ideas in university life, we should also be vigilant in exposing and opposing those ideas at war with human freedom and personal flourishing. Preserving and extending a liberal cultural atmosphere that allows for vigorous intellectual engagement is therefore the surest way to make transparent the illiberal ideas among us.

Did Robert Nozick hold a view of the evolution of natural rights that is similar to that held by John Hasnas?

 

This question came to mind while I was reading Chapter 4 of John Hasnas’s recently published book, Common Law Liberalism: A New Theory of the Libertarian Society. Chapter 4 was originally published in 2005 in Social Philosophy and Policy (22, 111-147) but I hadn’t previously read it.

In this chapter, entitled ‘Empirical Natural Rights’, Hasnas suggests that neither John Locke nor Robert Nozick offered adequate arguments for the existence of natural rights. (His discussion of Nozick focuses on Anarchy, State, and Utopia.) He offers an alternative conception of natural rights – empirical natural rights (ENR) – that evolve in the state of nature. He then proceeds to argue that ENR form a good approximation to the negative rights to life, liberty and property on which Locke and Nozick rest their arguments, and that ENR have instrumental moral value.

In the first part of this essay, I outline Nozick’s evolutionary explanation for emergence of the ethics of respect. Following that, I compare the evolutionary accounts offered by Hasnas and Nozick, and finish the essay considering the normative status of ENRs.

Nozick’s evolutionary explanation for the ethics of respect

As far as I know, Nozick never claimed to have provided an account of the evolution of natural rights, but I believe that he did so in Chapter 5 of Invariances (published in 2001). Since I outlined Nozick’s speculations about evolution of the ethics of respect in Chapter 2 of Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, I will reproduce some relevant paragraphs below:

“Nozick’s account of the evolution of the ethics of respect, draws upon biological evolution as well as cultural evolution. He suggests that the higher capacities of humans, including capacities for conscious thought, control of impulses and planning, have been selected for by evolution because of the benefits they bring, for example in enabling adherence to ethical norms.^[i] Evolution may have shaped humans to enjoy the benefits of cooperative activity. A reputation for adhering to norms of cooperative behavior brings rewards by attracting further cooperation, and may have conferred reproductive advantages.^[ii] A capacity for evaluating objects and desires might have been selected for, or exist as a beneficial side-effect of a combination of capacities.^[iii] Conscious self-awareness may have been selected for because it makes humans capable of norm-guided behavior to mutual benefit.^[iv]

Nozick suggests that internalization of norms brings ethics into play. Something other than (or in addition to) punishment by other people must support rules if they are to become ethical principles or values. The internalization of norms enables people to follow them when no-one is watching who can sanction deviations.^[v]

The norm of social coordination and cooperation proposed by Nozick has these characteristics:

“It makes mandatory the widest voluntary cooperation to mutual benefit; it makes only that mandatory; and it (in general) prohibits interactions that are not to mutual benefit, unless they are entered into voluntarily by all parties, or unless these interactions (such as the act of punishing another) are in response to previous violation of the principle or to preparations to violate it”.^[vi]

Moral progress, Nozick suggests, incorporates, among other things, shrinkage of the domain of mandatory morality to enable a domain of liberty and personal autonomy to be established, and for the ethics of respect to emerge.^[vii] 

Nozick acknowledges that someone could agree that ethics originates in mutually beneficial coordinating activity and yet claim that conscious self-awareness is valuable for reasons other than norm following. He sums up:

“Still, if conscious self-awareness was selected for because it makes us capable of ethical behavior, then ethics, even the very first layer of the ethics of respect, truly is what makes us human. A satisfying conclusion. And one with some normative force”.^[viii]

Since the ethics of respect entails recognition of Lockean rights, Nozick’s naturalistic explanation implicitly recognizes that such rights are natural.”

Comparison of Hasnas and Nozick

The differences between the evolutionary accounts offered by Hasnas and Nozick seem to me to amount to differences of emphasis. Nozick emphasized the link between conscious self-awareness and ethical behaviour, whereas Hasnas’s account seems to have a more Hayekian emphasis on evolution of rules that are not the result of deliberate human design. Hasnas emphasizes dispute settlement:

“Various methods for composing disputes are tried. Those that leave the parties unsatisfied and likely to again resort to violence are abandoned. Those that effectively resolve the disputes with the minimal disturbance to the peace of the community continue to be used and are accompanied by ever-increasing social pressure for disputants to employ them.

Over time, security arrangements and dispute settlement procedures that are well-enough adapted to social and material circumstances to reduce violence to generally acceptable levels become regularized.” (130)

 Hasnas acknowledges the normative significance of the rules that evolve:

“Over time, these rules become invested with normative significance and the members of the community come to regard the ways in which the rules permit them to act at their pleasure as their rights. Thus, in the state of nature, rights evolve out of human beings’ efforts to address the inconveniences of that state. In the state of nature, rights are solved problems.” (131)

The rules presumably came to have normative significance because people thought about them and recognized they had merit (aided by the persuasive efforts of Moses and other community leaders).

Hasnas does not claim that ENR fit the definition of natural rights as moral entitlements that humans possess simply by virtue of their humanity. He suggests that ENR are natural in the sense of having evolved in the state of nature and pre-date the formation of civil government.

I am not entirely persuaded that the distinction between ENR and natural rights is necessary. As far as I am aware, humanity didn’t exist prior to the biological and social evolution that resulted in the emergence of modern humans about 100,000 years ago.

Nevertheless, the question arises of whether it is possible to provide a normative justification for natural rights purely based on speculation about the evolutionary origins of ethical intuitions about rights to life, liberty and property.

The Normative Status of ENR

 Hasnas argues that ENR have instrumental moral value regardless of the moral theory and general approach to ethics one adopts:

“This is because empirical natural rights facilitate peaceful human interaction and peace is an important, if not pre-eminent moral value in virtually all moral theories.”

The author spends a few pages making this point. He has no difficulty persuading me of the importance of peace to the moral theory that I subscribe to. However, I see some groups of people in the world who claim to hold moral theories that support activities directed towards plundering, murdering, and enslaving others.

It seems to me that those of us who believe that peace is a pre-eminent moral value should be willing to provide explicit normative reasons why we consider peace to be so important.

 

 

 

---

[i] Nozick, Invariances, 243.

[ii] Nozick, Invariances, 246.

[iii] Nozick, Invariances, 276.

[iv] Nozick, Invariances, 299. Conscious self-awareness also enables each of us to recognize the existential responsibility of making a life for oneself. See: Den Uyl and Rasmussen, Perfectionist Turn, 7.

[v] Nozick, Invariances, 247-8.

[vi] Nozick, Invariances, 259.

[vii] Nozick, Invariances, 265.

[viii] Nozick, Invariances, 300.

Should Libertarians be Attempting to Influence Culture? A Discussion with Winton Bates and Chris Matthew Sciabarra (I)

 

I have asked Chris Matthew Sciabarra to present his views on the question posed above because he has possibly thought more deeply than any other living person about the relevance of social context to the pursuit of libertarian ideals. The depth of Chris’s thinking on these matters became apparent to me when I recently reviewed his trilogy of books on the dialectics of liberty:

Marx, Hayek, and Utopia, State University of New York Press, 1995.

Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical, second edition, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013. (The first edition was published in 1995.)

Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000.

My review has been published on “The Savvy Street”.

In his dialectical approach, Chris emphasizes the importance of contextual analysis across time. The most relevant example is his discussion of Murray Rothbard’s views. Rothbard held that nonaggression is all that is required of a libertarian society, and that could be assured through adoption of a libertarian law code after government ceased to exist. Chris argues that the experience of political freedom is not likely to be fully efficacious in the absence of a supporting edifice of cultural and personal practices.

Before asking Chris for his contribution to the discussion, I outlined why I am reconsidering my views on the question of whether libertarians should be seeking to influence culture.

Why am I reconsidering my views?

Until recently, I was definitely opposed to J S Mill’s position in the passage quoted above. It seemed to me to be woolly thinking to suggest that the sanctions imposed by “prevailing opinion and feeling” were akin to tyranny. I have argued in the past that libertarians should focus on reducing the tyranny of the legal order. It seemed to me that while individual libertarians might take a position supporting or opposing particular elements of cultural change, in their role as advocates of liberty they should focus on issues specifically related to government e.g. constitutions, laws, regulations, and actions of government officials.

I began to reconsider my views before reviewing Chris’s books. After reading The Individualists, an excellent history of libertarian ideas Matt Zwolinski and John Tomasi, I was prompted to write on this blog on the question: Where is the soul of libertarianism? That question stems from the subtitle of the book: “Radicals, Reactionaries, and the Struggle for the Soul of Libertarianism”, and from the discussion, in the final chapter, of the battle between bleeding heart libertarians, left libertarians and paleolibertarians for control of the Libertarian Party in the United States. The Individualists left me wanting to promote the view that the soul, or essence, of libertarianism stems from the nature of human flourishing. I suggested that I would have preferred to see the book end by acknowledging that libertarians are engaged in an ongoing struggle against authoritarianism, as people on opposing sides of the culture wars seek to enlist the coercive powers of the state to pursue their interests.

Another reason for reconsidering my views is because it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between the actions of governments and those of some other organisations.  For example, when interest groups lobby private businesses to adopt particular environmental or social policies, there is an increasing tendency for political parties to become involved by threatening regulation either in support of or in opposition to interest group advocacy. There also seems to be increasing acceptance that governments should take an active interest in codes of conduct adopted by organisations that have traditionally been viewed as independent of government (e.g. universities) particularly if they receive substantial government funding. Another example is the non-transparent influence of governments on the publication policies of social media outlets. It has become increasingly difficult for free speech advocates to distinguish between government censorship and the editorial policies of media proprietors.  

The only reason I can think of right now why libertarians should not be attempting to influence culture is the difficulty they would have in agreeing on what kinds of cultural change they would like to promote. Libertarians are, almost by definition, independently minded people.

With that thought in mind, I will now hand over to Chris.

Chris Matthew Sciabarra’s view

I want to thank Winton Bates for inviting me to participate in this ongoing dialogue, which began with his discussion of my Dialectics and Liberty Trilogy. Next year, I will formally mark the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of the first two books of that trilogy—Marx, Hayek, and Utopia and Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical—and the twenty-fifth anniversary of its finale, Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism. I will devote more attention to each of these books as we approach their birthdays!

My appreciation notwithstanding, I’m somewhat overwhelmed by Winton’s view that I have “possibly thought more deeply than any other living person about the relevance of social context to the pursuit of libertarian ideals.”

Recently, several articles have been published, lamenting the state of libertarianism—how it has lost its relevance and practicality, how it has lost its way. I can attest to the fact that whatever libertarianism is today, it is not what it was when I first encountered it in the late 1970s. As a twentieth-century offshoot of liberalism, libertarianism emphasized the centrality of individual rights. But this was not a purely propertarian vision. It was a liberal ideal that situated intellectual, political, and economic freedom within an inclusive cosmopolitan social framework.

I often heard the mantra that libertarianism was about getting the government out of the boardroom and the bedroom. I took seriously Ayn Rand’s view that a “new intellectual” movement was necessary to unite the “homeless refugees” in American politics: the nontotalitarian “liberals” and the nontraditional “conservatives.” I took seriously Murray Rothbard’s call “for a new liberty” that transcended the limitations of left and right.

Even more importantly—and in complete agreement with Winton—I took seriously the neo-Aristotelian perspective that any struggle for human freedom is simultaneously a commitment to the project of personal flourishing. Each implies the other. Each requires the other. And each depends upon a culture that nourishes both.

Alas, we are facing a political climate here in America—and in many other countries throughout the world—in which there is a struggle between competing forms of illiberalism on both the left and the right. I have not concealed my view as to which is the greater threat. But illiberalism of any kind anywhere is a threat to human freedom and personal flourishing everywhere.

The opening epigraph of John Stuart Mill hints at the importance of focusing on how power manifests itself in reciprocally reinforcing ways. The approach of so-called “thin libertarians”—that is, those who have argued that freedom does not require a robust defense of anything beyond a nonaggression principle—is so myopic that it collapses in on itself. Somehow, someway, such “thin libertarians” have ushered in, through the backdoor, cultural presuppositions that they believe are necessary to the achievement and sustenance of human freedom.

Indeed, even Murray Rothbard, who once declared the sole importance of the nonaggression “axiom,” notably shifted his support toward what he called “Liberty Plus.” This was an acknowledgement that some kind of cultural matrix was necessary to nourish the freedom project. Rothbard argued that the paleoconservative values of a Christian culture, a “shared ethnicity,” and a “shared religion” were the only bulwark against the “modal” libertines who had taken up the banner of freedom. Hans-Hermann Hoppe furthered this view with a vengeance, arguing that libertarianism could not survive the conditions of “moral degeneracy and cultural rot” brought on by those who engaged in what he saw as the sordid promiscuity, vulgarity, obscenity, and illegitimacy of alternative lifestyles (in other words: anyone who identified as LGBT+).

Given that anarcho-capitalists like Hoppe advocate a society based on the creation of private propertarian fiefdoms, in which property owners can expel any groups upholding non-approved religious, cultural, or sexual practices, or even people whose skin color they don’t like, the very idea of a cosmopolitan liberal order was anathema. In other words, such libertarianism simply dispensed with liberalism, the very tapestry from which it emerged.

That’s not what I signed up for.

I believe that it is partially because of these developments in some libertarian circles that the radical liberal project remains stillborn, despite the gallant efforts of so many fine thinkers who have worked so hard to make the more robust case for freedom and flourishing. That project requires us to examine the systemic nature of tyranny and oppression—that is, the ways in which power relations are manifested on multiple levels in any given society. The cultural level is perhaps the most crucial of all.

And make no mistake about it: Power is not a purely political phenomenon. As Mill suggests, “prevailing opinion and feeling,” can be just as tyrannical as anything political. Indeed, James Madison warned that liberty could be destroyed from the top-down by political compulsion and from the bottom-up by the cultural imposition of conformity. Madison understood that liberty thrives on diversity.

So, in response to the question, “Should Libertarians be Attempting to Influence Culture?”, I can only say that this presupposes an understanding of more basic issues. First, libertarians should be focused on exploring the role of culture in shaping political and social outcomes. And in a global context, this also entails exploring how different cultures may or may not support the radical liberal project.

I have championed the dialectical method because, as the art of context-keeping, dialectics demands that we examine any problem, issue, or event on different levels of generality and from different vantage points. By shifting our perspective on any problem, issue, or event, we emerge with a fuller understanding of the varied ways in which these phenomena manifest themselves. We can then begin piecing together how the parts interrelate and function in a system examined across time.

I will have a lot more to say about these issues in forthcoming exchanges. For now, I’m delighted that Winton has invited me to participate in this unfolding dialogue.

Addendum:

Chris Mathew Sciabarra has also posted this discussion on his blog, Notablog. Please take a look at Chris’s blog.

Is it possible for humans to flourish if they don't live good lives?

 

I asked myself whether it is possible for humans to flourish if they don't live good lives after reading an article by Markus Knee and Damiel Haybron entitled "The Folk Concept of the Good Life: Neither Happiness nor Well-Being” (SSRN Electronic Journal, Jan. 2024).

I am not sure whether my attention was drawn to the article serendipitously or because of some kind of algorithmic conspiracy. An email from ResearchGate alerting me to the article arrived in my inbox on the same day that I had participated in a roundtable discussion on human flourishing with Ed Younkins, Roger Bissell, and Vinay Kolhatkar. We each presented views based on our three books:

Flourishing and Happiness in a Free Society, by Edward W Younkins;

Modernizing Aristotle’s Ethics, by Roger E Bissell and Vinay Kolhatkar; and

Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, by Winton Russell Bates.

The roundtable discussion can be viewed on The Savvy Street Show. (The transcript of the discussion is available here.)

The article by Knee and Haybron

Knee and Haybron tested whether the folk view that a person “leads a good life” differs from the folk view that a person “is happy” and “is doing well” by asking survey participants to respond to vignettes involving socially sanctioned wrongdoing toward outgroup members. Their findings indicated that, for a large majority, judgments of bad character strongly reduce ascriptions of the good life, while having no impact at all on ascriptions of happiness or well-being.  They conclude that the lay concept of a good life is clearly distinct from those of happiness and well-being, likely encompassing both morality and well-being, and perhaps other values as well. Importantly, morality appears not to play a fundamental role among the folk in their views of either happiness or well-being.

So, who are the folk? There were 283 participants in this study (recruited on Prolific). It seems likely that the views of participants are representative of Americans. The sample has a bias towards females (64% female), but there is no obvious bias in the age of participants (average age 36, age range 19 to 78). I expect that folk in other countries with similar cultural heritage would have similar views, but that has not been tested   

Why should philosophers be interested in what folk think about the meaning of concepts? Socrates wandered around Athens asking people what they thought about the meaning of concepts, but I think modern philosophers have different motives. Socrates asked questions that were designed to encourage people to think more deeply rather than conducting surveys to assess their current views about the meaning of concepts.

I think the main reason why philosophers should be interested in what folk think about the meaning of concepts is because communication is easier if definitions accord with common usage of terms.

Differences between the views of the folk and the philosophers

Knee and Haybron claim that most philosophers assume that a good life is equivalent to well-being. I am not sure that “assume” is the correct word to use. Philosophers are usually careful to define the terms they use, so perhaps the authors mean that philosophers’ definitions of a good life and of well-being are at variance with the meaning that most folk give to those concepts.

One of the philosophers who has influenced my understanding of the meaning of human flourishing has adopted a definition of well-being that seems to me to make it equivalent to a good life. As I explain in the Introduction to Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, Neera Badhwar uses well-being in her definition of the highest prudential good (HPG):

“Well-being as the HPG consists of happiness in an objectively worthwhile life.”

I prefer to use the term flourishing, rather than well-being because flourishing better captures the dynamic nature of individual human development.

My understanding of human flourishing has also been strongly influenced by Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen, who argue that human flourishing can be best understood as “the exercise of one’s own practical wisdom”.

I combined the Dougs’ perspective with Badhwar’s to define human flourishing as:

“the exercise of one’s own practical wisdom, with integrity, in the pursuit and achievement of happiness in an objectively worthwhile life”.

Objective worth entails moral virtues and choice-worthiness. In my book, I endorse the idea that the basic goods of a flourishing human constitute “living well” and “are the actual elements of a good life”. Perhaps the folk might not agree that the same elements are involved in the same proportions in “living well” as in “a good life”.  However, I hope most folk would agree with me that “living well” requires more virtue than “doing well”.

In any case, I claim that my view of human flourishing is close to the folk view of leading a good life.

I am not aware of any tests having been made of the folk view of human flourishing. Casual observation suggests to me that the concept of human flourishing is not used widely enough for there to be a general “folk view” of what it means. When I tell folk I have written a book about human flourishing I am often asked what flourishing means and how it differs from related concepts such as happiness and thriving.

How do Knee and Haybron view human flourishing?

Knee and Haybron seem to view human flourishing as involving no more virtue than lay perceptions of happiness and well-being. They claim that their results suggest that “philosophers following Plato in claiming that serious immorality precludes flourishing are defending a less-than-intuitive position”. Neo-Aristotelians who claim that lack of integrity impairs flourishing would presumably be viewed in the same light.

In his book, The Pursuit of Unhappiness (published in 2008) Dan Haybron discussed the question of whether Genghis Khan - who claimed to obtain happiness by conquering his enemies, taking their property, and outraging their wives and daughters – could be considered to have been a flourishing human (pp 159-60). In that context, he claims that it is “neither here nor there” to assert that Genghis Khan didn’t have a good life – a life that is desirable or choice-worthy. He is asserting that consideration of goodness is irrelevant to the question of whether a person is flourishing.

A Google search for “human flourishing” suggests to me that a view of human flourishing which has no reference to goodness is not currently widely accepted in the literature discussing human flourishing. Most of the items I found near the top of the list linked human flourishing to living a good life, being holistically good, engaging in meaningful activities, having regard to traditional virtues etc.

Does it matter if different people define human flourishing in different ways? Perhaps it adds only minor confusion to intellectual discourse. However, the way terms are used in intellectual discourse is likely to influence the folk view (common usage) over the longer term.  I think it would be unfortunate if we end up with a folk view of human flourishing that is indistinguishable from current folk views of happiness.

Conclusion

An empirical study by Marcus Knee and Daniel Haybron has found that the folk view that a person leads a good life differs from the folk view that a person is happy or doing well. Judgements of bad character strongly reduce ascriptions of the good life but have no impact on ascriptions of happiness or well-being.

I claim that the view of human flourishing that I have adopted is close to the folk view of living a good life.

However, Knee and Haybron seem to have a view of human flourishing that has no reference to goodness. Their view of human flourishing seems to be at variance with widely accepted views in relevant literature.

I doubt whether there is a folk view of human flourishing at present but one seems likely to develop with increasing use of the term. In my view, it would be unfortunate if we end up with a folk view of human flourishing that is indistinguishable from folk views of happiness and doing well. Those who wish to avoid that outcome should take advantage of every available opportunity to assert that human flourishing means living a good life.

Addendum

1. The Aristotle “quote” at the top of this essay is my interpretation of part of Nichomachean Ethics, Book 1, Chapter 7. In the 5^th paragraph, Aristotle considers the function (ergon) of a human (the capacities and activities that make a being human). That is the context in which he is considering what activities or actions eudaimonia, or human flourishing, requires. (Eudaimonia is often translated as happiness but it involves more than the modern, emotional state, concept of happiness). Aristotle asserts that human flourishing (the chief good) is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue. What he means by “activity of the soul” is closely related to exercise of practical wisdom.

2. A revised version of this essay has been published on "The Savvy Street". The revised version incorporates quotes about flourishing from the books by Ed Younkins and Roger Bissell and Vinay Kolhatkar.