What Contribution did David L. Norton Make to our Understanding of Ethical Individualism?

 

The purpose of this post is to publish a review essay by Edward W. Younkins, author of among other things a wonderful trilogy of books on freedom and flourishing: Capitalism and Commerce, Champions of a Free Society, and Flourishing and Happiness in a Free Society. (I have written a review of Ed’s trilogy, which was published on The Savvy Street last year. I published an earlier essay on Flourishing and Happiness in a Free Society on this blog in 2019.)

David L. Norton, whose books are the subject of Ed’s review essay was an American philosopher who made an important contribution to the modern understanding of human flourishing. I read his book, Personal Destinies, last year, and wrote a couple of posts on this blog (here and here) on issues that were of particular interest to me.

Norton’s major books deserve a more comprehensive review. I am pleased to have the opportunity to publish on Freedom and Flourishing the following review essay by Ed Younkins.

A Review Essay of David L. Norton’s Books on Ethical Individualism

By

Edward W. Younkins

 

The purpose of this review essay is to introduce and evaluate the essential ideas that appear in David L. Norton’s two major books: his 1976 Personal Destinies: A Philosophy of Ethical Individualism (PD) and his 1991 Democracy and Moral Development: A Politics of Virtue (DMD). PD is a thorough, philosophically astute, visionary, and enduring contribution to contemporary moral philosophy in the tradition of classical Greek thinkers in which Norton offers a compelling view of human flourishing grounded in the idea that ethical life is rooted in the realization of unique personal potentialities. Norton’s philosophy will resonate with those seeking to reconcile individual freedom with moral responsibility. Then in DMD Norton attempts to extend his ethical individualism into the realm of political philosophy. In this work he advances politics that embraces ethical education. Although thought-provoking and ambitious, DMD falls short of meeting his goal and of having the impact of PD. In addition, its expanded role of the state and communitarian leanings are problematic, in tension with, and in opposition to, the individual freedom advocated in PD.

Personal Destinies

In this book Norton explains that for each person there is a particular unique way of living (his daimon) and there is a foundational ethical imperative to live in that manner. Each individual is morally obligated to know and live the truth according to his daimon, thus progressively actualizing an excellence that is innately and potentially his. His ethical responsibility and priority is to bring this inner self to outward actuality. Each of us is a unique irreplaceable being who has his own destiny in need of discovery and actualization.

What is the source of one’s daimon? Norton explains that the immediate source of one’s genetic inheritance is the person’s parents and that, as human beings, they represent the same category of being as the individual himself. This involves the consideration of both human nature and the specific unique identity of each individual.

The conclusion to be drawn is that each individual is the heir of the unrestricted humanity of which his parents are in his particular case the agents. Heteronomy does not obtain here because the individual is humanity in a particular instance. And genetic inheritance is fully capable of accounting for the individuation of daimons… (PD p.25)

Norton links the ancient concept of eudaimonia to Abraham Maslow’s idea of self-actualization. He also interchangeably uses the terms eudaimonism, perfectionism, self-actualization ethics, and normative individualism which stresses the quality of life of the agent. In addition, he distinguishes between self-actualization and self-realization because the inward self is real even if it is not actualized,

The eudaimonic individual experiences the whole of his life in every act, and he experiences parts and wholes together as necessary such that he can will that nothing be changed. But the necessity introduced here is moral necessity, deriving from his choice. Hence, we may say of him interchangeably, “He is where he wants to be, doing what he wants to do,” or “He is where he wants to be, doing what he must do.” (PD p.222)  

According to Norton, eudaimonia is both a feeling and a condition dependent upon right desire and is an objective value that is not imputed but recognized. It is the condition of living in truth to one’s daimon. The prerequisite of eudaimonia is the unique irreplaceable worth of each individual. Eudaimonia involves wholehearted commitment to one’s flourishing as a human being.

According to Norton, one’s aim is not to imitate the “worthy man” but to emulate him:

To emulate a worthy man is not to re-live his individual life, but to utilize the principle of worthy living, exemplified by him, toward the qualitative improvement of our individual life. (PD, p.13)

Norton informs us that it is Plato, rather than Aristotle, who supplies the underpinning support for individualistic metaphysics via his principle of the self-differentiation of the Forms and his idea of ultimate reality as a system of interrelated and intercommunicating Forms.  Because there are fewer Forms than existing things they serve as principles of intelligibility regarding the actual world.

Norton then builds on Leibniz’s principle of incompossibility that recognizes that not all possibilities are capable of co-existence. Stripping away Leibniz’s theology that states that actualization of pure possibilities is solely the work of God, Norton explains that distinct from actuality are infinite possibilities that are possible actualities and that, under certain conditions, these alternatives become available to existing beings. Between actuality and free possibility only total exchange can occur. Alternative worlds cannot exist simultaneously but can exist as possible worlds via the agency of world exchange. Whatever exists is susceptible to lapsing into the status of unactualized possibility.

Norton devotes three chapters to criticizing recent eudaimonisms from existentialist thinkers from Kierkgaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre none of whom has an unswerving commitment to reason. Norton dismisses Sartre’s characterization of freedom as freedom to do whatever one freely wants to do and criticizes Sartre’s denial of human nature in his efforts to affirm individuality.

Each person has his own irreplaceable and unique potential worth and innate distinct particularity which is his self. Norton’s notion of humankind is as “perfectible finitude”. Each unique person faces possibilities from which to choose. One’s unique flourishing can be progressively approached by living in truth to one’s daimon. Through an individual’s self-knowledge, self-discovery, and efforts he can progressively actualize the particularities that comprise his own essential identity. Human beings possess volition, can initiate action, and can make responsible decisions in accordance with who and what one is.

Norton maintains that each person is a universal particular and that the universal humanity that subsists within each person makes the possibility of a broad range of alternatives a component of every individual’s existence. Of course, this does not mean that every option is equally appropriate for each person. It only means that choices from among alternatives are those to be made correctly or incorrectly.

Confine your aspirations to the possibilities of your own nature; to desire to be more than a human being is to become less, for extra-human aims betray humankind and produce blindness to the values human life affords…. Extra-human happiness and desires are impediments to the appreciation and participation in human worth. (PD p.357)

The virtue of integrity is Norton’s fundamental principle of the life of a mature human being. Living one’s own truth comprises integrity, the primary virtue. Norton explains that flourishing is inextricably tied to the actuality of an integrated self. He speaks of “personal truth” and makes clear that the great threat to integrity is not falsehood, but rather the attractiveness of foreign truths—the truths that belong to others.

Our consideration of “personal truth” reveals that the great enemy of integrity is not falsehood but—ironically—the attractiveness of foreign truths, the truths that belong to others. (PD p.9)

One excellent chapter is devoted to the stages of life—childhood (dependence), adolescence (creative exploration of potentialities), maturation (adulthood), and old age. There are distinguishing incommensurable principles of behavior that pertain to each stage. Norton calls the passage between these stages “world exchange”. There is a succession of stages of which normativity exacts its modes of actualization. The author then devotes a follow-up chapter titled “Eudaimonia: The Quality of Moral Life in the Stage of Maturation”.

Norton views the self as a self of a particular kind (i.e., the self of a human being). He explains that a human being becomes conscious of himself as a self only in social interaction with others. A person’s knowledge of his selfhood thus develops concurrently with the knowledge of others as selves.

Each individual has continuous access to minds different from his own. Norton explains that the presence of another human being is an invitation to enter a perspectival world different from our own. Through a process of participatory enactment each of us can recognize a world of possibilities in ourselves, only one of which is made real in our own existence. This range of possibilities permits us to see those possibilities within other people that are being actualized or that can potentially be actualized.

From the individuation of possibilities it follows that the goal of the human individual is the perfection of his own unique finitude, and the goal of humanity is the community of complementary, perfected individuals. (PD pp. 142-43)

Norton discusses the inherent sociality of human beings based on mutual appreciation rather than on conflict when he speaks of “the complementarity of the excellences” or what Plato termed “congeniality of the excellences”. Through social interaction one’s knowledge of his own selfhood emerges concurrently with the knowledge of others as selves. In addition, these contacts enable individuals to recognize and affirm values different from their own. Through specialization people benefit from what others create by fulfilling their innate destinies. This personal interdependence is manifested in love, labor, and justice.

For Norton, a self-actualizing individual takes an interest in the self-actualization of others and an ideal society is one of complementary perfected individuals. His idea of “consequent sociality” thus emphasizes the individualist significance of human community life and politics. Norton’s eudaimonism clearly recognizes that a human being is not an isolated entity.

Regarding justice as the paramount virtue of society, Norton states that:

…the foundation of justice is the presupposition of the unique, irreplaceable, potential worth of every person, and forms of sociality that neglect or contradict this presupposition…deal justice a mortal wound at the outset. (PD p.310)

Norton views justice as a type of entitlement in which an individual is only entitled to possess as much of anything as he can use in actualizing himself. His theory holds that at the lower limit (or floor) each person is entitled to what is necessary for self-actualization including food, shelter, and decent treatment by others. Then at the upper limit (or ceiling) a person is entitled to the commensurate goods whose potential worth he can maximally actualize in accordance with his destiny, his meaningful work. The point of this upper limit is that not everything is appropriate with what one is. A person is only entitled to those goods that are right and proper to his self-development.  In Norton’s view, how a person acquires something to which he is “entitled” in order to actualize himself is irrelevant. The door is opened to the notion of distributive justice in a society that disregards the manner in which a person acquires what he is ‘entitled” to.

The unfortunate designation “entitlement” is used by Norton in connection with what individuals should do in a social context. He discusses what a person is morally entitled to and deserves in virtue of his own distinctive potential achievements. He contends that not every person is entitled to all goods, but that every person is entitled to those goods that will help them with their self-actualization. The knowledge of other people’s entitlements leads him to entertain the idea of distributive justice.

Norton thinks that his eudaimonism can be employed to demonstrate which distribution of goods is just and which is not. He begins by saying that it is each individual who will decide whether a good is or is not commensurate with the pursuit of his self-actualization. However, he qualifies his answer by stating that others can specify what one is entitled to if the person has not yet reached a stage of true individuation. His theory of entitlement leaves room for a theory of rights that would inspire political control in the realm of social justice.

Under normative individualism the final ground of the distinction between true and false desires is the nature of the individual himself, and he himself is the final authority. But by the emergent nature of individualism the exercise of this final authority by the individual is deferred until true individuation is attained, and meanwhile others must share with him the responsibility for the determination of his true interests. (PD pp.323-24)

Norton declares that public corroboration of claims of entitlement is needed because self-love and the knowledge it provides are imperfect. Although he suggests others who know and love the person, and thereafter, acquaintances as corroborators with respect to which goods are consistent with person’s unique calling, there remains the possibility that a political authority would step in when peer pressure and persuasion are insufficient. He has opened the door for huge amounts of control, and this unfortunately comes to fruition in his later book, Democracy and Moral Development.

 

Democracy and Moral Development

This 1991 book can be viewed as an extension of Norton’s earlier work, Personal Destinies. In it he aims to philosophically connect ideas from democratic theory, virtue (or character) ethics, moral development, and social and political justice. Norton praises democratic thinkers like Mill and Dewey for teaching that democratic institutions advance individuals pursuit of their chosen way of life. Holding a developmental notion of the individual, he makes a case for a greater than a minimal role for government in the life of each individual human being.

Norton explains the need to disclaim the closed teleology of Plato and Aristotle for an open-ended teleology. He views eudaimonia as an inclusive end that permits a multiplicity of types of self-actualizing lives aimed at a multiplicity of ends.

Arguing for an expanded notion of self-interest that includes the interests of others, Norton states that, because eudaimonia is of objective worth, one individual’s self-actualization is of value to another individual, and vice-versa. He claims that his eudaimonistic perspective transcends the altruist-egoist bifurcation.

Arguing that eudaimonism is not a form of egoism, he explains that:

The worth that is aspired to is objective worth, which is to say, it is of worth, not solely or primarily to the individual who actualizes it, but also to (some) other persons--specifically to such others as can recognize, appreciate, and utilize the distinctive kind of worth that the given individual manifests. (DMD p.7)

Norton explains that human beings are alike in seeking values but individuated by the differences of the types of values that they desire. It follows that his contention that one person’s actualization is of value to another person may be problematic because objective value for one person is not the same for every individual. Unlike Ayn Rand, he fails to realize that it is important to describe for whom and for what purpose something is of value.

Like Plato, Norton argues that self-love does not inhibit the love of others, but rather is the precondition of it:

…love is not exclusively or primarily interpersonal; it is first of all the right relationship of each person with himself or herself. The self to which love is the first instance directed is the ideal self that is aspired to and by which random change is transformed into the directed development we term growth, When the ideal of the individual is rightly chosen, it realizes objective values that subsisted within the individual as innate possibilities, thereby achieving in the individual as innate possibilities the self-identity that is termed “integrity” and that constitutes the foundation of other virtues. (DMD p.40)

According to Norton, there exists a kind of positive right to what every individual requires in order to exercise the central moral responsibility to discern and develop his personal potential moral excellence. He argues that a person is only entitled to what is commensurate with what is needed for his own self-development. Therefore, a worthy individual who has self-knowledge and lives by it, recognizes goods to which he is not entitled as distractions from the proper course of his life. Such a person manifests justice by not claiming goods that he cannot utilize and by actively willing them to those who can employ them toward their personal flourishing. A worthy person’s aspirations do not exceed the parameters of his own finitude. Recognizing these boundaries permits the potential augmentation of the finite excellences of qualitatively differentiated others.

According to Norton:

…no life can be said to be fulfilled whose worth is not recognized and utilized by (some) other person in their own self-actualizing enterprise. Correspondingly every well-lived life must utilize values produced by (some) other well-lived lives. And this is to say that within a society, every person has a legitimate interest in the essential personhood of every other. (DMD p.124)

Norton contends the switch from “some others” to “every other” is legitimated because all those upon you and I rely have need of values produced by others, who, in turn, have need of values produced by others, and so on. He states that this is the foundation for a “community of true individuals”.

Norton attempts to distinguish his views from those of contemporary communitarians. He does this by differentiating between “received” community and tradition and “chosen” community and tradition. He emphasizes choosing the right community and tradition as necessary to individuality as conceived of eudaimonistically. In the end, however, his worldview comes close to the communitarian worldview from which he wants to distinguish himself.

Norton argues that rights must be derived from responsibilities (not vice-versa}, that rights are not inherently adversarial, and that rights should be founded upon what a person requires in order to develop properly. He thus emphasizes responsibilities, the value of other people’s flourishing in one’s own self-interest, and the necessity of developing one’s latent powers.

Norton’s idea of a just society is “obligations primitive” rather than “rights primitive”. For him, rights are derived from the primary moral obligation of individuals to discern and actualize their innate potential excellences. This moral obligation produces both negative and positive rights that government will protect and help to implement.

Norton failed to understand that rights are an ethical concept that is not directly concerned with attaining the self-perfection of individuals but rather, as explained by Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl, are metanorms that establish the conditions for protecting the possibility of the pursuit of a person’s interests but not the achievement of flourishing itself. His philosophical individualism could have been improved if he had realized that ethics are not all at the same level. A two-level ethical system consists of metanorms (i.e., political norms) and personal ethical norms. Whereas metanorms are both legally and morally binding, personal ethical norms are only morally binding. Metanorms establish the conditions for the exercise of personal moral norms. [1]

Norton explicitly rejects moral minimalism and suggests a role for government in moral development. Taking a rather communitarian view of a person’s view of society, Norton contends that government should focus on helping people to realize their potential. For Norton, a just society is one in which an individual would be able to actualize his potential personal excellences. From his revisionist Platonist perspective, government should supply the preconditions for self-development that the individual is unable to supply and to which he is morally entitled. Among these necessary conditions are guaranteed subsistence, basic healthcare, and provision of appropriate education for children and adolescents in a variety of life-forming situations. An integrated self-actualized life requires both formal education and life-forming experiences that permit individuals the opportunity to explore life’s possibilities. The life choices one makes are founded on self-knowledge attained through exploration and experimentation as an adolescent in non-academic situations in a variety of youth service programs including apprenticeships, work study, community service programs, and a National Youth Service. Like Dewey, Norton suggests restructuring education by alternating academic courses and practical experiences and supporting youth public service.

As Norton puts it:

…the paramount function of government is to provide the necessary but non-self-suppliable conditions for optimizing opportunities for individual self-discovery and self-development. (DMD p.80)

Norton considers some implications of Plato’s The Republic for contemporary government and organizational management. One is that managers are distinct class of individuals including politicians whose vocation it is to manage. Others are that to be a good manager requires that a person know the good of the social organization as a whole that one manages and that he identifies his own good with the good of the whole organization. The result of the natural division of labor by individual excellences produces a type of management class who would be trustees of the public interest. Of course, this class would be the result of autonomous choices made during the progression of self-development through education especially at the stage of adolescence.

Norton argues that:

If we term both social engineering and the welfare state “maximal government” and the night-watchman state “minimal government”, then good government, eudaimonistically conceived, lies intermediate between them, as conducive government. (DMD p.166)   

Conclusion

Whereas PD explored the ethical and psychological dimensions of individual flourishing, DMD examined how political and social institutions and practices can support or impede the cultivation of moral virtues in individuals. DMD expands Norton’s analysis to include the role of the state and community in fostering moral development. It builds on the ideas introduced in PD but moves toward the view that political systems have a moral purpose beyond the protection of an individual’s negative rights and toward the notion that the state should be an active participant in moral education, shaping the conditions under which a person can develop virtues. DMD’s more communitarian focus is in tension with the ethical individualism of PD. PD offers a profound, original, and nearly flawless contribution to ethical thought by developing a solid foundation for understanding personal moral development and flourishing. However, Norton’s flawed theory of entitlement in PD leads him to go far off-track in DMD.

His entitlement theory opened the door for recurrent intrusion in people’s lives. Norton argues in DMD for people’s rights to things that cannot be self-provided. These are essentially claims to the positive performance of others. People have positive rights only at the expense of someone else’s negative rights. No political or social system can replace a person’s own responsibility for the character of his life. Norton’s view of the state as a moral educator risks imposing a state-sanctioned notion of virtue that could infringe on individual autonomy. This could be seen as paternalistic and undermining of the very autonomy that he seeks to promote in PD. Freedom is a prerequisite for the development of virtue. Any expansion of the role of the state beyond minimal government is undesirable. Norton’s case that both negative and positive rights must be derived from responsibilities is untenable.

Despite the above flaws, Norton’s work, primarily in PD, advances a metaphysics of authentic possibilities and an ethical individualism that is applicable to each person’s personal and social circumstances. His eudaimonistic view of the moral life in terms of perfecting one’s nature thereby attaining a state of flourishing provokes serious thought. His ideas deserve to be studied along with the ideas of contemporary thinkers writing from a neo-Aristotelian perspective including, but not limited to, Ayn Rand, Henry B. Veatch, Tibor R. Machan, Fred D. Miller, Lester Hunt, Douglas B. Rasmussen, and Douglas J. Den Uyl.

 

Note

{1} See Rasmussen and Den Uyl, Norms of Liberty, pp. 257-264.

Works Cited

Norton, David L. 1976. Personal Destinies: A Philosophy of Ethical Individualism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

______. 1991. Democracy and Moral Development: A Politics of Virtue. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Rasmussen, Douglas B. and Douglas J. Den Uyl. 2005. Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics. University Park. PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.

…….

A shorter version of this essay, focusing on Personal Destinies, has been published on The Savvy Street.

 

 

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 (II)

 

As the graphic might suggest, the focus of the second edition of our collaborative efforts is Chris Matthew Sciabarra’s view of the role of culture in the relations of power in modern societies. However, before Chris presents his view on that topic, it is appropriate to review comments on the first edition that have been left on our respective Facebook pages: Chris Matthew Sciabarra and Winton Bates.

Comments on the first edition

We are pleased that our efforts have attracted interest and perceptive comments from people who have visited our Facebook pages. The comments fall into three broad categories: differing views of thick libertarianism; whether it is possible to influence culture directly; and the distinction between the question of whether libertarianism (as a political philosophy) should be attempting to change culture and the question of whether libertarians (as individuals) should be attempting to influence culture.

Thick libertarianism

Roderick Tracy Long: I'm recalling an exchange I had with Walter Block over "thick libertarianism," the idea that libertarians should think of the struggle for liberty as bound up with the promotion of other values not strictly entailed by libertarian principles but entangled with them either causally or conceptually (locus classicus is Charles Johnson's piece). Walter said that thick libertarianism was dangerous because the attention to other values might distract or tempt libertarians away from libertarian consistency. I said: "So you think opposition to thick libertarianism is itself an additional value, not strictly entailed by libertarian principle, that libertarians qua libertarians nevertheless ought to embrace because of its causal connection with the libertarian goal?" He said yes! I thought I'd trapped him in a reductio, but for him my reductio was merely a modus ponens.

Jim Peron: I don't see how one can achieve a libertarian society without the wider range of values that underpin it. One indication is how utterly unlibertarian evangelicals are compared to others. I should say that it's been years since I read it but the Edward Banifeld books "The Heavenly City" and "The Heavenly City Revisited” were influential in this regard, as were my basic psychology classes in university. Also of influence was "Under Development is a State of Mind" by Lawrence Harrison. [This is the first paragraph of Jim’s comment. Please see Chris’s Facebook page for the remainder.]

Possibility of influencing culture

Boris Karpa: There are, of course, two issues:

1. It's very difficult to come up with a strategy to deliberately influence a culture (and to what extent some progressives have succeeded it was because they already had large institutional inertia).

2. It's not entirely clear how this is going to work even on the basic level. Either of us can name any number of libertarian or semi-libertarian writers, for example, who are reasonably talented, or at least as talented as any published mass-market writer. But writing is an 'industry' with a low barrier of entry. Of these many libertarian and semi-libertarian writers, how many of these writers have had a movie or a show made out of their works? Or a PC game? How are these writers treated by literary awards, etc.?

It's not that I'm suggesting that it's impossible to influence culture, it's that I'm suggesting that I'm not sure how it is possible to influence it in a *deliberate manner* beyond just 'create art that reflects your values and hope for the best'.

Political philosophy versus individual action

Douglas B. Rasmussen: Is there not 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? The former concerns what the political/legal order should do, and the latter concerns what individuals should do.

Ed Younkins: The legitimation or justification of a minimal state that protects and defends freedom does not depend upon the existence of a particular type of moral-cultural order. Such a political order is objectively based on the nature of human beings who need a protected moral sphere for the possibility of self-direction.

Although a political order of metanorms is not necessarily coincidental with, nor dependent upon, a particular moral-cultural system, the establishment and support of such a political order would be easier to bring about if there were widely shared beliefs and articulations with respect to its underpinning political principles as well with certain moral principles. It follows that we 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.

Replies by Bates and Sciabarra

Please see our Facebook pages for our immediate responses to those comments and to additional exchanges. Our views on power relations in the cultural context of individual flourishing are presented below.

Winton Bates’s view of culture

My book, Freedom, Progress, and Human Flourishing, contains a brief discussion of cultural change in Chapter Nine, “The Evolving Context of Human Flourishing” (pp 184-190). As the chapter title suggests, my focus was primarily on the nature of changes that individuals have to contend with rather than on what individuals might do, in concert with others, to influence the cultural context. Nevertheless, readers would have no difficulty in discerning that I strongly support what Steven Pinker has described as Enlightenment humanism:

“Emancipative values can also be viewed as an outcome of Enlightenment humanism, a term used by Steven Pinker, to encompass the ideas of thinkers like Hobbes, Spinoza, Descartes, Locke, Hume, Astell, Kant, Beccaria, Smith, Wollstonecraft, Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton and Mill. As I see it, a stronger case can be made for the emergence of a general consensus supporting Enlightenment humanism among leaders of political opinion, than for the existence of a coherent philosophy shared by a group of intellectuals. While the classical liberals would probably have seen little merit in the political views of rationalistic thinkers, and vice versa, many conservative and progressive political leaders have seen varying degrees of merit in different viewpoints and have sought to reconcile and assimilate them in developing their own views.

“Over time, it seems that Enlightenment humanist values have approached the status of a coherent world view, which is broadly supported by public opinion in the democracies, despite large differences between conservative and progressives on some important issues.  The process seems to be one in which disparate political philosophies, often going back centuries, act as tributaries to the broad streams of thought that flow into the rivers of public opinion. Enlightenment humanism is one of those broad streams of thought. The color of the water in the streams and the rivers changes over time, depending on relative contributions from the different tributaries.

“Such a picture is complicated by the existence of postmodernism, as a competing stream of thought, which has origins traceable to some of those Enlightenment thinkers. Whilst Enlightenment humanism has a preoccupation with reason and reality, postmodernism has a preoccupation with the use of power. Postmodernism’s disrespect for truth is often associated with the narratives presented by radical progressives but it is also present in the narratives of unprincipled populists of a more conservative disposition. Fortunately, persuasive rhetoric that influences the views of some people in ways contrary to reason and reality tends to provoke widespread opposition.” (p 186)

In retrospect, my view that Enlightenment humanist values are broadly supported by public opinion may have been too optimistic. I should also make clear that the problem I have with power relations has to do with preoccupation with the use of power, rather than with attempts to understand power relations in society.

Chris has made an important contribution to the understanding of power relations.

 

Chris Matthew Sciabarra’s view of culture

I greatly appreciate the comments that Winton and I received from our first installment in this series of discussions. In this section, I’ll discuss the Tri-level Model of Power Relations, which was first derived from my reconstruction of Ayn Rand’s critical analyses of social problems, outlined in Part Three of Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical. The model focuses our attention on the various reciprocally related levels of generality through which social relations of power are manifested. It is a model that I have adopted in my own analysis of various social problems and the systemic and historical contexts within which they are embedded.

Winton suggests that Enlightenment humanism has been preoccupied with reason and reality, while postmodernism has been preoccupied with the use of power. Hence, it is startling that Rand, who most certainly placed herself in the reason and reality camp, also emerged with a critique of power relations. Rand criticized modernism for its crippling dualities. She rejected the modernist dichotomies of mind and body, reason and emotion, fact and value, the moral and the practical, and so forth. Ironically, she developed a multidimensional critique of social relations of power that echoes many of the themes found in postmodernism.

The full case for this can’t possibly be presented in this installment, so I’ll do my best to summarize the implications of the Tri-Level Model illustrated above. This summary comes not from Russian Radical but from Chapter Nine of Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism, “The Dialectical Libertarian Turn” (pp. 379-383).

The model provides different levels of generality by which to interpret social relations. The personal, the cultural, and the structural can only be abstracted and isolated for the purposes of analysis, but never reified as wholes unto themselves. They are preconditions and effects of one another.

On Level 1 (LI), the personal level of analysis, social relations are examined from the vantage point of personal ethical practices and implicit or tacit methods of awareness (what Rand called “psycho-epistemological” practices). On Level 2 (L2), the cultural level of analysis, social relations are examined from the vantage point of language, education, ideology, and art. On Level 3 (L3), the structural level of analysis, social relations are examined from the vantage point of political and economic structures, processes, and institutions.

We can trace the implications of this model by grouping the levels into three distinct forms, in which the level placed at the center provides a specific analytical and strategic focus. Because these levels are abstractions from the whole, each reveals key dynamics even as it obscures others.

L1-L2-L3: Focusing on The Cultural

From this point of view, the cultural level is brought to the foreground of our analysis. This perspective allows us to investigate and evaluate the various cultural traditions, institutions, and practices that help to sustain the existing social system.

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.

But a sole focus on dominant cultural traditions and practices tends to lessen our regard for people’s abilities to alter their ethical or psycho-epistemological habits (LI). Additionally, this focus minimizes the importance of the political and economic structures (L3) that both perpetuate and require a certain constellation of cultural practices.

Cultural contextualism—that is, paying attention to the importance of cultural context in the struggle for social change—is important. Indeed, as Hegel once declared: "No one can escape from the substance of his time any more than he can jump out of his skin” (Introduction to the Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 112). That said, cultural contextualism is not cultural determinism. Though we are situated in a particular context of time and place, we are also creative, efficacious social beings capable of shifting that context over time.

L2-L1-L3: Focusing on the Personal

From this point of view, the personal level is brought to the foreground. This analytical focus emphasizes the importance of personal ethical and psycho-epistemological practices, which tend to perpetuate the dominant cultural and structural institutions.

Remember that even though this level is called personal, it is still a means of viewing social relations through a particular prism. Rand’s inspiring maxim—"Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today”—carries enormous weight here, as each person adapts certain virtues in pursuit of certain values, given their own unique and dynamic social context. Even if our struggle for autonomy and authenticity takes place within authoritarian social systems that are “airtight,” there is still a need for self-engagement and self-fulfillment. Living authentically requires introspection, the ability to articulate our thoughts, to accept our emotions, to experience psychological visibility and various degrees of intimacy in our engagement with others, to comprehend the nature of our actions, and to take personal responsibility for the social consequences generated by those actions.

But an exclusive focus on the personal level tends to diminish the importance of cultural and structural factors, which provide the context for, and have a powerful effect on, people’s abilities to achieve autonomy and authenticity. Certain cultural attitudes and tacit practices are so deeply embedded in our lives that it is extremely difficult—if not practically impossible—to call these into question. Likewise, any given set of political and economic realities will tend to constrain our ability to act autonomously. Folks who repeat the mantra, “free your mind and the rest will follow” (with apologies to En Vogue), fall victim to Level 1 thinking, divorced from Levels 2 and 3.

L1-L3-L2: Focusing on the Structural

From this point of view, the personal (LI) and cultural (L2) levels of analysis recede to the background, and the political and economic structures, institutions, and processes become the primary focus. This perspective makes transparent the dominant political and economic practices—the regulations, prohibitions, or guns—that constrain us. But exclusive attention to oppressive structural policies and practices tends to reduce the importance of, and need for, people to alter their ethical or psycho-epistemological habits. It also tends to obscure the importance of culture, which has a powerful effect on the kinds of politics and economics that are practiced.

Those who believe that it is possible to enact a nonaggression principle by edict are reifying a Level 3 analysis. An attack centered solely on the state in the absence of a supporting edifice of personal and cultural practices is doomed to fail. It will likely replace one form of tyranny with another.

With the aid of this Tri Level Model, our shifting points of view help to reveal the depth and breadth of the problems we face. By filtering virtually every social problem through the same multidimensional analysis and tracing the interconnections among social problems, we will be led to reject one-sided resolutions as partial and incomplete.

A couple of additional points must be kept in mind, however. All systems are mixed to some degree and no set of power relations is monolithic. Even within totalitarian systems, pockets of resistance and parallel institutions exist. Hence, each level of our analysis focuses attention on dominant tendencies within any given social system. Moreover, no social system is hermetically sealed from the rest of the world. The Tri Level model is one that must be adapted to different systemic and historical contexts. And it requires sensitivity to differences within cultures and among cultures—especially when we are faced with such an abundance of illiberal tendencies in our own society and across the globe.

I should add too that there is no “One Size Fits All” strategic approach to social change. Considering the unique conditions of any given context, it takes effort to investigate and examine the kinds of cultural formations that may nourish—or impede—both personal flourishing and an emancipative politics.

**

The authors welcome comments on the relevance of the Tri Level model in considering current illiberal tendencies in the cultures of the liberal democracies. We have in mind that the next instalment of this exchange will focus on that topic.

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.