Category: Commentary, Critique, and Response

LESTER’S ARGUMENT STATED ANALYTICALLY

So, JCL has written a paper of N pages and I’ve distilled it to this:

PROPOSITION

“Self identified libertarians normatively use the term liberty but cannot agree upon its meaning”

“We assume that we can agree that the term liberty refers to an individual constraining another.”

“We can define cost, as a decrease in satisfaction of the individual.”

“We can deconstruct constraint into the action and the consequence.

As such, (for some reason) we can call constraint a born cost.”

And we can (for some reason) call causing constraint an imposed cost.”

“The Normative use of the term Self ownership is not false by this definition, since costs born against the self cause a decrease in satisfaction”

“The Normative use of the term Private property is not false by this definition since costs against private property cause a decrease in satisfaction”

“Because we use this term Liberty in many cases to refer to the absence of constraint,

and because we can operationalize constraint as an action (imposed cost) and a reaction (born cost),

and because we are expressing these terms in words,

then we can call it a theory.”

“Because the normative use of the term self ownership is non contradictory,

and because the normative use of the term private property is non contradictory

and because the deconstruction of the term constraint into imposed costs and born costs is internally consistent,

this theory is not contradictory.

THEREFORE

A state of liberty is one in which individuals do not bear decreases in satisfaction due to lost opportunities for satisfaction,

And they do not bear costs of decreased satisfaction because of (some constraint on) private property

And they do not bear costs of decreased satisfaction against “self ownership” because of (some constraint upon) the self,

Therefore since our extant terminology is internally consistent,

then our theory is not false,

and our theory does not depend upon morality, property, or property rights, only subjective experience of decreased satisfaction.

ANALYSIS AND CRITICISM

This argument changes the point of view to that of the individual instead of that of the jurist. Libertarian arguments are generally structured from the point of view of the jurist: the problem of decidability.

Lester’s position is to some degree a novel argument in that libertarian theory has generally been predicated upon the institutional problem of expressing rules that can be adjudicable under law.

While his is a novel point of view, if we must return to the question of positive assertions expressible in law, we are left with defining the scope of property, defining the scope of property rights, and the means of violating those rights. Nothing is solved for us.

Traditional arguments assume violations of property cause individual dissatisfaction, and consider the problem of decidability as to whether a violation has occurred or not. Lester’s theory articulates the individual’s experience (point of view) instead of the jurors point of view. However this theory does not solve the problem of categorizing just what the individual feels loss in regard to, which is the central problem of WHAT violations are open to resolution in court and which are not.

Or more precisely, what divides low trust “libertine” rothbardian ethics and his prohibition on ‘criminal’ behavior, from high trust ‘western’ ethics and the prohibition against criminal, unethical, immoral and conspiratorial behavior. Nor the fact that it is irrational for individuals to choose high transaction cost, low trust polities where there remains high demand for the state to suppress retaliation for unethical, immoral, and conspiratorial behavior. As such no libertarian polity can rationally form under rothbardian low trust ethics.

As such, while it is true that individuals prefer not to bear lost satisfaction because of the constraints of others, the problem remains one of property and property rights: what prohibitions, expressed as positive rights, must be defined in order for the rational formation of a voluntary polity in the absence of an authority to suppress retaliation against criminal, unethical, immoral, and conspiratorial behavior. The problem is not in clarifying the reason for the individual, since this has always been assumed, but in what property rights are adjudicable under law such that a state free of constraints that cause decreased satisfaction ***CAN*** exist.

His argument then while novel, is irrelevant, because it has always been assumed. The question is not the experience of the individual, but what actions we can take to construct institutions formal and informal. What contract can we construct in law? What can and cannot be resolved in court?

Why? Because humans ACT MORALLY, and therefore will retaliate aggressively against criminal, ethical, moral and conspiratorial violations. As such we must address which disputes are necessary to prevent retaliation. While we all agree that loss of satisfaction is ‘bad’, that doesnt tell us what losses of satisfaction are those we are willing to insure, and which are we NOT willing to insure? Since that is what the formal institution of law does: provide insurance that disputes can be resolved.

So we can state that:

– man’s moral intuitions result in normative moral rules,

– and that testable, and therefore true, moral rules are universally articulable as prohibitions on involuntary transfer (imposed costs, free riding),

– and that such moral rules can be universally articulated as property rights.

– That all such rights are adjudicable under organic (common) polycentric law.

– That ostensibly moral rules that are not articulable as property rights are categorically unnecessary morals, merely signals signals, and not necessary morals.

– That some groups demonstrate higher moral suppression of imposed costs than other groups, and that some groups are therefore qualitatively more moral than other groups.

THE SCIENTIFIC ARGUMENT

Moral intuitions against free riding evolved in parallel with cooperation and antecedent to liberty, since liberty required cooperative organizations which of necessity developed consequent to morality. Without moral rules, cooperation is undesirable and impossible.

Liberty is merely the name for our original evolutionary moral constraint applied to members of organizations capable of exercising power.

You have correctly identified the causal property of morality (imposed cost). You have correctly articulated an additional point of view. But perhaps failed to grasp that liberty is merely an application of moral prohibitions and nothing more. And that moral intuition, imposed costs, demonstrated property, and sufficient expression of property rights to make unnecessary retaliatory actions, since all retaliatory actions are expressible as property rights.

The reason Rothbard chose his method of defining property and morality (aggression) was that as a cosmopolitan he wanted to preserve the prohibition on retaliation for immoral action, thus licensing immoral action. The question is, why would he do that?