19. Do not try to settle arguments by appealing to ‘justice’
or ‘morality’:
To start, let me stress that I am by
no means advocating moral relativism or accusing morality or justice of being
useless concepts. The fallacy I have in mind is when a debater says something
like: “You have persuaded me that the course you advocate has many advantages.
However, it violates morality and justice and thus cannot be recommended”. As
with the case of appealing to authority, the question is: what makes something
just or moral? Principles of morality and justice are commonly contrasted with
considerations of ‘mere’ expediency. Really though, rules of morality and
justice are just deeper forms of expediency, concerned as they are with
prescribing general rules of conduct which would prove expedient if everyone
followed them for their long-run wellbeing as opposed to just considering the
expediency of isolated measures for their short-run consequences.
Though this fallacy is committed by
representatives of all strata of opinion, I will pick on members of an
intellectual movement closest to my own opinions as an example. Anarcho-capitalist
libertarians are those who believe that a stateless world where every good and
service is bought and sold on the free-market, including defence services
against criminals, is the political ideal for mankind. Their guiding principle
of justice is known as the non-aggression axiom, which states that the use of
coercive force is only permitted in retaliation for or in direct prevention of
a violent assault against person or property. This stems from their principle
of each human’s absolute ownership of their own person, the goods that they
have produced, the un-owned land that they have ‘homesteaded’ (brought into
production), and the goods that they have purchased or received as a gift. It
follows that there is no room for a state, an organization characterized by its
ability to fund itself through coercive levies (taxes). They reject the
minarchist (supporters of a minimal state) claim that taxation is justifiable
as long as the proceeds are used to defend the person and property of those
taxed against the violent aggression of others, because no one has the right to
coerce others into doing anything, including paying for defence services. Thus,
they support anarchism based on principles of justice, and view any other
political arrangement, including minarchism, as an unjust system.
But here, we must ask ourselves: why
adopt this particular principle of justice as absolute, tolerating no
exceptions, even if the exceptions can be formulated as rules such as the
minarchist rule described above? The only satisfactory answer is that this
absolutist construction of property rights is the principle of justice that is
most expedient for the long-run, subjective interests of all members of
society. To prove this though, one must prove that anarchism is a more
satisfactory arrangement than any other system of political organization, such
as minarchism. But then we are right back to the utilitarian, step-by-step
evaluation process outlined in tip #16. Thus, saying that something is ‘just’
is simply another way of saying that its adoption as a general principle/rule
of conduct is the most expedient course for the long-run, subjective interests
of all members of society. In this case though, one must provide the full
argumentation for why this is the case, and not just dismiss your opponents’
points by declaring that they ‘lead to injustice’.
To be fair to the
anarcho-capitalists, a large chunk of their work is dedicated to convincing
others that an anarchist social order could not only work in practice, but
would be the most productive social arrangement imaginable. That is why their
disparagement of utilitarianism and proclamations of the absolute justice of
their cause puzzles me, for, implicitly at least, they do seem to believe that
utilitarianism is indeed vitally important. Thus, never abdicate responsibility
for rationally weighing the pros and cons of a social measure by simply
proclaiming the justice or morality of one side of the argument, without
providing further argumentation as to why justice or morality lies on that side
and not the other.
20. Do not try to settle arguments by appealing to the
‘general consensus’:
One argument that is often heard to
justify a political measure in a democracy is that the measure is deemed to be
a good one by ‘the general consensus’. It is often used in the context of
implying that someone who disagrees with the measure is some fringe extremist,
foolishly trying to argue against the conclusion reached by ‘the general
consensus’ of reasonable people. However, on closer examination, it would seem
that this does precisely nothing to settle an argument.
The first
problem is: what exactly is this ‘consensus’ on? For example, someone says that:
“the general consensus today is that universal, compulsory, public education up
to grade 12 is a good measure, therefore no one should oppose it”. But is this
statement true? Is there really a consensus that the current system of public
education is the best possible and that nothing should be done to change it?
The answer is no, for many people complain about public education all the time,
from the choice of curriculum, to the poor teachers, to the mediocre standard
of educational achievement reached by such schools. However, it is true that if
you suggest moving away from the public education model, you are met with looks
of disbelief and cries of indignation by most people. What accounts for this?
How can the same people be dissatisfied with the system and be virulently
opposed to changing it in any fundamental way at the same time? The answer is
that the ‘general consensus’ is not on the means (public education) but on the
end (more egalitarianism in education). For whatever reason, most people feel
that education should be artificially egalitarian somehow. However, that does
not mean that this is the only thing they are looking for in an educational
system. The content of the curriculum, the quality of the teachers, and the
level of educational achievement of the students are other educational goods
that are pursued alongside egalitarianism. Thus, if the opponent of public
schooling can point out that these others goods will be diminished by public
schooling (due to no competition, no responsiveness to supply and demand, and
the substitution of bureaucracy for economic calculation), and even the
egalitarianism of public schooling is exaggerated (due to great differences
between public schools in different areas), a significant blow to the supposed
‘general consensus’ can be struck.
The second
problem is: even if there is a ‘consensus’ on both the ends and the means to
achieve those ends, does this make it right for this ‘consensus’ to be imposed
on others outside of it? For example, someone says that: “the general consensus
today is that the only fair way for the government to raise revenue is to raise
tax rates on the wealthy but not on anyone else, therefore no one should oppose
such a tax increase”. But who exactly is making up this ‘general consensus’?
Does it include all the wealthy people who are to pay more taxes? It probably
does not, because otherwise, there would be no need for the money to be raised
by a tax. All the wealthy people could agree, for instance, to set up a fund
where they would put 10% of their income, to be donated to the government on
the condition that all the other wealthy people contributed their share. This
would be a free-rider-free way for wealthy people to self-tax themselves. That
such a solution hasn’t been adopted would seem to suggest that there is not in
fact a consensus among the rich people that the government should have even
more of their money, whatever Warren Buffett might say to the contrary.
But, says
the democrat, this would require unanimity among people in order to tax
themselves, all we need in a democracy is a majority! And indeed, when one gets
down to it, the ‘general consensus’ doctrine is nothing but a ‘majority rules’
doctrine. Made more explicit, the sentence: “the general consensus today is that
the only fair way for the government to raise revenue is to raise taxes on the
wealthy but not on anyone else, therefore no one should oppose such a tax
increase” becomes: “a majority of the people in an arbitrarily defined political
unit called a country, a majority which may or may not include the wealthy people to whom
the proposed measure applies, says that the only fair way for the government to
raise revenue is to raise taxes on the wealthy, whether or not they support
this measure or even wish to be part of the arbitrarily defined political unit
called a country in the first place, therefore no one should oppose such a tax
increase, and if they do, it doesn’t particularly matter, because in a
democracy, the majority can impose their will by force on the minority”.
Phrased this way, it should become clear that the general principle behind the
‘general consensus’ doctrine is that every policy, no matter how ill-advised,
can be justified if that policy is supported by the majority of the population
of an arbitrarily defined political unit.
Even if there is a ‘general
consensus’ on something, this does not automatically make it a good policy and
thus should by no means be used to stop arguments over the desirability of
social measures in their tracks. The majority of people think that Canada would
be a better place without people of Hungarian descent and wishes to act on this
impulse? Ok, then the ‘general consensus’ is that all Hungarians should be
exterminated. The majority of people in the US think that the folks at Google
have too much money and that they could use some of that loot for themselves?
Ok, then the ‘general consensus’ is that all of Google’s assets should be
expropriated and distributed among the majority. Affirming the soundness of
such policies due solely to their popularity represents the ultimate abdication of the
social scientist.
Thus, next
time someone drags out the ‘general consensus’ card in a political argument,
make sure you point out that the people in this consensus tend to agree on
ends, not means, and therefore may be misled by ignorance of the various means
and their respective effects, and that even if the majority of people did reach
a consensus on means and ends, this does not necessarily make it a good measure by any
standard of justice that underpins a peaceful and productive human
civilization. Democracy is a system of government that can be justified for a number of reasons, such as because an average democracy is probably better than an evil, idiotic, or crazy despot (which an authoritarian regime is always at risk of producing), or, most importantly I believe, because in a democracy, transitions of government (virtually inevitable in any system) can happen peacefully, without a destructive civil war as must occur for most major government changes in authoritarian regimes. One of these reasons is not, however, that 'the people' will always support the best policies, nor that democratic political power is never used to benefit one group at the expense of another, it clearly is all the time. To assert, therefore, that a democratic popularity contest determines what is or is not a good social policy is absurd, and to use this absurdity to stop social science arguments in their tracks is not at all helpful.
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