The Purpose of Freedom

[happy_liberal]

Courtesy of the Daily Dish:

I’ve been attending a fascinating series of monthly dinners here in Washington, in which liberals and libertarians exchange ideas. One thing that has become clear to me through these dinners is that there are two strands of libertarian thought. In somewhat cartoon terms, one strand takes liberty to be a (or in extreme cases, the) fundamental human good in and of itself; the other takes liberty to be a means to the end of discovery of methods of social organization that create other benefits. I’ll call the first “liberty-as-goal” libertarianism and the second “liberty-as-means” libertarianism. Obviously, one can hold both of these beliefs simultaneously, and many people do. But in my observation, when pushed to develop a position on some difficult issue, most self-described libertarians reveal a temperament that leans strongly in one direction or the other. Again, in cartoon terms, I’d describe the first temperament as idealistic, deductive and theory-based, and the second as practical, inductive and experiment-based.

[outer-H]

I agree with the author on this one, although of course replacing libertarian with liberal!

[A_Stuartus_Tacitus]

I agree that he's probably broadly right - although, of course, it's all a lot more complicated than that! I see myself more as the first kind - the "liberty-as-goal" type, although I do of course believe that the other results of a liberal policy are broadly positive. I tend to regard liberty as part of human dignity - unnecessary fetters upon it are demeaning and - increasingly nowadays - patronising.

[outer-H]

I would agree with that, except for the problem that viewing liberty as a goal gives you no means to weigh the relative importance of different aspects of freedom - which it bound to lead to bad policy. For example, the freedom of the factory to pollute a river, vs the freedom of the residents not to have their drinking water poisoned. Which is more important? Freedom as a goal gives you no means to judge, where as freedom as a means allows you to think "is life worth more or less than profits?", and hopefully come down on the side of not poisoning people.

[A_Stuartus_Tacitus]

I would agree with that, except for the problem that viewing liberty as a goal gives you no means to weigh the relative importance of different aspects of freedom - which it bound to lead to bad policy. For example, the freedom of the factory to pollute a river, vs the freedom of the residents not to have their drinking water poisoned. Which is more important? Freedom as a goal gives you no means to judge, where as freedom as a means allows you to think "is life worth more or less than profits?", and hopefully come down on the side of not poisoning people.

Ah, but your whole argument is predicated on liberty being a means to some other end - which in this case stands in opposition to "bad policy".

I actually think your argument is flawed in any case. Firstly, a factory does not possess human dignity. Secondly, before you can assert that viewing liberty as a goal gives no means to weigh relative importances of different aspects of it you must first define what exactly you mean by liberty. I do not take the same view on that point as most modern libertarians (with the new connotations attached to that word), hence why I can still support such things as the NHS without serious contradiction.

The question you have to answer is this: to what is liberty a means? And why is that objective less prone to causing bad policy?

[outer-H]

It is a means to everything, surely. The US Bill of Rights used the term "pursuit of happiness", I believe. I'm not a big fan of the hedonic calculus, but you can just as easily frame the issue in terms of fulfilling desires.

Of course the issue of my example is not the desires of the factory, but of its owners. They want the freedom to do business, and there can be a conflict between the right to do business and the right to drink water. Both are freedoms, and can only be judged by their consequences, unless you want to go down the Kantian path... but is it really sensible to ban factories?

[A_Stuartus_Tacitus]

It is a means to everything, surely. The US Bill of Rights used the term "pursuit of happiness", I believe. I'm not a big fan of the hedonic calculus, but you can just as easily frame the issue in terms of fulfilling desires.

Of course the issue of my example is not the desires of the factory, but of its owners. They want the freedom to do business, and there can be a conflict between the right to do business and the right to drink water. Both are freedoms, and can only be judged by their consequences, unless you want to go down the Kantian path... but is it really sensible to ban factories?

They can be judged by their consequences, but that needn't actually imply considering anything other than liberty. I suppose the harm principle can be interpreted in different ways depending on how one defines harm, but that harm might simply be defined as unjust restriction of the liberty of another. That covers the factory scenario nicely. It obviously involves judgement ("unjust") but that's all right: liberals tend to be sceptical of absolute rules anyway! It doesn't affect the fact that liberty is the goal.

Nothing in my arguments actually precludes having other principles as well, of course. I tend to the view that the ones that are worth having can be implied by the quest for liberty - as long as it is properly understood. I suppose one could argue that one could seek liberty only for a particular group - citizens of a particular country. That would not fit with my ideas about human dignity.

Liberty is indeed a means to everything, but that statement better fits with the concept of liberty as a political objective. If you seek individual empowerment, liberty is your political objective. If you seek to let people pursue happiness in their own way, likewise. If you are simply seeking to make people happy, then that's obviously different.