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Between social conservatives on the right and tobacco
prohibitionists on the left, it sometimes seems as if everyone wants to
impose his or her version of morality on everyone else. After all, if it
makes sense to protect us from things like murder, assault, and theft,
why shouldn't our representatives in government also protect us from
other sinful or harmful activities like pornography and smoking? These
self-righteous souls have a clear vision of the good life, and they want
you and me to share that life, whether we like it or not. I don't know
whether they have good intentions or not—whether they are motivated by
a desire to help others or merely by a desire to control them, or by
some combination of these and other impulses—and I don't much care.
What matters is whether what they are saying makes sense, and whether
the results of their actions are actually good. It doesn't, and they
aren't.
Why doesn't it make sense to treat pornography and smoking the same
way we treat murder, assault, and theft? Because these latter acts are
clear instances of aggression by one party causing real, unquestionable
harm to another's person or property. As actual crimes, they merit
retaliation in kind, and the use of defensive force against the
aggressor is justified. Pornography and smoking, however, are just as
clearly not instances of one party initiating the use of force against
another. As long as those who participate in these activities do so
voluntarily, no retaliation by the government or anyone else is
justified, period. (Of course, to the extent that it happens, forcing
someone to participate in the production of pornography is a crime, just
as it would be a crime to force someone to work in the tobacco fields.)
The worst that can be said of things like porn and cigarettes is
that they are vices. Vices can harm those who partake of them, but they
must also be pleasurable or else no one would ever freely choose them.
Those who would impose their version of the good life on others think
they know for certain that the harms outweigh the benefits, not just for
them but for everyone else as well. They also assume that those harms
and benefits will net out the same for everyone, ignoring the simple
fact that people are different. (At the extreme, anti-vice crusaders may
believe that pleasure itself is actually bad, but I must admit I am
stumped about how to address such a twisted notion! It's probably best
just to reason with those who are less damaged.) What are the negative
results of prohibiting vices? It a) empowers actual criminals by
allowing them to profit from the black market in prohibited wares, b)
exposes non-criminals to added risks, and c) wastes resources that could
be used to fight actual crimes, or for some other purpose entirely. In
trying to convince those who worry about vice to allow other individuals
to weigh personal harms and benefits for themselves, we should try to
redirect their attention to these very real harms stemming from
prohibition itself.
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BELIEF # 07: The truth is obvious |
December 3, 2006 |
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Reality,
especially social reality, is complex. Some people think the truth is
obvious or self-evident, but it is no easy task to judge whether or not
what someone is saying makes sense, and whether or not the results of
their actions are actually good. Indeed, it can be difficult even to
know what the results of a particular action are.
In challenging the belief that the truth is obvious, it is
useful to leave the charged world of political philosophy
for a moment and begin by enumerating some of the many ways
in which physical reality is counter-intuitively complex. We
all share the expectation, for instance, that a heavier
object will fall faster than a lighter one, and we are all
shocked when we learn, as children, that this is not the
case. The reality is not as simple as it appears, because
complicating factors like air resistance vary according to
an object's shape and density.
Well, no less an authority
than Einstein said that "Politics is more difficult than
physics."(1) Social reality has its share of complicating factors too,
perhaps even more so than physical reality. In addition,
social reality cannot be experimented upon as readily as
physical reality. The social world does not fit as easily
into a laboratory, and ethical concerns prevent social
scientists from manipulating people the way physical
scientists manipulate inanimate matter. Given the added
difficulties of examining and trying to understand social
reality, is it any wonder, for instance, that many people
fail to appreciate (or refuse to accept) that raising the
minimum wage increases unemployment? When people come to
realize that the truth is not so easy, they will be more
willing to keep an open mind, to listen to what others have
to say, and to check their premises against reality as best
they can.
Let us not be fooled into thinking that this belief is any
less prevalent within the freedom movement than it is among
other people. Believing that our ideas are self-evidently
true will prevent us from discovering our own errors, just
as it can prevent others from discovering theirs.
Furthermore, it will prevent us from communicating our ideas
effectively if we cannot understand or appreciate what leads
others to their different beliefs. We may end up going so
far as to ascribe evil motives to those with whom we
disagree if we are unable even to imagine that someone could
in good faith fail to see what is so obvious. Needless to
say, calling people evil is not the best way to foster
fruitful debate, or to convince others of the soundness of
our ideas. We must remember that the negative consequences
of illiberal policies, which may seem obvious to us, are not
in fact self-evident.
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BELIEF # 06: Good intentions are enough |
December 3, 2006 |
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There is a tendency among some people to focus almost exclusively on
intentions. They may not explicitly believe that motives are all that
matter, but they speak and argue as though that were the case. They
spend a lot of time praising people they think have good intentions, who
they imagine will act in ways that are beneficial to others, while
condemning those they think have bad intentions, who they imagine will
act in ways that are beneficial to themselves (either disregarding
others or knowingly injuring them).
There are several reasons why being overly concerned with people's
intentions in this way is misguided. First, it is simply not possible to
be sure what another person's motives are in any given instance. We are
not mind readers, so when we infer someone's intentions from his or her
actions and declarations, we do so with a greater or lesser amount of
uncertainty. To claim to have knowledge of another person's mind is
simply arrogant. It is sometimes not even possible in certain cases to
be sure about our own motivations, much less someone else's. This is
because intentions are complex. We likely have several reasons
motivating any given action, some of which even push us in opposite
directions.
A second problem with obsessing about intentions is that actions
which benefit oneself often benefit others as well. If I work in order
to make money, those who voluntarily purchase the product of my labour
also benefit, and this is equally true of any voluntary market
transaction. This kind of self-interest should be praised as the motor
that drives the world to become ever more prosperous, with condemnation
reserved for that sub-category of self-interested actions which actually
do harm the interests of others.
Finally, it has been said before, but it bears repeating: the road
to hell is paved with good intentions. Good intentions alone—even
redefined to include benign self-interested intentions, and even setting
aside the very real knowledge problems involved—are simply not enough.
What's the use in wanting to help the poor, for instance, if the manner
in which I choose to do so succeeds only in perpetuating their plight?
If one wants to do good, one must actually learn how to do good, or one
may very well inadvertently end up making things worse. Instead of
wasting time judging people based on what we imagine their intentions to
be, we should focus on whether what they are saying makes sense, and on
whether the results of their actions are actually good.
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