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Just a few of the ideas that this seminal text brought to the fore: - The Marketplace of Ideas - The Harm Principle - Utilitarianism as the moral m

by dvt 6y ago

Just a few of the ideas that this seminal text brought to the fore: - The Marketplace of Ideas - The Harm Principle - Utilitarianism as the moral mechanism of social policy One of my all-time favorite pieces of political philosophy. I wish more people (not just philosophers or political scientists) took the time to read it. Also consider checking out Hobbes' Leviathan[1] and Rousseau's On the Social Contract[2]. [1] https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm [2] https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46333/46333-h/46333-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46333/46333-h/46333-h.htm

xpe 6y ago
> Utilitarianism as the moral mechanism of social policy Is this a quotation? A phrase from a particular work? Could you share the context? I do not accept that utilitarianism is "the" moral mechanism of social policy. Yes, many economists use utility maximization in their analyses, but there is a diversity of thought around many things, such as (but not limited to): (a) what should utility include; (b) the functional form of utility (the sum/average? the minimum? something else?); and (c) to what extent reductionist theories of happiness/contentment/whatever are useful tools given that humans exist interdependently, with biological, tribal, social, and intellectual connections. There is a whole field of thought that digs into these variations.
- dvt 6y ago
  > Yes, many economists use utility maximization in their analyses This has nothing to do with economists; the Western legal system is (more or less) based on the weighing of different interests (definitionally: utilitarianism). There are, of course, a few exceptions -- which graze deontology, and even rarer still virtue ethics and (more historically) some divine command theory -- but overall, I'd say that yeah, we're pretty much utilitarian. > There is a whole field of thought that digs into these variations. Agreed, ethics is a rich and valuable field.
  - xpe 6y ago
    Could you please answer my other question: >> Utilitarianism as the moral mechanism of social policy > "Is this a quotation? A phrase from a particular work? Could you share the context?"
    - gorbachev15 6y ago
      “Society should treat all equally well who have deserved equally well of it, that is, who have deserved equally well absolutely. This is the highest abstract standard of social and distributive justice; towards which all institutions, and the efforts of all virtuous citizens should be made in the utmost degree to converge.” —John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, 1861 The origination of social justice initiatives.
    - dvt 6y ago
      Alexis de Tocqueville in his Democracy in America said it quite well: "Democratic laws generally tend to promote the welfare of the greatest possible number; for they emanate from the majority of the citizens, who are subject to error, but who cannot have an interest opposed to their own advantage." This is, by definition, utilitarianism (greatest amount of good, least amount of bad, and all that). [1] http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper/DETOC/1_ch14.htm http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper/DETOC/1_ch14.htm
      - phs318u 6y ago
        That's a great quote, but I'd suggest it is mistaken in its last clause. Citizens, including the majority, can and have indeed held interests opposed to their own advantage. This has happened in the past and continues to occur. I'd suggest this is precisely because they "are subject to error" - a fact which few powers have failed to exploit.
        dvt 6y ago
        I totally agree, and the most obvious example is Julius Caesar (of course!). A charitable interpretation, though, would push us to look at the "average case" (us engineers often solely look at the extremes), where Tocqueville I think has a point.
cjslep 6y ago
I just finished Rousseau's Social Contract and Discourses, and I really recommend reading the Discourses as they paint a harrowing picture of how any government -- including democracies -- can become bent to a particular will and therefore lose its Sovereign mandate: it will sound very much like the modern USA. Whether that is true is best left for another time. I'm currently reading the book's predecessor, John Locke's works Second Treatise and On Toleration. I think one thing that is very important to these books on liberties that is missed is finding one with a good introduction that can put it in it's historical (read: dated) place. It is too easy to otherwise miss that Locke is not exactly anti-slavery, for example. Or that the "family debate" and role of the patriarchal family, that left the suffrage of women in doubt, was not addressed. Or that the whole struggle for their times was really a question of how to morally justify rule by people versus rule by monarch (and your suggestion of Hobbes' Leviathan is actually arguing for the monarchy, on the other side of the debate). And this debate was otherwise taken within the cultural context of "Wealthy, Man, Head of household", which may be wrong on all 4 counts today (the culture itself is changing, the discussion is no longer limited to the wealthy, men, nor head-of-household family units). The "monarchy vs people" debate of their time is not an argument we are exactly having in real life. And what I've found by reading the works of this area is: just as fans of this kind of liberty love to out the onus on the "other side" that they need to consider these points, the fans of this kind of liberty really have an onus on them to need to continue the discussion and update it for the modern world: as I move from Plato to Locke to Rousseau their writing really do faithfully build off one another and so it should be possible today in 2020, and modern writers like Haidt (whose works I have also spent time reading) do not meet this bar, I feel. Without this, simply reading these authors and saying "see, America, read this and be convinced" keeps giving everyone the burden of catching up on the 300-ish years of criticism of these works and discards those intraveneing years' political philosophy debates. A major setback, in my opinion, as I may have the time and willpower to earnestly become a read person of political philosophy, but that is certainly a luxury of a wealthy individual like me (and the founding fathers of the time) and not everyone can afford that (and economic disparity is also a key factor addressed by people such as Rousseau).
- gentleman11 6y ago
  Which translation was it that you enjoyed?

by dvt 6y ago

xpe 6y ago

> Utilitarianism as the moral mechanism of social policy Is this a quotation? A phrase from a particular work? Could you share the context? I do not accept that utilitarianism is "the" moral mechanism of social policy. Yes, many economists use utility maximization in their analyses, but there is a diversity of thought around many things, such as (but not limited to): (a) what should utility include; (b) the functional form of utility (the sum/average? the minimum? something else?); and (c) to what extent reductionist theories of happiness/contentment/whatever are useful tools given that humans exist interdependently, with biological, tribal, social, and intellectual connections. There is a whole field of thought that digs into these variations.

dvt 6y ago
> Yes, many economists use utility maximization in their analyses This has nothing to do with economists; the Western legal system is (more or less) based on the weighing of different interests (definitionally: utilitarianism). There are, of course, a few exceptions -- which graze deontology, and even rarer still virtue ethics and (more historically) some divine command theory -- but overall, I'd say that yeah, we're pretty much utilitarian. > There is a whole field of thought that digs into these variations. Agreed, ethics is a rich and valuable field.
- xpe 6y ago
  Could you please answer my other question: >> Utilitarianism as the moral mechanism of social policy > "Is this a quotation? A phrase from a particular work? Could you share the context?"
  - gorbachev15 6y ago
    “Society should treat all equally well who have deserved equally well of it, that is, who have deserved equally well absolutely. This is the highest abstract standard of social and distributive justice; towards which all institutions, and the efforts of all virtuous citizens should be made in the utmost degree to converge.” —John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, 1861 The origination of social justice initiatives.
  - dvt 6y ago
    Alexis de Tocqueville in his Democracy in America said it quite well: "Democratic laws generally tend to promote the welfare of the greatest possible number; for they emanate from the majority of the citizens, who are subject to error, but who cannot have an interest opposed to their own advantage." This is, by definition, utilitarianism (greatest amount of good, least amount of bad, and all that). [1] http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper/DETOC/1_ch14.htm http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper/DETOC/1_ch14.htm
    - phs318u 6y ago
      That's a great quote, but I'd suggest it is mistaken in its last clause. Citizens, including the majority, can and have indeed held interests opposed to their own advantage. This has happened in the past and continues to occur. I'd suggest this is precisely because they "are subject to error" - a fact which few powers have failed to exploit.
      - dvt 6y ago
        I totally agree, and the most obvious example is Julius Caesar (of course!). A charitable interpretation, though, would push us to look at the "average case" (us engineers often solely look at the extremes), where Tocqueville I think has a point.

cjslep 6y ago

I just finished Rousseau's Social Contract and Discourses, and I really recommend reading the Discourses as they paint a harrowing picture of how any government -- including democracies -- can become bent to a particular will and therefore lose its Sovereign mandate: it will sound very much like the modern USA. Whether that is true is best left for another time. I'm currently reading the book's predecessor, John Locke's works Second Treatise and On Toleration. I think one thing that is very important to these books on liberties that is missed is finding one with a good introduction that can put it in it's historical (read: dated) place. It is too easy to otherwise miss that Locke is not exactly anti-slavery, for example. Or that the "family debate" and role of the patriarchal family, that left the suffrage of women in doubt, was not addressed. Or that the whole struggle for their times was really a question of how to morally justify rule by people versus rule by monarch (and your suggestion of Hobbes' Leviathan is actually arguing for the monarchy, on the other side of the debate). And this debate was otherwise taken within the cultural context of "Wealthy, Man, Head of household", which may be wrong on all 4 counts today (the culture itself is changing, the discussion is no longer limited to the wealthy, men, nor head-of-household family units). The "monarchy vs people" debate of their time is not an argument we are exactly having in real life. And what I've found by reading the works of this area is: just as fans of this kind of liberty love to out the onus on the "other side" that they need to consider these points, the fans of this kind of liberty really have an onus on them to need to continue the discussion and update it for the modern world: as I move from Plato to Locke to Rousseau their writing really do faithfully build off one another and so it should be possible today in 2020, and modern writers like Haidt (whose works I have also spent time reading) do not meet this bar, I feel. Without this, simply reading these authors and saying "see, America, read this and be convinced" keeps giving everyone the burden of catching up on the 300-ish years of criticism of these works and discards those intraveneing years' political philosophy debates. A major setback, in my opinion, as I may have the time and willpower to earnestly become a read person of political philosophy, but that is certainly a luxury of a wealthy individual like me (and the founding fathers of the time) and not everyone can afford that (and economic disparity is also a key factor addressed by people such as Rousseau).

gentleman11 6y ago
Which translation was it that you enjoyed?