Comments on: Morally Bogus Debates

By: JSBolton

JSBolton — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 05:17:03 +0000

No, the prospective immigrant must be known not to increase the sum of aggression on the existing citizenry; it can't just be assumed, as if there were no enemies. Our rights are a claim on other citizens within the same bounded polity, to take the side of fellow citizens, in at least that one situation, where the foreigner enters with additions to the level of aggression. There is no right to invade.

By: JSBolton

JSBolton — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 22:17:03 +0000

By: Will Wilkinson

Will Wilkinson — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 19:02:18 +0000

Micha has it right. And you have it backward. A state must have an overriding reason to use coercion to limit freedom of movement and association. Suppose I am a homeowner who wants to sell a house to a foreign national. And I have a friend who would like to employ him in his factory. The foreign national, like all of us, has rights that exist prior to government, including the right to travel. And he, like nationals, has a right to freely associate and enter into voluntary exchanges with consenting partners. To deploy coercion to prevent the foreigner from buying, traveling to, and residing in his rightfully-owned property, or from traveling to an working at a place where he has been offered employment, is an obvious violation of the liberty of both the foreigner and the nationals, and evidently demands justification.

By: Micha Ghertner

Micha Ghertner — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 01:38:04 +0000

The situation is analogous to my "right" to travel within your home.

So the state collectively owns all the property it claims dominion over, and its subjects (both citizen and not) must justify to it their freedoms, but it need not justify to them its authority?

This sort of sounds like... the abolishment of private property; a purely socialist sentiment.

+2 chutzpah points, though

By: Jason Armstrong

Jason Armstrong — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:39:03 +0000

Sorry, but the “right” to travel is not a right at all. It is a privilege. A nation must have an overriding reason to allow foreigners within its borders. The situation is analogous to my “right” to travel within your home. You have to invite me first. Open borders is tantamount to the abolishment of private property. It is a purely socialist sentiment, and one that is unbecoming for any man of voting age to profess.

By: Greg N.

Greg N. — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:08:50 +0000

“I'm working on a book proposal about the psychology and authority of liberal moral sensibilities, and after arguing that conservatives really are more or less backwards, I intend to argue that liberalism really does requires a kind of Mises-Hayek kind of global federalism, and that contemporary welfare state liberals and social democrats are illiberal (standing athwart history yelling stop) insofar as they stand in the way of this.”

Fucking finally.

By: Will Wilkinson

Will Wilkinson — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:05:20 +0000

Matt, It's been awhile since I read Gray on Hayek, so I'll have to revisit it and get back to you.

And by the way, I'm cartooning my own book idea, which is largely about the new sentimentalist literature in moral psychology and what it tells us about what is distinctive in liberal moral personality and moral culture. The stuff about globalism and mobility is meant to reinforce how the liberal taste for fairness, equality, and a distaste for coalitional exclusion has a lot of room to grow.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:45:35 +0000

The book idea sounds interesting, Will. I'll look forward to seeing it. I'd love to see the work-up for it when you have it together. I don't think I heard from you what you thought of John Gray's book on Hayek. I'd be curious to know what you thought.

By: Cool Cal

Cool Cal — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:45:42 +0000

Will, it occurs to me that you seem to be viewing “patriotism” in a most narrow incarnation. One which, as you say, renders us bellicose idolatrous zombies. While I agree with you that “patriotism” is an infinitely subjective term, subject to legion interpretations as to its functional definition, I am skeptical that the broadest excludes one which could be palatable to even you. I might also say that while the public did get carried away in a fervor of nationalism over 9-11, I'd hesitate to go so far as to posit that it was directly responsible for our entry into Iraq. While such “patriotism” might have influenced the 2004 presidential election, wars are not made on referendum, this being no exception.

In terms of patriotism, I would go so far as to say the very values of libertarianism, or the free market, or however one might put it, while more scientifically elaborated by the Austrian thinkers, were a pillar of our country's founding document (or at least the principles behind it). The very idea of limited government and free trade was at the heart of our revolution, and as such can a certain patriotism not be a reverence for those principles in as much as this country has been the most successful avatar of them. Yes, of course we have slipped hither and thither towards socialism and imperialism, and who knows what other 'isms might follow, but it's impossible to deny that of all countries, people choose to try by hook or by crook, over fences and under ditches to come here the most. I know, I work for an immigration firm. So I think America's association (originally at least) with the values that we associate with can be enough to foster some kind of patriotism. I'm not referring to anything extreme, but if someone asks me why I live here, I can give them good reasons – and I don't feel the need to wear an ironic t-shirt on the 4th of July.

By: Will Wilkinson

Will Wilkinson — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:48:57 +0000

Matt, I agree that the kind of social cooperation we want often needs political cooperation to enable to production of public goods that facilitate social cooperation. And I agree the jurisdictions for public goods need to be geographically bounded. And I agree that in order for the administrative authorities to provide the goods (that justify their existence ) in their jurisdictions, they may need to regulate entry into the jurisdiction. So far, we're more or less on the same page. But I find the idea that a basic (but like most rights defeasible under certain conditions) human right to move over the Earth is not necessary for the minimal respect each person is due very hard to swallow. Indeed, I think mobility rights create a check on state power that helps ensure that people within states have other their rights respected in addition to helping ensure people have a decent material minimum. That is, mobility rights are necessary for other economic and political rights to have fair value. So here's our debate.

That's me putting it into quasi-Rawlsian language. But I think a lot of our disagreement will have to do with the difference between my (to you probably deflationary) conception of states as monopoly providers of certain necessary public goods, and what I take to be your more Rawlsian sense of states as sites of democratic activity and democratic activity as important to human dignity in a way that completely eludes me.

I'm working on a book proposal about the psychology and authority of liberal moral sensibilities, and after arguing that conservatives really are more or less backwards, I intend to argue that liberalism really does requires a kind of Mises-Hayek kind of global federalism, and that contemporary welfare state liberals and social democrats are illiberal (standing athwart history yelling stop) insofar as they stand in the way of this. So this is a debate I really appreciate having. (As opposed to the debate with a lot of conservatives, who generally don't see the need to justify the exclusion.) I look forward to these papers and your dissertation. Thanks again for all the helpful pointers.