I think I am going to really enjoy Front Porch Republic (motto: “Place. Limits. Liberty.”), which as far as I can tell is an enterprise devoted to the idea that a world filled with little islands of intense moral chavinism is a better world. Anyway, I was drawn in by this amusing passage in this Daniel Larison post:
[L]et us reflect on the fallen state of man. How did it happen, and what was the cause of the Fall? Our ancestors chose to try to be as gods and willed the one thing that God had forbidden them. Individual autonomy is at the heart of the Fall, and so it is part of our fallen nature, the part that St. Maximos described as the gnomic (deliberative) will. This is how we are now, but this is not how we were created. As fallen creatures we can embrace this autonomy, celebrate it and make it one of our highest goods, as most modern traditions would have us do, or we can turn back to God and change our mind.
I read this to Kerry who submits that “it sounds like he’s talking about Dungeons and Dragons or something,” which I think is about right. I know it’s rude for unbelievers to step into conversations between people who take wizards seriously, but I imagine Larison has a point we can all appreciate, and I’d like to know what it is. My secular reconstruction, which I’m sure leaves out the ineffeble essence of the thought, is that the ideal of individual autonomy is alien to human nature and we would be better off surrendering ourselves to our little platoons to be made as they see fit. Is that it?
Larison goes on to offer a caveat, which he then half withdraws:
In our case, it is also true that none of us would be where and who we are without many of the things we are critiquing and rejecting, and indeed ultimately none of us would be here at all had our first ancestors not disobeyed God, but while we should not be entirely ungrateful for our inheritance neither should we acquiesce in repeating the same errors and persisting in false beliefs about human nature and nature.
I’d like to know what these false beliefs are, plainly stated — if they can survive de-theologizing. I always find myself agreeing with communitarian types that individuals do not spring fully formed from the clay. Human development is indeed a richly social process of enculturation. But it’s a silly non-sequitur, which I find myself running into again and again, that since human development is social, it is a mistake to socialize humans into an ethos of individualistic autonomy. As far as I can see, humans flourish best where autonomy is most celebrated and encouraged, though I’m pefectly open to evidence to the contrary.
Will,
I laughed out loud at the D&D comment – very funny.
Whe you pivot to the point, you say that:
“As far as I can see, humans flourish best where autonomy is most celebrated and encouraged, though I’m pefectly open to evidence to the contrary.”
Very broadly speaking, I mostly agree with this. But what if we're wrong? (ot at least wrong for some people at some times) Even further, what if we continue in error for the rest of our lives because we don't ever get access to sufficiently compelling evidence which exists or might exist, or becasue we're obstinate or insufficiently enlightened or whatever? I think this is (in my case) a real possibility.
If one accepts that possibility, shouldn't he be open to allowing a consitutional regime that permits local coercive rules, subject to all kinds of practical constraints and right of exit. More strongly, if he thinks that (1) the world is complicated as compared to human understanding, and (2) that the best possible evidence for truth or falsity is actual experimental flourishing, under various sets of rules, wouldn't such diversity be a positive good?
If you have time, I'm very interested in your take on this.
Best,
Jim
“If one accepts that possibility, shouldn't he be open to allowing a consitutional regime that permits local coercive rules, subject to all kinds of practical constraints and right of exit. “
That's what we have, isn't it?
“More strongly, if he thinks that (1) the world is complicated as compared to human understanding, and (2) that the best possible evidence for truth or falsity is actual experimental flourishing, under various sets of rules, wouldn't such diversity be a positive good?”
I am all for jurisdictional variation and competition, provided the security of certain basic rights, especially the right of exit. One reason I am so big on mobility rights is that most people don't actually have a very significant right of exit, which reduces the pace of the institutional discovery process.
Thanks.
If we're talking about the U.S., it seems to me that the whole issue becomes how much lattitude states, counties, towns, neighborhoods and families (which maintain certain coercive rights) have in creating and enforcing restrictions on freedom that you and I might not like. (i.e., what are the “basic rights”).
My view is that we should allow an extremely expansive view of how much lattitude they have; said differently, I think there should be very few basic rights. We fought a civil war over one – you have a basic right not to be owned as a chattel slave. But how much further should we go?
Recognizing that we are using the power of the national state to tell people, more or less, “well, I have 50% + 1 vote and reasonably good civilian control over the military, so you can just shut up and obey me when I tell you that you can't outlaw handguns / gay marriage / prostitution or whatever Left-wing or right-wing thing in your town”, we should be hesitant to use this power. As a rough rule-of-thumb, I always ask myself whether I would be willing to sign up for the armed forces in a civil war to force compliance. As you might imagine, I don't answer 'yes' very often.
This strikes me as a paradox of libertarianism. If epistemological humility is a core of one's worldview, you want to allow lots of freedom to experiment, including with coercive rule sets.
I'd like to know why we should take seriously the arguments of someone who believes that the obviously-mythical “Fall” actually happened. Not to get all Hitchens on you here, Will, but you're giving this myth-spinning more respect than it deserves by trying to imagine a rational argument that might coincide with it.
will, dude,
i have been waiting for you to take on the front-porch-kibbutz for awhile now. thank you for engagement.
btw. have you checked e.d. kain's post, at ordinary gentlemen, on prosperity yet? please read it, please comment. for me? thanx. the short: because of the boom and bust nature of our false individualist/consumerist culture it is obvious we are better off subsistence farming, or something.
“This strikes me as a paradox of libertarianism. If epistemological humility is a core of one's worldview, you want to allow lots of freedom to experiment, including with coercive rule sets.”
The thing is, even with reasonable epistemological humility, we know what very restrictive state power yeilds…and it sucks. Experiments exist not just to experiment, but to give us information to use for the future. So, for example, if a town decides to experiment by implementing the policies that have been followed by Detroit, MI, then that town should be smacked upside the head with a trout, not lauded as an example of diversity of opinion and lifestyle.
I place a high subjective probability on the claim that large amounts of state power leads to bad outcomes, but I can't say I'm certain. Would you really advocate sending in federal troops to prevent a city from basing its economy on an oligopoly of large corporations providing extensive benefits to unionized employees?
I have a post on Manzi's paradox here.
@Wilkinson
“
“
I don' see it as a non-sequitor at all. It's saying that if we look at human nature we see an intrinsic and inescapable need for social suppport. From language, to rearing children, to labor, etc, etc. From human nature we determine what humans desire and need for flourishing. So while the conclusion can be challenged I don't see how it's a non-sequitor. It's using human nature to understand human needs.
No, I wouldn't send in troops, but I'd yell at them and call them morons. I think that you can reasonably compare more than two things at the same time. So, in comparing free market economies to Detroit, to military juntas, I can say free market > Detroit > military junta.
X is bad does not imply that people should be compelled to not to X, just as Y is good does not imply that people should be compelled to do Y.
To justify compulsion you have to show both that the end sought is good, and that the compulsion used to bring about the end is justified. We don't intervene against democratically elected local governments because the compulsion isn't justified, even if those governments are doing stupid things.
I agree with the idea of experimenting, but let's take it a step further.
What is the process by which we will ultimately narrow down the space of desirable regime-types? Some regimes will die out eventually, like the USSR. Some won't quickly, like Cuba. Some won't and will furthermore develop nuclear weapons, like Pakistan.
To argue strenuously for maximal experimentation is to believe (1) there is a mechanism for weeding out regime-types that don't work, and (2) this weeding out happens faster than disastrous conflicts between regimes with incompatible ideologies.
It's not just the fact that crappy regimes are “sticky” (like Cuba, or Mugabe). It's also not clear how much people learn from history. Hopefully we've figured out that communism doesn't work. But if people are ignorant of history, we risk rerunning the same experiments until something goes horribly wrong.
Thick and viral basic-rights views have the benefit of limiting the risk of this scenario. They can be thought of, in fact, as a form of “institutional memory” that is actually critical to the learning process.
You seem to be suggesting that we are constraining too early. But how do we know? Don't we roughly have basic rights notions because we are trying to avoid known deep troughs in a search space we are only dimly aware of? (The deep troughs being things like the USSR and WWII)
I make a similar analogy regarding Popper v. Feyerabend & the scientific method in my post.
Why must ideologies have any sort of “compatibility”? War has been around as long as humanity, but not until relatively recently did “ideology” have anything to do with it. Plenty of nations with completely different ideologies don't go to war, and being similar is no protection.
I think a more fruitful way to approach Larison is to ask why he doesn't think autonomy has value. If I read Larison right, the posit is two fold. First, freedom isn't good in itself. Second, people getting want they want isn't good in itself either. People can want bad things. Freedom is merely instrumental, and can lead to bad choices and good choices. If we had knowledge of the good, so this argument goes, we wouldn't care if people were free, and we absolutely wouldn't care if they gratified the desires they happened to have. We'd just want them to do what is right.
What does this have to do with 'little platoons' and chauvanistic communities? On one version: not much. A little platoon or a chauvanistic community could instantiate bad values as well as good. I think where Larison is going with this, however, is that the relationship of a traditionalist towards his community at least partakes in the right aspects of mind. His question isn't “am I getting what I want” or “am I fully being me” he's asking “am I conforming myself to the standard laid down.”
@BenA
“[i]First, freedom isn't good in itself. Second, people getting want they want isn't good in itself either. People can want bad things. Freedom is merely instrumental, and can lead to bad choices and good choices. If we had knowledge of the good, so this argument goes, we wouldn't care if people were free, and we absolutely wouldn't care if they gratified the desires they happened to have. We'd just want them to do what is right.[/i]“
Amen! I totally agree with that sentiment. We just disagree on what the right is.
Technocratic Bureaucrat,
I'm not endorsing Larison, just explaining. That's why I phrased it as the condtional “if we knew…” One standard small 'l' liberal rejoinder is that since we don't know what the good is (or can't agree on it, or if there are a pluarlity of goods), an attitude like the one Larison endorses carries the danger of 'locked in' to the wrong conception of the good.
That sounds about right to me. But I think it's interesting for those who are essentially instrumentalist about liberty and autonomy (they are good *as means* to human flourishing) to consider how close they are to a Larisonian view…
Raivo Pommer
raimo1@hot.ee
Luftgeld
Finanzpolitik und Steuerwesen sind oft so furchtbar abstrakt. Nehmen wir zum Beispiel die Zahl 100 Milliarden. Was sind 100 Milliarden? Seit einiger Zeit treibt uns der Gedanke um, wie man die guten Taten veranschaulichen kann, die wir als Steuerbürger notleidenden Geldabfackelvereinigungen aus der Finanzbranche zukommen lassen sollen.
Die Lösung ist der Artikel „Geldregen“, den das Versandhaus Tom Wet im Katalog hat (http://www.tomwet.com). Die monetäre Pappröhre für 13,75 Euro ist eigentlich als Partygag gedacht, kann aber durchaus für ernsthafte Aufgaben eingesetzt werden. Durch einen Dreh an dem 60-Zentimeter-Rohr werden viele Geldscheine – standardmäßig handelt es sich um Spielgeld – mit einem schönen Knall per Druckluftpatrone meterhoch in die Luft katapultiert.
Yes, that's an incredibly honest and fair synopsis of Erik's piece. Bravo.
People need autonomy, but they need community, too. It seems that the Danish way is about the best: a common culture (and presumably some sort of local communities–I'm not Danish so I'm actually talking out of my ass) that everyone can belong too, yet people have enough freedom to do the different things they actually want to. But if their preferences were more diverse, things would be harder.
The US still does very well in the happiness 'rankings', though. Maybe there are enough local communities. Maybe the red-blue sorting is helping us out. One law and set of communities for San Francisco, another for Dallas.
Actually I was really pushing for a shift back to a total feudal system. I want vassals and serfs – the whole works. And hey, it's all there in in my post.
Honestly, though, I would like to hear Will's take on it. I appreciate honest feedback.
And thanks, Freddie….
Well, after reading the post and the comments I can see that you're right Will. You need a translation to understand his point. I'll attempt a translation into secular language. First the translation then some comments.
I enjoyed Prof. Deneen's post about free-riding and I agree that devout Christians are in a precarious position. I think it is also the strongest position available because we try to be conscious of our debts and to meet our obligations. I submit that the main lines of argument against this position are weak because they point to the issue of the debts.
We inherited our situation, as everyone does, and we aren't satisfied with it. Why is the situation the way it is? It got this way because our ancestors attempted to live independently from God. We can either pursue that attempt or admit that are lives are dependent on God. It is true we wouldn't be in this situation if our ancestors hadn't made the attempt. We should be grateful for what we have inherited, but we shouldn't make the same mistakes as our ancestors.
Respect for what we inherited is important and should be maintained. It is out of loyalty to what our parents left us that we should reject things that destroy the institutions and country to which we owe a great deal.
The first point that I feel ought to be made is that were I translated “our” as “devout Christians” the translation is fairly weak. Unfortunately I'm not at all clear about which group of devout Christians Larison belongs to. My brother would probably know, but since he joined a monastery he's kind of hard to reach.
In Larison's title “Patrimony and Autonomy” Patrimony, as I think everyone knows, refers to what people receive from their parents/ancestors, while Autonomy in this case refers to the relation between individuals and God.
As for the “false beliefs” the only one I know of that he could be referencing is the “belief” generally attributed to atheists and unnamed ancestors is that humans don't need God to thrive. The argument for it being a false belief stems from the metaphysics/theology position that God created and sustains everything.
The point about being dependent on God is related to some of the other things that Christians have done. Particularly when they sell what they have and give everything away to the needy, open free clinics or hospitals, or become teachers to people too poor to pay much beyond subsistence wages. Honestly, Larison seems to be one of the Christians that is mostly concerned with the arguments going on internally to Christian groups and the charity efforts.
Denmark is an extreme outlier with a very small population. I'm sure there are lessons to be learned from a few of their policies, but it's not very useful as a model.
I know you were just explaining.
I also think that even with an unknowable good or a plurality of goods it's still the best method. It's always possible to get locked into the wrong conception of good. Enlightenment = Time + Education + Trial-and-Error + Democracy
Only everyone working together over time and after trial and error can we come to a more enlightened state of affairs. We see this same pattern applied to serfdom, slavery, law, style of government, etc.
I have no problem living in a world where we are groping in the dark for the right thing, so long as we are looking and not giving up.
As far as Larisonian, well there are rarely people that are completely correct and rarely people who are totally wrong. I agree that freedom is merely instrumental and in that I think he's right.
Unfortunately I'm not at all clear about which group of devout Christians Larison belongs to
Orthodox.
Unfortunately I'm not at all clear about which group of devout Christians Larison belongs to
Orthodox.
Pingback: Eunomia » Problems With Fusionism