WEBVTT NOTE Narveson's Theory of Ethics 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.800 I'm going to be talking today about Jan Narveson, who is a very, in a member of a very rare species, a libertarian philosopher. 2 00:00:10.800 --> 00:00:19.200 There aren't that many of them, and he's one of the most distinguished of contemporary libertarian philosophers. 3 00:00:19.200 --> 00:00:25.900 Narveson, in his long career, has changed his philosophical standpoint. 4 00:00:25.900 --> 00:00:34.060 He was originally a utilitarian and was noted as one of the leading exponents of that view. 5 00:00:34.060 --> 00:00:37.100 He published a book called Morality and Utility. 6 00:00:37.100 --> 00:00:45.020 But partly as a result of conversations and reading manuscripts by David Gaultier, 7 00:00:45.020 --> 00:00:50.540 who's another important Canadian philosopher, he changed his views. 8 00:00:50.540 --> 00:01:05.540 He became a contractarian, and I'll be dealing quite a bit in my talk with what exactly is meant by this and what Narveson's version of contractarianism is. 9 00:01:05.540 --> 00:01:18.540 He also, around the same time, became a libertarian. He was very influenced by Robert Nozick's famous book, Anarchy, State and Utopia, came out in 1974. 10 00:01:18.540 --> 00:01:26.040 So he, from a utilitarian, he became both a libertarian and a contractarian. 11 00:01:26.040 --> 00:01:32.540 He has, what he wants to do is give a contractarian basis for libertarianism. 12 00:01:32.540 --> 00:01:45.540 Now to understand Narveson's moral theories, I think it's best to start by considering what he regards as his number one enemy in moral theory. 13 00:01:45.540 --> 00:02:03.620 and this is you call moral intuitionism now by an intuition there are various 14 00:02:03.620 --> 00:02:07.700 things philosophies are meant by this but by an intuition I think Narvesen 15 00:02:07.700 --> 00:02:14.380 means a moral judgment whether about some issue in moral theory or a 16 00:02:14.380 --> 00:02:24.780 or a particular moral issue, some issue of practice, that doesn't rest on anything else. 17 00:02:24.780 --> 00:02:30.300 It's just a judgment that something or other is moral or immoral. 18 00:02:30.300 --> 00:02:37.540 Sometimes people who have moral intuitions claim the intuition is self-evident. 19 00:02:37.540 --> 00:02:40.980 What do we mean when we say something is self-evident? 20 00:02:40.980 --> 00:02:47.420 One important thing to avoid here that many people think, if you say something is self-evident, 21 00:02:47.420 --> 00:02:56.500 you're thinking that the statement is true because of some psychological feeling that 22 00:02:56.500 --> 00:02:57.500 you have. 23 00:02:57.500 --> 00:03:04.420 For example, suppose I say, it's self-evident that killing people for fun is wrong. 24 00:03:04.420 --> 00:03:10.300 One might think, well, if I think about killing people for fun, I just have a feeling this 25 00:03:10.300 --> 00:03:16.340 This is something that's obviously wrong, I just feel this is something repulsive, so 26 00:03:16.340 --> 00:03:22.980 because I have this feeling of repulsion, then I hold the proposition killing people for 27 00:03:22.980 --> 00:03:23.980 fun is wrong. 28 00:03:23.980 --> 00:03:29.620 But you see, if that were true, if I held this feeling because of this feeling, held 29 00:03:29.620 --> 00:03:35.100 the view that killing people for fun is wrong because of this feeling of repulsion, then 30 00:03:35.100 --> 00:03:41.180 And it wouldn't be self-evident, I would be holding it because I had this particular psychological 31 00:03:41.180 --> 00:03:42.180 feeling. 32 00:03:42.180 --> 00:03:49.300 If I say it holds something that is self-evident, then I'd be saying I'm holding it to be true, 33 00:03:49.300 --> 00:03:54.340 and my belief that it's true doesn't rest on anything else. 34 00:03:54.340 --> 00:04:01.020 So this is a point that Jean Moore made very effectively in the Frenkipi Ethica 1903, that 35 00:04:01.020 --> 00:04:08.220 When you say something is self-evident, it's not that you're holding it because of some psychological feeling on your part. 36 00:04:08.220 --> 00:04:13.060 So, as I say, this is what we mean by moral intuition. 37 00:04:13.060 --> 00:04:20.860 We're just making some kind of judgment that something is morally right or wrong or good or bad. 38 00:04:20.860 --> 00:04:26.820 Now, as I say, Narveson regards this as the main enemy in moral theory. 39 00:04:26.820 --> 00:04:30.380 What is it that he has against moral intuitions? 40 00:04:30.380 --> 00:04:38.380 Well, the basic problem with moral intuitions is that they're very controversial. 41 00:04:38.380 --> 00:04:44.380 Some people will have moral intuitions and others will say, no, we don't have such an intuition. 42 00:04:44.380 --> 00:04:49.380 And if that's the case, there's no way of resolving the matter. 43 00:04:49.380 --> 00:04:57.380 For example, one very important example in arguments for libertarianism, 44 00:04:57.380 --> 00:05:13.380 There are some people who reject the free market and libertarianism on the grounds that, under a free market system, we can have very wide disparities in wealth and income among people. 45 00:05:13.380 --> 00:05:18.380 Some people, unfortunately, are much richer than I am. 46 00:05:18.380 --> 00:05:24.680 This is in the, say, in the free markets, in a free market order. 47 00:05:24.680 --> 00:05:29.680 And to some people, this is an undesirable state of affairs. 48 00:05:29.680 --> 00:05:40.780 They say people ought to be equal in wealth or income or in other goods, social goods. 49 00:05:40.780 --> 00:05:48.260 For example, in probably the most influential 20th century work in political philosophy, 50 00:05:48.260 --> 00:05:53.700 John Rawls' Theory of Justice came out in 1971. 51 00:05:53.700 --> 00:06:02.860 Rawls says that inequalities are justified only to the extent they are of advantage, 52 00:06:02.860 --> 00:06:06.340 the least advantaged group in society. 53 00:06:06.340 --> 00:06:13.300 Otherwise, the inequality is not justified. So he's starting from the assumption that 54 00:06:13.300 --> 00:06:22.800 equality is the preferred state of affairs. Other people say, for example, Ronald Dworkin 55 00:06:22.800 --> 00:06:31.460 says Rawls doesn't go far enough. Dworkin says in some cases, even if inequality would 56 00:06:31.460 --> 00:06:48.460 lead to a better overall outcome, even a better overall outcome for the least well-off class in society, it still would be morally required to have a system closer to equality than that. 57 00:06:48.460 --> 00:06:56.580 So some philosophers, I don't say Rawls and Dworkener among these, will support their 58 00:06:56.580 --> 00:07:05.540 equalitarian views just on the grounds that they have an intuition that equality is morally 59 00:07:05.540 --> 00:07:08.680 mandated or at least desirable. 60 00:07:08.680 --> 00:07:15.940 They say this is just something that they see to be true, they hold it to be obviously 61 00:07:15.940 --> 00:07:22.660 True, and they'll think, say, that libertarians who deny this are heartless. Now, obviously, 62 00:07:22.660 --> 00:07:30.340 libertarians don't have such intuitions, or if they do, they think they're overridden by other 63 00:07:30.340 --> 00:07:37.140 things, but presumably they don't have intuitions of that kind. So, this would be a case that 64 00:07:37.140 --> 00:07:43.220 illustrates, I think, Narveson's chief complaint about moral intuitionism. He said, well, 65 00:07:43.220 --> 00:07:54.220 Well, what are we going to do if we have, say, a group of people who say that they have an intuition in favor of equality, 66 00:07:54.220 --> 00:07:59.220 and there's some other group that said, no, we don't have that intuition at all. 67 00:07:59.220 --> 00:08:08.220 We don't think there's anything at all wrong with some people having more wealth or income than others. 68 00:08:08.220 --> 00:08:16.460 And we seem to be at an impasse. There's no way to go on. So, Narveson said, look, we 69 00:08:16.460 --> 00:08:25.980 should try to avoid appeals to intuition and come up with something else. Now, before I 70 00:08:25.980 --> 00:08:36.420 go on to what Narveson wants to replace intuition with what he prefers, what his contract theory 71 00:08:36.420 --> 00:08:52.420 I want to say something more. Are his objections to moral intuitionism correct? He's undoubtedly right that we sometimes have conflicting intuitions. 72 00:08:52.420 --> 00:09:02.420 Some people, as an example I gave, some people will favor, say, they have strong moral intuitions that equality is morally mandated. 73 00:09:02.420 --> 00:09:06.420 and David and other people don't have those intuitions. 74 00:09:06.420 --> 00:09:18.420 But is someone who thinks there's something to what Narveson calls the methodological intuition, 75 00:09:18.420 --> 00:09:22.420 Narveson distinguishes two different kinds of intuitions. 76 00:09:22.420 --> 00:09:26.420 The kind I'm concerned with now is what he calls methodological individualism, 77 00:09:26.420 --> 00:09:29.420 where what's involved is, just as I did with equality, 78 00:09:29.420 --> 00:09:37.020 particular moral judgements about certain states of affairs and argue on that basis. 79 00:09:37.020 --> 00:09:40.780 The other kind is what he calls metaphysical intuitionism. 80 00:09:40.780 --> 00:09:47.060 That will come in a bit later in my talk, but for now I don't need to go into that. 81 00:09:47.060 --> 00:09:55.540 Are there, can we say anything in defense of methodological intuitionism, or is Narsen 82 00:09:55.540 --> 00:10:05.540 Well, all we have are disagreements that can't be resolved, so we should try for something else. 83 00:10:05.540 --> 00:10:12.540 We shouldn't just rely on intuitions that may not be shared with other people. 84 00:10:12.540 --> 00:10:40.540 Well, one thing I think that can be said in support of the intuitionist standpoint is that someone who has a moral intuition that he finds other people rejecting isn't committed, isn't required just to walk away and say we have a conflict here, 85 00:10:40.540 --> 00:10:46.140 Here there's nothing more I can do about this. There are various means that one 86 00:10:46.140 --> 00:10:53.160 could use to try to resolve the matter. For example, one thing one could do is 87 00:10:53.160 --> 00:11:02.580 try to see if we could come up with a case that's similar, a case that 88 00:11:02.580 --> 00:11:08.580 the person who opposes us will accept our standpoint. We can try to 89 00:11:08.580 --> 00:11:16.380 to distinguish his, what his original claimed from this other case that's different from 90 00:11:16.380 --> 00:11:21.340 it, for example, and that's not very coherent, but let me give you an example of supposing 91 00:11:21.340 --> 00:11:28.420 someone says he favors equality. It's bad that some people have much more than others. 92 00:11:28.420 --> 00:11:35.460 Then we could ask the person, well, let's suppose that we had a society where everyone 93 00:11:35.460 --> 00:11:42.460 If you made at least $200,000 a year, but there were some people, there were some billionaires in the society, 94 00:11:42.460 --> 00:11:53.460 would you say there was something morally questionable about that, just because the billionaire were much wealthier than the ones who made $200,000? 95 00:11:53.460 --> 00:12:01.460 Now, it might turn out the person would say, no, there wasn't anything questionable about that, or not very much questionable. 96 00:12:01.460 --> 00:12:08.380 What was really bothering him was that in our society or in many societies there might be 97 00:12:08.380 --> 00:12:14.860 some people who would be extremely poor in the sense that they didn't have enough of 98 00:12:14.860 --> 00:12:19.580 what we're usually regarded as the basic requirements for living. 99 00:12:19.580 --> 00:12:26.540 So one way we can address an intuition that goes against our views if we think that someone 100 00:12:26.540 --> 00:12:56.540 said he has an intuition in favor of equality. We might say, well, is, come up with a case, we say, is, are you really opposed to inequality or are you really opposed to this other matter, namely some people not having very much, and then go on to argue maybe the libertarian society would be able to cope with that problem through voluntary charity or generally 101 00:12:56.540 --> 00:13:02.340 Raising People's Level of Prosperity Alternatives through the Free Market. 102 00:13:02.340 --> 00:13:11.940 So what the intuitionists can do, face with a conflict, is try to distinguish cases and 103 00:13:11.940 --> 00:13:15.620 reduce the scope of the conflict in that way. 104 00:13:15.620 --> 00:13:24.140 There's a very good discussion of this way of proceeding by distinguishing cases that 105 00:13:24.140 --> 00:13:54.140 Nozick has in the Anarchy State Utopian discussion, around page 277, next to pages. He goes into this and he says there's always a problem in this way of proceeding in that someone, if we can get, move someone from a position he adopts by some new case, he can just decide, rather than say he was wrong in the first place, he could just reject what we're saying about the new case. I mean someone could say, 106 00:13:54.140 --> 00:14:21.140 Let's say, respond that, in the example I gave, somebody could say, well, I think even in the example of the, where everybody earns 200,000, but some people earn much more than that, some people could say, well, the inequality is bad, even in that case, they could reject the way we're trying to move them. 107 00:14:21.140 --> 00:14:28.640 So this method isn't at all guaranteed to produce agreement, but it can work in some cases. 108 00:14:28.640 --> 00:14:37.340 I should say there are philosophers who do respond to the example I just gave in the egalitarian way. 109 00:14:37.340 --> 00:14:47.340 For example, Larry Temkin is an influential philosopher, he says there's something bad in the notion of inequality of any kind. 110 00:14:47.340 --> 00:15:03.340 He gives a rather extreme case of this. He says, supposing we had a society, actually true to the one we do, where some people are blind and other people can see. 111 00:15:03.340 --> 00:15:14.340 So he said, well, imagine that everybody is blind. Would that be better than a society where some people are blind and some people can see? 112 00:15:14.340 --> 00:15:21.100 He says, no, it wouldn't. It would be obviously not good if everybody was blind, but it would 113 00:15:21.100 --> 00:15:27.300 at least have a better feature of it than our society, because everybody would be equal 114 00:15:27.300 --> 00:15:34.780 in their capacity for sight. Namely, they wouldn't have it. So that's kind of an example, 115 00:15:34.780 --> 00:15:41.620 but I mean, where one could be, somebody could refuse to accept what we think is a good case 116 00:15:41.620 --> 00:15:44.420 against their Initial Statement and Intuition. 117 00:15:44.420 --> 00:15:52.460 So what I think Narvesen would respond is he still, he would reject this method, too. 118 00:15:52.460 --> 00:16:01.820 He would say some, he discusses this, he has, sometimes he has really, his two most important 119 00:16:01.820 --> 00:16:10.020 books where he discusses his moral theory are one called The Libertarian Idea, which 120 00:16:10.020 --> 00:16:17.340 came out in 1988, it's been reprinted a few times, in another collection of essays called 121 00:16:17.340 --> 00:16:26.580 Respecting Persons in Theory and Practice, and this came out in 2002. 122 00:16:26.580 --> 00:16:33.380 So what Narveson would say, well, somebody could say what we do is start with our intuitions 123 00:16:33.380 --> 00:16:40.060 and then we try to possibly modify them by considering other cases or then we could come 124 00:16:40.060 --> 00:16:47.580 up with various theoretical judgments and we engage in a process of kind of shifting 125 00:16:47.580 --> 00:16:56.560 between the theories and individual judgments until we can come up with some kind of solution 126 00:16:56.560 --> 00:17:10.560 We're satisfied with what Rawls calls the reflective equilibrium. We try to balance our theories with our judgments, adjusting them so they're somehow harmonious. 127 00:17:10.560 --> 00:17:25.560 Actually, Rawls took this notion from the philosopher of science, Nelson Goodman, who would propose that as a way that scientific inquiry works, adjusting between observations and theories. 128 00:17:25.560 --> 00:17:53.560 in theory, so Rawls applied this to moral judgment. But Narvis has said, no, this is unsatisfactory because it's still relying on these controversial intuitions, even if we can reduce the scope of disagreement in the way I've explained in some cases, we still have this problem of disagreements that can't be resolved at all. 129 00:17:53.560 --> 00:18:13.560 Now, so, could an intuitionist respond to that? Wouldn't the intuitionist have to admit that, in Orbison's point, that we're never going to reach agreement just by relying on intuitions. 130 00:18:13.560 --> 00:18:21.560 We're always going to find that some people don't accept the moral intuitions we have. 131 00:18:21.560 --> 00:18:33.560 Well, I think here we could respond that Narveson has advanced what seems to be an unrealistic requirement. 132 00:18:33.560 --> 00:18:45.560 It's almost never, I don't want to say absolutely never, but almost never the case in philosophy that we find agreement on any theories. 133 00:18:45.560 --> 00:19:10.560 say, for any, not just moral issue, but any theory and philosophy, will always have conflicting points of view and it doesn't see why should one insist that there's some requirement that everyone adopt a particular moral theory, even in the sciences, we don't find that all theories are universally adopted. 134 00:19:10.560 --> 00:19:19.560 For example, in physics, there are some people who don't accept the standard model of quantum mechanics. 135 00:19:19.560 --> 00:19:25.060 David Boehm and others have a deterministic model of quantum mechanics. 136 00:19:25.060 --> 00:19:29.060 They don't go along with the more generally accepted view. 137 00:19:29.060 --> 00:19:39.560 And there are other views that say there are a few physicists who don't accept Einstein's special relativity. 138 00:19:39.560 --> 00:19:47.560 We could find all sorts of conflicting theories in biology. Some people don't accept Darwinian evolution. 139 00:19:47.560 --> 00:19:53.560 So for virtually any scientific or philosophical theory, we find disagreements. 140 00:19:53.560 --> 00:19:59.560 So it's not clear that if intuitionism results in disagreements as it does, 141 00:19:59.560 --> 00:20:09.560 This is, we've struck that view as a fatal blow, the mere fact that there are disagreements. 142 00:20:09.560 --> 00:20:20.560 Now, there's a further problem, I think, is this. Supposing someone attaches some weight to Narveson's objection and said, 143 00:20:20.560 --> 00:20:44.560 Well, say, I, for example, suppose I say, I very strongly attract it on intuitionist ground to the libertarian non-aggression principle, it seems, wrong to use force against someone who has an initiated force himself. 144 00:20:44.560 --> 00:21:04.560 Well, when I say I find that an intuitively plausible view, then I say, but look, there are some people who don't accept that view, say there are some people who find nothing morally wrong with conscripting people into the army or other measures that violate that view. 145 00:21:04.560 --> 00:21:19.560 I might say, well, shouldn't the fact that there is some disagreement make me doubt my initial belief, if I'm just relying on holding the belief because of intuition? 146 00:21:19.560 --> 00:21:29.560 Well, it might well be that it should induce some doubt in me, just as I find, say, people I regard as competent don't agree with me. 147 00:21:29.560 --> 00:21:46.060 There won't be a good reason for making me rethink my views, but if I still think the belief is true, it seems what more could I ask for holding a view? 148 00:21:46.060 --> 00:21:52.060 Certainly, it doesn't follow from saying that I believe something, that the view is true, 149 00:21:52.060 --> 00:22:03.060 But I can't distinguish from inside between my own beliefs, things I hold to be true and things that actually aren't true. 150 00:22:03.060 --> 00:22:18.060 We could imagine, say someone, a teacher giving a true false test to someone, and say the person, imagine the students fill out the exam the best they can. 151 00:22:18.060 --> 00:22:23.500 The teacher looks at them and says, well, all right, you've given the answers, you believe 152 00:22:23.500 --> 00:22:30.580 are correct. Now, take the test over and give me the answers that really are correct. You 153 00:22:30.580 --> 00:22:36.100 see, you couldn't, the students couldn't do that because the ones they, they're only 154 00:22:36.100 --> 00:22:41.860 access to the ones that are correct or the ones they believe to be correct. So if someone 155 00:22:41.860 --> 00:22:49.140 held on intuitive or other grounds that some principle or something is true. 156 00:22:49.140 --> 00:22:55.180 He can't very well reject that, even if he considers that other people don't hold it 157 00:22:55.180 --> 00:23:00.340 as long as he continues to think the view is true. 158 00:23:00.340 --> 00:23:07.060 Isn't that an excellent reason for holding some view that we think it's true, that what 159 00:23:07.060 --> 00:23:22.060 We're not always interested in converting other people to our point of view, even if that's desirable, we want to presumably come up with what we think are the correct views themselves. 160 00:23:22.060 --> 00:23:33.060 And I don't think Narveson has given us sufficient reason to abandon this way of coming up with correct beliefs. 161 00:23:33.060 --> 00:23:43.780 Now, Narveson doesn't really consider that point so much, but he does consider another 162 00:23:43.780 --> 00:23:50.780 objection, which I would call the obvious objection to his views on intuitionism. He 163 00:23:50.780 --> 00:23:59.180 has these interesting responses. Now, the obvious objection to Narveson's view, I'm 164 00:23:59.180 --> 00:24:25.180 I'm sure many of you would have been thinking of this, is that supposing someone says, well, I don't want to rely on intuitions, I don't want to rely on just unsupported judgments that something is true, I want to use arguments, I'm not going to accept any belief just because it's an intuition, I want to have some basis for it. 165 00:24:25.180 --> 00:24:30.180 Well, any argument will rely on certain premises. 166 00:24:30.180 --> 00:24:39.180 We believe, say we have an argument, something is true because something else is true, such and such premises support the argument. 167 00:24:39.180 --> 00:24:48.180 Now, we could ask for the premises, what is the support for them, and we could come up with it, possibly with arguments for those. 168 00:24:48.180 --> 00:24:57.180 But, presumably, we'll eventually have to stop with some premise that we just hold to be true. 169 00:24:57.180 --> 00:25:05.180 We won't be able to go on to infinity and just keep arguing that each premise depends on something else, 170 00:25:05.180 --> 00:25:16.180 or it won't be very good to have a circular justification where we, say, support one conclusion by certain premises 171 00:25:16.180 --> 00:25:20.180 and then support those premises by the original conclusion. 172 00:25:20.180 --> 00:25:28.180 As Aristotle long ago pointed out, we have to come up with some premises that we're starting with. 173 00:25:28.180 --> 00:25:33.180 So the obvious objection Narveson has to answer is, 174 00:25:33.180 --> 00:25:40.180 well, don't you yourself have to rely on intuitions in your argument at some point? 175 00:25:40.180 --> 00:25:47.180 And if that's right, how can you object so much to the moral intuitionist? 176 00:25:52.180 --> 00:26:00.180 You know, his answer to this is that it's true we do have to rely on intuitions. 177 00:26:00.180 --> 00:26:04.180 And in fact, at one point he even refers, he says, well, he has an intuition, 178 00:26:04.180 --> 00:26:11.060 Joseph jokingly has an intuition that we shouldn't rely on moral intuitions in argument, but 179 00:26:11.060 --> 00:26:14.500 what he says is we certainly have to rely on intuitions, but they don't have to be 180 00:26:14.500 --> 00:26:17.300 moral intuitions. 181 00:26:17.300 --> 00:26:26.820 What he claims is that he can come up with something that is some premise that is in 182 00:26:26.820 --> 00:26:32.860 one sense an intuition and one that we won't have any further argument backing up, but 183 00:26:32.860 --> 00:26:40.540 will be something that's non-controversial and also not a moral judgment itself. 184 00:26:40.540 --> 00:26:47.780 Now before I go into what that is, which is involved in his contractarianism that I mentioned 185 00:26:47.780 --> 00:26:55.820 before, I should say he extends his condemnation of intuitionism much further than what I've 186 00:26:55.820 --> 00:26:59.180 already mentioned. 187 00:26:59.180 --> 00:27:06.740 He, in his extended usage, an intuitionist view would not just be one that relies on 188 00:27:06.740 --> 00:27:17.500 particular judgments of the kind I mentioned, such as equality is good or using force against 189 00:27:17.500 --> 00:27:28.220 someone is bad, but he would extend this so that it covers any moral theory that rests 190 00:27:28.220 --> 00:27:31.660 on Controversial Judgments. 191 00:27:31.660 --> 00:27:38.980 For example, I was imagining what he would say to the Aristotelian position that Roderick 192 00:27:38.980 --> 00:27:43.700 has been developing in the lectures this week. 193 00:27:43.700 --> 00:27:53.380 I think what Narbison would say, well, that this view is proposing a certain ideal of 194 00:27:53.380 --> 00:28:02.420 Human flourishing or what is the human happiness consists of, but someone might reject that. 195 00:28:02.420 --> 00:28:11.700 Someone might say, well, I don't accept that idea. So, in fact, not everyone does accept it. 196 00:28:11.700 --> 00:28:16.660 So I think the very fact that people would disagree with, might disagree with the view 197 00:28:16.660 --> 00:28:46.660 is, for a nervous reason, not to accept this theory. I think one could argue that isn't a very good objection because it seems to beg the question, is it right for the other people to disagree? Maybe they should be convinced by the arguments that have been advanced for this view. Maybe they shouldn't just say, it doesn't sound right. I don't accept this view or it contradicts other beliefs that I've 198 00:28:46.660 --> 00:28:53.180 I hold so I'm not going to accept it. What if he isn't nervous and if he were to take 199 00:28:53.180 --> 00:29:01.580 the line of suggestion, seems to be ruling a view out just by fiat. He's just saying 200 00:29:01.580 --> 00:29:10.340 people find this controversial, therefore it is controversial in a way that's unacceptable. 201 00:29:10.340 --> 00:29:29.340 Now, a related point here is, in this whole notion of disagreement, is it's certainly right that someone who holds a conflicting view will disagree with something that we're saying. 202 00:29:29.340 --> 00:29:43.340 For example, I defend libertarianism, say, we shouldn't impose a pattern on what people earn in the market, such as equality. 203 00:29:43.340 --> 00:29:52.340 We should just let whatever comes about through free transactions in the market stay the way it is. 204 00:29:52.340 --> 00:29:55.340 We don't have any further requirements of distributed justice. 205 00:29:55.340 --> 00:30:23.340 Someone who holds a principle of equality will certainly reject that, but to show that a particular principle is inconsistent with another principle isn't showing that we can't convince the other person, it's just showing we can't convince the other person while he holds the conflicting view, but maybe we can persuade him to abandon that view. 206 00:30:23.340 --> 00:30:52.340 I've mentioned before one way I might try that, but Narveson sometimes seems to hold, although he's rejecting intuitionism, he seems to hold that people's views in some ways are fixed, that once a person holds a view then there's nothing anyone else can do by appealing to an intuition to change his mind, but maybe that's not true, maybe we can just get the person to change his mind. 207 00:30:52.340 --> 00:31:00.540 And so this is the way I think he's underestimated the possibilities of agreement. 208 00:31:00.540 --> 00:31:06.540 But still he could respond to all of this, he could say, well look, even if there's more 209 00:31:06.540 --> 00:31:15.500 to this intuitionist methodology than I've allowed, still I've got something better. 210 00:31:15.500 --> 00:31:19.620 And now what is that that he thinks is something better? 211 00:31:19.620 --> 00:31:48.620 Now, he says there is one thing, one thing we really can't quarrel with, everybody will accept this, that each of us has certain wants and interests, by interests he just means the preferences of some that we hold, he isn't meaning any kind of, appeals to any kind of theory of what people should, according to certain views, hold, he just means the actual preferences people have. 212 00:31:48.620 --> 00:32:17.620 People have certain things that they want, everybody wants certain things, we all have an interest in achieving what we want just to say we want something, we want to know, we want to be the case that we achieve as much as possible. 213 00:32:18.620 --> 00:32:29.620 possible what we want. This, at least so far, seems uncontroversial. So then he said, well, 214 00:32:29.620 --> 00:32:36.140 we're in, what is the situation we're in? Each of us has different, each of us has wants 215 00:32:36.140 --> 00:32:41.980 that we all, preferences we all want to achieve these, but we're in a situation where other 216 00:32:41.980 --> 00:32:46.560 Other people can interfere with our preferences. 217 00:32:46.560 --> 00:32:51.620 Other people can frustrate us and stop us from doing what we want. 218 00:32:51.620 --> 00:32:56.340 Or on the other hand, people can cooperate with us. 219 00:32:56.340 --> 00:33:05.560 Say, we know through the study of economics that social cooperation through the free market, 220 00:33:05.560 --> 00:33:11.880 we have these people, at least who have conventional preferences, will be able to achieve much 221 00:33:11.880 --> 00:33:17.680 Much more through cooperation with other people than they would on their own. 222 00:33:17.680 --> 00:33:26.440 So what Narvesen says is given that we're all in this situation, we each want to achieve 223 00:33:26.440 --> 00:33:35.760 as maximum degree possible, we want to get what we want, we want to have our preferences 224 00:33:35.760 --> 00:33:37.560 put into effect. 225 00:33:37.560 --> 00:33:44.240 What can we do when we're faced with a situation that other people are possibly in conflict 226 00:33:44.240 --> 00:33:49.440 with us and can also cooperate with us? 227 00:33:49.440 --> 00:33:57.320 What rules could we put into effect that would enable each of us to achieve his or her own 228 00:33:57.320 --> 00:34:07.160 preferences to the greatest degree possible? 229 00:34:07.160 --> 00:34:15.160 You know, I want to ask, before I get into what are the rules that Narsen comes up with 230 00:34:15.160 --> 00:34:23.400 and thinks people will adopt if we ask that question, I want to ask, is his principle 231 00:34:23.400 --> 00:34:27.360 really as non-controversial as it sounds? 232 00:34:27.360 --> 00:34:31.640 He says everyone wants to achieve his preferences. 233 00:34:31.640 --> 00:34:35.440 It sounds pretty non-controversial on the surface. 234 00:34:35.440 --> 00:34:47.440 What one could raise some quibbles about it, I mean, for example, sometimes people have preferences that certain of their preferences not be realized. 235 00:34:47.440 --> 00:34:51.440 Harry Frankfurt has written on this so-called second-order preference. 236 00:34:51.440 --> 00:34:59.440 Say someone who's an alcoholic could want to drink but at the same time not want to be an alcoholic. 237 00:34:59.440 --> 00:35:06.280 So one way of looking at it is hoping that some of its preferences won't be realized. 238 00:35:06.280 --> 00:35:12.120 But I think I don't want to put much emphasis on that, that's kind of a, it is an interesting 239 00:35:12.120 --> 00:35:20.560 phenomenon but I don't think it really made, it posed the major dent for Narbyses' point 240 00:35:20.560 --> 00:35:21.560 of view. 241 00:35:21.560 --> 00:35:26.960 Similarly one could rate, there's certain Eastern philosophers, possibly some Greek 242 00:35:26.960 --> 00:35:40.960 philosophy, so how we should, we might have certain preferences of things we want, but we should have an attitude of indifference toward realizing our own preferences. We should just take things as they come. 243 00:35:40.960 --> 00:35:53.960 Now, again, I think this is perhaps an interesting issue to explore, but I don't think it's all that central to evaluating Garrison's claim. 244 00:35:53.960 --> 00:36:05.960 So we could say possibly there are exceptions to the principle. We all are whatever it is we want, but really it does sound that he's right. He's pretty plausible. 245 00:36:05.960 --> 00:36:17.960 But I think there is a strong, there is actually a strong objection that can be raised against him, at least I think it's very strongly, 246 00:36:17.960 --> 00:36:26.120 he hasn't what he's his actual principle isn't that that he operates from in in 247 00:36:26.120 --> 00:36:29.120 trying to in his contract theory and perspective when he's trying to come up 248 00:36:29.120 --> 00:36:34.840 with the rules that people would adopt given that we all want to achieve our 249 00:36:34.840 --> 00:36:40.440 preferences but we're faced with people can injure us or cooperate with what he 250 00:36:40.440 --> 00:36:47.280 his actual standpoint isn't the one that I've so far stated he isn't actually 251 00:36:47.280 --> 00:37:17.200 I know of only one general approach to moral theory that is fully non-intuitionist, full-blooded Hobbesian contractarian theory. 252 00:37:17.200 --> 00:37:30.200 The principles and morals, according to this view, are what amount to rational or reasonable agreements made by the people whose behavior is to be directed by those principles. 253 00:37:30.200 --> 00:37:37.200 Moreover, the sense in which they are rational is not a cooked-up, moralized sense. 254 00:37:37.200 --> 00:37:43.400 It is simply that the output of a course of deliberation that is rational is that the 255 00:37:43.400 --> 00:37:50.400 selected course of action has the best chance of realizing values actually held by the agent. 256 00:37:50.400 --> 00:37:56.860 Now, so far, so good. This is just what I've been saying so far. Now, here comes the part 257 00:37:56.860 --> 00:38:12.500 Morality is an output and what makes it rational is the same as what makes any action or decision 258 00:38:12.500 --> 00:38:17.500 rational. It best fills the bill specified by one general set of values, whatever they 259 00:38:17.500 --> 00:38:25.660 Oh, sorry, I skipped the crucial sentence, typical of me. 260 00:38:25.660 --> 00:38:29.980 He said, the selected course of action has the best chance of realizing values actually 261 00:38:29.980 --> 00:38:30.980 held by the agent. 262 00:38:30.980 --> 00:38:34.420 This is the part I want to question. 263 00:38:34.420 --> 00:38:42.140 Those values, of course, need not be, and in the first instance cannot be, moral values. 264 00:38:42.140 --> 00:38:46.220 Morality is an output, and what makes it rational is the same as what makes any action decision 265 00:38:46.220 --> 00:38:51.420 and Rational, it best fill the bills specified by one general set of values, whatever they 266 00:38:51.420 --> 00:38:52.420 are. 267 00:38:52.420 --> 00:38:59.940 Now you see the crucial thing he's put in here, he's starting from the non-controversial 268 00:38:59.940 --> 00:39:07.100 view, at least very non-controversial view, that people want to achieve their preferences, 269 00:39:07.100 --> 00:39:14.220 whatever they are, but he's excluding people's moral judgments from the initial set of preferences 270 00:39:14.220 --> 00:39:44.220 because he wants to derive morality from these preferences, but this is a very, this is not, then his view becomes not at all non-controversial, becomes extremely controversial because what his view now is is that everyone gives overriding importance to his or her own non-moral preferences and views morality as a tool to advance those 271 00:39:44.220 --> 00:39:47.220 particular preferences or interests. 272 00:39:47.220 --> 00:39:51.220 And now someone could quite easily reject that. 273 00:39:51.220 --> 00:39:57.220 Someone could hold, well, I certainly want to achieve my non-moral preferences, 274 00:39:57.220 --> 00:40:09.220 but I have moral views independent of thinking of what I could get other people to agree to in this situation. 275 00:40:09.220 --> 00:40:12.220 But I'm not prepared to give up. 276 00:40:12.220 --> 00:40:25.020 What is the basis that Narbisson has for thinking that our views, our non-moral views, are overriding? 277 00:40:25.020 --> 00:40:41.220 It would seem like if he holds that, isn't he relying on an intuition himself that morality is just a tool by which we can advance our non-moral or pre-moral, 278 00:40:41.220 --> 00:40:52.020 interests. He himself hasn't eliminated the appeal to intuition that he claims to oppose, 279 00:40:52.020 --> 00:40:59.260 that he hasn't at all come up with a non-controversial standpoint, namely that everybody wants to 280 00:40:59.260 --> 00:41:08.380 realize his own preferences. He's only come up with a certain selected set of everyone's 281 00:41:08.380 --> 00:41:15.820 ... preferences and ask, how can people realize that set of preferences? So, he's actually 282 00:41:15.820 --> 00:41:24.260 adopted a very controversial standpoint. He hasn't come up as he thinks he has with some 283 00:41:24.260 --> 00:41:35.060 non-controversial starting point that everyone can agree on. He hasn't really, he isn't really 284 00:41:35.060 --> 00:41:55.060 What I'm really able to say to the intuitionist is, look, you have to rely on views that people can disagree with, but I have something better I can come up with a premise that no one can rationally reject, and I can derive morality from that, so I'm in a better position than you are. 285 00:41:55.060 --> 00:42:04.060 He can't say that at all because his position itself starts from a quite controversial standpoint. 286 00:42:04.060 --> 00:42:15.060 I think we could press a related point that some people might disagree with me on this. 287 00:42:15.060 --> 00:42:23.060 I would say, and this will involve some reference to the other kind of intuitionism that I referred to earlier, 288 00:42:23.060 --> 00:42:28.060 that Narveson distinguishes, namely metaphysical intuitionism. 289 00:42:28.060 --> 00:42:43.060 Now, the objection I would give to this point is that if one regards morality as a tool to advance one's own interests, 290 00:42:43.060 --> 00:42:51.060 then, to my mind, one's really rejecting the moral standpoint altogether. 291 00:42:51.060 --> 00:43:12.060 There must be, if, as morality requirements appear to us, they appear to have some force on us, they say, there are certain things that are intrinsically, certain kinds of, a certain type of life is intrinsically attractive, 292 00:43:12.060 --> 00:43:20.060 certain things are absolutely forbidden to us if we hold that the torture is wrong in all circumstances. 293 00:43:20.060 --> 00:43:28.560 That's something that we have to follow that regardless of our desires or preferences. 294 00:43:28.560 --> 00:43:37.560 It's not, if we hold that view, we're not saying that if we follow this view, we'll in some way advance our own interests. 295 00:43:37.560 --> 00:43:45.560 But we're saying this is a requirement of morality. We have to do this whether we like it or not. 296 00:43:45.560 --> 00:43:55.560 So there is, in one of the novels of P.G. Woodhouse, one of the favorite authors, 297 00:43:55.560 --> 00:44:03.560 one of the characters says to Jeeves, who's a famous butler and features in many of these stories, 298 00:44:03.560 --> 00:44:10.360 Whenever something comes up, I always ask myself one question. What's in it for me? 299 00:44:10.360 --> 00:44:18.360 Now, I think we could say somebody who said that isn't adopting, really has not adopted the moral standpoint. 300 00:44:18.360 --> 00:44:26.360 So that we could say that if you pose the question that Narveson has, how can, what rules, 301 00:44:26.360 --> 00:44:33.360 if people were generally to adopt, would advance my own preference, preferences best, 302 00:44:33.360 --> 00:44:48.360 A non-moral preference, as we could say, not only is Narveson adopting a very controversial view, but he seems to be rejecting the whole notion of moral standpoint altogether. 303 00:44:48.360 --> 00:44:58.360 Now, Narveson would probably reply to this, is that, well, it's certainly right that people in the actual world do have a sense of obligation. 304 00:44:58.360 --> 00:45:05.360 They do think that certain things are required to do whether they want to or not. 305 00:45:05.360 --> 00:45:11.360 They hold that certain things are good or bad, independently of their judgment. 306 00:45:11.360 --> 00:45:17.360 But this is simply because we're brought up that way. We've been psychologically conditioned to think that. 307 00:45:17.360 --> 00:45:38.360 I think that, and that his argument shows that, in fact, it's rational for us to impose certain rules on ourselves and to have a process of conditioning of just that sort so that we wind up thinking this, but that at a foundational level, 308 00:45:38.360 --> 00:45:42.960 morality is indeed a tool so that we can advance our preferences. 309 00:45:42.960 --> 00:45:48.960 It doesn't fall that we have to regard morality that way in our actual practice. 310 00:45:48.960 --> 00:45:56.460 But, you see, I think this answer really doesn't deal adequately with the objection, 311 00:45:56.460 --> 00:46:05.460 because what it's really saying is that the sense of obligation is kind of a psychological reduction 312 00:46:05.460 --> 00:46:23.460 of the Sense of Obligation. He isn't really accepting it as it stands. He's saying, well, we can see why it would be rational for us to think that we're obligated to do certain things, but we aren't really, what we really have is self-interest. 313 00:46:23.460 --> 00:46:33.460 I should say, there is a famous article by H. A. Pritchard, I'll put his name down here. 314 00:46:33.460 --> 00:46:44.460 It was a very good article pointing out this sort of objection to self-interest theories and reality, 315 00:46:44.460 --> 00:47:03.660 and Reality. Although I think Pritchard goes too far. Does moral philosophy rest on a mistake? 316 00:47:03.660 --> 00:47:12.660 And this came out in Mind, British Philosophy Journal in 1912. 317 00:47:12.660 --> 00:47:19.260 Alright, so see the basic objection there, even if you don't accept that, this objection 318 00:47:19.260 --> 00:47:25.300 that Narveson is rejecting in the moral standpoint is independent of my earlier objection, which 319 00:47:25.300 --> 00:47:31.500 is that he's come up with not a non-controversial starting point, a very controversial one namely 320 00:47:31.500 --> 00:47:40.380 that people were concerned to give a riding importance to advancing their non-moral interests. 321 00:47:40.380 --> 00:47:45.940 So I have the two different but related objections there. 322 00:47:45.940 --> 00:47:53.260 Now I want to mention there's a third objection to this starting point that Narvesen has. 323 00:47:53.260 --> 00:48:04.540 He's assuming that he's quite right that from his standpoint we have a situation where other 324 00:48:04.540 --> 00:48:08.940 people can frustrate or cooperate with us. 325 00:48:08.940 --> 00:48:15.140 But he's assuming that we have to have an agreement with an indefinite number of other 326 00:48:15.140 --> 00:48:17.940 people, with really everyone. 327 00:48:17.940 --> 00:48:24.540 But why do we have to assume that maybe we could cooperate with just a very large number 328 00:48:24.540 --> 00:48:26.900 of people and not with others? 329 00:48:26.900 --> 00:48:32.940 We could regard other people as enemies and not to be dealt with or could be dealt with 330 00:48:32.940 --> 00:48:34.400 in any way we want. 331 00:48:34.400 --> 00:48:39.360 Why would we have to include everybody within the scope of the rule? 332 00:48:39.360 --> 00:48:45.080 And Narsen does consider some one version of this objection. 333 00:48:45.080 --> 00:48:51.280 He said, well, this would lead to problems because a society that held that might find 334 00:48:51.280 --> 00:48:57.960 itself at war with other societies, and then this wouldn't lead in the long run, it wouldn't 335 00:48:57.960 --> 00:49:01.840 help them in the long run to advance their interests. 336 00:49:01.840 --> 00:49:26.840 But even if he's right about that, it could still be that the people could, say, hold that a certain minority within their own society is not to be accorded moral value or could be treated as slaves, like the Spartans treated the Helots and the Inferiors. 337 00:49:26.840 --> 00:49:43.840 It wouldn't necessarily lead, although of course the Spartan case was one where they were at war with other city-states, but it wouldn't have to. It could have a society just where people just treat a certain minority in a bad way, but didn't involve them in conflict. 338 00:49:43.840 --> 00:49:55.840 It was not clear that Narveson has successfully showed that everybody has to be included in the agreement that he talks about. 339 00:49:55.840 --> 00:50:09.840 A criticism of this kind was raised by a very non-libertarian political theorist, Don Herzog, in a review of Narveson's libertarian idea, appeared in Critical Review. 340 00:50:09.840 --> 00:50:22.840 Narveson has a very furious response to Herzog, you can look at it in Critical Review, I think, bonafide number four, they have a big exchange. 341 00:50:22.840 --> 00:50:33.840 What Narveson says is something like, well, he just postulated that everyone is included in the agreement, so this isn't a real problem, but that, of course, doesn't solve the problem. 342 00:50:33.840 --> 00:50:46.840 He can postulate what he wants, but he hasn't really shown, at least I don't think he's shown, that it is rational in his sense for everybody to come up with a universal agreement of the kind he says. 343 00:50:46.840 --> 00:50:55.200 Now, after all these objections, though, we still have to ask, what are the rules that 344 00:50:55.200 --> 00:50:59.720 Narson thinks that people, from his standpoint, will adopt? 345 00:50:59.720 --> 00:51:05.840 Let's say, remember, people are each person's trying to advance his non-moral preferences 346 00:51:05.840 --> 00:51:11.720 and realizes that other people can either frustrate or help them. 347 00:51:11.720 --> 00:51:15.720 What rules would people come up with? 348 00:51:15.720 --> 00:51:24.080 So what he's done here is he's really thinking along, really posing the same questions he 349 00:51:24.080 --> 00:51:30.800 recognizes as Hobbes did in Leviathan 1651, that he's saying we're assuming that each 350 00:51:30.800 --> 00:51:38.520 person is motivated by his own interests and would be in the absence of agreement at war 351 00:51:38.520 --> 00:51:45.220 with other people, possibly not necessarily always fighting, but always in danger of fighting 352 00:51:45.220 --> 00:51:59.220 How can we get out of this situation? Wouldn't it be in everyone's interest to have an agreement, a peace where we wouldn't aggress against each other? 353 00:51:59.220 --> 00:52:06.220 It might be recognized that a few people just like aggressing against other people. People like beating up. 354 00:52:06.220 --> 00:52:18.220 Some people like beating up other people. Even they, he thinks, would have to realize when they do better in the long run if there were some general policy of peace. 355 00:52:18.220 --> 00:52:28.220 I should say, as an aggression, not everybody interprets Hobbes in that way, in this way, sort of this egoistic way. 356 00:52:28.220 --> 00:52:58.220 There are a few people who don't like the famous historian-philosopher A. Taylor and Howard Warndo, who had a book called Political Philosophy of Hobbes, came out in 1957, who said, no, this is not the right way to view Hobbes, Hobbes had a theory more of a Kantian kind of theory, stressing obligation, but this is a very controversial view, and Narson is certainly in the mainstream of Hobbes' interpretation when he takes his own view. 357 00:52:58.220 --> 00:53:17.220 to be a Hobbesian one. If you're interested in Warinder's views or that sort of thesis, you should also look at Thomas Nagel's article, View of Warinder in the Full Soccer Review, 1959, as a good criticism of that minority position. 358 00:53:17.220 --> 00:53:25.300 In any event, so Narveson says, well, we would all agree on some principle of non-aggression. 359 00:53:25.300 --> 00:53:31.300 We would also, he thinks, agree on a principle, a general principle of liberty. 360 00:53:31.300 --> 00:53:38.220 Everyone should be able to do what he wants as long as he doesn't interfere with other 361 00:53:38.220 --> 00:53:39.220 people. 362 00:53:39.220 --> 00:53:46.220 We don't, it's restrictions on people that have to be justified, not liberty, the general 363 00:53:46.220 --> 00:53:52.500 No presumption, he thinks, is one of liberty, not restrictions. 364 00:53:52.500 --> 00:53:59.940 So here, you see, in the way he's proceeding, as you'll gather so far, he's proceeding 365 00:53:59.940 --> 00:54:09.220 in a rather different way from the person whose work influenced him toward his contractarianism, 366 00:54:09.220 --> 00:54:15.220 namely David Gaultier in Gaultier's book Moralified Green. 367 00:54:15.220 --> 00:54:25.620 Gautier has a very formal style of argument. His view is that morality is equated with 368 00:54:25.620 --> 00:54:34.420 rationality in certain situations, and that he comes up with a principle he calls constrained 369 00:54:34.420 --> 00:54:40.580 maximization, which is a way of handling the famous prisoner's dilemma. Narveson thinks 370 00:54:40.580 --> 00:55:02.580 I guess there's something to that, but in Narveson's method, the proceeding is much more informalist proceeding, saying isn't it reasonable to think that people will agree to such and such terms, or he's reasoning in a rather informal way, and I think there's nothing wrong with that, but it's just important to see that it's different from what Gaultier is doing. 371 00:55:02.580 --> 00:55:15.520 Now, he also thinks that people will adopt a, basically, a Lockean or libertarian view of property. 372 00:55:15.520 --> 00:55:30.220 He thinks not only will people agree to a sort of policy of peace and non-aggression against each other and agree not to use force unless force is initiated against them, 373 00:55:30.220 --> 00:55:33.860 But they'll also agree to a libertarian view of property. 374 00:55:33.860 --> 00:55:38.180 And he thinks this follows from the liberty principle. 375 00:55:38.180 --> 00:55:45.180 He said, well, supposing somebody is using certain property, 376 00:55:45.180 --> 00:55:48.740 as we say, kind of on the locking view, he's acquired it. 377 00:55:48.740 --> 00:55:53.020 So if somebody else tries to take it away from him, 378 00:55:53.020 --> 00:55:57.860 he's interfering with what that person is doing with the property. 379 00:55:57.860 --> 00:56:05.860 Now you could say, well, isn't the first person interfering with the second one? He's trying to stop him from taking the property away from him. 380 00:56:05.860 --> 00:56:13.860 But Narsen said, no, the first person, the one who's using the property, really isn't depriving anyone else of anything. 381 00:56:13.860 --> 00:56:21.860 The other person just had an opportunity to acquire some of that property, but he didn't take advantage of it. 382 00:56:21.860 --> 00:56:33.860 So there's nothing really that's being interfered with. It's not as if you're taking away something that the other person had by acquiring property. 383 00:56:33.860 --> 00:56:48.860 You're really just, in some sense, denying him some opportunity that he might in some other possible world of exercise, but he didn't in this one. 384 00:56:48.860 --> 00:56:58.540 Fund. So really he's saying the first user should have the right to own the property. 385 00:56:58.540 --> 00:57:11.540 So what he's saying is that the rule of property acquisition that he favors is the only one 386 00:57:11.540 --> 00:57:19.500 And that's what is what Pareto Optimal, remember from welfare economics, a Pareto Optimal situation 387 00:57:19.500 --> 00:57:25.860 is one in which no one can be made better off without making someone else worse off. 388 00:57:25.860 --> 00:57:33.220 So say if somebody said, well, let's have some kind of egalitarian property rule, we 389 00:57:33.220 --> 00:57:40.140 distribute property from some people to others, the people who get the property might like 390 00:57:40.140 --> 00:58:08.140 I don't like that, but others, the ones who had the property in the first place, wouldn't, they'd be made worse off, but in Narveson's system, given the initial distribution, only voluntary exchanges take place, so any exchange will make people better off, at least the participants in that exchange. 391 00:58:08.140 --> 00:58:16.140 be having measures that take from some and give to others. Now, here I think there's 392 00:58:16.140 --> 00:58:21.540 some, although I think he's right that that's the locking view is the correct one to adopt, 393 00:58:21.540 --> 00:58:30.100 I don't think he's shown that people in the situation he postulates would agree to that. 394 00:58:30.100 --> 00:58:39.860 First of all, it's not the case that the lock-in first user is not depriving anyone of any 395 00:58:39.860 --> 00:58:48.300 actual thing you could do with the property, he's just depriving you of a possible opportunity 396 00:58:48.300 --> 00:58:56.560 because remember, in the Hobbesian situation that the Narcissists assume, everyone is free 397 00:58:56.560 --> 00:59:02.240 People are still free to do whatever he wants with any object, as long as he doesn't assume 398 00:59:02.240 --> 00:59:07.760 we have some agreement not to use force against people, but people are still free to use any 399 00:59:07.760 --> 00:59:10.280 object they want. 400 00:59:10.280 --> 00:59:16.840 The question, if you acquire some property, you have a right to exclude other people from 401 00:59:16.840 --> 00:59:24.080 using it, and you didn't have that right in the Hobbesian state of nature. 402 00:59:24.080 --> 00:59:29.080 People are free to do Hobbesian state of nature as modified by Narsing. 403 00:59:29.080 --> 00:59:32.080 People are really free to do whatever they want. 404 00:59:32.080 --> 00:59:44.080 So, in fact, people are being deprived of something, namely their right to use but not exclude others from property that's already been acquired. 405 00:59:44.080 --> 00:59:51.580 I think while Narveson has come up with actually the correct principle of property acquisition, 406 00:59:51.580 --> 00:59:57.080 I don't think on his Hobbesian basis he's able to justify that. 407 00:59:57.080 --> 01:00:05.080 And I think in the actual situation, whatever rules of property people would come up with are indeterminate. 408 01:00:05.080 --> 01:00:11.580 So although I think Narveson's work is very much worth careful study, 409 01:00:11.580 --> 01:00:19.580 I don't think for the reasons I've stated that his contractarianism is the best approach in libertarian philosophy. 410 01:00:19.580 --> 01:00:26.580 Well, I see, partly by design, I've concluded, so we don't have time for questions. 411 01:00:26.580 --> 01:00:28.580 Thanks very much.