WEBVTT NOTE 3. The Quest for Absolute Values 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.560 Chapter 3 The Quest for Absolute Values 2 00:00:05.560 --> 00:00:09.160 1. 3 00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:14.700 The Issue In dealing with judgments of value, we refer 4 00:00:14.700 --> 00:00:21.000 to facts, that is, to the way in which people really choose ultimate ends. 5 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:25.400 While the value judgments of many people are identical, while it is permissible to speak 6 00:00:25.400 --> 00:00:55.400 of Money, The Theory of Money and State, The Theory 7 00:00:55.400 --> 00:01:01.160 of Nature, they have preferred the state of civilization, for they sought the closest possible 8 00:01:01.160 --> 00:01:07.640 attainment of certain ends, the preservation of life and health, which, as they rightly thought, 9 00:01:07.640 --> 00:01:14.840 require social cooperation. But it is a fact that there have been and are also men who have rejected 10 00:01:14.840 --> 00:01:20.840 these values and consequently preferred the solitary life of an anchorite to life within society. 11 00:01:20.840 --> 00:01:27.820 It is thus obvious that any scientific treatment of the problems of value judgments must take 12 00:01:27.820 --> 00:01:33.960 into full account the fact that these judgments are subjective and changing. 13 00:01:33.960 --> 00:01:40.160 Science seeks to know what is and to formulate existential propositions describing the universe 14 00:01:40.160 --> 00:01:41.760 as it is. 15 00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:46.480 With regard to judgments of value, it cannot assert more than that they are uttered by 16 00:01:46.480 --> 00:01:52.720 by some people and inquire what the effects of action guided by them must be. 17 00:01:52.720 --> 00:01:57.420 Any step beyond these limits is tantamount to substituting a personal judgment of value 18 00:01:57.420 --> 00:02:00.600 for knowledge of reality. 19 00:02:00.600 --> 00:02:07.680 Science and our organized body of knowledge teach only what is, not what ought to be. 20 00:02:07.680 --> 00:02:13.300 This distinction between a field of science dealing exclusively with existential propositions 21 00:02:13.300 --> 00:02:18.540 and a field of judgments of value has been rejected by the doctrines that maintain there 22 00:02:18.540 --> 00:02:24.300 are eternal absolute values which it is just as much the task of scientific or philosophical 23 00:02:24.300 --> 00:02:29.020 inquiry to discover as to discover the laws of physics. 24 00:02:29.020 --> 00:02:34.900 The supporters of these doctrines contend that there is an absolute hierarchy of values. 25 00:02:34.900 --> 00:02:38.120 They try to define the supreme good. 26 00:02:38.120 --> 00:02:43.240 They said it is permissible and necessary to distinguish in the same way between true 27 00:02:43.240 --> 00:02:49.880 and false, correct and incorrect judgments of value as between true and false, correct 28 00:02:49.880 --> 00:02:53.960 and incorrect existential propositions. 29 00:02:53.960 --> 00:02:57.760 Science is not restricted to the description of what is. 30 00:02:57.760 --> 00:03:03.080 There is, in their opinion, another fully legitimate branch of science, the normative 31 00:03:03.080 --> 00:03:09.040 of Science of Ethics, whose task it is to show the true absolute values and to set up 32 00:03:09.040 --> 00:03:12.560 norms for the correct conduct of men. 33 00:03:12.560 --> 00:03:18.000 The plight of our age, according to the supporters of this philosophy, is that people no longer 34 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:24.420 acknowledge these eternal values and do not let their actions be guided by them. 35 00:03:24.420 --> 00:03:29.180 Conditions were much better in the past, when the peoples of Western civilization were unanimous 36 00:03:29.180 --> 00:03:32.620 in endorsing the values of Christian ethics. 37 00:03:32.620 --> 00:03:43.620 2. CONFLICTS WITHIN SOCIETY 38 00:03:43.620 --> 00:03:48.060 Having discussed the fact that men disagree with regard to their judgments of value and 39 00:03:48.060 --> 00:03:53.780 their choice of ultimate ends, we must stress that many conflicts which are commonly considered 40 00:03:53.780 --> 00:03:59.420 valuational are actually caused by disagreement concerning the choice of the best means to 41 00:03:59.420 --> 00:04:03.920 to attain ends about which the conflicting parties agree. 42 00:04:03.920 --> 00:04:09.820 The problem of the suitability or unsuitability of definite means is to be solved by existential 43 00:04:09.820 --> 00:04:13.720 propositions, not by judgments of value. 44 00:04:13.720 --> 00:04:17.860 Its treatment is the main topic of applied science. 45 00:04:17.860 --> 00:04:22.620 It is thus necessary to be aware in dealing with controversies concerning human conduct 46 00:04:22.620 --> 00:04:28.220 whether the disagreement refers to the choice of ends or to that of means. 47 00:04:28.220 --> 00:04:35.940 This is often a difficult task, for the same things our ends to some people means to others. 48 00:04:35.940 --> 00:04:41.620 With the exception of the small, almost negligible number of consistent anchorites, all people 49 00:04:41.620 --> 00:04:48.060 agree in considering some kind of social cooperation between men the foremost means to attain any 50 00:04:48.060 --> 00:04:50.480 ends they may aim at. 51 00:04:50.480 --> 00:04:55.420 This undeniable fact provides a common ground on which political discussions between men 52 00:04:55.420 --> 00:04:57.660 become possible. 53 00:04:57.660 --> 00:05:03.780 The spiritual and intellectual unity of all specimens of homo sapiens manifests itself 54 00:05:03.780 --> 00:05:09.900 in the fact that the immense majority of men consider the same thing social cooperation, 55 00:05:09.900 --> 00:05:15.980 the best means of satisfying the biological urge present in every living being to preserve 56 00:05:15.980 --> 00:05:20.860 the life and health of the individual and to propagate the species. 57 00:05:20.860 --> 00:05:26.020 It is permissible to call this almost universal acceptance of social cooperation a natural 58 00:05:26.020 --> 00:05:27.860 Phenomenon. 59 00:05:27.860 --> 00:05:32.200 In resorting to this mode of expression and asserting that conscious association is in 60 00:05:32.200 --> 00:05:39.020 conformity with human nature, one implies that man is characterized as man by reason, 61 00:05:39.020 --> 00:05:44.980 is thus enabled to become aware of the great principle of cosmic becoming and evolution, 62 00:05:44.980 --> 00:05:50.900 that is to say differentiation and integration, and to make intentional use of this principle 63 00:05:50.900 --> 00:05:53.740 to improve his condition. 64 00:05:53.740 --> 00:05:58.500 But one must not consider cooperation among the individuals of a biological species a 65 00:05:58.500 --> 00:06:01.740 universal natural phenomenon. 66 00:06:01.740 --> 00:06:07.360 The means of sustenance are scarce for every species of living beings, hence biological 67 00:06:07.360 --> 00:06:12.860 competition prevails among the members of all species and irreconcilable conflict of 68 00:06:12.860 --> 00:06:15.220 vital interests. 69 00:06:15.220 --> 00:06:19.280 Only a part of those who come into existence can survive. 70 00:06:19.280 --> 00:06:24.280 Some perish because others of their own species have snatched away from them the means of 71 00:06:24.280 --> 00:06:25.280 sustenance. 72 00:06:25.280 --> 00:06:31.040 An implacable struggle for existence goes on among the members of each species precisely 73 00:06:31.040 --> 00:06:36.800 because they are of the same species and compete with other members of it for the same scarce 74 00:06:36.800 --> 00:06:40.560 opportunities of survival and reproduction. 75 00:06:40.560 --> 00:06:48.200 Man alone, by dint of his reason, substituted social cooperation for biological competition. 76 00:06:48.200 --> 00:06:53.640 What made social cooperation possible is, of course, a natural phenomenon, the higher 77 00:06:53.640 --> 00:06:58.600 productivity of labor accomplished under the principle of the division of labor and specialization 78 00:06:58.600 --> 00:07:00.320 of tasks. 79 00:07:00.320 --> 00:07:06.560 But it was necessary to discover this principle, to comprehend its bearing upon human affairs, 80 00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:11.880 and to employ it consciously as a means in the struggle for existence. 81 00:07:11.880 --> 00:07:16.480 The fundamental facts about social cooperation have been misinterpreted by the School of 82 00:07:16.480 --> 00:07:20.640 of Social Darwinism as well as by many of its critics. 83 00:07:20.640 --> 00:07:26.220 The former maintained that war among men is an inevitable phenomenon and that all attempts 84 00:07:26.220 --> 00:07:31.080 to bring about lasting peace among nations are contrary to nature. 85 00:07:31.080 --> 00:07:35.520 The latter retorted that the struggle for existence is not among members of the same 86 00:07:35.520 --> 00:07:40.080 animal species but among the members of various species. 87 00:07:40.080 --> 00:07:46.200 As a rule, tigers do not attack other tigers but, taking the line of least resistance, 88 00:08:16.200 --> 00:08:46.200 The Theory of Money and Credit 89 00:08:46.200 --> 00:08:51.760 of the same hill and bees of the same swarm, among the brood hatched by common parents 90 00:08:51.760 --> 00:08:55.600 and among the seeds ripened by the same plant. 91 00:08:55.600 --> 00:09:02.960 Only man has the power to escape to some extent from the rule of this law by intentional cooperation. 92 00:09:02.960 --> 00:09:07.840 So long as there is social cooperation and population has not increased beyond the optimum 93 00:09:07.840 --> 00:09:12.160 size, biological competition is suspended. 94 00:09:12.160 --> 00:09:16.820 It is therefore inappropriate to refer to animals and plants in dealing with the social 95 00:09:16.820 --> 00:09:19.120 problems of man. 96 00:09:19.120 --> 00:09:24.000 Yet man's almost universal acknowledgement of the principle of social cooperation did 97 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:28.800 not result in agreement regarding all inter-human relations. 98 00:09:28.800 --> 00:09:33.820 While almost all men agree in looking upon social cooperation as the foremost means for 99 00:09:33.820 --> 00:09:39.920 realizing all human ends, whatever they may be, they disagree as to the extent to which 100 00:09:39.920 --> 00:09:44.840 Research, Peaceful Social Cooperation is a suitable means for attaining their ends and 101 00:09:44.840 --> 00:09:48.080 how far it should be resorted to. 102 00:09:48.080 --> 00:09:53.680 Those whom we may call the Harmonists base their arguments on Ricardo's Law of Association 103 00:09:53.680 --> 00:09:56.960 and on Malthus' Principle of Population. 104 00:09:56.960 --> 00:10:03.180 They do not, as some of their critics believe, assume that all men are biologically equal. 105 00:10:03.180 --> 00:10:07.640 They take fully into account the fact that there are innate biological differences among 106 00:10:07.640 --> 00:10:37.640 The Theory of Money and Credit 107 00:10:37.640 --> 00:10:41.840 In any given state of the supply of capital goods and knowledge of how to make the best 108 00:10:41.840 --> 00:10:47.200 use of natural resources, an optimum size of population. 109 00:10:47.200 --> 00:10:53.480 So long as population has not increased beyond this size, the addition of newcomers improves 110 00:10:53.480 --> 00:10:58.460 rather than impairs the conditions of those already cooperating. 111 00:10:58.460 --> 00:11:04.500 In the philosophy of the anti-harmonists, the various schools of nationalism and racism, 112 00:11:04.500 --> 00:11:08.480 Two different lines of reasoning must be distinguished. 113 00:11:08.480 --> 00:11:13.360 One is the doctrine of the irreconcilable antagonism prevailing among various groups, 114 00:11:13.360 --> 00:11:15.840 such as nations or races. 115 00:11:15.840 --> 00:11:21.880 As the anti-harmonists see it, community of interests exists only within the group among 116 00:11:21.880 --> 00:11:23.620 its members. 117 00:11:23.620 --> 00:11:29.440 The interests of each group and of each of its members are implacably opposed to those 118 00:11:29.440 --> 00:11:34.560 is of all other groups and of each of their members. 119 00:11:34.560 --> 00:11:40.200 So it is natural there should be perpetual war among various groups. 120 00:11:40.200 --> 00:11:45.280 This natural state of war of each group against every other group may sometimes be interrupted 121 00:11:45.280 --> 00:11:50.300 by periods of armistice, falsely labeled periods of peace. 122 00:11:50.300 --> 00:11:55.560 It may also happen that sometimes in warfare a group cooperates in alliances with other 123 00:11:55.560 --> 00:11:57.020 groups. 124 00:11:57.020 --> 00:12:01.460 Such alliances are temporary makeshifts of politics. 125 00:12:01.460 --> 00:12:07.020 They do not in the long run affect the inexorable natural conflict of interests. 126 00:12:07.020 --> 00:12:12.420 Having in cooperation with some allied groups defeated several of the hostile groups, the 127 00:12:12.420 --> 00:12:17.540 leading group in the coalition turns against its previous allies in order to annihilate 128 00:12:17.540 --> 00:12:22.740 them too and to establish its own world supremacy. 129 00:12:22.740 --> 00:12:28.300 The second dogma of the nationalist and racist philosophies is considered by its supporters 130 00:12:28.300 --> 00:12:32.860 a logical conclusion derived from their first dogma. 131 00:12:32.860 --> 00:12:39.440 As they see it, human conditions involve forever irreconcilable conflicts, first among the 132 00:12:39.440 --> 00:12:44.820 various groups fighting one another, later, after the final victory of the master group, 133 00:12:44.820 --> 00:12:49.260 between the latter and the enslaved rest of mankind. 134 00:12:49.260 --> 00:12:54.780 Hence this supreme elite group must always be ready to fight, first to crush the rival 135 00:12:54.780 --> 00:12:58.380 groups, then to quell rebellions of the slaves. 136 00:12:58.380 --> 00:13:04.020 The state of perpetual preparedness for war enjoins upon it the necessity of organizing 137 00:13:04.020 --> 00:13:07.340 society after the pattern of an army. 138 00:13:07.340 --> 00:13:13.020 The army is not an instrument destined to serve a body politic, it is rather the very 139 00:13:13.020 --> 00:13:19.700 Essence of Social Cooperation, to which all other social institutions are subservient. 140 00:13:19.700 --> 00:13:25.420 The individuals are not citizens of a commonwealth, they are soldiers of a fighting force, and 141 00:13:25.420 --> 00:13:31.300 as such bound to obey unconditionally the orders issued by the supreme commander. 142 00:13:31.300 --> 00:13:35.020 They have no civil rights, merely military duties. 143 00:13:35.020 --> 00:13:41.500 Thus, even the fact that the immense majority of men look upon social cooperation as the 144 00:13:41.500 --> 00:13:58.440 3. A Remark on the Alleged Medieval Unanimity 145 00:13:58.440 --> 00:14:04.260 In examining the doctrines of eternal absolute values, we must also ask whether it is true 146 00:14:04.260 --> 00:14:09.540 or not that there was a period of history in which all peoples of the West were united 147 00:14:09.540 --> 00:14:14.380 in their acceptance of a uniform system of ethical norms. 148 00:14:14.380 --> 00:14:19.060 Until the beginning of the fourth century, the Christian creed was spread by voluntary 149 00:14:19.060 --> 00:14:20.740 conversions. 150 00:14:20.740 --> 00:14:25.700 There were also later voluntary conversions of individuals and of whole peoples. 151 00:14:25.700 --> 00:14:31.620 But from the days of Theodosius I on, the sword began to play a prominent role in the 152 00:14:31.620 --> 00:14:34.700 dissemination of Christianity. 153 00:14:34.700 --> 00:14:40.760 Christians and heretics were compelled by force of arms to submit to the Christian teachings. 154 00:14:40.760 --> 00:14:46.460 For many centuries religious problems were decided by the outcome of battles and wars. 155 00:14:46.460 --> 00:14:50.860 Military campaigns determined the religious allegiance of nations. 156 00:14:50.860 --> 00:14:56.200 Christians of the East were forced to accept the creed of Mohammed and pagans in Europe 157 00:14:56.200 --> 00:15:00.840 and America were forced to accept the Christian faith. 158 00:15:00.840 --> 00:15:06.780 Their power was instrumental in the struggle between the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. 159 00:15:06.780 --> 00:15:11.560 There was religious uniformity in Europe of the Middle Ages as both paganism and heresies 160 00:15:11.560 --> 00:15:15.240 were eradicated with fire and sword. 161 00:15:15.240 --> 00:15:21.260 All of Western and Central Europe recognized the Pope as the vicar of Christ. 162 00:15:21.260 --> 00:15:26.240 But this did not mean that all people agreed in their judgments of value and in the principles 163 00:15:26.240 --> 00:15:28.520 directing their conduct. 164 00:15:28.520 --> 00:15:34.620 There were few people in medieval Europe who lived according to the precepts of the Gospels. 165 00:15:34.620 --> 00:15:39.160 Much has been said and written about the truly Christian spirit of the code of chivalry and 166 00:15:39.160 --> 00:15:43.920 about the religious idealism that guided the conduct of the knights. 167 00:15:43.920 --> 00:15:50.360 Yet anything less compatible with Luke chapter 6 verses 27 through 29 than the rules of chivalry 168 00:15:50.360 --> 00:15:52.860 can hardly be conceived. 169 00:15:52.860 --> 00:15:57.580 The gallant knights certainly did not love their enemies, they did not bless those who 170 00:15:57.580 --> 00:16:09.580 The Catholic Church had the power to prevent scholars and writers from challenging the 171 00:16:09.580 --> 00:16:15.300 dogmas as defined by the pope and the councils and to force the secular rulers to yield to 172 00:16:15.300 --> 00:16:17.980 some of its political claims. 173 00:16:17.980 --> 00:16:22.920 But it could preserve its position only by condoning conduct on the part of the laity 174 00:16:22.920 --> 00:16:27.700 which defied most if not all of the principles of the Gospels. 175 00:16:27.700 --> 00:16:32.280 The values that determined the actions of the ruling classes were entirely different 176 00:16:32.280 --> 00:16:34.960 from those that the Church preached. 177 00:16:34.960 --> 00:16:40.840 Neither did the peasants comply with Matthew chapter 6 verses 25 through 28, and there 178 00:16:40.840 --> 00:16:47.400 were courts and judges in defiance of Matthew chapter 7 verse 1, Judge not, that you be 179 00:16:47.400 --> 00:16:55.960 4. THE IDEA OF NATURAL LAW 180 00:16:55.960 --> 00:17:01.120 The most momentous attempt to find an absolute and eternal standard of value is presented 181 00:17:01.120 --> 00:17:07.680 by the doctrine of natural law. The term natural law has been claimed by various schools of 182 00:17:07.680 --> 00:17:13.400 philosophy and jurisprudence. Many doctrines have appealed to nature in order to provide 183 00:17:13.400 --> 00:17:16.400 a justification for their postulates. 184 00:17:16.400 --> 00:17:22.340 Many manifestly spurious theses have been advanced under the label of natural law. 185 00:17:22.340 --> 00:17:27.440 It was not difficult to explode the fallacies common to most of these lines of thought, 186 00:17:27.440 --> 00:17:32.040 and it is no wonder that many thinkers become suspicious as soon as natural law is referred 187 00:17:32.040 --> 00:17:33.040 to. 188 00:17:33.040 --> 00:17:38.360 Yet it would be a serious blunder to ignore the fact that all the varieties of the doctrine 189 00:17:38.360 --> 00:17:43.400 contained a sound idea which could neither be compromised by a connection with untenable 190 00:17:43.400 --> 00:17:47.200 vagaries nor discredited by any criticism. 191 00:17:47.200 --> 00:17:52.220 Long before the classical economists discovered that irregularity in the sequence of phenomena 192 00:17:52.220 --> 00:17:57.500 prevails in the field of human action, the champions of natural law were dimly aware 193 00:17:57.500 --> 00:18:00.340 of this inescapable fact. 194 00:18:00.340 --> 00:18:05.560 From the bewildering diversity of doctrines presented under the rubric of natural law, 195 00:18:05.560 --> 00:18:08.600 There finally emerged a set of theorems which no 196 00:18:08.600 --> 00:18:11.880 cavelling can ever invalidate. 197 00:18:11.880 --> 00:18:17.600 There is first the idea that a nature-given order of things exists to which man must adjust 198 00:18:17.600 --> 00:18:20.680 his actions if he wants to succeed. 199 00:18:20.680 --> 00:18:26.240 Second, the only means available to man for the cognizance of this order is thinking and 200 00:18:26.240 --> 00:18:32.160 reasoning and no existing social institution is exempt from being examined and appraised 201 00:18:32.160 --> 00:18:34.200 by discursive reasoning. 202 00:18:34.200 --> 00:18:40.160 Third, there is no standard available for appraising any mode of acting either of individuals 203 00:18:40.160 --> 00:18:45.940 or of groups of individuals, but that of the effects produced by such action. 204 00:18:45.940 --> 00:18:51.400 Carried to its ultimate logical consequences, the idea of natural law led eventually to 205 00:18:51.400 --> 00:18:55.320 rationalism and utilitarianism. 206 00:18:55.320 --> 00:19:00.920 The march of social philosophy toward this inescapable conclusion was slowed down by 207 00:19:00.920 --> 00:19:04.440 by many obstacles which could not be removed easily. 208 00:19:04.440 --> 00:19:10.340 There were numerous pitfalls on the way and many inhibitions hampered the philosophers. 209 00:19:10.340 --> 00:19:15.040 To deal with the vicissitudes of the evolution of these doctrines is a task of the history 210 00:19:15.040 --> 00:19:16.860 of philosophy. 211 00:19:16.860 --> 00:19:22.420 In the context of our investigation, it is enough to mention only two of these problems. 212 00:19:22.420 --> 00:19:27.580 There was the antagonism between the teachings of reason and the dogmas of the church. 213 00:19:27.580 --> 00:19:32.820 Human philosophers were prepared to ascribe unconditional supremacy to the latter. 214 00:19:32.820 --> 00:19:38.460 Truth and certainty, they declared, are to be found only in revelation. 215 00:19:38.460 --> 00:19:44.940 Man's reason can err, and man can never be sure that his speculations were not led astray 216 00:19:44.940 --> 00:19:46.780 by Satan. 217 00:19:46.780 --> 00:19:50.880 Other thinkers did not accept this solution of the antagonism. 218 00:19:50.880 --> 00:19:56.460 To reject reason beforehand was, in their opinion, preposterous. 219 00:19:56.460 --> 00:20:02.680 Reason too stems from God, who endowed man with it, so there can be no genuine contradiction 220 00:20:02.680 --> 00:20:06.620 between dogma and the correct teachings of reason. 221 00:20:06.620 --> 00:20:12.320 It is the task of philosophy to show that ultimately both agree. 222 00:20:12.320 --> 00:20:17.700 The central problem of scholastic philosophy was to demonstrate that human reason, unaided 223 00:20:17.700 --> 00:20:24.300 by revelation and holy writ, taking recourse only to its proper methods of radiosynation, 224 00:20:24.300 --> 00:20:30.340 is capable of proving the apodictic truth of the revealed dogmas, a genuine conflict 225 00:20:30.340 --> 00:20:38.380 of faith and reason does not exist, natural law and divine law do not disagree. 226 00:20:38.380 --> 00:20:44.140 However, this way of dealing with the matter does not remove the antagonism, it merely 227 00:20:44.140 --> 00:20:47.220 shifts it to another field. 228 00:20:47.220 --> 00:20:53.620 The conflict is no longer a conflict between faith and reason, but between Thomist philosophy 229 00:20:53.620 --> 00:20:56.620 and Other Modes of Philosophizing. 230 00:20:56.620 --> 00:21:02.020 We may leave aside the genuine dogmas such as creation, incarnation, the trinity, as 231 00:21:02.020 --> 00:21:06.300 they have no direct bearing on the problems of inter-human relations. 232 00:21:06.300 --> 00:21:12.320 But many issues remain with regard to which most if not all Christian churches and denominations 233 00:21:12.320 --> 00:21:17.580 are not prepared to yield to secular reasoning and an evaluation from the point of view of 234 00:21:17.580 --> 00:21:19.980 social utility. 235 00:21:19.980 --> 00:21:26.340 Thus the recognition of natural law on the part of Christian theology was only conditional. 236 00:21:26.340 --> 00:21:32.020 It referred to a definite type of natural law, not opposed to the teachings of Christ as 237 00:21:32.020 --> 00:21:35.560 each of these churches and denominations interpreted them. 238 00:21:35.560 --> 00:21:39.220 It did not acknowledge the supremacy of reason. 239 00:21:39.220 --> 00:21:44.180 It was incompatible with the principles of utilitarian philosophy. 240 00:21:44.180 --> 00:21:49.140 A second factor that obstructed the evolution of natural law toward a consistent and comprehensive 241 00:21:49.140 --> 00:21:56.380 of System of Human Action, was the erroneous theory of the biological equality of all men. 242 00:21:56.380 --> 00:22:01.300 In repudiating arguments advanced in favor of legal discrimination among men and of a 243 00:22:01.300 --> 00:22:07.860 status society, many advocates of equality before the law overstepped the mark. 244 00:22:07.860 --> 00:22:14.540 To hold that, at birth human infants, regardless of their heredity, are as equal as Fords, 245 00:22:14.540 --> 00:22:21.520 is to deny facts so obvious that it brought the whole philosophy of natural law into disrepute. 246 00:22:21.520 --> 00:22:28.280 In insisting on biological equality, the natural law doctrine pushed aside all the sound arguments 247 00:22:28.280 --> 00:22:32.660 advanced in favor of the principle of equality before the law. 248 00:22:32.660 --> 00:22:38.080 It thus opened the way for the spread of theories advocating all sorts of legal discrimination 249 00:22:38.080 --> 00:22:41.820 against individuals and groups of individuals. 250 00:22:41.820 --> 00:22:45.740 It supplanted the teachings of liberal social philosophy. 251 00:22:45.740 --> 00:22:51.460 Stirring up hatred and violence, foreign wars and domestic revolutions, it prepared mankind 252 00:22:51.460 --> 00:22:56.500 for the acceptance of aggressive nationalism and racism. 253 00:22:56.500 --> 00:23:01.980 The chief accomplishment of the natural law idea was its rejection of the doctrine, sometimes 254 00:23:01.980 --> 00:23:07.660 called legal positivism, according to which the ultimate source of statute law is to be 255 00:23:07.660 --> 00:23:12.580 be seen in the superior military power of the legislator, who is in a position to beat 256 00:23:12.580 --> 00:23:17.380 into submission all those defying his ordinances. 257 00:23:17.380 --> 00:23:22.620 Natural law taught that statutory laws can be bad laws, and it contrasted with the bad 258 00:23:22.620 --> 00:23:27.860 laws, the good laws to which it described divine or natural origin. 259 00:23:27.860 --> 00:23:33.380 But it was an illusion to deny that the best system of laws cannot be put into practice 260 00:23:33.380 --> 00:23:37.620 Progress Unless Supported and Enforced by Military Supremacy 261 00:23:37.620 --> 00:23:42.500 The philosophers shut their eyes to manifest historical facts. 262 00:23:42.500 --> 00:23:47.740 They refused to admit that the causes they considered just made progress only because 263 00:23:47.740 --> 00:23:52.260 their partisans defeated the defenders of the bad causes. 264 00:23:52.260 --> 00:23:58.460 The Christian faith owes its success to a long series of victorious battles and campaigns 265 00:23:58.460 --> 00:24:04.620 from various battles between rival Roman Imperators and Caesars down to the campaigns that opened 266 00:24:04.620 --> 00:24:10.860 the Orient to the activities of missionaries. The cause of American independence triumphed 267 00:24:10.860 --> 00:24:16.620 because the British forces were defeated by the insurgents and the French. It is a sad 268 00:24:16.620 --> 00:24:23.100 truth that Mars is for the big battalions, not for the good causes. 269 00:24:23.100 --> 00:24:29.060 To maintain the opposite opinion implies the belief that the outcome of an armed conflict 270 00:24:29.060 --> 00:24:34.660 is an ordeal by combat in which God always grants victory to the champions of the just 271 00:24:34.660 --> 00:24:36.380 cause. 272 00:24:36.380 --> 00:24:41.420 But such an assumption would annul all the essentials of the doctrine of natural law, 273 00:24:41.420 --> 00:24:47.300 whose basic idea was to contrast to the positive laws promulgated and enforced by those in 274 00:24:47.300 --> 00:24:53.060 power a higher law grounded in the innermost nature of man. 275 00:24:53.060 --> 00:24:58.720 that all these deficiencies and contradictions of the doctrine of natural law must not prevent 276 00:24:58.720 --> 00:25:05.220 us from recognizing its sound nucleus. Hidden in a heap of illusions and quite arbitrary 277 00:25:05.220 --> 00:25:11.640 prepossessions was the idea that every valid law of a country was open to critical examination 278 00:25:11.640 --> 00:25:18.140 by reason. About the standard to be applied in such an examination, the older representatives 279 00:25:18.140 --> 00:25:21.420 Students of the school had only vague notions. 280 00:25:21.420 --> 00:25:25.860 They referred to nature and were reluctant to admit that the ultimate standard of good 281 00:25:25.860 --> 00:25:31.580 and bad must be found in the effects produced by a law. 282 00:25:31.580 --> 00:25:37.680 Utilitarianism finally completed the intellectual evolution inaugurated by the Greek sophists. 283 00:25:37.680 --> 00:25:43.860 But neither utilitarianism nor any of the varieties of the doctrine of natural law could or did 284 00:25:43.860 --> 00:26:13.860 The Theory of Money and Credit 285 00:26:13.860 --> 00:26:34.120 Revealed religion derives its authority and authenticity from the communication to man 286 00:26:34.120 --> 00:26:36.620 of the supreme being's will. 287 00:26:36.620 --> 00:26:39.700 It gives the faithful indisputable certainty. 288 00:26:39.700 --> 00:26:45.340 However, people disagree widely about the content of revealed truth as well as about 289 00:26:45.340 --> 00:26:49.140 its correct, orthodox interpretation. 290 00:26:49.140 --> 00:26:55.180 For all the grandeur, majesty and sublimity of religious feeling, irreconcilable conflict 291 00:26:55.180 --> 00:26:58.880 exists among various faiths and creeds. 292 00:26:58.880 --> 00:27:03.800 Even if unanimity could be attained in matters of the historical authenticity and reliability 293 00:27:03.800 --> 00:27:09.080 of revelation, the problem of the veracity of various exegetic interpretations would 294 00:27:09.080 --> 00:27:11.420 should still remain. 295 00:27:11.420 --> 00:27:17.600 Every faith claims to possess absolute certainty, but no religious faction knows of any peaceful 296 00:27:17.600 --> 00:27:22.940 means that will invariably induce dissenters to divest themselves voluntarily of their 297 00:27:22.940 --> 00:27:26.680 error and to adopt the true creed. 298 00:27:26.680 --> 00:27:31.040 If people of different faiths meet for peaceful discussion of their differences, they can 299 00:27:31.040 --> 00:27:37.280 find no common basis for their colloquy but the statement, By their fruits ye shall know 300 00:27:37.280 --> 00:27:39.040 them. 301 00:27:39.040 --> 00:27:44.720 But this utilitarian device is of no use so long as men disagree about the standard to 302 00:27:44.720 --> 00:27:47.720 be applied in judging the effects. 303 00:27:47.720 --> 00:27:52.720 The religious appeal to absolute eternal values did not do away with conflicting judgments 304 00:27:52.720 --> 00:27:53.980 of value. 305 00:27:53.980 --> 00:27:57.480 It merely resulted in religious wars. 306 00:27:57.480 --> 00:27:59.560 6. 307 00:27:59.560 --> 00:28:03.440 Atheistic Intuition 308 00:28:03.440 --> 00:28:08.080 Other attempts to discover an absolute standard of values were made without reference to a 309 00:28:08.080 --> 00:28:10.480 of Divine Reality. 310 00:28:10.480 --> 00:28:14.760 Emphatically rejecting all traditional religions and claiming for their teachings the epithet 311 00:28:14.760 --> 00:28:20.840 scientific, various writers tried to substitute a new faith for the old ones. 312 00:28:20.840 --> 00:28:26.640 They claimed to know precisely what the mysterious power that directs all cosmic becoming has 313 00:28:26.640 --> 00:28:29.160 in store for mankind. 314 00:28:29.160 --> 00:28:33.280 They proclaimed an absolute standard of values. 315 00:28:33.280 --> 00:28:38.480 Good is what works along the lines that this power wants mankind to follow. 316 00:28:38.480 --> 00:28:41.040 Everything else is bad. 317 00:28:41.040 --> 00:28:49.400 In their vocabulary, progressive is a synonym of good and reactionary a synonym of bad. 318 00:28:49.400 --> 00:28:54.440 Inevitably progress will triumph over reaction because it is impossible for men to divert 319 00:28:54.440 --> 00:29:00.920 the course of history from the direction prescribed by the plan of the mysterious prime mover. 320 00:29:00.920 --> 00:29:08.400 Such is the metaphysics of Karl Marx, the faith of contemporary self-styled progressivism. 321 00:29:08.400 --> 00:29:11.480 Marxism is a revolutionary doctrine. 322 00:29:11.480 --> 00:29:16.600 It expressly declares that the design of the prime mover will be accomplished by civil 323 00:29:16.600 --> 00:29:17.600 war. 324 00:29:17.600 --> 00:29:22.900 It implies that ultimately in the battles of these campaigns the just cause, that is, 325 00:29:22.900 --> 00:29:26.700 the cause of progress, must conquer. 326 00:29:26.700 --> 00:29:31.440 In all conflicts concerning judgments of value will disappear. 327 00:29:31.440 --> 00:29:37.940 The liquidation of all dissenters will establish the undisputed supremacy of the absolute eternal 328 00:29:37.940 --> 00:29:39.340 values. 329 00:29:39.340 --> 00:29:45.180 This formula for the solution of conflicts of value judgments is certainly not new. 330 00:29:45.180 --> 00:29:49.860 It is a device known and practiced from time immemorial. 331 00:29:49.860 --> 00:29:53.540 Kill the infidels, burn the heretics. 332 00:29:53.540 --> 00:29:57.980 What is new is merely the fact that today it is sold to the public under the label of 333 00:29:57.980 --> 00:30:00.220 science. 334 00:30:00.220 --> 00:30:02.660 7. 335 00:30:02.660 --> 00:30:06.500 THE IDEA OF JUSTICE 336 00:30:06.500 --> 00:30:11.980 One of the motives that impel men to search for an absolute and immutable standard of value 337 00:30:11.980 --> 00:30:16.940 is the presumption that peaceful cooperation is possible only among people guided by the 338 00:30:16.940 --> 00:30:19.180 same judgments of value. 339 00:30:19.180 --> 00:30:24.680 It is obvious that social cooperation would not have evolved and could not be preserved 340 00:30:24.680 --> 00:30:29.580 if the immense majority were not to consider it as the means for the attainment of all 341 00:30:29.580 --> 00:30:31.460 their ends. 342 00:30:31.460 --> 00:30:35.980 Striving after the preservation of his own life and health and after the best possible 343 00:30:35.980 --> 00:30:44.460 removal of felt uneasiness, the individual looks upon society as a means, not as an end. 344 00:30:44.460 --> 00:30:49.060 There is no perfect unanimity even with regard to this point. 345 00:30:49.060 --> 00:30:54.580 But we may neglect the descent of the ascetics and the anchorites, not because they are few, 346 00:30:54.580 --> 00:31:00.340 but because their plans are not affected if other people, in the pursuit of their plans, 347 00:31:00.340 --> 00:31:02.500 cooperate in society. 348 00:31:02.500 --> 00:31:07.140 There prevails among the members of society disagreement with regard to the best method 349 00:31:07.140 --> 00:31:09.260 for its organization. 350 00:31:09.260 --> 00:31:14.020 But this is a descent concerning means, not ultimate ends. 351 00:31:14.020 --> 00:31:19.500 The problems involved can be discussed without any reference to judgments of value. 352 00:31:19.500 --> 00:31:24.100 Of course, almost all people guided by the traditional manner of dealing with ethical 353 00:31:24.100 --> 00:31:29.660 precepts preemptorily repudiate such an explanation of the issue. 354 00:31:29.660 --> 00:31:33.500 Social institutions, they assert, must be just. 355 00:31:33.500 --> 00:31:39.100 It is base to judge them merely according to their fitness to attain definite ends, 356 00:31:39.100 --> 00:31:43.540 however desirable these ends may be from any other point of view. 357 00:31:43.540 --> 00:31:46.940 What Matters First is Justice. 358 00:31:46.940 --> 00:31:54.140 The extreme formulation of this idea is to be found in the famous phrase, fiat justitia, 359 00:31:54.140 --> 00:32:01.800 paraat mundus, let justice be done even if it destroys the world. 360 00:32:01.800 --> 00:32:07.780 Most supporters of the postulate of justice will reject this maxim as extravagant, absurd, 361 00:32:07.780 --> 00:32:09.700 and paradoxical. 362 00:32:09.700 --> 00:32:15.740 But it is not more absurd, merely more shocking, than any other reference to an arbitrary notion 363 00:32:15.740 --> 00:32:17.960 of absolute justice. 364 00:32:17.960 --> 00:32:23.820 It clearly shows the fallacies of the methods applied in the discipline of intuitive ethics. 365 00:32:23.820 --> 00:32:30.140 The procedure of this normative quasi-science is to derive certain precepts from intuition 366 00:32:30.140 --> 00:32:34.980 and to deal with them as if their adoption as a guide to action would not affect the 367 00:32:34.980 --> 00:32:39.140 attainment of any other ends considered desirable. 368 00:32:39.140 --> 00:32:45.200 The moralists do not bother about the necessary consequences of the realization of their postulates. 369 00:32:45.200 --> 00:32:50.080 We need not discuss the attitudes of people for whom the appeal to justice is manifestly 370 00:32:50.080 --> 00:32:56.480 a pretext, consciously or subconsciously chosen, to disguise their short-run interests, nor 371 00:32:56.480 --> 00:33:02.060 expose the hypocrisy of such makeshift notions of justice as those involved in the popular 372 00:33:02.060 --> 00:33:06.000 concepts of just prices and fair wages. 373 00:33:06.000 --> 00:33:11.760 The philosophers, who in their treatises of ethics assigned supreme value to justice and 374 00:33:11.760 --> 00:33:18.280 applied the yardstick of justice to all social institutions, were not guilty of such deceit. 375 00:33:18.280 --> 00:33:24.220 They did not support selfish group concerns by declaring them alone just, fair and good 376 00:33:24.220 --> 00:33:29.660 and smear all dissenters by depicting them as the apologists of unfair causes. 377 00:33:29.660 --> 00:33:35.480 They were Platonists who believed that a perennial idea of absolute justice exists and that it 378 00:33:35.480 --> 00:33:42.120 It is the duty of man to organize all human institutions in conformity with this ideal. 379 00:33:42.120 --> 00:33:48.520 Cognition of justice is imparted to man by an inner voice, that is, by intuition. 380 00:33:48.520 --> 00:33:53.080 The champions of this doctrine did not ask what the consequences of realizing the schemes 381 00:33:53.080 --> 00:33:55.960 they called just would be. 382 00:33:55.960 --> 00:34:02.040 They silently assumed either that these consequences will be beneficial or that mankind is bound 383 00:34:02.040 --> 00:34:06.920 to put up even with very painful consequences of justice. 384 00:34:06.920 --> 00:34:11.760 Still less did these teachers of morality pay attention to the fact that people can 385 00:34:11.760 --> 00:34:16.640 and really do disagree with regard to the interpretation of the inner voice and that 386 00:34:16.640 --> 00:34:21.640 no method of peacefully settling such disagreements can be found. 387 00:34:21.640 --> 00:34:26.440 All these ethical doctrines have failed to comprehend that there is, outside of social 388 00:34:26.440 --> 00:34:32.560 Bonds and Proceeding, Temporally or Logically, the Existence of Society, Nothing to Which 389 00:34:32.560 --> 00:34:35.720 the Epithet Just can be Given. 390 00:34:35.720 --> 00:34:41.280 A hypothetical isolated individual must under the pressure of biological competition look 391 00:34:41.280 --> 00:34:45.240 upon all other people as deadly foes. 392 00:34:45.240 --> 00:34:49.880 His only concern is to preserve his own life and health. 393 00:34:49.880 --> 00:34:54.840 He does not need to heed the consequences which his own survival has for other men. 394 00:34:54.840 --> 00:34:58.080 He has no use for justice. 395 00:34:58.080 --> 00:35:02.520 His only solicitudes are hygiene and defense. 396 00:35:02.520 --> 00:35:08.000 But in social cooperation with other men, the individual is forced to abstain from conduct 397 00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:11.660 incompatible with life and society. 398 00:35:11.660 --> 00:35:17.360 Only then does the distinction between what is just and what is unjust emerge. 399 00:35:17.360 --> 00:35:21.860 It invariably refers to inter-human social relations. 400 00:35:21.860 --> 00:35:26.540 What is beneficial to the individual without affecting his fellows, such as the observance 401 00:35:26.540 --> 00:35:31.380 of certain rules in the use of some drugs, remains hygiene. 402 00:35:31.380 --> 00:35:38.940 The ultimate yardstick of justice is conduciveness to the preservation of social cooperation. 403 00:35:38.940 --> 00:35:43.320 Conduct suited to preserve social cooperation is just. 404 00:35:43.320 --> 00:35:48.100 Conduct detrimental to the preservation of society is unjust. 405 00:35:48.100 --> 00:35:52.420 There cannot be any question of organizing society according to the postulates of an 406 00:35:52.420 --> 00:35:56.300 arbitrary preconceived idea of justice. 407 00:35:56.300 --> 00:36:01.820 The problem is to organize society for the best possible realization of those ends which 408 00:36:01.820 --> 00:36:05.780 men want to attain by social cooperation. 409 00:36:05.780 --> 00:36:09.500 Social utility is the only standard of justice. 410 00:36:09.500 --> 00:36:12.220 It is the sole guide of legislation. 411 00:36:12.220 --> 00:36:17.980 Thus, there are no irreconcilable conflicts between selfishness and altruism, between 412 00:36:17.980 --> 00:36:24.900 economics and ethics, between the concerns of the individual and those of society. 413 00:36:24.900 --> 00:36:30.780 Utilitarian philosophy and its finest product, economics, reduced these apparent antagonisms 414 00:36:30.780 --> 00:36:35.620 to the opposition of short-run and long-run interests. 415 00:36:35.620 --> 00:36:40.380 Society could not have come into existence or been preserved without a harmony of the 416 00:36:40.380 --> 00:36:44.180 and the rightly understood interests of all its members. 417 00:36:44.180 --> 00:36:49.340 There is only one way of dealing with all problems of social organization and the conduct 418 00:36:49.340 --> 00:36:56.180 of the members of society, namely, the method applied by praxeology and economics. 419 00:36:56.180 --> 00:37:01.340 No other method can contribute anything to the elucidation of these matters. 420 00:37:01.340 --> 00:37:08.180 The concept of justice as employed by jurisprudence refers to legality, that is, to legitimacy 421 00:37:08.180 --> 00:37:11.780 from the point of view of the valid statutes of a country. 422 00:37:11.780 --> 00:37:14.960 It means justice de lega lata. 423 00:37:14.960 --> 00:37:21.220 The science of law has nothing to say de lega ferenda, that is, about the laws as they ought 424 00:37:21.220 --> 00:37:22.980 to be. 425 00:37:22.980 --> 00:37:29.580 To enact new laws and to repeal old laws is the task of the legislature, whose sole criterion 426 00:37:29.580 --> 00:37:31.820 is social utility. 427 00:37:31.820 --> 00:37:38.140 The assistance the legislator can expect from lawyers refers only to matters of legal technique, 428 00:37:38.140 --> 00:37:54.900 8. THE UTILITARIAN DOCTRINE RESTATED 429 00:37:54.900 --> 00:38:00.140 The essential teachings of utilitarian philosophy as applied to the problems of society can 430 00:38:00.140 --> 00:38:06.680 be restated as follows. Human effort exerted under the principle of the division of labor 431 00:38:06.680 --> 00:38:12.800 and Social Cooperation achieves, other things remaining equal, a greater output per unit 432 00:38:12.800 --> 00:38:17.320 of input than the isolated efforts of solitary individuals. 433 00:38:17.320 --> 00:38:24.160 Man's reason is capable of recognizing this fact and of adapting his conduct accordingly. 434 00:38:24.160 --> 00:38:30.560 Thus, social cooperation becomes for almost every man the great means for the attainment 435 00:38:30.560 --> 00:38:33.000 of all ends. 436 00:38:33.000 --> 00:38:39.720 An eminently human common interest, the preservation and intensification of social bonds, is substituted 437 00:38:39.720 --> 00:38:46.240 for pitiless biological competition, the significant mark of animal and plant life. 438 00:38:46.240 --> 00:38:49.000 Man becomes a social being. 439 00:38:49.000 --> 00:38:54.080 He is no longer forced by the inevitable laws of nature to look upon all other specimens 440 00:38:54.080 --> 00:38:57.820 of his animal species as deadly foes. 441 00:38:57.820 --> 00:39:00.560 Other people become his fellows. 442 00:39:00.560 --> 00:39:05.620 For animals, the generation of every new member of the species means the appearance of a new 443 00:39:05.620 --> 00:39:08.400 rival in the struggle for life. 444 00:39:08.400 --> 00:39:14.460 For man, until the optimum size of population is reached, it means rather an improvement 445 00:39:14.460 --> 00:39:19.120 than a deterioration in his quest for material well-being. 446 00:39:19.120 --> 00:39:25.420 Notwithstanding all his social achievements, man remains in biological structure a mammal. 447 00:39:25.420 --> 00:39:30.700 His most urgent needs are nourishment, warmth, and shelter. 448 00:39:30.700 --> 00:39:35.660 Only when these wants are satisfied can he concern himself with other needs, peculiar 449 00:39:35.660 --> 00:39:40.820 to the human species and therefore called specifically human or higher needs. 450 00:39:40.820 --> 00:39:47.300 Also, the satisfaction of these depends as a rule, at least to some extent, on the availability 451 00:39:47.300 --> 00:39:50.580 of various material tangible things. 452 00:39:50.580 --> 00:39:57.380 As social cooperation is for acting man a means and not an end, no unanimity with regard 453 00:39:57.380 --> 00:40:01.300 to value judgments is required to make it work. 454 00:40:01.300 --> 00:40:07.260 It is a fact that almost all men agree in aiming at certain ends, at those pleasures 455 00:40:07.260 --> 00:40:12.220 which ivory tower moralists disdain as base and shabby. 456 00:40:12.220 --> 00:40:17.420 But it is no less a fact that even the most sublime ends cannot be sought by people who 457 00:40:17.420 --> 00:40:24.660 To have not first satisfied the wants of their animal body, the loftiest exploits of philosophy, 458 00:40:24.660 --> 00:40:31.620 art and literature would never have been performed by men living outside of society. 459 00:40:31.620 --> 00:40:36.180 Moralists praise the nobility of people who seek a thing for its own sake. 460 00:40:36.180 --> 00:40:43.580 Deutsch sein heißt eine Sache um ihre selbst willen tun, declared Richard Wagner, and the 461 00:40:43.580 --> 00:40:50.140 The Nazis, of all people, adopted the dictum as a fundamental principle of their creed. 462 00:40:50.140 --> 00:40:55.180 Now what is sought as an ultimate end is valued according to the immediate satisfaction to 463 00:40:55.180 --> 00:40:57.820 be derived from its attainment. 464 00:40:57.820 --> 00:41:03.380 There is no harm in declaring elliptically that it is sought for its own sake. 465 00:41:03.380 --> 00:41:10.060 Then Wagner's phrase is reduced to the truism, ultimate ends are ends and not means for the 466 00:41:10.060 --> 00:41:14.380 The Attainment of Other Ends 467 00:41:14.380 --> 00:41:20.340 Moralists furthermore level against utilitarianism the charge of ethical materialism. 468 00:41:20.340 --> 00:41:24.260 Here too they misconstrue the utilitarian doctrine. 469 00:41:24.260 --> 00:41:30.460 Its gist is the cognition that action pursues definite chosen ends and that consequently 470 00:41:30.460 --> 00:41:36.020 there can be no other standard for appraising conduct but the desirability or undesirability 471 00:41:36.020 --> 00:41:38.380 of its effects. 472 00:41:38.380 --> 00:41:45.200 The precepts of ethics are designed to preserve, not to destroy, the world. 473 00:41:45.200 --> 00:41:50.780 They may call upon people to put up with undesirable short-run effects in order to avoid producing 474 00:41:50.780 --> 00:41:57.280 still more undesirable long-run effects, but they must never recommend actions whose effects 475 00:41:57.280 --> 00:42:03.700 they themselves deem undesirable for the sole purpose of not defying an arbitrary rule derived 476 00:42:03.700 --> 00:42:05.760 from intuition. 477 00:42:05.760 --> 00:42:14.560 The formula fiat justitia para at mundus is exploded as sheer nonsense. An ethical doctrine 478 00:42:14.560 --> 00:42:21.900 that does not take into full account the effects of action is mere fancy. Utilitarianism does 479 00:42:21.900 --> 00:42:27.340 not teach that people should strive only after sensuous pleasure, though it recognizes that 480 00:42:27.340 --> 00:42:32.820 most or at least many people behave in this way. Neither does it indulge in judgments 481 00:42:32.820 --> 00:42:34.600 of Value. 482 00:42:34.600 --> 00:42:40.180 By its recognition that social cooperation is for the immense majority a means for attaining 483 00:42:40.180 --> 00:42:46.460 all their ends, it dispels the notion that society, the state, the nation, or any other 484 00:42:46.460 --> 00:42:53.700 social entity, is an ultimate end and that individual men are the slaves of that entity. 485 00:42:53.700 --> 00:42:59.720 It rejects the philosophies of universalism, collectivism, and totalitarianism. 486 00:42:59.720 --> 00:43:06.760 In this sense, it is meaningful to call utilitarianism a philosophy of individualism. 487 00:43:06.760 --> 00:43:12.760 The collectivist doctrine fails to recognize that social cooperation is for man a means 488 00:43:12.760 --> 00:43:16.360 for the attainment of all his ends. 489 00:43:16.360 --> 00:43:21.640 It assumes that irreconcilable conflict prevails between the interests of the collective and 490 00:43:21.640 --> 00:43:27.320 those of individuals, and in this conflict it sides unconditionally with the collective 491 00:43:27.320 --> 00:43:29.200 entity. 492 00:43:29.200 --> 00:43:32.760 The collective alone has real existence. 493 00:43:32.760 --> 00:43:37.760 The individual's existence is conditioned by that of the collective. 494 00:43:37.760 --> 00:43:42.660 The collective is perfect and can do no wrong. 495 00:43:42.660 --> 00:43:45.360 Individuals are wretched and refractory. 496 00:43:45.360 --> 00:43:50.880 Their obstinacy must be curbed by the authority to which God or nature has entrusted the conduct 497 00:43:50.880 --> 00:43:53.680 of society's affairs. 498 00:43:53.680 --> 00:43:59.600 The powers that be, says the apostle Paul, are ordained of God. 499 00:43:59.600 --> 00:44:05.440 They are ordained by nature or by the superhuman factor that directs the course of all cosmic 500 00:44:05.440 --> 00:44:09.280 events, say the atheist collectivist. 501 00:44:09.280 --> 00:44:11.880 Two questions immediately arise. 502 00:44:11.880 --> 00:44:16.920 First, if it were true that the interests of the collective and those of individuals 503 00:44:16.920 --> 00:44:22.720 are implacably opposed to one another, how could society function? 504 00:44:22.720 --> 00:44:27.240 One may assume that the individuals would be prevented by force of arms from resorting 505 00:44:27.240 --> 00:44:32.560 to open rebellion, but it cannot be assumed that their active cooperation could be secured 506 00:44:32.560 --> 00:44:34.760 by mere compulsion. 507 00:44:34.760 --> 00:44:41.800 A system of production in which the only incentive to work is the fear of punishment cannot last. 508 00:44:41.800 --> 00:44:47.520 It was this fact that made slavery disappear as a system of managing production. 509 00:44:47.520 --> 00:44:53.360 Second, if the collective is not a means by which individuals may achieve their ends, 510 00:44:53.360 --> 00:44:58.140 if the collective's flowering requires sacrifices by the individuals which are not outweighed 511 00:44:58.140 --> 00:45:04.280 by advantages derived from social cooperation, what prompts the advocate of collectivism 512 00:45:04.280 --> 00:45:09.280 to assign to the concerns of the collective precedents over the personal wishes of the 513 00:45:09.280 --> 00:45:10.600 individuals? 514 00:45:10.600 --> 00:45:15.840 Can any argument be advanced for such exaltation of the collective but personal judgments of 515 00:45:15.840 --> 00:45:17.280 value? 516 00:45:17.280 --> 00:45:23.160 Of course, everybody's judgments of value are personal. If a man assigns a higher value 517 00:45:23.160 --> 00:45:28.520 to the concerns of a collective than to his other concerns and acts accordingly, that 518 00:45:28.520 --> 00:45:35.320 is his affair. So long as the collectivist philosophers proceed in this way, no objection 519 00:45:35.320 --> 00:45:41.480 can be raised, but they argue differently. They elevate their personal judgments of value 520 00:45:41.480 --> 00:45:47.160 to the dignity of an absolute standard of value. They urge other people to stop valuing 521 00:45:47.160 --> 00:45:52.060 Banking according to their own will and to adopt unconditionally the precepts to which 522 00:45:52.060 --> 00:45:56.500 collectivism has assigned absolute eternal validity. 523 00:45:56.500 --> 00:46:01.860 The futility and arbitrariness of the collectivist point of view becomes still more evident when 524 00:46:01.860 --> 00:46:07.260 one recalls that various collectivist parties compete for the exclusive allegiance of the 525 00:46:07.260 --> 00:46:08.940 individuals. 526 00:46:08.940 --> 00:46:14.360 Even if they employ the same word for their collectivist ideal, various writers and leaders 527 00:46:14.360 --> 00:46:19.220 The researchers disagree on the essential features of the thing they have in mind. 528 00:46:19.220 --> 00:46:24.900 The state which Ferdinand LaSalle called God and to which he assigned paramountcy was not 529 00:46:24.900 --> 00:46:31.420 precisely the collectivist idol of Hegel and Stahl, the state of the Hohenzollern. 530 00:46:31.420 --> 00:46:37.980 Is mankind as a whole the sole legitimate collective or is each of the various nations? 531 00:46:37.980 --> 00:46:43.660 Is the collective to which the German-speaking Swiss a exclusive allegiance, the Swiss Confederacy 532 00:46:43.660 --> 00:46:48.420 or the Volksgemeinschaft comprising all German-speaking men? 533 00:46:48.420 --> 00:46:53.380 All major social entities such as nations, linguistic groups, religious communities, 534 00:46:53.380 --> 00:46:58.340 party organizations have been elevated to the dignity of the supreme collective that 535 00:46:58.340 --> 00:47:03.580 overshadows all other collectives and claims the submission of the whole personality of 536 00:47:03.580 --> 00:47:06.380 all right-thinking men. 537 00:47:06.380 --> 00:47:10.900 But an individual can renounce autonomous action and unconditionally surrender his 538 00:47:40.900 --> 00:48:07.820 Collectivism is a doctrine of war, intolerance, and persecution. 539 00:48:07.820 --> 00:48:13.140 If any of the collectivist creeds should succeed in its endeavors, all people but the great 540 00:48:13.140 --> 00:48:17.460 dictator would be deprived of their essential human quality. 541 00:48:17.460 --> 00:48:22.180 They would become mere soulless pawns in the hands of a monster. 542 00:48:22.180 --> 00:48:27.380 The characteristic feature of a free society is that it can function in spite of the fact 543 00:48:27.380 --> 00:48:31.740 that its members disagree in many judgments of value. 544 00:48:31.740 --> 00:48:37.380 In the market economy, business serves not only the majority but also various minorities, 545 00:48:37.380 --> 00:48:57.100 9. 546 00:48:57.100 --> 00:49:00.480 On Aesthetic Values 547 00:49:00.480 --> 00:49:05.780 The quest for absolute standards of value was not limited to the field of ethics. 548 00:49:05.780 --> 00:49:09.180 and concerned aesthetic values as well. 549 00:49:09.180 --> 00:49:14.620 In ethics, a common ground for the choice of rules of conduct is given so far as people 550 00:49:14.620 --> 00:49:19.680 agree in considering the preservation of social cooperation, the foremost means for 551 00:49:19.680 --> 00:49:21.620 attaining all their ends. 552 00:49:21.620 --> 00:49:28.420 Thus, virtually any controversy concerning the rules of conduct refers to means and not 553 00:49:28.420 --> 00:49:30.260 to ends. 554 00:49:30.260 --> 00:49:35.300 It is consequently possible to appraise these rules from the point of view of their adequacy 555 00:49:35.300 --> 00:49:38.500 for the Peaceful Functioning of Society. 556 00:49:38.500 --> 00:49:43.340 Even rigid supporters of an intuitionist ethics could not help eventually resorting to an 557 00:49:43.340 --> 00:49:49.020 appraisal of conduct from the point of view of its effects upon human happiness. 558 00:49:49.020 --> 00:49:52.300 It is different with aesthetic judgments of value. 559 00:49:52.300 --> 00:49:57.220 In this field there is no such agreement as prevails with regard to the insight that social 560 00:49:57.220 --> 00:50:02.660 cooperation is the foremost means for the attainment of all ends. 561 00:50:02.660 --> 00:50:08.500 All disagreement here invariably concerns judgments of value, none the choice of means for the 562 00:50:08.500 --> 00:50:11.460 realization of an end agreed upon. 563 00:50:11.460 --> 00:50:15.060 There is no way to reconcile conflicting judgments. 564 00:50:15.060 --> 00:50:20.780 There is no standard by which a verdict of, it pleases me, or, it does not please me, 565 00:50:20.780 --> 00:50:22.820 can be rectified. 566 00:50:22.820 --> 00:50:28.580 The unfortunate propensity to hypostatize various aspects of human thinking and acting 567 00:50:28.580 --> 00:50:33.540 has led to attempts to provide a definition of beauty and then to apply this arbitrary 568 00:50:33.540 --> 00:50:35.860 concept as a measure. 569 00:50:35.860 --> 00:50:41.860 However, there is no acceptable definition of beauty but that which pleases. 570 00:50:41.860 --> 00:50:46.680 There are no norms of beauty, and there is no such thing as a normative discipline of 571 00:50:46.680 --> 00:50:48.540 aesthetics. 572 00:50:48.540 --> 00:50:52.640 All that a professional critic of art and literature can say apart from historical and 573 00:50:52.640 --> 00:50:57.420 technical observations is that he likes or dislikes a work. 574 00:50:57.420 --> 00:51:03.620 The work may stir him to profound commentaries and disquisitions, but his judgments of value 575 00:51:03.620 --> 00:51:10.140 remain personal and subjective, and do not necessarily affect the judgments of other people. 576 00:51:10.140 --> 00:51:14.940 A discerning person will note with interest what a thoughtful writer says about the impression 577 00:51:14.940 --> 00:51:20.580 a work of art made upon him, but it depends upon a man's own discretion whether or not 578 00:51:20.580 --> 00:51:25.740 he will let his own judgment be influenced by that of other men, however excellent they 579 00:51:25.740 --> 00:51:27.780 They May Be 580 00:51:27.780 --> 00:51:33.380 The enjoyment of art and literature presupposes a certain disposition and susceptibility on 581 00:51:33.380 --> 00:51:39.980 the part of the public. Taste is inborn to only a few. Others must 582 00:51:39.980 --> 00:51:45.380 cultivate their aptitude for enjoyment. There are many things a man must learn and experience 583 00:51:45.380 --> 00:51:51.700 in order to become a connoisseur. But however a man may shine, as a well-informed expert, 584 00:51:51.700 --> 00:51:56.340 His judgments of value remain personal and subjective. 585 00:51:56.340 --> 00:52:01.940 The most eminent critics and, for that matter, also the most noted writers, poets and artists 586 00:52:01.940 --> 00:52:07.060 widely disagreed in their appreciation of the most famous masterpieces. 587 00:52:07.060 --> 00:52:12.180 Only stilted pedants can conceive the idea that there are absolute norms to tell what 588 00:52:12.180 --> 00:52:14.900 is beautiful and what is not. 589 00:52:14.900 --> 00:52:20.200 They try to derive from the works of the past a code of rules with which, as they fancy, 590 00:52:20.200 --> 00:52:25.800 The writers and artists of the future should comply, but the genius does not cooperate 591 00:52:25.800 --> 00:52:28.160 with the pundit. 592 00:52:28.160 --> 00:52:30.160 10. 593 00:52:30.160 --> 00:52:35.720 THE HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE QUEST FOR ABSOLUTE VALUES 594 00:52:35.720 --> 00:52:40.280 The value controversy is not a scholastic quarrel of interest only to hair-splitting 595 00:52:40.280 --> 00:52:41.780 dons. 596 00:52:41.780 --> 00:52:45.680 It touches upon the vital issues of human life. 597 00:52:45.680 --> 00:52:51.140 The world view that was displaced by modern rationalism did not tolerate dissenting judgments 598 00:52:51.140 --> 00:52:52.840 of value. 599 00:52:52.840 --> 00:52:58.080 The mere fact of dissent was considered an insolent provocation, a mortal outrage to 600 00:52:58.080 --> 00:53:00.080 one's own feelings. 601 00:53:00.080 --> 00:53:03.300 Protracted religious wars resulted. 602 00:53:03.300 --> 00:53:08.280 Although some intolerance, bigotry and lust for persecution is still left in religious 603 00:53:08.280 --> 00:53:14.120 matters, it is unlikely that religious passion will kindle wars in the near future. 604 00:53:14.120 --> 00:53:19.120 The aggressive spirit of our age stems from another source, from endeavors to make the 605 00:53:19.120 --> 00:53:25.260 state totalitarian and to deprive the individual of autonomy. 606 00:53:25.260 --> 00:53:29.960 It is true that the supporters of socialist and interventionist programs recommend them 607 00:53:29.960 --> 00:53:36.080 only as a means to attain ends which they have in common with all other members of society. 608 00:53:36.080 --> 00:53:40.880 They hold that a society organized according to their principles will best supply people 609 00:53:40.880 --> 00:53:45.000 with those material goods they toil to acquire. 610 00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:50.400 What more desirable societal state of affairs can be thought of than that higher phase of 611 00:53:50.400 --> 00:53:57.160 communist society in which, as Marx told us, society will give to each according to his 612 00:53:57.160 --> 00:53:58.160 needs? 613 00:53:58.160 --> 00:54:03.720 However, the socialists failed entirely in attempts to prove their case. 614 00:54:03.720 --> 00:54:08.400 Marx was at a loss to refute the well-founded objections that were raised even in his time 615 00:54:08.400 --> 00:54:13.920 about the minor difficulties of the socialist schemes, it was his helplessness in this 616 00:54:13.920 --> 00:54:19.880 regard that prompted him to develop the three fundamental doctrines of his dogmatism. 617 00:54:19.880 --> 00:54:26.020 When economics later demonstrated why a socialist order, necessarily lacking any method of economic 618 00:54:26.020 --> 00:54:32.040 calculation, could never function as an economic system, all arguments advanced in favor of 619 00:54:32.040 --> 00:54:35.080 the Great Reform, collapsed. 620 00:54:35.080 --> 00:54:40.720 From that time on, socialists no longer based their hopes upon the power of their arguments 621 00:54:40.720 --> 00:54:45.040 but upon the resentment, envy, and hatred of the masses. 622 00:54:45.040 --> 00:54:52.740 Today, even the adepts of scientific socialism rely exclusively upon these emotional factors. 623 00:54:52.740 --> 00:54:59.020 The basis of contemporary socialism and interventionism is judgment of value. 624 00:54:59.020 --> 00:55:04.680 Socialism is praised as the only fair variety of society's economic organization. 625 00:55:04.680 --> 00:55:11.500 All socialists, Marxians as well as non-Marxians, advocate socialism as the only system consonant 626 00:55:11.500 --> 00:55:15.900 with the scale of arbitrarily established absolute values. 627 00:55:15.900 --> 00:55:21.500 These values, they claim, are the only values that are valid for all decent people, foremost 628 00:55:21.500 --> 00:55:26.620 among them the workers, the majority in a modern industrial society. 629 00:55:26.620 --> 00:55:31.820 They are considered absolute because they are supported by the majority, and the majority 630 00:55:31.820 --> 00:55:34.380 is always right. 631 00:55:34.380 --> 00:55:39.080 A rather superficial and shallow view of the problems of government saw the distinction 632 00:55:39.080 --> 00:55:45.660 between freedom and despotism in an outward feature of the system of rule and administration, 633 00:55:45.660 --> 00:55:50.600 namely in the number of people exercising direct control of the social apparatus of 634 00:55:50.600 --> 00:55:53.680 coercion and compulsion. 635 00:55:53.680 --> 00:55:58.520 Such a numerical standard is the basis of Aristotle's famous classification of the various 636 00:55:58.520 --> 00:56:00.460 forms of government. 637 00:56:00.460 --> 00:56:06.100 The concepts of monarchy, oligarchy and democracy still preserve this way of dealing with the 638 00:56:06.100 --> 00:56:12.300 matter. Yet its inadequacy is so obvious that no philosopher could avoid referring to facts 639 00:56:12.300 --> 00:56:17.700 which did not agree with it and therefore were considered paradoxical. There was for 640 00:56:17.700 --> 00:56:23.900 instance the fact already well recognized by Greek authors that tyranny was often or 641 00:56:23.900 --> 00:56:30.120 even regularly supported by the masses and was in this sense popular government. Modern 642 00:56:30.120 --> 00:56:34.880 Modern writers have employed the term Caesarism for this type of government and have continued 643 00:56:34.880 --> 00:56:40.760 to look upon it as an exceptional case conditioned by peculiar circumstances, but they have been 644 00:56:40.760 --> 00:56:45.880 at a loss to explain satisfactorily what made the conditions exceptional. 645 00:56:45.880 --> 00:56:51.960 Yet fascinated by the traditional classification, people acquiesced in this superficial interpretation 646 00:56:51.960 --> 00:56:57.660 as long as it seemed that it had to explain only one case in modern European history, 647 00:56:57.660 --> 00:57:03.820 of the Second French Empire. The final collapse of the Aristotelian doctrine came only when 648 00:57:03.820 --> 00:57:10.860 it had to face the dictatorship of the proletariat and the autocracy of Hitler, Mussolini, Perone 649 00:57:10.860 --> 00:57:17.380 and other modern successors of the Greek tyrants. The way toward a realistic distinction between 650 00:57:17.380 --> 00:57:23.540 freedom and bondage was opened two hundred years ago by David Hume's Immortal Essay 651 00:57:23.540 --> 00:57:30.780 on the First Principles of Government. Government, taught Hume, is always government of the many 652 00:57:30.780 --> 00:57:37.300 by the few. Power is therefore always ultimately on the side of the governed, and the governors 653 00:57:37.300 --> 00:57:44.060 have nothing to support them but opinion. This cognition, logically followed to its 654 00:57:44.060 --> 00:57:50.560 conclusion, completely changed the discussion concerning liberty. The mechanical and arithmetical 655 00:57:50.560 --> 00:58:16.880 The struggle for freedom is ultimately not resistance to autocrats or oligarchs but 656 00:58:16.880 --> 00:58:22.840 Resistance to the Despotism of Public Opinion. It is not the struggle of the many against 657 00:58:22.840 --> 00:58:30.560 the few, but of minorities, sometimes of a minority of but one man, against the majority. 658 00:58:30.560 --> 00:58:37.400 The worst and most dangerous form of absolutist rule is that of an intolerant majority. Such 659 00:58:37.400 --> 00:58:42.440 is the conclusion arrived at by Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill. 660 00:58:42.440 --> 00:58:47.480 In his essay on Bentham, Mill pointed out why this eminent philosopher failed to see 661 00:58:47.480 --> 00:58:53.320 the real issue and why his doctrine found acceptance with some of the noblest spirits. 662 00:58:53.320 --> 00:58:59.840 Bentham, he says, lived, in a time of reaction against the aristocratic governments of modern 663 00:58:59.840 --> 00:59:01.360 Europe. 664 00:59:01.360 --> 00:59:07.480 The reformers of his age have been accustomed to see the numerical majority everywhere unjustly 665 00:59:07.480 --> 00:59:09.480 The Theory of Money and Credit 666 00:59:37.480 --> 00:59:42.480 has not been going on, wherever it has been terminated by the complete victory of one 667 00:59:42.480 --> 00:59:48.480 of the contending principles and no new contest has taken the place of the old, society has 668 00:59:48.480 --> 00:59:55.080 either hardened into Chinese stationeriness or fallen into dissolution. 669 00:59:55.080 --> 01:00:00.800 Much of what was sound in Bentham's political doctrines was slighted by his contemporaries, 670 01:00:00.800 --> 01:00:06.040 was denied by later generations and had little practical influence. 671 01:00:06.040 --> 01:00:12.160 And his failure to distinguish correctly between despotism and liberty was accepted with alt-qualms 672 01:00:12.160 --> 01:00:15.340 by most nineteenth-century writers. 673 01:00:15.340 --> 01:00:22.360 In their eyes, true liberty meant the unbridled despotism of the majority. 674 01:00:22.360 --> 01:00:27.480 Lacking the power to think logically, and ignorant of history as well as of theory, 675 01:00:27.480 --> 01:00:32.240 the much-admired progressive writers gave up the essential idea of the Enlightenment 676 01:00:32.240 --> 01:00:36.500 Kant, Freedom of Thought, Speech and Communication. 677 01:00:36.500 --> 01:00:40.880 Not all of them were so outspoken as Kant and Lenin. 678 01:00:40.880 --> 01:00:46.400 But they all, in declaring that freedom means only the right to say the correct things, 679 01:00:46.400 --> 01:00:51.440 not also the right to say the wrong things, virtually converted the ideas of freedom of 680 01:00:51.440 --> 01:00:55.100 thought and conscience into their opposite. 681 01:00:55.100 --> 01:01:00.500 It was not the syllabus of Pope Pius IX that paved the way for the return of intolerance 682 01:01:00.500 --> 01:01:06.580 Socialists and the Persecution of Dissenters, it was the writings of the socialists. 683 01:01:06.580 --> 01:01:12.180 After a short-lived triumph of the idea of freedom, bondage made a comeback disguised 684 01:01:12.180 --> 01:01:18.000 as a consummation and completion of the philosophy of freedom as the finishing of the unfinished 685 01:01:18.000 --> 01:01:23.440 revolution as the final emancipation of the individual. 686 01:01:23.440 --> 01:01:30.140 The concept of absolute and eternal values is an indispensable element in this totalitarian 687 01:01:30.140 --> 01:01:34.920 A new notion of truth was established. 688 01:01:34.920 --> 01:01:39.300 Truth is what those in power declare to be true. 689 01:01:39.300 --> 01:01:45.460 The dissenting minority is undemocratic because it refuses to accept as true the opinion of 690 01:01:45.460 --> 01:01:47.260 the majority. 691 01:01:47.260 --> 01:01:54.260 All means to liquidate such rebellious scoundrels are democratic and therefore morally good.