Handle’s take on rights and consequentialism.
One Hayekian / meta-consequentialist justification for rigid, ‘deontological’-like rights is that without them there is no good way for individuals to plan while trusting in the long-term, reliable predictability of a set of basic rules that governs the way the state and ones compatriots will treat them, and this lack of confidence reduces incentives to engage in socially beneficial activity and increases inefficient expenditures of resources on hedging, security, evasion, and rent-seeking.
What appears to be a local, short term utilitarian transfer can also be at odds with the best way we have learned from experience of how to enable and incentivize long-term growth and human flourishing, given the intractable philosophical and practical complexity of making these kinds of welfare calculations and forecasts.
And the only way to make people really believe that these rules are stable enough and will be honored and maintained despite short term political temptations is to successfully propagate a belief that these rights are near-sacred and somehow transcend the domain of what is normally up for debate and reform.
Unfortunately the political incentive to attack such sacred principles in a democracy is irresistible, and so long as influential and prestigious elites are permitted the freedom to publicly critique those principles and lower their status, then the slide toward increasing state interference is inevitable.
“…so long as influential and prestigious elites are permitted the freedom to publicly critique those principles and lower their status, then the slide toward increasing state interference is inevitable.”
So it sounds like you are stuck. Either you adhere to said principles and “elites” will ruin everything, or you don’t permit elites to publicly critique those principles, which, of course, is a massive violation of those principles.
Hayek wouldn’t agree that universal suffrage democracy is one of those principles.
That’s quite a stretch. I doubt Hayek would have been in favor of granting voting rights and free speech only to those who don’t complain, and if he was, well, then he’s got some creepy opinions, but that’s his right to say.
It’s silly for that paragraph to expiate on what is and what is not inevitable. Yes elites have the power to entrench their interest — and the world has gotten better over the long run.
Every generation must grapple with its own problems and find solutions. We are lucky that we “only” need to restore an idealised version of Enlightenment liberalism that nations like the USA were founded upon.
This is saying there is political justification in a rights regime, but not epistemic justification for individuals rights themselves. The rules are pretty much arbitrary (to the degree there are more than one way to effectively organization society), and it is the stability that matters. It is pretty much what error theorists say about morality – if moral thoughts didn’t “feel” universal, binding, etc them they wouldn’t be doing their job keeping a relatively orderly society. Political “rights” serve the same purpose
In mathematics Jacobi urged “inversion” as an approach to solutions of problems. So, let us “invert” what we class as “rights.”
“Rights” are matters of human relationships, not abstracts.
The inverse of rights are OBLIGATIONS.
It is those obligations that are perceived as “deontic” (though often performed as consequentially driven), rather than the objective “rights.” Considering a right as “deontic” basically considers the necessary obligations of others (who ought to recognize and accept that right) which is deontic.
Of course, obligations in the relationships contexts may often be individual self-constraints; things one ought or ought not to do.
Thus, if we “invert” and consider relationships from obligations first, instead of from concepts of abstract rights first, we may find more, or more satisfying solutions to many of our issues.
Study; not who has what rights and what the rights are; but what must be the obligations, who has them and in what contexts – and why.
A different thought –
Species and Societies are subject to enourmous selection pressures (natural or not.) We may judge the soundness of a set of “rights” and “obligations” and for that matter “conventions of behavoir” by how well the Society fares under the selection pressures it faces.
Autocratic Communist Socities have pretty conclusively demonstrated that they cannot hold their own with Cronyist Capitalists, let alone high forms of free society. Democratic Socialists with contact with reality seem to have conclusively demonstrated they will fare vastly better than Dranged Autocrats even when those Autocrats have Socialist (or other “Populist”) trappings.
But none of this assures good treatment for any particular person or group. It just assures that the very worst structures won’t fare as well over time as the best structures. Hence outright slavery did eventually end throughout most of the world, albeit it very very slowly and only after stunning conflict. (And truly horrid forms of it continue….)
So one argument for strong property rights, labor rights, fair justice systems, and so forth is that the 1st world has relatively strong versions of these things and has clearly done massively better than other parts of the world.
D has to be downstream of C, otherwise there is no point.(I guess it could go he other way). Either way, D by itself I retarded.
Much of the discussion above is over my head. I have never seen the word “deontic.”
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In the enlightening polemic _Londonistan_ by Melanie Phillips, someone is quoted who says (as I recall) “Beware of the notion of dutiless rights.”
In the context of the book and the book’s topic, the warning makes sense.
I take it to mean this:
An easy way to erode social cohesion and undermine the foundations of civilized order is to go around giving newly manufactured rights to people (often to the ostensibly downtrodden) without insisting that they have duties that they must fulfill. Basically, you don’t help society by giving people stuff and acting as if they are under no particular obligation to pull their own weight, support themselves, raise children to be good citizens, maintain the civilized order, etc.
I think the argument is both “civilization-barbarism” axis and “Freedom-Oppression.”
You get more barbarism if you give the average person dutiless rights. Also, you oppress the good and reward the evil–taxing workers to make life easier (including leisure and irresponsible childbearing) for the dangerous and feckless poor, or what some people call the underclass.
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BTW, is there a clear distinction between duty and obligation?
People in the uniformed armed services have duties, not obligations. Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and uniformed military are instructed to do their duty. They are not instructed to “Fulfill your obligation” or “Live up to your obligation.”
Is a duty from a commission or job, while an obligation is more ethereal?
C W Abbot:
The term obligations (for moral philosophy intent) includes – responsibilities, commitments, and “duties,” which some scholars (students) extend to the innate and instinctive.
The “Duty” one has in the services arises from a commitment (which in some societies may not be voluntary) and when one completes that service, an obligation has been fulfilled. Obligations can be imposed – and our Federal Administrative State does so, at many levels, in many ways.
Past writers, particularly of the Scottish Enlightenment used “Duty” as the deontic (ought & ought not) concept of obligations, coupled with “must.”
Example: “Duty” is a label for a “tax.” Legislation that creates a duty (obligation) to pay for participating in a particular transaction.
Some obligations are constraints, self-constraints; often innate for self preservation – instinctive.
A plausible case can be made that while every obligation does not “create” a right, no rights can exist without obligations.
For some simplification of rights dependent on obligations:
The right of one to freedom of exercise of religion is dependent on the obligations of others not to interfere.
Right of free speech requires that others not constrain that speech.
Children’s rights are actually the obligations of adults in their relationships with children.
“Animal rights” are the obligations of humans in their relationships with animals.
The rights of feudalism rested on obligations – imposed obligations.
Rights based on imposed obligations are usually classed as powers.
The current issue is very much sexual.
Do Christians have the religious liberty to declare that homosexual activity is sinful?
Can they speak this truth in public?
Can they act on this truth if they are in a business – by refusing to serve sinners?
Forcing Christian bakers to bake a wedding cake for a gay marriage is wrong — or such force is not wrong.
“And the only way to make people really believe that these rules are stable enough and will be honored and maintained despite short term political temptations is to successfully propagate a belief that these rights are near-sacred and somehow transcend the domain of what is normally up for debate and reform.”
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The "new rule" is that gay marriage is ok, and opposing it is bad. The Democrats are trying to create a near-sacred Political Correctness that is not up for debate, nor reform, despite not yet being fully formed, nor even internally consistent.
Using gov't police & judges to punish those who violate the rules is a good way to make people believe the rules are stable. In fact, only laws and rules that are enforced should be considered "real law"; and even unwritten rules that are enforced are included in this "real law".