Ethics, Politics, Economics, and Limiting Individual Liberty

Although I am relatively unfamiliar with the field of ethics within philosophy, my simplistic understanding leaves me with the sense that there are two basic approaches. One may either operate with a rules based system or a consequentialist system. The most common example of the former would be the ten commandments. The latter is based entirely on the end outcome of the decision in question. Lest you think this consequentialist system to be Machiavellian, it is not the case that the means are ignored. In fact, the means are also ends in themselves so long as we are treating a consequentialist system seriously.

A prime example of the difference between these two systems can be seen through the famous trolley car problem. In one iteration of the problem, we suppose a trolley car is rolling down the tracks and if you don't do anything, it will hit a group of five individuals. You are standing at a switch, however, and so you have the ability to divert the trolley car onto a different track. Of course, if there were to be no negative consequences of diverting the trolley car, we wouldn't even think twice about doing so, but in this problem, there is one person on the track onto which you could divert the trolley car. Now is where we see the difference between the rules-based thinker and the consequentialist thinker. If the rules-based thinker believes himself unallowed to kill within the bounds of his ethical framework, he will be unable to throw the switch, for this would amount to killing. If he merely allows the events to unfold, he has not directly killed anyone. If he throws the switch, saving five lives but killing one, he has killed. The consequentialist thinker, on the other hand, doesn't even think twice about throwing the switch. He knows that if he throws the switch, he saves a net of four lives. Clearly five alive and one dead is better than one alive and five dead.

Yet although the rules-based thinker may seem to be acting stubbornly in this scenario, we can design many scenarios such that those who operate with the rules-based system and those who operate with the consequentialist system are much closer in number. Imagine, for example, that the only way to stop the trolley car was by pushing a fat man onto the tracks. What about a fat woman? What if the only option were to throw a baby? Suddenly there are many more people saying, "Wait a second. There's no way I could throw a baby under a trolley car to stop it even if it would save five lives."

My hypothesis, and there may be some evidence to support this, is that conservatives choose the rules based system more frequently than liberals do. My first argument for that would be that conservatives are much more religious than liberals, and so they're more used to thinking within such a framework, but really what I'd like to get to today is the economic arguments made by libertarian economists, because I believe that they use a rules based approach to discussing the ethics of government involvement in the economy where a consequentialist approach would be better suited.

Perhaps I haven't fully grasped the libertarian argument, but I believe it generally goes as follows. Individual liberty is the foundation of western society. The government should do everything in its power to avoid infringing upon individual liberty. The economy functions most efficiently when the government doesn't limit the power of individuals or collections of individuals (i.e. corporations). The government exists for the purpose of protecting individual liberty (i.e. ensuring that your person and property are not unduly harmed). The government may, in special circumstances, break up monopolistic entities in the economy. Any extension of the government's power beyond these basic principles would be a violation of someone's individual liberty and, ergo, would be a transgression of its mandate.

How is this system dependent upon rules-based thinking? It takes individual liberty as the only moral good. It then supposes that, excepting limits placed of individual liberty's own protection, any limitation of individual liberty is morally unjustifiable. A rule has been created; thou shalt not limit individual liberty. But this method clearly possesses innumerable problems.

The first problem I see is its disregard for historical context, concretely that we do not currently (nor, many would argue, will we ever) live in a society that tolerates all types of people equally. So long as there is discrimination of any sort at a system-wide level, we must take measures to help those whose individual liberty is systematically marginalized. Yet any compensatory measure, such as affirmative action, will be decried by libertarians as an infringement upon the individual liberties of those who do not suffer from systematic abuse of their liberties.

A second point of concern for the libertarian argument on individual liberty stems from its justification for individual liberty being the highest moral goal. The justification, I believe, is that individual liberty for all to the greatest extent possible is the system which is most fair. This argument only holds if people begin from an equal point. A quick look at American society easily demonstrates that this has never been (and again, many would say never will be) the case. Its not as if most of the poor in this country have ever had the same opportunities as the wealthy. And this is true dating back to the time of the arrival of the first settlers from Europe. The wealthy have systematically exploited the poor for the duration of western civilization. So given that the origin of the wealth of the wealthy is, in many cases, from so long ago that nobody even knows where it came from, and that society has always operated in such a way as to allow this to translate into far greater opportunities for the wealthy, it makes zero sense to suggest that a system which grants as much individual liberty as possible is in any way fair.

So what does the ethical consequentialist point of view have to offer to this discussion? Well for starters, it would take into account some positive effects of the limiting of individual liberty. Say, for example, that a governmental regulation could help alleviate intolerance in American society, but that to pay for the system would cost the wealthy more than it would cost the poor. Well, that disproportionate amount would be decried as libertarians as an affront to the individual liberties of the wealthy. But doesn't the moral good achieved through the limiting of their individual liberties by virtue of creating a tolerant society far outweigh the moral cost of taxing the wealthy more than the poor?

At the end, it inevitably boils down to taxes, and here is where we see the advantages of a consequentialist point of quite clearly. Whereas the rules based system must necessarily argue for a flat tax (any other treatment would be discriminatory and, thus, a violation of individual liberties), the consequentialist system would show that the marginal utility of a dollar to a person with $10,000 is far greater than the marginal utility of that same dollar to a person with $10,000,000. The consequentialist system offers a balancing act between individual liberties and a compensation for the enormity of disparity of opportunity, which results in allegedly equal individual liberties contributing to systematic oppression.

And the libertarians will comment in 3, 2, 1...