Libertarian Ethics

Defendi razoavelmente posições libertárias, que não
são obviamente imunes à crítica.

Um dos mais conhecidos representantes do movimento libertário nos EUA,
Lew Rockwell, recentemente
elogiou
e recomendou o último filme do Micheal Moore. Rothbard,
outro ícone, elogiou Che Guevara. E, por fim, Mises,
um dos principais teóricos da Escola Austríaca de Economia, fazia
uso de um discurso que se aproxima do relativismo moral.

Recentemente, participei de uma discussão com alguns estudiosos sobre
o tema. Internet realmente é um recurso e tanto. Um libertário
elaborou uma ótima série de comentários quanto ao tema
discutido no livro "Human Action", os quais transcrevo a seguir:

"So, without any further ado: references to Human Action that evince
Mises's ethical subjectivism (or "relativism" or "nihilism",
depending on what vocabulary you want to use; I prefer "subjectivism"
because Mises believes that all values are relative to the constitution of a
valuing subject in its given context or circumstances).

These are from the Scholar's Edition (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute,
1998).

pp. 1-3: Mises contrasts the moral way of considering problems of peace
and prosperity, with the economic way. Note that he considers the "moral
way" in two paragraphs (the second and third paragraphs of the introduction).
The first paragraph encompasses not only the natural law conception, but also
special revelation and dialecticalism. Note also that the "economic way"
that he gives on p. 2 is most definitely not a statement of the principles of
English moral utilitarianism.

pp. 94-96, p. 104: Ultimate ends cannot be compared. Although Mises ostensibly
restricts the scope of his remarks to economic theory rather than philosophy
generally, I believe the tone and thrust of this passage is clear.

pp. 145-153: This passage is Mises's outline of a general idea he also developed
in Liberalism, viz. that a classical liberal democracy is useful to anyone who
has desires that depend on material prosperity and peace. I think it's this
way of considering social institutions in terms of their usefulness (utility)
that motivated Mises to call himself a "utilitarian". Note that English
moral utilitarianism would still suffer the same criticism as natural law: By
what mark do we recognize "the greatest happiness for the greatest number"
as a moral standard? (pp. 153-155 is also interesting in this connection.)



pp. 164-165: Another statement of Mises's "utilitarianism" -- the
classical liberal democracy satisfies the widest, most polyvalent coincidence
of wants ever to arise. It is "the great means for the attainment of all
(man's) ends." Later, on pp. 179-180, Mises suggests that, for the above
reason, liberalism could come to be the great point of minimal agreement for
any number of moral perspectives.

pp. 279-280: Even freedom is a means, not an end, for Mises.

pp. 285-286: Mises describes inequality of wealth, not as something that
anyone is entitled to by virtue of any rights that society presuppose (as Rothbard
was more inclined to justify it), but rather as the most efficient device of
social incentive and responsibility that can be implemented.

pp. 715-719: In this passage, Mises decries the method of trying to find
the "legitimate" scope of government with reference to "natural
laws". This is the only passage in Human Action where he focuses specifically
on the natural law method, rather than speaking about moral discourse in general.

pp. 719-725: This passage is one of the more interesting and philosophically
challenging of the whole book. Here, Mises suggests that even freely-given charity
may cause the same kinds of harm as state intervention. A free action is not
necessarily good just because it's free; Mises's "utilitarian" praxeological
perspective allows an assessment of any institution aiming at social justice.
In this passage, I think it becomes clearer that Mises's criticisms of conventional
moral modes of discourse are not based solely on their role in economic theory
or even in political philosophy, but that they operate at the very level of
individual reciprocity.



Hope all of this is interesting and illuminating." (Jeremy Same,
discussão na comunidade "Austrian Economics")