In 1982 Murray Rothbard published his magnum opus in political philosophy, The Ethics of Liberty. It is a tour de force, a remarkable presentation of the moral case for political freedom. What a complement to Man, Economy, and State and Power and Market, Rothbard’s towering contributions to our understanding of free markets!
The first striking feature of Ethics is that the opening five chapters, which comprise part 1, seek to establish the validity of natural law, an approach to moral inquiry based on the distinctive nature, faculties, and tendencies of the human being; this approach began with the ancient Greek philosophers and developed through the thought of Catholic and Protestant thinkers, such as St. Thomas Aquinas and Hugo Grotius. (For these religious philosophers, natural law was discoverable through reason, and was separable from theological questions.) One can judge Rothbard’s deep interest in this subject by his first four chapter titles: “Natural Law and Reason,” “Natural Law as ‘Science,’” “Natural Law versus Positive Law,” and “Natural Law and Natural Rights.”
Rothbard wanted us to read this material before moving on to such topics as property, enforceable rights, voluntary exchange, aggression, and self-defense. Why?
Because natural law gives meaning to and thus is indispensable to understanding those concepts. It provides the context. He approvingly quoted the natural-law philosopher John Wild: “The philosophy of natural law defends the rational dignity of the human individual.” He praised the English natural-law liberals (such as John Locke and the Levellers), “who transformed classical natural law into a theory grounded on methodological and hence political individualism.” And he identified the “great failing” of “classical” natural-law thinkers from Plato to Leo Strauss: they were “profoundly statist rather than individualist.”
Rothbard’s conviction that individual rights are derived from something more fundamental can be seen in this statement: “The myriad of post-Locke and post-Leveller natural-rights theorists made clear their view that these rights stem from the nature of man and of the world around him.”
For Rothbard, individual rights boil down to the right to be free from aggression. (Thus complete freedom in society is possible and realistic.) This is what he wished to derive from the natural law. The principle is not self-evident (though it surely has intuitive appeal). It is no free-floating iceberg. Rather, it follows from earlier findings that reason discloses about human nature (“the primordial natural fact[s] of freedom” and self-ownership), human action, the nature of the world around us, and the conditions under which we may flourish. The book does not discuss the nature of aggression until the third chapter of part 2: “A Theory of Liberty” (chapter 8 in the book).
Readers who are eager to get on to Rothbard’s discussion of the Nonaggression Principle — which I think is better expressed as the Nonaggression Obligation — may be tempted to skip part 1. To them I have three words of sage advice: Don’t do it! You will deny yourself the full benefit of this marvelous book. Read and enjoy the discussion of natural law.
For Rothbard, natural law concerns the discovery of objective values and objective ethics. He writes,
In the Thomistic tradition, natural law is ethical as well as physical law; and the instrument by which man apprehends such law is his reason — not faith, or intuition, or grace, revelation, or anything else. In the contemporary atmosphere of sharp dichotomy between natural law and reason — and especially amid the irrationalist sentiments of “conservative” thought — this cannot be underscored too often.
With obvious approval he quoted William J. Kenealy, a Jesuit priest, who wrote,
This philosophy maintains that there is in fact an objective moral order within the range of human intelligence, to which human societies are bound in conscience to conform and upon which the peace and happiness of personal, national and international life depend. [Emphasis added.]
Rothbard then asked a question posed by another natural-law philosopher, John Wild: “Why are such principles felt to be binding on me?” And he supplied Wild’s answer:
The factual needs which underlie the whole procedure are common to man. The values founded on them are universal. Hence, if I made no mistake in my tendential analysis of human nature, and if I understand myself, I must exemplify the tendency and must feel it subjectively as an imperative urge to action.
Or, Rothbard adds, as 19th-century American Unitarian minister William Ellery Channing put it, “All men have the same rational nature and the same power of conscience, and all are equally made for indefinite improvement of these divine faculties and for the happiness to be found in their virtuous use.”
Much modern philosophy dismisses natural law as old-fashioned and unscientific, but Rothbard endorsed Étienne Gilson’s observation, “The natural law always buries its undertakers.”
Now here is a puzzle. On the one hand, Rothbard emphasized that natural-law philosophy seeks to identify that which is objectively good for all human beings. He writes,
Aquinas, then, realized that men always act purposively, but also went beyond this to argue that ends can also be apprehended by reason as either objectively good or bad for man. Moral conduct is therefore conduct in accord with right reason.
And,
If, then, the natural law is discovered by reason from [quoting Edwin W. Patterson] “the basic inclinations of human nature … absolute, immutable, and of universal validity for all times and places,” it follows that the natural law provides an objective set of ethical norms by which to gauge human actions at any time or place.
And, finally, “The natural law, then, elucidates what is best for man — what ends man should pursue that are most harmonious with, and best tend to fulfill, his nature.”
But on the other hand, Rothbard was an economist in the Austrian tradition, which holds that value is subjective. Can this paradox be resolved?
Rather easily, it turns out. He wrote,
The natural law, then, elucidates what is best for man — what ends man should pursue that are most harmonious with, and best tend to fulfill, his nature. In a significant sense, then, natural law provides man with a “science of happiness,” with the paths which will lead to his real happiness. In contrast, praxeology or economics, as well as the utilitarian philosophy with which this science has been closely allied, treat “happiness” in the purely formal sense as the fulfillment of those ends which people happen — for whatever reason — to place high on their scales of value. Satisfaction of those ends yields to man his “utility” or “satisfaction” or “happiness.” Value in the sense of valuation or utility is purely subjective, and decided by each individual. This procedure is perfectly proper for the formal science of praxeology, or economic theory, but not necessarily elsewhere. For in natural-law ethics, ends are demonstrated to be good or bad for man in varying degrees; value here is objective — determined by the natural law of man’s being, and here “happiness” for man is considered in the commonsensical, contextual sense.
Many of these quotations indicate that Rothbard believed that under natural law, binding moral constraints can be rationally identified. Respect for other people and their just possession is one such binding constraint; it does not require explicit or implicit consent. I wish he had developed this point further because it seems crucial to the libertarian case. Why do we owe other people nonaggression? What is the nature of that obligation? (I discuss this question in “What Social Animals Owe to Each Other.”)
Instead, Rothbard, in part 2, seemed to shift ground and offer other reasons for respecting people’s rights. He wrote that any proposed political ethic that permits some to rule others fails the test of universalizability; an objective moral code must be applicable to everyone. (This sounds like one of Kant’s formulations of the categorical imperative.) He also wrote that living parasitically off of other people conflicts with the exploiter’s own self-interest because it reduces the volume of goods produced while violating his nature:
Coercive exploitation or parasitism injure the processes of production for everyone in the society. Any way that it may be considered, parasitic predation and robbery violate not only the nature of the victim whose self and product are violated, but also the nature of the aggressor himself, who abandons the natural way of production — of using his mind to transform nature and exchange with other producers — for the way of parasitic expropriation of the work and product of others. In the deepest sense, the aggressor injures himself as well as his unfortunate victim.
True enough, but why ought one, first, act only in accord with a universal ethic and, second, not exploit others if one were to calculate that in a great society the reduction in the volume of goods would be only marginal? Why exactly is an exploiter harmed because he loots rather than produces? Or, what exactly is the price to be paid for not living in harmony with one’s nature as a human being?
In fairness to Rothbard, he did not set out to formulate a complete ethical philosophy, just the subset of ethics dealing with aggression. He likely believed that a complete ethics had already been formulated by others. (He cited several Aristotelian and Thomist thinkers and was influenced by the Aristotelian novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand, although he did not cite her.) So why reinvent the wheel?
My questions aside, The Ethics of Liberty is a great book that deserves the attention of anyone interested in the good society and human flourishing.
Re: "For Rothbard, natural law concerns the discovery of objective values and objective ethics."
= I personally bulk at this contention because it muddies the waters considerably between the vital distinction put forward by Rothbard between political philosophy and personal/ethics. Moving forward I don't think this can be stressed enough:
"It is becoming clearer and clearer to me that ethical and legal theory need to be completely disentangled and that at the essence of what libertarianism is we find a legal position rather than an ethical position (sure, the legal position can and is combined with various ethical positions, but this does not make the two identical in content).
Understanding what rights are (legal) is different than deciding how, whether and in what ways to actually respect them or not in action (ethical).
Now when I look back at Rothbard, I am seeing that he effectively was already doing this (some passages above and elsewhere, even in Power and Market), but was still bogged down in the use of the word “ethics” in the effort to distinguish what he was talking about from economic theory (and this usage continues in Hoppe, with the word “ethics” subbing in for what I think is actually “property theory.”).
Yet in looking at what they are actually presenting rather than some labels, it is much much more about legal content (definition of property rights), rather than whether or not one ought to violate or respect such rights (knowing what they are being a separate question) on ethical grounds.”
— Konrad S. Graf (Disentangling law & ethics http://conza.tumblr.com/post/57853636147/disentan….
Re: "Now here is a puzzle. On the one hand, Rothbard emphasized that natural-law philosophy seeks to identify that which is objectively good for all human beings.[…]But on the other hand, Rothbard was an economist in the Austrian tradition, which holds that value is subjective. Can this paradox be resolved? In this paradox be resolved? Rather easily, it turns out. He wrote…"
= I came across this exchange between Mr. Halliday, Walter Block and an editors note by Murray Rothbard a few years ago. The Libertarian Forum 1973/06. I agree with Blocks rebuttal, and Murray’s note:
"How about Professor Block's second premise, that evil is only the initiation of violence? Here I think it is possible to partially reconcile the Block and Halliday positions. It is a question of what context we are dealing with. I would agree with Block that _within_ [!] the context of libertarian theory, evil must be confined to the initiation of violence.
On the other hand, when we proceed from libertarianism to the question of wider social and personal ethics, then I would agree with Halliday that there are many other actions which should be considered as evil: lying, for example or deliberately failing to fulfill one's best potential.
But these are not matters about which liberty—the problem of the proper scope of violence—has anything to say. In short, qua libertarian there is nothing wrong or evil about breaking dates, being gratuitously nasty to one's associates, or generally behaving like a cad: here not only do I join Professor Block, but I would expect Mr. Halliday and all other libertarians to do the same. On the other hand, qua general ethicist, I would join Mr. Halliday in denouncing such behavior, while Professor Block would not."
From a few years ago via personal correspondence; Walter Block: "I’m shocked that I ever wrote it. I don’t think I meant it. I agree, fully, with Murray.”
TL;DR re: 'the puzzle'. "It is a question of what context we are dealing with." It is also puts into proper context the below point by Sheldon…
Re: "Many of these quotations indicate that Rothbard believed that under natural law, binding moral constraints can be rationally identified. Respect for other people and their just possession is one such binding constraint; it does not require explicit or implicit consent."
= To be clear; within the context of a "wider social and personal ethics" qua general ethicist.
Re: "I wish he had developed this point further because it seems crucial to the libertarian case. Why do we owe other people nonaggression? What is the nature of that obligation?"
= He did make further comment. The following is from MNR's "Beyond Is and Ought" (http://data.mises.org/daily/4629/Beyond-Is-and-Ought);
"…In a sense, Hoppe's theory [a priori of argumentation, or argumentation 'ethics'] is similar to the fascinating Gewirth-Pilon argument, in which Gewirth and Pilon (the former a liberal, the latter a minarchist libertarian) attempted to say the following. The fact that X acts demonstrates that he is asserting that he has the right to such action (so far so good!) and that X is also implicitly conceding to everyone else the same right. That conclusion, though soul-satistfying to libertarians, and similar to praxeology in its stress on action, unfortunately didn't make it — for, as natural rights philosopher Henry Veatch pointed out in his critique of Gewirth: why should X grant anyone else's rights? By stressing self-contradiction in the arguments of non-anarcho-Lockeans, Hoppe has solved the age-old problem of generalizing an ethic for mankind…"
Re: "Instead, Rothbard, in part 2, seemed to shift ground and offer other reasons for respecting people’s rights."
= Rothbard's brief explication of objectivity within personal ethics, can be seen as merely an aid to objective political philosophy. Chapter 6 – Crusoe Economics, Rothbard is dealing with the individual [personal] there; "If Crusoe economics can and does supply the indispensable groundwork for the entire structure of economics and praxeology—the broad, formal analysis of human action—a similar procedure should be able to do the same thing for social philosophy, for the analysis of the fundamental truths of the nature of man vis-à-vis the nature of the world into which he is born, as well as the world of other men. Specifically, _it can aid greatly_ in solving such problems of political philosophy as the nature and role of liberty property, and violence.[2]"
Whether you _ought to_ respect others rights or not is irrelevant as Chapter 20 of Lifeboat Situtations makes remarkably clear: "Whether or not it is moral or immoral for "Smith" — the fellow excluded by the owner from the plank or the lifeboat — to force someone else out of the lifeboat, or whether he should die heroically instead, is not our concern, and not the proper concern of a theory of political ethics.[5]"
The only 'shift' was a focus from a discussion of natural law (context), then the individual (Crusoe) and personal ethics, to that of political philosophy, i.e something that is universalized and not merely individualized.
Re: "In fairness to Rothbard, he did not set out to formulate a complete ethical philosophy, just the subset of ethics dealing with aggression."
= Yes. As taken from Chapter 5 of TEOL, The Task of Political Philosophy; "IT IS NOT THE intention of this book to expound or defend at length the philosophy of natural law, or to elaborate a natural-law ethic for the personal morality of man. The intention is to set forth a social ethic of liberty, i.e., to elaborate that subset of the natural law that develops the concept of natural rights, and that deals with the proper sphere of “politics,” i.e., with violence and non-violence as modes of interpersonal relations. In short, to set forth a political philosophy of liberty. In our view the major task of “political science” or better, “political philosophy” is to construct the edifice of natural law pertinent to the political scene."
Re: "So why reinvent the wheel?"
= I'd suggest he vastly improved it. Whatever you think of his exposition on natural law though, it doesn't really matter and feel free to cast it aside. From one angle the OP article is outdated. Rothbard acknowledged he was wrong and why (http://data.mises.org/daily/4629/Beyond-Is-and-Ought):
"…For over 30 years I have been preaching to the economics profession that this cannot be done: that economists cannot arrive at any policy conclusions (e.g., that government should do X or should not do Y) strictly from value-free economics. In order to come to a policy conclusion, I have long maintained, economists have to come up with some kind of ethical system. Note that all branches of modern "welfare economics" have attempted to do just that: to continue to be "scientific" and therefore value-free, and yet to make all sorts of cherished policy pronouncements (since most economists would like at some point to get beyond their mathematical models and draw politically relevant conclusions). Most economists would not be caught dead with an ethical system or principle, believing that this would detract from their "scientific" status. And yet, remarkably and extraordinarily, Hans Hoppe has proven me wrong. He has done it… ["he has managed to transcend the famous is/ought, fact/value dichotomy that has plagued philosophy since the days of the scholastics, and that had brought modern libertarianism into a tiresome deadlock."]
"…As a natural rightser, I don't see any real contradiction here, or why one cannot hold to both the natural-rights and the Hoppean-rights ethic at the same time. Both rights ethics, after all, are grounded, like the realist version of Kantianism, in the nature of reality. Natural law, too, provides a personal and social ethic apart from libertarianism; this is an area that Hoppe is not concerned with…"