ȃȀȇ Partʺʺ: Politics and PhilosophyBut social cooperation is only anearlyultimate criterion. It is instru-
mental toward something more completely ultimate, something for which
no further argument is possible, something taken as desirable by sheer
intuition or emotion. Ļat ultimately desirable “something” is individuals’
success in living, or fulfillment, or life appropriate to human potential. No
single word is an adequate label; but when a single word is required, the
traditional choice is “happiness,” understood in a suitably stretched sense.Ȃō šŠŕŘŕŠōŞŕōŚ ŏśŚŏŘšşŕśŚ
Kirzner goes far toward justifying capitalist principles of ownership and
distribution, as well as the system itself, by positive analysis combined
with appeal to simple and widely accepted ethical intuitions. A person is
entitled to what he himself creates or discoversȃand to what he obtains in
a voluntary transaction from a previous owner whose title is undisputed.
Ļese, however, are fairly specific intuitions. When they are questioned, a
social theorist relying on them should be able to defend them (conceivably
ȂHayek (ȀȈȇȈ) appears to make survival, not happiness, the ultimate criterion. It does
seem plausible that the processes of biological and cultural selection have operated through
the survival or elimination of individuals and groups, not through their happiness or
unhappiness. Again, though, we must distinguish between explanation and appraisal. In
the context of appraisal, we need not decide between survival and happiness as ultimate
criteria. Since social cooperation is prerequisite to both, it can serve as a surrrogate crite-
rion. Only on a particularly rarefied level of philosophizing must we try to choose between
rival ultimate criteria.
ȃWhyis he entitled to his creation or discovery? A short answer, presumably, is that
such a rule holds down disputes and fosters social cooperation and creativity better than
any alternative would do.
Kirzner calls his view of entitlement a “finders-keepers ethic” (e.g.,ȀȈȈȁ, p.ȁȁȁ;ȀȈȇȈ,
pp.ȀȀǿ–ȀȀȀ,Ȁȅȅ). While agreeing with the substance of his doctrine, I regret that label.
In my own childhood experience, anyway, the full slogan was “finders keepers, losers
weepers.” It conveyed a certain graspingness combined with a rather cynical unconcern
for whoever had lost or been unfairly done out of some item. Kirzner evokes the second
part of the slogan by mentioning the finder’s entitlement to a coin that someone else had
lost in Times Square (ȀȈȇȈ, p.ȀȄȂ). I am confident, though, that Kirzner does not hold
the attitude that the full slogan brings to my mind.
Since drafting this paper and this note in particular, I have seen Ricketts’sȀȈȈȁpaper.
Ricketts aptly calls Kirzner’s “finders-keepers ethic” a “graspers-keepers ethic” (p.ȇǿ). He
also questions Kirzner’s position on the traveler who races ahead to appropriate the water-
hole (pp.Ȇȅ–Ȇȇ). Ricketts objects that Kirzner pays inadequate attention to the nature of
property rights, even though his description of his imaginary situation suggests that the
waterhole, instead of being simply “unheld,” is already regarded as a communal asset that
individuals are entitled touse.