Chapter ǴǷ: Mises and His Critics on Ethics, Rights, and Law ȃȂȈtwo supposed axioms; and their errors threaten to spread from their legal
theory to their ethical theory.Ȉ
I am tempted to deliver a sermon, particularly to Walter Block, author
ofDefending the Undefendable, who portrayed the pimp, the drug pusher,
the litterbug, and other unsavory types as heroes (BlockȀȈȆȅ; also Block
ȀȈȇȅand Block and GordonȀȈȇȄ). Much speaks in support of a society’s
prevailing ethical norms, the norms that support social cooperation. A cer-
tain “squareness” is admirable. To recognize this is not to want to dictate
people’s lifestyles. Still, honesty and civility, including a decent respect for
other people’s rights and even their feelings, do deserve encouragement.
Ļe more generally people behave decently out of respect for ingrained
ethical precepts, the less is the need or apparent need for applying the
coercive force of law. For these reasons, someone who wishes well for
mankind should avoid writing in a style that appears, though uninten-
tionally, to disparage traditional ethical values.
šŠŕŘŕŠōŞŕōŚŕşř ōœōŕŚ
I have reviewed Rothbard’s “natural rights” approach because it seems to
be the leading alternative to utilitarianism as a philosophical basis for pol-
icy espousal. (I do not regard the “contractarianism” of James Buchanan
and his school as a genuine alternative, for it seems to me to be a version of
utilitarianism disguised by fictions; see myȀȈȇȄ.) In rejecting Rothbard’s
approach, I do not at all ridicule or dismiss the concept of rights. It is
vital to a healthy society and thus to happiness that rights (very roughly,
the ones mentioned in the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Bill of
Rights) be respected in public policy and private life. Conducting public
policy or living one’s own life according to what seems narrowly expedient
in each particular case would be disastrous.
Ļe question that separates utilitarians from other theorists of rights
is how to ground them philosophically. Rothbard (ȀȈȇȁ) observes that
Robert Nozick (ȀȈȆȃ) does not give rights any grounding; he simply intu-
its them. Rothbard does attempt a grounding, which, however, fails, as
suggested by the peculiar policy positions that his approach grinds out.
Ļe utilitarian, in contrast, compares alternative institutions; he investi-
gates what conceptions of rights and justice, what rules, what restraints
ȈRothbard’sȀȈȇȁ, by the way, is not really a book on ethics; it is a book advocating a
particular type of libertarian political philosophy.