Chapter ǴǺ: Rights, Contract, and Utility in Policy Espousal ȃȇȆĻe first of those is the authoritarian position of one who believes he pos-
sesses an infallible pipeline to objective truth. Ļat is the position of the
baseball umpire who insists that he calls balls and strikes as they objectively
are. Ļe second is a relativist-nominalist position of rejecting all absolutes
and embracing a radical relativism or skepticism. An umpire holding this
view says that pitches are neither balls nor strikes until he calls them. Ļe
third position, “fallibilism,” combines metaphysical or ethical objectivism
with epistemological relativism. Ļe fallibilist umpire says, “I call ’em as I
see ’em.” On this view, it makes sense to seek objective truths about real-
ity, even including truths about what is morally valuable and politically
desirable. Yet no person or group is entitled to claim infallible possession
of such knowledge. Each searcher contributes what he can, aware that his
contribution is incomplete and perhaps erroneous. In science, culture, and
philosophy, fallibilism calls for free discussion open to the competition of
all ideas, evidences, and arguments. (Davis recognizes fallibilism as a cen-
tral concept in the philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce. See also Wiener
ȀȈȅȇand PeirceȀȈȄȄ.)
Far from being subversive of constructive discussion, a willingness to
state clearly what one believes and why, exposing one’s views to inspection
and possible refutation, is essential to it.
Ļe fallibilist position adopts the scientific attitude and method. Belief
in the meaningfulness or at least the heuristic value of the concept of
objective truth to be sought through research and discussion need not
entail arrogance, elitism, and an eagerness forcibly to impose one’s beliefs.
Belief, for example, that one type of society is more conducive to human
happiness than another in no way entails an eagerness to implement
one’s vision by force. A concern for process and for how decisions are
made and implemented, an extreme aversion to having policies, even good
ones, rammed down one’s own throat or down other people’s throats,
may well be a major element in one’s conception of the good soci-
ety. An adherent of the truth-judgment approach may well harbor this
strong concern for due process; it is not the private property of the con-
tractarians.
Yet the contractarians tend to suppose that a policy not commanding
a strong consensus in its favor (or whose adoption would not at least be in
accordance with an underlying constitution deemed to command unani-
mous consent) is thereby revealed to be bad or undesirable. (Passages to
this effect in Buchanan and TullockȀȈȅȁare quoted in YeagerȀȈȆȇ, p.ȁǿǿ
and n.ȀȆ.)