Chapter ǴǷ: Mises and His Critics on Ethics, Rights, and Law ȃȁȂinstitutions are no longer revered as unfathomable decrees of Heaven.
Ļey are of human origin, and the only yardstick that must be applied to
them is that of expediency with regard to human welfare. Ļe utilitarian
economist does not say: Fiat justitia, pereat mundus. He says: Fiat justi-
tia,nepereat mundus. He does not ask a man to renounce his well-being
for the benefit of society. He advises him to recognize what his rightly
understood interests are. In his eyes God’s magnificence does not man-
ifest itself in busy interference with sundry affairs of princes and politi-
cians, but in endowing his creatures with reason and the urge toward the
pursuit of happiness. (MisesȀȈȃȈ/ȀȈȅȂ, p.ȀȃȆ)
Ļe ultimate yardstick of justice is conduciveness to the preservation
of social cooperation ... [,] for almost every man the great means for
the attainment of all ends. An eminently human common interest, the
preservation and intensification of social bonds, is substituted for piti-
less biological competition, the significant mark of animal and plant life.
Man becomes a social being.... Other people become his fellows.... As
social cooperation is ... a means and not an end, no unanimity with
regard to value judgments is required to make it work.... [S]ocial cooper-
ation is for man a means for the attainment of all his ends.... Ļe char-
acteristic feature of a free society is that it can function in spite of the
fact that its members disagree in many judgments of value. (ȀȈȆȈ/ȀȈȇȄ,
pp.Ȅȃ–ȅȀ)
By its recognition that social cooperation is for the immense majority
a means for attaining all their ends, [utilitarianism] dispels the notion
that society, the state, the nation, or any other social entity is an ultimate
end and that individual men are the slaves of that entity. It rejects the
philosophies of universalism, collectivism, and totalitarianism. In this
sense it is meaningful to call utilitarianism a philosophy of individualism.
(ȀȈȆȈ/ȀȈȇȄ, p.Ȅȇ)As Murray Rothbard has correctly pointed out (ȀȈȇȁ, p.ȁȀȁ), no one
can ever advocate any policy whatsoever on apurelyscientific, value-free
basis. Mises would agree. No one can approve or disapprove of a partic-
ular policy or of anything at all without holding at least one ultimate or
fundamental value judgment. A judgment is ultimate in the sense that its
holder, in expressing it, has come to the end of being able to give factual
and logical reasons for his attitudes.ȀFor Mises and other utilitarians, the
fundamental value judgment is approval of happiness and disapproval of
misery. (One can argue for or against particular policies, lifestyles, and so
ȀOn fundamental value judgments, see Paul EdwardsȀȈȅȄ; Sidney S. AlexanderȀȈȅȆ,
esp. pp.ȀǿȄ–ȀǿȆandȀȀȃ–ȀȀȄ; and Amartya K. SenȀȈȆǿ, esp. pp.ȅȁ–ȅȃ.