ȃȄȁ Partʺʺ: Politics and PhilosophyRothbard implies that utilitarians hold preferences and attitudes and
character traits immune from appraisal. But Mises, to my knowledge,
never said any such thing. A rules or indirect utilitarianism is indeed con-
cerned with how attitudes and character traits, so far as they are open
to influence, tend to affect the health of a society and the happiness of
its individual members. For fear of adverse side effects and for other rea-
sons, a utilitarian does not want to enlist the state’s coercive powers in
suppressing all unfortunate preferences and attitudes and traits; but this
in no way means that he considers all of them equally worthy of respect
and of influence on policy.
Other criticism is policy-oriented. Rothbard objected that the utilitar-
ian will rarely apply an absolute principle to real-world situations. Ļe util-
itarian regards principle as no more than a vague and overridable guideline.
He “cannot be ‘trusted’ to maintain libertarian principle in every specific
application” (ȀȈȆȂ, p.ȁȃ). Karen Vaughn regretted that Mises accepted the
collectivists’ and authoritarians’ terms of debate by stressing how efficiently
the free market provides well-being. Such a defense of freedom is doubly
dangerous. “First, it is open to empirical refutation.” Second, the utilitarian
calculus might tip in favor of a nonliberal system if it counted the bureau-
crats’ enjoyment from controlling and regulating. A less risky course sim-
ply postulates freedom as supremely “desirable for its own sake” and as “a
moral value that, as a bonus, also happen[s] to lead to the well-being of
society” (ȀȈȆȅ, pp.Ȁǿȇ–ȀǿȈ).
But it seems backward to criticize ethical systems according to whether
they unswervingly support preconceived policy positions. It is more sensi-
ble to appraise policies according to how they accord with a well-grounded
ethics. Furthermore, such criticisms distinguish sharply, if sometimes only
implicitly, between ethically principled and utilitarian approaches to pol-
icy. Ļey interpret the latter as unprincipled, case-by-case direct calcula-
tion of gains and losses of utility. Actually, far from rejecting principles,
utilitarianism seeks their sound basis.
On the charge that utilitarians cannot be trusted to hew to the liber-
tarian line in absolutely all cases, compare Mises’s remark:
It may be that socialism represents a better form of organization of human
labor. Let whoever asserts this try to prove it rationally. If the proof
should succeed, then the world, democratically united by liberalism, will
not hesitate to implement the communist community. In a democratic
state, who could oppose a reform that would be bound to bring the great-
est gain to by far the overwhelming majority? Political rationalism does