| Information on Jan Narveson's Newest book:
Respecting Persons in Theory and Practice: Essays on Moral and
Political Philosophy
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Lanham * Boulder * New York * Oxford
Contents
Preface vii
Introduction xi
1. Utilitarianism and Formalism 1
2. A Puzzle About Economic Justice in Rawls' Theory 13
3. Marxism: Hollow at the Core 35
4. On Recent Arguments for Egalitarianism 49
5. Emotivism, Moral Realism, and Natural Law 63
6. Justice as Pure Efficiency 79
7. Toward a Liberal Theory of Ideology a Quasi-Marxian exploration 97
8. Property Rights: Original Acquisition and Lockean Provisos 111
9. Deserving Profits 131
10. Fixing Democracy 163
11. The Anarchist's Argument 185
12. Have We a Right to Nondiscrimination? 203
13. Collective Rights? 225
14. The Drug Laws: Nails in the Coffin of American Liberalism 243
15. Children and Rights 265
16. Sustainability, Resources, and the Central Committee 279
Bibliography 299
Preface
This selection from articles I have composed during nearly forty years was stimulated
by an invitation from James Sterba, who was then philosophy editor at Rowman &
Littlefield. The essays assembled here do not form a tightly connected set, though they
are connected enough, in a looser way. One main principle of selection was that I still
regarded the item as reasonably interesting; a secondary one was to present work from over
my entire academic life. Thus one of my earliest papers, from the 1960s, opens the
collection, followed by two from succeeding decades; most, however, were composed since
1990, and six of the sixteen here were not previously published. Most of them will surely
be new to most readers, especially those who perchance have seen my most-anthologized
article, about pacifism.1 Those that were published elsewhere are here reproduced almost
as they were, with only minor corrections and alterations to suit the stylistic
requirements of Rowman & Littlefield.
Apart from the title of the first paper, none of these papers reflects my utilitarian
period, as we might call it, which stretched from my graduate student days (at Harvard,
1956-61) to roughly the mid 1970s. As many readers will be aware, I no longer see much
philosophical utility in Utilitarianism; but that is not the main reason for the
exclusion. Rather, I felt that it would make more sense to collect together, in future,
some of the many papers on that subject that I have composed over the years, both before
and after my abandonment of that general view, into a volume devoted to an exploration of
Utilitarianism, which, after all, remains a remarkably influential theory in the
literature.
At that mid-70s turning point, I came to realize, as I would now put it, that
utilitarianism was a mistaken theory. What persuaded me of its error? The answer is easy
to pinpoint: at a Workshop on Contractarian Theory at the University of Toronto in June
1974, I heard and then read David Gauthier's seminal paper, "Reason and
Maximization," which challenged the foundational theory I had supposed to be the
right one (My foundational efforts are presented in the final chapter of Morality
and Utility.)2 The persuasion was not instantaneous, but after the seeds of doubt
were planted, they took rather firm root. This disaffection was further promoted at the
end of that same year when I wrote a longish review of Robert Nozick's Anarchy,
State, and Utopia , and while my treatment was still laced with utilitarianism, and
I expressed many doubts about his book, in the end I think that Nozick appreciably
influenced my subsequent thinking. In fact, after that my general view moved in the
direction of accepting contractarian foundations and libertarian substance, both being
fleshed out in my 1988-9 book, The Libertarian Idea .3
Readers may be a little surprised to find no papers here discussing, as such, the moral
and political theory known as Libertarianism, the subject of one of my books and the label
which, with perhaps a caveat or two, most nearly applies to the general view I am inclined
toward in these matters. One reason, again, is that having written The Libertarian
Idea , I thought perhaps it would be better not to discuss it head-on in a shorter
essay, though I have of late produced some treatments of that type.4 Since
that time I have contemplated the need for "Son of Libertarian Idea," which
would be a book of refinements, adjustments, restatements, and the like. That hasn't
happened but many of the essays in the present collection certainly reflect a libertarian
viewpoint. I hoped, however, that they have some independent interest as well.
The pieces reflect a long-held view that philosophers are eligible to contribute both to
very abstract studies of the concepts of ethics and to fairly concrete-level discussion of
matters of current concern. Many of my essays of the latter type are to be found in my Moral
Matters,5 but the present collection contains several more. They are balanced
fairly well between moral and political discussions, which indeed overlap to the point of
near-indiscernability. Essays 1 and 5 are the most nearly purely meta-ethical of these
essays; but in fact, all are theoretical in a fairly straightforward sense of the term.
Specialized or narrow issues in morals don't remain so; the need for a good answer to the
question, "But why?" presses itself on intelligent people, who will not be
satisfied with a shrug of the shoulders or an appeal to supposedly accepted social norms,
or of course to religious views or to sheer assertion. My dealings with topics such as
property rights, nondiscrimination, and the drug laws, as well as the several others
explored here, are exercises in Casuistry, in the sense that they literally apply some
quite general ideas to a range of fairly specific and quite concrete subjects. Those
general ideas are to some degree developed and defended in context, and are certainly
appealed to as having more weight than a purely intuitive appraisal of the matter in
dispute could produce. Still, this is not a textbook nor a monograph.
Finally, I note that few of these papers devote very much space to replies to critics, or
to specific discussion of the many philosophers of the day with whose views, as will be
obvious, I fairly sharply disagree. Academic hard discs, such as mine, are filled with
discussions and replies that don't see print. Perhaps there is room for another book; in
this one, only Rawls and Marx are treated at any appreciable length, while many others
come in only for brief mention, or none. Noninclusion of the many others who deserve
response is due not to lack of replies, or (usually) to not having read the relevant
philosopher, but to lack of space.
Each essay has a note identifying publisher, or places it was read and worked on, or both,
usually thanking members of audiences near and far, mostly anonymous, for helpful
discussion. Beyond that, no one individual is owed specific thanks for this book, except
James Sterba, with whom I have had many useful disagreements and to whom I am grateful,
both for his good temper in responding to my criticisms over the years, and for the
considerable stimulation his arguments provided. In a different vein, the efforts of
longtime student and friend Jim Leger, and of my daughter Julia, helped considerably in
making the text presentable to the reader.
Notes
1. "Pacifism: A Philosophical Analysis," Ethics 75, no. 4
(July l965), 259-271.
2. Jan Narveson, Morality and Utility (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1967).
3. Jan Narveson, The Libertarian Idea (Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
1988); it is now republished (Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 2001).
4. "Contracting for Liberty," in T. R. Machan and D. B. Rasmussen, eds. Libertarianism
for the 21st Century , (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995), 19-40; and
"Libertarianism," in Hugh LaFollette, ed., The Blackwell Guide to Ethical
Theory (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2000), 306-324.
5. Jan Narveson, Moral Matters (Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview 1999), 2nd ed.
Introduction
Many of these chapters will be new to virtually all readers, and all will be new to many.
Since the titles may not convey the basic idea of each, here is a short run-down, stating
very briefly the theme of each chapter.
"Utilitarianism and Formalism" (1965) is not particularly about utilitarianism.
It is, instead, an assault on the still very popular idea that there is a fundamental
difference between two sorts of moral views, now usually known as "deontology"
and "consequentialism." I show reason here why this simply can't be so, in any
fundamental way.
"A Puzzle About Economic Justice in Rawls' Theory" (1976) refutes, I think, the
claim, which again seems to be very widely held by current philosophers, that Rawls
succeeds in finding a principled mean between the extremes of free-market libertarianism
and out-and-out egalitarian communism.
"Marxism: Hollow at the Core" (1983) grew from the late '60s and '70s, when it
became oddly popular to look to Marx as the great pundit of our time in social philosophy.
The argument here is that if we look, not at what interpreters say he said, but simply at
what Marx does actually say, we can find three basic arguments behind his general assault
on capitalism. All of them are invalid, and in the third case, quite thoroughly
incoherent. Marxism didn't fail because history proved too much for it: it was a failure
from the start, at the conceptual level.
"On Recent Arguments for Egalitarianism" (1993) resulted from extensive talk
with philosophers far and wide, and a perusal of the literature. Though egalitarianism is
widely espoused, it is not often argued for, really. But I found about a half-dozen sets
of claims that seem reasonably regarded as arguments. They are, however, all wrong: either
invalid, or with premises that just don't apply to the subject of the theory, namely
society.
"Emotivism, Moral Realism, and Natural Law" (1996) takes up, if too briefly, a
dispute still seething in the literature between proponents of a view that has come to be
called "moral realism," according to which moral statements are true, when they
are, in that they describe the world as it really is, and emotivism, according to which
moral statements are basically expressions of the feelings or interests of the speakers in
question. I argue that both views mistake the character of morals, which is essentially a
set of rules (or virtues, either one) for adjusting interpersonal relations. The rules are
manmade, indeed, but they have a perfectly reasonable basis, and can be argued for well or
badly, and seen to be better or worse for the purpose.
"Justice as Pure Efficiency" (1996) denies an overwhelmingly popular view about
justice, again more or less due to Rawls, namely that it has to go beyond efficiency in
the sense, more or less assumed by economists, that its central concern is the prevention
of harms to others, or more precisely the imposing of disutilities on others. I suggest
that this view is coherent, but cannot be regarded as merely a minimum condition that one
can or perhaps must "go beyond." Justice really does consist in rendering to
each his or her due, which is to leave people in no worse shape than you found them.
Better, of course, would be even better but justice doesn't require that.
"Toward a Liberal Theory of Ideology a Quasi-Marxian exploration" (1992) really
did pick up from reflection on Marx, even viewing part of his idea in this area with
considerable enthusiasm. The thesis is that those with power in society can indeed find it
in their interest to bamboozle their subjects, and when this is so, we should indeed be
skeptical. However, Marx went too far: the fact that someone in power says that p isn't
sufficient for the falsity or the meaninglessness of p, but merely a good reason to take
it with several grains of salt.
"Property Rights: Original Acquisition and Lockean Provisos" (1999) examines
several ideas about Locke's intended restriction on what people, acting on their own, may
"take" from nature in the way of resources. All of these ideas are, I argue,
baseless. Not baseless, however, is that we should respect the rights of those who got
there before us, and not feel free to help ourselves to the proceeds of their labors.
"Deserving Profits" (1991) is a suitable sequel to the previous paper, in that
it upholds the claim that, first, the concept of desert is a useful and acceptable one in
all sorts of contexts, contrary to the apparent arguments of once again! Rawls; and,
second, that people whose management of their investments or enterprises or other valued
services have made them money can and often do deserve their gains. Gains from free
exchange are not ill-gotten, and the potential for making them works very greatly to the
advantage of all of us, not merely to the capitalists.
"Fixing Democracy" (1991; retouched 1998 and 2001) draws attention to the
obvious: democracy is rule by the people, which is not necessarily a good thing; in
particular, it is far from identical with liberalism and offers very modest protection for
liberal rights. These, it is suggested, are preferable, and the question is how if at all
they can be cured.
"The Anarchist's Argument" (1995) explores the case for the sort of anarchism
market anarchism, as it's often called which, I argue, is the only sort that can be
coherent. A lot of things would be very different without the State, but it appears that
we could, in principle, have all the good things without it. It also appears that we are
most unlikely to get to such a condition, any time soon, anyway.
"Have We a Right to Nondiscrimination?" (1977; pub. 1987) points to a
fundamental problem hanging over the heads of all who think that there is some kind of
basic injustice known as "discrimination." There are indeed injustices sometimes
done in its name, but it is hard to see how it can itself be one such. We all do all sorts
of things that are obviously discriminatory, but few of us think these things in any way
wrong. On the other hand, nondiscrimination principles are a fertile source of infringing
and nullifying people's rights.
"Collective Rights?" (1991) proposes to make sense of collective rights despite
the fact that the subjects of fundamental rights can only be individuals. Nevertheless, we
can have plenty of rights to act in ways that stem from our group affiliations. Collective
rights are really an application of Freedom of Association.
"The Drug Laws: Nails in the Coffin of American Liberalism" (1995) is a
complaint about one of the major trends in America in the past several decades: the trend
to "make war on drugs." A liberal polity has no business doing this, it is
argued, any more than it should be forcing us all to have a particular religion. The idea
that people have a right to run their own lives, for better or worse, is surely far more
promising than anything that can be said on behalf of drug laws, which in any case seem to
stimulate the drug business far more than to curb it.
"Children and Rights" (2000) tries to make sense of the family in the context of
liberalism. Children can't obviously be full subjects of liberal-type rights from the
start; on the other hand, we can't consider them nothing but the property of their
parents, either. A reasonable set of restrictions on what parents may and may not do to
and with their children emerges, or so I hope.
"Sustainability, Resources, and the Central Committee" (2001) is another public
interest piece, really. It is widely thought that the world is facing a terrible crisis of
scarcity of resources. That is all founded on misunderstanding of how resources work, what
they are, and what our basic resources really are namely, our human brains and spirits.
Properly seen, these show that we have no reason to expect general scarcities of the type
requiring all sorts of impositions on our various actions, over and above the restrictions
we all face from our limited budgets. Sustainability isn't a problem: but people who think
it is really are a problem.
The essays do share a general point of view, to be sure. Perhaps it can be summarized this
way: that individual people have their own lives and interests, and should be credited, in
the absence of strong evidence to the contrary, with not only that but some reason and
common sense as well. Those things are enough to make many currently popular theories look
rather arrogant. They impose tastes, preferences, and norms on people without any regard
for what those people actually do care about. In my view, we are all in this life
together, and we shouldn't have to put up with flummery, behind which, invariably, lies
coercion, intended or otherwise.
- Jan Narveson, 2001
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