Politics: A "Friday Concept"

[syrakusos]

In the topic under Ethics, Comments on this quote from "How does one lead a rational life in an irrational society?"

Wolf DeVoon disconnected from Ellen Stuttle on a basic point which actually highlights a critical topic. Michael Stuart Kelly pointed out that they were not that far apart, but the reconciliation is yet to happen. Allow me to try.

Crusoe Concepts are helpful in economics because they let us think though the origins of things. I have argued that money is a "Crusoe Concept." I will not go into all of that here and now. The point is, though, that as useful as money may be to a man on an island, that is not how it developed historically. Money evolved from gift exchanges. Trade was a quid pro quo of friendship, bonding groups and preventing conflict. It is a historical fact that wampum was invented by Hiawatha. Similarly, in Human Action, von Mises gives the usual Austrian account for the "historical" development of money, and especially for gold as the best form of money. This, too, is abstract and rationalist, interesting on its own merits, but not truly historical.

Attempts to explain the state go back to Aristotle, if not earlier. Certainly, Locke and Hobbs offered two similar but variant myths about how people came together, giving up the "natural right" to war perpetually against each other -- or in Locke's view to handle their own defense -- so that there would be peace for all, thus the "social contract." Sociologiists called this "the problem of order." Again, nice myths, and interesting to consider if you want to form a new community apart from all others, but not historically accurate. Anthony Giddens points out that there is no "problem of order" because there have never been people without society. Crusoe lived alone -- but only after he was born and raised. Note that he chose to make clothing. What for? Even alone, he was acting out the patterns of his culture.

Crusoe might not have needed clothes. He might have made good use of money. He definitely needed morality. He had no need for ethics or politics until Friday came along.

Why did Crusoe rescue Friday from the cannibals?

Why did Friday make himself Crusoe's servant in return?

Given that, could Crusoe then change his mind and kill and eat Friday himself?

In standard philosophy textbooks, including the works of Ayn Rand, the words "ethics" and "morality" are taken as close synonyms. (The problem exists in other languages besides English. This is apparently a universal -- or at least widepread -- problem.) I differentiate them. So, too, does Wolf Devoon. Morality is for you. Ethics is for you among others and for them in relation to you. Morality is personal. Ethics is social. Alone, Crusoe could be immoral by knowingly acting against his best interests -- constantly drunk on fermented fruits, for instance, rather than working to ensure his own survival. He could not be unethical until he shared the island.

Libertarians (including Objectivists) try to justify the state on the basis of individual rights. This inverts cause and effect. A man alone has no "rights" -- nor any need of them.

We can look at "frontier" societies and see how people from different cultures come together as individuals to form new a society. Europe in the Dark Ages had some of that. (The "fall of Atlantis" i.e., the explosion of Thera may have created that same kind of context in several places around the Mediterranean.) The California Gold Rush was another case. The "Spanish borderland frontier" is another example. The great medieval fairs showed something of this, as well. All of these are special cases, and like Crusoe, each person there and then actually came from some other society with that cultural baggage.

That the medieval fair courts -- law merchant -- were able to function at all rests on the fact that no matter how far apart these people might have originated geographically, they inevitably shared some basic cultural contexts. This played out again in the 19th century when the Europeans established enclaves or spheres in China. The Chinese adapted quite well and certainly were not baffled beyond comprehension. When conflicts arose -- civil or criminal -- Chinese even preferred European courts to their own. On the other hand, the fine points of Confucian, Buddhist and Taoist thought were not lost on the Europeans. Those works quickly found translators and commentators. If Hobbs or Locke were right, the port cities would have broken out into 100 years of open warfare until the exhausted survivors agreed to a social contract as a desperate last measure. That is not what happened.

That is not what happened because human society is a primary attribute of human beings.

For eagles or jaguars the matter might be different. However, such creatures as rational beings remain the elements of science fiction, not politics.

Edited May 13, 2008 by Michael E. Marotta

[Wolf DeVoon]

Good work. Keep going.

W.

[Brant Gaede]

Crusoe might not have needed clothes. He might have made good use of money. He definitely needed morality. He had no need for ethics or politics until Friday came along.

Why did Crusoe rescue Friday from the cannibals?

Why did Friday make himself Crusoe's servant in return?

Given that, could Crusoe then change his mind and kill and eat Friday himself?

In standard philosophy textbooks, including the works of Ayn Rand, the words "ethics" and "morality" are taken as close synonyms. (The problem exists in other languages besides English. This is apparently a universal -- or at least widepread -- problem.) I differentiate them. So, too, does Wolf Devoon. Morality is for you. Ethics is for you among others and for them in relation to you. Morality is personal. Ethics is social. Alone, Crusoe could be immoral by knowingly acting against his best interests -- constantly drunk on fermented fruits, for instance, rather than working to ensure his own survival. He could not be unethical until he shared the island.

Libertarians (including Objectivists) try to justify the state on the basis of individual rights. This inverts cause and effect. A man alone has no "rights" -- nor any need of them.

I think you'd be better off with your exposition if you'd simply leave man in society. Let the poor Crusoe bastard drink himself to death if he can and if he wants to.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Michael,

I like the idea of morality being for personal values qua person and ethics for a person's social values qua person (as opposed to rights, which govern society and a person as a member of it). I may not end up using these words (or then again I may), but I certainly will use these concepts.

Thank you for that focus. It helped categorize some of my thinking.

Michael