[from Tracy Harms (2006;08,18.12:00 Pacific)]
Bill Powers (2006.08.18.0757 MDT) wrote a whole lot of
words worth responding to, but the ones I can focus on
at present are these:
The whole point of Friedman's treatise is
to persuade people to agree on a definition
of rights, and agree that as libertarians
they will uphold and affirm those rights.
Not only that, it is implied that they will
agree to let logical reasoning determine
whether they accept those rights, treating
logic as if it were an external compulsion:
if you can prove it logically, you must agree
to abide by the results.
Logic does have a sort of "force" to it, but the
compulsion is internal to individuals. Logic only
makes a difference insofar as it is applied, and when
a thinker takes logic seriously that involves applying
it consistently. That decision is a matter of
personal discipline, not any sort of external
compulsion.
People who are serious about applying logic when
reasoning choose to avoid logical inconsistencies, and
to correct from logical inconsistencies when
identified. That is pretty much all there is to it,
which is not to say that it is *easy*. It is,
however, uncomplicated.
I can't say whether Friedman was attempting to
persuade, or not. I'm inclined to give him the
benefit of the doubt and say, instead, that he was
trying to explain his understanding of rights and
their relationship to social theory, especially
economic theory. We should probably distance the
subject matter from David Friedman's personal motives
to at least this degree, either way. As is the case
with every thinker, the value of his claims and
arguments are independent of his motives.
Perhaps part of the problem here is that you think (as
many people think) that the result of logic can be to
imply what somebody must think (accept, believe, or
agree with.) Actually, logic only provides assistance
in discovering what particular premises imply, and
what they preclude. Logic never enables anybody to do
more than this.
I recognize that some attempt to argue as though logic
is on their side, and that libertarians have a
particularly strong reputation for such rhetoric.
Maybe Friedman errs in that way, but my impression so
far is that the arguments he proposes are not flawed
as a result. Besides, I assume that you are not
advising that we may ignore logic as we seek to think
such things through. The best way to proceed is to
assume that all participants accept logical
consistency as a requirement, then move on to the meat
of the matters being contested.
Friedman's arguments are not, therefore, bad if they
show that if we have agreed to particular premises, we
have implicitly agreed to the conclusions that are
implied by those premises. Go ahead and complain
about aspects of his writings, but I must say I don't
see how complaints against the strictures of logic can
be credible.
Tracy Harms
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