Article published in Liberty, May 1999, pp. 27-28.
I don’t find overwhelming the reported evidence on the relative influence of consequentialism versus natural rights in libertarian opinion. How do we know that the two populations (of 1988 and 1998) are representative of libertarian opinion? And how do we know that the differences in answers are significant? In any event, the issues raised are interesting from the point of view of a vagrant economist.
Inquiring whether libertarianism is grounded in natural rights or in consequential justifications confronts us with an inescapable fact and an unavoidable logical constraint.
The inescapable fact is that despite 25 centuries of moral and political philosophy, there is still no agreement on whether natural rights exist, let alone on what they are. True, there are fruitful positive accounts of natural law and natural rights, about how such institutions emerge from social interaction, but these explanations do not bridge the is/ought gap. We also know that, at least at a certain stage of civilization, individuals say "I" and claim rights, but this is not sufficient to prove that rights exist outside of subjective preferences.
We may also assume that any moral theory must show concern for human development. In this sense at least, consequences do matter. The most logical theory of rights would not be worth the logical gates it passes through if it did not serve human development. The real issue is, To which extent do consequences matter?
The logical constraint lies in the impossibility of an ethically-self-sufficient consequential ethics. Consider the utilitarian basis of either neoclassical or Austrian economics: its normative significance requires some ethical foundation, if only the assignment of moral value to individual preferences. The problem is even more complicated since only certain individual preferences are deemed morally valid, and only certain kinds of harm are forbidden. The pleasure felt by a murderer or by a coercive dominator carries no moral weight. Blowing up a competitor’s factory is morally wrong, while destroying his business goodwill is perfectly permissible. Moreover, the initial distribution of property tints the moral significance of individual preferences: the ones expressed with stolen money hold no moral value.
It seems, therefore, that libertarian political theory cannot be based on a pure, non-consequentialist, conception of individual rights; and, yet, that a consequentialist or utilitarian theory needs an ethical substratum. Even if there is no "natural right," the claim would remain that morality is inseparable from human nature; but consequences also matter. Thus, consideration of both morals and consequences appears necessary for a defense of liberty. Perhaps libertarians have discovered this.
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