Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Humanism and liberalism

Leftists complain that classical liberals are inhumane, and from their point of view, they're right. Social liberals try to have both, but end up getting neither. To see why, it is necessary to be stringent about how human nature is viewed. The idea of what constitutes human nature is defining in ideology.

For leftists, humans are environmentally determined, blank slates. Differential outcomes imply differences in conditions, and it is therefore necessary to affect conditions in order to affect human outcomes. Human nature is malleable, and this is a necessary condition for socialism to come true, since socialism requires reconditioning.

For classical liberals, although human traits are affected by environmental conditions, the essence of human nature is fix. Human behavior is the consequence of the interplay between the fix traits of human nature and the emergent traits of environmental effects. Since human nature is not malleable, utopia is impossible. There will always be a plurality of human drives and urges stemming from the plurality of human beings. Freedom of action beomes necessary for individual life, and voluntary co-operation for socially productive collective action.

Social liberals will tend to have a clouded view on what constitutes human nature, but will most likely tend to want to downplay genuinely conflicting desires and projects. Humans ought to be able to get along, and if they can't, they should get a push in the right direction. Change them a bit, preferrably through schooling, campaigns for political correctness, and "friendly" persuasion. If this doesn't work, change their incentives to make them behave the way they ought to behave. Implicitly, social liberals will tend to agree with leftists that humans are malleable, but they don't want to be blunt about it, for fear of sounding patronizing or paternalistic. After all, humans should be free, at least as long as they do what they are supposed to. And if they don't, well, they can always be changed. A bit.

Now, put a leftist or a social liberal with a classical liberal, and you can be pretty sure that they will think that he/she is pessimistic, harsh, or downright inhumane. After all, people ought to want to get along, and why not help them see the wrong of their ways, so that they can start behaving?

Of course it can be argued that the leftists and social liberals are thinking illogical, since they claim human nature to be malleable, but still want to have some people direct others on how to behave. An argument sounding a bit too much like people trying to pull themselves up in their own bootstraps. However, if the classical liberal is honest, he/she will realize that a fix human nature combined with differential outcomes implies differentiated talents. Anything else is also illogical. What is there then to stop the classical liberal from becoming a conservative, reaching similar conclusions as the social liberal, if not the leftist, on the importance of paternalism?

The key is again found in human nature, and the interplay between fix traits and behavior causing emerging traits. If some traits are fix, and some emerging, there must be causal relationship between the fix and the emerging - behavior stemming not only from outside stimuli but also from internal impetus. This impetus, call it will if you wish, ought in the interplay with the environment make it possible for the individual to make inferences on personal traits. Thus, individuals should, if given the possibility to do so freely, engage in division of labor where individuals divide according to comparative as well as absolute advantages. If this is true, individual co-operation, schooling and conditioning ought to be reached freely, without the need for paternalism, as long as basic safety is guaranteed. This is indeed also what happens, all the time in society, through organizations, firms, associations, churches etc.

The principal difference, stemming from different views on what constitutes human nature, of leftist, social liberal, classical liberal and conservative ideologies is therefore the expected need for forced conditioning, as opposed to voluntarily chosen conditioning. And only classical liberals will protect voluntary co-operation over force.

There's no escaping the need for stringent definitions.

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