Online research in philosophy

Back in the nineteen-seventies, inflation and unemployment were rapidly increasing together in the Western world, although according to the then ruling Keynesian priesthood they would never do so. By the end of the decade, the proudly proclaimed ability of the Keynesians to fine-tune the economy was shown to be a sham. Their performance records varied from country to country but the overall picture was bleak. Their technocratic macroeconomic management had delivered high levels of public spending, taxation, public debt, inflation, unemployment (...) and bureaucracy and little else.1 As the size of government expanded, the productive sectors of the economy contracted. It became clear to almost everybody that the Keynesian orthodoxy was if not a road to serfdom then certainly a dead end street. Yet, now, in the wake of the spectacular crisis following the bursting of the housing bubble in the U.S.A., people from all over the political spectrum are clamoring for the return of Keynes. On all sides, greed is denounced as the motive.. (shrink)

For our purposes it is convenient to divide the history of Europe into three periods. The first spans about a thousand years, from 500 BC, when Athens began to emerge as the dominant intellectual and cultural centre of Greece, to AD 500. It is the period of antiquity, of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The second period, also a millennium long, from AD 500 to AD 1500, is that of Christian Europe. It began after the collapse of the Western Empire, (...) which is officially dated in 476. In that year the Germanic general Odoaker deposed the last Roman emperor and did not even bother to lay claim to the imperial throne. The Christian faith and its church filled the gap left by the disappearance of the imperial systems of administration, organisation and communication. The period ended when the Roman Church was successfully challenged by religious reformers, a new scientific and humanistic spirit agitated the intellectual scene, and European monarchs embarked on a policy of absolutism at home and of conquering the newly discovered continents in search of riches and colonies. Thus, AD 1500 is a convenient date to mark the beginning of the period of modernity, which continues to this day. On the next pages the reader will find an outline of European history, with marginal references to important thinkers and currents of thought. The outline lists in a rough chronological order some of the major events and transformations that have played a part in the genesis of the world in which we now live. The focus throughout is on the European continent, but when we get to the nineteenth and the twentieth century, it will be necessary to refer to what happened elsewhere. (shrink)

Lysander Spooner (1808-1887) was a practising lawyer and businessman in Massachussetts. He was an ardent individualist, who attacked all sorts of government activities, such as the postal monopoly, and opposed slavery on the ground that it was unconstitutional and in conflict with natural law. He was a strong proponent of a naturalistic approach to natural law, which is the order of peaceful coexistence among human beings. Below you will find a copy of the text of Spooner's tract (...) on Natural Law as well as of his celebrated text on the American constitution: No Treason, The Constitution of No Authority. (shrink)

Drieu Godefridi’s “Critique de l’utopie libertarienne”1 is not only an attempt to refute Rothbardian anarcholibertarian theory but also an attempt to resurrect the idea of the formal Rechtsstaat.2 I shall say a few words about the first topic and then present some arguments for resisting the introduction of that idea into classical liberal discourse. Contrary to Godefridi’s suggestion, there is no logical or historical ground for considering the Rechtsstaat a necessary or even useful condition of freedom. I do not dispute (...) that the Rechtsstaat was a central concept of the political liberalism that for a while held sway in Continental Europe in the nineteenth century, or that in some quarters there is considerable nostalgia for it. What I want to stress is that both in its logical definition and in its historical implementations it failed to support the classical liberal commitment to freedom, property and law. Indeed, it may.. (shrink)

Far into the first volume of his magnum opus, Law, Legislation and Liberty, Hayek points to the bridge between his theoretical analysis of the development of social order and his normative position as an advocate of liberalism in the classical tradition: The understanding that ‘good fences make good neighbours’ […] is the basis on which all known civilization has grown. Property, […] the ‘life, liberty and estates’ of every individual, is the only solution men have yet discovered to the problem (...) of reconciling individual freedom with the absence of conflict. Law, liberty, and property are an inseparable trinity. 1 The quote can serve as a powerful argument in support of the classical liberal theory of law. Property and liberty have many detractors but lawlessness has few advocates. Surprisingly, Hayek made no systematic attempt to defend his inseparability thesis. Never reaching the status of a firmly established conclusion it remained a presupposition that friends could accept readily and enemies could dismiss as an ideological expression without theoretical support. Moreover, Hayek often seemed reluctant even to use the term ‘property’. Most of the time, he preferred to speak of an otherwise unspecified ‘private sphere demarcated by general rules’—a notion that might have delighted a Rousseau or a Burke but not a Frédéricq Bastiat. His theory of law also refers to unspecified general ‘rules of just conduct’ but remains vague about what justice is or how it relates to classical liberal conceptions of property or freedom. Thus, the supposed trinity of law, liberty and property resolves itself in a nondescript order of undefined scope, generated by rules of unspecified generality. It may have seemed obvious to Hayek that one can describe an order of human affairs that respects the property and freedom of individuals only in terms of general rules but that is not a sufficient basis for his claims.. (shrink)

Statistics in public life .................................................................................................... .....5 Things and numbers............................................................................................. ...................8 Representative samples............................................................................................. ..........8 Averages: meaning and relevance .....................................................................................9 Correlations........................................................................................ ................................10 Applied statistics .................................................................................................... ................13 Relative risks .................................................................................................... ..................14 Relative risk versus absolute risk.....................................................................................16 Problems of classification and confounding factors....................................................17 Epidemiological research............................................................................................ ..........19 Publication bias................................................................................................ ..................20 Statistical significance versus scientific relevance................................................................24 Relative risk again............................................................................................... ...............24 P-values............................................................................................ ...................................25 Confidence intervals .................................................................................................... .....26 Correlation is not causation .............................................................................................26 An infamous episode .................................................................................................... ....27 Terror, utopianism and power .............................................................................................29 Faith and science .................................................................................................... ...........29 Fear and power: the precautionary principle.................................................................30 Utopian salvation........................................................................................... ....................32....

A limited-liability corporation is an artificial (“legal”) person whose liability is limited to the assets “owned” by the corporation. This means that the real or natural persons (if there are any) who own the corporation are not liable for the consequences of corporate actions or events originating within the property “owned” by the corporation. Thus, while the limited-liability corporation itself is fully liable (i.e., to the full extent of its assets) for such actions and occurrences, its human owners (if there (...) are any) are not liable at all. Admittedly, they run a risk of losing all that they have invested in the corporation, but nothing more. This risk may be called an economic liability but it is not a liability in the relevant juridical sense: debtors cannot turn to the owners of the corporation to ask or compel them to pay its debts—it does not matter whether these debts are consequences of the corporation’s contractual obligations (wages, rents, purchases, loans, etc.) or consequences of harmful actions or events (explosions, flooding, contaminations, etc.) caused by the corporation or its property to third parties. Thus, we have the problem of the standing of the limited-liability corporation in view of the principles of Austro-libertarianism: the limited-liability corporation is a fully liable artificial person that shields any natural persons who are its owners from any liability. This is a problem because we cannot have it both ways. Either the limited-liability corporation is an autonomous (“self-owning”) person in its own right and then no objection can be made to it, as, despite its name, it is fully liable; or it is something owned by natural persons and then these owners must, like all other owners, be held fully liable for what they do (or command or permit others to do) with their property as well as for the consequences of events that originate within their property. Now, from an Austro-libertarian point of view—which, as I understand it, is committed to a realist philosophy and therefore akin to a natural law position1—it does not make sense to say that an artificial person can be an autonomous person in its own right.. (shrink)

Therefore, Lord, you who give knowledge of the faith, give me as much knowledge as you know to be fitting for me, because you are as we believe and that which we believe. Indeed, we believe you are something greater than which cannot be thought. Or is there no such kind of thing, for "the fool said in his heart, 'there is no God'" (Ps. 14:1, 53:1)? Certainly, however, that same fool, having heard what I just said, "something greater than (...) which cannot be thought," understands what he heard, and what he understands is in his thought, even if he does not think it exists. For it is one thing for something to exist in a person's thought and quite another for the person to think that thing exists. For when a painter thinks ahead to what he will paint, he has that picture in his thought, but he does not yet think it exists, because he has not done it yet. Once he has painted it, he has it in his thought and thinks it exists because he has done it. Thus, even the fool is compelled to grant that something greater than which cannot be thought exists in thought, because he understands what he hears, and whatever is understood exists in thought. And certainly that greater than which cannot be understood cannot exist only in thought, for if it exists only in thought it could also be thought of as existing in reality as well, which is greater. If, therefore, that than which greater cannot be thought exists in thought alone, then that than which greater cannot be thought turns out to be that than which something greater actually can be thought, but that is obviously impossible. Therefore, something than which greater cannot be thought undoubtedly exists both in thought and in reality. (shrink)

In the last published round of his debate with Walter Block on economic methodology,1 Bryan Caplan introduces Bayes’ Rule as ‘a cure for methodological schizofrenia’. Block had raised the question ‘Why do economists react so violently to empirical evidence against the conventional view of the minimum wage’s effect?’ and answered it with the suggestion that economists do so because they are covert praxeologists. This means that they base most of their economic arguments on conclusions derived from their a priori understanding (...) of human action, although, as methodologists, they prefer to maintain that their arguments are merely appropriately qualified generalisations of empirical observations. Against this, Caplan maintained that neoclassical economists are Bayesians with some strong prior beliefs, which lead them to ascribe low probability to any statement that goes against the strongly held consensus. Presumably, there is such a strongly held consensus with respect to the minimum wage effect. Caplan concluded that ‘[t]he Bayesian position stakes out a compelling middle ground between atheoretical positivism and praxeology. On the one hand, the Bayesian view emphasizes that few propositions are known with certainty, and that we should adjust our probabilities as new information comes in. On the other hand, the Bayesian view recognizes that the rational view is not an average of past empirical findings, much less a naïve faith in the last prominent study.’ (C, p.83) Caplan’s references to Bayes should be considered carefully before we accept that Bayesianism makes for a middle ground—let alone a compelling one— between positivism and praxeology. The image of a middle ground may be soothing, but it is no more than a metaphor. Whether it makes sense in this context, is an altogether different matter.. (shrink)

The writings of David Hume (1711–1776) are a treasure trove for those eager to find pithy, polished memorable quotes to bolster their arguments in favor of freedom, justice, and against the arrogance and follies of governments. It is difficult to resist the youthful élan of his major philosophical work, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740), his provocative ironic style, witticisms, irreverence, and occasional sarcasm, which made him an international celebrity, the darling of Parisian salons, and, even now, a reader’s delight.

‘Freedom’, ‘liberty’ and ‘autonomy’ are controversial, contested words, often used interchangeably, yet laden with radically different connotations. In this lecture, I shall use them as labels to distinguish three different concepts. Most European languages have only one word to translate both ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’, e.g., ‘libertà’ (Italian), ‘liberté’ (French), ‘libertad’ (Spanish), ‘Freiheit’ (German), ‘frihet’ (Swedish), and ‘vrijheid’ (Dutch). Moreover, many English and American writers use ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ as if they were synonyms.1 Looking at the etymological references (which can be (...) found in most good dictionaries) for these words, we find, however, that ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ point to different contexts of life and action. Understanding the differences between those contexts is the key to eliminating the terminological confusion often encountered in discussions of freedom and liberty. My interest in this is that of a philosopher of law. However, the distinctions made in this lecture are relevant also for other disciplines concerned with cognition of the human world, most notably economics. (shrink)

We can characterise modern democracies of the Western type as Hobbesian democracies.1 In a modern democracy the State is a political Sovereign of the Hobbesian kind, enjoying a constitutional authority that for all practical purposes is absolute, having the potential of reaching every nook and cranny of its subjects’ life and work. Its authority is restrained only by the requirement of respect for certain formalities and procedures, and the lingering memory of something called the rule of law.2 Hobbesian democracy’s peculiar (...) characteristic, of course, is that at least some of the people to whom the sovereign power of the State is entrusted are elected by secret ballot under a rule of universal suffrage. Winston Churchill said that ‘Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others’.3 He had a point: democracy is the worst form of totalitarian government except for all the others. However, why should we put up with any government that not only has virtually unlimited or absolute constitutional powers (as in an absolutist regime) but also uses them to regulate and tax everything and everybody within the territory under its control (as in a totalitarian regime4)? As we shall see, there are good reasons for saying that Hobbesian democracy is among the worst forms of government.. (shrink)

The word 'law' means order, hence natural law is simply the natural order. In the sense in which natural law is relevant to jurists, it is the natural order of persons -- specifically, the order of natural persons: human beings that are capable of rational, purposive action, speech and thought. In short, natural law is the natural order of the human world.

My grandfather (1882-1960) worked as a mechanic at the plant where the beautiful Minerva cars were produced. He was active in the Belgian Labourers’ Party, the predecessor of the Belgian Socialist Party. In Wilrijk, a village near Antwerp, he became a councillor for that Party and then, in the chaotic days of the Liberation, at the end of the Second World War, the interim mayor. He was a quiet, soft-spoken and above all gentle man. Whatever had landed him in politics, (...) it certainly was not personal ambition. (shrink)

Speaking at the third annual meeting of The Property and Freedom Society in Bodrum on Friday, May 23, financial journalist Peter Brimelow1 presented his views on immigration under the title “Immigration is the Viagra of the State—A libertarian case against Immigration.” However, his argument had little concern for the controversies that divide libertarians on the issue of immigration.2 After a brief look at Brimelow’s comments, I shall consider the requirements an argument should meet if it is to amount to a (...) libertarian case for or against a particular policy such as a liberal or a restrictive immigration policy.3 Then I shall offer a critique of libertarian philosopher Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s attempt to build a case against immigration on widely accepted libertarian principles. Finally, I shall present some test cases for judging the plausibility of the argument. (shrink)

Societies and communities are understood as orders (or laws) of persons, i.e., types of arrangements of human relations that are in principle conflict-free or equipped to solve conflicts among their members. As not all human relations fall into member-member patterns, there is need for the concept of a natural order (law) of persons, regardless of their memberships. The main theme is the comparison of the three orders, with special focus on how they deal with crime, punishment and law enforcement.

- And what is the public interest? - That's for politics to decide! - Does that mean that the public interest is the interest of politicians? - It may seem that way, but this is a democracy. It's really the people that decide about the public interest. The politicians merely fill in the details after the voters have set down the broad outlines. That's why it is important that you vote in the next election. Your vote counts as much any (...) man's. - I do not doubt that it does, but how much does any man's vote count? Politicians make all sorts of statements. Their programs are complex packages in nice wrappers, sealed until after the election. We can only vote on vague promises, without knowing which ones, if any, the Elect intend to keep. And when the votes are in, the elected politicians decide what our vote meant. Give us a note, they say, and we'll turn it into a symphony. What nonsense! Why should I vote if somebody else determines the meaning of my vote? Voting is like writing a blank cheque. - Hmm, I see. Still you cannot deny that democracy is better than dictatorship. Therefore you should vote, to demonstrate that democracy is in the public interest. (shrink)

Are limited liability business corporations compatible with the free market, as libertarians understand it? Many libertarians think they are. Others are at least doubtful. And still others—I include myself1 among them—deny that limited liability business corporations belong in a free market.2 My purpose here is to spell out some of the reasons for that denial as well as to qualify it: I have no argument against large enterprises that issue limited liability shares or protect their managers with extensive vicarious liability (...) arrangements. However, as we shall see, the compatibility problem of the corporation does not stem from these contemporary business practices. There is no need here to consider the legal and political incentives and disincentives, such as tax and labour laws, accountancy requirements, jurisprudential doctrines, administrative practices and so on, that in various national legal systems may incline people to see the corporate form as advantageous or disadvantageous relative to other forms of business organisation. Such factors reflect various types of interventions by the state, its legislators, administrators and judges, which would be absent in a libertarian free market. Consequently, they are not germane to the logical question of the compatibility of business corporations with the principles of the free market. Of course, I must assume respect for personal.. (shrink)

Is the welfare state neutral to personal morality?1 In today's welfare states one can find numerous life-styles existing side by side. These indicate a wide scope for 'personal moralities'2, but do not prove that the welfare state is 'neutral' to them. Welfare states interfere in more or less onerous ways with the business of (private) life with police checks, administrative controls and a vast arsenal of regulatory, penal and/or fiscal regimes. Some of the regulations may be more or less reasonable (...) attempts to minimise the risk of one person inflicting irreparable damage on others or their property, but a great many are not. It is not too difficult to see the hand of special (economic, ideological, even sectarian) interests in the bulk of the rules and regulations on the books.3 The state's non-neutrality is often an unintended outcome, but not always. Officials introduce new regulations with proud declarations of their intention to enforce particular 'moral choices', to treat one thing as a 'merit good' and another as an evil. They also justify intrusive policies with blatantly paternalistic arguments—remember their promise, or was it threat, to take care of us "from the cradle to the grave"—, with self-congratulatory references to an unspecified 'responsibility of the government'. There is no more direct negation of the role of private morality than the claim that one discharges one's own responsibility by depriving others of the opportunity to exercise theirs. As far as protection against onerous interference is concerned, the presumption of innocence—which is the linchpin of the rule of law—counts for very little. One delinquent person or business entity is often enough to let loose the regulatory juggernaut on everybody in the same group or category. In short, the question, whether the welfare state is neutral to personal morality, is largely rhetorical and academic. Behind the question there is the presupposition that the welfare state should be neutral to personal morality.. (shrink)

Belgium was already mired in a web of political crises for nearly a year when the full force of the bursting American credit bubble struck its seemingly robust financial system. Not surprisingly, the shockwaves from across the ocean did nothing to resolve the political stalemate. On the contrary, they set in motion a process of government intervention in the financial sector that last week resulted in another major political crisis and the resignation of the government. This came about because of (...) the near-collapse of one of the major banks, Fortis. (shrink)

‘Law’, in the sense in which I shall use the word here, denotes an order of persons.1 Within this general concept, we can distinguish between natural orders and artificial orders. Natural order, that is natural law, is the order of natural persons. Artificial order, often referred to as positive law, is an order of artificial persons. In the terminology of Rousseau, natural persons are physical persons (‘personnes physiques’), while artificial persons are legal persons (‘personnes morales’).2 Artificial persons are positions, roles (...) or functions in a system of rules, which defines a particular game, organization or society. The rules of the game or society tell us what those artificial persons are, and what they can and cannot do. Examples are White and Black in a game of chess as well as their subdivisions, King, Queen. (shrink)

Is the modern large publicly traded business corporation compatible with a truly free market? The question itself may seem strange, even silly. Corporations are primary actors in what the media refer to as ‘the market economy’. Also, when the media refer to ‘the market’, they as often as not mean the stock exchange, which is the place where the shares of large corporations are traded. Moreover, during the age of socialist ascendancy, many defenders of the free market have felt themselves (...) moved to defend the corporation against socialist or ‘liberal’ attacks. Many genuine advocates of the free market even appear willing to make the stronger claim that a defence of the free market requires a defence of the corporation. In their view, defending the corporate form of business organisation is an essential part of the argument for the free market. Prima facie, there seems to be a strong case for saying that the large ‘publicly traded’ corporation is compatible with the requirements of the free market. Nevertheless, I believe classical liberals and libertarians have good reasons to question that view. First, what the media say is not always accurate even on the count of reporting facts, which supposedly is their core business. Conceptual analysis is not their forte. They do not have much consideration for the theoretical contexts from which terms such as ‘free market’ derive their significance or for the requirements of consistency in their use of such ‘theory laden’ terms. The stock exchange is a market of sorts, but it is not ‘the market’. In any case, the stock exchanges with which the media are familiar are not really free but rather heavily regulated markets. Second, socialist critiques of the corporation often were presented as critiques of free market capitalism and merited a vigorous response from the latter’s defenders.. (shrink)

‘The one who peers into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres, and is not a hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, such a one shall be blessed in what he does’ (James 1:25). Freedom, in one sense of the word or another, is a central theme of the bible, the Old Testament as well as the New. During the Middle Ages, Christian theologians developed this theme into a doctrine of the natural right of freedom of the individual (...) or natural person and made it into a moral and intellectual bulwark against the encroachments of the modern state. The classical liberal or libertarian tradition in Western political thought, from John Locke to the American Founding Fathers to Friedrich Hayek and Murray Rothbard, owes an immense debt to the likes of Thomas Aquinas, Jean Gerson, Francisco de Vitoria, Juan de Mariana and Batholomé de las Casas. Not coincidentally Christianity and classical liberalism together went into rapid decline towards the end of the nineteenth century and especially in the globalisation of European wars in the twentieth century. At that time, mass democracy and national expediency became the pretexts of choice to subvert constitutional limitations on the use of political power. The decline was not halted —was perhaps even accelerated—when Christians and liberals alike began to adopt ‘social doctrines’ and the advocacy of social policies that only confirmed the impression that there is no salvation outside the state. However, I do not intend to describe the historical linkages between classical liberalism and Christianity. Instead I shall try to explicate their relevant common concept of personal freedom and trace its role in some of the central stories of the bible, those that purport to be direct reports of the actions and words of God or Jesus Christ. I am not concerned here with the stories about the Jews or with the reports of what prophets and apostles said about the meaning and relevance of the divine words and actions. Important as they are for understanding the Jewish and the Christian traditions, they already are historical expressions and applications of religious beliefs rather than expositions of the story to which those beliefs refer.. (shrink)

This paper attempts to clarify some of the logical and conceptual issues in the philosophical dispute about law that has pitted the legal positivists against the adherents of natural law. The first part looks at the basic concepts that are relevant to that discussion and at the methodological implications of studying law either as an order of natural persons (natural law) or as a system of rules or an order of rule-defined artificial persons (legal order). Thus, we find that the (...) material and formal objects of natural law studies and legal science are different, and only touch one another because of the contingent fact that most of the positions in the legal orders studied by positivists are occupied by natural persons. Consequently, from both the logical and the methodological points of view, natural law studies and legal studies are not rivals. The two can exist side by side and have done so for centuries. One question that emerges from analysis in the first part is why positivists have embraced the study of legal orders while heaping nothing but scorn on the study of natural law. Their attitude suggests hatred and contempt rather than a mere difference of intellectual interests. Could it be that the positivists’ attitude has little to do with logic and methodology and much with ideological issues involving fundamental values? In the second part, we look for an answer to this question in a comparison of the two major and radically opposed religious worldviews that have made their mark on Western intellectual history, the Judaeo-Christian tradition and the Gnostic tradition. (shrink)

II. Attempts to redefine freedom will change the consequences neither of respecting it nor of failing to respect it.