PHIL 150 1st Edition Lecture 20 Outline of Last Lecture II. The Diversity of Libertarian TheoriesIII. Natural Rights LibertarianismOutline of Current Lecture I. Quantitative UtilitarianismII. Traditionalist ConsequentialismIII. Criticisms of the Consequentialist LibertarianismCurrent LectureConsequentialist LibertarianismQuantitative Utilitarianism - While Nozickian libertarianism finds its inspiration in Locke and Kant, there is another species of libertarianism that draws its influence from David Hume, Adam Smith, and John Stuart Mill. This variety of libertarianism holds its political principles to be grounded not in self-ownership or the natural rights of humanity, but in the beneficial consequences that libertarian rights and institutions produce, relative to possible and realistic alternatives- Consequences, and only consequences, are relevant in the justification of libertarianism,they can properly be labeled a form of consequentialism- Consequentialism is not identical to utilitarianism- The approach that seeks to justify political institutions by demonstrating their tendency to maximize utility has its clearest origins in the thought of Jeremy Bentham- Utilitarian defenses of libertarianism generally consist of two prongs: utilitarian arguments in support of private property and free exchange and utilitarian arguments against government policies that exceed the bounds of the minimal state- The Tragedy of the Commons argument notes that under certain conditions when property is commonly owned or, equivalently, owned by no one, it will be inefficiently used and quickly depleted- Libertarians believe that individuals and groups should be free to trade just about anything they wish with whomever they wish, with little to no governmental restrictionThese notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute. They therefore oppose laws that prohibit certain types of exchanges (such as prohibitions on prostitution and sale of illegal drugs, minimum wage laws that effectively prohibit low-wage labor agreements, and so on) as well as laws that burden exchanges by imposing high transaction costs (such as import tariffs) The reason utilitarian libertarians support free exchange is that, they argue, it tends to allocate resources into the hands of those who value them most, and in so doing to increase the total amount of utility in society The first step in seeing this is to understand that even if trade is a zero-sum gamein terms of the objects that are traded (nothing is created or destroyed, just moved about), it is a positive-sum game in terms of utility This is because individuals differ in terms of the subjective utility they assign to goods- Free markets and private property generate good utilitarian outcomes Even if this is true, it remains possible that selective government intervention in the economy could produce outcomes that are even better In order to maintain their opposition to government intervention, then, libertarians must produce arguments to show that such policies will not produce greater utility than a policy of laissez-faire Two main categories of argument, however, have been especially influential. We can call them incentive-based arguments and public choice arguments Incentive arguments proceed by claiming that government policies designed to promote utility actually produce incentives for individuals to act in ways that run contrary to promotion of utility Public choice arguments, on the other hand, are often employed by libertarians to undermine the assumption that government will use its powers to promote the public interest in the way its proponents claim it will Public choice as a field is based on the assumption that the model of rational self-interest typically employed by economists to predict the behavior of market agents can also be used to predict the behavior of government agentsTraditionalist Consequentialism- The quantitative utilitarians are often both rationalist and radical in their approach to social reform- The maximization of utility serves as an axiomatic first principle, from which policy conclusions can be straightforwardly deduced once empirical (or quasi-empirical) assessments of causal relationships in the world have been made- There is, however, another strain of consequentialism that is less confident in the ability of human reason to radically reform social institutions for the better For these consequentialists, social institutions are the product of an evolutionary process that itself is the product of the decisions of millions of discrete individuals Each of these individuals in turn possess knowledge that, though by itself is insignificant, in the aggregate represents more than any single social reformer could ever hope to match- Tradition is valuable because, and only to the extent that, it evolves in a peaceful, decentralized way- We can rationally support institutions even when we lack substantive justifying reasons for supporting them The reason this can be rational is that even when we lack substantive justifying reasons, we nevertheless have justifying reasons in a procedural sense—the fact that the institution is the result of an evolutionary procedure of a certain sort gives us reason to believe that there are substantive justifying reasons for it, evenif we do not know what they are- The procedures that lend justifying force to institutions are, essentially, ones that leave individuals free to act as they wish so long as they do not act aggressively toward others- Each individual possesses a unique set of knowledge about his or her local circumstances, special interests, desires, abilities, and so forth The price system, if allowed to function freely without artificial floors or ceilings, will reflect this knowledge and transmit it to other interested individuals, thus allowing society to make effective use of dispersed knowledgeCriticisms of the Consequentialist Libertarianism- Consequentialist arguments seem unlikely to lead one to full-fledged libertarianism, as opposed to more moderate forms of classical liberalism- Consequentialist defenses of libertarianism are subject to objections when a great deal of benefit can be had at a very low cost- The consequentialist theories at the root of these libertarian arguments are often seriously under-theorized- A fourth and